27th Week: Oct 4-9:
Oct 4 Monday (St. Francis of Assisi)
(Mt 11:25-30): St. Francis of Assisi is the best known and the most loved thirteenth century Italian saint.
He was born in Assisi, Italy, the son of a rich merchant. As a carefree young man, he loved singing, dancing and partying. He joined the military and returned ill, as a changed man. He marked his conversion by hugging and kissing a leper. While at prayer in the Church of St. Damiano, he heard the message: “Francis go and repair my Church because it is falling down.” Francis took the command literally and got money by selling goods from his father’s warehouse. His father was furious and publicly disowned and disinherited Francis. Francis promptly gave back to his father everything except his underclothes and started living as a free man, wearing sackcloth and begging for food. Possessing nothing, he started preaching the pure Gospel of Jesus. Strangely enough, a few youngsters were attracted to Francis’ way of life and joined him.Pope Innocent III had a vision of Francis supporting the
leaning Church of St. Johns Lateran in Rome. Subsequently, he approved the
Religious Order begun by Francis, namely the Friars Minor [Lesser Brothers]
which practiced Charity as a fourth vow along with Poverty, Chastity and
Obedience. Soon, the Franciscan Order became very popular, attracting large
numbers of committed youngsters. The friars traveled throughout central Italy
and beyond, preaching and invitation to their listeners to turn from the world to
Christ. In his life and preaching, Francis emphasized simplicity and poverty,
relying on God’s providence rather than worldly goods. The brothers worked, or
begged, for what they needed to live, and any surplus was given to the poor.
Francis wrote a more detailed Rule, which was further revised by the new
leaders of the Franciscans. He gave up leadership of the Order and went to the
mountains to live in secluded prayer. There he received the Stigmata, the
wounds of Christ. Francis became partially blind and ill during his last years.
He died at Portiuncula on October 4th, 1226 at the age of 44.
Francis called for simplicity of life, poverty, and humility
before God. In all his actions, Francis sought to follow, fully and literally,
the way of life demonstrated by Christ in the Gospels. Francis loved God’s
gifts to us of nature, animals, and all natural forces, praising God for these
“brothers and sisters.” One of Francis's most famous sermons is one he gave to
a flock of birds during one of his journeys. "From that day on, he
solicitously admonished the birds, all animals and reptiles, and even creatures
that have no feeling, to praise and love their Creator." Francis is well
known for the "Canticle of Brother Sun." Written late in the saint's
life, when blindness had limited his sight of the outside world, the canticle
shows that his imagination was alive with love for God in His creation.
Life messages: 1) Let us learn to practice the spirit
of detachment of St. Francis that we may be liberated from our sinful
attachments, addictions and evil habits. In poverty one makes oneself available
for the Kingdom. Once the goods are no longer one's own, they become available
for all. Goods are made to be shared. 2) Let us preach the Good News of Jesus’
love, mercy and forgiveness as St. Francis did, by imbuing the true spirit of
the Gospel, loving all God’s creation and leading transparent Christian lives
radiating Jesus all around us. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/) L/21
Oct 5: Matthew 11: 25-30:
The context: Jesus knew that ordinary people
with large, sensitive hearts, rather than proud intellectuals, were able accept
the “Good News.” Such people would inherit Heaven rather than the learned and
the wise who prided themselves on their intellectual achievements. Hence, in
the first part of today’s Gospel Jesus prays in thanksgiving to His Father, praising
God for revealing Himself to the simple-hearted, and thus condemning
intellectual pride. Jesus’ unique claim: that He Is God’s perfect
reflection: “No one really knows the Father except the Son,
and him to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27). The
claim that Jesus alone can reveal God to men forms the center of the Christian
Faith. John presents Jesus’ claim in different words: “He who has seen
Me has seen the Father” (Jn.14:9). What Jesus says is this: “If you
want to see what God is like, if you want to see the mind of God, the heart of
God, the nature of God, if you want to see God’s whole attitude toward men–look
at Me!”
Invitation to accept Jesus’ easy yoke and light burden:
For the Orthodox Jew, religion was a matter of burdens: 613 Mosaic laws and
thousands of oral interpretations, which dictated every aspect of life. Jesus
invites us to take His yoke upon our shoulders. The yoke of Christ can be seen
as the sum of our Christian responsibilities and duties. To take the yoke of
Christ upon us is to put ourselves in a relationship with Christ as servants
and subjects, and so to choose to conduct ourselves accordingly. By saying that
His “yoke is easy” (Matthew 11: 30), Jesus means that whatever God sends
us is made to fit our needs and our abilities exactly. The second part of
Jesus’ claim, “My burden is light” (Matthew 11:30), does not
mean that the burden is easy to carry, but that it is laid on us in love and is
meant to be carried in love, and that love makes even the heaviest burden
light.
