MEMORIAL OF THE HOLY NAME OF MARY, THURSDAY OF WEEK 23 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

As long as we love one another
God will live in us
and his love will be complete in us. 1JN 4:12

1 CORINTHIANS 8:1-7,11-13

My Soul's Beloved,

We cannot say we know You without saying we love You - for You have loved us with a love that is everlasting and the magnitude of Your love is on a scale that we can never fathom. Who has ever loved us as You, all we have to do is lift our gaze on the Crucifix and see the extent to which divine love has gone to redeem us and pay the price that freed us from slavery to sin and made us children of God by the water and the blood that flowed from Your side and washed us clean from original sin.

It does not matter one iota whether or not we can quote scripture and verse if we fail to love. Love saves. This is why all that we say, do, think, and are, must be governed, prompted, and dictated by love - the love of God for us and our response to that love. 

We continue in idolatry when we love our bodies, our possessions, our jobs, our loved ones more than we love You and consider everything else well lost rather than lose You.

It is love that makes the building grow. A man may imagine he understands something, but still not understand anything in the way that he ought to. But any man who loves God is known by him.

For us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things come and for whom we exist; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come and through whom we exist.

PSALM 138(139):1-3,13-14,23-24

Lead me, O Lord, in the path of life eternal.

O Lord, you search me and you know me,

  you know my resting and my rising,

  you discern my purpose from afar.

You mark when I walk or lie down,

  all my ways lie open to you.

For it was you who created my being,

  knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I thank you for the wonder of my being,

  for the wonders of all your creation.

Already you knew my soul,

O search me, God, and know my heart.

  O test me and know my thoughts.

See that I follow not the wrong path

  and lead me in the path of life eternal.

Lead me, O Lord, in the path of life eternal.

LUKE 6:27-38

My Soul's Beloved,

The greater our love the greater will we grow in holiness, goodness, purity, and in all the virtues. We can see this in the lives of all the great Saints whose names illumine the Church and whom she holds up to us as worthy of emulation. The greatest of all these is Mary, the Mother of God and the Mother of the whole human race. She is the New Eve to the New Adam, You O Lord. 

No creature could ever touch the heights of sanctity that was hers. No one could love God as much as she did. She is the greatest of all God's creation - the most sublime in every way for it was God's will that she be 'full of grace'.

The world cannot say that they do not know the Way to the Father for You O Lord have revealed it. You have told us clearly how we can get to the Kingdom of God without perishing on the wayside. We must walk the Way of Calvary, following You as the Blessed Virgin did. We must keep our gaze fixed on God, trusting Him even when we do not understand, just like Mary. She treasured Your words and all the mysteries of her life in her heart and pondered on them. The more she pondered the deeper she was drawn into the mysteries of God's awesome love for her in choosing her and raising her up above all human creatures. It is God's will that all generations in every age and every nation call her blessed because of the marvels that God has wrought in her. Her flesh clothed the Son of God in Your human nature. Her body nourished You who nourishes us in the Holy Eucharist.

If we are to love then after You, she is our best model for she is our Mother, she takes us by the hand, she teaches us the words, she helps us but only if emulate her docility to God. Mary understood that her greatness was not dependent on her but came from God and we will do well to remember that we are nothing. Everything is God and without Him we are nothing.

‘Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned yourselves; grant pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back.’