Tuesday - July 04, 2017
“Grant, O Lord of life,…when the moment of our definitive ‘passage’ comes, that we may face it with serenity, without regret for what we shall leave behind. For in meeting you, after having sought you for so long, we shall find once more every authentic good which we have known here on earth, in the company of all those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith and hope….Amen.”
– St. John Paul II
TODAY'S READINGS
July 4, 2017
Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 378
Reading 1GN 19:15-29
As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, "On your way!Take with you your wife and your two daughters who are here,
or you will be swept away in the punishment of Sodom."
When he hesitated, the men, by the LORD's mercy,
seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters
and led them to safety outside the city.
As soon as they had been brought outside, he was told:
"Flee for your life!
Don't look back or stop anywhere on the Plain.
Get off to the hills at once, or you will be swept away."
"Oh, no, my lord!" Lot replied,
"You have already thought enough of your servant
to do me the great kindness of intervening to save my life.
But I cannot flee to the hills to keep the disaster from overtaking me,
and so I shall die.
Look, this town ahead is near enough to escape to.
It's only a small place.
Let me flee there–it's a small place, is it not?–
that my life may be saved."
"Well, then," he replied,
"I will also grant you the favor you now ask.
I will not overthrow the town you speak of.
Hurry, escape there!
I cannot do anything until you arrive there."
That is why the town is called Zoar.
The sun was just rising over the earth as Lot arrived in Zoar;
at the same time the LORD rained down sulphurous fire
upon Sodom and Gomorrah
from the LORD out of heaven.
He overthrew those cities and the whole Plain,
together with the inhabitants of the cities
and the produce of the soil.
But Lot's wife looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.
Early the next morning Abraham went to the place
where he had stood in the LORD's presence.
As he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah
and the whole region of the Plain,
he saw dense smoke over the land rising like fumes from a furnace.
Thus it came to pass: when God destroyed the Cities of the Plain,
he was mindful of Abraham by sending Lot away from the upheaval
by which God overthrew the cities where Lot had been living.
Responsorial PsalmPS 26:2-3, 9-10, 11-12
R. (3a) O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.Search me, O LORD, and try me;
test my soul and my heart.
For your mercy is before my eyes,
and I walk in your truth.
R. O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.
Gather not my soul with those of sinners,
nor with men of blood my life.
On their hands are crimes,
and their right hands are full of bribes.
R. O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.
But I walk in integrity;
redeem me, and have mercy on me.
My foot stands on level ground;
in the assemblies I will bless the LORD.
R. O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.
AlleluiaPS 130:5
R. Alleluia, alleluia.I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
GospelMT 8:23-27
As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him.Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea,
so that the boat was being swamped by waves;
but he was asleep.
They came and woke him, saying,
"Lord, save us! We are perishing!"
He said to them, "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?"
Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea,
and there was great calm.
The men were amazed and said, "What sort of man is this,
whom even the winds and the sea obey?"
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Is Jesus sleeping on your boat?
Maybe we pray extra rosaries -- a whole novena of rosaries, and when the nine days are finished and nothing's happened yet, we start again and the word "novena" now means "nine plus however many it takes for Jesus to wake up." Or maybe we make a bargain with God: "If you rescue me from this soon, I will go to church every day! Hellooooo? Did that wake you up?"
The reply that comes from Jesus is: "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?"
Like the disciples in the storm-tossed boat, we forget that as long as Jesus is on board we're in no danger of being destroyed.
Storms are normal. Jesus never taught the disciples how to build a bio-dome that keeps the bad weather out and surrounds us with perfect conditions. So why are we surprised when storms occur? Why do we assume that life as a Christian should be steady, smooth, and easy? It's because we instinctively know that we belong to another world: Our true home is heaven. God gave us a bit of heaven within our souls when he created us.
And because God also gave us the dust and dirt of the earth when he created us, we instinctively feel the deterioration of our temporary bodies. We sense the nearness of destruction. Thus, we get terrified when stormy problems hit us. We fear that they'll swamp us beyond our ability to stay afloat.
So Jesus came to take care of us. He destroyed destruction when he rose from the grave. Believing in this, we have no reason to fear that our problems will become disastrous. And yet we do fear, and so we look at Jesus and think, "But he's asleep. Otherwise everything would be all right by now."
However, what's really asleep is our faith. While we snooze, Jesus stands on our boats saying the same thing that the angels told Lot in today's first reading. "Be on your way, or you will be swept away! Don't look back or stop. Don't look at what could have or should have been, for this will stop you from moving forward on your journey of faith growth. Look instead at my mercy."
As scripture says in today's Psalm, when we walk in integrity our feet stand on level ground. By walking forward in God's mercy, we follow where he leads us and, like Lot, we walk away from destruction. Even if it's a long, storm-filled journey, we are safe.
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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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