Monday 17th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Prayer of St. Ignatius

Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my whole will, all that I have and all that I possess.

You gave it all to me, Lord; I give it all back to you. Do with it as you will, according to your good pleasure.

Give me your love and your grace; for with this I have all that I need."

17th Sunday

 

17th Sunday : It works out. Rom 8:28

Life is not a straight line from birth to death.

It is filled with curves and winding roads, and dead ends.

With storms that rock your boat

Mountains that seem too high to climb

And deserts too long to cross.

And some of the time you do not know where you are going

Or when it will end.

Because it is just too dark.

But…..St. Paul tells us that,

Somehow everything works out for the Good for those who love God.

Because those who love God

Know that they are never alone.

They are somehow being led

Somehow being supported

Somehow being loved through it all.

Because it all works out for the Good for those who Love God.

These words of St. Paul are not some pie in the sky spirituality that he wrote for a greeting card or framed on a poster.

5 times he was whipped 40 lashes less one.

Three times he was beaten with rods.

Once he was stoned.

Three times he was shipwrecked and spent an entire day and night adrift on the sea.

He experienced danger from robbers and persecutors.

Often he Would go without food or water

Sleepless nights exposed to the cold.

He was filled with anxiety for all the churches he cared for and gave birth to.

And yet through it all he tells us

That all things work for the Good for those who Love God.

We come to Mass because we love God!

And because we love God,

Whatever we do,

Whatever face;

Whatever we endure,

Will work out for the Good.

But what do those people do who do not love God?

Who love themselves and do their own thing instead.

Very seldom if ever does it work out for them the way they wanted.

Life is bigger than us;

And that is why we need God.

Because no matter what we face in life,

It will all work out,

Not just because we love God,

But because Gods loves us.

Prayer before Communion

 

Before the priest receives Communion He prays:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God!

By the Will of the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit,

Your death brought life to the world.

By your Holy Body and Blood free me from all my sins,

And from every evil.

Keep me faithful to Your teaching;

And never let me parted from you.

What do you pray before you receive Communion?

 

Saturday Feast of Mary, Martha and Lazarus

Mary, Martha and Lazarus were siblings who were perhaps the best friends of Jesus.

The only time Jesus wept was at the death of Lazarus.

Mary sat at the feet of Jesus

And Martha waited on him when He came to visit.

Whenever Jesus went to Jerusalem

He stayed at their house in Bethany

On the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem.

We may not be able to host Jesus at our house.

But whenever we welcome our friends,

We welcome Jesus just the same.

Friday 16th Week of Ordinary Time

 

The 10 commandments Ex. 20:1-17

The first 4 commandments are about our relationship with God.

Putting God first in our life ahead of other things and people.

Taking time for God by keeping the Lord’s Day.

Speaking well of God by reverencing His Holy Name.

And the last 6 are about our relationship with others.

First of all our parents and treating them with honor and respect.

Secondly our neighbor;

Not taking their life through murder;

Not taking taking their spouse through adultery;

Not taking their things through theft;

Not taking their reputation by lying about them;

Not desiring what we do not have.

The commandments are about our relationship with God and others.

And when we keep them,

We are in right relationship with God and one another.

And all is well in Heaven and on earth.

Thursday 16th Week of Ordinary Time

 

The mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. Mt. 13:10-17

The disciples wanted to know why Jesus spoke in parables.

Because God is a Mystery!

Who can understand the mind of God?

Who was there when God separated the light from the dark?

Who was there when God dug out the oceans or built up the mountains?

Who was there when God breathed life into the dust of the earth and made Man?

God is beyond us, and parables help us grasp those mysteries in ways that we can understand.

Because parables have a depth and richness that goes beyond human understanding to the mysteries of God.

Wednesday

 

Feast of Sts. Joachim and Ann

Grandparents.

Why do we call then Grand?

Because they are!

If something is “Grand”

It is large, important, stately or majestic.

Grandparents are larger than life!

St. Ann and Joachim were the Grandparents of Jesus.

Did Joachim bounce Jesus on his knee.

Did Ann bake treats for Jesus.

Simple Memories that Jesus probably never forgot.

It is the little things that we do for others,

That make us “grand” in their sight.

Never pass up therefore the chance to do something little.

Because it really is the little things that matter.

And are remembered the most.

Tuesday 16th Week of Ordinary Time

 

The Feast of St. James

Can you drink the chalice?

Everyone wants the consolation of our Faith.

Everyone wants healing and forgiveness and their prayers answered.

Everyone wants to reign with Christ forever in Heaven.

But how many want to drink the cup of His suffering?

This is what Jesus asked James in the Gospel.

And drink of the cup he did.

James was the first Apostle to be martyred

As he was beheaded by Herod.

Do we want to drink of the cup or would we rather pass it by?

How close to the cross do we want to stand?

If we die with the Lord we shall live with the Lord.

If we endure with the Lord, we shall reign with the Lord.

As James does today and forever

Monday 16th of Ordinary Time

 Are we listening? Mt. 12:38-42

Jesus walked the streets of Chorazin and Bethsaida.

