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Posts tagged “memorial

Sunday, September 20th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Mark 9:30-37.


Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

20 September 2015

“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me,

receives not me but the one who sent me.”

1 CHILDS wjas0216

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 9:30-37.

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it.
He was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death he will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him.
They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”
But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.
Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Taking a child he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it he said to them,
Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Bible Hub

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Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

20 September 2015

Commentary  of the day

Saint Basil (c.330-379),

Icon of St. Basil the Great from the St. Sophia Cathedral of Kiev

Icon of St. Basil the Great from the
St. Sophia Cathedral of Kiev

Saint Basil (c.330-379),

monk and Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Doctor of the Church
Sermon on humility, 5-6

“If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all”

Remember this saying : “God resists the proud but will always favor the humble” (Jas 4,6). Keep before you the Lord’s words: “Those who humble themselves will be exalted and those who exalt themselves will be humbled” (Mt 23,12)… If it seems to you that you have some good quality, set it to your account but without forgetting your faults; don’t boast about what you have done well today; don’t set aside recent and past evil. If the present gives you reason to glory, remember the past! That is how you will pierce the stupid abcess! And if you see your neighbour sinning, beware that you don’t just consider him in the light of this lapse but think, too, about what he is doing, or has done, that is good. Very often you will discover him to be better than you if you examine your life as a whole and don’t add up the fragmentary bits. For God doesn’t examine us in a fragmentary fashion… Let us often remember all this so as to preserve ourselves from pride, humbling ourselves so as to be raised up.

Let us imitate the Lord, who came down from heaven to the lowest depths… Yet after such a humbling he caused his glory to shine forth, glorifying with himself those who had been despised together with him. These were indeed, in fact, his first blessed disciples who, poor and naked, went out through all the world, without words of wisdom, without sumptuous escort, but alone and in anguish, vagabonds by land and by sea, beaten with rods, stoned, pursued and, in the end, put to death. Such as these are for us the divine teachings of our Father. Let us imitate them that we may also come to eternal glory, Christ’s perfect and authentic gift.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

20 September 2015

Saints of the day

St. Andrew Kim Taegon & St. Paul Chong Hasang & Companions, Martyrs

Santi_Martiri_Coreani-Andrea_Kim_Taegon_Paolo_Chong_Hasang_e_compagni-C

St. Andrew Kim Taegon
& St. Paul Chong Hasang
& companions
Martyrs
(19th century)

        The evangelization of Korea began during the 17th century through a group of lay persons. A strong vital Christian community flourished there under lay leadership until missionaries arrived from the Paris Foreign Mission Society.

        During the terrible persecutions that occurred in the 19th century (in 1839, 1866, and 1867), one hundred and three members of the Christian community gave their lives as martyrs. Outstanding among these witnesses to the faith were the first Korean priest and pastor, Andrew Kim Taegon, and the lay apostle, Paul Chong Hasang.

Among the other martyrs were a few bishops and priests, but for the most part lay people, men and women, married and unmarried, children, young people, and the elderly. All suffered greatly for the Faith and consecrated the rich beginnings of the Church of Korea with their blood as martyrs.

        Pope John Paul II, during his trip to Korea, canonized these martyrs on May 6, 1984, and inserted their feast into the Calendar of the Universal Church.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

St. Paul Chong Hasang From Catholic online

St. Paul Chong Hasang
From Catholic online

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Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

20 September 2015

Saints of the day

Sts. Eustachius and Companions,

Martyrs († 2nd century)

Sant_Eustachio_Placido_H

SAINTS EUSTACHIUS
and Companions
Martyrs
(† 2nd century)

        Eustachius, called Placidus before his conversion, was a distinguished officer of the Roman army under the Emperor Trajan. One day, whilst hunting a deer, he suddenly perceived between the horns of the animal the image of our crucified Saviour. Responsive to what he considered a voice from heaven, he lost not a moment in becoming a Christian. In a short time he lost all his possessions and his position, and his wife and children were taken from him.

Reduced to the most abject poverty, he took service with a rich land-owner to tend his fields. In the mean time the empire suffered greatly from the ravages of barbarians. Trajan sought out our Saint, and placed him in command of the troops sent against the enemy. During this campaign he found his wife and children, whom he despaired of ever seeing again.

Returning home victorious, he was received in triumph and loaded with honors; but the emperor having commanded him to sacrifice to the false gods, he refused. Infuriated at this, Trajan ordered Eustachius with his wife and children to be exposed to two starved lions; but instead of harming these faithful servants of God, the beasts merely frisked and frolicked about them. The emperor, grown more furious at this, caused the martyrs to be shut up inside a brazen bull, under which a fire was kindled, and in this horrible manner they were roasted to death.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Monday, September 14th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 3:13-17.


The Exaltation of the Holy Cross – Feast

14 September 2015

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

but that the world might be saved through him.”

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Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 3:13-17. 

Jesus said to Nicodemus : “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Bible Hub

DAILY MASS – Monday 14 September 2015

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The Exaltation of the Holy Cross – Feast

14 September 2015

Saint of the day

St. Maternus, Bishop of Cologne († c. 325)

MATERNUS untitled

SAINT MATERNUS
Bishop of Cologne
(† c. 325)

       First known bishop of Cologne whose name has come down to us, St. Maternus was involved in the effort against the Donatist heretics and in 313 Emperor Constantine the Great summoned him to a synod in Rome. He took part in the Synod of Arles in 314.

        Saint Peter Canisius defended the medieval identification of Saint Maternus with the son of the widow of Naim who was raised from the dead by Jesus. he was said to have been a disciple of Saint Peter.

        Maternus died at Trier, Germany, where it is believed he also served as a bishop at one time.

In art, Saint Maternus is a bishop holding a large key. He may also be shown holding three churches combined as one or with a crozier and pilgrim’s staff or hermit’s crutch

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Exaltation of the Holy Cross – Feast

14 September 2015

The exaltation of the Holy Cross

4x5 original

4×5 original

THE EXALTATION
OF THE HOLY CROSS
OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
Feast

        Constantine was still wavering between Christianity and idolatry when a luminous cross appeared to him in the heavens, bearing the inscription, “In this sign shalt thou conquer.” He became a Christian, and triumphed over his enemies, who were at the same time the enemies of the Faith.

       A few years later, his saintly mother having found the cross on which our Saviour suffered, the feast of the ” Exaltation” was established in the Church; but it was only at a later period still, namely, after the Emperor Heraclius had achieved three great and wondrous victories over Chosroes, King of Persia, who had possessed himself of the holy and precious relic, that this festival took a more general extension, and was invested with a higher character of solemnity.

        The feast of the “Finding” was thereupon instituted, in memory of the discovery made by St. Helena; and that of the “Exaltation” was reserved to celebrate the triumphs of Heraclius. The greatest power of the Catholic world was at that time centred in the Empire of the East, and was verging toward its ruin, when God put forth His hand to save it: the re-establishment of the great cross at Jerusalem was the sure pledge thereof. This great event occurred in 629.

Herein is found the accomplishment of the Saviour’s word:
“If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Myself.”

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Saturday, September 12th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 6:43-49.


The Most Holy Name of Mary – Optional memorial

Saturday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

12 September 2015

Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command?

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Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 6:43-49. 

Jesus said to his disciples : “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.
For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.
A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.
Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command?
I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, listens to my words, and acts on them.
That one is like a person building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built.
But the one who listens and does not act is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed.”

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Bible Hub

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Saturday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

12 September 2015

Commentary of the day

 Saint Bernard (1091-1153),

1 1330px-Bernard_of_Clairvaux_-_Gutenburg_-_13206

Saint Bernard (1091-1153), Cistercian monk and doctor of the Church
24th sermon on the Song of Songs (trans. ©Cistercian Publications Inc. 1976)

“Every tree is known by its own fruit”

Do you believe in Christ ? Do the works of Christ so that your faith may live; love will animate your faith, deed will reveal it… If you say you abide in Christ you ought to walk as he walked. But if you seek your own glory, envy the successful, slander the absent, take revenge on those who injure you, this Christ did not do. You profess to know God, yet reject him by your deeds… “Such a one honors me with his lips, but his heart is far from me” (Is 29,13; Mt 15,8)…

You see then that right faith will not make a man righteous unless it is enlivened by love. Someone who has no love has no means of loving the Bride, Christ’s Church. But on the other hand, deeds, however righteous, cannot make the heart righteous without faith. Who would call a person righteous who does not please God? But “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11,6). And God cannot please the one who is not pleasing to him; for if God is pleasing to someone, that person cannot displease God. Furthermore, if God is not pleasing to that person, neither is his Bride, the Church. How then can he be righteous who loves neither God nor God’s Church, to whom is said: “The righteous love you”? (Sg 1,3 Vg.).

