Thursday, October 20th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 12:49-53.
Thursday of the Twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time
20 October 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“A mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 12:49-53.
Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
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Thursday of the Twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time
20 October 2016
Commentary of the day
Saint Ambrose (c.340-397),
Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church
Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, 7, 134 (cf. SC 52, p. 55f.)
“Everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother… for the sake of my name, will receive a hundred times more ” (Mt 19,29)
In almost every passage of Scripture the spiritual meaning plays an important part. But in this passage especially we must look for spiritual depth within the thread of its meaning… How is it that he himself can say: “Peace I leave with you, my own peace I give you” (Jn 14,27) if he has come to divide fathers from their sons, sons from their fathers, breaking their connection? How can we be called “cursed if you dishonor your father” (Dt 27,16) yet fervent if we abandon him?
If we understand that religion comes first and filial devotion second then we will understand this question to be clarified: for we have to pass on to the human after the divine. For if we have duties towards our parents, how much more to the Father of our parents to whom we owe thanksgiving for our parents?… He doesn’t say, then, that we must give up those we love but that we must prefer God before all else. Besides, do we not find in another book: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10,37). What is forbidden is not to love your parents but to prefer them to God. For our blood relations are among God’s blessings and no one is to love the good things they have received more than the God who conserves the blessings he has given.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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Thursday of the Twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time
20 October 2016
Saints of the day
St. Paul of the Cross,
Priest (1693-1775)
SAINT PAUL OF THE CROSS
Priest
(1693-1775)
The eighty-one years of this Saint’s life were modelled on the Passion of Jesus Christ. In his childhood, when praying in church, a heavy bench fell on his foot, but the boy took no notice of the bleeding wound, and spoke of it as “a rose sent from God.” A few years later, the vision of a scourge with “love” written on its lashes assured him that his thirst for penance would be satisfied. In the hope of dying for the faith, he enlisted in a crusade against the Turks; but a voice from the Tabernacle warned him that he was to serve Christ alone, and that he should found a congregation in his honor.
At the command of his bishop he began while a layman to preach the Passion, and a series of crosses tried the reality of his vocation. All his first companions, save his brother, deserted him; the Sovereign Pontiff refused him an audience; and it was only after a delay of seventeen years that the Papal approbation was obtained, and the first house of the Passionists was opened on Monte Argentario, the spot which Our Lady had pointed out.
St. Paul chose as the badge of his Order a heart with three nails, in memory of the sufferings of Jesus, but for himself he invented a more secret and durable sign. Moved by the same holy impulse as Blessed Henry Suso, St. Jane Frances, and other Saints, he branded on his side the Holy Name, and its characters were found there after death.
His heart beat with a supernatural palpitation, which was especially vehement on Fridays, and the heat at times was so intense as to scorch his shirt in the region of his heart. Through fifty years of incessant bodily pain, and amidst all his trials, Paul read the love of Jesus everywhere, and would cry out to the flowers and grass, “Oh! be quiet, be quiet,” as if they were reproaching him with ingratitude.
He died whilst the Passion was being read to him, and so passed with Jesus from the cross to glory.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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Thursday of the Twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time
20 October 2016
Saints of the day
St. Maria Bertilla Boscardin,
Virgin (1888-1922)
SAINT MARIA BERTILLA BOSCARDIN
Virgin
(1888-1922)
Anna Francesca Boscardin was born at Brendola, Veneto in 1888. She lived in fear of her father, a poor, violent and jealous farmer who was often drunk. As a child she could attend school irregularly as she was needed to help at home and in the fields. She showed few talents and was often the target of jokes. She acquired the nickname of “the goose”, and all her life this nickname will remain with her both at home and in the convent.
In 1904 she joined the Sisters of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Heart at Vicenza, taking the name “Maria Bertilla”. She was then sent to Treviso to learn nursing at the municipal hospital there, which was under the direction of her order.
She began working in a hospital with children suffering from diphtheria. There the young nun seemed to find her true vocation: nursing very ill and disturbed children. Later, when the hospital was taken over by the military in World War I, Sister Maria Bertilla cared for patients amidst the threat of constant air raids and bombings.
She died in 1922 after suffering for many years from a painful tumor.
Her reputation for simplicity and devoted, caring hard work had left a deep impression on those who knew her. She was canonized in 1961.
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“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
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BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
##########################
Saturday, October 15th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 12:8-12.
Saturday of the Twenty-eighth week in Ordinary Time
15 October 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven,
but the one who blasphemes against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 12:8-12.
Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.
But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.
Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say.
For the holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.”
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Saturday of the Twenty-eighth week in Ordinary Time
15 October 2016
Saint of the day
St. Teresa of Jesus,
Virgin and Doctor of the Church (1515-1582) –
Memorial
SAINT TERESA OF JESUS
Virgin and Doctor of the Church
(1515-1582)
Teresa was born at Avila in Spain in 1515. When she was a child of seven years, Teresa ran away from her home at Avila, in the hope of being martyred by the Moors. Being brought back and asked the reason of her flight, she replied, “I want to see God, and I must die before I can see Him.” She then began with her brother to build a hermitage in the garden, and was often heard repeating “Forever, forever”
Some years later she became a Carmelite nun. Frivolous conversations checked her progress towards perfection, but at last, in her thirty-first year, she gave herself wholly to God. A vision showed her the very place in hell to which her own light faults would have led her, and she lived ever after in the deepest distrust of self.
She was called to reform her Order, favored with distinct commands from Our Lord, and her heart was pierced with divine love; but she dreaded nothing so much as delusion, and to the last acted only under obedience to her confessors, which both made her strong and kept her safe.
She died on October 4, 1582.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
###########################
Friday, August 19th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 22:34-40.
Friday of the Twentieth week in Ordinary Time
19 August 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 22:34-40.
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,
and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking,
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
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Friday of the Twentieth week in Ordinary Time
19 August 2016
Saint of the day
St. John Eudes,
Priest (1601-1680)
SAINT JOHN EUDES
Priest
(1601-1680)
John was born in the year 1601, of religious and distinguished parents, at a village commonly known as Ri in the diocese of Seez in France.
While still a boy, after being refreshed with the Bread of Angels, he made a vow of perpetual chastity. At school,where he was very proficient in his studies, he was conspicuous for his remarkable piety. He had the greastest love for the Blessed Virgin,and burned with a marvelous love for his neighbor.
He enrolled himself in the Congregation of the Oratory (founded by Cardinal) de Berullé and was ordained a priest at Paris. He was made rector of the Oratorian house at Caen, but later regretfully withdrew from the congregation so that he might educate suitable young men for the ministry of the Church.
Accordingly, with five associates, he founded a congregation of priests and gave it the most holy names of Jesus and Mary. He opened the first seminary at Caen, and it was followed afterwards by many others elsewhere. That he might recall women of immoral life to the Christian life, he founded the Institute of Our Lady of Charity, of which most noble tree, the Congregation of the Good Shepherd of Angers is a branch.
Among his other works of charity is the Society of the Admirable Heart of the Mother of God. Burning with singular love towards the most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary, by divine inspiration, he was the first to promote their liturgical worship. As an apostolic missionary he preached the Gospel in many villages and cities.
Weakened almost to death by so many labors, on the tenth of the Nones of August, in the year 1680, he peacefully expired
The Roman Breviary [1964]
__________________________
Father,
you chose the priest John Eudes
to preach the infinite riches of Christ.
By his teaching and example
help us to know you better
and live faithfully in the light of the gospel
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“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15-20
*********************************************
“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
###########################
Thursday, July 28th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 13:47-53.
Thursday of the Seventeenth week in Ordinary Time
28 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind. “
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 13:47-53.
Jesus said to the disciples: “The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.
When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away.
Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous
and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Do you understand all these things? They answered, “Yes.”
And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”
When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.
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Daily Mass, Thursday 28 July 2016
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Thursday of the Seventeenth week in Ordinary Time
28 July 2016
Commentary of the day
Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380),
Dominican tertiary, Doctor of the Church, co-patron of Europe
Dialogues, ch.39 (©Classics of Western spirituality)
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life” (Jn 3,36)
[Saint Catherine heard God say:] Know that on the final judgment day the Word my Son will come in my divine majesty to reprove the world with divine power. It will not be like when he was born in poverty, coming from the Virgin’s womb into the stable among the animals, and then dying between two thieves. At that time I had my power in him to allow him to suffer pains and tortures as a man-not that my divine nature was cut off from his human nature, but I let him suffer as a man to atone for your sins. Not so will he come in this end time. Then he will come in power to reprove these people in person.
