TUESDAY OF WEEK 25 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2023

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Happy are those
who hear the word of God
and keep it. LK 11:28

EZRA 6:7-8,12,14-20 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

No one can thwart God's plans. What God desires God will bring about. There is no power greater than the power of the Almighty and this is why all who belong to God are at peace for they rest in the bosom of the Most High.

Darius is a perfect example of this - the people of God were in exile when he reigned as the most powerful king in all the world and yet when God spoke to him and revealed to him what he desired him to do, he did so promptly and in the exact manner that God asked him to.

God desired the temple to be rebuilt and so all the Jews in exile in Babylon were instructed to go back to Jerusalem in Judah and there to build the Temple of God where true worship could be offered. And so it came to pass that the temple was rebuilt and sacrifices were offered. The temple is a foreshadowing of the Church that You came to establish on earth with You as its head and all who belonged to You as members of Your Body. 

There is only one pleasing and acceptable Sacrifice that the Father desires the only one that has the power to open the gates of heaven and to flood the earth with immense graces. Every celebration of the Holy Mass is a re-presentation to the Father of the one, holy, perfect, and only acceptable Sacrifice You offered on Calvary in atonement for the sins of the world. From the rising of the sun to its setting, in every nation across the globe, this one, holy, unrepeatable Sacrifice in union with the poor unworthy sacrifice of our own lives rises up to the highest heavens as a pleasing fragrance to the Lord. This is why God has not annihilated our sin-swamped world in disgust and righteous anger - the reason is the Holy Mass. Its power is what keeps the Church, its members, and the world in the grace of God.

The New Jerusalem is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, the New Temple is this Church, and the only acceptable sacrifice for the remission of sins is the bloody Sacrifice of the Lamb of God who was crucified and slain on Calvary and the unbloody Sacrifice offered daily in the Church that You founded is what sustains and keeps the world from being lost forever in the evil and demonic times in which we live. Until You come again in glory, Beloved, the fragrance of this pleasing and acceptable one, holy, and perfect Sacrifice will obtain mercy for the world.

PSALM 121(122):1-5 ©

I rejoiced when I heard them say:

‘Let us go to God’s house.’
And now our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is built as a city

strongly compact.
It is there that the tribes go up,
the tribes of the Lord.

For Israel’s law it is,

there to praise the Lord’s name.
There were set the thrones of judgement
of the house of David.

I rejoiced when I heard them say: ‘Let us go to God’s house.’

LUKE 8:19-21 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Let us consider for a moment from where You got Your Body and Your Humanity - it was from Your Virgin Mother, Mary. It is this Body that You offered up on Calvary for the salvation of the world. Your Blood You received from her body when You suckled as an Infant at her breast. She provided the food that sustained You. It was in her womb that You were conceived by the power of the Third Person of the Trinity - the Holy Spirit and the overshadowing of the Father. People clamored to touch just the hem of Your garment and they were healed. What then does it say about the body of her in whose womb You reposed for nine long months? 

No, Mary is NOT GOD - but this Virgin who was most highly favored by God is first and foremost before all humanity. She is given the highest place above all the angels and saints in heaven. When we join our voices to that of the angelic hosts of heaven and the saints to sing her praises we are praising God for this most sublime of creatures. Her hymn of Praise to God in the Magnificat in rising crescendo fulfills all the promises that God ever made to His people in the Old Testament. Her song embodies the songs of praise of the barren women in Sacred Scripture to whom an angel revealed that they would conceive and bear a child of promise for their particular time. 

Your Mom was fashioned by the Holy Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit created her with incomparable beauty and filled her with infinite grace and every virtue so as she rightly pointed out in her Magnificat that all generations would call her blessed. How then can anyone who reads this particular passage in the gospel conclude that You disrespected her? 

How shallow, superficial, and of the earth is their perception of this Lady who You in Your graciousness gave to us as our own Mother - stripped of everything You glanced at this peerless creature and aware of how much we would need a Mother like Yours You lovingly entrusted us to her and desired that we take her into our hearts and into our homes.

Thank You, Lord, for giving me Your Mama Mary to be my own Mother. 

Thank You Mary my mother for every grace and blessing I have received through Your intercession on my behalf with Your Son. I desire, sweetest and best of all mothers that not a prayer, not an intercession or supplication be received by Your Son Jesus from me without passing through Your Immaculate Heart and expressed by your chaste lips to Your Son. I know that if I offer all my prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Your Immaculate Heart my Mother, God will refuse me nothing for You will present them to Him in a manner that is most pleasing and acceptable and always in accord with the will of God. I love you sweetest and best of all mothers, pray for me now and at the hour of my death. Amen.

The mother and the brothers of Jesus came looking for him, but they could not get to him because of the crowd. He was told, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside and want to see you.’ But he said in answer, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice.’