MONDAY OF THE TWENTH-EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME - 2020

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS 

If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts. PS 95:8

GALATIANS 4:22-24, 26-27, 31 - 5:1

My Beloved, Soul of my soul,

St. Paul reminds the church in Galatia repeatedly that they are no longer bound like slaves to keep the Law for the law is powerless to save. He compares the people of the Law as heirs of the son borne by Hagar and all Christians as heirs to the child of promise born to Sara when she was barren and both she and Abraham were old.   

The children of the flesh or the Law as Paul puts it remain under the yoke of slavery to the Law but the children of the New Jerusalem are born from above for freedom won for us by You on the Cross. When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

PSALM 113:1-7

My Beloved, Soul of my soul,

Praise has the power to lift our weary being and free our soul to soar to the highest heavens to contemplate Your glorious Face, O Lord, my God. Praise cuts us loose from the things of the flesh and helps us soar on the wings of delight as we recall and dwell on how worthy You are of praise.

If the world is blessed, if the world is still filled with beauty, if there is much that is praise-worthy in the world, if the gravity of the sins committed by so many, if evil, violence, and corruption, have not yet overtaken us, it is precisely because Holy Mass is being offered continuously and unceasingly all over the world just as the psalmist prophesied 

From the rising of the sun to its setting
praised be the name of the Lord!
High above all nations is the Lord,
above the heavens his glory.

Perfect praise is offered to the Father, in the Holy Mass which is the source and summit of the Christian life. For Your Sake, and in response to the work of salvation You accomplished in perfect humility and obedience to His will, He stoops from the heights to look down, to look down upon heaven and earth? From the dust he lifts up the lowly, from the dungheap he raises the poor

LUKE 11:29-32

My Beloved, Soul of my soul,

Addressing the swelling crowds You warned them sternly of the impending judgment that the people of every age will most certainly face. Despite everything we know of You over 2000 years later, people in every generation still reject You. Many who once followed You no longer do. The world is constantly clamoring for signs like Herod but the greatest sign of all has already been given to us and the world still refuses to accept it and be transformed by it. 

The only sign by which we are saved is the Sign of the Cross and all who refuse to believe open ourselves to the judgment and condemnation of all the righteous born before Your incarnation who longed for this sign but were not privileged to see it. 

At every Holy Mass, we see, we hear, we touch, we taste God, Calvary is made present to us and we believe anew every time.