SATURDAY OF THE TWENTY-THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME - 2021

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

If anyone loves me he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we shall come to him. JN 14:23

1 TIMOTHY 1:15-17 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

St. Paul assures us that there is hope for all. No sinner is beyond grace. No sin is so great that the repentant sinner cannot hope for mercy, complete pardon, and remission of all punishment when they abandon themselves to Your love. The merits of the Cross are so great that if our world was a hundred times more evil than it currently is, the pardon that You won for us by Your great suffering and death could never outweigh its power to cleanse the world of all its sins, iniquities, and wickedness. Your mercy is inexhaustible and will never run out, for it is infinite, bountiful, and perennial. 

Beloved, You know all our weaknesses, You know how frail we are, You know how readily we fall when we are tempted, You know how weak our will is to withstand the allure of the world, nothing we do surprises You, or disgusts You, You understand the human condition perfectly, because You came into the world as a Man, clothed in human flesh. You know what it means to be tempted for You were tempted in every way that we are tempted but You committed no sin.

The Father sent You into the world as one of us so we could always have unimpeded access to mercy, forgiveness, and pardon, for Your sake. Thank You, Jesus, for taking upon Yourself the punishment that was mine and for paying my debt on the Cross. 'To the eternal King, the undying, invisible and only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.'

PSALM 113:1-7 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

All praise belongs to You from the rising of the sun to its setting because You have saved us from the jaws of death and the just punishment of hell. Keep us ever mindful O Lord, of the debt of love we owe You.

Thank You, Father, for revealing Your Face to us in Your Son. You who dwell in inaccessible light have been gracious to us who are less than nothing, Having created us in your image and likeness, and breathing the breath of the Holy Spirit in us, we can have no life apart from Your only, well-beloved Son, and we can never be truly happy or satisfied apart from Him. 

Abba, Father, You are loving, gracious, kind, merciful, tenderhearted, and compassionate to us for the sake of Jesus, Your Son. May we always remember and be grateful for Your plan of salvation that gave us so wonderful a Savior. We can lay claim to heaven because Your Son won our inheritance. May we praise His Name forever.

From the dust he lifts up the lowly,
from the dungheap he raises the poor

LUKE 6:43-49 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Today we are reminded that we cannot enter the Kingdom of God unless we kill the willful, selfish, sinful nature we inherited from our first parents and strive to be like You, only then will we produce good fruit. 

Too long Beloved, have we been unwilling to give up our ease, our time, our mindless, superficial frivolities, pick up our cross and follow You. This is why we lack the strength of will it takes to deny ourselves the inane pleasures of this world that are as fleeting as the morning mist. We give in to every selfish impulse without putting up even the semblance of a fight because we have not trained ourselves to do so and hence are unable to rid ourselves of our bad habits. 

We are unfruitful because we are spiritually lazy. We while away the precious hours of our fleeting time on earth on frivolities so we have no store of good things in our heart to draw on to strengthen us and empower us when we are faced with difficult times. We come up short because our soul possesses nothing that can help us.  The storehouse of our spirit is full of the world and not of the Spirit of God.

Today, You invite us to build our house on the Rock of Peter, a sure and strong foundation, for the Church has You for its Cornerstone. We are called to listen and to obey the Word of God and follow Your Commandments, then when we cry, "Lord, Lord", You will hear us and hasten to save us. The storms of the world will not overwhelm and crush us because we have built our home on the firm foundation of the Church.