THE GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY : Monday - September 04, 2023

 

Monday - September 04, 2023

Lord, I am yours, and I must belong to no one but you. My soul is yours, and must live only by you. My will is yours, and must love only for you. I must love you as my first cause, since I am from you. I must love you as my end and rest, since I am for you. I must love you more than my own being, since my being subsists by you. I must love you more than myself, since I am all yours and all in you.

Amen.

~ St. Francis De Sales

September 4, 2023

Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 431

 

Reading I     

                                                                                                            1 Thes 4:13-18

 

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,

about those who have fallen asleep,

so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose,

so too will God, through Jesus,

bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord,

that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord,

will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself, with a word of command,

with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God,

will come down from heaven,

and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left,

will be caught up together with them in the clouds

to meet the Lord in the air.

Thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore, console one another with these words.

 

Responsorial Psalm                                                                      Ps 96:1 and 3, 4-5, 11-12, 13

 

R. (13b) The Lord comes to judge the earth.

 

Sing to the LORD a new song;

sing to the LORD, all you lands.

Tell his glory among the nations;

among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.

R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.

For great is the LORD and highly to be praised;

awesome is he, beyond all gods.

For all the gods of the nations are things of nought,

but the LORD made the heavens.

R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.

Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;

let the sea and what fills it resound;

let the plains be joyful and all that is in them!

Then shall all the trees of the forest exult.

R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.

Before the LORD, for he comes;

for he comes to rule the earth.

He shall rule the world with justice

and the peoples with his constancy.

R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.

 

Alleluia         

 

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me;

he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor.

R. Alleluia

 

Gospel                                                                       Lk 4:16-30

 

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,

and went according to his custom

into the synagogue on the sabbath day.

He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring glad tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

 

Rolling up the scroll,

he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,

and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.

He said to them,

"Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

And all spoke highly of him

and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.

They also asked, "Is this not the son of Joseph?"

He said to them, "Surely you will quote me this proverb,

'Physician, cure yourself,' and say, 'Do here in your native place

the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'"

And he said,

"Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.

Indeed, I tell you,

there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah

when the sky was closed for three and a half years

and a severe famine spread over the entire land.

It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,

but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.

Again, there were many lepers in Israel

during the time of Elisha the prophet;

yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian."

When the people in the synagogue heard this,

they were all filled with fury.

They rose up, drove him out of the town,

and led him to the brow of the hill

on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.

But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

 

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

Getting past rejection

The scripture from Isaiah that Jesus read in our Gospel reading today is very near and dear to my heart. Back in 1989 at my first public speaking engagement, the parish leader who had invited me to evangelize his youth group gave me this scripture to read during the opening prayer. And he knew nothing about my lack of experience.

 

I felt humbled and honored that God our Father would choose to start my public ministry with the same scripture that he gave Jesus to read at the start of his ministry. Thankfully, my beginnings were much easier than Christ’s: He was immediately rejected, I was appreciated. Maybe that’s because I wasn’t speaking at my own church — my Nazareth — and therefore nobody had pre-conceived notions about my abilities.

 

That came later.

 

If spiritual growth is important to us, we never stay the same. Yet, people judge us by the past. If today we do the works of the Lord that in the past we had been unready to do, it’s “outside the box” of what others assume we can and cannot do. So they reject us or misunderstand us or try to handle us the way we no longer need to be handled.

 

What did Jesus do about this problem? He walked away from it. He never tried to force the Nazarenes to accept him as the Messiah. Certainly he was saddened by their rejection, but he moved on. He went to places where doors of opportunity opened for him, where he was free to share what he could give, where his gifts and talents could shine — in other words, where he could make a difference because hearts were responsive to him.

 

If it’s the people in your home who are rejecting you, God’s not going to ask you to shirk your responsibilities and leave them (unless they’re dangerously abusing you), but it is necessary that you find a place, a community, a prayer group, or a new circle of friends where you are free to be whom the Lord knows you to be. There are others who believe the way you do, who share the same faith, and who appreciate the gifts and talents and wisdom you can offer.

 

We should not fear rejection; we should expect it and walk right through it, just like Jesus did. If we run away because it hurts, we go backwards or off in the wrong direction, away from God’s plans. But if we take hold of Jesus’ hand and walk confidently and quietly through the midst of our oppressors to the places where we’re accepted, we find ourselves in places where God can work through us powerfully.

 

No one can thwart what God wants to do through you to make a difference in the world. What seems like a roadblock becomes merely a stepping stone to a new opportunity to serve the Lord with your unique and valuable gifts, talents and wisdom.

 

Prayer

 

May Your word, Lord, be fulfilled in me, and may those who seek You be able to see Your greatness beyond my littleness. 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!”