Blessed Rudolph Acquaviva and Companions, Priests, Martyrs on Saturday of week 16 in Ordinary Time, 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Accept and submit to the word

which has been planted in you

and can save your souls. JM 1:21

JEREMIAH 7:1-11

My Soul's Beloved,

All too often, we Catholics are just like the faithless people of God that Jeremiah is prophesying against. We delude ourselves that because we are in the Church You founded, where Your Holy Spirit abides, and in where the fullness of beauty, truth, and goodness are found, we are saved. All that God says through the lips of the prophet is directed to us who falsely believe that we are saved because we are privileged to be Catholics. This is false. We cannot sin with impunity and not suffer the dreadful consequences of sin.

Unless we reject sin and live virtuous lives pleasing to God He will reject us.

“Amend your behaviour and your actions and I will stay with you here in this place. 

But if you do amend your behaviour and your actions, if you treat each other fairly, if you do not exploit the stranger, the orphan and the widow (if you do not shed innocent blood in this place), and if you do not follow alien gods, to your own ruin, then here in this place I will stay with you, in the land that long ago I gave to your fathers forever.” 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, be merciful to me a sinner. Stay with me Lord and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me for without You I am sure to fail, to fall, and be lost forever. Take pity on me, Beloved, and remain with me now and always.

PSALM 83(84):3-6,8,11

My soul is longing and yearning,

  is yearning for the courts of the Lord.

My heart and my soul ring out their joy

  to God, the living God.

The sparrow herself finds a home

  and the swallow a nest for her brood;

she lays her young by your altars,

  Lord of hosts, my king and my God.

They are happy, who dwell in your house,

  for ever singing your praise.

They walk with ever-growing strength,

  they will see the God of gods in Zion.

One day within your courts

  is better than a thousand elsewhere.

The threshold of the house of God

   I prefer to the dwellings of the wicked.

How lovely is your dwelling-place, Lord, God of hosts.

MATTHEW 13:24-30

My Soul's Beloved,

We are all created good because all that God has created is good. Satan, who lost forever his place in heaven and the glory he once enjoyed in Your Presence due to the sin of pride and disobedience hates us with a vicious and all-consuming hatred. He is tireless in stealing souls that belong to God for he and his minion will do all in their limited capacity to rob us of our inheritance. 

We are warned to remain vigilant for the Enemy never sleeps but prowls around the world night and day to steal, plunder, and destroy souls. The hour of victory is drawing near. The wondrous fruit of Your triumph over death by Your passion and glorious resurrection is almost upon us. While it is true that we do not know that day or the hour when You will return, we know You will at a time we least expect. But we are warned that while we wait we must be vigilant lest we fall asleep, become spiritually lazy and indifferent, falling into the snares that the Enemy carefully lays for us, and thus, lose the inheritance God has prepared for His children since the foundations of the world.

While there is yet time, Lord, grant us the grace to use all the help You have made available to us - the Sacraments. You have given us Your Mother, the saints, and the angels to pray for us and intercede for us before Your throne. May we use their power to help us and may we also pray for one another so we may all be saved and spend eternity in the company of Mama Mary, and all the angels and saints praising and glorifying You forever and ever.

On the day of judgment, Lord, may we be the wheat that the angels gather and place in Your barn not the chaff that is burned in the fiery furnace where the flames will never go out.

The servants said, “Do you want us to go and weed it out?” But he said, “No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.”’

Sts. Joachim & Anne, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

They looked forward to Israel’s comforting
and the Holy Spirit rested upon them. LK 2:25

ECCLESIASTICUS 44:1,10-15

My Soul's Beloved,

Godfearing families can and will save the world but we see so few of them. Families are generally indifferent to the spiritual education of their children. They are steeped in the ways of the world teetering on the edge of a precipice that will keel over any moment into total destruction. It is easy to be pessimistic about the hedonistic culture that prevails in the world. The young have no direction and sadly and heartbreakingly although some of them have been raised in the bosom of Holy Mother Church the ways of the world proved stronger than their love for God and their faith in Him.

While it may be easy to wring our hands in despair we know Lord that You always raise holy men and women in every generation who by their example influence the culture and the people with their tremendous love for God and their lives of heroic virtue. They shine Your light in a world that is becoming increasingly dark and void of hope. One little light that shines bravely and faithfully can dispel the darkness and this is why we must never lose hope.

Today, as the Church celebrates the feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, the parents of our Blessed Mother, Mary, we ask for their powerful intercession as Your grandparents, to obtain from You the graces we need to become more receptive to living a life of faith in the face of opposition, persecution, and discrimination. The lives of saints remind us that it is possible with Your help to be holy and perfect as Your Father is holy and perfect. You do not ask us to do what we cannot but what we can. Every day in little ways, help us live the Gospel values and we will overcome the world.

PSALM 131(132):11,13-14,17-18

The Lord swore an oath to David;

  he will not go back on this word:

‘A son, the fruit of your body,

  will I set upon your throne.’

For the Lord has chosen Zion;

  he has desired it for his dwelling:

‘This is my resting-place for ever;

  here have I chosen to live.

‘There David’s stock will flower;

  I will prepare a lamp for my anointed.

I will cover his enemies with shame

  but on him my crown shall shine.’

The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.

MATTHEW 13:16-17

My Soul's Beloved,

You caution us that to those to whom much is given much will be asked. As Catholics much has been given to us. The vast majority of us are privileged to be born of Catholic parents, raised in the faith of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, and have had the benefits of the wondrous Sacraments to help us nurture our faith and be strengthened by it. Even after we have sinned greatly, and grievously, and were separated from You and the Church, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we find the healing remedy for the greatest contrite and repentant sinner. Here we are reborn again and again and are restored to perfect health in mind, heart, soul, body, and spirit. 

Your words today are spoken to us directly and it is up to us to take note of what You say and live accordingly. For in the end, O Lord, You who are the righteous judge appointed by Your Father will judge us more strictly because of the wondrous gifts we have received as Catholics.

‘Happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear! I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy men longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.’