For the just it will be a cause for reverent fear and great rejoicing. Not that his face will change-for he is one with my divine nature and therefore unchangeable, and even in his human nature his face is unchangeable since it has taken on the glory of his resurrection. But it will seem so to the eyes of the damned. For they will see him with their terribly darkened vision.
A sick eye sees nothing but darkness when it looks into such lightsomeness – and it is no fault of the light that it seems so different to the two; the fault is in the sick eye. So the damned see my Son in darkness, confusion, and hatred, not through any fault of my divine Majesty with which he comes to judge the world, but through their own fault.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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Thursday of the Seventeenth week in Ordinary Time
28 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Pedro Poveda Castroverde,
Priest & Martyr (1874-1936)
Saint Pedro Poveda Castroverde
Priest and Martyr, Founder of the Teresian Association
(1874-1936)
Pedro Poveda was born on 3 December 1874 in Linares, Spain, to a solidly Christian family. From early childhood he felt called to become a priest, and in 1889 he entered the diocesan seminary in Jaén. Because of financial difficulties, he transferred to the Diocese of Guadix, Grenada, where the Bishop had offered him a scholarship. He was ordained a priest on 17 April 1897.
After ordination Fr Poveda taught in the seminary and served the diocese in many other ways. In 1900 he completed a licentiate in theology at Seville and later began an apostolate among the “cave-dwellers”, those who lived in dugouts in the hills outside of Guadix. Here he built a school for children and workshops for adults that provided professional training and Christian formation. He was misunderstood, however, and had to leave this special ministry.
So Fr Poveda headed for the solitude of Covadonga, in the mountains of northern Spain, where, in 1906, he was appointed canon of the Basilica of Covadonga in Asturias, where the Blessed Virgin is venerated under this title.
In Covadonga, he devoted much time to prayer and reflected particularly on the problem of education in Spain. He understood that the Lord was inviting him to open new paths in the Church and in the society of his time. He began to published articles and pamphlets on the question of the professional formation of teachers and was also in contact with other persons who felt the need for the presence and action of Christians in society.
The opposition between faith and science was becoming more and more evident in the culture of his day, which carried with it a de-Christianization of the public education system. Fr Poveda, after his apostolic experience in Guadix and his years of reflection and prayer in Covadonga, understood better the need to provide Christian formation for teachers who work in the State school system. He believed that a solid faith and professional qualifications were both needed to keep the Gospel message alive.
In 1911 he opened the St Teresa of Avila Academy as a residence for students and the starting point of the Teresian Association, dedicated to the spiritual and pastoral formation of teachers. The following year he joined the Apostolic Union of Secular Priests and started new pedagogical centres and some periodicals.
To further his work Fr Poveda moved to Jaén, where he taught in the seminary, served as spiritual director of Los Operarios Catechetical Centre, and worked at the Teacher Training College. In 1914 he opened Spain’s first university residence for women in Madrid.
Meanwhile, the Teresian Association continued to develop, spreading to various groups and areas, and leading to its ecclesiastical and civil approval in Jaén. Fr Poveda offered the Teresian Association as a new path of Christian life and evangelization created with and for lay persons, forming them to be witnesses of the Gospel, according to his expression: “To believe firmly and to keep silent is not possible”. He wanted the adherents to be ready to give their lives for the faith and in fact, expressed the same desire himself.
In 1921 Fr Poveda moved to Madrid and was appoined a chaplain of the Royal Palace. A year later he was named a member of the Central Board against illiteracy, but most of his time was devoted to the Teresian Association, which received papal approval in 1924. Although he did not direct the Association, as its founder he worked to consolidate and promote the various dimensions of its mission as it spread to Chile and later to Italy (1934).
It was during the religious persecution in Spain that Fr Poveda would be called to the martyrdom he so desired. At dawn on 28 July 1936, when told by his persecutors to identify himself, he said, “I am a priest of Christ”. He died a martyr for the faith, and was beatified on 10 October 1993 and canonized on 3 May by Pope John Paul II.
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Thursday of the Seventeenth week in Ordinary Time
28 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception (1910-1946)
Saint Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception
(1910-1946)
Saint Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception was born in Kudamalur, the Arpookara region, in the diocese of Changanacherry, India, on the 19th of August 1910, of the ancient and noble family of Muttathupadathu.
From her birth, the life of the Saint was marked by the cross, which would be progressively revealed to her as the royal way to conform herself to Christ. Her mother, Maria Puthukari, gave birth to her prematurely, in her eight month of pregnancy, as a result of a fright she received when, during the sleep, a snake wrapped itself around her waist. Eight days later, the 28 of August, the child was baptised according to the Syro-Malabar rite by the Fr. Joseph Chackalayil, and she received the name Annakutty, a diminutive of Anne. She was the last of five children.
Her mother died three months later. Annakutty passed her early infancy in the home of her grandparents in Elumparambil. There she lived a particularly happy time because of her human and Christian formation, during which the first seeds of a vocation flowered. Her grand-mother, a pious and charitable woman, communicated the joy of the faith, love for prayer and a surge of charity towards the poor to her. At five years of age the child already knew how to lead, with a totally childish enthusiasm, the evening prayer of the family gathered, in accordance with the Syro-Malabar custom, in the “prayer room”.
Annakutty received the Eucharistic bread for the first time on the 11 of November 1917. She used to say to her friends: “Do you know why I am so particularly happy today? It is because I have Jesus in my heart!“. In a letter to her spiritual father, on the 30 of November 1943, she confided the following: “Already from the age of seven I was no longer mine. I was totally dedicated to my divine Spouse. Your reverence knows it well“.
In the same year of 1917 she began to attend the elementary school of Thonnankuzhy, where she also established a sincere friendship with the Hindu children. When the first school cycle ended in 1920, the time had come to transfer to Muttuchira, to the house of her aunt Anna Murickal, to whom her mother, before she died, had entrusted her as her adoptive mother.
Her aunt was a severe and demanding woman, at times despotic and violent in demanding obedience from Annakutty in her every minimal disposition or desire. Assiduous in her religious practice, she accompanied her niece, but did not share the young girl’s friendship with the Carmelites of the close-by Monastery or her long periods of prayer at the foot of the altar. She was, in fact, determined to procure an advantageous marriage for Annakutty, obstructing the clear signs of her religious vocation.
The virtue of the Saint was manifested in accepting this severe and rigid education as a path of humility and patience for the love of Christ, and tenaciously resisted the reiterated attempts at engagement to which the aunt tried to oblige her. Annakutty, in order to get out from under a commitment to marriage, reached the point of voluntarily causing herself a grave burn by putting her foot into a heap of burning embers. “My marriage was arranged when I was thirteen years old. What had I to do to avoid it? I prayed all that night… then an idea came to me. If my body were a little disfigured no one would want me! … O, how I suffered! I offered all for my great intention“.
The proposal to defile her singular beauty did not fully succeed in freeing her from the attentions of suitors. During the following years the Blessed had to defend her vocation, even during the year of probation when an attempt to give her in marriage, with the complicity of the Mistress of Formation herself, was made. “O, the vocation which I received! A gift of my good God!…. God saw the pain of my soul in those days. God distanced the difficulties and established me in this religious state“.
It was Fr. James Muricken, her confessor, who directed her towards Franciscan spirituality and put her in contact with the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists. Annakutty entered their college in Bharananganam in the diocese of Palai, to attend seventh class, as an intern student, on the 24th of May 1927. The following year, on the 2nd of August 1928, Annakutty began her postulancy, taking the name of Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception in honour of St. Alphonsus Liguori, whose feast it was that day. She was clothed in the religious habit on the 19th of May 1930, during the first pastoral visit made to Bharananganam by the Bishop, Msgr. James Kalacherry.
The period 1930-1935 was characterised by grave illness and moral suffering. She could teach the children in the school at Vakakkad only during the scholastic year 1932. Then, because of her weakness, she carried out the duties of assistant-teacher and catechist in the parish. She was engaged also as secretary, especially to write official letters because of her beautiful script.
The canonical novitiate was introduced into the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists in 1934. Though wishing to enter immediately, the Blessed was only admitted on the 12th of August 1935 because of her ill health. About one week after the beginning of her novitiate, she had a haemorrhage from the nose and eyes and a profound organic wasting and purulent wounds on her legs. The illness deteriorated, to such a point that the worst was feared.
Heaven came to the rescue of the holy novice. During a novena to The Servant of God Fr. Kuriakose Elia Chavara – a Carmelite who today is a Blessed- she was miraculously and instantaneously cured.
Having restarted her novitiate, she wrote the following proposals in her spiritual diary: “I do not wish to act or speak according to my inclinations. Every time I fail, I will do penance… I want to be careful never to reject anyone. I will only speak sweet words to others. I want to control my eyes with rigour. I will ask pardon of the Lord for every little failure and I will atone for it through penance. No matter what my sufferings may be, I will never complain and if I have to undergo any humiliation, I will seek refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus“.