Life message: We need to unload our burdens on the
Lord. This is one of the functions of Divine Worship in the Church and the main
purpose of our personal and family prayers. These are given to us by God as a
time for rest and refreshment, when we let the overheated radiators of our
hectic lives cool down before the Lord, unload the burdens of our sins and
worries on the altar, and offer them and ourselves to God during the Holy
Mass. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
L/21
Oct 5 Tuesday (Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos,
Priest, U. S. A.): https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/blessed-francis-xavier-seelos Lk
10:38-42:
The context: Today’s readings are about
hospitality and the necessity of listening to God before acting. Jesus welcomed
and tended to the needs of all, reflecting in His actions the very hospitality
of God. All four Gospels recount Jesus’ welcoming and feeding of the multitudes
of people who came to hear the Good News. The Gospel passage describes how
Martha, a true child of Abraham, wanted to extend the traditional generous
hospitality of her people to Jesus, the true Messiah, by preparing an elaborate
meal, while her sister Mary spent her time in talking and listening to Jesus.
Jesus’ advice: The episode is also intended to teach us
where we should place our priorities. Presenting Martha as a dynamo of action
and Mary as a true listener to the word of God, today’s Gospel invites us to
serve others with Martha’s diligence, after recharging our spiritual batteries
every day by prayer, listening to God and talking to God as Mary did. We are
able to minister truly to the needs of others only after welcoming God’s words
into our hearts, minds, and living.
Life messages: 1) We need to recharge our spiritual
batteries: Without the “fuel” of prayer, silence, and communion with God,
service can become a crushing responsibility, a burden rather than a vocation,
an annoyed grumbling rather than a response to the invitation of God.
2) We need listening Marthas and serving Marys: Martha has
become a symbol of action-oriented, responsible people who get the job done.
Our world needs such men, women, boys and girls who get the job done. This is
certainly true in the Church where we need the active cooperation of many
parishioners in its various ministries. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
L/21
Oct 6 Wednesday (St. Bruno, Priest); : Lk
11:1-4:
The context: The disciples were fascinated by
watching their master Jesus at prayer. They knew that John the Baptist had
taught his disciples how to pray. In response to the request made by one of the
apostles, Jesus taught the beautiful prayer, Our Father. The Catechism
of the Catholic Church teaches that the Our Father “is truly the
summary of the whole Gospel” (CCC #2761).
A prayer in two parts: In the first part of the prayer, we
address God, lovingly acknowledging Him as our Heavenly Father, praising and
worshipping Him. Then we promise Him that we will try to do His Holy Will in
our lives on earth as perfectly as it is done in Heaven. In the second part, we
ask our Father’s blessings on our present time (daily bread), our past
(forgiveness of sins) and our future (protection against the tempter and his
temptations). In this part we also invite the Triune God into our lives. We
bring in 1) God the Father, the Provider, by asking for daily bread, 2) God the
Son, our Savior, by asking forgiveness for our sins and 3) God the Holy Spirit,
our Guide, Advocate, Comforter, and Illuminator, by asking for protection and
deliverance from evil.
Special stress on spirit of forgiveness: In this
prayer, Jesus instructs us to ask for forgiveness from others for our offenses
and to give unconditional forgiveness to others for their offenses against us
as a condition for receiving God’s forgiveness ourselves. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
L/21
Oct 7 Thursday (Our Lady of the Rosary):
Lk 1:26-38: This feast was established by Pope St. Pius V in
thanksgiving for the victory at Lepanto, 7 Oct 1571, which stopped the Turkish
invasion of Europe. Importance: The word Rosary means “Crown
of Roses,” and each prayer in the Rosary is considered a flower presented to
Mary. It is called the “Breviary of the Common People” and the “Psalms of the
Illiterate.” The prayers we repeat are Biblical and hence “inspired,” and the
mysteries we meditate upon are taken from the lives of Jesus and Mary. The “Our
Father” is a prayer taught by Jesus Himself. The “Hail Mary” is also rooted in
the Scriptures. Its first half echoes the words of the Archangel Gabriel and
those of Elizabeth, both addressed to Mary; the rest is our petition as Church
to our Mother to “pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our death!” The
third prayer — the “Glory be to the Father” — ancient in its wording, surely
reflects the unceasing prayer of adoration and praise found in the Book of
Revelation. The various events in the lives of Jesus and Mary on which we
meditate during the Rosary are expressions of the Paschal Mystery, that is, the
Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, in which Mary shared.
