THE GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY : Tuesday - August 01, 2023

 

Tuesday - August 01, 2023

 You cannot please both God and the world at the same time. They are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions. 

-- St. John Mary Vianney

August 1, 2023

Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 402

 

Reading I     

                                                                                                                        Ex 33:7-11; 34:5b-9, 28

 

The tent, which was called the meeting tent,

Moses used to pitch at some distance away, outside the camp.

Anyone who wished to consult the LORD

would go to this meeting tent outside the camp.

Whenever Moses went out to the tent, the people would all rise

and stand at the entrance of their own tents,

watching Moses until he entered the tent.

As Moses entered the tent, the column of cloud would come down

and stand at its entrance while the LORD spoke with Moses.

On seeing the column of cloud stand at the entrance of the tent,

all the people would rise and worship

at the entrance of their own tents.

The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face,

as one man speaks to another.

Moses would then return to the camp,

but his young assistant, Joshua, son of Nun,

would not move out of the tent.

 

Moses stood there with the LORD and proclaimed his name, "LORD."

Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out,

"The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God,

slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity,

continuing his kindness for a thousand generations,

and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin;

yet not declaring the guilty guiltless,

but punishing children and grandchildren

to the third and fourth generation for their fathers' wickedness!"

Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.

Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O LORD,

do come along in our company.

This is indeed a stiff-necked people;

yet pardon our wickedness and sins,

and receive us as your own."

 

So Moses stayed there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights,

without eating any food or drinking any water,

and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant,

the ten commandments.

 

Responsorial Psalm                                                          Ps 103:6-7, 8-9, 10-11, 12-13

 

R. (8a) The Lord is kind and merciful.

 

The LORD secures justice

and the rights of all the oppressed.

He has made known his ways to Moses,

and his deeds to the children of Israel.

R. The Lord is kind and merciful.

 

Merciful and gracious is the LORD,

slow to anger and abounding in kindness.

He will not always chide,

nor does he keep his wrath forever.

R. The Lord is kind and merciful.

 

Not according to our sins does he deal with us,

nor does he requite us according to our crimes.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.

R. The Lord is kind and merciful.

 

As far as the east is from the west,

so far has he put our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,

so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.

R. The Lord is kind and merciful.

 

Alleluia         

 

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower;

All who come to him will live for ever.

R. Alleluia

 

Gospel                                                                                               Mt 13:36-43

 

Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house.

His disciples approached him and said,

"Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."

He said in reply, "He who sows good seed is the Son of Man,

the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom.

The weeds are the children of the Evil One,

and the enemy who sows them is the Devil.

The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire,

so will it be at the end of the age.

The Son of Man will send his angels,

and they will collect out of his Kingdom

all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.

They will throw them into the fiery furnace,

where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

Then the righteous will shine like the sun

in the Kingdom of their Father.

Whoever has ears ought to hear."

 

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Weeds and flowers in God’s bouquet

Jesus’ explanation about the harvest at the end of time, which is told in our Gospel reading today, raises, in my mind, the question: Why do we have to wait until the end of the world for God to rescue us from evildoers? I want them out of my life — NOW!

 

Oops, how selfish of me! That would make my life much easier, but what about the people who are weeds in my plot of land in the field? What about their lives? What about their eternal lives?

 

We Christians are nurtured in the garden of God’s love to grow strong and tall, as beautiful flowers, so that we can make the world a prettier place. We have been commissioned by Christ to go into the world with our fragrance, which is the perfume of heaven, to affect the lives of the weedy, so that they, too, will want to convert into flowers for the bouquet of God’s kingdom.

 

If weeds are yanked out too early (such as when criminals are executed by a death penalty or when we eject troublemakers from our lives), they lose future opportunities for conversion. Then, we who wanted our soils free of their filth will have to explain to God why we didn’t care about their souls.

 

Oh, and by the way, some weeds are quite ugly, but some are very pretty. We have to learn to recognize the difference between beautiful weeds and true flowers so that we aren’t duped into accepting their sins as okay and end up joining them in their filth. But what is that difference?

 

A weed is any plant that’s growing where it’s not supposed to be. Grass is a weed in a corn field, but on my lawn, corn would be the weed. A weed-person is anyone who is not committed to being one of God’s beautiful flowers.

 

My job, as a commissioned Christian — and yours, too — is to help weed-people discover their true beauty and fragrance, i.e., who they are as children of God and how they can grow into beautiful flowers.

 

Meanwhile, this does not mean allowing their sins to hurt us. We need to figure out, often with professional help, how to prevent their weedy poison from harming us and from spreading. And we have to stay in close contact with God so that we know when it’s time to pluck them out and give others a chance to convert them.

 

All weeds start out as plants that God made and called “good.” In their rightful place, doing what God designed them to do, they’re not weeds, but by growing in ways that they were not designed to do, they became evil-doers. Weeds are unblossomed flowers who have not discovered their true identities as children of God nor their true calling as servants of God.

 

Instead of complaining about the evildoers, we should do what we were commissioned and empowered by God to do: Reach out to the weeds and help them discover their inner beauty and awaken their desire to be true flowers in God’s bouquet.

 

Prayer

 

Lord Jesus, make my life an instrument in Your hands so many who are lost may believe and desire to be transformed as the good seed from which You can reap in the end. 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!”