And preached and performed miracles there.

But no one listened.

Jesus spoke to the scribes and Pharisees

But no one listened.

It seemed everywhere Jesus went no one listened.

If we do not listen and repent at the words of Jesus.

Then it will be easier for Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgement than for us.

Then the people of Nineveh will speak against this generation on the Day of Judgment

And then the queen of the south will condemn this generation.

For our ears have heard the words of Jesus,

But we did not listen!

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

 

The Garden of our souls

The true Garden is not the Garden of Eden,

But our souls.

When God made the Garden of Eden,

He sowed the seeds of beautiful plants and trees of every kind.

Then God took the clay of the earth and “breathed” His Spirit into it,

And sowed the seeds of Love, Peace and Harmony in the souls of Adam and Eve.

But then the devil came along and with the consent of Adam and Eve

Sowed the seeds of pride and disobedience in their souls.

And then Cain watered them with the blood of his brother Abel.

And ever since then The Garden of our souls is now a mix of wheat and weeds;

Of Vice and Virtue

Of holiness and sin.

Like any garden if you don’t weed it on a regular basis,

The weeds overtake it.

Over time the weeds grow and deepen and become difficult to uproot.

Our souls are a Garden that must be weeded regularly as well.

Or they are overtaken by the weeds of pride, envy, selfishness and anger.

At first these sins seem small;

Nothing to bother with.

But they grow and take root

And soon become part of the Garden of our lives.

And so we need to go to Mass and Confession to do a little spiritual weeding in the Garden of our souls.

At the beginning of every Mass,

We recall our sins;

Those weeds that have entered our hearts the past week that need to be uprooted.

But some weeds go deep;

Such as Resentment, anger, hurt, pride, selfishness.

And Confession is for those hard to uproot sins.

The ones that we have let go for too long.

But once we dig them up;

Our souls become the Garden they were always meant to be.

A Garden of love, peace and harmony.

And then our world becomes the Garden it was meant to be as well.

Friday 15th week of Ordinary Time

 

The Blood of the Lamb Ex. 11:10-12:14

The Israelites were set free from slavery

When at the Passover,

The Blood of the Lamb was poured over the doorposts of their homes.

We have a different kind of slavery from which we need to be set free.

Slavery from addictions; anger; jealousy; lust; greed and other things that control us.

We are set free from these things

When the blood of the Lamb of the Lamb is poured out on our hearts at the Mass.

The problem is that we continually go back to them and become enslaved all over again,

Which is why we must come back to Mass over and over again

So that the Blood of the Lamb can set us free over and over again.

Thursday 15th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Come to Me. Mt. 11:28

Who doesn’t get a little tired sometimes.

Not just physically, But emotionally as well.

The burdens of life can pile up sometimes and become too much to carry.

And when that happens where do we go?

To bed for a nap?

To the Mall for some shopping?

To the fridge for some comfort food?

To the bottle for a drink?

How well does any of this really work?

It only deals with the symptoms.

None of them solve the real problems of life.

That is why Jesus says,

“Come to Me! And I will refresh you. “

When the burdens of life begin to weigh us down.

And we can find no rest from the demands of life.

There is only one place to go.

To Jesus!

And this is why the doors of the Church are always open.

So that we can Come to Him.

And find rest.

Wednesday 15th Week of Ordinary Time

Catch Fire Exodus 3:2

And the angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.

Moses saw the burning bush and drew near, filled with awe that it was on fire and yet not consumed.

How could something be on fire and yet not consumed by the fire.

Only if the fire and the bush become one!

The Eucharist is the fire of God and we are the bush.

We consume the Body and Blood of Christ so that Christ can consume us and we thus become Burning Bushes on Fire with Christ.

Do we dare draw near the Eucharist and catch fire!

God Bless

Tuesday 15th Week of Ordinary Time

Worse than Sodom and Gomorrah Mt. 11:20-24

When people think of evil and sinful cities,

Sodom and Gomorrah are often the first that come to mind.

Yet Jesus says there are worse cities than these,

Such as Chorazin and Bethsaida.

This is because Chorazin and Bethsaida had heard Jesus speak

And seen the miracles that he did and they did not repent.

No sin is ever good.

But the greater sin is to have heard the voice of Jesus;

And turned away;

Monday July 17

July 21: Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, Priest and Doctor

1559–1619

Canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1881

“It was from the Child in her womb that Mary received all her glory. He clothed her with the sun, rolled the moon beneath her feet, and set upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The Virgin Mother of God had this glory not from herself, but from God, the Creator of Heaven, Who had made the sun, the moon, and the stars, She had her glory from Christ, her Son, through Whom all things, even Mary herself, have been made. Christ was not only a son to Mary, but also a father who had created her, and adorned her with every virtue and blessing. He was her Lord, her true and supreme God. The noble soul of Mary, therefore, found infinite motives and objects of love in Christ. ~Sermon of Saint Lawrence Capuchin Franciscan

15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

 

What have you sown and what have you reaped? Mt. 13:1-9

I remember years years ago a summer job was to go and shuck corn.

