SAINT QUOTE OF THE DAY : Wednesday - September 01, 2021

Wednesday - September 01, 2021

If we are, in fact, now occupied in good deeds, we should not attribute the strength with which we are doing them to ourselves. We must not count on ourselves, because even if we know what kind of person we are today, we do not know what we will be tomorrow.

--Saint Gregory the Great

September 1, 2021

Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 433

 

Reading 1                                                     Col 1:1-8

Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

and Timothy our brother,

to the holy ones and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae:

grace to you and peace from God our Father.

 

We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

when we pray for you,

for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus

and the love that you have for all the holy ones

because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.

Of this you have already heard

through the word of truth, the Gospel, that has come to you.

Just as in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing,

so also among you,

from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth,

as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow slave,

who is a trustworthy minister of Christ on your behalf

and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

 

Responsorial Psalm                                              52:10, 11

 

R.    (10) I trust in the mercy of God for ever.

 

I, like a green olive tree

    in the house of God,

Trust in the mercy of God

    forever and ever.

R.    I trust in the mercy of God for ever.

I will thank you always for what you have done,

    and proclaim the goodness of your name

    before your faithful ones.

R.    I trust in the mercy of God for ever.

 

Alleluia                                                                      Lk 4:18

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The Lord sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor

and to proclaim liberty to captives.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel                                                                       Lk 4:38-44

After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon.

Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever,

and they interceded with him about her.

He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her.

She got up immediately and waited on them.

 

At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him.

He laid his hands on each of them and cured them.

And demons also came out from many, shouting, “You are the Son of God.”

But he rebuked them and did not allow them to speak

because they knew that he was the Christ.

 

At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place.

The crowds went looking for him, and when they came to him,

they tried to prevent him from leaving them.

But he said to them, “To the other towns also

I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God,

because for this purpose I have been sent.”

And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

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Moving On and Beyond

Temptations didn't stop challenging Jesus after his 40-day ordeal in the desert. There's one in today's Gospel reading. Can you figure it out? It was a subtle temptation, but very significant.

 

After being rejected in Nazareth, he became hugely popular in Capernaum. The people asked him to stay, because they wanted more of what he could give. Should he give it to them? That would certainly seem like the caring thing to do. Plus, his ministry could thrive there, since he was well-liked. It was easy, comfortable, and he was familiar with the community. It offered the opportunity to accomplish more. The location was ideal, because Capernaum was a popular trading port and many people passed through on their way to many varied places, and they could spread the word widely.

 

The Holy Spirit nudged him during his prayer time: Don't stay. It's time to move on.

 

How easy it is to stay where we're accepted, where we feel needed and wanted, where we're liked. It feels so right that we don't even ask the Holy Spirit if it's God's will that we remain in the same place and ministry. If he nudges us to make a change, we disbelieve it because it doesn't make sense. And so we hold ourselves back from moving on.

 

We stay in our current jobs, even when God has something better in mind. We stay in the same Small Christian Community, even when God wants us to grow into leadership and start a new group so that more people can get involved.

 

We stay where it's easy and familiar and comfortable, even when God tries to stretch us into new growth and higher levels of trust.

 

We stay where our egos get stroked, even when the humble walk of holiness means turning away from those who know us and appreciate us, so that we can meet and minister to new people.

 

If you've been comfortable with anything for very long -- especially in ministry -- very likely God is inviting you to move on and beyond. Will you say yes to following Jesus wherever he leads? Even when it doesn't make sense or feel easy?

 

There's a motto hanging in the Good News Ministries offices: "Jesus leads, Grace provides." It explains how we've been able to experience huge growth from a staff of one (me) working from a corner in my house to a staff of five collaborating in an office suite, making a bigger difference in more lives than ever before.

 

God doesn't ask us to forsake everything and everyone that we leave behind when we accept the path of change. Jesus returned to Capernaum again and again. But by staying where we are, we do some good, usually the same good, and by moving on and beyond, we do far more good than we could ever imagine.

 

Today's Prayer

 

Lord, Give me an alert spirit and a generous heart always ready to serve others. I want to follow You wherever You lead, taking Your love to heal, deliver and comfort my brothers and sisters. Amen.

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God Bless You.....

