MASS READINGS AND MEDITATION | JUNE 28, 2020

One day Elisha came to Shunem,
where there was a woman of influence, who urged him to dine with her.
Afterward, whenever he passed by, he used to stop there to dine.
So she said to her husband, “I know that Elisha is a holy man of God.
Since he visits us often, let us arrange a little room on the roof
and furnish it for him with a bed, table, chair, and lamp,
so that when he comes to us he can stay there.”
Sometime later Elisha arrived and stayed in the room overnight.

Later Elisha asked, “Can something be done for her?”
His servant Gehazi answered, “Yes!
She has no son, and her husband is getting on in years.”
Elisha said, “Call her.”
When the woman had been called and stood at the door,
Elisha promised, “This time next year
you will be fondling a baby son.”

R. (2a) For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
The promises of the LORD I will sing forever,
through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness.
For you have said, “My kindness is established forever;”
in heaven you have confirmed your faithfulness.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
Blessed the people who know the joyful shout;
in the light of your countenance, O LORD, they walk.
At your name they rejoice all the day,
and through your justice they are exalted.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
You are the splendor of their strength,
and by your favor our horn is exalted.
For to the LORD belongs our shield,
and the Holy One of Israel, our king.
R. For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.

Brothers and sisters:
Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might live in newness of life.

If, then, we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him.
We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more;
death no longer has power over him.
As to his death, he died to sin once and for all;
as to his life, he lives for God.
Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin
and living for God in Christ Jesus.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation;
announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Jesus said to his apostles:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

“Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet’s reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is a righteous man
will receive a righteous man’s reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because the little one is a disciple—
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

PART ONE:
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH
SECTION ONE
“I BELIEVE” – “WE BELIEVE”

26 We begin our profession of faith by saying: “I believe” or “We believe”. Before expounding the Church’s faith, as confessed in the Creed, celebrated in the liturgy and lived in observance of God’s commandments and in prayer, we must first ask what “to believe” means. Faith is man’s response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life. Thus we shall consider first that search (Chapter One), then the divine Revelation by which God comes to meet man (Chapter Two), and finally the response of faith (Chapter Three).

“For greater things you were born.” (Ven. Mother Luisita)

SUNDAY, JUNE 28^TH   Mt. 10: 37-42   “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.” 

• Sometimes, it is someone else carrying the cross with faith and trust in God that gives us the strength to carry ours. For there is one abiding truth – God is always God and He is always good! In heaven we will be filled with wonder at the good He brought out of what appeared to us to be only pain and suffering!
• “When it is all over you will not regret having suffered; rather you will regret having suffered so little, and suffered that little so badly.” (St. Sebastian Valfre)
• “If you embrace all things in this life as coming from the hands of God, and even embrace death to fulfill His holy will, assuredly you will die a saint.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori)

Reflection from a letter to the editor of “Traces” magazine…

• I have five kids and one of them, Simone, who is 11 was diagnosed with lymphoma. We entrusted our family to the Virgin Mary. He started chemo, with all that it entails for an eleven year-old-kid. Right from the first signs of my son’s illness, seeing him defenseless and bedridden, it became clear that his existence and well-being did not depend on me; he was not mine, he belonged to Another.
• The certainty that it is the Lord who makes all things, including myself, doesn’t spare me from struggling and worrying. Nonetheless, it makes me glad for everything that happens, because I feel embraced and supported by Him. Every instant that I live is an opportunity to say “yes” to Him who makes me.
• Right from the beginning, my friends and I began incessantly praying to the Virgin (reciting the rosary) and to Father Luigi Giussani. God doesn’t want anything bad for me – of this I am certain – and what the Lord takes away, He gives back, increased a hundred-fold.
• Indeed, I see the hundredfold happening one drop at a time, because Simone’s cancer has been, and still is, on a daily basis, an opportunity to be more serious about everything, with a desire for the meaning of everything that happens to me – the difficulty dealing with my husband working abroad, raising my children, my relationship with people. I asked for help from some of my older friends, that is to say, from people I hold dearest and to whom I ask for prayers, support, and companionship.
• “Circumstances, good or bad – all of them – are ways through which the Mystery calls us. They are not, as we so often interpret them according to our measure (that is, rationalism), burdens that we must put up with. They have a very specific purpose in God’s design.” (Father Julian Carron)  
• The purpose is certainly my daily conversion! If my tendency to sweat the small stuff makes my day a little opaque, the Lord gives me something to make me look up, give thanks, and surrender to Him; it may be a friend’s phone call, or a student coming to visit Simone. Nothing happens by chance.
• For me, for my husband and children, and for my friends, too, recognizing Christ within this trial has allowed us to keep walking through this valley of tears and has made everything mysteriously simple.

End of reflection from Traces magazine… 

• “God doesn’t want anything bad for me – of this I am certain – and what the Lord takes away, He gives back, increased a hundredfold.” Let us beg for the grace to see the hundredfold! It’s not that God doesn’t give, it’s that what He gives we fail to see!
• From the beginning, God willed only good for us, but because of the original sin of our first parents, He permitted evil to bring about an even greater good, one that would not exist without the evil.
• Think of this – God the Father sent His only Begotten Son to become man and save us from our sins! Jesus suffered everything for us and even now suffers everything in us and with us! Thus God triumphs over the devil!
• Our life is about accepting and trusting all that God wills and permits to happen knowing He will bring about a greater good that we may only see in heaven.

United to Christ…  by Caryll Houselander

We are united to Christ, we are one, and it is when His Passion becomes real to us, through experience and love, that we grow aware of His presence in us. But for this presence of Christ, His living in us, His actually being our life, we could not bear the things which have actually happened to some, indeed to many, and which are more than a threat to everyone.

We can bear them for one reason only, because Christ, who is identified with us, who is in us, has already suffered and overcome everything that we shall suffer, or ever can suffer! We cannot shed a tear, but that tear has already blinded the eyes of Christ. We cannot be without tears, but that constriction of the heart has constricted His heart. He has known all and every kind of fear that we know, and there is no possible loneliness, no agony of separation, but it is Christ’s; indeed, not one of us can die, but it is Christ dying.

And Christ, who faces all these things in our lives, has overcome them all and has sanctified them by His limitless love. His love made every moment of His Passion redeeming and healing and life-giving, and this love, this Christ-love, is ours, just as much as His suffering is ours. We are now beginning in very earnest to experience the contemplation which consists in suffering with Christ, and the way to sanctify it is not so much to suffer with Him as to ask Him to let us realize that He it is who suffers in us!

For, this understood, we cannot help abandoning our will to His completely, and letting Him suffer in us in His way, and His way is the way of love… Complete though it is, in His grief there is no bitterness; and what seems to be frustration and waste is not, it is fruitful; this is because every moment of His Passion is informed by love. Our work is to love too, to love always, to love everyone, and to love to the end.

(Caryll Houselander +1954 was a British mystic, spiritual teacher and writer)