The 12th of August 1936, the feast of St. Clare, the day of her perpetual profession, was a day of inexpressible spiritual joy. She had realised her desire, guarded for a long time in her heart and confided to her sister Elizabeth when she was only 12 years old: “Jesus is my only Spouse, and none other“.
Jesus, however, wished to lead His spouse to perfection through a life of suffering. “I made my perpetual profession on the 12th of August 1936 and came here to Bharanganam on the following 14th. From that time, it seems, I was entrusted with a part of the cross of Christ. There are abundant occasions of suffering… I have a great desire to suffer with joy. It seems that my Spouse wishes to fulfil this desire“.
Painful illnesses followed each other: typhoid fever, double pneumonia, and, the most serious of all, a dramatic nervous shock, the result of a fright on seeing a thief during the night of the 18th of October 1940. Her state of psychic incapacity lasted for about a year, during which she was unable to read or write.
In every situation, Sister Alphonsa always maintained a great reservation and charitable attitude towards the Sisters, silently undergoing her sufferings. In 1945 she had a violent outbreak of illness. A tumour, which had spread throughout her organs, transformed her final year of life into a continuous agony. Gastroenteritis and liver problems caused violent convulsions and vomiting up to forty times a day: “I feel that the Lord has destined me to be an oblation, a sacrifice of suffering… I consider a day in which I have not suffered as a day lost to me“.
With this attitude of a victim for the love of the Lord, happy until the final moment and with a smile of innocence always on her lips, Sister Alphonsa quietly and joyfully brought her earthly journey to a close in the convent of the Franciscan Clarists at Bharananganam at 12.30 on the 28th July 1946, leaving behind the memory of a Sister full of love and a saint.
Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception Muttathupadathu was proclaimed Blessed by Pope John Paul II in Kottayam, India, on the 8th of February 1986. She was canonized on the 12th of October 2008 by Pope Benedict XVI. With that Canonisation, the Church in India presents its first Saint to the veneration of the faithful of the whole world. Faithful from every part of the world have come together in a single act of thanksgiving to God in her name and in a sign of the great oriental and western traditions, Roman and Malabar, which Sr. Alphonsa lived and harmonised in her saintly life.
– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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Thursday of the Seventeenth week in Ordinary Time
28 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Victor,
Pope and Martyr († 198)
Saint Victor I
Pope and Martyr
(† 198)
Third Class
Pope St. Victor governed the Church in the time of the Emperor Severus. He confuted Theodotus Coriarius and wrote on the question of Easter.
Crowned with martyrdom, he was buried on Vatican hill on the fifth day before the Calends of August.
The Roman Breviary (1964)
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Thursday of the Seventeenth week in Ordinary Time
28 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Innocent I,
Pope and Confessor († 417)
Saint Innocent I
Pope
(† 417)
Pope St. Innocent, after condemning Pelagius and Caelestius, issued a decree against their heresy.
His body was buried in the cemetery called “Ad Ursum pileatum” [Bear with the Cap.]
The Roman Breviary (1964)
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Thursday of the Seventeenth week in Ordinary Time
28 July 2016
Saints of the day
Sts. Nazarius and Celsus,
Martyrs (1st century)
SAINTS NAZARIUS and CELSUS
Martyrs
(1st century)
St. Nazarius’ father was a heathen, and held a considerable post in the Roman army. His mother, Perpetua, was a zealous Christian, and was instructed by St. Peter, or his disciples, in the most perfect maxims of our holy faith. Nazarius embraced it with so much ardor that he copied in his life all the great virtues he saw in his teachers; and out of zeal for the salvation of others, he left Rome, his native city, and preached the Faith in many places with a fervor and disinterestedness becoming a disciple of the apostles.
Arriving at Milan, he was there beheaded for the Faith, together with Celsus, a youth whom he carried with him to assist him in his travels. These martyrs suffered soon after Nero had raised the first persecution. Their bodies were buried separately in a garden without the city, where they were discovered and taken up by St. Ambrose, in 395.
In the tomb of St. Nazarius, a vial of the Saint’s blood was found as fresh and red as if it had been spilt that day. The faithful stained handkerchiefs with some drops, and also formed a certain paste with it, a portion of which St. Ambrose sent to St. Gaudentius, Bishop of Brescia.
St. Ambrose conveyed the bodies of the two martyrs into the new church of the apostles, which he had just built. A woman was delivered of an evil spirit in their presence. St. Ambrose sent some of these relics to St. Paulinus of Nola, who received them with great respect, as a most valuable present, as he testifies.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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Mark 16:15-20
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Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
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###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
###########################
Tuesday, July 26th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 13:36-43.
Saint Joachim and Saint Ann, parents of the blessed Virgin Mary – Memorial
26 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 13:36-43.
Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man,
the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one,
and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
Just as weeds are collected and burned (up) with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.
They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”
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Daily Mass, Tuesday 26 July 2016
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Saint Joachim and Saint Ann, parents of the blessed Virgin Mary – Memorial
26 July 2016
Saints of the day
Sts. Joachim & Anne,
Parents of the Bl. Virgin Mary
SAINT JOACHIM and SAINT ANNE
Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Memorial
These names are given to the mother and father of the Blessed Virgin by a tradition dating back to the second century.
By tradition Joachim and Anne are considered to be the names of the parents of Mary, the Mother of God. We have no historical evidence, however, of any elements of their lives, including their names. Any stories about Mary’s father and mother come to us through legend and tradition. We get the oldest story from a document called the Gospel of James, though this document is not ahistorical source, nor the Word of God. The legend told in this document says that after years of childlessness, an angel appeared to tell Anne and Joachim that they would have a child. Anne promised to dedicate this child to God (much the way that Samuel was dedicated by his mother Hannah — Anne — in 1 Kings).
As St. John Damascene wrote: “Joachim and Ann, how blessed a couple! All creation is indebted to you. For at your hands the Creator was offered a gift excelling all other gifts: a chaste mother, who alone was worthy of him.”
Whatever their names or the facts of their lives, the truth is that it was the parents of Mary who nurtured Mary, taught her, brought her up to be a worthy Mother of God. It was their teaching that led her to respond to God’s request with faith, “Let it be done to me as you will.” It was their example of parenting that Mary must have followed as she brought up her own son, Jesus. It was their faith that laid the foundation of courage and strength that allowed her to stand by the cross as her son was crucified and still believe.
Such parents can be examples and models for all parents.
Anne (or Ann) is the patron saint of Christian mothers and of women in labor.
Catholic Online
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“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15-20
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“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
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###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
###########################
Friday, July 22nd. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 20:1-2.11-18.
Saint Mary Magdalene – Feast
22 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Woman, why are you weeping?”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 20:1-2.11-18.
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”
But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb
and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.
And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher.
Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'”
Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and what he told her.
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Saint Mary Magdalene – Feast
22 July 2016
Saint of the day
St. Mary Magdalene – Feast
SAINT MARY MAGDALEN
Feast
Mary Magdalene, apostle of the apostles
Vatican City, 10 June 2016 – As expressly wished by the Holy Father, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has published a new decree, dated 3 June 2016, Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, by which the celebration of St. Mary Magdalene, currently obligatory memory, will be elevated in the general calendar to the level of a feast day.
Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, explains the meaning of the decree that will enable Mary Magdalene to be “celebrated” liturgically like the rest of the apostles. “The decision is situated in the current ecclesial context, which calls upon us to reflect more deeply on the dignity of women, the new evangelisation and the greatness of the mystery of divine mercy. It was St. John Paul II who dedicated great attention not only to the importance of women in the very mission of Christ and the Church, but also, and with special emphasis, to the peculiar function of St. Mary Magdalene as the first witness of the Risen Christ and the first messenger who announced to the apostles the resurrection of the Lord. This importance remains in today’s Church – as shown by the current commitment to a new evangelisation – which seeks to welcome, without distinction, men and women of any race, people, language and nation, to proclaim to them the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to accompany them on their earthly pilgrimage and to offer them the wonders of God’s salvation. St. Mary Magdalene is an example of true and authentic evangelisation, that is, an evangeliser who proclaims the joyful central message of Easter.”