The Rosary Family

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

SAINT QUOTE OF THE DAY : Tuesday - August 31, 2021

Tuesday - August 31, 2021

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.

-- Saint Francis de Sales 

August 31, 2021

Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 432

 

Reading 1                                                     1 Thes 5:1-6, 9-11

Concerning times and seasons, brothers and sisters,

you have no need for anything to be written to you.

For you yourselves know very well

that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.

When people are saying, “Peace and security,”

then sudden disaster comes upon them,

like labor pains upon a pregnant woman,

and they will not escape.

 

But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness,

for that day to overtake you like a thief.

For all of you are children of the light

and children of the day.

We are not of the night or of darkness.

Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do,

but let us stay alert and sober.

For God did not destine us for wrath,

but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep

we may live together with him.

Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up,

as indeed you do.

 

Responsorial Psalm                                              27:1, 4, 13-14

 

R. (13) I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.

 

The LORD is my light and my salvation;

whom should I fear?

The LORD is my life’s refuge;

of whom should I be afraid?

R. I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.

One thing I ask of the LORD;

this I seek:

To dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

That I may gaze on the loveliness of the LORD

and contemplate his temple.

R. I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.

I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD

in the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD with courage;

be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.

R. I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.

 

Alleluia                                                                      Lk 7:16

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

A great prophet has arisen in our midst

and God has visited his people.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel                                                                       Lk 4:31-37

Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee.

He taught them on the sabbath,

and they were astonished at his teaching

because he spoke with authority.

In the synagogue there was a man with the spirit of an unclean demon,

and he cried out in a loud voice,

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Have you come to destroy us?

I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”

Jesus rebuked him and said, “Be quiet! Come out of him!”

Then the demon threw the man down in front of them

and came out of him without doing him any harm.

They were all amazed and said to one another,

“What is there about his word?

For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits,

and they come out.”

And news of him spread everywhere in the surrounding region.

 

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The Authority of Love

Today's Gospel reading tells us how powerful Christ's authority was -- and still is. We see him heal a man who did not ask for healing.

 

Why do you think he could cast out that man's demon? Because he was God? Ahhh, but he hadn't yet defeated Satan by sacrificing himself on the cross and conquering death. At this point in salvation history, Jesus had only defeated Satan on a personal level (remember how he faced temptations in the desert).

 

Was it because the man was ready to repent from the sins that had attracted the evil spirit? There's no indication of this. Jesus often drove demons out of unconverted people. So, where did he get his authority?

 

Simply put, the Father gave it to him. And then Jesus passed it on to his disciples (see Luke 10:19), which now includes you!

 

Authority was one of the temptations that Satan had offered to Jesus in Luke 4:5-8. There are two kinds of authority: good and evil. Good authority is based on love. Jesus didn't cast out demons because he could. He did it because he cared.

 

Demons hate love. They can't stand being around it. That's why they're always fighting against it, always seeking ways to break up marriages and holy friendships. What loving relationship are you in which is under attack?

 

Perfect love contains all the power of God, because he IS love. Perfect love means caring so completely about others that we're willing to go to the cross for them. A wounded marriage, for example, is healed when both spouses make sacrifices for each other, which is a cross that defeats division.

 

The cross is never fun nor is it easy. Many of us try to get around it by relying solely on prayers such as "St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle ...." Overcoming evil requires more than prayer. It requires personal sacrifice.

 

Wicked authority seeks to make the self more important. It controls others, it oppresses others, it ignores the needs and wants of others, it rejects opportunities to serve others, it neglects to empower others to use their own God-given authority.

 

Whenever we intercede for others and pray for help, we can rely on our Savior's authority, but we must not suppose that he's going to do anything other than what is most loving for everyone. This usually means no quick fix, but as we use the time to grow stronger in our ability to love others unconditionally and sacrificially, we get lots of opportunities to learn how to overcome evil with love. In this way, Jesus passes his authority on to us.

 

Today's Prayer

 

Lord Jesus, help me to recognize the areas of my life that need to be delivered by You. Teach me, with Your Spirit, the path of hope, simplicity and full trust in You. Amen.

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God Bless You.....

The Rosary Family

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

SAINT QUOTE OF THE DAY : Monday - August 30 2021

Monday - August 30 2021

Religious pictures themselves will not make a family good. Only when they are contemplated upon, are they a practical way to help true Christian sentiment, and to a true Christian way of living in the family. 

