MEMORIAL OF ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA - 2021

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Happy those who are persecuted
in the cause of right,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. MT 5:10

LEVITICUS 25:1,8-17 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

The last and final jubilee will be the day You return in glory to establish a new heaven and a new earth. All will be transformed in You. The dead will be raised and together with the living, all will be finally reconciled to Yourself. A new day will dawn and there will be everlasting peace. 

Until that day arrives we must prepare for Your great coming when You will wipe away the tears from every eye. Hasten the day of Your coming and deliver us from this valley of tears. All the grace and help we need is available to us in the Sacraments, grant us the desire to use them to the fullest. On the day You arrive may You may find us ready and waiting eagerly and joyfully our lamps trimmed and filled with oil ready to accompany You, our Bridegroom, to the wedding banquet. 

PSALM 67:2-3,5,7-8 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

All that we experience in life, joys and sorrows, disappointments, and the fulfillment of our dreams and aspirations, blessings and the withholding of them, all that helps and hinders, sickness and good health, strength and weakness, laughter and tears, faith and the lack thereof, all is necessary and helps to shape and make us the people that God intends us to be. 

Through it all, we must ask for the grace to keep our gaze fixed on You, trusting that through it all You are with us, leading and guiding us every step of the way from this life to the one that is to come. 

You help individuals as well as nations who call on Your Name to save and to bless us. You have appointed angels to guard and protect us. They are with us and they behold Your Face and they carry on our prayers to You and Your blessings and favors to us.

Thank You for Your assurance to provide all we need both spiritual and temporal and may we never fail to love, honor, and praise You all the days of our lives.

MATTHEW 14:1-12 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

A guilty conscience can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how we handle it. Herod knew that he had done evil by ordering the beheading of John the Baptist who was unafraid to call him out on his adulterous relationship with his brother's wife, Herodias. Today, the world desiring to sin with impunity, declares that sin does not exist because it is offensive to those who desire to indulge their baser instincts. 

Every sin is as old as Adam and Eve. There is no new sin under the sun even though the pseudo-intellectuals of the world flatter themselves that it is so. The seven deadly sins remain deadly and calling them by different names to make them more acceptable does not render them sterile of their deadly poison.

Today's Gospel reminds us that no sin is committed in isolation, and every sin no matter how secretly it is committed infects and affects everyone that comes under its ambit. Rather than repent of her sin, Herodias sought to destroy the prophet who publicly denounced her and Herod and had no compunction in using her daughter Salome to gain that end.

Herod was not only a sinner but also a weak, ineffectual man who was hoodwinked into doing exactly what Herodias wanted. After swearing rash oaths in public he did not have the gumption to refuse Salome her evil wish. Prompted by her wicked mother she asked for the head of John the Baptist and Herod did as she asked even though he knew it was wrong. 

Often we too are coerced into making wrong choices, we make excuses for our sins, we tell ourselves that they are not really as bad as they are, and we kill our soul each time we compromise our conscience. Help us, Lord, to see sin for what it is - separation from God and death to the soul.