MEMORIAL OF ST. CHARLES BORROMEO, BISHOP - 2021

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened,
and I will give you rest, says the Lord. MT 11:28

ROMANS 14:7-12 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Too many of us live life superficially, we have no real understanding of our impact on each other in life and in death. We all matter greatly to God, our Father, from the least to the greatest - we are all His children and His vision for us is the same. He desires that we all come to know You, His Son, and believe in You, and be filled with the Holy Spirit so we may have a share in Your Life in the age to come. 

Were it not for You, Lord, our lives would have been an eternal, joyless winter. Adam's sin caused irreparable damage to our relationship with the Father, only one like us but sinless could ever bridge the chasm that yawned between God and us. It was the Father's will that You step into the breach and become the doorway by which we could return to the Father's house.

St. Paul warns us about judging and condemning each other willy nilly - You have been appointed You as the only righteous Judge being both God and Man, You alone know all, You see all, and this is why You alone are the sole arbiter of our actions and our final destiny. Whether we acknowledge You or not as our Lord, our God, You are the sole judge before whom we will stand to give an account of our lives: 

We shall all have to stand before the judgement seat of God; as scripture says: By my life – it is the Lord who speaks – every knee shall bend before me, and every tongue shall praise God. It is to God, therefore, that each of us must give an account of himself.

PSALM 27:1,4,13-14 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

The lives of the saints reveal that it is possible to live extraordinary lives of holiness even as we live our very ordinary, humdrum lives. They allowed the Holy Spirit to pierce their souls because they were yielded to You and through them, we know that no life, when lived in union with You, can ever be anything short of phenomenal.

You are waiting for us, like the Good Shepherd, to lead us, to reveal Yourself to us, to touch us and be touched by us, and when we do You become the anchor and mainstay of our lives. We can begin to taste heaven even as we live on earth. Nothing will ever have power over us if we have yielded to the power of Your Holy Spirit in us. We can savour God's sweetness every moment of every day that we live if we so desire.

There is one thing I ask of the Lord,

for this I long,
to live in the house of the Lord,
all the days of my life,
to savour the sweetness of the Lord,
to behold his temple.

Thank You, Beloved, for the gift of Hope which is given to us along with Faith, and Love at our Baptism when we are grafted into Your Body, and we become children of God. Nothing in life can overpower us as long as we hope in You. Once we make a choice for You over the world and cling to You, You will help us every step of the way, 'I am sure I shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living.'

LUKE 15:1-10 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Every sinner can rejoice on hearing today's Gospel passage, chosen by the Church for our reflection. It is the complaint of every self-righteous, narrow-minded bigot: ‘This man’ they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ 

Only God would leave ninety-nine sheep to go looking for the stray. No prudent shepherd would as he would consider the risk of losing the ones that were safe too great. But You, Beloved, pose the question as if it were absolutely normal, ‘What man among you with a hundred sheep, losing one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the missing one till he found it?’ More than that, You assure us that there is great rejoicing in heaven when a repentant sinner returns home. 

As long we live, O Lord, grant us a great burden in our souls to pray tirelessly for sinners and do whatever we can to woo sinners to repent and be united with You again.