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April 23, 2018

Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Jesus is both gate and shepherd. Perhaps the significance of this dual image will help us understand progressively where Jesus is taking us. Certainly Jesus wants to provide us with a new destination: heaven. We have to follow Him in order to arrive at that destination. Jesus is also the door however: we must step into him and through him in order to reach the place where He wants to finally lead us.

It shouldn’t surprise us that Jesus acts in different and progressively more direct and intimate ways as we grow in our Christian life. St. John provides us with the seven “I am”s of Christ to introduce us into the mystery of His manifold presence and action in our lives. read more

April 20, 2018

Friday of the Third Week of Easter

The end of Jesus’ teaching on the Bread of Life brings us straight to the gift of the Eucharist. St. John does not record the words of Christ at the Last Supper, but we may suppose that this part of the teaching was given at the Last Supper. St. John includes it as part of the discourse given in Capharnaum undoubtedly to help us connect the two events. Jesus began teaching about a real gift of food he was to give his disciples before his passion. Food is certainly something that “dies” in order to give life to the one who destroys it. Christ offers Himself to be destroyed, “chewed up,” consumed by those who believe in Him, that their hearts may be resurrected into His own Living Flesh. Eating the Eucharistic Bread with faith causes a transformation of our flesh, most especially the flesh of our heart. read more

April 19, 2018

Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

“The Father draws.” Attraction to God is a great mystery. Why are some drawn to Him and others not? Why do we sometimes feel attracted to God, sometimes repulsed in general by spirituality? Do I have any control over my attraction to God? Does God simply not bother attracting some people? What if God attracts my mind but not my heart?

We know that even if God somehow mysteriously does the attracting and the drawing, we have the freedom to go along with it or not. Jesus has opened the way for us to God, butHe reveals that we wouldn’t listen to Him if the Father Himself wasn’t causing our hearts to open to what He has to say and what He does. The love of God is so pure and holy that its seed is planted within us hidden from what we can experience with our senses. We can either be frustrated at not being able to feel, sense, or understand our attraction to God, or we can begin to cooperate with it by believing in it. Believing in our attraction to God actually opens our hearts to love much more deeply than if we understood or felt an attraction to God. As St. Therese said, “I believe because I want to believe.” read more

Daily Readings

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
by USCCB on November 23, 2024 at 9:30 am
Reading Rv 11:4-12 I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me: Here are my two witnesses: These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain. They have the power to close up the sky so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying. They also have power to turn water into blood and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them. Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,” where indeed their Lord was crucified. Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, and they will not allow their corpses to be buried. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth. But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.” So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on. Responsorial Psalm Psalm 144:1, 2, 9-10 R. (1b) Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!Blessed be the LORD, my rock,who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!My mercy and my fortress,my stronghold, my deliverer,My shield, in whom I trust,who subdues my people under me.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!O God, I will sing a new song to you;with a ten stringed lyre I will chant your praise,You who give victory to kings,and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock! Alleluia See 2 Tm 1:10 R. Alleluia, alleluia. Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel. R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel Lk 20:27-40 Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything. Readings for the Optional Memorial of Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, priest and martyrReadings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Columban, abbotReadings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Clement I, pope and martyr - - - Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter

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Friday of the Third Week of Easter

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Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

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