SAINT QUOTE OF THE DAY : Sunday - August 08, 2021

Sunday - August 08, 2021

Perfect love leads a man on to perfect fear. Such a man fears and keeps to God's will, not from fear of punishment, not to avoid condemnation, but because he has tasted the sweetness of being with God; he fears he may fall away from it.

-- St. Dorotheos of Gaza

August 8, 2021

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 116

 

Reading 1                                                     1 Kgs 19:4-8

Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,

until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.

He prayed for death saying:

“This is enough, O LORD!

Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree,

but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat.

Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake

and a jug of water.

After he ate and drank, he lay down again,

but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,

touched him, and ordered,

“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”

He got up, ate, and drank;

then strengthened by that food,

he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

 

Responsorial Psalm                                              Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

 

R. (9a) Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

 

I will bless the LORD at all times;

    his praise shall be ever in my mouth.

Let my soul glory in the LORD;

    the lowly will hear me and be glad.

R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Glorify the LORD with me,

       Let us together extol his name.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me

       and delivered me from all my fears.

R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy.

       and your faces may not blush with shame.

When the afflicted man called out, the LORD heard,

       and from all his distress he saved him.

R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

The angel of the LORD encamps

       around those who fear him and delivers them.

Taste and see how good the LORD is;

       blessed the man who takes refuge in him.

R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

 

Reading 2                                                     Eph 4:30—5:2

Brothers and sisters:

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,

with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.

All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling

must be removed from you, along with all malice.

And be kind to one another, compassionate,

forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.

 

So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,

as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us

as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

 

 

Alleluia                                                                      Jn 6:51

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord;

whoever eats this bread will live forever.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel                                                                       Jn 6:41-51

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said,

“I am the bread that came down from heaven, ”

and they said,

“Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?

Do we not know his father and mother?

Then how can he say,

‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Jesus answered and said to them,

“Stop murmuring among yourselves.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,

and I will raise him on the last day.

It is written in the prophets:

They shall all be taught by God.

Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.

Not that anyone has seen the Father

except the one who is from God;

he has seen the Father.

Amen, amen, I say to you,

whoever believes has eternal life.

I am the bread of life.

Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;

this is the bread that comes down from heaven

so that one may eat it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven;

whoever eats this bread will live forever;

and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

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Feasting on the source of eternal life

 

This Sunday's Gospel passage is Christ's explanation of the Eucharist. He says: "Whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life."

 

Why does he call the Eucharist "the bread of life"? How does it give us life?

 

He answers: "Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." In other words, he gave himself to us -- he gave his life for us -- on the cross. Our sins put us on the path of death, but he who was sinless and divine substituted himself for us, taking our deaths upon himself so that we could have the eternal life of God.

 

The resurrection of his body defeated this death. Therefore, his body, crucified and risen, is the source of our life. This is what we celebrate in Mass. We are not re-enacting his death during the sacrifice of the altar, as some mistakenly assume; we are uniting ourselves to his life.

 

The "sacrifice of the altar" is our participation in the entirety of Christ -- his life, his ministry, his crucifixion for our sins, his resurrection, and his ascension to heaven. We unite with him by offering our lives to him so that he ministers to the world through us, sacrificing our will where it interferes with his, which results in being raised up to new life as we follow Christ to heaven.

 

Every Catholic Mass accomplishes this by providing us with our Savior's body and blood, here and now, in the form of edible food: the bread of life. As Pope John Paul the Great pointed out in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, "The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that the Eucharistic banquet of Mass is 'the source and summit of the Christian life'."

 

This holy communion comes to us from Christ's Last Supper, through generation after generation of the apostolic priesthood, which began with the very first Apostles. Everyone who attends the liturgy of this communion should truly celebrate the Eucharistic presence of Jesus, even those who still have work to do to remove the obstacles that keep them from receiving the Eucharist bodily.

 

Christ is as fully present and as truly real here as he was when he sat among the Apostles and said, "This is my Body, this is my Blood." Thus anyone who adores and honors Jesus in the Eucharist, believing that he is their Savior, is feasting on the source of their eternal life.

 

Today's Prayer

 

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for giving Yourself in the Eucharist, to give us eternal life. I praise You, my Lord, because You drew me near You and You opened my ears to be able to listen to You and to know 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!”