10TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Now the prince of this world is to be overthrown,
says the Lord.
And when I am lifted up from the earth,
I shall draw all men to myself. JN 12:31, 32

GENESIS 3:9-15

My Soul's Beloved, 

How consoling it is for us to know that even after we have sinned grievously You do not abandon us but pursue us relentlessly, saying, 'Where are you?' Deliberate, wilful sin, makes us aware of our own brokenness, our frailty, our inability to help ourselves when we lack self-control when we lack humility when we refuse to submit to the God of love and goodness, kindness, and tender compassion, the God of mercy. Instead, we choose to hide from You because we know we have made wrong choices and our sins make us afraid. Childlike innocence is pure but sin makes us aware of our inadequacy and our nakedness for we strip ourselves of all that is good, true, holy, and beautiful.   

There are consequences to sin, Lord. You are a just judge and You are holy. When we deliberately and wilfully turn our back on You we bring condemnation on ourselves. When we choose what is forbidden by God it will bring us death and complete separation from You and yet we allow the world, the flesh, and the devil to beguile us.  

O loving Father, the horror of sin cost the life of Your Son. Poor, wretched, sinful creatures though we are You created us because You desired us to share the joy of knowing You, loving You, and being happy with You eternally. You do not turn Your back on us even though we do a hundred times a day. Yet, there is no condemnation in You only mercy and tender compassion. 

Thank You, Father, for the promise You made to our first parents: 

‘I will make you enemies of each other:
you and the woman,
your offspring and her offspring.
It will crush your head
and you will strike its heel.’ 

Thank You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for our redemption. Thank You Mama Mary for your 'yes' to God for without your fiat we could not have been saved.

PSALM 129(130)

Lord, hear my voice!
O let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleading. 

Lord, who would survive?
But with you is found forgiveness:
for this we revere you.

My soul is waiting for the Lord.

I count on his word.
My soul is longing for the Lord
more than watchman for daybreak.
(Let the watchman count on daybreak
and Israel on the Lord.)

Because with the Lord there is mercy

and fullness of redemption,
Israel indeed he will redeem
from all its iniquity.

With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. 

2 CORINTHIANS 4:13-5:1

My Soul's Beloved, 

We are so blessed by the letters of St. Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit and given to us to help us journey confidently through the years - from birth, childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age. Faith is Your free gift to us given to us at our baptism and the Holy Spirit dwells in us and unites us to the Father and to You in love and not just to God but to every member in the Church. We journey together as one body, in this valley of tears and we support each other with our prayers for each other as members of the Church and as children of God. The love of the Spirit binds us together. 

In the Church, we walk together, the weak and the strong, the sinner and the saint, the young and the old, the healthy and the sick, the living and the dying. When we are young we are usually careless of the great gift of salvation given to us and we do not guard our souls as well as we ought but when we reach old age we finally begin to understand the treasure we carry in the clay jars of our bodies. The former is eternal the latter will decay and die.  

Continue to walk with us all my Lord, the weak and the strong, the sinner and the saint and fill us with Your Holy Spirit until time for us shall cease and we come to You to be judged. Be merciful to us O Lord, for the sake of the price You paid for our salvation, a price that the Father asked of You and which You gladly paid. 

Though this outer man of ours may be falling into decay, the inner man is renewed day by day. Yes, the troubles which are soon over, though they weigh little, train us for the carrying of a weight of eternal glory which is out of all proportion to them. And so we have no eyes for things that are visible, but only for things that are invisible; for visible things last only for a time, and the invisible things are eternal.
For we know that when the tent that we live in on earth is folded up, there is a house built by God for us, an everlasting home not made by human hands, in the heavens.

MARK 3:20-35

My Soul's Beloved, 

The greater the number of people who are being converted and who come home to the Church You founded, the greater the opposition from those who are blinded by Satan. The war between good and evil in the world is real and it is fierce. The fight for souls is relentless and many are being lost for we are living in the last age before Your Second Coming. Today good is called evil and evil good and many are so abysmally ignorant of God and the Good News, that they believe the lies being spewed in the media, among those with influence and power, and the evil has infiltrated every area of public and private life.  

The battle lines are drawn - those who are for You and those who are against You. The great rebellion has begun. Who is the strong man in us - is it the Holy Spirit or the spirit of the age? Depending on which has gained mastery over us we either stand or fall. When we attribute good to evil and evil to good in this upside-down, topsy-turvy world, then those on the side of God must be prepared to wage battle even should it cost us our lives. Let the children of God take a stand and give God the things that are His even if the whole world persecutes us, reviles us, says all manner of evil against us - we shall not bow down because the Holy Spirit who abides in us will lead us to victory.  

To all those misguided, Bible-thumping people who never cease to trumpet their knowledge of Scripture and use that knowledge as a weapon to twist its meaning, using texts out of context, and believing that they trump the Magisterium has Satan singing for joy at their bigotry. But the Church celebrates the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit and whose interpretation is handed down to us who belong to the Holy Mother Church, from Apostolic times. It is not obfuscated, it is not subject to every person's private interpretation, it is the Word of Truth that guides us who are in Peter's boat, to safe harbor.   

A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, ‘Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.’ He replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking round at those sitting in a circle about him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.’ 

Mary the Mother of God and our Mother, is celebrated because her whole life was one that lived the fiat she made long before the Annunciation when she said, "I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word." Mary always said yes when she knew it was the will of God.