If therefore neither faith without good works nor good works without faith suffice for a man’s righteousness, we, my brothers, who believe in Christ, should strive to ensure that our behavior and desires are righteous. Let us raise up both our hearts and hands to God, that our whole being may be righteous, our righteous faith being revealed in our righteous actions. So we shall be lovers of the Bride, the Church, and loved by the Bridegroom Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God, blessed for ever.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Saturday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

12 September 2015

Saint of the day

St. Guy of Anderlecht († c.1012)

ST GUY untitled

SAINT GUY OF ANDERLECHT
(† c. 1012)

        As a child Guy had two loves, the Church and the poor. The love of prayer growing more and more, he left his poor home at Brussels to seek greater poverty and closer union with God. He arrived at Laeken, near Brussels, and there showed such devotion before Our Lady’s shrine that the priest besought him to stay and serve the Church. Thenceforth his great joy was to be always in the church, sweeping the floor and ceiling, polishing the altars, and cleansing the sacred vessels. By day he still found time and means to befriend the poor, so that his almsgiving became famous in all those parts.

A merchant of Brussels, hearing of the generosity of this poor sacristan, came to Laeken, and offered him a share in his business. Guy could not bear to leave the church; but the offer seemed providential, and he at last closed with it. Their ship, however, was lost on the first voyage, and on returning to Laeken Guy found his place filled. The rest of his life was one long penance for his inconstancy. About the year 1012, finding his end at hand, he returned to Anderlecht, in his own country.

        As he died, a light shone round him, and a voice was heard proclaiming his eternal reward.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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The Most Holy Name of Mary – Optional memorial

Saturday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

12 September 2015

The Most Holy Name of Mary

Santissimo_Nome_di_Maria_BG

The Most Holy Name of Mary
(Optional memorial)

        St. Bernard says and we say with him: “Look to the star of the sea, call upon Mary… in danger, in distress, in doubt, think of Mary, call upon Mary. May her name never be far from your lips, or far from your heart… If you follow her, you will not stray; if you pray to her, you will not despair; if you turn your thoughts to her, you will not err. If she holds you, you will not fall; if she protects you, you need not fear; if she is your guide, you will not tire; if she is gracious to you, you will surely reach your destination.”
(Pope Benedict XVI address at Heiligenkreuz Abbey, September 9, 2007)

Collect
Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that, for all who celebrate the glorious Name
of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
she may obtain your merciful favor.
Though our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

© Copyright 2007 – Libreria Editrice Vaticana

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Thursday, September 10th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 6:27-38.


Thursday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

10 September 2015

Stop judging and you will not be judged.

STOP JUDGING stdas0053

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 6:27-38.

Jesus said to his disciples : “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit (is) that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount.
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
Be merciful, just as (also) your Father is merciful.
Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Bible Hub

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Thursday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

10 September 2015

Commentary of the day

Saint Maximus the Confessor

Maximus_Confessor

Saint Maximus the Confessor (c.580-662),

monk and theologian
Century 1 on Love, in the Philocalia

“Be merciful as your Father is merciful”

Don’t attach yourself to the suspicions or the persons of those who would tempt you to become scandalized about certain things. Because those who, in one way or another, are scandalized by what comes their way, whether they wanted it to or not, are unmindful of the way of peace that, through love, guides those who are caught up by it to knowledge of God.

Anyone who is still swayed by other people’s characters and who, for example, loves one but hates another, or who sometimes loves, sometimes hates the same person for the same reasons, does not as yet have perfect love. Perfect love does not split men’s common nature because some of them have different personalities but, always regarding that nature, it loves all equally. It loves the virtuous as friends and the wicked as enemies, doing good to them, bearing with them with patience, enduring what comes from them, paying no attention to malice, going so far as to suffer for them if the opportunity presents itself. So it makes friends of them if at all possible. Or, at the least, it is faithful to itself, always showing its fruits to all alike. Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, demonstrating the love he bears us, suffered for all humankind and proffered the hope of resurrection to all alike even though each individually, by his works, calls upon himself glory or punishment.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Thursday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

10 September 2015

Saint of the day

St. Nicholas of Tolentino († 1310)

San_Nicola_da_Tolentino_I

ST. NICHOLAS OF TOLENTINO
(† 1310)

        Born in answer to the prayer of a holy mother, and vowed before his birth to the service of God, Nicholas never lost his baptismal innocence. His austerities were conspicuous even in the austere Order -the Hermits of St. Augustine- to which he belonged, and to the remonstrances which were made by his superiors he only replied, “How can I be said to fast, while every morning at the altar I receive my God?”

He conceived an ardent charity for the Holy Souls, so near and yet so far from their Saviour; and often after his Mass it was revealed to him that the souls for whom he had offered the Holy Sacrifice had been admitted to the presence of God.

Amidst his loving labors for God and man, he was haunted by fear of his own sinfulness. “The heavens,” said he, “are not pure in the sight of Him Whom I serve; how then shall I, a sinful man, stand before Him?” As he pondered on these things, Mary, the Queen of all Saints, appeared before him. “Fear not, Nicholas,” she said, “all is well with you: my Son bears you in his heart, and I am your protection.” Then his soul was at rest; and he heard, we are told, the songs which the angels sing in the presence of their Lord.

        He died September 10, 1310. 

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Saturday, September 5th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 6:1-5.


Saturday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time

5 September 2015

“The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”

1 SABBATH pppas0345

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 6:1-5. 

While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a sabbath, his disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them.
Some Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?”
Jesus said to them in reply, “Have you not read what David did when he and those (who were) with him were hungry?
(How) he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering, which only the priests could lawfully eat, ate of it, and shared it with his companions.”
Then he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Bible Hub

DAILY MASS – Saturday 5 September 2015

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Saturday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time

5 September 2015

Commentary of the day

Benedict XVI

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 Benedict XVI, pope from 2005 to 2013
Homily, Eucharistic celebration on the occasion of the XX World Youth Day, Sunday, 21 August 2005

“The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” (Lk 6:5)

  The Eucharist is an essential part of Sunday… On Easter morning, first the women and then the disciples had the grace of seeing the Lord. From that moment on, they knew that the first day of the week, Sunday, would be his day, the day of Christ the Lord. The day when creation began became the day when creation was renewed. Creation and redemption belong together.

That is why Sunday is so important. It is good that today, in many cultures, Sunday is a free day, and is often combined with Saturday so as to constitute a “week-end” of free time. Yet this free time is empty if God is not present.

Dear friends! Sometimes, our initial impression is that having to include time for Mass on a Sunday is rather inconvenient. But if you make the effort, you will realize that this is what gives a proper focus to your free time. Do not be deterred from taking part in Sunday Mass, and help others to discover it too. This is because the Eucharist releases the joy that we need so much, and we must learn to grasp it ever more deeply, we must learn to love it. Let us pledge ourselves to do this – it is worth the effort! Let us discover the intimate riches of the Church’s liturgy and its true greatness:  it is not we who are celebrating for ourselves, but it is the living God himself who is preparing a banquet for us.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Saturday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time

5 September 2015

Saints of the day

St. Lawrence Justinian, Bishop († 1455)

1 LAWRENCE untitled

SAINT LAWRENCE JUSTINIAN
Bishop
(† 1455)

       Lawrence from a child longed to be a Saint; and when he was nineteen years of age there was granted to him a vision of the Eternal Wisdom. All earthly things paled in his eyes before the ineffable beauty of this sight, and as it faded away a void was left in his heart which none but God could fill. Refusing the offer of a brilliant marriage, he fled secretly from his home at Venice, and joined the Canons Regular of St. George.

One by one he crushed every natural instinct which could bar his union with his Love. When Lawrence first entered religion, a nobleman went to dissuade him from the folly of thus sacrificing every earthly prospect. The young monk listened patiently in turn to his friend’s affectionate appeal, scorn, and violent abuse. Calmly and kindly he then replied. He pointed out the shortness of life, the uncertainty of earthly happiness, and the incomparable superiority of the prize he sought to any his friend had named. The nobleman could make no answer; he felt in truth that Lawrence was wise, himself the fool. He left the world, became a fellow-novice with the Saint, and his holy death bore every mark that he too had secured the treasures which never fail.

