GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY : Monday - June 19, 2023

  

Monday - June 19, 2023

During painful times, when you feel a terrible void, think how the capacity of your soul is being enlarged so that it can receive God-- becoming as it were, infinite as God is infinite.

~~St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

June 19, 2023

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 365

 

Reading I     

                                                                                                2 Cor 6:1-10

 

Brothers and sisters:

As your fellow workers, we appeal to you

not to receive the grace of God in vain.

For he says:

 

In an acceptable time I heard you,

and on the day of salvation I helped you.

 

Behold, now is a very acceptable time;

behold, now is the day of salvation.

We cause no one to stumble in anything,

in order that no fault may be found with our ministry;

on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves

as ministers of God, through much endurance,

in afflictions, hardships, constraints,

beatings, imprisonments, riots,

labors, vigils, fasts;

by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness,

in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech,

in the power of God;

with weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left;

through glory and dishonor, insult and praise.

We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful;

as unrecognized and yet acknowledged;

as dying and behold we live;

as chastised and yet not put to death;

as sorrowful yet always rejoicing;

as poor yet enriching many;

as having nothing and yet possessing all things.

 

Responsorial Psalm                                              Ps 98:1, 2b, 3ab, 3cd-4

 

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.

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.

 

Alleluia         

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

A lamp to my feet is your word,

a light to my path.

R. Alleluia

 

Gospel                                                           Mt 5:38-42

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"You have heard that it was said,

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.

When someone strikes you on your right cheek,

turn the other one to him as well.

If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,

hand him your cloak as well.

Should anyone press you into service for one mile,

go with him for two miles.

Give to the one who asks of you,

and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow."

 

**********************************

Victim or Victorious?

The words of Jesus in today’s Gospel could either be a description of a victim or a description of a ministry. Which is it for you?

 

Bullies and other abusers tell us, in effect: “You have to turn your cheek and let me hit you again! You’re not supposed to retaliate or defend yourself.” A victim is someone who says, in effect: “It’s wrong for me to resist being treated this way. It’s wrong for me to get away from it. It’s wrong for me to call in the authorities against this person. I must offer up my sufferings to Jesus, that’s all.”

 

No matter how others treat us, Jesus does not want us to be victimized by it. There’s a difference between what Jesus did and submitting to victimhood. Jesus became a victim for our sins and was victorious because of it.

 

When we allow others to victimize us, we are self-serving: We are protecting ourselves from the unpleasant work of making our abusers accountable for their actions. Standing up against injustices and enforcing boundaries is other-serving: We serve abusers by giving them the opportunity to change, and we serve other potential victims by protecting them from future harm.

 

If we’re in unhealthy relationships but don’t seek healing, or if we’re clinging to what’s familiar so that we won’t have to do the hard work of learning new patterns, or if we’re using our troubles to get attention and sympathy as a martyr, we are unholy victims. We are not serving as instruments of God’s healing love.

 

Jesus wants us to take injustices and abuses and turn them into ministry. In his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, and 7), he teaches us how to live a life of ministry, not victimhood. Our first reading is an example of how our Gospel reading is supposed to be applied. When we suffer for the sake of “enriching many,” we are “sorrowful yet always rejoicing.”

 

Amazing things happen when we live this way. Take, for example, the time a neighbor verbally attacked me repeatedly, because he mistakenly believed that my dog was spilling his garbage onto the street. He threatened to have an Animal Control Officer take my pet away. How did Jesus want me to give him my other cheek without being a victim?

 

First, without anger, I tried to explain that raccoons were the culprit, but when he refused to believe me, I looked for a way to go the extra mile. I cleaned up his ikky garbage mess and put it into one of my trash cans that had a good, snap-on lid, with a bow on top and a message to explain that it was a gift. After that, peace reigned between us, even when he left his trash unlidded and it was again ravaged by midnight invaders.

 

By having an attitude of forgiveness while maintaining healthy and reasonable boundaries against abuse, then and only then are we free to turn it into a ministry. Only then can Christ reach out to others through us and convert the pain of our sufferings into a gift with redemptive value.

 

And oh! How wonderful it is to contribute to someone’s redemption!

 

Prayer

 

Lord, give me wisdom to see beyond evil and beyond the worldly things, and may nothing stop my determined race to Your kingdom to meet You. Amen. 

 

 

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!”