SATURDAY OF THE THIRTY-FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME - 2020

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Jesus Christ was rich,
but he became poor for your sake,
to make you rich out of his poverty. 2COR 8:9

PHILIPPIANS 4:10-19

My Beloved, Soul of my soul,

You taught Your disciples to trust You in every circumstance and all the great saints understood with childlike simplicity that they need not worry about anything - what they would eat or wear, or where they would find shelter for God Himself, was their provider and would supply all their needs.

Saints are serenely content in times of plenty and in times of want. They just go about doing Your will in all things confident that You will provide all that is lacking and You never fail to do so. This is why they had such great faith in divine providence because You never disappoint. When we trust You, when we pray with sincerity and faith, when we lean on You in total dependence knowing that on our own we can do nothing, You never disappoint.   

Beloved, You Yourself gave us so many examples of Your own perfect abandonment to the will of the Father. You had power to perform any miracle whether physical, spiritual, or natural because Your will and His were perfectly aligned. 

It is good for us to share our resources of which we are only stewards, with those, especially in the Church, who spend their whole lives lifting up those in need, those who live in poverty, the sick, the destitute, the abandoned. If not, we will be called to account for keeping for our own use that which we were honor-bound to share with others.

We must have a heart for the poor that not only empathizes but acts to alleviate the suffering of others, like the Good Samaritan. 

Beloved, You are a God who exaggerates any good we do and repays us far more generously than we deserve for only doing what we must. Every act of kindness rises up to the throne of God as a sweet fragrance, especially those acts that cost us something, when we do we can be certain that, 'in return, God will fulfil all our needs, in You, Beloved, as lavishly as only God can.

PSALM 112:1-2, 5-6, 8-9

My Beloved, Soul of my soul,

The sad truth is that many of us are tight-fisted - too often we are seized by fear that if we give today we may not have enough for us tomorrow We could all learn from the widow who put into the temple treasury her last two copper coins, You said it was all she had to live on. Imagine the generosity of such lavish giving. Only God could look at her mite and see it for what it truly was, unimaginable largesse, for it was all she had - it is equivalent in God's eyes to one who has all and gives all with no thought of self.

True givers possess a joy that is out of this world. They are serene in all circumstances knowing that there is no greater satisfaction than giving to another and depriving oneself especially when the need of the other is greater.

Many in the world do not understand what it means to have a heart for the poor. We grow more acquisitive - the more we have the more we desire and we are never satisfied. We trust our possessions and not You to give us security and we condemn ourselves to be always fearful we do not have enough, we have not saved enough, we have not acquired enough. 

Teach us to be wise and judicious stewards so God's favor rests on us always.

LUKE 16:9-15

My Beloved, Soul of my soul,

The love of riches, the love of surrounding oneself with the trappings of wealth, the insatiable greed of possessions, and the desire for acquiring it without conscience is a notable feature of the culture we live in today. The rich get richer with ill-gotten gain and they crush under their uncaring boot those who are poor, the voiceless, the marginalized. No one cares for them, neither the rich nor those with power and influence who can greatly ease their burden. 

All of us are guilty of bad and dishonest stewardship because we fail to recognize that all we have is given to us by God and we are called to share it with those who lack even the basic necessities. 

Those guilty of hoarding wealth and whose hands are tainted with the blood of innocents can make reparation by doing good by giving all their ill-gotten wealth generously to the poor so on the day of judgment they will have someone to interceded for mercy on their behalf. 

If, until now, we have not been given greater spiritual gifts let us examine our lives, perhaps we will discover that we have not been considered worthy enough to be given them, because we have been distinctly lacking in good stewardship over the material gifts given to us. 

Anyone who loves money and treats it like the be-all and end-all of life will lack the presence of God in their lives for there can be no place for honor and respect for two masters. We place at risk eternal joy for temporal pleasure when we do so.

The Pharisees who were present and heard You sneered and laughed at You. Addressing them You called them out for the hypocrites they were. Their coffers were full of tainted money snatched from the poor. They prided themselves on being holier than those they condemned as their spiritual inferiors because they fastidiously observed the letter of the law. They believed that their wealth was their rightful reward but You called them loathsome in the sight of God. The same can be said of many of us too, Lord.  

Let us realize before it is too late, that we have only one Lord, only one Master, only one Redeemer, only one Savior - You, Beloved. There is no other and nothing that can save us but You.