As superior and as general, Lawrence enlarged and strengthened his Order, and as bishop of his diocese, in spite of slander and insult, thoroughly reformed his see. His zeal led to his being appointed the first patriarch of Venice, but he remained ever in heart and soul an humble priest, thirsting for the sight of heaven.

        At length the eternal vision began to dawn. “Are you laying a bed of feathers for me?” he said. “Not so; my Lord was stretched on a hard and painful free.” Laid upon the straw, he exclaimed in rapture, “Good Jesus, behold I come.” He died in 1455, aged seventy-four.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Saturday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time

5 September 2015

Saints of the day

Bl. Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)

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Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
(1910-1997)

“By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.”
Small of stature, rocklike in faith, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was entrusted with the mission of proclaiming God’s thirsting love for humanity, especially for the poorest of the poor. “God still loves the world and He sends you and me to be His love and His compassion to the poor.” She was a soul filled with the light of Christ, on fire with love for Him and burning with one desire: “to quench His thirst for love and for souls.”

This luminous messenger of God’s love was born on 26 August 1910 in Skopje, a city situated at the crossroads of Balkan history. The youngest of the children born to Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu, she was baptised Gonxha Agnes, received her First Communion at the age of five and a half and was confirmed in November 1916. From the day of her First Holy Communion, a love for souls was within her. Her father’s sudden death when Gonxha was about eight years old left in the family in financial straits. Drane raised her children firmly and lovingly, greatly influencing her daughter’s character and vocation. Gonxha’s religious formation was further assisted by the vibrant Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart in which she was much involved.

At the age of eighteen, moved by a desire to become a missionary, Gonxha left her home in September 1928 to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Sisters of Loreto, in Ireland. There she received the name Sister Mary Teresa after St. Thérèse of Lisieux. In December, she departed for India, arriving in Calcutta on 6 January 1929. After making her First Profession of Vows in May 1931, Sister Teresa was assigned to the Loreto Entally community in Calcutta and taught at St. Mary’s School for girls. On 24 May 1937, Sister Teresa made her Final Profession of Vows, becoming, as she said, the “spouse of Jesus” for “all eternity.” From that time on she was called Mother Teresa. She continued teaching at St. Mary’s and in 1944 became the school’s principal. A person of profound prayer and deep love for her religious sisters and her students, Mother Teresa’s twenty years in Loreto were filled with profound happiness. Noted for her charity, unselfishness and courage, her capacity for hard work and a natural talent for organization, she lived out her consecration to Jesus, in the midst of her companions, with fidelity and joy.

On 10 September 1946 during the train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling for her annual retreat, Mother Teresa received her “inspiration,” her “call within a call.” On that day, in a way she would never explain, Jesus’ thirst for love and for souls took hold of her heart and the desire to satiate His thirst became the driving force of her life. Over the course of the next weeks and months, by means of interior locutions and visions, Jesus revealed to her the desire of His heart for “victims of love” who would “radiate His love on souls.” “Come be My light,” He begged her. “I cannot go alone.” He revealed His pain at the neglect of the poor, His sorrow at their ignorance of Him and His longing for their love. He asked Mother Teresa to establish a religious community, Missionaries of Charity, dedicated to the service of the poorest of the poor. Nearly two years of testing and discernment passed before Mother Teresa received permission to begin. On August 17, 1948, she dressed for the first time in a white, blue-bordered sari and passed through the gates of her beloved Loreto convent to enter the world of the poor.

After a short course with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. On 21 December she went for the first time to the slums. She visited families, washed the sores of some children, cared for an old man lying sick on the road and nursed a woman dying of hunger and TB. She started each day in communion with Jesus in the Eucharist and then went out, rosary in her hand, to find and serve Him in “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for.” After some months, she was joined, one by one, by her former students.

On 7 October 1950 the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially established in the Archdiocese of Calcutta. By the early 1960s, Mother Teresa began to send her Sisters to other parts of India. The Decree of Praise granted to the Congregation by Pope Paul VI in February 1965 encouraged her to open a house in Venezuela. It was soon followed by foundations in Rome and Tanzania and, eventually, on every continent. Starting in 1980 and continuing through the 1990s, Mother Teresa opened houses in almost all of the communist countries, including the former Soviet Union, Albania and Cuba.

In order to respond better to both the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity Brothers in 1963, in 1976 the contemplative branch of the Sisters, in 1979 the Contemplative Brothers, and in 1984 the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. Yet her inspiration was not limited to those with religious vocations. She formed the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa and the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, people of many faiths and nationalities with whom she shared her spirit of prayer, simplicity, sacrifice and her apostolate of humble works of love. This spirit later inspired the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests as a “little way of holiness” for those who desire to share in her charism and spirit.

During the years of rapid growth the world began to turn its eyes towards Mother Teresa and the work she had started. Numerous awards, beginning with the Indian Padmashri Award in 1962 and notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, honoured her work, while an increasingly interested media began to follow her activities. She received both prizes and attention “for the glory of God and in the name of the poor.”

The whole of Mother Teresa’s life and labour bore witness to the joy of loving, the greatness and dignity of every human person, the value of little things done faithfully and with love, and the surpassing worth of friendship with God. But there was another heroic side of this great woman that was revealed only after her death. Hidden from all eyes, hidden even from those closest to her, was her interior life marked by an experience of a deep, painful and abiding feeling of being separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever-increasing longing for His love. She called her inner experience, “the darkness.”  The “painful night” of her soul, which began around the time she started her work for the poor and continued to the end of her life, led Mother Teresa to an ever more profound union with God. Through the darkness she mystically participated in the thirst of Jesus, in His painful and burning longing for love, and she shared in the interior desolation of the poor.

During the last years of her life, despite increasingly severe health problems, Mother Teresa continued to govern her Society and respond to the needs of the poor and the Church. By 1997, Mother Teresa’s Sisters numbered nearly 4,000 members and were established in 610 foundations in 123 countries of the world. In March 1997 she blessed her newly-elected successor as Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity and then made one more trip abroad. After meeting Pope John Paul II for the last time, she returned to Calcutta and spent her final weeks receiving visitors and instructing her Sisters. On 5 September Mother Teresa’s earthly life came to an end. She was given the honour of a state funeral by the Government of India and her body was buried in the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity. Her tomb quickly became a place of pilgrimage and prayer for people of all faiths, rich and poor alike. Mother Teresa left a testament of unshakable faith, invincible hope and extraordinary charity. Her response to Jesus’ plea, “Come be My light,” made her a Missionary of Charity, a “mother to the poor,” a symbol of compassion to the world, and a living witness to the thirsting love of God.

Less than two years after her death, in view of Mother Teresa’s widespread reputation of holiness and the favours being reported, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her Cause of Canonization. On 20 December 2002 he approved the decrees of her heroic virtues and miracles.

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BEATIFICATION OF MOTHER THERESA OF CALCUTTA
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II

World Mission Sunday
Sunday, 19 October 2003

1. “Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mk10: 44). Jesus’ words to his disciples that have just rung out in this Square show us the way to evangelical “greatness”. It is the way walked by Christ himself that took him to the Cross:  a journey of love and service that overturns all human logic. To be the servant of all!

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Foundress of the Missionaries of Charity whom today I have the joy of adding to the Roll of the Blesseds, allowed this logic to guide her. I am personally grateful to this courageous woman whom I have always felt beside me. Mother Teresa, an icon of the Good Samaritan, went everywhere to serve Christ in the poorest of the poor. Not even conflict and war could stand in her way.

Every now and then she would come and tell me about her experiences in her service to the Gospel values. I remember, for example, her pro-life and anti-abortion interventions, even when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace (Oslo, 10 December 1979). She often used to say:  “If you hear of some woman who does not want to keep her child and wants to have an abortion, try to persuade her to bring him to me. I will love that child, seeing in him the sign of God’s love”.

2. Is it not significant that her beatification is taking place on the very day on which the Church celebrates World Mission Sunday? With the witness of her life, Mother Teresa reminds everyone that the evangelizing mission of the Church passes through charity, nourished by prayer and listening to God’s word. Emblematic of this missionary style is the image that shows the new Blessed clasping a child’s hand in one hand while moving her Rosary beads with the other.

