THURSDAY OF WEEK ELEVEN IN ORDINARY TIME - 2023

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

The spirit you received is the spirit of sons,
and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ ROM 8:15

2 CORINTHIANS 11:1-11 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

We who are members of Your Body are grateful for the shepherds You gave us. Beginning with Peter and the Apostles and the great Apostle of the Gentiles St. Paul, and their subsequent successors You have watched over Your Church as tenderly as a mother watches over her baby.

Keep us ever grateful and loyal to our Pope, Bishops, and priests for their generous, loving, and wholehearted service to the children of God. Keep us ever mindful of our duty to pray for them, to support them, and to encourage them. Yes, they are flawed, they are weak, they are sinners just like the rest of us and oftentimes they can be overwhelmed by the demands made on them. Let us not be too quick to judge, criticize, and condemn rather may we do all we can to help and support them and above all to pray for them daily.

PSALM 110(111):1-4,7-8 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

When the trials and difficulties that I undergo loom large and forbidding may I take a moment to consider that I am not alone and that all suffering is meant to strengthen virtue in me. Grant me the grace to focus on You rather than the problem and to know that because I belong to You I can trust You to provide all I need to overcome every challenge.

Keep me close to You and close to the family of God in the Church. As members of Your Body and as members of the household of God may we give You unceasing praise and thanksgiving as we consider all that God has done for us. You have loved us with an everlasting love, may we respond gratefully to Your love and acknowledge always and everywhere that You are truly good and deserving of all our love, praise, adoration, and worship.

Majestic and glorious his work,
his justice stands firm forever.
He makes us remember his wonders.
The Lord is compassion and love.

Your works, Lord, are justice and truth.

MATTHEW 6:7-15 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

You taught us how to pray, how we are to address God, how we are to approach Him in prayer, and the order in which we ought to place our petitions before Him. 

To begin with, we must be open, childlike, simple, and humble. We cannot manipulate God - He is all-wise, all-knowing and we are only His poor little creatures. Despite this, You teach us to address the omnipotent God as Abba, Daddy, Papa, and in doing so You draw us into Your own loving relationship with Your Dad. If we are to call God our Father then You O Lord, are our Brother. 

God desires that we acknowledge Him as Dad but we must recognize the fact that He is all-holy and hence must always be held in great reverence and awe. We are created to love God with our whole heart, whole soul, whole mind, and with all our strength and our love for Him must spill out to one another whom we are commanded to love we love ourselves. This is God's will and in doing this we find perfect joy. To discern God's will and to do it promptly, purposefully, and in joyful submission is the only way in which we can be truly happy and find fulfillment in our lives.

Only then do we bring our needs both spiritual and temporal to Him. Although He already knows all that is in our hearts He still delights in us approaching Him with childlike confidence and asking Him for all that we need. We need above all the Bread of Angels, the Holy Eucharist, the Heavenly Manna, without which we will have no life and strength to walk the narrow way that leads to the Kingdom of God. We then make our temporal needs known to Him.

A righteous man falls seven times a day, we frail sinners fall all the time. We must humbly recognize our need for grace to be able to withstand the wiles of the world the flesh and the devil and each time we fall we must come with childlike simplicity before God with a repentant and contrite heart and beg for forgiveness. But our being forgiven is dependent on our willingness to forgive the transgressions of others against us. We have been forgiven much so let us readily forgive the minor or major slights of our neighbors against us.  

Thank You, Beloved, for the gift of Your Holy Spirit without whose help we would lack the grace to acknowledge that You are Lord.

All glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit now and forever. Amen.