History: Prayer using rosary beads is as old as
mankind. The Hindus in India used to recite the thousand names of their gods
and goddesses and their “mantra” prayers using multi-beaded rosaries, and their
sages wear such rosaries around the neck, constantly rolling the beads in
prayer. The Jews used beads to repeat the psalms, the Laws of Moses and the
memorized sayings of the prophets. The Muslims use rosaries with a hundred
beads for their prayer. In the ninth century, the Christian monks who recited
the 150 psalms instructed the illiterate common people to recite the Our
Father 150 times. It was in the eleventh century that the Europeans
added the Hail Mary to the Our Father. In 1214,
according to the legend, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Dominic Guzman
and instructed him to pray the Rosary in a new form as an effective antidote
against the Albigensian heresy. The Rosary devotion attained its present form
around 1500 A.D. An additional boost to the Rosary devotion was given in 1917,
when our Blessed Mother, in her sixth apparition to the three shepherd
children, on the thirteenth of May, asked them to, “Say the Rosary every
day… Pray, pray a lot and offer sacrifices for sinners… I am Our Lady of the
Rosary.” The “Fatima prayer” (O my Jesus forgive us our
sins, save us from the fires of Hell and bring all souls to Heaven, expecially
those who are most in need of Your mercy), requested by Mary herself
at Fatima (July 13, 1917), was added following the “Glory be…”n after the 1930
acceptance of the Bishop of the apparitions as genuine century. Pope St. John
Paul II enriched the Rosary by adding the “Luminous Mysteries” (Rosarium
Virginis Mariae).
How to pray the Rosary: The ideal is to recite
at least five decades of the Rosary (and if possible, the entire twenty), with
one’s whole family daily. We need to say the Rosary slowly enough to make its
recitation devout and reverent. We are to reflect for a minute or two on the
mystery, and then concentrate on the meaning of the prayers as we say them, to
avoid distractions. Besides saying the Rosary with others in the family before
bedtime, let us make it a habit of reciting the Rosary during our journey to
the workplace and during our exercises. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
L/20 (USCCB video reflections: https://youtu.be/-nCEl3qfSt0). (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
L/21
Oct 8 Friday: Lk 11:15-26:
The context: When Jesus healed a mute man by
exorcism, the jealous scribes and the Pharisees spread the malicious slander
that Jesus was collaborating with Beelzebul, the head of the devils, to cast
out smaller devils.
Jesus’ response: Jesus makes his counterattack, first by
asking the rhetorical question “By whom do your sons (the Jewish exorcists),
cast them out?” The implication is that, if what they say about Him, Who casts
them out with a single command, is true, the Jewish exorcists, who require so
much more prayer and so many more exercises to do exorcisms, must certainly
have to seek the help of the big devil to exorcise minor devils. Then Jesus
asserts that no kingdom, divided against itself, can survive for long.
Obviously, then, the chief devil will not help any exorcists to cast out
devils. Jesus then claims that His exorcisms are proof that He has brought the
Kingdom of God. When people are liberated from the control of evil spirits, it
is a sure sign that the loving power of God (the finger of God), is at
work. Then Jesus uses the image of a strong man guarding his house and keeping
his possessions safe until someone stronger attacks and overthrows him. Jesus
claims that He is the stronger one and the evil spirits are being driven away
by Him. They are helpless before him. This liberation of people and society
from evil powers is one of the most dramatic proofs that the all-powerful reign
of God is present in the Person of Jesus.
Life messages: 1) Jesus teaches us that the
devil is relentless in his struggle against man. The devil continues to lay his
traps, in spite of man’s rejecting him with the help of grace. That is why St.
Peter warns us to be sober and vigilant because, “your adversary the devil
prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm
in your Faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9). 2) We have to fortify ourselves
against the devil by prayer, penance, the Sacraments and the effective use of
the word of God. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
L/21
Oct 9 Saturday(St. Denis, Bishop and Companions,
Martyrs);
The context: A woman in the audience was so
impressed by Jesus’ powerful refutation of the slander (that Jesus collaborated
with the devil in exorcisms), that she shouted a blessing, praising the mother
of Jesus: “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you
sucked!” She meant that any woman would be proud to have such a great
son. Jesus tells her that His mother is more blessed for obeying the word of
God throughout her life.
The reason for real blessedness: Completing the truth of the
blessing the woman had pronounced, Jesus states that the real source of
blessedness is the willingness to hear and the readiness to obey the word of
God. Mary heard God’s message at the Annunciation, and her prompt response was,
“I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk
1:38). That is why she could boldly proclaim to her cousin Elizabeth
in her canticle, “All generations will call me blessed”(Lk
1:48). No one listened more attentively to the word of God than Mary
did. She “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Lk
2:10). Jesus clarified the same truth on another occasion, stating
that His true mother and brothers and sisters are those who hear the
word of God and do it (Lk 8:21). In today’s Gospel, Jesus declares that that
those who hear God’s word and keep it are more blessed than those who are
related to Him only by blood.
Life messages: 1) We become the members of the Heavenly family of the Triune God, that is, we are made children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus, by our Baptism. 2)But it is our fidelity in hearing the word of God and in putting that word into practice in our daily lives that makes us really blessed. 3) What makes a person happy in this life and in the life to come is precisely the fulfillment of God’s will, as we learn through the attentive reading of, and listening to, His words. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