“The Holy Father Francis has taken this decision precisely in the context of the Jubilee of Mercy to stress the importance of this women, who shows great love for Christ and was very dear to Christ, as confirmed by Rabano Mauro (“dilectrix Christi et Christo plurimum dilecta”: De vita beate Mariae magdalenae, Prologus) and St. Anselm of Canterbury (“electa dilectrix et dilecta Electrix Dei”, Oratio a LXXIII Sanctam Mariam Magdalenam). It is certain that the Christian tradition in the West, especially after St. Gregory the Great, identifies as the same person who poured perfume in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and the sister of Lazarus and Martha. This interpretation continued to influence the western ecclesiastical writers, Christian art and liturgical texts relating to the Saint. The Bollandists widely discussed the problem of the identification of the three women and prepared the way for the liturgical reform of the Roman Calendar. With the implementation of the reform, the tests of the Roman Missal, the Liturgy of the Hours and the Martyrologium Romanum, reference is made to Mary of Magdala. It is certain that Mary Magdalene formed part of the group of Jesus’ disciples, that she followed Him to the foot of the cross and in the garden in which she found the tomb, she was the first ‘testis divinae misericordiae’, as St. Gregory the Great affirmed. The Gospel of John says that Mary Magdalene wept, as she had not found the body of the Lord, and Jesus had mercy on her, allowing Himself to be recognised as the Master and transforming her tears into Paschal joy.”
The archbishop took the opportunity to highlight two ideas inherent in the biblical and liturgical texts of the new feast, which may contribute to a better understanding of the current importance of a saint such as Mary Magdalene.
“On the one hand, she has the honour of being the ‘prima testis’ to the resurrection of the Lord, the first to see the empty tomb and the first to hear the truth of His resurrection. Christ has a special consideration and mercy for this woman, who shows her love for Him, looking for Him in the garden with anguish and suffering, with ‘lacrimas humilitatis’, as St. Anselm says in the aforementioned prayer. In this sense, I would like to show the difference between the two women present in the garden of Paradise, and in the garden of the Resurrection. The first disseminates death where there was life, and the second proclaims Life from a tomb, the place of death. … Likewise, it is in the garden of resurrection that the Lord says to Mary Magdalene, ‘Noli me tangere’. It is an invitation not only to Mary, but also to all the Church, to enter into an experience of faith that overcomes any materialistic appropriation or human understanding of the divine mystery. It has ecclesial importance! It is a good lesson for every disciple of Jesus: do not seek human securities and worldly honours, but faith in the Living and Risen Christ.”
“Precisely since she was an eyewitness to the Risen Christ, she was also the first to testify before the apostles. She fulfils the mandate the Risen Christ gives her: ‘go to my brothers and say to them … Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her’. In this way she becomes, as is already known, an evangelist, or rather a messenger who announces the good news of the resurrection of the Lord; or, as Rabano Mauro and St. Thomas Aquinas said, ‘apostolorum apostola’, as she announces to the apostles what they in turn will announce to all the world. The Angelic Doctor is right to apply this term to Mary Magdalene: she is the witness to the Risen Christ and announces the message of the resurrection of the Lord, like the other apostles. Therefore it is right that the liturgical celebration of this woman should have the same level of festivity given to the apostles in the General Roman Calendar, and that the special mission of this woman be highlighted, as an example and model to every woman in the Church”, concluded Archbishop Roche.
************************************
She longed for Christ, though she thought he had been taken away
When Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and did not find the Lord’s body, she thought it had been taken away and so informed the disciples. After they came and saw the tomb, they too believed what Mary had told them. The text then says: The disciples went back home, and it adds: but Mary wept and remained standing outside the tomb.
We should reflect on Mary’s attitude and the great love she felt for Christ; for though the disciples had left the tomb, she remained. She was still seeking the one she had not found, and while she sought she wept; burning with the fire of love, she longed for him who she thought had been taken away. And so it happened that the woman who stayed behind to seek Christ was the only one to see him. For perseverance is essential to any good deed, as the voice of truth tells us: Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.
At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love. As David says: My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? And so also in the Song of Songs the Church says: I was wounded by love; and again: My soul is melted with love.
Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? She is asked why she is sorrowing so that her desire might be strengthened; for when she mentions whom she is seeking, her love is kindled all the more ardently.
Jesus says to her: Mary. Jesus is not recognised when he calls her “woman”; so he calls her by name, as though he were saying: Recognise me as I recognise you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself. And so Mary, once addressed by name, recognises who is speaking. She immediately calls him rabboni, that is to say, teacher, because the one whom she sought outwardly was the one who inwardly taught her to keep on searching.
Saint Gregory the Great (c.540-604), Pope, Doctor of the Church (Homily on the Gospel of John; PL 76, 1189-1193)
Vatican
Father,
your Son first entrusted to Mary Magdalene
the joyful news of his resurrection.
By her prayers and example
may we proclaim Christ as our living Lord
and one day see him in glory.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15-20
*********************************************
“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
###########################
Thursday, July 14th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 11:28-30.
Thursday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
14 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 11:28-30.
Jesus said to the crowds: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
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Daily Mass, Thursday 14 July 2016
___________________________________
Thursday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
14 July 2016
Commentary of the day
Dorotheus of Gaza (c.500-?), monk in Palestine
Instructions, I, 8 (SC 92, p. 159)
“Come to me”
Let anyone who would find their soul’s true rest learn humility! Let them understand that all joy, all glory, all rest are to be found in it just as the opposite is to be found in pride. For how, indeed, is it that we have come to all these tribulations? Why have we fallen into all this misery? Isn’t it because of our pride, our foolishness? Isn’t it because we followed our own evil counsel and were attached to the bitterness of our own wills? And why so? Wasn’t man created in perfect equanimity, in complete happiness, rest and glory? Wasn’t he in Paradise? He was commanded: Don’t do this, yet he did it. Do you not note his pride, his arrogance, his insubordination? “Man is a foolish creature,” said God, when he saw this insolence; “he has no idea how to be happy. Unless he experiences evil days he will be lost forthwith. Unless he learns what affliction is, he will never know the meaning of rest.” And so God gave him what he deserved by driving him out of Paradise…
And yet, as I often say to you, God’s goodness has not failed his creature but keeps turning towards it, calling it back: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” That is to say: See, how weary you are, how unhappy! You have learned by experience the evil of your disobedience. Come along then, be converted; come along, recognise your powerlessness and shame so that you can return to the rest and glory that is yours. Come on, you who were dead from pride: live by humility. “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.”
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
_______________________________________
Thursday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
14 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Camillus of Lellis,
Priest (1550-1614)
SAINT CAMILLUS OF LELLIS
Priest
(1550-1614)
The early years of Camillus gave no sign of sanctity. At the age of nineteen he took service with his father, an Italian noble, against the Turks, and after four years hard campaigning found himself, through his violent temper, reckless habits, and inveterate passion for gambling, a discharged soldier, and in such straitened circumstances that he was obliged to work as a laborer on a Capuchin convent which was then building. A few words from a Capuchin friar brought about his conversion, and he resolved to become a religious.
Thrice he entered the Capuchin novitiate, but each time an obstinate wound in his leg forced him to leave. He repaired to Rome for medical treatment, and there took St. Philip as his confessor, and entered the hospital of St. Giacomo, of which he became in time the superintendent. The carelessness of the paid chaplains and nurses towards the suffering patients now inspired him with the thought of founding a congregation to minister to their wants. With this end he was ordained priest, and in 1586 his community of the Servants of the Sick was confirmed by the Pope. Its usefulness was soon felt, not only in hospitals, but in private houses.
Summoned at every hour of the day and night, the devotion of Camillus never grew cold. With a woman’s tenderness he attended to the needs of his patients. He wept with them, consoled them, and prayed with them. He knew miraculously the state of their souls; and St. Philip saw angels whispering to two Servants of the Sick who were consoling a dying person. One day a sick man said to the Saint, “Father, may I beg you to make up my bed? it is very hard.” Camillus replied, “God forgive you, brother! You beg me! Don’t you know yet that you are to command me, for I am your servant and slave.” “Would to God,” he would cry, “that in the hour of my death one sigh or one blessing of these poor creatures might fall upon me!”
His prayer was heard. He was granted the same consolations in his last hour which he had so often procured for others. In the year 1614 he died with the full use of his faculties, after two weeks’ saintly preparation, as the priest was reciting the words of the ritual, “May Jesus Christ appear to thee with a mild and joyful countenance!”
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
_____________________________________________
Thursday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
14 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Kateri Tekakwitha,
Virgin (1656-1680)
Saint Kateri Tekakwitha
(The first native American saint)
Virgin
(1656-1680)
This wonderful crown of new blesseds, God’s bountiful gift to his Church, is completed by the sweet, frail yet strong figure of a young woman who died when she was only twenty-four years old: Kateri Tekakwitha, the “Lily of the Mohawks”, the Iroquois maiden, who in seventeenth century North America was the first to renew the marvels of sanctity of St. Scholastica, Saint Gertrude, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Angela Merici and Saint Rose of Lima, preceding, along the path of Love, her great spiritual sister, Therese of Child Jesus.