Contemplation and action, evangelization and human promotion: Mother Teresa proclaimed the Gospel living her life as a total gift to the poor but, at the same time, steeped in prayer.

3. Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant” (Mk 10: 43). With particular emotion we remember today Mother Teresa, a great servant of the poor, of the Church and of the whole world. Her life is a testimony to the dignity and the privilege of humble service. She had chosen to be not just the least but to be the servant of the least. As a real mother to the poor, she bent down to those suffering various forms of poverty. Her greatness lies in her ability to give without counting the cost, to give “until it hurts”. Her life was a radical living and a bold proclamation of the Gospel.

The cry of Jesus on the Cross, “I thirst” (Jn 19: 28), expressing the depth of God’s longing for man, penetrated Mother Teresa’s soul and found fertile soil in her heart. Satiating Jesus’ thirst for love and for souls in union with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, had become the sole aim of Mother Teresa’s existence and the inner force that drew her out of herself and made her “run in haste” across the globe to labour for the salvation and the sanctification of the poorest of the poor.

4. “As you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25: 40). This Gospel passage, so crucial in understanding Mother Teresa’s service to the poor, was the basis of her faith-filled conviction that in touching the broken bodies of the poor she was touching the body of Christ. It was to Jesus himself, hidden under the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, that her service was directed. Mother Teresa highlights the deepest meaning of service – an act of love done to the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, prisoners (cf. Mt 25: 34-36) is done to Jesus himself.

Recognizing him, she ministered to him with wholehearted devotion, expressing the delicacy of her spousal love. Thus, in total gift of herself to God and neighbour, Mother Teresa found her greatest fulfilment and lived the noblest qualities of her femininity. She wanted to be a sign of “God’s love, God’s presence and God’s compassion”, and so remind all of the value and dignity of each of God’s children, “created to love and be loved”. Thus was Mother Teresa “bringing souls to God and God to souls” and satiating Christ’s thirst, especially for those most in need, those whose vision of God had been dimmed by suffering and pain.

5. “The Son of man also came… to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10: 45). Mother Teresa shared in the Passion of the crucified Christ in a special way during long years of “inner darkness”. For her that was a test, at times an agonizing one, which she accepted as a rare “gift and privilege”.

In the darkest hours she clung even more tenaciously to prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. This harsh spiritual trial led her to identify herself more and more closely with those whom she served each day, feeling their pain and, at times, even their rejection. She was fond of repeating that the greatest poverty is to be unwanted, to have no one to take care of you.

6. “Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you”. How often, like the Psalmist, did Mother Teresa call on her Lord in times of inner desolation:  “In you, in you I hope, my God!”.

Let us praise the Lord for this diminutive woman in love with God, a humble Gospel messenger and a tireless benefactor of humanity. In her we honour one of the most important figures of our time. Let us welcome her message and follow her example.

Virgin Mary, Queen of all the Saints, help us to be gentle and humble of heart like this fearless messenger of Love. Help us to serve every person we meet with joy and a smile. Help us to be missionaries of Christ, our peace and our hope. Amen!

– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Friday,September 4th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 5:33-39.


Friday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time

4 September 2015

The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus,

“The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers,

and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same ; but yours eat and drink.”

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Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 5:33-39.

The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same ; but yours eat and drink.”
Jesus answered them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.”
And he also told them a parable. “No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined.
Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.
(And) no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.'”

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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DAILY MASS – Friday 4 September 2015

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Friday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time

4 September 2015

Commentary of the day

Saint Paschasius Radbertus

Saint Paschasius Radbertus (?-c.849), Benedictine monk
Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, 10,22

“The two shall be made into one. This is a great foreshadowing; I mean that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Eph 5:31)

A strange and extraordinary union occurred when “the Word became flesh” in the Virgin’s womb and thus “made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14). Just as all the elect were raised in Christ when he rose, so was this wedding celebrated in him, and the Church was united with the Spouse through the bonds of marriage when the man-God received the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and when the divinity came to dwell in his body… Christ became man through the Holy Spirit, and in his quality as Spouse he came out of the womb of the Virgin, who was his nuptial chamber. But when the Church is born again of water in that same Spirit, she becomes one body in Christ, so much so that the two “become as one,” (Mt 19:5), which in reference to Christ and the Church “is a great foreshadowing.” (Eph 5:31).

This marriage continues from the beginning of the Incarnation of Christ until the moment when Christ will come again and all the rites of nuptial union will be fulfilled. Then those who are ready and who, as is necessary, will have fulfilled the conditions for such a great union, will be filled with respect and will enter with him into the eternal wedding hall(Mt 25:10). While she is waiting, Christ’s promised Spouse advances and every day keeps her covenant with him in faith and affection until he returns again.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Friday of the Twenty-second week in Ordinary Time

4 September 2015

Saint of the day

St. Rosalia, Virgin († 1160)

ROSALIA untitled

ST. ROSALIA
Virgin
(† 1160)

        St. Rosalia was daughter of a noble family descended from Charlemagne. She was born at Palermo in Sicily, and despising in her youth worldly vanities, made herself an abode in a cave on Mount Pelegrino, three miles from Palermo, where she completed the sacrifice of her heart to God by austere penance and manual labor, sanctified by assiduous prayer and the constant union of her soul with God.

She died in 1160. Her body was found buried in a grot under the mountain, in the year of the jubilee, 1625, under Pope Urban VIII., and was translated into the metropolitan church of Palermo, of which she was chosen a patroness. To her patronage that island ascribes the ceasing of a grievous pestilence at the same time.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

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Sunday, August 23rd. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 6:60-69.


Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

23 August 2015

“Master, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life. “

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Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:60-69.

Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you?
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

23 August 2015

Saint John-Paul II

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 Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
Encyclical « Ecclesia de Eucharistia », 18-19 (trans. © copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (Jn 6,54)

Those who feed on Christ in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: they already possess it on earth, as the first-fruits of a future fullness which will embrace man in his totality. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:54). This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were, the “secret” of the resurrection. For this reason Saint Ignatius of Antioch rightly defined the Eucharistic Bread as “a medicine of immortality, an antidote to death”.

The eschatological tension kindled by the Eucharist expresses and reinforces our communion with the Church in heaven. It is not by chance that the Eastern Anaphoras and the Latin Eucharistic Prayers honour Mary, the ever-Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the angels, the holy apostles, the glorious martyrs and all the saints. This is an aspect of the Eucharist which merits greater attention: in celebrating the sacrifice of the Lamb, we are united to the heavenly “liturgy” and become part of that great multitude which cries out: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev 7:10). The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

23 August 2015

St. Rose of Lima, Virgin (1586-1617)

1 Santa_Rosa_da_Lima_D

SAINT ROSE OF LIMA
Virgin
(1586-1617)

        This lovely flower of sanctity, the first canonized Saint of the New World, was born at Lima in 1586. She was christened Isabel, but the beauty of her infant face earned for her the title of Rose, which she ever after bore.

        As a child, while still in the cradle, her silence under a painful surgical operation proved the thirst for suffering already consuming her heart. At an early age she took service to support her impoverished parents, and worked for them day and night. In spite of hardships and austerities her beauty ripened with increasing age, and she was much and openly admired. From fear of vanity she cut off her hair, blistered her face with pepper and her hands with lime.

   For further security she enrolled herself in the Third Order of St. Dominic, took St. Catherine of Siena as her model, and redoubled her penance. Her cell was a garden hut, her couch a box of broken tiles. Under her habit Rose wore a hair-shirt studded with iron nails, while, concealed by her veil, a silver crown armed with ninety points encircled her head. More than once, when she shuddered at the prospect of a night of torture, a voice said, “My cross was yet more painful.”

The Blessed Sacrament seemed almost her only food. Her love for it was intense. When the Dutch fleet prepared to attack the town, Rose took her place before the tabernacle, and wept that she was not worthy to die in its defence. All her sufferings were offered for the conversion of sinners, and the thought of the multitudes in hell was ever before her soul.

       She died in 1617, at the age of thirty-one.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894] 

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Sunday, August 16th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 6:51-58.


Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

16 August 2015

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”

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Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:51-58.

