St. Alphonsus Mary de' Liguori, Bishop, Doctor on Tuesday of week 17 in Ordinary Time - 2023

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

The seed is the word of God, Christ the sower;
whoever finds this seed will remain for ever.

EXODUS 33:7-11,34:5-9,28 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Eternal Word of the Living God who makes Your home in the hearts of us who are sinners but who, without You, would shrivel and die. Moses was indeed most privileged in the proximity with which he was granted access to God. But You, O Lord, the new Moses, are God. Moses spoke to God face to face, but You O Lord, are the very Word of the Father. He has but One Word, the Eternal Word, the Living all-powerful Word, and this Word He has uttered and through the power of the Holy Spiritual God has created, redeemed, and sanctified the whole of creation.

You, O Lord, make Your home in us, we are living tabernacles. You are our food and drink and Your Body and Blood nourish and sustain us. We are empowered by Your Holy Spirit. Grafted on to Your Body we are children of the Most High and with You, we share the Kingdom of God as co-heirs. 

God descends to us on our Altars at every celebration of the Holy Mass. Heaven is present and we see God face to face and we adore and worship Him. We eat You and are sustained by Your love and life until the day we receive it eternally in the Kingdom of God.  

Yes, we are a stiffnecked, stubborn people but You O Lord our God are full of tenderness and compassion. Slow to anger and rich in kindness, faithfulness, and mercy. You forgive all our sins when we come to You in humility and with a contrite heart. You have made us Your brothers and sisters giving us Your Father as ours and Your Mother to be ours as well. Thank You for all the angels who are at our service and the prayers of all the saints who have gone before us. We long for the day when this life is over You will lead us to the place created by God for us from all eternity. Thank You, Lord.

PSALM 102(103):6-13 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

We have hope because You are compassionate and loving. You entered into our death so You could raise us to life in You through Your glorious resurrection. Yes, You punish us for we are sinners, wretched sinners but we also have forgiveness of sins in You. Thank You for the Sacraments that enable us to live a life of grace.

We deserve death because we have wilful, stubborn, hardened hearts that are inclined to sin but You never abandon us. Thank You for seeking us, finding us, and wooing us tenderly back into the sheepfold and into a right relationship with You.

Keep us safe in Your love O Lord until we reach the end of our pilgrim journey on earth.

MATTHEW 13:36-43 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

The world has largely rejected You and the faith. Many have received a watered-down faith and they, being ignorant have handed down a faith that is unworthy of the name and certainly not worth dying for. Too many Catholics treat the faith like a buffet where they assume they can pick and choose what they wish to believe. Never has the devil and his minions been more active and busy than they are in the present age. We live at a time when evil is being touted as good and good evil. Death is everywhere and death is being propagated as good and life is being throttled and stifled. 

With You, O Lord, there is always hope. You continue to sow good seed that yields a harvest of Truth, Beauty, and Life but too often it is choked by the raucous and strident culture that insidiously takes root in our lives and stultifies growth. Thank You for Your graciousness and generosity, for Your love, compassion, and understanding in not uprooting us just yet but for giving us time to enable the work of salvation to bear good fruit. Thank You for not abandoning us but for raising up new saints in the Church, especially among the lay faithful who indefatigably teach the Truth with joy and fervor encouraging us to reject evil and to receive gladly the salvation that You came to give us. We pray earnestly Beloved, that when You come again in glory we will all be saved and no one will be thrown into the pit of hell.

‘The Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that provoke offences and all who do evil, and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. Then the virtuous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Listen, anyone who has ears!’