She spent her short life partly in what is now the State of New York and partly in Canada. She is a kind, gentle and hardworking person, spending her time working, praying, and meditating. At the age of twenty she receives Baptism. Even when following her tribe in the hunting seasons, she continues her devotions, before a rough cross carved by herself in the forest. When her family urges her to marry, she replies very serenely and calmly that she has Jesus as her only spouse. This decision, in view of the social conditions of women in the Indian Tribes at the time, exposes Kateri to the risk of living as outcast and in poverty. It is a bold, unusual and prophetic gesture: on 25 March, 1679, at the age of twenty-three, with the consent of her spiritual director, Kateri takes a vow of perpetual virginity – as far as we know the first time that this was done among the North American Indians.
The last months of her life are an ever clearer manifestation of her solid faith, straight-forward humility, calm resignation and radiant joy, even in the midst of terrible sufferings. Her last words, simple and sublime, whispered at the moment of her death, sum up, like a noble hymn, a life of purest charity: “Jesus, I love you….”.
The Church has declared to the world that Kateri Tekakwitha is saint, that she lived a life on earth of exemplary holiness and that she is now a member in heaven of the Communion of Saints who continually intercede with the merciful Father on our behalf.
During the canonization ceremony on 21 October, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI said in his homily: “Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life in spite of the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are. Saint Kateri, Protectress of Canada and the first native American saint, we Entrust to you the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America! May God bless the first nations!”
– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
_______________________________________________
Thursday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
14 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Francis Solano,
Priest (1549-1610)
SAINT FRANCIS SOLANO
Priest
(1549-1610)
The diocese of Cordova, in Spain, was the birthplace of this Saint, who won many thousands of souls to God. From his earliest years he was characterized by a modest behavior, prudent silence, and edifying meekness.
His education was entrusted to the Jesuit Fathers, and later he entered the Order of St. Francis. Soon he excelled every one in the house in humility, obedience, fervor in prayer, and self-denial.
In 1589 he sailed for South America to preach the Gospel to the Indians in Peru. While near shore the ship struck rocks, and there was danger of drowning.
The captain hurried the officers and principal passengers into the only boat there was, and tried to induce the missionary to accompany them; but he refused to do so. Consoling the remaining passengers, he prayed fervently and alone kept up his hope in God’s mercy. At last rescuers arrived and all were taken off in safety.
The missionary did not confine his ministry to Lima. He visited the forests and deserts inhabited by the Indians, and by degrees he won their trust and in this way baptized nine thousand Indians. He was then recalled to Lima, which at that time was like a godless Ninive. Francis preached to the hardened sinners, and the whole city became converted.
Finally after a painful sickness his last words being, “God be praised!” his soul departed this earth on July 14, 1610. He was declared Blessed by Pope Clement X. in 1675, and canonized by Benedict XIII. in 1726. St. Francis’ feast is held July 24th.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15-20
*********************************************
“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
###########################
Sunday, July 10th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 10:25-37.
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C
10 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“The one who treated him with mercy.”
Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 10:25-37.
There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.
A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight.
He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him.
The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’
Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?”
He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto
YOUTUBE
of
The Sunday Mass – 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 10, 2016)
by
Presider: Rev. Ernesto DeCiccio
The Sunday Mass – 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 10, 2016)
________________________________________
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C
10 July 2016
Saints of the day
Sts. Rufina & Secunda,
Virgins and Martyrs (3rd century)
SAINTS RUFINA AND SECUND
Virgins and Martyrs
(3rd century°)
Rufina and Secunda were sisters and Roman virgins who rejected marriage to Armentarius and Verinus because they had vowed their virginity to Christ. They were apprehended during the reign of the Emperors Valerian and Gallienus and, when they could not be swayed from their resolution by the blandishments and threats of Junius, the prefect, they were afflicted with various kinds of torments.
But when, guarded by angels, they persevered in their holy resolution, they were beheaded at the tenth milestone on the Aurelien Way. Their bodies were buried by a matron named Plautilla on her estate outside the city, and were afterwards buried in the basilica of Constantine, near the baptistry.
The Roman Breviary (1964)
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
_____________________________________________
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C
10 July 2016
Saints of the day
The Seven Holy Brothers
& their mother St. Felicitas, Martyrs († c. 150)
THE SEVEN HOLY BROTHERS
and ST. FELICITAS, their Mother
Martyrs
(† c. 150)
The illustrious martyrdom of these Saints happened at Rome, under the Emperor Antoninus. The seven brothers were the sons of St. Felicitas, a noble, pious, Christian widow in Rome, who, after the death of her husband, served God in a state of continency and employed herself wholly in prayer, fasting, and works of charity. By the public and edifying example of this lady and her whole family many idolaters were moved to renounce the worship of their false gods, and to embrace the Faith of Christ.
This excited the anger of the heathen priests, who complained to the emperor that the boldness with which Felicitas publicly practised the Christian religion drew many from the worship of the immortal gods, who were the guardians and protectors of the empire, and that, in order to appease these false gods, it was necessary to compel this lady and her children to sacrifice to them.
Publius, the prefect of Rome, caused the mother and her sons to be apprehended and brought before him, and, addressing her, said, “Take pity on your children, Felicitas; they are in the bloom of youth, and may aspire to the greatest honors and preferments.” The holy mother answered, “Your pity is really impiety, and the compassion to which you exhort me would make me the most cruel of mothers.” Then turning herself towards her children, she said to them, “My sons, look up to heaven, where Jesus Christ with his Saints expects you. Be faithful in his love, and fight courageously for your souls.”
Publius, being exasperated at this behavior, commanded her to be cruelly buffeted; he then called the children to him one after another, and used many artful speeches, mingling promises with threats to induce them to adore the gods. His arguments and threats were equally in vain, and the brothers were condemned to be scourged. After being whipped, they were remanded to prison, and the prefect, despairing to overcome their resolution, laid the whole process before the emperor. Antoninus gave an order that they should be sent to different judges, and be condemned to different deaths.
Januarius was scourged to death with whips loaded with plummets of lead. The two next, Felix and Philip, were beaten with clubs till they expired. Sylvanus, the fourth, was thrown headlong down a steep precipice. The three youngest, Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis, were beheaded, and the same sentence was executed upon the mother four months after.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
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“This is my commandment:
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Saturday, July 9th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 10:24-33.
Saturday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
9 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 10:24-33.
Jesus said to his Apostles: “No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master.
It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household!
Therefore do not be afraid of them. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”
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Fr. Patrick Fitzpatrick celebrates Daily Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto
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DAILY MASS – Saturday 9 July 2016
__________________________________
Saturday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
9 July 2016
Saints of the day
Sts. Agostino Zhao Rong (+ 1815)
and Companions, Martyrs in China
AGOSTINO ZHAO RONG
Priest and martyr (+ 1815)
and Companions
Martyrs in China
A period of persecution in regard to the Christian religion occurred in the nineteenth century.
While Catholicism had been authorised by some Emperors in the preceding centuries, Emperor Kia-Kin (1796-1821) published, instead, numerous and severe decrees against it. The first was issued in 1805. Two edicts of 1811 were directed against those among the Chinese who were studying to receive sacred orders, and against priests who were propagating the Christian religion. A decree of 1813 exonerated voluntary apostates from every chastisement, that is, Christians who spontaneously declared that they would abandon their faith, but all others were to be dealt with harshly.
In 1815 there came two other decrees, with which approval was given to the conduct of the Viceroy of Sichuan who had beheaded Monsignor Dufresse, of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (M.E.P), and some Chinese Christians. As a result, there was a worsening of the persecution.
St. John Gabriel Taurin Dufresse, M.E.P, Bishop, was arrested on the 18th of May 1815, taken to Chengdu, condemned and executed on the 14th of September 1815.
Saint Augustine Zhao Rong was a Chinese diocesan priest. Having first been one of the soldiers who had escorted Monsignor Dufresse from Chengdu to Beijing, he was moved by his patience and had then asked to be numbered among the neophytes. Once baptised, he was sent to the seminary and then ordained a priest. Arrested, he had to suffer the most cruel tortures and then died in 1815.
– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
_______________________________
Saturday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
9 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Veronica Giuliani,
Virgin (1660-1727)
Saint Veronica Giuliani
Virgin
(1660-1727)
Ursula Giuliani was born at Mercatello in Urbino, Italy, in 1660. Her parents, Francesco Giuliana and Benedetta Mancini, were both of gentle birth. In baptism she was named Ursula, and showed marvelous signs of sanctity. When but eighteen months old she uttered her first words to upbraid a merchant who was serving a false measure of oil, saying distinctly: “Do justice, God sees you.” At the age of three years old she began to be favored with Divine communications, and to show great compassion for the poor. She would set apart a portion of her food for them, and even part with her clothes when she met a poor child in scantily clad. These traits and a great love for the Cross developed as she grew older. Ursula’s father presented suitors in hopes that they would marry her; the girl became ill at the idea of not devoting her life to God, and she finally received her father’s blessing on her call to religious life.
