32ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

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

1 KINGS 17:10-16

My Soul's Beloved,

The tragedy of most Christians is that we do not put our entire confidence in You and Your Word. All that You have said You will do. All that Your Word has said will come to pass. You O Lord are faithful. Earthly food perishes and we too who are of the earth will perish some day but the Bread of Angels, the Heavenly Manna wells up to everlasting life in us. If anyone eats the Flesh of the Son of Man and drinks His Blood, he will not die, he will live.

Beloved, we are called every moment of every day to give not of our surplus but to give even when what we have is all that is left. True giving is to lay down one's life for one's friend. Lord, it is easy to give when it costs us nothing, it is easy to give things but to give of ourselves, our time, our patience, and our company, these are the things that cost us because generally, we are selfish and self-absorbed.  

The prophet Elisha was sent to the widow who had next to nothing and he asked her to share with him the little she had and God would reward her:

‘Please bring me a little water in a vessel for me to drink.’ She was setting off to bring it when he called after her. ‘Please’ he said ‘bring me a scrap of bread in your hand.’ ‘As the Lord your God lives,’ she replied ‘I have no baked bread, but only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug; I am just gathering a stick or two to go and prepare this for myself and my son to eat, and then we shall die.’ But Elijah said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, go and do as you have said; but first make a little scone of it for me and bring it to me, and then make some for yourself and for your son. For thus the Lord speaks, the God of Israel:
“Jar of meal shall not be spent,
jug of oil shall not be emptied,
before the day when the Lord sends
rain on the face of the earth.”’

She believed and God did exactly what He promised He would: The woman went and did as Elijah told her and they ate the food, she, himself and her son. The jar of meal was not spent nor the jug of oil emptied, just as the Lord had foretold through Elijah.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, and Bridegroom of my soul, increase my faith.

PSALM 145(146):7-10

My soul, give praise to the Lord.

It is the Lord who keeps faith for ever,
who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry,
the Lord, who sets prisoners free.

It is the Lord who gives sight to the blind,
who raises up those who are bowed down.
It is the Lord who loves the just,
the Lord, who protects the stranger.

The Lord upholds the widow and orphan
but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign for ever,
Zion’s God, from age to age.

My soul, give praise to the Lord.

HEBREWS 9:24-28

My Soul's Beloved,

What an amazing gift is our faith and we receive this faith only through our Holy Mother Church for in her wells the fullness of the Life of the Holy Spirit. The Church is a living, breathing sign of Your Presence among us. From the rising of the sun to its setting, the Holy Eucharist which You instituted at the Last Supper and consummated by the one, holy, and perfect Sacrifice that You offered on the Altar of the Cross on Golgotha is offered to the Father. You are the perfect, holy, sinless Victim, the Lamb of God without stain or blemish, and this bloody Sacrifice mysteriously and until Your glorious return, intercedes for us all before the Father and obtains for all those who are repentant and contrite of heart, forgiveness for all our sins. 

Our bishops and priests are sinners but they are anointed and consecrated and You share Your eternal Priesthood with them making them alter Christus. They stand in Your place even though they are sinners, and You act in and through them. In the Sacraments, it is You who operate through them and although we see the priest, we hear the priest, as they minister to us through the Sacraments You instituted, it is You and Your Holy Spirit who touch us, heal us, forgive us, bathe us in the waters of baptism, and feed us.

Thank You our Eternal High Priest, we long for the day of Your return until then we are grateful for Your abiding Presence in Your Church and in us. Thank You for the Holy Eucharist.

And he does not have to offer himself again and again, like the high priest going into the sanctuary year after year with the blood that is not his own, or else he would have had to suffer over and over again since the world began. Instead of that, he has made his appearance once and for all, now at the end of the last age, to do away with sin by sacrificing himself. Since men only die once, and after that comes judgement, so Christ, too, offers himself only once to take the faults of many on himself, and when he appears a second time, it will not be to deal with sin but to reward with salvation those who are waiting for him.

MARK 12:38-44

My Soul's Beloved,

If only the world had eyes to see and ears to hear and we believed in the Gospel, the Kingdom of God would be among us. Until recently, it seemed that the world was going to hell in a handbasket but now there is a glimmer of hope. Your mighty hand has prevailed. You have heard the prayers of Your people all over the world and just as God chose Israel from all the nations and formed them, gave them the law, chose prophets from among them to reveal His glorious plan of salvation and fulfill His promises of sending the Messiah into the world to redeem all mankind, to me it appears that You have chosen another nation in our time, a nation where people of every other nation, language, culture, faith, and ideology has found a home. When this nation fails to uphold the values of Christianity, the rest of the world grows weak and the sins and evil celebrated in this nation trickles like slime and sludge to the rest of the world and contaminates and destroys all it touches. 

There will always be people with great power and wealth who are bound by the cords of evil for they have given their lives to Satan, who fit perfectly Your description of the Pharisees and scribes. They will not escape Your just retribution. It comes slowly yet inexorably:

‘Beware of the scribes who like to walk about in long robes, to be greeted obsequiously in the market squares, to take the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets; these are the men who swallow the property of widows, while making a show of lengthy prayers. The more severe will be the sentence they receive.’

Today, in the Gospel, You also draw our attention to those whom we often turn our gaze away, they seem insignificant, and powerless, they have less than nothing, and they are materially poor, often sick, handicapped, destitute, alone, and helpless. This is true when we look at them with the eyes of the world. But if we truly saw them as You see them, Lord, then just like the widow in today's Gospel, we would seek them differently. It is often the least among us that possesses far greater spiritual treasures than we can ever hope to have despite all the material advantages we have over them.

He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the treasury, and many of the rich put in a great deal. A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘I tell you solemnly, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.’

Lord Jesus, give us eyes to see as You do. Give us hearts that are as generous as the poor widow who did not hesitate to give all she had to live on and by doing so glorified God more than all those who put great sums of money out of their excess.

 "Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give, and not to count the cost, to fight, and not to heed the wounds, to toil, and not to seek for rest, to labor, and not to ask for reward, except that of knowing that we are doing your will".