THE GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY : Monday - July 31, 2023

 

Monday - July 31, 2023

Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.

~~Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

July 31, 2023

Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Priest

Lectionary: 401

 

Reading I     

                                                                                                                        Ex 32:15-24, 30-34

 

Moses turned and came down the mountain

with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands,

tablets that were written on both sides, front and back;

tablets that were made by God,

having inscriptions on them that were engraved by God himself.

Now, when Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting,

he said to Moses, "That sounds like a battle in the camp."

But Moses answered, "It does not sound like cries of victory,

nor does it sound like cries of defeat;

the sounds that I hear are cries of revelry."

As he drew near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing.

With that, Moses' wrath flared up, so that he threw the tablets down

and broke them on the base of the mountain.

Taking the calf they had made, he fused it in the fire

and then ground it down to powder,

which he scattered on the water and made the children of Israel drink.

 

Moses asked Aaron, "What did this people ever do to you

that you should lead them into so grave a sin?"

Aaron replied, "Let not my lord be angry.

You know well enough how prone the people are to evil.

They said to me, 'Make us a god to be our leader;

as for the man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt,

we do not know what has happened to him.'

So I told them, 'Let anyone who has gold jewelry take it off.'

They gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out."

 

On the next day Moses said to the people,

"You have committed a grave sin.

I will go up to the LORD, then;

perhaps I may be able to make atonement for your sin."

So Moses went back to the LORD and said,

"Ah, this people has indeed committed a grave sin

in making a god of gold for themselves!

If you would only forgive their sin!

If you will not, then strike me out of the book that you have written."

The LORD answered, "Him only who has sinned against me

will I strike out of my book.

Now, go and lead the people to the place I have told you.

My angel will go before you.

When it is time for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin."

 

Responsorial Psalm                                                          Ps 106:19-20, 21-22, 23

 

R. (1a) Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

 

Our fathers made a calf in Horeb

and adored a molten image;

They exchanged their glory

for the image of a grass-eating bullock.

R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

 

They forgot the God who had saved them,

who had done great deeds in Egypt,

Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,

terrible things at the Red Sea.

R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

 

Then he spoke of exterminating them,

but Moses, his chosen one,

Withstood him in the breach

to turn back his destructive wrath.

R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

 

Alleluia         

 

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth

that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

R. Alleluia

 

Gospel                                                                                               Mt 13:31-35

 

Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.

"The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed

that a person took and sowed in a field.

It is the smallest of all the seeds,

yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.

It becomes a large bush,

and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches."

 

He spoke to them another parable.

"The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast

that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour

until the whole batch was leavened."

 

All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.

He spoke to them only in parables,

to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:

 

I will open my mouth in parables,

I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.

 

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What mustard seeds are you sowing?

What are your mustard seeds? We all have them. If you’ve been baptized, you have a pouch full of mustard seeds. They are the gifts and talents and resources that the Father has provided to you. Therefore, you are that person whom Jesus describes in today’s Gospel reading.

 

It doesn’t matter if your seeds seem too small to make a big difference. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that starts out very tiny, yet after it sprouts, grows and grows and eventually becomes a large, bushy tree. To see proof of this, go to the grocery store, buy a jar of mustard seeds from the spice aisle, and plant one seed in a paper cup at home. Water it, put it into the sunshine, and soon a plant will be springing to life and zooming in rapid growth. (Note: The mustard seed spoken of in this scripture is the Eastern Black Mustard seed, which is extremely tiny. The yellow seeds you buy in your grocery store can demonstrate the spiritual principle of amazing growth, but they won’t become the bush that grows in Israel.)

 

Today you’ll have an opportunity to plant a mustard seed in God’s kingdom somewhere. The seed might be as small as a word of encouragement that you give to a co-worker or a neighbor who’s feeling upset. Little words of hope, when planted with prayer and God’s power, take root even if the people you give them to forget what you said. The mustard seed you gave them will sprout into renewed strength that helps them work through their problems.

 

And unless the soil of their soul is hard and rocky, these young sprouts will develop branches that will spread hope in new directions, affecting more areas of their lives. The branches will develop leaves that provide them with shade from the heat of their difficulties, giving them endurance, so that they can strive forward to a solution that they hadn’t noticed before you entered their garden to provide seeds of encouragement, when they were still feeling angry and discouraged.

 

The mustard saplings will continue to grow as they become stronger in confidence, because confidence grows out of experiences that provide evidence that there’s reason to hope. The next time a similar problem happens, the mustard tree will shade them from despair.

 

This tree will further develop into one that’s big enough to provide leafy branches that others can “nest” in. This is what Jesus meant by the birds that come to dwell in the tree’s branches. The people in whom you sowed your itty bitty seeds will someday pass hope onto others by sharing the strength that they gained while growing through their hardships.

 

We won’t know the extent of the impact we make until we die and enter into the fullness of the kingdom of God. Purgatory will be a time of deep, inner heart-ache as we learn what happened when we withheld our seeds because we thought they were worthless. Heaven will be the discovery that even our tiniest gestures of holiness have made a beautiful difference.

 

God rejoices over every little thing we do for his kingdom.

 

Prayer

 

My Lord, You have placed inside my heart the seed of Your Kingdom and the desire to follow You. Thank You Lord, for this gift, fruit of Your Love. Make it grow inside me and may it be poured out onto those who are looking for You with all their hearts. 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!”