She joigned the Poor Clares in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy, on July 17th, 1677 at the age of 17, receiving the veil on the 28th of October and taking the name of Veronica in memory of the Passion. She became totally submissive to the will of her superiors, though her novitiate was marked by extraordinary interior trials and temptations to return to the world. At her profession in 1678 she experienced a great desire to suffer in union with our Savior crucified for the conversion of sinners. At this time, she had a vision of Christ bearing His cross and from that moment on, suffered an acute physical pain in her heart. After her death, the figure of the cross was found impressed upon her heart.
At the age of 37, she received the stigmata in her hands, feet, and side during a long period of ecstasy on April 5th, 1697. By order of the bishop she submitted to medical treatment, but obtained no relief. She impressed her fellow nuns by remaining remarkably practical despite her numerous ecstatic experiences. Veronica was elected abbess of the convent in 1716. She wrote a ten volume Diary of the Passion, which recorded her mystical experiences.
On July 9th, 1727 Veronica died of a stroke caused by a brain hemorrhage at the age of 67. Her heart was examined after death and “miraculously” showed images of a cross, crown of thorns, and chalice, as she had said it would. Examination also revealed a curvature of the right shoulder as if she had carried a heavy cross.
Veronica was canonized by Gregory XVI in 1839.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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Mark 16:15-20
*********************************************
“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
###########################
Friday, July 8th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 10:16-23.
Friday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
8 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 10:16-23.
Jesus said to his Apostles: “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of men, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans.
When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.”
When they persecute you in one town, flee to another. Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”
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DAILY MASS – Friday 8 July 2016
_______________________________________
Friday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
8 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Edgar the Peaceful (c.943-975)
SAINT EDGAR THE PEACEFUL
KING OF ENGLAND
(c.943 – 975)
Although few people have heard of him, King Edgar is regarded as the first ruler of a consolidated England.
Father of Saint Edward the Martyr and great-grandson of Alfred the Great, Edgar was born to king Edmund the Magnificent and St Elfgiva.
He was efficient, peaceful, and unusually tolerant of local customs. He supported his friend Saint Dunstan, who served as his counselor.
England underwent a religious revival in his reign, and he is venerated at Glastonbury.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
______________________________________
Friday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
8 July 2016
Saints of the day
Bl. Peter Vigne,
Priest (1670-1740)
PETER VIGNE
Priest
(1670-1740)
Peter Vigne was born August 20 1670 in Privas (France), a small town still feeling the effects of the Wars of Religion from the previous century. His father, Peter Vigne, a honest textile merchant, and his mother, Frances Gautier, married in the Catholic Church, had their five children baptised in the Catholic parish of Saint Thomas, Privas. Two daughters died in infancy. Peter and his two older siblings, John-Francis and Eleonore, lived with their parents in relative comfort.
When he was 11 years old, Peter was chosen by the Parish Priest to act as a witness, signing the parish register for Baptisms, Marriages or Deaths.
After receiving a good level of education and instruction, towards the end of his teenage years, his life was suddenly transformed by a new awareness of the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. This experience led him to centre his life on Jesus, who offered himself on the Cross for love of us, and in the Eucharist, never ceases to give himself to all men. In 1690, he entered the Sulpician Seminary in Viviers. Ordained a priest September 18th,1694 in Bourg Saint Andeol by the Bishop of Viviers, he was sent as curate to Saint-Agreve where, for six years he exercised his priestly ministry, in friendship with his Parish Priest and beloved by his parishioners.
Always attentive to discern in life’s events what the Lord was asking of him, he felt called elsewhere. With understandable hesitancy in the beginning and then with increasing certitude, he pursued his spiritual itinerary along new paths. His desire to work as a missionary among the poor was central to his decision to join the Vincentians in Lyon, in 1700. There he received a solid formation in poverty and in conducting “popular missions”, and with his fellow priests began visiting towns and villages in the work of evangelization. In 1706, he left the Vincentians of “his own free will”. Now more than ever he was passionate for the salvation of souls, especially for the poor people living in the countryside. After a period of searching, his vocation took shape with increasing clarity. He became an “itinerant missionary” applying his own pastoral methods, whilst submitting his ministry to the authorization of his hierarchical superiors.
For more than thirty years he tirelessly travelled on foot or on horseback the ways of Vivarais and Dauphiné, and even further ahead. He faced the fatigue of being constantly on the move, as well as severe weather conditions, in order to make Jesus known, loved and served. He preached, visited the sick, catechised the children, administered the sacraments, even going as far as carrying “his” confessional on his back, ready at all times to celebrate and bestow the Mercy of God. He celebrated Mass, exposed the Blessed Sacrament, and taught the faithful the prayer of Adoration. Mary, “Beautiful Tabernacle of God among men” was also given a place of honour in his prayer and his teaching.
In 1712, he came to Boucieu-le-Roi, where the terrain favoured the erection of a Way of the Cross. With the help of parishioners he constructed 39 stations throughout the village and countryside, teaching the faithful to follow Jesus from the Upper Room to Easter and Pentecost. Boucieu became his place of residence. There, he gathered together a few women, charging them to “accompany the pilgrims” on the Way of the Cross and help them to pray and meditate.
It was there that he founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. On November 30th, 1715, in the church at Boucieu, he gave them the cross and the religious habit. He invited them to assure continuous adoration of Jesus present in the Eucharist and to live together in fellowship. Anxious to give the youth access to instruction, thus helping them grow in their faith and Christian values, Peter Vigne opened schools and also established a “Training School” for teachers.
Such a challenging and busy lifestyle needed some support. For that reason, whenever Peter Vigne was in Lyon on business, he never failed to call on his former seminary tutors, the priests of Saint Sulpice, to meet his confessor and spiritual director. Drawn by the eucharistic spirituality of the Priests of the Blessed Sacrament, founded by Monsignor d’Authier de Sisgaud, he was accepted as an associate member of this society of priests, on January 25th, 1724, in Valence, and benefited by their spiritual and temporal help.
Whilst continuing to accompany his young Congregation, Peter Vigne persisted with his apostolic works, and to make the fruits of his missions more available, he found time to write books : rules to live by, works of spirituality, especially the one entitled “Meditations on the most beautiful book, Jesus Christ suffering and dying on the Cross“.
The physical strength of our pilgrim for God, the demands of his apostolic activities, the long hours he spent in adoration and his life of poverty, bear witness not only to a fairly robust physique, but above all to a passionate love of Jesus Christ who loved his own to the end (John 13:1).
At the age of 70, the effects of exhaustion began to show. During a mission at Rencurel, in the Vercors mountains, he was taken ill and had to interrupt his preaching. Despite all his efforts to celebrate the Eucharist one more time and encourage the faithful to love Jesus, feeling his end was near, he expressed once again his missionary zeal, then withdrew in quiet prayer and reflection. A priest and two Sisters came in haste to accompany him in his final moments. On July 8th, 1740, he went to join the One he had so loved, adored and served. His body was taken back to its final resting place in the little church in Boucieu where it remains to this day.
He was beatified by John Paul II on October 3rd, 2004.
– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
____________________________________
PLEASE JOIN
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DAILY GOSPEL OF THE LORD JESUS
with
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“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15-20
*********************************************
“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
###########################
Thursday, July 7th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 10:7-15.
Thursday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
7 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“As you go, make this proclamation:
‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 10:7-15.
Jesus said to his Apostles: “As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”
Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts;
no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep.
Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave.
As you enter a house, wish it peace.
If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you.”
Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words–go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.
Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”
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DAILY MASS – Thursday 7 July 2016
_____________________________________
Thursday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
7 July 2016
Saints of the day
St. Pantaenus,
Father of the Church, (+ c. 216)
Image: N/A
SAINT PANTÆNUS
Father of the Church
(+c. 216)
This learned father and apostolic man flourished in the second century. He was by birth a Sicilian, by profession a Stoic philosopher. His esteem for virtue led him into an acquaintance with the Christians, and being charmed with the innocence and sanctity of their conversation, he opened his eyes to the truth. He studied the Holy Scriptures under the disciples of the apostles, and his thirst after sacred learning brought him to Alexandria, in Egypt, where the disciples of St. Mark had instituted a school of the Christian doctrine.
