FRIDAY OF WEEK 11 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

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

2 CORINTHIANS 11:18,21-30

My Soul's Beloved,

In our daily walk with You as Your disciples, we are people of very little faith, at least I am. We complain about everything and balk at the least difficulty. We look for excuses not to do what we are called to do. We criticise others who are actually putting themselves out there and living the Gospel. We are not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to live out our faith with boldness because we allow doubts to stifle whatever zeal we may have. If we encounter the smallest of obstacles, we see it as a sign to step back rather than to step out boldly, confident that You will provide us with all we need to carry out the mission entrusted to us.

St. Paul puts us to shame. He was willing to endure anything just as long as he fulfilled the great work of evangelization that You entrusted to him. He took it seriously, and he was prepared to face every hardship and endure any suffering to do it. Nothing deterred him, not the fear of persecution, imprisonment, torture, deprivation, the weather, storms, hunger, and thirst - all of it was as nothing to him so long as he was able to do Your will. Because he willingly emptied himself, giving his all for the sake of the Gospel and to make You known wherever the Holy Spirit sent him to preach and to teach. And he did it all with great love.

Beloved, I am not called to do great things but to do little things faithfully, sincerely, with great compassion and love, and I fail in this daily. Help me, Lord. Without You, I can do nothing pleasing to You because I am constantly at work pleasing and indulging myself. Help me!

So many others have been boasting of their worldly achievements, that I will boast myself. But if anyone wants some brazen speaking – I am still talking as a fool – then I can be as brazen as any of them, and about the same things. Hebrews, are they? So am I. Israelites? So am I. Descendants of Abraham? So am I. The servants of Christ? I must be mad to say this, but so am I, and more than they: more, because I have worked harder, I have been sent to prison more often, and whipped many times more, often almost to death. Five times I had the thirty-nine lashes from the Jews; three times I have been beaten with sticks; once I was stoned; three times I have been shipwrecked and once adrift in the open sea for a night and a day. Constantly travelling, I have been in danger from rivers and in danger from brigands, in danger from my own people and in danger from pagans; in danger in the towns, in danger in the open country, danger at sea and danger from so-called brothers. I have worked and laboured, often without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty and often starving; I have been in the cold without clothes. And, to leave out much more, there is my daily preoccupation: my anxiety for all the churches. When any man has had scruples, I have had scruples with him; when any man is made to fall, I am tortured.
If I am to boast, then let me boast of my own feebleness.

PSALM 33(34):2-7

The Lord rescues the just in all their distress.

I will bless the Lord at all times,
his praise always on my lips;
in the Lord my soul shall make its boast.
The humble shall hear and be glad.

Glorify the Lord with me.

Together let us praise his name.
I sought the Lord and he answered me;
from all my terrors he set me free.

Look towards him and be radiant;

let your faces not be abashed.
This poor man called, the Lord heard him
and rescued him from all his distress.

The Lord rescues the just in all their distress.

MATTHEW 6:19-23

My Soul's Beloved,

Looking at our world today, at nations that were built on Christian principles, at nations that worship a panoply of idols, false gods, and above all, people of pomp and circumstance, wealth, and power who worship themselves with no inhibitions and demand that their sycophants do so as well, it is no wonder that our world has lost all sense of sin. Having declared that sin does not exist, they sink to levels of wickedness, depravity, debauchery, and readily kill, murder, and destroy with glee the most vulnerable of all God's children - the little ones in the womb of their mothers, which is supposed to be the safest place after heaven.

Today, the Gospel gives us a reality check. Our final destiny depends on whether or not we heed Your teaching or shut our eyes, stop our ears, and harden our hearts to the Truth. 

Where is my treasure? Who is my treasure? What am I willing to do to safeguard my treasure? Am I working and slaving to store up material things? Am I wasting the precious years given to me to amass things that I cannot take with me when I die? Today is my wake-up call. The years are passing swiftly, and before long, I will stand before You to be judged, and my eternal destiny I will know which will be either joy or terrible and painful loss.

Merciful Lord, for as long as today lasts grant me the grace and the wisdom to store up for myself treasures in heaven. Help me walk the way of the cross and suffering with patience, always surrendered to Your holy will for my life without murmur or complaint. Stay with me Lord until the end when at last You will come to me and I will close my eyes and open them either to behold Your glorious face or to be bitter pangs of everlasting fire.

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moths and woodworms destroy them and thieves can break in and steal. But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworms destroy them and thieves cannot break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
‘The lamp of the body is the eye. It follows that if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be all darkness. If then, the light inside you is darkness, what darkness that will be!’