You could even walk through the corn fields.

Remember the scene in the movie Field of Dreams when Joe Jackson and the Chicago White Sox walked out of the cornfield.

Not anymore!

About the only thing that can fit between the corn stalks now is a rabbit!

That is because through the years farmers have learned how to sow seed so that it produces a hundred, sixty or even thirty fold more.

Farmers have come a long way in their sowing and reaping.

They kept working at it every year trying to find out how to get more out of the land.

And it has born fruit.

Has our Faith born fruit?

Or are we still sowing the seed of our Faith as we did when we were in grade school?

Go to Mass on Sunday once in awhile.

And then we wonder why nothing really happens.

How much spiritual fruit will that bear?

Our soul is a whole field just waiting to bear fruit

A hundred or sixty or thirty fold.

But we have to do the planting and work the field.

With prayer and penance.

Look at the fruit that Mother Teresa and St. Francis produced!

It didn’t just happen.

They put in the time and effort.

The prayer and the penance.

And produced a hundred, sixty and thirty fold.

How much time and effort do we put into our spiritual life

And how much fruit do we bear?

It all depends on our hearts.

Are they rocky and nothing gets through?

Are they shallow and nothing goes too deep?

Or are they filled with the thorns of this world

that choke off anything that might bear spiritual fruit.

We have fields all around us bearing fruit

A hundred, sixty or thirtyfold.

If only we could do the same!

Feast of St. Bonaventure

St. Bonaventure is often known as the second founder of the Franciscan Order after St. Francis. 

He was Minister General of the Order, a Cardinal and Doctor of the Church.  

 

He was particularly known for his wisdom, because it was not so much knowledge that he sought but Wisdom.

 

Not a worldly wisdom, but a hidden mysterious wisdom that God planned before all ages for our glory. 1 Cor. 1:7

It is a Wisdom that eye has not seen and ear has not heard. 1Cor. 1:9

 

But how does one attain such a hidden, mysterious wisdom?

A wisdom that cannot be seen nor heard. 

 

Through silence!

 

For the beginning of wisdom is silence.

As Bonaventure taught, “we must silence all of our cares, our desires and our senses so that we might pass over with Christ Crucified from this world to the Father.”

What cares do we have?

What desires do we crave?

What senses and appetites seem to run our lives?

Sit in front of a crucifix and silence them. 

For In the face of the Crucified, all of our cares, desires and appetites become unimportant. 

In the face of such Love and such suffering all one can do is fall silent. 

And in that silence one begins to grow in a Wisdom that eye cannot see and ear cannot hear nor the world understand. 

But was prepared for those who love Him. 

Friday 14th week of Ordinary Time

 

God speaks Mt. 10:16-23

So often before a debate or an argument

People prepare what they are going to say.

Only to be unprepared because it takes a different turn that they did not expect.

This is why Jesus tells us to prepare in a different way.

We are to prepare our hearts and lips for the Holy Spirit to speak through us instead.

Because it is not our words that matter or that will win the day,

But those of the Holy Spirit

Whose words are like a two edge sword

That cuts to the heart. Acts 2:37

And lays bare the thoughts of men.

Thursday 14th. Week of Ordinary time.

Do not count the cost. Mt. 10:7-15

One of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s prayers was,

Dear Lord,

teach me to be generous;

teach me to serve You as You deserve;

to give and not to count the cost,

to fight and not to heed the wounds,

to toil and not to seek for rest,

to labour and not to ask for reward

save that of knowing I am doing Your Will.

God gives to us freely, without cost.

We should be just as generous to give to God without counting the cost

Because God’s reward will be greater than any cost we might accrue.

Wednesday 14th Week of Ordinary Time

 

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Mt. 10:7

There are many countries and kingdoms,

And Jesus offers us His Kingdom of Heaven.

It is a Kingdom of Love, Peace and Forgiveness.

Surprisingly however people choose a different Kingdom.

A Kingdom of complaining, division and arguing.

They just can’t let go!

The Kingdom of Heaven is not far away.

Jesus tells us that it is very near;

at hand,

And is there for the taking.

If only we let go of our desires, and arguing and complaining,

And grab hold of the Love, Peace and Forgiveness

That Jesus is offering us.

Tuesday 14th Week of Ordinary Time

 

St. Benedict July 11

St. Benedict is The founder of Western Monasticism

And his motto was work and prayer;

For when one works more than one prays,

One begins to rely upon oneself too much.

And when one prays more than one works

Then one expects God to do all the work!

This is why Benedict always taught to strive for a balance between work and prayer.

Monday 14th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Psalm 91

In you, my God, I place my trust.

You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High,

who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,

Say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress,

my God, in whom I trust.”

In you, my God, I place my trust.

For he will rescue you from the snare of the fowler,

from the destroying pestilence.

With his pinions he will cover you,

and under his wings you shall take refuge.

In you, my God, I place my trust.

Because he clings to me, I will deliver him;

I will set him on high because he acknowledges my name.

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in distress.

In you, my God, I place my trust.