ST. THOMAS APOSTLE OF INDIA - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Jesus said: ‘You believe because you can see me.
Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.’ JN 20:29

JEREMIAH 1:4-9

My Soul's Beloved,

You chose the Twelve after You spent the whole night in prayer, and in union with Your Father and the Holy Spirit. They were imperfect men. They would doubt, question, jostle to have a place of importance over the others, and they would not understand that the Kingdom You came to establish on earth had nothing to do with the world's view of a kingdom. They believed that You had come from God to rout their enemy and free their land from Roman occupation and oppression. But as You said to Pilate, Your Kingdom was not of this world. 

Only after Pentecost, would they understand their mission and they would burn with zeal to accomplish it. They would consider it a privilege and a joy to lay down their lives as You did as they preached the Gospel just as You commanded to preach it to all nations, even to the ends of the earth. 

You took a group of rough almost illiterate men one of whom denied You, one betrayed You and one doubted You and on these with Peter as the Rock, You built Your Church. 

‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
before you came to birth I consecrated you;
I have appointed you as prophet to the nations.’

‘Go now to those to whom I send you
and say whatever I command you.
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to protect you –
it is the Lord who speaks!’

Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me:
‘There! I am putting my words into your mouth.’

Thank You for the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Thank You for Your assurance that the gates of hell will never prevail against her. Keep us safe in her Lord until the end. And bring all who have strayed from her back to her so all may be saved.

PSALM 116(117):1-2

O praise the Lord, all you nations,
acclaim him all you peoples!

Strong is his love for us;
he is faithful for ever.

Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News.

EPHESIANS 2:19-22

My Soul's Beloved,

Every human being longs to belong and every Catholic knows that we do. We have a family - God is our Father, You O Lord are our Brother, and the Holy Spirit makes us one with God. We have Your Mother as our Mother as well and every Catholic has a powerful intercessor in her for God will deny the purest of all His creatures nothing that she implores for the children entrusted to her.

So no Beloved, we are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: as St. Paul reminds us we are family united to the saints who have gone before us, the Church triumphant, united to the suffering Church in Purgatory, and to all our brothers and sisters striving to be holy and perfect as our Father is holy and perfect - the Church militant on earth.

You are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household. You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundations, and Christ Jesus himself for its main cornerstone. As every structure is aligned on him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord; and you too, in him, are being built into a house where God lives, in the Spirit.

JOHN 20:24-29

My Soul's Beloved,

Today may my prayer be, 'My Lord and my God!'

Let me savor the words. May Your Holy Spirit enable me to understand what it means to proclaim that You O Lord, are my Lord and my God.

Too often, I am like Thomas. My faith wavers. I want signs, proof, I want to see and touch. I want to put my finger in the holes the nails have made in Your hands and put my hand in Your side saying as he did, 'Unless I do so, I refuse to believe.' 

Thank You for Your great patience and kindness to me. Thank You for not taking offense at my stupidity and ignorance but coming to me always and offering me Your peace and love. Not upbraiding me but meeting me where I am and saying gently to me as You did to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Doubt no longer but believe.’ 

Today and always O Lord may my prayer be: ‘My Lord and my God!’ Count me among those who believe without seeing for You declare that we are happy who have not seen and yet believe.

TUESDAY OF WEEK 13 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

My soul is waiting for the Lord,
I count on his word. PS 129:5

AMOS 3:1-8,4:11-12

My Soul's Beloved,

Were it not for You, O Lord had not the Father sent You into the world because He so loved us that He gave us His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life - we would tremble with fear at the words of the prophet Amos.

Over and over again we see in the Old Testament how grievously God's chosen people sinned and did all that was forbidden. They broke the commandments with impunity and they were punished. So often they were destroyed,  taken captives, and exiled, but God always left a poor remnant behind and God always began anew with a few of the little ones that the world thought too small and too unworthy.  

Our present culture is given over to evil and to death. While we may think that the current depravity of the sins of our age is unlike any in the past, the truth is that there are no new sins. As the Word of God tells us in Ecclesiastes What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Beloved, You bore our sins, You took on Yourself the penalty that was ours. We are redeemed by Your Precious Blood, this is why, O Lord, we know that God will never forsake us but will continue to woo us until we return to Him. We have hope because we have You and through You, my Beloved, we have access to the Father's Heart. Thank You. 

PSALM 5:5-8

You are no God who loves evil;

no sinner is your guest.
The boastful shall not stand their ground
before your face.

You hate all who do evil;

you destroy all who lie.
The deceitful and bloodthirsty man
the Lord detests.

But I through the greatness of your love

have access to your house.
I bow down before your holy temple,
filled with awe.

Lead me, O Lord, in your justice.

