27th Week: Oct 6-11:
Oct 6 Monday: Saint Bruno, priest & Blessed
Marie Rose Durocher, virgin (in U.S.A.): Lk 10:25-37:
In today’s Gospel, a scribe asks Jesus a very basic
religious question: “What should I do to inherit eternal life?” In answer to
the question, Jesus directs the scribe’s attention to the Sacred Scriptures.
The Scriptural answer is, “love God and express it by loving your
neighbor.” However, to the scribe, the word “neighbor” meant another
scribe or Pharisee – never a Samaritan or a Gentile. Hence, the scribe insists
on clarification of the word “neighbor.” So, Jesus tells him the parable of the
Good Samaritan. The parable clearly indicates that a “neighbor” is anyone who
needs help. Thus, the correct approach is not to ask, “Who is my
neighbor?” but rather to ask, “Am I a good neighbor to
others?” Jesus, the Heavenly Good Samaritan, gives us a final
commandment during the Last Supper, “Love one another as I have loved
you,” because the invisible God dwells in every human being.
Life messages: 1) Let us remember that the road
from Jerusalem to Jericho passes right through our home, parish, school, and
workplace. We may find our spouse, children or parents lying “wounded” by
bitter words or scathing criticism or by other more blatant forms of verbal,
emotional, or physical abuse. Hence, Jesus invites us to show our love to
others, in our own home, in school, in the workplace, and in the neighborhood,
as the Good Samaritan did. 2) Let us check to see if we are good neighbors. We
become good neighbors when we are people of generosity, kindness, and mercy
toward all who are suffering. Our sincere smile, a cheery greeting, an
encouraging word of appreciation, a heartfelt “Thank you!” can all work wonders
for a suffering soul. 3) Let us allow Jesus the “Good Samaritan” to touch our
lives. We allow Him to heal us from Original sin by the oil and water of
Baptism, we receive the special anointing of the Spirit by the oil of
Confirmation, we prepare for our healing and death by the oil of the Anointing
of the sick, and our souls are nourished by the Bread and Wine of His Sacred
Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. 4) Let us accept the invitation to be
loving and merciful to our enemies. This means people we hate, as well as those
who hate us. It is an invitation for people of all times to love their enemies
– to love those they have previously hated.
Oct 7 Tuesday: Our Lady of the Rosary:
Memorial: Lk 1:38-42 (Weekday: Lk 10:38-42) This
feast was established by Pope St. Pius V in thanksgiving for the naval victory
at Lepanto, 7 Oct 1571, which stopped the Ottoman Turks’ invasion of Europe.
Pope St. Pius V named the Feast Our Lady of Victory; it was
originally celebrated on the first Sunday of October. Pope Gregory XIII later
renamed the day, the Feast of the Holy Rosary.
Importance: The word Rosary means "Crown
of Roses" and each prayer in the Rosary is considered a flower
presented to Mary. The Rosary is also called the “Breviary of the Common
People” (The Breviary has 150 Psalms; The Rosary has 150 Hail Marys),
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 us 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 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 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 a multi-beaded
string, and their sages wear such strings 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 strings 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.
According to legend, in 1214, 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 by 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 September, 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,
f0rgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, and lead all souls to
Heaven especially those who have most need of Your Mercy”), was added in
the early twentieth century. Pope St. John Paul II opened the 21st century by
enriching the Rosary (October 16, 2002), with the addition of 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. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Oct 8 Wednesday: 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, z z The Catechism
of the Catholic Church teaches that the Our Father “is truly
the summary of the whole Gospel” (CCC #2761). The great mystical Doctor of
the Church Saint Teresa of Ávila gave this advice while praying the Lord’s
Prayer: “Much more is accomplished by a single word of the Our Father
said, now and then, from our heart, than by the whole prayer repeated many
times in haste and without attention.” And Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
said that the “Our Father” was one of the prayers she prayed when
she felt so spiritually barren that she could not summon up a single worthwhile
thought.
A prayer in two parts: In the first part of the prayer, we
address God, lovingly acknowledging Him as our Heavenly Father, praising Him,
and worshipping Him. Then we ask Him that His Holy Will may be done by us 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/)
Oct 9 Thursday: Saints Denis, Bishop, and companions,
martyrs and St. John Leonardi, priest Lk 11:5-13:
The context: After teaching a model prayer,
Jesus instructs his disciples to pray to God their Heavenly Father with the
same boldness, daring, intimacy, conviction, persistence, and perseverance that
both Abraham and the “friend in need” in the parable used.
Jesus gives us the assurance that God will not be irritated by our requests,
nor will He be unwilling to meet them with generosity. Jesus stresses the power
of intercessory prayer and the necessity for persistence, perseverance,
trusting Faith, and the boldness of Faith in our prayer.
The parable: By presenting the parable of
the “friend in need,” Jesus emphasizes our need for that
persistent and persevering prayer which acknowledges our total dependence on
God. In the ancient Hebrew world, hospitality was the essence of one’s
goodness, and, hence, to welcome a visitor without food and drink was
unthinkable. A traveller who was traveling in the evening to avoid the heat of
the afternoon might well arrive late at night. So, in this parable, when a man
received an unexpected guest late at night and found his cupboard bare, he went
to the man next door, woke him up, and asked him for a loaf of bread. Because
of the persistence of his neighbor, Jesus says, the householder, though not
willing to get up for friendship’s sake, would get up and give him the bread he
needed for his guest. This parable of The Friend at Midnight is both an
assurance that prayer is always answered and an encouragement to pray. This
parable stresses the necessity for our persisting in prayer as the expression
of our total dependence on God. St. Paul says, “Be constant in prayer”
(Rom 12:12), “pray at all times” (Eph 6:18), “be steadfast in prayer” (Col
4:2), and “pray constantly” (2 Thes 5:17). Jesus assures us,
"Knock and the door will be opened" (Lk 11:10).
Life messages: We need to stop giving lame
excuses for not praying. Modern Christians give four lame excuses for not
praying: 1) We are “too busy.” This excuse should send us to our
priorities list, where God needs to be first of all, if we are to be able to
live in His peace. That settled, we will find that prayer in every form is our
living connection with Him through which He gives us Grace, fills us with His
love for us, and helps us to become our true selves. Then, with His help, we
will be able to discern the truly important things in our lives and eliminate
the unimportant and/or distracting, debilitating, and useless items. 2) We “don’t
believe that prayer does that much good, other than giving us the psychological
motivation to be better persons.” Such people forget the fact that
prayer establishes and augments our responsive relationship with God, the
Source of our power. 3) “A loving God should provide for us and protect
us from the disasters of life, such as diseases or accidents, without our
asking Him.” True – and He does! Prayer is not meant to inform God; it
expresses our awareness of our need for God, Who loves us unconditionally, and
of our trusting dependence upon Him. Further, if we haven’t asked Him for what
we need, we may well not recognize it when He gives it to us! 4) “Prayer
is boring.” People who use this excuse forget the fact that prayer is
a conversation with God: listening to God speaking to us through the Bible and
talking to God through personal and family prayers. We can’t have a close
relationship with anyone, including God, without persistent and intimate
conversation. ((https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Oct 10 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. It is Jesus who is the
stronger one driving away the evil spirits. 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 Pt 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/)
Oct 11 Saturday: Saint John XXIII, Pope; Lk
11:27-28:
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 was
absolutely obedient, humble, loving and faithful. Jesus clarified the same
truth on another occasion, stating that his “mother and brothers and sisters
are those who hear the word of God and do it (Lk 8:21), just as Mary had
always done. In today’s Gospel, Jesus declares 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 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.) 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. 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/)
