STS. PAUL MIKI & COMPANIONS, MARTYRS, ON THURSDAY OF WEEK 4 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2025

 DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

The kingdom of God is close at hand:
repent and believe the Good News. MK 1:15

HEBREWS 12:18-19,21-24

O my Soul's Beloved,

How can I thank You enough for becoming God's New Covenant of Love with us? How well the writer of this letter to the Hebrews describes the terror that struck Moses and the Israelites in the desert when God spoke to them. They begged Moses that they should hear it no more and Moses himself revealed that he was afraid and he trembled with fear. But we O Lord, my God, Son of God and Son of Man, the First Born of the Father, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world approach the Throne of Grace and Mercy with the confidence of children approaching their Dad. You O Lord,  make it possible for us to come before the Father with confidence, fearless, and filled with childlike joy and simplicity for we are washed in the Blood of the Lamb and sealed with His Holy Spirit.

You, the First Born, identify so completely with us, the new people of God, that we can make the bold claim that we too are a 'first-born son', citizens of heaven and co-heirs with You to the Kingdom. You O Lord tore the veil from top to bottom that separated God's creatures from Him and made a way through Your Flesh to the Father's House. You assured us that in Your Father's house are many mansions and You have gone before us to prepare a place for us.  I believe, my Lord, and I long for the day when You will come and take me to the place that has been prepared for me eternally.

But what you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival, with the whole Church in which everyone is a ‘first-born son’ and a citizen of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and been placed with spirits of the saints who have been made perfect; and to Jesus, the mediator who brings a new covenant and a blood for purification which pleads more insistently than Abel’s.

PSALM 47(48):2-4,9-11

O God, we ponder your love within your temple.

The Lord is great and worthy to be praised
in the city of our God.
His holy mountain rises in beauty,
the joy of all the earth.

Mount Zion, true pole of the earth,

the Great King’s city!
God, in the midst of its citadels,

has shown himself its stronghold.

O God, we ponder your love within your temple.
As we have heard, so we have seen
in the city of our God,
in the city of the Lord of hosts
which God upholds for ever.

O God, we ponder your love

within your temple.
Your praise, O God, like your name
reaches the ends of the earth.
With justice your right hand is filled.

O God, we ponder your love within your temple.

MARK 6:7-13

My Soul's Beloved,

Thank You for establishing Your Church, the New Jerusalem on Mt. Zion, the Eternal City where the light shines on the hill always and all who so desire may climb the Mountain of the Lord and find Him. It is in this place that You dwell in fullness and in truth. There is no other place in the whole wide world where the Son of God makes His home in the particular way You have chosen to do so in our tabernacles, our adoration chapels and in our hearts when we receive You in the Holy Eucharist. 

The authority that You gave the Twelve when You sent them out in pairs to teach, to heal, to minister, to preach, and to make God known by the power of His Word and His Touch. They were sent as alter Christus. In the same way, Lord, those who see the Pope, the Bishops, and the priests see You. Just as You were the visible image of the invisible God so too is the Vicar of Christ and the Bishops and priests visible and tangible images of You in the Church. You speak through the lips of the priests. At their word which is Your Word the simple gifts of bread and wine become Your Body and Blood and we are fed and nourished and given grace for the journey from this life to the next. The way to the Kingdom is narrow and hard, and few find it this is why we need this supernatural Bread for without it we would fall by the wayside and perish. 

To this day, Lord, many reject You and in rejecting You they reject the Truth that sets us free. But in Your great mercy O Lord, You will hear the prayers and the supplications of the Church as a community and individual members who pray unceasingly with fasting and tears, and God, who desires that all may be saved will hear and answer and many will believe and be saved. 

Then he (Jesus) summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs giving them authority over the unclean spirits. And he instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff – no bread, no haversack, no coppers for their purses. They were to wear sandals but, he added, ‘Do not take a spare tunic.’ And he said to them, ‘If you enter a house anywhere, stay there until you leave the district. And if any place does not welcome you and people refuse to listen to you, as you walk away shake off the dust from under your feet as a sign to them.’ So they set off to preach repentance; and they cast out many devils, and anointed many sick people with oil and cured them.