FRIDAY OF WEEK 15 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice,
says the Lord,
I know them and they follow me. JN 10:27

ISAIAH 38:1-6,21-22,7-8

My Soul's Beloved,

Prayer works. You hear and You answer. God does not desire the destruction of His poor, frail, weak, sinful little ones but He desires that all be saved and come to the knowledge of Truth.

We fear death because we stand on the brink of time and eternity and we are uncertain of what awaits us. When we stand at the door separating life and death we are filled with dread and we desire to cling desperately to the life we know and to all that is familiar but we cannot add one more moment to our lives only You O Lord, the Author of Life can do that. We have to leave this world when You call us. 

Hezekiah's response is our response when faced with death. We beg You for more time. We beg for healing. We plead with You to give us more time. And sometimes our prayers are heard and we are healed. But no matter how much longer is granted to us, Lord, a week, a month, a few more years we must face the inevitable - life will end, death will come, and we will stand between time and eternity and our lives on earth will be judged by You the Righteous Judge, and You will judge us on how well we have loved and served God by making that love and service visible in the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

PSALM - ISAIAH 38:10-12,16

You have held back my life, O Lord, from the pit of doom.

I said, ‘So I must go away,

  my life half spent,

assigned to the world below

  for the rest of my years.’

I said, ‘No more shall I see the Lord

  in the land of the living,

no more shall I look upon men

  within this world.

‘My home is pulled up and removed

  like a shepherd’s tent.

Like a weaver you have rolled up my life,

  you cut it from the loom.

‘For you, Lord, my heart will live,

  you gave me back my spirit;

you cured me, kept me alive,

  changed my sickness into health.’

You have held back my life, O Lord, from the pit of doom.

MATTHEW 12:1-8

My Soul's Beloved,

Nothing, nothing done in a spirit of love is ever forbidden. However, the Pharisees of this world, the nitpickers, the naysayers, spend their whole lives seeking relentlessly to remove the speck in their brothers' and sisters' eyes while neglecting the massive logs in their own. They are so envious of those who have answered God's call to love and to serve as He loves and serves, that they make it their mission to persecute them. They lack empathy, compassion, understanding, and kindness instead, they take an unholy delight in doing all they can to hinder the work of those who choose to live and work to spread the Kingdom of God.

The Gospel writers reveal that You were especially tender-hearted, kind, and compassionate to the poor, the window the outcast, the leper, the sinner, the sick, the disabled, those who were possessed by evil spirits, curing everyone with all kinds of physical, spiritual, and mental infirmity. But You also understood that we need food and drink to assuage our hunger and slake our thirst. The law must be set aside when people require help. Legitimate human needs precede the law. Your disciples were hungry and while walking through the cornfields they picked ears of corn and ate them even though it was forbidden to do so on the sabbath. You knew they were hungry and needed to eat and You let them. 

In every group, committee, or church organization, you will find those who believe their sole purpose is to point out what is against the rules. They know the law to the letter and demand that the rules be followed regardless of the circumstances. To them, the rules supersede every shred of human understanding and compassion and can never be set aside. We can all be accused of hypocrisy at some time or other in our lives and when we are tempted to put the law over basic human understanding and kindness You remind us what God demands of us:

 ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his followers were hungry – how he went into the house of God and how they ate the loaves of offering which neither he nor his followers were allowed to eat, but which were for the priests alone? Or again, have you not read in the Law that on the sabbath day the Temple priests break the sabbath without being blamed for it? Now here, I tell you, is something greater than the Temple. And if you had understood the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the blameless. For the Son of Man is master of the sabbath.’