MONDAY OF WEEK 22 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

The Lord has sent me to bring the good news to the poor,
to proclaim liberty to captives. LK 4:18

1 THESSALONIANS 4:13-18

My Soul's Beloved, 

St. Paul reminds us that we have a glorious destination, and when death separates us from those we love so dearly while on earth, if they believed in You, then we ought not to grieve as those without hope. All who have been baptized into Your Body, O Lord, and have run the race with You as our ultimate goal, then death holds no terror. Sadly, Beloved, there are so many baptized Catholics who have become lukewarm, have fallen away, have even apostasized, and have walked away from the inheritance won for them by Your life, passion, death, and glorious resurrection into heaven. You came into the world to redeem us and deliver us from the hands of the Enemy. It strikes terror in my heart that so many of the people I love may be lost forever and damned to Hell, where the worms do not die and the blazing fire does not consume or go out. 

Lord Jesus Christ, hear the prayers of Your faithful ones, who cry out to You night and day and plead with You incessantly with tears and groans, with fasting and prayers, that Your sacrifice be not in vain. How can we even contemplate for a moment that the great chasm that separates heaven and hell will include those whom we have loved so well as unrighteous and damned forever? No, my Lord, just as You heard the prayers of St. Monica and every other great saint, You will hear ours too, and those we love so well in this life You will save.

We want you to be quite certain, brothers, about those who have died, to make sure that you do not grieve about them, like the other people who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that it will be the same for those who have died in Jesus: God will bring them with him. We can tell you this from the Lord’s own teaching, that any of us who are left alive until the Lord’s coming will not have any advantage over those who have died. At the trumpet of God, the voice of the archangel will call out the command and the Lord himself will come down from heaven; those who have died in Christ will be the first to rise, and then those of us who are still alive will be taken up in the clouds, together with them; to meet the Lord in the air. So we shall stay with the Lord for ever. With such thoughts as these you should comfort one another.

PSALM 95(96):1,3-5,11-13

The Lord comes to rule the earth.

O sing a new song to the Lord,
sing to the Lord all the earth.
Tell among the nations his glory
and his wonders among all the peoples.

The Lord is great and worthy of praise,
to be feared above all gods;
the gods of the heathens are naught.
It was the Lord who made the heavens,

Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad,
let the sea and all within it thunder praise,
let the land and all it bears rejoice,
all the trees of the wood shout for joy
at the presence of the Lord for he comes,
he comes to rule the earth.

With justice he will rule the world,
he will judge the peoples with his truth.

The Lord comes to rule the earth.

LUKE 4:16-30