Thursday - March 11, 2021
“The Eucharist is the secret of my day. It gives strength and meaning to all my activities of service to the Church and to the world.”
~~Pope Saint John Paul II
TODAY'S READINGS
March 11, 2021
Thursday
of the Third Week of Lent
Lectionary: 240
Thus says the LORD:
This is what I commanded my people:
Listen to my voice;
then I will be your God and you shall be my people.
Walk in all the ways that I command you,
so that you may prosper.
But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed.
They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts
and turned their backs, not their faces, to me.
From the day that your fathers left the land of Egypt even to this day,
I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets.
Yet they have not obeyed me nor paid heed;
they have stiffened their necks and done worse than their fathers.
When you speak all these words to them,
they will not listen to you either;
when you call to them, they will not answer you.
Say to them:
This is the nation that does not listen
to the voice of the LORD, its God,
or take correction.
Faithfulness has disappeared;
the word itself is banished from their speech.
Responsorial Psalm
R.
(8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Verse before the Gospel
R. Glory and praise to you O Christ.
Even now, says the
LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
for I am gracious
and merciful.
R. Glory and praise to you O Christ..
Gospel
Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute,
and when the demon had gone out,
the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed.
Some of them said, “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons,
he drives out demons.”
Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven.
But he knew their thoughts and said to them,
“Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste
and house will fall against house.
And if Satan is divided against himself,
how will his kingdom stand?
For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons.
If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul,
by whom do your own people drive them out?
Therefore they will be your judges.
But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons,
then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.
When a strong man fully armed guards his palace,
his possessions are safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him,
he takes away the armor on which he relied
and distributes the spoils.
Whoever is not with me is against me,
and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”
The Strength of Christian Unity
The best way to defeat evil, according to Jesus in today's Gospel passage, is to attack it with the strength that comes from being "with" Jesus. But how can we be with Jesus if we can't see him or hear him because he ascended to heaven?
When his body left the earth, he sent his Spirit down to enliven his followers with the power to be like him. The Church and all those who believe in him and imitate him are now his Body on earth. When we're with believers, we are with Jesus.
This is why being Christian means being Church. We cannot be Christ's Body without belonging to the Church. Therefore, whenever members of the Body choose to stay away from Mass, or whenever parts of the Body neglect opportunities to be active in parish life, they are denying who they really are.
Think of the empty seats at church. Think of the people you know who have been baptized or are good, loving people but they are not fulfilling their identities as the Body of Christ. How disempowering this is! Inactivity by parts of the Body causes weaknesses that make us all more vulnerable to evil.
Apart from the community of believers, we might feel strong in self-sufficiency, and for a while peace can reign as we live out our desires and plans undisturbed. However, this never lasts. Life happens. Disaster hits. Evil targets us, because it recognizes how vulnerable we are and it seizes the opportunity to turn our gaze away from God.
Individualism that relies on self-sufficiency is not as beneficial as it seems. By its very nature it creates division. As long as we think that we don't need others, we neglect to work on building unity. Jesus said, "Those who are not with me are against me." Since he lives within other Christians, if we choose not to join them in community relationships, we're acting against Jesus himself!
Jesus also said, "Those who do not gather with me scatter." There's no middle ground. We should be gathering people to us and building a community spirit by letting them experience the presence of Jesus within us. If we don't attract people to the Savior within us, or if we push people away, we're dividing them from whatever Jesus wants to give to them through us.
Are you part of the gathering or the scattering?
If we try to gather people around us by using our money or company status or position in the Church, we are not bringing Jesus to them. But if people are magnetized to us because they're attracted by our love, our kindness, our patience, our prayerfulness, our God-given talents, or our Spirit-filled wisdom, they encounter Jesus when they interact with us. Therein lies the strength of community and the power to overcome evil.
Today's Prayer
Lord, heal the divisions that exist in my heart so that I can let You reign in my life and become, together with my brothers and sisters, an unconditional servant. Amen.
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The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”
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