Pantænus sought not to display his talents in that great mart of literature and commerce; but this great progress in sacred learning was after some time discovered, and he was drawn out of that obscurity in which his humility sought to bury itself. Being placed at the head of the Christian school some time before the year 179, by his learning and excellent manner of teaching he raised its reputation above all the schools of the philosophers, and the lessons which he read, and which were gathered from the flowers of the prophets and apostles, conveyed light and knowledge into the minds of all his hearers.
The Indians who traded at Alexandria entreated him to pay their country a visit, whereupon he forsook his school and went to preach the Gospel to the Eastern nations. St. Pantænus found some seeds of the faith already sown in the Indies, and a book of the Gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew, which St. Bartholomew had carried thither. He brought it back with him to Alexandria, whither he returned after he had zealously employed some years in instructing the Indians in the faith.
St. Pantænus continued to teach in private till about the year 216, when he closed a noble and excellent life by a happy death.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
_________________________________________
Thursday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
7 July 2016
Saints of the day
Bl. María Romero Meneses (1902-1977)
BLESSED MARÍA ROMERO MENESES
Salesian Sister
(1902-1977)
Blessed María Romero Meneses, Salesian Sister, Social Apostle of Costa Rica, born in Granada, Nicaragua, on 13th of January 1902, died on July 7th, 1977 at Leòn, Nicaragua. Her body rests in the Salesian chapel at San José, Costa Rica. In Costa Rica María was a social apostle though a multiplicity of initiatives designed for the needs of the poor, starting with teaching catechism and vocational skills and finishing with a medical centre, a school for teaching the social doctrine of the Church and seven villages for poor families.
She was one of eight children of an upper class family of Nicaragua. She was beautifully educated by her aunts and her parents. Since she had artistic talent, her parents had María trained in drawing and painting as well as in piano and violin by outstanding teachers. She was also enrolled in the Salesian Sisters’ school. In 1914 when she was 12, she underwent a year of sickness whose miraculous cure led to her total confidence in Our Lady, Help of Christians and to the vision of her Salesian vocation.
María came down with a serious form of rheumatic fever that paralyzed her for six months, a real source of trial and suffering because it made her miss a year at her beloved school. However, during this trial, María already showed a mature faith, character and will. She called her sufferings “gifts of God”. Even when a doctor informed her that her heart had been seriously damaged, she did not complain, but put her confidence for a complete recovery in Our Lady, Help of Christians.
To a school friend who visited her, she said after receiving heavenly guidance, “I know that the Blessed Virgin will cure me”. A few days later, María returned to school in good health; no one could believe she had ever been so sick.
On December 8th, 1915 María joined the Marian Association “Daughters of Mary” offering herself with great confidence to the Mother of God. Her Salesian spiritual director Don Emilio Bottari helped her discern her vocation and her mystical experiences. In 1920, at age of 18, María joined the Daughters of Mary, Help of Christians. Her spiritual director Fr Emilio Bottari gave her a prophetic recommendation: “Even though difficult moments will come and you will feel torn to pieces, be faithful and strong in your vocation”. For María, these words sustained her for the rest of her religious life.
On January 6th, 1929 in Nicaragua, María made her final profession. Her interior life unfolded as each day she strived to live joyful union with God as his instrument, after the example of Don Bosco as is apparent from her spiritual writings.
In 1931 she was sent to San José, Costa Rica, which became her second country. In 1933 she was teaching music, drawing, and typing to the rich girls in the school, while beginning in the barrios with catechetics and practical trades. In 1934 Sr María began to win over the young girls who were her students in the school (misioneritas) to join her in the work of evangelizing, catechizing and advancing materially the oppressed, isolated and abused. She found the shape of her life’s work: bringing about the revolution of charity by inspiring the have’s to help the have-not’s. In 1945 she began to set up recreational centres; in 1953 centres for the distribution of food. In 1961 she opened a casita as a school for poor girls. In 1966 a clinic where God’s Providence helped her with the volunteer services of fine doctors and donations of needed medicines. Soon she started to plan a village so poor families could have decent homes. On a piece of land outside the city, María began to build homes. In 1973, the first seven homes were built in the Centro San José. Then a farm and a market along with school space for religious formation, catechesis and job training.
There was also a church dedicated to Our Lady, Help of Christians. María always joined love and devotion to the Eucharist and Mary with her social apostolate. María was very “limited” in terms of available funding; but, with total confidence, she always left everything in the hands of Our Lady since it was God’s work. In her old age, she retired from full time teaching but never from catechesis of young and old. On July 7th, 1977, in Leon, Nicaragua in the Salesian house where she had been sent for a good rest, María died of a fatal heart attack at 75 years old. Her mortal remains were sent back to San José Costa Rica, to be buried in the Salesian Chapel.
She was beatified by John Paul II on April 14th, 2002.
– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
_____________________________________
PLEASE JOIN
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DAILY GOSPEL OF THE LORD JESUS
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“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15-20
*********************************************
“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
###########################
Tuesday, July 5th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 9:32-38.
Tuesday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
5 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues,
proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 9:32-38.
Ademoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus,
and when the demon was driven out the mute person spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
But the Pharisees said, “He drives out demons by the prince of demons.”
Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness.
At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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Fr. Jack Lynch celebrates Daily Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto
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DAILY MASS – TUESDAY 5 July 2016
___________________________________________
Tuesday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
5 July 2016
Commentary of the day
Saint John-Mary Vianney (1786-1859),
priest, curé of Ars
Selected thoughts of the Curé d’Ars
On using temptations well
Just as the good soldier is not afraid of battle so the good Christian has no fear of temptation. (…) The greatest temptation is not to have one! It might even be said that we are fortunate to have temptations: these are the times of spiritual harvest when we gather up for heaven. (…) If we were thoroughly saturated with God’s holy presence it would be easy for us to resist the enemy. With the thought ‘God sees you!’ we would never sin.
There was a saint who complained to our Lord after being tempted and said to him: “Where were you, my most loveable Jesus, during that awful storm?” Our Lord answered: “I was in the center of your heart…”.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
__________________________________________
Tuesday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
5 July 2016
Saint of the day
St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria,
Priest (1502-1539)
SAINT ANTHONY MARY ZACCARIA
Priest
(1502-1539)
Anthony Mary Zaccaria, born of a noble family of Cremona, while still a boy shone with modesty of manners and compassion for the poor.
He studied the humanities, philosophy and medicine, and easily surpassed his companions both in moral integrity and in mental ability.
By divine inspiration, he devoted himself earnestly to the study of the Sacred Sciences; then, promoted to the priesthood, he served in that office so well that his fellow-citizens used to call him Father and Angel of his country.
At Milan, with Bartholomew Ferrari and James Morigia, most saintly men, he founded an association of Clerks Regular, named after St. Paul, and a society of nuns called the Angelicals. He had a singular devotion towards the Holy Eucharist and was an extraordinary promoter of public exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
Endowed with heavenly gifts by God and worn out by his great labors, he was seized with a dangerous illness and died a most holy death at Cremona on the third of the Nones of July in the year 1539.
Pope Leo XIII approved and confirmed the veneration shown him and added him to the calendar of the saints.
The Roman Breviary (1964
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15-20
*********************************************
THE LORD IS KIND AND MERCIFUL
#####################################
“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
#################################
Monday, July 4th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 9:18-26.
Monday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
4 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 9:18-26.
While Jesus was speaking, an official came forward, knelt down before him, and said, “My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.”
Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples.
A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak.
She said to herself, “If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured.”
Jesus turned around and saw her, and said, “Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.” And from that hour the woman was cured.
When Jesus arrived at the official’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion,
he said, “Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they ridiculed him.
When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand, and the little girl arose.
And news of this spread throughout all that land.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
Image: From Biblehub
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National Catholic Broadcasting Council
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Msgr. Sam Bianco celebrates Daily Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto
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DAILY MASS – Monday 4 July 2016
______________________________________
Monday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
4 July 2016
Saint of the day
St. Elizabeth of Portugal (1271-1336)
SAINT ELIZABETH OF PORTUGAL
Queen of Portugal
(1271-1336)
Elizabeth was born in 1271. She was daughter of Pedro III. of Arragon, being named after her aunt, St. Elizabeth of Hungary. At twelve years of age she was given in marriage to Denis, King of Portugal, and from a holy child became a saintly wife. She heard Mass and recited the Divine Office daily, but her devotions were arranged with such prudence that they interfered with no duty of her state. She prepared for her frequent communions by severe austerities, fasting thrice a week, and by heroic works of charity.
