Thursday - October 13, 2022
“To give worthy praise to the Lord's mercy, we unite ourselves with Your Immaculate Mother, for then our hymn will be more pleasing to You, because She is chosen from among men and angels. Through Her, as through a pure crystal, Your mercy was passed on to us. Through Her, man became pleasing to God; Through Her, streams of grace flowed down upon us.”
- St. Faustina
Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 470
Reading I
EPH 1:1-10
Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
to the holy ones who are in Ephesus
and faithful in Christ Jesus:
grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him.
In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ,
in accord with the favor of his will,
for the praise of the glory of his grace
that he granted us in the beloved.
In Christ we have redemption by his Blood,
the forgiveness of transgressions,
in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.
In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us
the mystery of his will in accord with his favor
that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times,
to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.
Responsorial Psalm PS 98:1, 2-3AB, 3CD-4, 5-6
R. (2a) The Lord has made known his salvation.
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
R. The Lord has made known his salvation.
The LORD has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
R. The Lord has made known his salvation.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
break into song; sing praise.
R. The Lord has made known his salvation.
Sing praise to the LORD with the harp,
with the harp and melodious song.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
sing joyfully before the King, the LORD.
R. The Lord has made known his salvation.
Alleluia PHIL 2:8 JN 14:16
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord;
no one comes to the Father except through me.
R. Alleluia
Gospel LK 11:47-54
The Lord said:
“Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets
whom your fathers killed.
Consequently, you bear witness and give consent
to the deeds of your ancestors,
for they killed them and you do the building.
Therefore, the wisdom of God said,
‘I will send to them prophets and Apostles;
some of them they will kill and persecute’
in order that this generation might be charged
with the blood of all the prophets
shed since the foundation of the world,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah
who died between the altar and the temple building.
Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood!
Woe to you, scholars of the law!
You have taken away the key of knowledge.
You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.”
When Jesus left, the scribes and Pharisees
began to act with hostility toward him
and to interrogate him about many things,
for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.
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Is God your foster father or adoptive father?
Is God your True Father? Have you been fully adopted or are you just in foster care?
When my mom was four years old, she was put into the home of foster parents. Ten years later, they finally adopted her. In-between, she didn’t know to which family she truly belonged. In today’s first reading, Saint Paul tells us that through Christ Jesus, we are Father God’s adopted children. This is his will and pleasure! He gets excited about it. His heart swells with joy thinking about you as one of his adopted kids. In fact, he wanted to father you since before he created the world!
He gave life to each of us, but our tendency to sin keeps us from being his true children. Jesus came to earth to teach us how to be true children, by his words and by his example, and then he took our sins upon himself and died with them on the cross. This cleared the way for us to become Father God’s adopted children. Have you fully entered into this adoption?
A child who does not understand that he or she is truly and unconditionally loved by the adoptive family longs to go back to the family of origin, even if it had been an abusive household. We naturally prefer the familiar over the unknown. Are you still longing to go back to old, familiar, sinful patterns? Are you still rationalizing that they are not really sins? Or are you instead fully embracing your new life in the family of God?
Sinning is a sign that we don’t know how much God loves us and how good he is to us.
Think of how easy it is to place conditions on our love for others. Conditional love is not God’s nature. It’s not really love at all. It doesn’t exist in God’s household. When we treat others kindly only because they meet our needs or live up to our expectations, we have re-entered the old home-world of conditional, fake love.
When do you doubt God’s love for you? Our Father is inviting you to discover that he has no conditions for loving you – he has only UNconditional love for you. You can trust him completely. You can believe that he will always take care of you, even while life’s circumstances seem to indicate otherwise. This is life as an adopted child. God is always working in the circumstances to eventually produce many blessings for you.
We live as a child of God when we understand that he adopted us to rescue us from the bad conditions of our birth family, i.e., the inheritance of sin that began when Adam and Eve committed the Original Sin. God’s household has been our true family ever since our baptism. Anything we do that separates us from our new, true identity should be taken to the Sacrament of Reconciliation so that we’re quickly restored to our rightful relationships in the family of God.
God removed us from our birth homes because he loves us dearly. Let’s stay with him.
Today's Prayer
Lord, may injustice not grow in me as a result of not admitting my wrong deeds of the past. Grow more and more inside me to be able to take Your saving presence to others. Amen.
God Bless You.....
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