21ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life;
you have the message of eternal life. JN 6:63, 68

JOSHUA 24:1-2,15-18

My Soul's Beloved,

More and more we see in our benighted world how Satan has infiltrated every Christian nation and those who were Yours have allowed themselves to be emasculated by faux compassion and wisdom. As we sow we reap and the world is reaping violence, mayhem, sin, corruption, and evil in all its demonic forms. There is one sure remedy, Lord, that we return to our senses and turn to You with all our hearts with humble and contrite hearts.

May that day come quickly upon us when we, like the chosen people in the day of Joshua, say with them,

‘We have no intention of deserting the Lord and serving other gods! Was it not the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors out of the land of Egypt, the house of slavery, who worked those great wonders before our eyes and preserved us all along the way we travelled and among all the peoples through whom we journeyed? What is more, the Lord drove all those peoples out before us, as well as the Amorites who used to live in this country. We too will serve the Lord, for he is our God.’

Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God, our redeemer and Savior, our Beloved Master, Teacher, Bridegroom, Brother, and Friend, we acknowledge that we have sinned and strayed far away from You. We thank You for relentlessly pursuing and wooing us to return to You. Grant the grace here and now, Lord, to say to You with all our hearts, 'We too will serve the Lord, for He is our God'. Have pity on Your foolish sheep O Lord and restore us to the fold where there is but one flock and one Shepherd.

PSALM 33(34):2-3,16-23

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

I will bless the Lord at all times,

  his praise always on my lips;

in the Lord my soul shall make its boast.

  The humble shall hear and be glad.

The Lord turns his face against the wicked

  to destroy their remembrance from the earth.

The Lord turns his eyes to the just

  and his ears to their appeal.

They call and the Lord hears

  and rescues them in all their distress.

The Lord is close to the broken-hearted;

  those whose spirit is crushed he will save.

Many are the trials of the just man

  but from them all the Lord will rescue him.

He will keep guard over all his bones,

  not one of his bones shall be broken.

Evil brings death to the wicked;

  those who hate the good are doomed.

The Lord ransoms the souls of his servants.

  Those who hide in him shall not be condemned.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

EPHESIANS 5:21-32

My Soul's Beloved,

The Enemy has sown weeds among the wheat and this is why we are witnessing Satan's final attack on marriage and families. Once the last bastion of God's desire for His children to lead a holy, fruitful, and joyous life is destroyed, the end will come quickly. The all-consuming fire of divine wrath will fall down from heaven and a third of all that lives will be destroyed and those that survive will have to sift through the ashes and debris to revive and with Your help begin anew.

Yet, Lord, there is still time and while there is yet time we can humble ourselves, confess that we have sinned, harden our hearts, and do what is necessary to restore Christian values with implacable resolve. A right order is necessary for us to follow if we are to thrive. This is possible only when we obey God's Law for they are divine instructions that are necessary because the Creator who made us knows that if we live as He has created us to we will be happy, fruitful, and enjoy peace and harmony with God, with each other, and with nature.

There is God's Way and there is the way of the world - one leads to life the other to death. You O Lord have given us free will to choose. If we choose the former we will live and if we choose the latter we sign our own eternal death warrant.  As members of Your Body, Beloved Bridegroom of our soul, when we remain in You, live, move, and have our being in You we will receive life in its abundance. Grant us wisdom O Lord that we may choose rightly and live.

Give way to one another in obedience to Christ. 

Husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her to make her holy. He made her clean by washing her in water with a form of words, so that when he took her to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless. 

A man never hates his own body, but he feeds it and looks after it; and that is the way Christ treats the Church, because it is his body – and we are its living parts. For this reason, a man must leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one body. This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church.

JOHN 6:60-69

My Soul's Beloved,

Satan is wily, slimy, and deviously clever. He slithers his way into the lives of us foolish men and women promising us what he has no power to deliver. He does this smoothly deceiving us into choosing that which is evil and will destroy us. He lies, he cajoles, and preys on our weaknesses. Satan does not sleep and is relentless in plotting our downfall. He despises and hates us but not as much as he hates You O Lord, who has redeemed the world. 

Beloved, God loves us dearly and refuses to rob us of our freedom to love Him freely and without coercion. You are Truth and anyone who believes in You has Life. When we accept that Your Word is Truth we will walk in the Way, the narrow and difficult way of suffering, that leads to eternal life.

The road to hell and eternal damnation is wide and easy and many choose it and You have shown us that the only Way to the Kingdom of Heaven is the Way of the Cross. You have not only shown us the Way Lord, but You have given us food for the journey. Food that will sustain and preserve us from the wiles of the Enemy. When we refuse to eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood which is offered freely to all who believe, then we fall into the trap of Satan and become easy pickings to the evil spirits.

Today O Lord, as we hear the Word of Truth and Life let us accept it, believe it, embrace it, and live it and we live happy, joyous, and fruitful lives. You have given us all O Lord, it is up to us to receive it and live.

‘It is the spirit that gives life,
the flesh has nothing to offer.
The words I have spoken to you are spirit
and they are life.
‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the outset those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him. He went on, ‘This is why I told you that no one could come to me unless the Father allows him.’ After this, many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him.

Then Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘What about you, do you want to go away too?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.’