Jesus said to the crowds:
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” 
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Bangkok, THAILAND

SUNDAY MASS – August 16, 2015 

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Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

16 August 2015

Commentary of the day

 Saint Gaudentius of Brescia

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 Saint Gaudentius of Brescia (?-after 406), Bishop
Paschal Homily ; CSEL 68, 30

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him”

The heavenly sacrifice that Christ instituted is indeed the inheritance bequeathed to us through his new covenant. He left it to us on the night he was delivered up to be crucified as a token of his presence. It is viaticum for our journey, food on our life’s path until we come to it on quitting this world. That is why our Lord said: “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you do not have life within you.”

He wished his deeds of kindness to remain among us and the souls he redeemed by his precious blood always to be made holy in the image of his own Passion. This is why he commanded his faithful disciples, instituted as the first priests of his Church, to celebrate these mysteries of eternal life in perpetuity… Thus all the faithful would have before their eyes day by day a representation of Christ’s Passion. Taking him in our hands, receiving him in our mouths and hearts, we will hold fast to an indelible remembrance of our redemption.

The bread should be made with the flour of innumerable grains of wheat mixed with water and finished off in the fire. Thus we shall find a close likeness of the body of Christ in it for, as we know, he forms a single body with the multitude of humankind brought to completion by the fire of the Holy Spirit… In the same way, the wine of his blood is taken from many grapes – that is to say the fruit of vine he planted – is crushed beneath the press of his cross, poured into the hearts of the faithful and ferments within them by means of his own power.

This is the Passover sacrifice bringing salvation to all those set free from bondage of Egypt and Pharaoh, that is to say the devil. Receive it in union with us with all the eagerness of a pious heart.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

16 August 2015

 Saint of the day

St. Stephen of Hungary (977-1038)

1 Santo_Stefano_di_Ungheria

 SAINT STEPHEN
King of Hungary
(977-1038)

 Geysa, fourth Duke of Hungary, was, with his wife, converted to the Faith, and saw in a vision the martyr St. Stephen, who told him that he should have a son who would perfect the work he had begun. This son was born in 977, and received the name of Stephen. He was most carefully educated, and succeeded his father at an early age. He began to root out idolatry, suppressed a rebellion of his pagan subjects, and founded monasteries and churches all over the land. He sent to Pope Sylvester, begging him to appoint bishops to the eleven sees he had endowed, and to bestow on him, for the greater success of his work, the title of king. The Pope granted his requests, and sent him a cross to be borne before him, saying that he regarded him as the true apostle of his people.

His devotion was fervent. He placed his realms under the protection of our blessed Lady, and kept the feast of her Assumption with peculiar affection. He gave good laws, and saw to their execution. Throughout his life, we are told, he had Christ on his lips, Christ in his heart, and Christ in all he did. His only wars were wars of defence, and he was always successful. God sent him many and sore trials. One by one his children died, but he bore all with perfect submission to the will of God.

When St. Stephen was about to die, he summoned the bishops and nobles, and gave them charge concerning the choice of a successor. Then he urged them to nurture and cherish the Catholic Church, which was still as a tender plant in Hungary, to follow justice, humility, and charity, to be obedient to the laws, and to show ever a reverent submission to the Holy See. Then, raising his eyes towards heaven, he said, “O Queen of Heaven, august restorer of a prostrate world, to thy care I commend the Holy Church, my people, and my realm, and my own departing soul.” And then, on his favorite feast of the Assumption, in 1038, he died in peace.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Monday, July 20th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 12:38-42.


Monday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time

20 July 2015

 “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”

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Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 12:38-42.

Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
He said to them in reply, “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here.
At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and there is something greater than Solomon here.”

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Monday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time

20 July 2015

Commentary of the day

Saint Peter Chrysologus (c.406-450)

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 Saint Peter Chrysologus (c.406-450), Bishop of Ravenna, Doctor of the Church
Sermon 3

“You have a greater than Jonah here.”

        It was Jonah himself who decided to be thrown out of the boat: “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he said (Jon 1:12), which points to the passion of the Lord Jesus, which he freely took upon himself. For why did the sailors wait to be given the order…? It is because, when the salvation of all requires the death of one single person, that death depends on the free decision of the person concerned… Thus, in this story, which completely prefigures the Lord’s story, they await the decision of the person who must die, so that his death might not be a necessity to which he submits, but a free act: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again. No one takes it from me,” (Jn 10:18) says the Lord. For when Christ delivered over his spirit (Jn 19:30), it was not because his life was slipping away from him. He who holds in his hands the soul of every person could not lose his own. The prophet said: “I constantly hold my life in your hands.” (Ps 119:109) And in another place: “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Ps 31:6; Lk 23:46)

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Monday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time

20 July 2015

Saints of the day

St. Margaret of Antioch,

Virgin and Martyr (3rd century)

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SAINT MARGARET OF ANTIOCH
Virgin and Martyr
(3rd century)

        According to the ancient Martyrologies, St. Margaret suffered at Antioch in Pisidia, in the last general persecution. She is said to have been instructed in the Faith by a Christian nurse, to have been persecuted by her own father, a pagan priest, and, after many torments, to have gloriously finished her martyrdom by the sword.

From the East, her veneration was exceedingly propagated in England, France, and Germany, in the eleventh century, during the holy wars.

        Her body is now kept at Monte-Fiascone in Tuscany.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Monday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time

20 July 2015

Saints of the day

 St. Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr

 1 1 Sant_Apollinare_di_Ravenna_D

 SAINT APOLLINARIS
Bishop and Martyr
(c. 2nd-3rd century)

        St. Apollinaris was the first Bishop of Ravenna; he sat twenty years, and was crowned with martyrdom in the reign of Vespasian. He was a disciple of St. Peter, and made by him Bishop of Ravenna.

        St. Peter Chrysologus, the most illustrious among his successors, has left us a sermon in honor of our Saint, in which he often styles him a martyr; but adds, that though he frequently suffered for the Faith, and ardently desired to lay down his life for Christ, yet God preserved him a long time to his Church, and did not allow the persecutors to take away his life. So he seems to have been a martyr only by the torments he endured for Christ, which he survived at least some days.

  His body lay first at Classis, four miles from Ravenna, still a kind of suburb to that city, and its seaport till it was choked up by the sands. In the year 549 his relics were removed into a more secret vault in the same church. St. Fortunatus exhorted his friends to make pilgrimages to the tomb, and St. Gregory the Great ordered parties in doubtful suits at law to be sworn before it.

        Pope Honorius built a church under the name of Apollinaris in Rome, about the year 630. It occurs in all martyrologies, and the high veneration which the Church paid early to his memory is a sufficient testimony of his eminent sanctity and apostolic spirit.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Thursday, June 18th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 6:7-15.


Thursday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time

18 June 2015

“This is how you are to pray: Our Father in heaven”

 1 OUR FATHER 375px-Bloch-SermonOnTheMount

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 6:7-15. 

Jesus said to his disciples:
“In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
This is how you are to pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.
If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”

Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Thursday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time

18 June 2015

Commentary of the day

Saint Cyprian

1  300px-Heiliger_Cyprianus

 Saint Cyprian

(c.200-258),

Bishop of Carthage and martyr
The Lord’s Prayer,

8 (trans. cf breviary ; Monday of the 11th week)

“This is how you are to pray: Our Father”

Before all else, Christ, the teacher of peace and of unity would not have us pray on our own and in private in such a manner that each prays only for himself. We do not say: “My Father, who art in heaven”, or, “Give me this day my bread.” Each person does not ask that his own sins only be forgiven, nor does he request for himself alone that he be not led into temptation and that he be delivered from evil. Our prayer is public and for all, and when we pray, we pray not for a single person, but for the whole people, because we are all one.

The God of peace, the teacher of harmony, who taught us unity, willed that each one should pray for all, according as he carried us all in himself alone. The three youths enclosed in the furnace observed this law of prayer… “Then the three, as with one mouth, sang a hymn and blessed God” (Dn 3,51)… We find the apostles also prayed in the same manner after the ascension of the Lord. “With one accord they devoted! themselves to prayer together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren” (Acts 1,14). They continue! with one accord in prayer, making clear both by the urgency and harmony of their prayer that God, “who makes men to dwell in concord in a house” (Ps 68[67],7), admits only those who pray with one accord into the divine and eternal house.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Thursday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time

18 June 2015

Saints of the day

 St. Gregory Barbarigo, Bishop (1625-1697)

1 ST BARBARIGO untitled

SAINT GREGORY BARBARIGO
Bishop
(1625-1697)

        Gregory Barbarigo, born in Venice of an ancient and noble house, was graduated with high honors at the University of Padua, where he received doctorates in both canon and civil law.

