SAINT QUOTE OF THE DAY : Saturday - August 07, 2021

Saturday - August 07, 2021

Men can heal the lustful. 

Angels can heal the malicious.

Only GOD can heal the proud.

~~St. John Climacus

August 7, 2021

Saturday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 412

 

Reading 1                                                     Dt 6:4-13

Moses said to the people:

“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone!

Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God,

with all your heart,

and with all your soul,

and with all your strength.

Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today.

Drill them into your children.

Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest.

Bind them at your wrist as a sign

and let them be as a pendant on your forehead.

Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.

 

“When the LORD, your God, brings you into the land which he swore

to your fathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

that he would give you,

a land with fine, large cities that you did not build,

with houses full of goods of all sorts that you did not garner,

with cisterns that you did not dig,

with vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant;

and when, therefore, you eat your fill,

take care not to forget the LORD,

who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.

The LORD, your God, shall you fear;

him shall you serve, and by his name shall you swear.”

 

Responsorial Psalm                                              18:2-3a, 3bc-4, 47 and 51

 

R. (2) I love you, Lord, my strength.

 

I love you, O LORD, my strength,

O LORD, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.

R. I love you, Lord, my strength.

My God, my rock of refuge,

my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold!

Praised be the LORD, I exclaim!

And I am safe from my enemies.

R. I love you, Lord, my strength.

The LORD live! And blessed be my Rock!

Extolled be God my savior!

You who gave great victories to your king,

and showed kindness to your anointed,

to David and his posterity forever.

R. I love you, Lord, my strength.

 

Alleluia                                                                      2 Tm 1:10

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death

and brought life to light through the Gospel.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel                                                                       Mt 17:14-20

A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said,

“Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely;

often he falls into fire, and often into water.

I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.”

Jesus said in reply,

“O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you?

How long will I endure you?

Bring the boy here to me.”

Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him,

and from that hour the boy was cured.

Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said,

“Why could we not drive it out?”

He said to them, “Because of your little faith.

Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed,

you will say to this mountain,

‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.

Nothing will be impossible for you.”

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He's not the powerless Jesus of your father's faith

Is your faith bigger than a tiny mustard seed? Mine's not. Why not?

Jesus said in John 14:12 (one of my favorite scriptures) that those who believe in him will do the same works he did and even bigger miracles. Have you calmed storms? Or have you walked on water? Healed the sick? Raised the dead? If not, why not?

The answer lies in the environments we grew up in. The scientific age re-wrote the supernatural as mere superstition. And meanwhile, the Church has done very little to teach people how to live and to look like the biblical Christians of the Book of Acts.

When I was a child, I heard Bible stories about miracles, and I thought, "This is great stuff!" Then I looked around and saw no one -- zero people -- doing the same things that were described in the Bible stories. So I went to an expert, my father who was a Methodist minister. I asked him, "Where are the miracles today like what we see in the Bible?"

I'll never forget his answer: "There are no miracles today. The supernatural in the Bible was just to get the Church started."

"But," I said, "We still need miracles today."

My dad had no idea how to respond to that. He just shrugged his shoulders and went back to doing whatever it was that I had interrupted. He had not been born into a family or a church or a culture that experienced miracles as a normal part of Christian faith. His Jesus was a nice man-God who died for our sins and takes us to Heaven.

And that's the Jesus he gave to me -- until I found out that the bread and wine in the Catholic Mass supernaturally become Jesus, fully and completely his body and his blood, not just his spirit. 

Well, if we believe that scripture speaks only truth, Jesus was and is a miracle worker who proved his divine identity through signs and wonders. And he gave us his Holy Spirit so we could continue his miracle-filled mission. Preaching and teaching the truth does not convince people that God is real, that God cares, and that going to church is worth a change in lifestyle.

Why do you suppose our world and our Church have gotten into such a big mess of scandals, abuses, moral relativism, bad leadership, and adult children ignoring the Church? It seems to me that the core reason is the very prevalent absence of Jesus as revealed through signs and wonders. Miracles usually change people. Words usually just start arguments.

A few days ago during my morning prayer time, I heard the Holy Spirit tell me: "He's not the impotent Jesus of your father's faith."

We need to repent of the mindset of, "It's okay to be a Christian who doesn't work miracles whenever someone is sick or demonized," -- and lately it's become very vital to repent of this. The Devil has cleverly used decades of opportunities to take advantage of a weakened Church. Evil has become so intrusive that God is finally saying, "ENOUGH!" and "Where are my remnant believers who will be little Christs working signs and wonders on the Earth today? Who has faith at least the size of a mustard seed?"

He's been telling us through many modern-day prophets that a new revival is coming. In some places, it's already begun. The Holy Spirit is coming again in a new Pentecost to purify and enliven the Church, to drive out the smoke of Satan, and to empower us to evangelize with miracles that change hearts and minds.

The question for today is: "What do I need to do now to let loose the glory of the Lord from within me?" The Holy Spirit has been dwelling in you, fully, since your baptism!

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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!”