-- St. John Vianney

August 30, 2021

Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 431

 

Reading 1                                                     1 Thes 4:13-18

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,

about those who have fallen asleep,

so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose,

so too will God, through Jesus,

bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord,

that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord,

will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself, with a word of command,

with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God,

will come down from heaven,

and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left,

will be caught up together with them in the clouds

to meet the Lord in the air.

Thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore, console one another with these words.

 

Responsorial Psalm                                              96:1 and 3, 4-5, 11-12, 13

 

R. (13b) The Lord comes to judge the earth.

 

Whoever walks blamelessly and does justice;

    who thinks the truth in his heart

    and slanders not with his tongue.

R. The one who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.

Who harms not his fellow man,

    nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor;

by whom the reprobate is despised,

    while he honors those who fear the LORD.

R. The one who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.

Who lends not his money at usury

    and accepts no bribe against the innocent.

Whoever does these things

    shall never be disturbed.

R. The one who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.

 

Alleluia                                                                      Jas 1:18

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me;

he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel                                                                       Lk 4:16-30

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,

and went according to his custom

into the synagogue on the sabbath day.

He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

 

    The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

        because he has anointed me

            to bring glad tidings to the poor.

    He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives

        and recovery of sight to the blind,

            to let the oppressed go free,

    and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

 

Rolling up the scroll,

he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,

and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.

He said to them,

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

And all spoke highly of him

and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.

They also asked, “Is this not the son of Joseph?”

He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb,

‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place

the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’”

And he said,

“Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.

Indeed, I tell you,

there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah

when the sky was closed for three and a half years

and a severe famine spread over the entire land.

It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,

but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.

Again, there were many lepers in Israel

during the time of Elisha the prophet;

yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

When the people in the synagogue heard this,

they were all filled with fury.

They rose up, drove him out of the town,

and led him to the brow of the hill

on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.

But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

 

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Getting Past Rejection

The scripture from Isaiah that Jesus read in our Gospel reading today is very near and dear to my heart. Back in 1989 at my first public speaking engagement, the parish leader who had invited me to evangelize his youth group gave me this scripture to read during the opening prayer. And he knew nothing about my lack of experience.

 

I felt humbled and honored that God our Father would choose to start my public ministry with the same scripture that he gave Jesus to read at the start of his ministry. Thankfully, my beginnings were much easier than Christ's: He was immediately rejected, I was appreciated. Maybe that's because I wasn't speaking at my own church -- my Nazareth -- and therefore nobody had pre-conceived notions about my abilities.

 

That came later.

 

If spiritual growth is important to us, we never stay the same. Yet, people judge us by the past. If today we do the works of the Lord that in the past we had been unready to do, it's "outside the box" of what others assume we can and cannot do. So they reject us or misunderstand us or try to handle us the way we no longer need to be handled.

 

What did Jesus do about this problem? He walked away from it. He never tried to force the Nazarenes to accept him as the Messiah. Certainly he was saddened by their rejection, but he moved on. He went to places where doors of opportunity opened for him, where he was free to share what he could give, where his gifts and talents could shine -- in other words, where he could make a difference because hearts were responsive to him.

 

If it's the people in your home who are rejecting you, God's not going to ask you to shirk your responsibilities and leave them (unless they're dangerously abusing you), but it is necessary that you find a place, a community, a prayer group, or a new circle of friends where you are free to be whom the Lord knows you to be. There are others who believe the way you do, who share the same faith, and who appreciate the gifts and talents and wisdom you can offer.

 

We should not fear rejection; we should expect it and walk right through it, just like Jesus did. If we run away because it hurts, we go backwards or off in the wrong direction, away from God's plans. But if we take hold of Jesus' hand and walk confidently and quietly through the midst of our oppressors to the places where we're accepted, we find ourselves in places where God can work through us powerfully.

 

No one can thwart what God wants to do through you to make a difference in the world. What seems like a roadblock becomes merely a stepping stone to a new opportunity to serve the Lord with your unique and valuable gifts, talents and wisdom.

 

Today's Prayer

 

May Your word, Lord, be fulfilled in me, and may those who seek You be able to see Your greatness beyond my littleness. Amen.

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God Bless You.....

The Rosary Family

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