DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS
The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice, says the Lord,
I know them and they follow me. JN10:27
HEBREWS 12:4-7,11-15
My Soul's Beloved,
You are perfection itself and yet You were perfected through suffering as the Son of Man, for You are the Author and Finisher of our faith. As the Son of God, You could not suffer and pay the price for our redemption but as one of us, fully human, You could. Suffering, the consequence of sin, is part of the human condition.
As for us, we are constantly at war with ourselves and will be fighting the good fight until we draw our last breath. Sin leads to suffering and death. When we sin we disobey God's law and bring punishment upon ourselves. Thrust into the furnace of suffering we are purified and rid of the rust of sin that clings to our soul.
Nothing unclean can enter the presence of God, and He desires that all His children come home to Him. This is why He chastises us - we are weak and we will fall over and over again. If left to ourselves we will continue to wallow in the mire of sin and feed at the trough of swine.
You who were sinless became sin for our sake and paid the price for redemption, suffering the most horrific deprivation, pain, and cruelty that was possible for a human being to suffer. In doing so You won for the Father, the redemption of the world. How then, can we be denied our own share of suffering for our personal sins against God, ourselves, and our neighbor?
If we were abandoned to the devil we would have no hope but God loves us as a Father and desires that all His children be saved, He will not spare us the rod of chastisement in order to help us grow in holiness, purity, and perfection and strive to become like Him.
All the help we need God provides willingly and generously in the Church You founded. Through the Sacraments, You instituted, lifegiving graces are poured lavishly into our souls through the power of the Holy Spirit.
PSALM 103:1-2,13-14,17-18
My Soul's Beloved,
The one who is wholly caught up in love with You will have a song of praise and thanksgiving constantly bubbling forth from the heart and spilling out from the lips. Joy will be evident in their words and actions for they are always mindful of the generosity of God's blessings on them and those they love.
A reverential fear for a godly father is a natural response to him by his children. A good father knows how to correct when his child has sinned - he does not overlook faults that if left uncorrected will lead to the child's ruin. Just as a loving father deals wisely in correcting and punishing an erring child so too does God, our loving Father, deal with us. He knows how weak we are, how frail, how easily prone to temptation, and if we were not reproved and punished we would be damned forever.
Thank You, Father, for Your faithful love. Thank You for Your tender compassion. Thank You for not keeping an account of our offences but for forgiving us readily and completely the minute we come to You with a repentant heart and a contrite spirit.
Love would not be authentic were it not tempered with justice. Thank You for Your everlasting love and for the Covenant of Love You have made with us in Jesus, Your Son.
MARK 6:1-6
My Soul's Beloved,
As we continue to look at the Gospel through the account given to us by Mark the revelation of who You truly are continues to unfold. We now accompany You and Your disciples to Your home town in Nazareth. It is the sabbath, the townsfolk who know You, watched You grow to be a Man, and have heard of Your reputation as a great miracle worker, teacher, and preacher, are now crowding the synagogue.
They are astounded at the wisdom of Your words, Your knowledge of scripture, and the authority with which You speak. They then make the grave mistake, that most small, narrow-minded, bigoted people make. The recall what they know of You in the past, who Your Mother is, Your father's trade, Your relatives, and they compare all this with the Person who now stands before them. They are astonished alright, but their astonishment is the wrong kind, they say to themselves and to each other, ‘Where did the man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been granted him, and these miracles that are worked through him? This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joset and Jude and Simon? His sisters, too, are they not here with us?’
Knowing their thoughts You tell them that their rejection of You is in keeping with the way all prophets have been treated by their own people. ‘A prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house.’ This indictment against them makes it impossible for You to work any miracle there except by curing a few sick people by laying Your hands on them.
This passage concludes with the verse, 'He was amazed at their lack of faith.' It is not as if You had no power to perform miracles there, rather their guilt would have been doubled if despite the miraculous signs they continued to disbelieve. You said that faith, even as small as a mustard seed, can move mountains. Grant us this little mustard seed of faith, my Beloved, so we may believe and by believing move any mountains that are barriers to our complete surrender to You.
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