SAINT QUOTE OF THE DAY : Saturday - September 28, 2019

Saturday - September 28, 2019

"Our true worth does not consist in what human beings think of us.

What we really are consists in what God knows us to be."

~St. John Berchmans

 

September 28 2019

 

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Saturday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 454

Reading 1ZEC 2:5-9, 14-15A

I, Zechariah, raised my eyes and looked:
there was a man with a measuring line in his hand.
I asked, "Where are you going?"
He answered, "To measure Jerusalem,
to see how great is its width and how great its length."

Then the angel who spoke with me advanced,
and another angel came out to meet him and said to him,
"Run, tell this to that young man:
People will live in Jerusalem as though in open country,
because of the multitude of men and beasts in her midst.
But I will be for her an encircling wall of fire, says the LORD,
and I will be the glory in her midst."

Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion!
See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the LORD.
Many nations shall join themselves to the LORD on that day,
and they shall be his people and he will dwell among you.

Responsorial PsalmJEREMIAH 31:10, 11-12AB, 13

R.(see 10d)  The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
proclaim it on distant isles, and say:
He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together,
he guards them as a shepherd guards his flock.
R. The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
The LORD shall ransom Jacob,
he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror.
Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion,
they shall come streaming to the LORD's blessings.
R. The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
Then the virgins shall make merry and dance,
and young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.
R. The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.

AlleluiaSEE 2 TM 1:10

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Our Savior Jesus Christ destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

GospelLK 9:43B-45

While they were all amazed at his every deed,
Jesus said to his disciples,
"Pay attention to what I am telling you.
The Son of Man is to be handed over to men."
But they did not understand this saying;
its meaning was hidden from them
so that they should not understand it,
and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

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WHY CONFESS TO A PRIEST?!

Since God hears and answers our prayers, we can confess our sins directly to God; why go to a Catholic priest?

God always forgive us when we go directly to him, one-on-one, but Christ also provides special additional graces when we go to God for forgiveness in the context of a Sacrament of the Church. A sacrament is a divine direct intervention of Christ provided through the apostles who are called to be his representatives.

Everything we do creates ripples in the stream of life that reach much farther than we can see. Even our small deeds of kindness make a wide-spread difference. So too our sins. Therefore, God has provided a means for dealing with the ripple effects of sin.

It's impossible for us to go directly to each and every person who deserves our remorseful apology. So, in God's great mercy, he provides a way to accomplish it: The priest of the Church stands in for all those who have been affected by our sins.

Jesus is present in the priest, and when we go to Jesus in that form, absolution from our sins comes not only from Christ but from the whole Body of Christ that's on earth, i.e., the Church -- every member of the Body -- which is represented by the priest's presence in the confessional.

God is a God of reconciliation. He provides it as a sacrament so that we can receive directly from Jesus the healing that reunites us to his Divinity and to each member of his earthly Body.

In the Sacrament of Confession, we acknowledge that we have divided ourselves from God and from others. In Confession, the priest sits in for Christ and for the whole Church and accepts our repentance and pronounces the absolution of our sins (which is psychologically beneficial to hear spoken with an actual voice instead of just the voice of God in our hearts, which sounds like our own inner voice).

Through this communal, person-to-person experience of confession and absolution of our sins, we are then reconciled with everyone. We might still have to apologize to specific individuals to make amends with them, but in this sacrament, Christ wipes away the division that was caused by our sins.

TODAY'S PRAYER

O God, who founded all the commands of your sacred Law upon love of you and of our neighbor, grant that, by keeping your precepts, we may merit to attain eternal life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  

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God Bless You.....

Rosary Family

The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”