        At the age of nineteen, while attending the Peace Congress at Münster at the instance of the Apostolic Nuncio, Fabio Chigi, he decided to consecrate himself to the service of the Church.

   After Gregory was ordained to the priesthood, it was this same Chigi, now raised to the papal throne as Alexander VII, who nominated him to the Bishopric of Bergamo, then created him a cardinal and finally transferred him to the Bishopric of Padua.

        In carrying out his pastoral duties, he imitated the zeal of St. Charles Borromeo and labored until the end of his life at the task of putting into effect the admonitions and decrees of the Council of Trent concerning the uprooting of vice and the promotion of virtue.

He enlarged the seminaries of both Bergamo and Padua; he added to the prestige of the latter city, particularly, by establishing a library there, and also a printing press for the purpose of publishing books for the peoples of the Near East in their own language.

        He took special pains to promote catechetical instructions and made it a special point to visit every village of his diocese, teaching and encouraging wherever he went.

        He was remarkable for his works of charity and holiness of life, being so generous to the needy and the poor that he sold his furniture, his clothing and even his bed in order to help them.

At length, after a short illness he fell asleep peacefully in the Lord on June 15, 1697. Famous for merit and virtue, he was beatified by Clement XIII and added to the list of saints by John XXIII.

The Roman Breviary
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Thursday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time

18 June 2015

Saints of the day

Sts. Marcus and Marcellianus, Martyrs (+286)

 Mark and Marcellian.JPG
SAINTS MARCUS and MARCELLIANUS
Martyrs
(+286)

        Marcus and Marcellianus were twin brothers of an illustrious family in Rome, who had been converted to the Faith in their youth and were honorably married. Diocletian ascending the imperial throne in 284, the heathens raised persecutions.

        These martyrs were thrown into prison, and condemned to be beheaded. Their friends obtained a respite of the execution for thirty days, that they might prevail on them to worship the false gods, Tranquillinus and Martia, their afflicted heathen parents, in company with their sons’ own wives and their little babes, endeavored to move them by the most tender entreaties and tears.

St. Sebastian, an officer of the emperor’s household, coming to Rome soon after their commitment, daily visited and encouraged them. The issue of the conferences was the happy conversion of the father, mother, and wives, also of Nicostratus, the public register, and soon after of Chromatius, the judge, who set the Saints at liberty, and, abdicating the magistracy, retired into the country.

        Marcus and Marcellianus were hid by a Christian officer of the household in his apartments in the palace; but they were betrayed by an apostate, and retaken. Fabian, who had succeeded Chromatius, condemned them to be bound to two pillars, with their feet nailed to the same. In this posture they remained a day and a night, and on the following day were stabbed with lances.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Sunday, June 14th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Mark 4:26-34.


Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

14 June 2015

“Once it is sown, it springs up and becomes

the largest of plants and puts forth large branches.”

1 TEACHING stdas0667

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 4:26-34. 

Jesus said to the crowds: “This is how it is with the Kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land
and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.
Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”
He said, “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it?
It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.
But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”
With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it.
Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private. 

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Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

14 June 2015

Commentary of the day

Saint Peter Chrysologus

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 Saint Peter Chrysologus

(c.406-450),

Bishop of Ravenna, Doctor of the Church

Sermon 98, 1-2 ; CCL 24A, 602 (trans.©Friends of Henry Ashworth)

“But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants”

 Brothers and sisters, you have heard today how the kingdom of heaven, for all its vastness, can be compared to a mustard seed… Is that the sum of believers’ hopes? Is that what the faithful are longing for?… Is this the mystery no eye has seen, no ear heard, no human heart imagined; the mystery past telling that the Apostle Paul assures us God has prepared for all who love him? (1Cor 2,9). Let us not be too easily disappointed by our Lord’s words. If we remember that “God’s weakness is stronger than human strength, and God’s foolishness wiser than human wisdom,” (1Cor 1,25) we shall find that this smallest seed of God’s creation is greater than the whole wide world.

It is up to us to sow this mustard seed in our minds and let it grow within us into a great tree of understanding (Gen 2,9) reaching up to heaven and elevating all our faculties, spreading out branches of knowledge…

Christ is the kingdom of heaven. Sown like a mustard seed in the garden of the Virgin’s womb, he grew up into the tree of the cross whose branches stretch across the world. Crushed in the mortar of the passion, its fruit has produced seasoning enough for the flavoring and preservation of every living creature with which it comes in contact. As long as a mustard seed remains intact, its properties lie dormant; but when it is crushed they are exceedingly evident. So it was with Christ; he chose to have his body crushed, because he would not have his power concealed… Christ is king, because he is the source of all authority. Christ is the kingdom, because all the glory of his kingdom is within him.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

14 June 2015

Saint of the day

St. Elisha, Prophet

(9th century BC)

1 Vroilynck_Ghislain_A_Miracle_Of_The_Prophet_Elisha

St. Elisha,
Prophet
(9th century BC)


        Elisha, whose name in Hebrew means “God is Salvation,” was the son of Shaphat. He was called by the prophet Elijah while plowing his father’s fields. Elijah came and cast his mantle upon him, indicating thereby that Elisha was to succeed him.

Before Elijah was taken up in a fiery chariot and into the whirlwind, Elisha asked to “inherit a double-portion” of Elijah’s spirit.

Throughout the whole course of his life the prophet Elisha accomplished a significant number of miracles.

He won the gratitude of the people of Jericho for healing its barren ground by adding salt to its waters.

        When the armies of Judah, Israel and Edom, then allied against Mesa, the Moabite king, were being tortured by drought in the Idumæan desert, Elisha consented to intervene. His double prediction regarding relief from drought and victory over the Moabites was fulfilled on the following morning (2 Kgs 3:4-24).

    To relieve the widow importuned by a hard creditor, Elisha so multiplied a little oil as to enable her, not only to pay her indebtedness, but to provide for her family needs (2 Kgs 4:1-7).

        To reward the rich lady of Shunam for her hospitality, he restored to life her son (2 Kgs 4:18-37)

        To nourish the sons of the prophets pressed by famine, Elisha changed into wholesome food the pottage made from poisonous gourds (2 Kgs 4:38-41).

During the military incursions of Syria into Israel, Elisha cured Naaman the Syrian of his leprosy by simply sending him word that he was to bathe in the Jordan seven times. At first reluctant, Naaman obeyed the Prophet, and after washed seven times in the Jordan, he was healed. Jesus referred to this when he said: “And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet: and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27).

        Elisha’s life and activities are found in 1 and 2 Kings and he is commemorated on this date in the 2004

Roman Martyrology.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Saturday, April 25th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Mark 16:15-20.


 

Saint Mark, evangelist – Feast

25 April 2015

 “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

ASCENSION Obereschach_Pfarrkirche_Fresko_Fugel_Christi_Himmelfahrt_crop

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 16:15-20.

Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages.
They will pick up serpents (with their hands), and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God.
But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.)

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Saint Mark, evangelist – Feast

25 April 2015

Commentary of the day

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130-c.208)

Saint Irenaeus.jpg

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130-c.208),

Bishop, theologian and martyr
Against heresies, I, 10, 1-2

Saint Mark hands the faith of the apostles on to the whole world

 The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples faith in one God, the Father Almighty, “Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them” (Ex 20:11; Ac 4:24); in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the coming, birth from a virgin, passion, and resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord; and his manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” (Ep 1:19) and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, Saviour and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” (Ph 2:10-11) him, and that he should execute just judgment towards all…

The Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, carefully preserves it as if occupying but one house. She also believes these things as if she had only “one soul and one and heart” (Ac 4:32); she proclaims them and teaches them and hands them down with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. Although the languages of the world are varied, the strength of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. As the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to knowledge of the truth.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

Image from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Saint Mark, evangelist – Feast

25 April 2015

Saint of the day

St. Mark, Evangelist

1 SAINT MARK

SAINT MARK
Evangelist
(1st century)

        St. Mark was a companion of the Prince of the Apostles, whom he accompanied to Rome, acting there as his secretary or interpreter. When St. Peter was writing his first epistle to the churches of Asia, he affectionately joins with his own salutation that of his faithful companion, whom he calls “my son Mark.”

