July 13 2020
Monday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading 1 IS 1:10-17
Hear the word of the LORD,
princes of Sodom!
Listen to the instruction of our God,
people of Gomorrah!
What care I for the number of your sacrifices?
says the LORD.
I have had enough of whole-burnt rams
and fat of fatlings;
In the blood of calves, lambs and goats
I find no pleasure.
When you come in to visit me,
who asks these things of you?
Trample my courts no more!
Bring no more worthless offerings;
your incense is loathsome to me.
New moon and sabbath, calling of assemblies,
octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear.
Your new moons and festivals I detest;
they weigh me down, I tire of the load.
When you spread out your hands,
I close my eyes to you;
Though you pray the more,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash yourselves clean!
Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes;
cease doing evil; learn to do good.
Make justice your aim: redress the wronged,
hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.
Responsorial Psalm 50:8-9, 16-17, 21, 23
R. (23b) To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
for your burnt offerings are before me always.
I take from your house no bullock,
no goats out of your fold.”
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?”
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think you that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.”
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
Alleluia MT 5:10
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MT 10:34-11:1
Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s enemies will be those of his household.
“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 righteous
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 he is a disciple–
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”
When Jesus finished giving these commands to his Twelve disciples,
he went away from that place to teach and to preach in their towns.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
41 All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. the manifold perfections of creatures – their truth, their goodness, their beauty all reflect the infinite perfection of God. Consequently we can name God by taking his creatures” perfections as our starting point, “for from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator”.
“For greater things you were born.” (Ven. Mother Luisita)
MONDAY, JULY 13TH Mt. 10:34 – 11:1 “I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”
- This is a strong warning of the dangers we face as believers. Mary, the Mother of God was acquainted with that sword… “And your own heart a sword shall pierce so that the hearts of many may be revealed.” (Lk. 2:33)
- That sword cuts deep into our heart when family and friends challenge us – even ridicule and heckle us because we love Christ. We obey and defend His Church. We have fervor and devotion in frequenting the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist. We are faithful to prayer in our daily Holy Hour and we have devotion to Mary and the Rosary. We have concern for the poor or those otherwise marginalized in society. We make an effort to avoid occasions of sin such as gossiping, immodest dress or behavior, immoral movies, pornography, drinking or drugs. In other words, we have given our lives to Christ! We are Catholic Christians!
- All who love Christ feel the cut of that sword and bleed inwardly as we continue to see the moral decay of our society at the expense of human lives and immortal souls!
- Parents feel the pain of that sword when they are rejected for speaking the truth to a son or daughter living in sin.
- Every young man who answers God’s call to the priesthood, or young woman to the religious life, and encounters opposition from their family, feels the cold blade of that sword.
- The first and greatest commandment is to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength – all other loves must emanate from our love for God and His love for us to be true love!
- From thence flows the beauty of married love… parental love… filial love (love of children for their parents)… and fraternal love (brotherly love) – which for followers of Christ becomes charity – a love encompassing every person as a child of God created in His image and likeness, and therefore our brother or sister in Christ.
- The truths of Christ and His Church exist whether others recognize them or not. Our greatest act of evangelization is to witness to these truths by living them! By loving others when they don’t love us, don’t understand us, don’t treat us well, even cause us harm.
- Perhaps it seems counter to our nature to love God whom we can’t see more than those we can see… our parents… our brothers and sisters… our spouse… our children and grandchildren… even our friends!
- That is why God became man, to show us what the love of God looks like, and how we are to imitate Him in loving others. What Jesus teaches us is that if we fail to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, we will fail in loving others, and surprisingly, we will fail in loving ourselves.
- For we are not allowing God, who created each one of us in His image and likeness, to complete the work He has begun in us and has planned for us from all eternity! And we’re not allowing others to do that either!
- But when we love God first and love Him more, we receive and give love from its source – the Heart of God! He who created us out of love… became man, suffered and died for us out of love… who even now stands at the door waiting for us to open our heart so that He may enter and take possession of us out of love, desires to set us on fire with His divine love and mercy, and with Him to set the whole world ablaze!
- Was it easy for Jesus to watch His followers leave Him when He told them they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have life eternal? To hear them say, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Was it easy for Jesus to turn to His Apostles and ask, “Will you leave me also?”
- Was it easy for Jesus to say to Peter, the future head of His Church, “Get thee behind me Satan” when Peter denied Jesus’ prophesy of His suffering and death, and thereby His mission?
- Was it easy for Jesus to accept the chalice of suffering as He pleaded with His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, but not my will but thine be done.”
- Was it easy for Jesus to receive the kiss of betrayal from Judas in the Garden? Or to look with sorrow into the eyes of Peter after he denied Jesus not once, but three times? Or to see His Mother’s anguish as He carried His cross up Calvary, then stand at the foot of the cross those three agonizing hours until He breathed His last, and her own heart was pierced by the sword?
- Jesus came to save us by His Holy Cross… If we want to be saved and bring others to salvation, we must do as Jesus commanded: “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”
- Jesus has promised to give us the grace to meet every challenge. If we refuse this grace and this challenge, then we are not worthy of Him!
- “Let us prefer absolutely nothing to Christ, because neither has He preferred anything to us.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
LET THE WITNESS OF THIS SAINT SPEAK TO OUR HEARTS!
Sunday, 11 October, Pope John Paul II canonized Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein, a Jewish philosopher, convert to the Catholic faith, Carmelite nun and martyr at Auschwitz. The canonization took place during a solemn concelebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Square.
QUOTES OF TERESA BENEDICTA OF THE CROSS…
“Things were in God’s plan which I had not planned at all. I am coming to the living faith and conviction that – from God’s point of view – there is no such thing as chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in God’s Divine Providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God’s all-seeing eyes.”
“The deeper someone is drawn to God, the more he has to ‘get beyond himself’ in this sense, that is, go into the world and carry divine life into it.”
“I felt that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take it upon themselves on everybody’s behalf.”
“Even now I accept the death that God has prepared for me in complete submission and with joy as being His most holy will for me. I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death … so that the Lord will be accepted by His people and that His Kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.”
“Ave, Crux, Spes unica. (I welcome you, Cross, our only hope).”
WHAT IS PAUL’S WITNESS? ROMANS 8:28-39 We Are More Than Conquerors…
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