MATTHEW 8:23-27

My Soul's Beloved,

I am in the same boat as the disciples - it is the boat in which You are present. It is Peter's Boat. The Father made known through the Holy Spirit that Peter was the one on whom You would build Your Church and You have assured her that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Satan and his fallen angels are striving mightily to snatch God's people from Him but evil is defeated, You have conquered. Yes, we are living in the final age and the devil in his death throes seeks to take with him as many as he can before You return in glory and majesty to establish forever Your glorious reign. 

But for now, Beloved, the Bark of Peter is on perilous seas. The waves rise high threatening to swamp the boat, the winds shriek maniacally tossing the boat high and then bringing it violently down and those in her are terrified lest we perish. Many in the boat, Lord, are not living holy lives, we have made compromises with the world, we have not followed Your Commandments, we are often ungodly and we have raised ungodly children by our neglect in raising them in the fear of the Lord. While it may seem that all is lost, Beloved, You are still in the Boat. Asleep or awake You are still with us. You will not let us perish. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, I trust in You. Have mercy on us and on the whole world.

Jesus got into the boat followed by his disciples. Without warning a storm broke over the lake, so violent that the waves were breaking right over the boat. But he was asleep. So they went to him and woke him saying, ‘Save us, Lord, we are going down!’ And he said to them, ‘Why are you so frightened, you men of little faith?’ And with that he stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and all was calm again. The men were astounded and said, ‘Whatever kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him.’

MONDAY OF WEEK 13 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Harden not your hearts today,
but listen to the voice of the Lord. PS 94:8

AMOS 2:6-10,13-16

My Soul's Beloved,

Every evil deed committed against the righteous, the anawim of the Lord, the outcast, the poor, those who are persecuted because they belong to You, Your faithful ones who refuse to lie down with the Enemy but are at constant war with him refusing to be beguiled by the father of lies as so many in the world have done, these are known by God and every one of them will be punished and shamed. Let us never worry that the wicked flourish for a while. Their day of reckoning will come. When You O Lord, come to vindicate Your little ones, when You, O Lord, the righteous judge, come to save Your faithful who are called by Your Name, nothing will save the wicked from the wrath of the Almighty.

Beloved, let us never forget the price that You paid for our redemption. It was no small thing for God to ask You to come into the world as one of us, born a little babe, born of a woman and like us in all things save sin. It was no small thing that You said yes to His wondrous plan of salvation. It was everything that the Son of God willingly laid down Your life in a death so horrific, so cruel, so inhuman, that for any of us to take it for granted and to continue to sin with impunity despite the fact that we are set free from death precisely because You paid the debt that sets us free, is inconceivable and unthinkable. Sadly, Lord, we do.

Now is the time of our salvation, Lord, let us not delay our return to the Father's house lest time runs out and we will be lost eternally.

The Lord says this:
See then how I am going to crush you into the ground
as the threshing-sledge crushes when clogged by straw;
flight will not save even the swift,
the strong man will find his strength useless,
the mighty man will be powerless to save himself.
The bowman will not stand his ground,
the fast runner will not escape,
the horseman will not save himself,
the bravest warriors will run away naked that day.
It is the Lord who speaks.

PSALM 49(50):16-23

‘How can you recite my commandments

and take my covenant on your lips,
you who despise my law
and throw my words to the winds?

‘You who see a thief and go with him;

who throw in your lot with adulterers,
who unbridle your mouth for evil
and whose tongue is plotting crime.

‘You who sit and malign your brother

and slander your own mother’s son.
You do this, and should I keep silence?
Do you think that I am like you?

‘Mark this, you who never think of God,
lest I seize you and you cannot escape;
a sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me
and I will show God’s salvation to the upright.’

Mark this, you who never think of God.

MATTHEW 8:18-22

My Soul's Beloved,

Every one of us has a mission and we are to have no illusions about what it costs to follow You faithfully, closely, and until the end. 

Are we part of the crowd that You leave behind because many of them are only there for what they can receive from You without any personal commitment? Is my heart stirred with excitement when I hear Your Word like the scribe who came up to You and said, ‘Master, I will follow you wherever you go.’ And You give me a reality check that forces me to see that following You will not be easy. Your response to the scribe is, ‘Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ If I am looking for comfort as a disciple then I am unworthy of being one.

One of the disciples whom You invited to follow You excused himself saying, ‘Sir, let me go and bury my father first.’ And You replied, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their dead.’ It is possible to find a hundred legitimate reasons and make plausible excuses for not leaving behind everything when we hear Your invitation, 'Follow me!' But in the end, Lord, when we reject Your call to discipleship and to a personal, close and intimate relationship with You, the Son of God, the Lord of Lord, the King of Kings, we do so at our own peril. We do so at the risk of our salvation.

Grant us the courage we need to always say 'yes' each time You invite us to a deeper relationship with You. Thank You, Lord.