        The Roman people entreated St. Mark to put in writing for them the substance of St. Peter’s frequent discourses on Our Lord’s life. This the Evangelist did under the eye and with the express sanction of the apostle, and every page of his brief but graphic gospel so bore the impress of St. Peter’s character, that the Fathers used to name it “Peter’s Gospel”

   St. Mark was now sent to Egypt to found the Church of Alexandria. Here his disciples became the wonder of the world for their piety and asceticism, so that St. Jerome speaks of St. Mark as the father of the anchorites, who at a later time thronged the Egyptian deserts. Here, too, he set up the first Christian school, the fruitful mother of many illustrious doctors and bishops.

        After governing his see for many years, St. Mark was one day seized by the heathen, dragged by ropes over stones, and thrown into prison. On the morrow the torture was repeated, and having been consoled by a vision of angels and the voice of Jesus, St. Mark went to his reward.

It is to St. Mark that we owe the many slight touches which often give such vivid coloring to the Gospel scenes, and help us to picture to ourselves the very gestures and looks of our blessed Lord.
    It is he alone who notes that in the temptation Jesus was “with the beasts;” that he slept in the boat “on a pillow;” that he “embraced” the little children.
    He alone preserves for us the commanding words “Peace, be still!” by which the storm was quelled; or even the very sounds of his voice, the “Ephpheta” and “Talitha cumi,” by which the dumb were made to speak and the dead to rise.
    So, too, the “looking round about with anger,” and the “sighing deeply,” long treasured in the memory of the penitent apostle, who was himself converted by his Saviour’s look, are here recorded by his faithful interpreter.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

 

 


Saturday, April 18th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 6:16-21.


Saturday of the Second week of Easter

18 April 2015

“It is I. Do not be afraid.”

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Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:16-21. 

When it was evening, the disciples of Jesus went down to the sea,
embarked in a boat, and went across the sea to Capernaum. It had already grown dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.
The sea was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing.
When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid.
But he said to them, “It is I. Do not be afraid.”
They wanted to take him into the boat, but the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading

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Saturday of the Second week of Easter

18 April 2015

Commentary of the day

 Prayer known as “of Peter and the other apostles”
Papyrus from the early Church

“Through the sea was your path; your way, through the mighty waters” (Ps 77:20)

You are holy, Lord, all-powerful God,

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

paradise of happiness,

royal sceptre,

infinite love,

assurance of hope…

You are holy, Lord God,

you are “the King of kings and the Lord of lords:

you alone have immortality,

you live in the inaccessible light,

that no one has ever seen” (1 Tm 6:15-16).

You walk on the wings of the winds (Ps 103:3);

you created the sky, the earth and the sea

and all they contain (Ac 4:24).

You make the winds your messengers

and burning fire your servant (Ps 103:4);

you made man in your image and likeness (Gn 1:26),

you measured out the span of the sky

and the whole earth with the fingers of your hand.

Yes,in your presence your works are altogether lovely.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Saturday of the Second week of Easter

18 April 2015

Saint of the day

St. Apollonius, Martyr (+ c. 186)

1 Sant_Apollonio_di_Roma_B

SAINT APOLLONIUS
Martyr
(+ c. 186)

        Marcus Aurelius had persecuted the Christians, but his son Commodus, who in 180 succeeded him, showed himself favorable to them out of regard to his Empress Marcia, who was an admirer of the Faith.

        During this calm the number of the faithful was exceedingly increased, and many persons of the first rank, among them Apollonius, a Roman senator, enlisted themselves under the banner of the cross. He was a person very well versed both in philosophy and the Holy Scripture.

In the midst of the peace which the Church enjoyed, he was publicly accused of Christianity by one of his own slaves. The slave was immediately condemned to have his legs broken, and to be put to death, in consequence of an edict of Marcus Aurelius, who, without repealing the former laws against convicted Christians, ordered by it that their accusers should be put to death.

The slave being executed, the same judge sent an order to St. Apollonius to renounce his religion as he valued his life and fortune. The Saint courageously rejected such ignominious terms of safety, wherefore Perennis referred him to the judgment of the Roman senate, to give an account of his faith to that body.

        Persisting in his refusal to comply with the condition, the Saint was condemned by a decree of the Senate, and beheaded about the year 186.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015


Sunday, March 29th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 14:1-72.15:1-47.


Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B

29 March 2015

A woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard.

She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head.

1 wjpas0582

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 14:1-72.15:1-47. 

The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were to take place in two days’ time. So the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way to arrest him by treachery and put him to death.
They said, “Not during the festival, for fear that there may be a riot among the people.”
When he was in Bethany reclining at table in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head.
There were some who were indignant. “Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil?
It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages and the money given to the poor.” They were infuriated with her.
Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me.
The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have me.
She has done what she could. She has anticipated anointing my body for burial.
Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went off to the chief priests to hand him over to them.
When they heard him they were pleased and promised to pay him money. Then he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.”
The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover. When it was evening, he came with the Twelve.
And as they reclined at table and were eating, Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.”
They began to be distressed and to say to him, one by one, “Surely it is not I?”
He said to them, “One of the Twelve, the one who dips with me into the dish.
For the Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”
While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will have your faith shaken, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be dispersed.’
But after I have been raised up, I shall go before you to Galilee.”
Peter said to him, “Even though all should have their faith shaken, mine will not be.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Amen, I say to you, this very night before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.”
But he vehemently replied, “Even though I should have to die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all spoke similarly.
Then they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”
He took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be troubled and distressed.
Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch.”
He advanced a little and fell to the ground and prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass by him; he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.”
When he returned he found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?
Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
Withdrawing again, he prayed, saying the same thing.
Then he returned once more and found them asleep, for they could not keep their eyes open and did not know what to answer him.
He returned a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is to be handed over to sinners.
Get up, let us go. See, my betrayer is at hand.”
Then, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders.
His betrayer had arranged a signal with them, saying, “The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him and lead him away securely.”
He came and immediately went over to him and said, “Rabbi.” And he kissed him.
At this they laid hands on him and arrested him.
One of the bystanders drew his sword, struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his ear.
Jesus said to them in reply, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs, to seize me? Day after day I was with you teaching in the temple area, yet you did not arrest me; but that the scriptures may be fulfilled.” And they all left him and fled.
Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him,
but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked.
They led Jesus away to the high priest, and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together.
Peter followed him at a distance into the high priest’s courtyard and was seated with the guards, warming himself at the fire.
The chief priests and the entire Sanhedrin kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus in order to put him to death, but they found none.
Many gave false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree.
Some took the stand and testified falsely against him, alleging,
We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands and within three days I will build another not made with hands.’ Even so their testimony did not agree.
The high priest rose before the assembly and questioned Jesus, saying, “Have you no answer? What are these men testifying against you?”
But he was silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him and said to him, “Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?”
Then Jesus answered, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.'”
At that the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further need have we of witnesses?
You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as deserving to die.
Some began to spit on him. They blindfolded him and struck him and said to him, “Prophesy!” And the guards greeted him with blows.
While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the high priest’s maids came along.
Seeing Peter warming himself, she looked intently at him and said, “You too were with the Nazarene, Jesus.”
But he denied it saying, “I neither know nor understand what you are talking about.” So he went out into the outer court. (Then the cock crowed.)
The maid saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.”
Once again he denied it. A little later the bystanders said to Peter once more, “Surely you are one of them; for you too are a Galilean.”
He began to curse and to swear, “I do not know this man about whom you are talking.”
And immediately a cock crowed a second time. Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had said to him, “Before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.” He broke down and wept.
As soon as morning came, the chief priests with the elders and the scribes, that is, the whole Sanhedrin, held a council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.
Pilate questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He said to him in reply, “You say so.”
The chief priests accused him of many things.
Again Pilate questioned him, “Have you no answer? See how many things they accuse you of.”
Jesus gave him no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.
Now on the occasion of the feast he used to release to them one prisoner whom they requested.
A man called Barabbas was then in prison along with the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion.
The crowd came forward and began to ask him to do for them as he was accustomed.
Pilate answered, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?”
For he knew that it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed him over.
But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead.
Pilate again said to them in reply, “Then what (do you want) me to do with (the man you call) the king of the Jews?” They shouted again, “Crucify him.”
Pilate said to them, “Why? What evil has he done?” They only shouted the louder, “Crucify him.”
So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them and, after he had Jesus scourged, handed him over to be crucified.
The soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the praetorium, and assembled the whole cohort.
They clothed him in purple and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him.
They began to salute him with, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
and kept striking his head with a reed and spitting upon him. They knelt before him in homage.
And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him out to crucify him.
They pressed into service a passer-by, Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.
They brought him to the place of Golgotha (which is translated Place of the Skull).
They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it.
Then they crucified him and divided his garments by casting lots for them to see what each should take.
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.
The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”
With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left. 
Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross.”
Likewise the chief priests, with the scribes, mocked him among themselves and said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.
Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him.
At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.
And at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “Look, he is calling Elijah.”
One of them ran, soaked a sponge with wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to take him down.” Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom.
When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” There were also women looking on from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome.
These women had followed him when he was in Galilee and ministered to him. There were also many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.
When it was already evening, since it was the day of preparation, the day before the sabbath,
Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council, who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God, came and courageously went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
Pilate was amazed that he was already dead. He summoned the centurion and asked him if Jesus had already died. And when he learned of it from the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.
Having bought a linen cloth, he took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.
Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses watched where he was laid.

