ST. BONAVENTURE, BISHOP & DOCTOR - MONDAY OF WEEK 15 IN ORDINARY TIME, 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Happy those who are persecuted
in the cause of right,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. MT 5:10

ISAIAH 1:10-17

My Soul's Beloved,

Our culture is bloody. The world is soaked with the blood of innocents. The blood of countless babies lost to abortion, countless babies dying of starvation, violence both physical and sexual, babies who are conceived in violence and whose mothers are abandoned and who perpetuate the violence and evil done against them because they can see no way out of their poverty and misery. We live in a culture where death is commonplace. Lives are lost through the rash actions of others. Wars are declared because a few wish to gain mastery and possess by force what is not theirs whatever that may be. Wars are declared by those of different religions, ethnicities, and tribes, or for no good reason at all except they are caught in a loop of hatred, bigotry, and violence and they keep the cycle of evil ongoing.

How then can we lift our hands in prayer, how can we prostrate before You, our God, and offer any sacrifice that is pleasing to You when our lives are corrupt, decaying, and dying. Grant O Lord, that the few voices of reason be heard. Those who speak Your Word in a world that prefers all that is opposed to the good, the true, the noble, the honorable, the loving, the kind, the beautiful. We have allowed ourselves to reach these horrific depths from which there seems no way out. But there is always hope. Your anger lasts for only a moment but Your goodness and kindness are forever.

Your New Moons and your pilgrimages
I hate with all my soul.
They lie heavy on me,
I am tired of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands
I turn my eyes away.
You may multiply your prayers,
I shall not listen.
Your hands are covered with blood,
wash, make yourselves clean.

Take your wrong-doing out of my sight.

Cease to do evil.
Learn to do good,
search for justice,
help the oppressed,
be just to the orphan,
plead for the widow.’

PSALM 49(50):8-9,16-17,21,23

‘I find no fault with your sacrifices,

  your offerings are always before me.

I do not ask more bullocks from your farms,

  nor goats from among your herds.

‘But 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 do this, and should I keep silence?

  Do you think that I am like you?

A sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me

  and I will show God’s salvation to the upright.’

I will show God’s salvation to the upright.

MATTHEW 10:34-11:1

My Soul's Beloved,

 There are a good many sanctimonious prigs in the world or those who make  s great  show of pointing out that You cannot be a God of love if You say You came to cause division between members of families. They deliberately or through sheer ignorance choose to misunderstand and misconstrue the meaning of Your words and thus they are the ones who are the cause of the division and hatred. They are the ones who reject members of their family who have come to believe in You, are baptized in Your Body, and are born again by Water and the Holy Spirit. Those who enter Your Church and receive new life and are saved.

They are rejected, persecuted, hounded, imprisoned, and often put to death because they have found the Pearl of Great Price, the Treasure in the Field, and would rather die than reject You.

Jesus instructed the Twelve as follows: ‘Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be those of his own household.

 You tell us clearly that we are to put nothing and no one above our love for You and if we do we are unworthy to belong to You. We are unworthy to be called members of the household of God. And there are many Catholics and Christians who would rather die than lose You and their eternal inheritance.

 ‘Anyone who prefers father or mother to me is not worthy of me. Anyone who prefers son or daughter to me is not worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Our entire lives must be spent in loving service of God and neighbour. You give us grace sufficient each day to carry out the mission entrusted to us. It is up to us to use those graces to store up treasures in heaven that neither moths can eat nor rust can destroy.