She was several times called on to make peace between her husband and her son Alphonso, who had taken up arms against him. Her husband tried her much, both by his unfounded jealousy and by his infidelity to herself. A slander affecting Elizabeth and one of her pages made the king determine to slay the youth, and he told a lime-burner to cast into his kiln the first page who should arrive with a royal message. On the day fixed the page was sent; but the boy, who was in the habit of hearing Mass daily, stopped on his way to do so. The king, in suspense, sent a second page, the very originator of the calumny, who, coming first to the kiln, was at once cast into the furnace and burned. Shortly after, the first page arrived from the church, and took back to the king the lime-burner’s reply that his orders had been fulfilled. Thus hearing Mass saved the page’s life and proved the queen’s innocence. Her patience, and the wonderful sweetness with which she even cherished the children of her rivals, completely won the king from his evil ways, and he became a devoted husband and a truly Christian king.
She built many charitable institutions and religious houses, among others a convent of Poor Clares. After her husband’s death, she wished to enter their Order; but being dissuaded by her people, who could not do without her, she took the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, and spent the rest of her life in redoubled austerities and almsgiving.
She died at the age of sixty-five, while in the act of making peace between her children.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15-20
*********************************************
“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
#################################
Sunday, July 3rd. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 10:1-12.17-20.
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C
3 July 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. “
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 10:1-12.17-20.
The Lord appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit.
He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.
Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.
Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’
If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you.
Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another.
Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you,
cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.'”
Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say,
‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the kingdom of God is at hand.
I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.
The seventy (-two) returned rejoicing, and said, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name.”
Jesus said, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky.
Behold, I have given you the power ‘to tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.
Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
Image: From Biblehub
#######################################
THANK YOU
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto
YOUTUBE
of
The Sunday Mass – 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 3, 2016)
by
Presider: Rev. Peter Jae Choi
The Sunday Mass – 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 3, 2016)
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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C
3 July 2016
Saint of the day
St. Thomas,
Apostle -Feast
SAINT THOMAS
Apostle
St. Thomas was one of the fishermen on the Lake of A Galilee whom our Lord called to be his apostles. By nature slow to believe, too apt to see difficulties, and to look at the dark side of things, he had withal a most sympathetic, loving, and courageous heart.
Once when Jesus spoke of the mansions in his Father’s house, St. Thomas, in his simplicity, asked: “Lord, we know not whither you go, and how can we know the way?”
When Jesus turned to go toward Bethany to the grave of Lazarus, the desponding apostle at once feared the worst for his beloved Lord, yet cried out bravely to the rest: “Let us also go and die with him”
After the Resurrection, incredulity again prevailed, and whilst the wounds of the crucifixion were imprinted vividly on his affectionate mind, he would not credit the report that Christ had indeed risen. But at the actual sight of the pierced hands and side, and the gentle rebuke of his Saviour, unbelief was gone forever; and his faith and ours has ever triumphed in the joyous utterance into which he broke: “My Lord and my God!”
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
_____________________________________
PLEASE JOIN
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DAILY GOSPEL OF THE LORD JESUS
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From
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___________________________________
“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:15-20
*********************************************
“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful
****************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
#################################
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN 
Friday, October 21st. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 12:54-59.
Friday of the Twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time
21 October 2016
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
“If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, make an
effort to settle the matter on the way; otherwise your opponent will
turn you over to the judge”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 12:54-59.
Jesus said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west you say immediately that it is going to rain–and so it does;
and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot–and so it is.
You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?
If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, make an effort to settle the matter on the way; otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the constable, and the constable throw you into prison.
I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine,USCCB
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
Image: From Bible Hub
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THANK YOU
National Catholic Broadcasting Council
Daily TV Mass
YouTube
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Father Michael Coutts S.J.
Celebrates Daily Mass from Loretto Abbey in Toronto
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Daily TV Mass Friday, October 21, 2016
_______________________________________
Friday of the Twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time
21 October 2016
Commentary of the day
Saint John-Paul II,
Pope from 1978 to 2005
Apostolic Letter: Novo millennio ineunte, paras.55-56, 06/01/2001 (copyright Libreria editirce Vaticana
Knowing how to interpret the signs of the times
In the climate of increased cultural and religious pluralism which is expected to mark the society of the new millennium, it is obvious that this dialogue will be especially important in establishing a sure basis for peace and warding off the dread spectre of those wars of religion which have so often bloodied human history. The name of the one God must become increasingly what it is: a name of peace and a summons to peace.
Dialogue, however, cannot be based on religious indifferentism, and we Christians are in duty bound, while engaging in dialogue, to bear clear witness to the hope that is within us (cf. 1 Pt 3:15)… This missionary duty, moreover, does not prevent us from approaching dialogue with an attitude of profound willingness to listen. We know in fact that, in the presence of the mystery of grace, infinitely full of possibilities and implications for human life and history, the Church herself will never cease putting questions, trusting in the help of the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth (cf. Jn 14:17), whose task it is to guide her “into all the truth” (Jn 16:13).
This is a fundamental principle not only for the endless theological investigation of Christian truth, but also for Christian dialogue with other philosophies, cultures and religions. In the common experience of humanity, for all its contradictions, the Spirit of God, who “blows where he wills” (Jn 3:8), not infrequently reveals signs of his presence, which help Christ’s followers to understand more deeply the message which they bear. Was it not with this humble and trust-filled openness that the Second Vatican Council sought to read “the signs of the times”? (Gaudium et spes, §4) Even as she engages in an active and watchful discernment aimed at understanding the “genuine signs of the presence or the purpose of God”, (§11) the Church acknowledges that she has not only given, but has also “received from the history and from the development of the human race”(§44). This attitude of openness, combined with careful discernment, was adopted by the Council also in relation to other religions.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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Friday of the Twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time
21 October 2016
Saints of the day
St. Hilarion,
Abbot and Hermit (291-371)
SAINT HILARION
Abbot and Hermit
(291-371)
St. Hilarion was born of heathen parents, near Gaza, and was converted while studying grammar in Alexandria. Shortly after, he visited St. Antony, and, still only in his fifteenth year, he became a solitary in the Arabian desert.
A multitude of monks, attracted by his sanctity, peopled the desert where he lived. In consequence of this, he fled from one country to another, seeking to escape the praise of men; but everywhere his miracles of mercy betrayed his presence. Even his last retreat at Cyprus was broken by a paralytic, who was cured by St. Hilarion, and then spread the fame of the Saint.
He died with the words, “Go forth, my soul; why dost thou doubt? Nigh seventy years hast thou served God, and dost thou fear death?”
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
_________________________________________
Friday of the Twenty-ninth week in Ordinary Time
21 October 2016
Saints of the day
St. Ursula,
Virgin and Martyr († 453)
SAINT URSULA
Virgin and Martyr
(† 453)
A number of Christian families had entrusted the education of their children to the care of the pious Ursula, and some persons of the world had in like manner placed themselves under her direction.
England being then harassed by the Saxons, Ursula deemed that she ought, after the example of many of her compatriots, to seek an asylum in Gaul. She met with an abiding-place on the borders of the Rhine, not far from Cologne, where she hoped to find undisturbed repose; but a horde of Huns having invaded the country, she was exposed, together with all those who were under her guardianship, to the most shameful outrages.
Without wavering, they preferred one and all to meet death rather than incur shame. Ursula herself gave the example, and was, together with her companions, cruelly massacred in the year 453.
The name of St. Ursula has from remote ages been held in great honor throughout the Church; she has always been regarded as the patroness of young persons and the model of teachers.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2016
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“I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20.
***********************************************
“This is my commandment:
love one another as I love you.”
###########################
BE MERCIFUL, O LORD,
FOR WE HAVE SINNED.
##########################
October 8, 2016 | Categories: All Saints Day, All Souls' Day, CHRISTMAS, COMMENTARY OF THE DAY, DAILY GOSPEL OF LORD JESUS CHRIST, DAILY MASS, DAILY ROSARY, Easter, EASTER - EXSULTET, FEAST, FEAST OF THE CHURCH, HOLY FAMILY, HOLY WEEK, Lent, MASS OF THE DAY, Memorial, Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, SAINTS OF THE DAY, SOLEMNITY, The Ascension of Jesus, The Most Holy Trinity, THE NATIVITY STORY, The Passion | Tags: พระวรสาร, สารวัด ของ วัดนักบุญฟรังซีสเซเวียร์ สามเสน, Bangkok, Bible, CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THAILAND, CHRIST THE KING, Commentary of the day, DAILY MASS, Dedication, FEAST OF THE CHURCH, FRANCIS XAVIER, Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus, Jesus Christ, JESUS CURES, JESUS HEALING, LORD JESUS CHRIST, SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER BANGKOK, Saints of the day, SAMSEN, Solemnity | Leave a comment