†Today's Meditation
"A man must go through a long and great conflict in himself before he can learn fully to overcome himself, and to draw his whole affection towards God. When a man stands upon himself he is easily drawn aside after human comforts. But a true lover of Christ, and a diligent pursuer of virtue, does not hunt after comforts, nor seek such sensible sweetnesses, but is rather willing to bear strong trials and hard labors for Christ."
—Thomas a' Kempis, p. 64
Cover image from the book, Imitation of Christ
An Excerpt From Imitation of Christ †Daily Verse "What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: "For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us." Romans 8:35-37 |  click to read more | | St. Theodore Guerin (1798–1856), also known as St. Theodora, was born in Etables, France, towards the end of the French Revolution. She was a pious child who loved prayer and who knew her vocation was to be a nun. However, she was delayed in following this path after the murder of her father when she was 15, which, in addition to the previous death of two of her siblings, sent her mother into a deep depression. St. Theodore took on the household tasks and the care of her mother and her remaining sister. Finally, when she was 25, her mother gave her consent, and Theodore left home to enter the religious life. She joined the Sisters of Providence who served God by educating children and caring for the poor, the sick, and the dying. In 1840 she was asked to lead a band of missionary sisters and establish her order in the United States of America, specifically to serve the pioneers in Indiana. Even though her health was fragile, she crossed the Atlantic and then traveled by steamboat and stagecoach until she reached the wilderness mission of St. Mary of the Woods, which consisted only of a tiny log chapel. She and her five sisters endured the extreme hardships common to life on the frontier. Less than a year after arriving she opened an academy which became the first Catholic women's Liberal Arts college in the United States, still active today, called St. Mary of the Woods College. St. Theodore also established numerous schools, pharmacies, and orphanages throughout the state of Indiana. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II and canonized in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI. Her feast day is October 3rd. | Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 461
Reading 1 GAL 1:6-12 Brothers and sisters:
I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking
the one who called you by the grace of Christ
for a different gospel (not that there is another).
But there are some who are disturbing you
and wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ.
But even if we or an angel from heaven
should preach to you a gospel
other than the one that we preached to you,
let that one be accursed!
As we have said before, and now I say again,
if anyone preaches to you a gospel
other than the one that you received,
let that one be accursed! Am I now currying favor with human beings or God?
Or am I seeking to please people?
If I were still trying to please people,
I would not be a slave of Christ. Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters,
that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin.
For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it,
but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Responsorial Psalm PS 111:1B-2, 7-8, 9 AND 10C R. (5) The Lord will remember his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart
in the company and assembly of the just.
Great are the works of the LORD,
exquisite in all their delights.
R. The Lord will remember his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The works of his hands are faithful and just;
sure are all his precepts,
Reliable forever and ever,
wrought in truth and equity.
R. The Lord will remember his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has sent deliverance to his people;
he has ratified his covenant forever;
holy and awesome is his name.
His praise endures forever.
R. The Lord will remember his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia. Alleluia JN 13:34 R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I give you a new commandment:
love one another as I have loved you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel LK 10:25-37 There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said,
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law?
How do you read it?"
He said in reply,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself."
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live." But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,
"And who is my neighbor?"
Jesus replied,
"A man fell victim to robbers
as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.
A priest happened to be going down that road,
but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place,
and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him
was moved with compassion at the sight.
He approached the victim,
poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.
Then he lifted him up on his own animal,
took him to an inn, and cared for him.
The next day he took out two silver coins
and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction,
'Take care of him.
If you spend more than what I have given you,
I shall repay you on my way back.'
Which of these three, in your opinion,
was neighbor to the robbers' victim?"
He answered, "The one who treated him with mercy."
Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." | Daily Meditation: Galatians 1:6-12 . . . the one who called you by the grace of Christ. (Galatians 1:6) It's been ingrained in us from a young age that in order to get something, we have to earn it. If we behave, Mom might give us a cookie. If we work hard in school, we will get a good grade. Yet Paul's words today show us that the gospel is very different. We don't earn God's favor; it is by "the grace of Christ" that he has called us to be with him (Galatians 1:6). The Galatians initially understood this truth. But then some of them started to believe that they needed to add circumcision or other requirements of the Law of Moses in order to be fully accepted by God. Paul was upset by the Galatians' thinking because it implied that Jesus' death and resurrection wasn't enough to save them. It wasn't just a matter of minor importance that could be overlooked as a different way of practicing the faith—it undermined the very heart of the gospel. Everyone, Jew and Gentile, is redeemed by the cross; everyone, including the Galatians, is now able to live in the freedom and joy of God's presence. We know that we have been saved by grace through Christ, but the sense that we need to earn God's love and acceptance can still linger in the back of our minds. Like the Galatians, we might think that something more is necessary. How could God accept us just as we are? The truth is, as followers of Jesus, we are called to "something more"—to love and serve God and our neighbor. But there's a difference between being called by God's grace and responding to that grace by what we do. We love our neighbor because God loves us. We care for the poor because God moves our heart to compassion. We worship the Lord because of his goodness and faithfulness to us. Brothers and sisters, we have been invited through grace to a deep and abiding relationship with our Lord. The more we realize that we didn't do anything to deserve this amazing gift, the more we will want to respond to it by serving God and his people. That's the gospel that Paul preached, and that's the one we have been blessed to receive and share. "Lord, thank you for calling me by grace to be with you." Psalm 111:1-2, 7-10
Luke 10:25-37 | From today's 1st Holy Scripture:
"If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ." I want to firstly like to say I'm sorry, and I thank you.
