ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - 2023

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

The kingdom of God is close at hand:
repent, and believe the Good News. MK 1:15

EXODUS 19:2-6 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Accompany me into the wilderness and there let me pitch camp with You. There with only You as my Companion, my Friend, my Brother, my Spouse I can sit still at Your feet, choosing the better part I will drink deep from the Cup of Your Love.

God chose a people from among all the nations. He accompanied them even when they did not know it. He chose Moses to lead them from slavery in Egypt and brought them out into the wilderness so they could encounter Him and be purified and strengthened by Him. He gave them the Law and commanded them to obey it if they were to His people and a sign of His Presence in a godless world. And this is the Covenant He made with them, “You yourselves have seen what I did with the Egyptians, how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. From this you know that now, if you obey my voice and hold fast to my covenant, you of all the nations shall be my very own for all the earth is mine. I will count you a kingdom of priests, a consecrated nation.”

But we are the new people of God and You O Lord, the only Son of the Living God are Yourself the Covenant that God has made with us. We who are baptized and grafted into Your Body are called by Your Name. To us, God, our Father, says, "So greatly do I love you that I have given you my only Son, believe in Him and you will not perish but have eternal life". 

Thank You, Father, for giving us Your Beloved Son Jesus, grant to us also through the power of Your Holy Spirit that we may love Him daily more and more.

ROMANS 5:6-11 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Thank You for speaking to us through the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans. Having died for us while we were still sinners, taking our own sins upon Yourself, paying the price with Your life for our redemption, we are saved. Too great a price was paid for our salvation so God would not destroy us in His righteous anger. You took upon Yourself the full weight of our rejection of God and redeemed us. Your death makes us righteous before God. We are reconciled by Your Blood. We are saved by Your passion and death and we are raised to new life by Your glorious resurrection. 

While we cannot presume anything we can count on Your mercy and Your love.

Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that he would now fail to save us from God’s anger? When we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, we were still enemies; now that we have been reconciled, surely we may count on being saved by the life of his Son? Not merely because we have been reconciled but because we are filled with joyful trust in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have already gained our reconciliation.