Monday, July 6, 2020

MONDAY OF WEEK FOURTEEN IN ORDINARY TIME - 2020

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS





Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel. 2TIM 1:10




HOSEA 2:16, 17c-18, 21-22

My Beloved, Soul of my soul,

God speaks so tenderly through the prophet Hosea of His relationship with a stubborn idolatrous people. We alienate ourselves from Your love and we bring upon ourselves every one of our miseries, troubles, and griefs, yet we refuse to recognize that sin is the barrier to Your love and friendship with us. 

Hosea compares God's relationship with His people as a faithful and loving husband who woos his faithless bride. He vows to lead her away from the world to Himself  and there speak to her heart reminding her of the love she once had for Him. He hopes she will remember and return. He says, "I will betroth you to myself for ever, betroth you with integrity and justice, with tenderness and love; I will betroth you to myself with faithfulness, and you will come to know the Lord."

Beloved, to know You is to love You, to love You is to be ready and willing to yield completely to You and Your love, in doing so we become our best and truest selves.

PSALM  145:2-9

My Beloved, Soul of my soul,

You are a God of love, full of tenderness and compassion for us faithless sinners. You bless us every day with an abundance of blessings despite the fact that we are slow to thank You and often even fail to acknowledge that all we have and are is because You bless us and care for us.

Too often, Beloved, I have deliberately turned away from You, I have refused to meet Your gaze, and have been willfully sinful and hardhearted. Yet, You have been consistently loving, faithful, and compassionate. 

Today, I resolve, to be more aware of Your abiding Presence in me, to recognize that every breath I breathe is because You give me life, both temporal and spiritual, and to witness to Your love by seeking to do You will in all things.

MATTHEW 9:18-26

My Beloved, Soul of my soul,

Every one of the miraculous signs mentioned in the Gospel signifies a greater truth that Your Word has the power to affect what You say.

In the Gospel of the day, we see Your power over death in the raising to life of Jairus' little girl. Her father believed that all You had to do was lay your hand on her and she would live. The desperate woman in the crowd who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years believed that all she needed to do was touch Your cloak and she would be healed. Neither of the them were disappointed. You raised the little girl to life and the woman was healed the instant she touched Your garment. They did not know that You were the Son of God but they definitely believed that God's power was with You.

Where is our faith? We know who You are yet our faith is bland, weak, and wishy washy, that is if we believe at all. No wonder we live such ineffectual lives. If all the faithful had the kind of faith that takes miracles for granted the world would be transformed and the Kingdom of God would already be among us.

Lord grant us the courage to pray for an increase in faith. We lack the boldness to expect miracles because we are content with having a lackluster faith. In these times of the pandemic, we can apply the words of Hosea to our present situation: I am going to lure her and lead her out into the wilderness and speak to her heart I am going to give her back her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a gateway of hope. May this time be one of extraordinary grace and blessing. We are ready to be lured and wooed back into the refuge of Your Heart.

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