THE GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY : Saturday - August 12, 2023

 

Saturday - August 12, 2023

I have no greater desire to die than to live; 

if our Lord gave me the choice I would choose nothing; 

I only will what He wills; 

It is what He does that I love.

-- St. Therese of Lisieux

August 12, 2023

Saturday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 412

 

Reading I     

                                                                                                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                                                          Ps 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         

 

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death

and brought life to light through the Gospel.

R. 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."

 

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

The surprising connection between 

extravagance and the Eucharist

Pope Saint John Paul II taught that one of the original influences that helped shape the way we celebrate our liturgies is the experience of the woman in the Bible who anointed Jesus with her expensive perfume. The gift was extravagant! (Ecclesia de Eucharistia paragraphs 47-48.)

Christ’s gift to us — his life sacrificed on the Cross — is the most extravagant gift. His gift deserves a response that is far from mediocre. Like the woman at Bethany, our gestures of love for Jesus should be outrageously extravagant. It’s quite impossible to over-do it when showing Jesus how much we love him.

In those days, people made their own perfumes using aromatic herbs. The longer a perfume fermented in the jar, the more valuable it became because of the cost of time. The gift of this anointing was the generous “wasting” of something that had taken a long time to make. Remember, she poured it on Jesus, she didn’t dab on a few drops. It was all gone in a few seconds.

Are we that extravagant in our love for Jesus? The world is full of Judases who try to make us feel guilty about being so enthusiastic in our faith: “Why spend so much money to buy a genuine gold tabernacle? That money would have been used more wisely on the poor!”

While the Church does have a responsibility to help the poor, it’s not extravagance that prevents us from coming to their aid, it’s stinginess. Far, far too many Catholics donate very little in the Church’s various collections.

If we truly are excited about the gift the Lord has given us, we should let nothing hold us back from being extravagant in our gifts to both the church’s building fund and to the needy and to the faraway mission fields. We should never force our pastors to choose between beautiful artwork for the church and food for the poor.

 

 

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!”