I'm sorry for not writing at the usual time before lunch. There's much going on on all aspects; in church, cursillo weekend, community wide family festival this week which I'm coordinating, and my right hand man I was training at work, the week I was leaving to Cursillo was taken to emergency heart surgery, so you can imagine how things are going now. I digress. See the verse of Christ, the question is, can you please God and please everyone around you?
Obviously not. This is why God is asking us, through Saint Paul, that we must hold fast, hold on tight to the truth that will rock the world. Before I forget, the 2nd part, thank you. Thank you for praying for our cursillo. I had a most interesting conversation with a candidate I took a pilgrim on this journey. What was interesting is when he said on our 2.5 hour trip home, when he said "I could've stayed another day". Why is this interesting? Because...I felt the same way! And this has never happened before. What happened? Only God knows. But it is good. Can we please everyone? We are to please in priority..the number one....our Lord and our God whom we call our Teacher and Master. | We pray today;
"I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart
in the company and assembly of the just. Great are the works of the LORD, exquisite in all their delights. The Lord will remember his covenant for ever." And so, can we stay one more day? Why not forever? Why didn't we say "we could've stayed forever"? Right? Truth is, there is a way to stay forever....so long as you are with our Master, God, our Father. Let's go to Him now. | In the Gospel today we heard:
""You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself."
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live." And when our Lord speaks the word to "live" it means forever. And this concept does not compute in our temporal world. But it exists, and as a matter of fact, those that live there, see our world as not so real, because they are in the real realms...of eternity. And then our Lord speaks about a Samaritan, a man not of the "flock' of God that helped a poor dying man that didn't belong to the flock. This was an eye opener. | From one of the many Spanish daily reflections I read: "In the tradition of the allegorical interpretive approach of the Gospels, the Good Samaritan is Jesus Christ. The wounded man on the side of the road is humanity wounded by sin. The inn represents the Church which, as Pope Francis has said, is the field hospital destined to care for wounded humanity. The two coins that the Samaritan deposits in the inn refer to the sacraments that Christ has instituted and ordained to the Church for the cure of souls. The Good Samaritan promises to pay more when he returns: At his Second Coming, Christ will reward us for our faithfulness. In the time between now and the Second Coming, our task is to care for the victims on the margins of society, as well as for the common home entrusted to us by Christ; "do the same" that the Good Samaritan in the parable has done."
Paulson Veliyannoor, CMF And at the end of Bishop Barron's daily reflection reads:
-"Jesus says to him, "Go and do likewise."
We spend our lives now looking for those people stranded by the road, victimized by sin. We don't walk by, indifferent to them, but rather we do what Jesus did—even for those who are our natural enemies, even for those who frighten us. And we bring the Church's power to bear, pouring in the oil and wine of compassion, communicating the power of Christ's cross."_
........................................................ And you my child? Do you help people stranded on the side of the road?
LOL, if you are a woman, you probably don't.
If you are a man, and in an extreme hurry, you probably won't help either.
So who could help people stranded on the side of the road?
Sometimes you hear of helping someone and they rob YOU! So what now?
Calm down!
We're not just talking about strangers on the highways, but we are talking about fellow neighbors on our journey....fellow pilgrims that have had circumstances beat them down. I can only think of those who are weak, or injured or even in jail. Some do need to be there, but not all. You see, I'm speaking about a saving Savior, our Lord reaching into the very needy world. I'm talking about you my child, being those very hands, that very heart that needs to be on fire for God's love, to light up this dark, sad world we seem to live in, and people frantically looking to escape in various ways, and are lost in the dark. This message is very much for you. Our Father...as it is in Heaven...may we live for You and be daily dying for you...in true sacrificial love for our Father's will... |  click to hear | Random Bible Verse Colossians 1:17–18 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. | If one day you don't receive these, just visit Going4th.com
God Bless You! Peace | | |
