Saturday, July 27, 2024

Blessed Rudolph Acquaviva and Companions, Priests, Martyrs on Saturday of week 16 in Ordinary Time, 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Accept and submit to the word
which has been planted in you
and can save your souls. JM 1:21


JEREMIAH 7:1-11

My Soul's Beloved,

All too often, we Catholics are just like the faithless people of God that Jeremiah is prophesying against. We delude ourselves that because we are in the Church You founded, where Your Holy Spirit abides, and in where the fullness of beauty, truth, and goodness are found, we are saved. All that God says through the lips of the prophet is directed to us who falsely believe that we are saved because we are privileged to be Catholics. This is false. We cannot sin with impunity and not suffer the dreadful consequences of sin.

Unless we reject sin and live virtuous lives pleasing to God He will reject us.

“Amend your behaviour and your actions and I will stay with you here in this place. 
But if you do amend your behaviour and your actions, if you treat each other fairly, if you do not exploit the stranger, the orphan and the widow (if you do not shed innocent blood in this place), and if you do not follow alien gods, to your own ruin, then here in this place I will stay with you, in the land that long ago I gave to your fathers forever. 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, be merciful to me a sinner. Stay with me Lord and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me for without You I am sure to fail, to fall, and be lost forever. Take pity on me, Beloved, and remain with me now and always.

PSALM 83(84):3-6,8,11
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.
They walk with ever-growing strength,
  they will see the God of gods in Zion.
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.
MATTHEW 13:24-30

My Soul's Beloved,

We are all created good because all that God has created is good. Satan, who lost forever his place in heaven and the glory he once enjoyed in Your Presence due to the sin of pride and disobedience hates us with a vicious and all-consuming hatred. He is tireless in stealing souls that belong to God for he and his minion will do all in their limited capacity to rob us of our inheritance. 

We are warned to remain vigilant for the Enemy never sleeps but prowls around the world night and day to steal, plunder, and destroy souls. The hour of victory is drawing near. The wondrous fruit of Your triumph over death by Your passion and glorious resurrection is almost upon us. While it is true that we do not know that day or the hour when You will return, we know You will at a time we least expect. But we are warned that while we wait we must be vigilant lest we fall asleep, become spiritually lazy and indifferent, falling into the snares that the Enemy carefully lays for us, and thus, lose the inheritance God has prepared for His children since the foundations of the world.

While there is yet time, Lord, grant us the grace to use all the help You have made available to us - the Sacraments. You have given us Your Mother, the saints, and the angels to pray for us and intercede for us before Your throne. May we use their power to help us and may we also pray for one another so we may all be saved and spend eternity in the company of Mama Mary, and all the angels and saints praising and glorifying You forever and ever.

On the day of judgment, Lord, may we be the wheat that the angels gather and place in Your barn not the chaff that is burned in the fiery furnace where the flames will never go out.

The servants said, “Do you want us to go and weed it out?” But he said, “No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.”’

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