SAINTS PAUL MIKI & HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Bend my heart to your will, O Lord,
and teach me your law. PS 118:36, 29

1 KINGS 8:22-23,27-30 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Every word of Solomon's prayer when he prayed it is true. There is no God such as the God we know, love, and serve. You have revealed Yourself to us, Lord, as Father, as Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Three Divine Persons yet One God. This is the divine revelation. You came to earth to walk among the children of God, to reveal the Father to us, to lay down Your life for us so where the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are we too may be in time and in eternity. 

Solomon was right when he prayed,  ‘O Lord, God of Israel, not in heaven above nor on earth beneath is there such a God as you, true to your covenant and your kindness towards your servants when they walk wholeheartedly in your way. Yet will God really live with men on the earth? Why, the heavens and their own heavens cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built! Listen to the prayer and entreaty of your servant, O Lord my God; listen to the cry and to the prayer your servant makes to you today. Day and night let your eyes watch over this house, over this place of which you have said, “My name shall be there.” Listen to the prayer that your servant will offer in this place.

You came into the world to make of our hearts Your dwelling place. You came to establish the Church which is Your Body and we who believe, and embrace the fullness of Truth that You revealed through Your preaching, teaching, and in Your own authority that You passed on to Peter and his successors. Only in the Catholic Church O Lord is salvation found. The world can deny it and refuse to accept it but nevertheless, it is the truth, and their refusal to embrace the truth either because of their pride or their false ideas of the Church, or their clinging to their version of the truth despite revelation of the Truth will rebound to their shame. 

The Church never ceases to pray for unity for it is Your prayer as well and someday, Lord, perhaps sooner than we know, You will hear and answer.

PSALM 83(84):3-5,10-11 ©

My soul is longing and yearning,

is yearning for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my soul ring out their joy
to God, the living God.

The sparrow herself finds a home

and the swallow a nest for her brood;
she lays her young by your altars,
Lord of hosts, my king and my God.

They are happy, who dwell in your house,

for ever singing your praise.
Turn your eyes, O God, our shield,
look on the face of your anointed.

One day within your courts

is better than a thousand elsewhere.
The threshold of the house of God
I prefer to the dwellings of the wicked.

How lovely is your dwelling-place, Lord, God of hosts.

MARK 7:1-13 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

It is laughable how those outside the embrace of Holy Mother Church insult and condemn us to hell and yet it is they who are so like the Pharisees and the Jews in Your day who used the Law to serve themselves rather than humble obedience in observing it. 

So often on social media, we read outright distortion of what Catholics believe and what Holy Mother Church teaches, and yet they stubbornly repeat their distorted version of Your teaching. To abide by the teachings of the Church calls for self-discipline, humility, keeping the body and its appetites in check, for chastity, purity, and continence in all things. The sanctity of life from conception to the grave is an inviolable fact and right and yet they fudge the truth, blur the lines according to their convenience and then they dare to finger-point and accuse the Church of idolatry, and false worship. They use Scripture out of context and yet deny it when it speaks with authority about things like divorce, adultery, and celibacy. Sexual activity is only permitted within marriage which as defined by God Himself is one man and one woman for life.

The scripture text You quoted to Your hearers then applies to all who manipulate the truth to suit their convenience.

This people honours me only with lip-service,
while their hearts are far from me.
The worship they offer me is worthless,
the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.

The accusation they make against the Church is false - we hold on to Apostolic Tradition, not human tradition. What the Apostles saw You do, they did, and this Tradition is handed down as a Sacred Deposit of our faith. We need Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium if we disregard even one of these we lack the fullness of Truth.

Thank You, Beloved, for Your assurance to the Church You founded that You would be with her until the end of time, that she would be protected against teaching error and that the gates of hell will never prevail against her. Praise You, Lord.