SATURDAY OF THE 11TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Jesus Christ was rich,
but he became poor for your sake,
to make you rich out of his poverty. 2 COR 8:9

2 CHRONICLES 24:17-25

My Soul's Beloved,

Your chosen people neither in the Old Covenant nor the New remain stubborn, willful, disobedient, and fickle. Time and time again we read how the kings and God's chosen people turned away from true worship of God and bowed down before idols. The more they regressed spiritually the more wicked they became. How easily they forgot that they were chosen as Your inheritance forever. Because You do not visit us with Your wrath despite our grave offenses but are exceedingly patient, kind, and full of mercy and tender compassion for our frailty, we forget that You are also a God of justice. 

Lord Jesus, You bore our punishment, You took on Yourself our guilt and paid the price for our redemption. You bore the stripes by which we are healed. Let us never fail to give You the praise, worship, and thanksgiving that are Your due. Had You not freely laid down Your life for us we would have been banished forever from God's sight.

Let us never take Your love and the Father's love for granted by sinning with impunity, rather let us implore You to fill us with Your Holy Spirit so that with His help we can always strive to do all that is pleasing to You, always.

PSALM 88(89):4-5,29-34

‘With my chosen one I have made a covenant;

I have sworn to David my servant:
I will establish your dynasty for ever
and set up your throne through all ages.

‘I will keep my love for him always;

with him my covenant shall last.
I will establish his dynasty for ever,
make his throne endure as the heavens.

‘If his sons forsake my law
and refuse to walk as I decree
and if ever they violate my statutes,
refusing to keep my commands;
then I will punish their offences with the rod,
then I will scourge them on account of their guilt.

‘But I will never take back my love,
my truth will never fail.’

I will keep my love for him always.

MATTHEW 6:24-34

My Soul's Beloved,

You will have no part of a divided heart we are either all Yours or we are not. We cannot keep one foot in heaven and the other in hell. We must choose to be Your completely or not at all. It is impossible to be loyal to both the Prince of Peace and the ruler of darkness we have to either love the one and hate the other, be loyal to one and forswear the other, belong wholly to God, and give no quarter to the Enemy. There is only one Way - the Way of the Cross, the narrow way, the way of suffering leads to life, there is no other. You warn us that broad is the road and easy the way that leads to perdition and destruction.

Lord God unless we have a childlike trust in You and even when the storms in our lives rages around us we are to lay quietly beside You even if seems that You are fast asleep in the boat. Give us the kind of faith O Lord that prays the prayer of Job, 'Even though he slay me, yet I will trust Him.'

I know Lord that we are children of God and heirs with You to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Father knows all that we need even before we ask Him and He will provide for us always. Not according to our timetable but according to His will. While I wait Lord, grant me the grace to be like a weaned child on its mother's lap, content and serene.

‘Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life? And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you men of little faith? So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?” It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’