SATURDAY OF WEEK 7 IN ORDINARY TIME F- 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Blessed are you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth,
for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom
to mere children. MT 11:25

ECCLESIASTICUS 17:1-13

My Soul's Beloved,

How good it is to know You and be known intimately by You. You made me most carefully, You fashioned me to be one of a kind, unique, You consider me to be a masterpiece. You gaze lovingly on me and watch over my coming and my going. There is never a moment when You take Your gaze off of me, if You did, my Lord, I would perish.

I am O Lord, because from eternity God conceived me in His mind and heart. From all eternity He was aware of me and at a time of His choosing I was conceived in my mother's womb. You have a plan for my life. Foolish as I am, I have often willfully thwarted it but You never gave up on me. Willful, sinful, filled with concupiscence, deliberately running away from you and hiding because I preferred to heed the siren call of the world. You pursued me relentlessly, never giving up on me. I am grateful my Lord for Your abiding love for me. This is how You love every man, woman, and child. We were created for You, to praise, glorify, honor, adore, and worship You. When we obey Your Word and live only to please You we find that all our needs are met. There is no greater joy and contentment than living in You, with You, and for You, and nothing in the world can fulfil our deepest needs and desires as a life that is caught up in You and bound in You. With You, is life apart from You, we wither and die.

The Lord fashioned man from the earth,
to consign him back to it.
He gave them so many days’ determined time,
he gave them authority over everything on earth.
He clothed them with strength like his own,
and made them in his own image.

He shaped for them a mouth and tongue, eyes and ears,
and gave them a heart to think with.
He filled them with knowledge and understanding,
and revealed to them good and evil.
He put his own light in their hearts
to show them the magnificence of his works.

He set knowledge before them,
he endowed them with the law of life.

He said to them, ‘Beware of all wrong-doing’;
he gave each a commandment concerning his neighbour.
Their ways are always under his eye,
they cannot be hidden from his sight.

PSALM 102(103):13-18

The love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear.

As a father has compassion on his sons,
the Lord has pity on those who fear him;
for he knows of what we are made,
he remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass;

he flowers like the flower of the field;
the wind blows and he is gone
and his place never sees him again.

But the love of the Lord is everlasting

upon those who hold him in fear;
his justice reaches out to children’s children
when they keep his covenant in truth.

The love of the Lord is everlasting upon those who hold him in fear.

MARK 10:13-16

My Soul's Beloved,

Every baby conceived and born into the world is an assurance of God's abiding covenant of love with us. Babies are a sign of hope and a reminder that God has established a new, sacred and abiding Covenant of Hope with us. 'Never again,' He said, 'will all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.' God chose to enter the world as helpless infant, through the virginal womb of Mary. God shows us by example that the little way of humility and simplicity, with faith, and complete confidence in God, is the surest way to pleasing Him. The entire spiritual life hinges on these two virtues, humility and obedience, without them it is impossible to please God.

Beloved, in Your time children were considered as having no value in themselves and this is why, true to their culture, the disciples turned the people who brought their little ones to be touched by You. This roused Your anger, how much more O Lord is the wrath of God roused at the number of infants murdered by abortion and abortifacients. How many children are denied the right to be born through contraception. How many little ones are born through unnatural means, denied the right to two loving parents, the list goes on and on. No wonder our world is in the state of chaos that it is today. 

Let us welcome children, bring them to the Church to be baptized and made heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven as children of God, this is their right and parents have to ensure that they do not deny their children this lawful inheritance. I dread to think how with what fear and regret these parents will stand before You at the end of their lives to be judged by You, the only righteous Judge. Grant them mercy O Lord before it is too late.

People were bringing little children to Jesus, for him to touch them. The disciples turned them away, but when Jesus saw this he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ Then he put his arms round them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessing.