MONDAY OF WEEK 29 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

How happy are the poor in spirit:
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. MT 5:3

EPHESIANS 2:1-10

My Soul's Beloved,

It is precisely because the Father knows how desperately we need help that He gave You to us as our Brother, Friend, and Spouse, who is always with us. Were it not for You, Beloved, and Your abiding Presence in us we would never be able to navigate the perils, the storms, and the dangers that lurk everywhere waiting to rob, destroy, and kill our very souls.

All of us have sinned and continue to sin. We are tempted on every side. Circumstances trap us and render us incapable of doing what we know we ought. Too often we are ensnared by our own poor decisions and have no one to blame but ourselves for our poor choices but each of those decisions and choices have repercussions sometimes making it impossible to extricate ourselves from its consequences. But You, O Lord are God. Nothing is too difficult or impossible for You - in this truth, I place all my hope. I know that in the end, Beloved, Your strong, mighty, right hand, will deliver and save.

But God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ – it is through grace that you have been saved – and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.
This was to show for all ages to come, through his goodness towards us in Christ Jesus, how infinitely rich he is in grace. Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.

PSALM 99(100)

He made us, we belong to him.

Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing for joy.

He made us, we belong to him.
Know that he, the Lord, is God.
He made us, we belong to him,

we are his people, the sheep of his flock.

Go within his gates, giving thanks.

Enter his courts with songs of praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name.

Indeed, how good is the Lord,
eternal his merciful love.
He is faithful from age to age.

He made us, we belong to him.

LUKE 12:13-21

My Soul's Beloved,

Bishop R. Barron said in his homily yesterday, 'It is never a good idea to tell God what we think He ought to do.' It is prideful, stupid, foolish, and idiotic to demand that You do as we ask. You are God, You know best how to bless us with graces, gifts, and blessings far beyond our expectations. 

Every breath we breathe is dependent on the love, the will, and the generosity of God. If we live we live because He desires it, if we die, it will be because He commands and wills it. Life and death are in the hands of God and all we can and must do as long as we have breath in our bodies is to discern Your will O Lord, and beg for the grace to do it. Knowing Your will is only the first step, the second is to have the courage to do it despite the cost. 

Too often we spend our lives desiring, getting, accumulating, driving ourselves to obtain what is fleeting, and neglecting to store for ourselves treasure in heaven where thieves cannot enter nor moth or rust destroy. Our avarice brings about death in every sense of the term and God forbid, Beloved, we will spend eternity regretting all the terrible choices we made instead of keeping the two commandments that guarantee our happiness in this life and eternal happiness with You in the Kingdom of Heaven.  

A man in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.’ ‘My friend,’ he replied, ‘who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.’