Monday - July 31, 2017
Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and an be of service to him. And blessed is he who loves his brother as well when he is afar off as when he is by his side, and who would say nothing behind his back he might not, in love, say before his face.
-- St. Francis of Assisi
TODAY'S READINGS
July 31, 2017
Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Priest
Lectionary: 401
Reading 1EX 32:15-24, 30-34
Moses turned and came down the mountainwith the two tablets of the commandments in his hands,
tablets that were written on both sides, front and back;
tablets that were made by God,
having inscriptions on them that were engraved by God himself.
Now, when Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting,
he said to Moses, "That sounds like a battle in the camp."
But Moses answered, "It does not sound like cries of victory,
nor does it sound like cries of defeat;
the sounds that I hear are cries of revelry."
As he drew near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing.
With that, Moses' wrath flared up, so that he threw the tablets down
and broke them on the base of the mountain.
Taking the calf they had made, he fused it in the fire
and then ground it down to powder,
which he scattered on the water and made the children of Israel drink.
Moses asked Aaron, "What did this people ever do to you
that you should lead them into so grave a sin?"
Aaron replied, "Let not my lord be angry.
You know well enough how prone the people are to evil.
They said to me, 'Make us a god to be our leader;
as for the man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt,
we do not know what has happened to him.'
So I told them, 'Let anyone who has gold jewelry take it off.'
They gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out."
On the next day Moses said to the people,
"You have committed a grave sin.
I will go up to the LORD, then;
perhaps I may be able to make atonement for your sin."
So Moses went back to the LORD and said,
"Ah, this people has indeed committed a grave sin
in making a god of gold for themselves!
If you would only forgive their sin!
If you will not, then strike me out of the book that you have written."
The LORD answered, "Him only who has sinned against me
will I strike out of my book.
Now, go and lead the people to the place I have told you.
My angel will go before you.
When it is time for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin."
Responsorial PsalmPS 106:19-20, 21-22, 23
R. (1a) Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.
R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
AlleluiaJAS 1:18
R. Alleluia, alleluia.The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
GospelMT 13:31-35
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds."The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush,
and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches."
He spoke to them another parable.
"The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened."
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.
He spoke to them only in parables,
to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:
I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.
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What mustard seeds are you sowing?
What are your mustard seeds? We all have them. If you've been baptized, you have a pouch full of mustard seeds. They are the gifts and talents and resources that the Father has provided to you. Therefore, you are that person whom Jesus describes in today's Gospel reading.
It doesn't matter if your seeds seem too small to make a big difference. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that starts out very tiny, yet after it sprouts, grows and grows and eventually becomes a large, bushy tree. To see proof of this, go to the grocery store, buy a jar of mustard seeds from the spice aisle, and plant one seed in a paper cup at home. Water it, put it into the sunshine, and soon a plant will be springing to life and zooming in rapid growth. (Note: The mustard seed spoken of in this scripture is the Eastern Black Mustard seed, which is extremely tiny. The yellow seeds you buy in your grocery store can demonstrate the spiritual principle of amazing growth, but they won't become the bush that grows in Israel.)
Today you'll have an opportunity to plant a mustard seed in God's kingdom somewhere. The seed might be as small as a word of encouragement that you give to a co-worker or a neighbor who's feeling upset. Little words of hope, when planted with prayer and God's power, take root even if the people you give them to forget what you said. The mustard seed you gave them will sprout into renewed strength that helps them work through their problems.
And unless the soil of their soul is hard and rocky, these young sprouts will develop branches that will spread hope in new directions, affecting more areas of their lives. The branches will develop leaves that provide them with shade from the heat of their difficulties, giving them endurance, so that they can strive forward to a solution that they hadn't noticed before you entered their garden to provide seeds of encouragement, when they were still feeling angry and discouraged.
The mustard saplings will continue to grow as they become stronger in confidence, because confidence grows out of experiences that provide evidence that there's reason to hope. The next time a similar problem happens, the mustard tree will shade them from despair.
This tree will further develop into one that's big enough to provide leafy branches that others can "nest" in. This is what Jesus meant by the birds that come to dwell in the tree's branches. The people in whom you sowed your itty bitty seeds will someday pass hope onto others by sharing the strength that they gained while growing through their hardships.
We won't know the extent of the impact we make until we die and enter into the fullness of the kingdom of God. Purgatory will be a time of deep, inner heart-ache as we learn what happened when we withheld our seeds because we thought they were worthless. Heaven will be the discovery that even our tiniest gestures of holiness have made a beautiful difference.
God rejoices over every little thing we do for his kingdom.
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God Bless You.....
The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”
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