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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B

29 March 2015

palm sunday1

At the Procession with palms – gospel mt 21:1-11 

When Jesus and the disciples drew near Jerusalem
and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives,
Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them,
“Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately you will find an ass tethered,
and a colt with her.
Untie them and bring them here to me.
And if anyone should say anything to you, reply,
‘The master has need of them.’
Then he will send them at once.”
This happened so that what had been spoken through the prophet
might be fulfilled:
Say to daughter Zion,
“Behold, your king comes to you,
meek and riding on an ass,
and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had ordered them.
They brought the ass and the colt and laid their cloaks over them,
and he sat upon them.
The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road,
while others cut branches from the trees
and strewed them on the road.
The crowds preceding him and those following
kept crying out and saying:
“Hosanna to the Son of David;
blessed is the he who comes in the name of the Lord;
hosanna in the highest.”
And when he entered Jerusalem
the whole city was shaken and asked, “Who is this?”
And the crowds replied,
“This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.”

From

©2015 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
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PALM SUNDAY 1 DSC09780
PALM SUNDAY DSC09787
Image
From Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Bangkok, THAILAND

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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B

29 March 2015

Commentary of the day

Saint Ephrem of Salamis

 Attributed to Saint Ephrem of Salamis (? – 403), Bishop
1st Homily for the Feast of Palms

“See, your king shall come to you, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.” (Zech 9:9)

“Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion.” Be filled with joy, Church of God. “See, your king shall come to you.” (Zech 9:9) Go out to meet him, hasten to contemplate his glory. This is the world’s salvation: God comes to the cross, and the Desired of the nations (Hag 2:7) enters Zion. The light is coming. Let us cry out with the people: “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Lord God has appeared to us who were sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death (Lk 1:79). He appeared as the resurrection of those who have fallen, the liberation of captives, the light of the blind, the consolation of the afflicted, rest for the weak, spring for those who thirst, avenger of the persecuted, redemption of those who are lost, union of the divided, doctor for the sick, salvation of those who have gone astray.

Yesterday, Christ raised Lazarus from the dead; today he is going to his own death. Yesterday, he tore off the strips of cloth that bound Lazarus; today he is stretching out his hand to those who want to bind him. Yesterday, he tore that man away from darkness; today, for humankind, he is going down into darkness and the shadow of death. And the Church is celebrating. She is beginning the feast of feasts, for she is receiving her king as a spouse, for her king is in her midst.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B

29 March 2015

Saints of the day

St. Gladys,

Hermit

(5th century)

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Saint Gladys
Hermit
(5th century)

        Gladys was born in Wales in the 5th century. She was one of the 24 children of Brychan of Brecknock, wife of Saint Gundleus, and mother of Saints Cadoc and, possibly, Keyna.

     It is said that after their conversion by the example and exhortation of their son, she and Gundleus lived an austere life.

        When Gundleus died, Gladys moved to Pencanau in Bassaleg and lived as a hermit.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B

29 March 2015

Saints of the day

Sts. Jonas, Barachisius and Co,

Martyrs

(4th century)

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 IMAGE OF THE CATHOLIC ALL SAINTS

SAINTS JONAS, BARACHISIUS
and their Companions
Martyrs
(4th century)

        King Sapor, of Persia (modern Iran), in the eighteenth year of his reign, raised a bloody persecution against the Christians, and laid waste their churches and monasteries. Jonas and Barachisius, two brothers of the city Beth-Asa, hearing that several Christians lay under sentence of death at Hubaham, went thither to encourage and serve them. Nine of that number received the crown of martyrdom.

        After their execution, Jonas and Barachisius were apprehended for having exhorted them to die. The president entreated the two brothers to obey the king of Persia, and to worship the sun, moon, fire, and water. Their answer was, that it was more reasonable to obey the immortal King of heaven and earth than a mortal prince. Jonas was beaten with knotty clubs and with rods, and next set in a frozen pond, with a cord tied to his foot. Barachisius had two red-hot iron plates and two red-hot hammers applied under each arm, and melted lead dropped into his nostrils and eyes; after which he was carried to prison, and there hung up by one foot. Despite these cruel tortures, the two brothers remained steadfast in the Faith.

        New and more horrible torments were then devised under which at last they yielded up their lives, while their pure souls winged their flight to heaven, there to gain the martyr’s crown, which they had so faithfully won.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015


Friday, March 27th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 10:31-42.


Friday of the Fifth week of Lent

27 March 2015

 “John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man was true.”

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Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 10:31-42. 

The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?”
The Jews answered him, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”‘?
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize (and understand) that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
(Then) they tried again to arrest him; but he escaped from their power.
He went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.
Many came to him and said, “John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man was true.”  And many there began to believe in him.

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Friday of the Fifth week of Lent

27 March 2015

Commentary of the day

Saint John-Paul II

12 images JP Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
General Audience 6/12/79

“ Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, You are gods’ ? ”

“Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gn 1,26). As if the Creator himself retracted to create man; as if, in creating him, not only he called him to existence by saying: “May it be!” but, in a particular way, he drew man from the mystery of his own being. This is comprehensible because it does not concern only the being, but the image. The image must reflect, it must reproduce, in a certain way, the substance of its prototype…It is obvious that this resemblance is not meant as a portrait, but in the sense that the life of a human being is similar to that of God…

By defining man the “image of God”, the book of Genesis reveals what is peculiar to man, what distinguishes him from all other creatures of the visible world. Science, we know, has tried and continues trying to show in different ways the bonds of man with the natural world, to show his dependence on this world, so as to insert him in the history of evolution of the different species.

With all our respect for this type of research, we cannot limit ourselves to this. If we analyse man in the depths of his being we see that he differs from the natural world more than he resembles it. Anthropology and philosophy too proceed in this same way, as they try to analyse and understand the intelligence, freedom, conscience and spirituality of man.
The book of Genesis seems to go beyond all these experiences of science and, by saying that man is the image of God, it makes us understand that the answers to the mystery of his humanity must not be sought in his resemblance with the world. Man resembles God more than nature. It is in this sense that the psalm could say, “You are gods” (Ps 82,6), words that Jesus will repeat.

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015

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Friday of the Fifth week of Lent

27 March 2015

Saint of the day

SAINT JOHN OF EGYPT
(+ 394)

        Till he was twenty-five, John worked as a carpenter with his father. Then feeling a call from God, he left the world and committed himself to a holy solitary in the desert. His master tried his spirit by many unreasonable commands, bidding him roll the hard rocks, tend dead trees, and the like. John obeyed in all things with the simplicity of a child.

After a careful training of sixteen years he withdrew to the top of a steep cliff to think only of God and his soul. The more he knew of himself, the more he distrusted himself. For the last fifty years, therefore, he never saw women, and seldom men. The result of this vigilance and purity was threefold: a holy joy and cheerfulness which consoled all who conversed with him; perfect obedience to superiors; and, in return for this, authority over creatures, whom he had forsaken for the Creator.  

St. Augustine tells us of his appearing in a vision to a holy woman, whose sight he had restored, to avoid seeing her face to face. Devils assailed him continually, but John never ceased his prayer.

        From his long communings with God, he turned to men with gifts of healing and prophecy. Twice each week he spoke through a window with those who came to him, blessing oil for their sick and predicting things to come. A deacon came to him in disguise, and he reverently kissed his hand. To the Emperor Theodosius he foretold his future victories and the time of his death.

The three last days of his life John gave wholly to God: on the third he was found on his knees as if in prayer, bud his soul was with the blessed. He died in 394.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015