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

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Our Saviour Jesus Christ abolished death
and he has proclaimed life through the Good News. 2TIM 1:10

1 MACCABEES 6:1-13 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

When we allow full rein to our passion, to our flesh, to our desire to acquire and amass, nothing will satisfy, nothing gives peace, joy flees and in its place and the soul loses all tranquility. 

King Antiochus ransacked Jerusalem and committed ghastly atrocities against the people of God. Now he hears that Persia is rich and decides to wage war there as well. He was beaten soundly. When he hears news that Jerusalem has managed to drive out the armies that invaded them he becomes dejected. Going over his past he believes that he has been defeated because of the atrocities committed in Jerusalem and the ransacking of the Temple.

The world continues to wage war against Christians, and the Church. It seeks new ways to repress her and persecute those who fearlessly work in Your vineyard. We thank You, Lord, for Your assurance that no matter how hard the devil uses his agents of evil in the world to destroy her, he will never prevail. If the world suffers it is because it is doing its best to live without God, His Eternal Word, and His all-powerful Spirit.

‘But now I remember the wrong I did in Jerusalem when I seized all the vessels of silver and gold there, and ordered the extermination of the inhabitants of Judah for no reason at all. This, I am convinced, is why these misfortunes have overtaken me, and why I am dying of melancholy in a foreign land.’

PSALM 9:2-4,6,16,19 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

The joy and wonder of faith in You always no matter what life throws at us is that You will always provide all the help and grace we need. You may provide just enough light to take one step forward, but we can count on the light for every step we take as we advance towards the end of our journey on earth. The key O Lord, to living a life of tranquility is to praise You constantly and to pray without ceasing.

No hand raised against us will strike us. Nothing the enemy does to prevail against us will succeed. Ever since You created the world Satan has tried to destroy and kill Your creation and he will continue to do so until You return. But You have won the victory. Satan is vanquished. We share Your triumph.

All who believe in You and Your Name O Lord, all who are called by Your name O Lord, will live forever because You are our salvation, our help, our joy, our deliverer - we are victorious in You. 

LUKE 20:27-40 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

No matter how cleverly the devil indoctrinates sinners to lie and spread evil the unvarnished truth is this, marriage on earth is necessary in order for humanity to exist. Without procreation, we would become extinct. The institution of marriage is essential and God intended from the beginning that a man and a woman come together and become one flesh. This is the most ideal way to raise a healthy family. 

Your presence at the Wedding in Cana sanctifies marriage and this passage from the Gospel of Luke sheds clear light on God's design for marriage on earth and the necessity for it and why there will be no need for marriage in heaven. How simple our lives would be if we just took God at His Word. 

When we remove You and Your Word from the intimate union between a man and a woman for as long as the two shall live, we get the kind of madness that is raging in our world today. The Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection were quite wrong when they posed what they thought was a seemingly difficult question to You, ‘Master, we have it from Moses in writing, that if a man’s married brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers. The first, having married a wife, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally the woman herself died. Now, at the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife since she had been married to all seven?’

In Your response, You made it quite clear that the institution of marriage is for this world because, those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God. Too often we fail to remember that this world is not our home.