STS. CHARLES LWANGA & HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS - MONDAY WEEK 9 IN ORDINARY TIME / 2024

 DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

You, O Christ, are the faithful witness,
the First-born from the dead;
you have loved us and have washed away our sins with your blood. RV 1:5

2 PETER 1:2-7 ©

My Soul’s Beloved, 

Heaven does not come cheap. It cost God everything. It cost the Father, His only, well-beloved Son. We cannot grasp greedily for ourselves, like swine at the trough, what God has given freely without first understanding as far as the human mind can comprehend, the goodness and graciousness of God in saving us at so great a price. O Lord, we can only approach You with trembling and awe when we look at ourselves and see what we truly are. We are miserable, frail, broken, fallen sinful creatures who deserve nothing but condemnation and yet, O Lord, You do not treat us as we deserve but You stoop low over us and pick us up tenderly and You love us. 

How can we even imagine, Lord, that we do not need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling? How can we dare to presume that we can grasp salvation when You who are God did not grasp equality with God but emptied Yourself, humbling Yourself, debasing Yourself in carrying out the will of Your Father? He desired to save us through Your self-emptying of Your glory, Your majesty, of leaving Your place at His right hand and taking a human body. A Body that was to be offered up in holocaust for the sins of the world. 

You O Lord, have saved us but we need to make that salvation actual by living a life guided by Your Holy Spirit. Without the gifts that He grants us we are unable to even say, You are Lord. 

St. Peter reminds us that if we are to share in Your divine nature and escape the corruption of a world steeped in every kind of vice and debauchery, we are to do our part: 

You will have to do your utmost yourselves, adding goodness to the faith that you have, understanding to your goodness, self-control to your understanding, patience to your self-control, true devotion to your patience, kindness towards your fellow men to your devotion, and, to this kindness, love. 

Help us O Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son to live in such a way that at the end of our lives, we will hear Jesus say to us, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Receive the inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

PSALM 90(91):1-2,14-16 ©

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
and abides in the shade of the Almighty
says to the Lord: ‘My refuge,
my stronghold, my God in whom I trust!’ 

His love he set on me, so I will rescue him;
protect him for he knows my name.
When he calls I shall answer: ‘I am with you.’ 

I will save him in distress and give him glory.
With length of life I will content him;
I shall let him see my saving power. 

My God, in you I trust. 

MARK 12:1-12 ©

My Soul’s Beloved, 

You spoke to the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders in parables, these are the very ones who fulfilled every prophecy concerning those who would lay their hands on the Messiah and put Him to death. They couldn’t claim ignorance about committing deicide, because they were well aware that You read their evil thoughts, and knew all about their evil intentions and all the plots to do You grave harm to silence You. They had no qualms at all about plotting Your murder because You upset the profitable status quo they had set up for themselves and it served them well. But You came along and laid bare their hypocrisy, their lies, and everything they plotted in private You shouted out from the rooftops leaving them no room for pretense. 

And what about us O Lord? We know the Truth for we are living in the age of the Holy Spirit who dwells in fullness in the Church You founded. The rich inheritance of our faith is passed down from one generation to the next. Yet we reject the Truth, we deceive ourselves, we make excuses for ourselves, we water down the Truth and dumb down the faith. What will our punishment be at the Last Judgment for rejecting the Truth? For deliberately choosing paths that do not lead to the Kingdom? For preferring the pleasures of the flesh over the life-giving Sacraments? 

O merciful Lord, what will our punishment be for rejecting You? 

It was the stone rejected by the builders
that became the keystone.
This was the Lord’s doing
and it is wonderful to see?

My Lord and my God, open our eyes and the eyes of all we pray for so earnestly every day and hear and answer us Lord, so we may all be saved in the end.