MondayMass Reading & Meditation for March 17, 2014 + Saint of the Day Saint Patrick, Bishop A very happy St. Patricks Day to all. Monday of the Second Week in Lent Lectionary: 230 Reading 1DN 9:4B-10 “Lord, great and awesome God, you who keep your merciful covenant toward those who love you and observe your commandments! We have sinned, been wicked and done evil; we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws. We have not obeyed your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers, and all the people of the land. Justice, O Lord, is on your side; we are shamefaced even to this day: we, the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and all Israel, near and far, in all the countries to which you have scattered them because of their treachery toward you. O LORD, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers, for having sinned against you. But yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness! Yet we rebelled against you and paid no heed to your command, O LORD, our God, to live by the law you gave us through your servants the prophets.” Responsorial Psalm PS 79:8, 9, 11 AND 13 R. (see 103:10a) Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins. Remember not against us the iniquities of the past; may your compassion quickly come to us, for we are brought very low. R. Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins. Help us, O God our savior, because of the glory of your name; Deliver us and pardon our sins for your name’s sake. R. Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins. Let the prisoners’ sighing come before you; with your great power free those doomed to death. Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; through all generations we will declare your praise. R. Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins. Gospel LK 6:36-38 Jesus said to his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” Meditation: Luke 6:36-38 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:36) Why does a girl imitate her mother? The mother certainly hopes that it comes from a natural desire to be like her. But what if the girl were just doing it because she was frightened of her mother or because she wanted to get something from her? We could misread today’s Gospel as a call to be something like this misguided child. We should be merciful, forgiving, and generous with other people so that God will then be merciful, forgiving, and generous with us. Of course, the reverse is never far from our minds either: if we are not all of these things, God will refuse to act that way with us. So it’s in our best interests to be good. But to read the passage this way is to overlook an important verse: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Jesus isn’t just giving us a set of rules for how we have to relate to other people. And he certainly isn’t trying to extort kindness out of us with the threat of hell if we fail. He is telling us about himself. He is telling us how God relates to us so that we will know how we are meant to relate to the people around us. Our Father is merciful, slow to anger, forgiving, and generous. And since that is his nature, that’s what we will grow up to become as we mature in Christ. It’s in our spiritual DNA, so to speak! If we reduce these verses to a list of things that we need to do to keep God happy and stay out of trouble, we miss out on the joy of becoming more like our Father. We miss out, in fact, on the very thing we were created for. Always keep this in mind: you are not here to follow rules! God doesn’t want robots. He wants children. That means that you are here to do the things that Jesus did—both the miraculous and the everyday. As you learn how to show mercy just as Jesus showed mercy, you will be doing something that is both miraculous and everyday. And the witness of your mercy, generosity, and charity will grab people’s attention and turn them to the Lord. “Father, mark me as your child by making me look more and more like you.” Daniel 9:4-10; Psalm 79:8-9, 11, 13 St. Patrick (415?-493?) Legends about Patrick abound; but truth is best served by our seeing two solid qualities in him: He was humble and he was courageous. The determination to accept suffering and success with equal indifference guided the life of God’s instrument for winning most of Ireland for Christ. Details of his life are uncertain. Current research places his dates of birth and death a little later than earlier accounts. Patrick may have been born in Dunbarton, Scotland, Cumberland, England, or in northern Wales. He called himself both a Roman and a Briton. At 16, he and a large number of his father’s slaves and vassals were captured by Irish raiders and sold as slaves in Ireland. Forced to work as a shepherd, he suffered greatly from hunger and cold. After six years, Patrick escaped, probably to France, and later returned to Britain at the age of 22. His captivity had meant spiritual conversion. He may have studied at Lerins, off the French coast; he spent years at Auxerre, France, and was consecrated bishop at the age of 43. His great desire was to proclaim the Good News to the Irish. In a dream vision it seemed “all the children of Ireland from their mothers’ wombs were stretching out their hands” to him. He understood the vision to be a call to do mission work in pagan Ireland. Despite opposition from those who felt his education had been defective, he was sent to carry out the task. He went to the west and north, where the faith had never been preached, obtained the protection of local kings and made numerous converts. Because of the island’s pagan background, Patrick was emphatic in encouraging widows to remain chaste and young women to consecrate their virginity to Christ. He ordained many priests, divided the country into dioceses, held Church councils, founded several monasteries and continually urged his people to greater holiness in Christ. He suffered much opposition from pagan druids and was criticized in both England and Ireland for the way he conducted his mission. In a relatively short time, the island had experienced deeply the Christian spirit, and was prepared to send out missionaries whose efforts were greatly responsible for Christianizing Europe. Patrick was a man of action, with little inclination toward learning. He had a rocklike belief in his vocation, in the cause he had espoused. One of the few certainly authentic writings is his Confessio, above all an act of homage to God for having called Patrick, unworthy sinner, to the apostolate. There is hope rather than irony in the fact that his burial place is said to be in County Down in Northern Ireland, long the scene of strife and violence. Comment: What distinguishes Patrick is the durability of his efforts. When one considers the state of Ireland when he began his mission work, the vast extent of his labors (all of Ireland) and how the seeds he planted continued to grow and flourish, one can only admire the kind of man Patrick must have been. The holiness of a person is known only by the fruits of his or her work. Quote: “Christ shield me this day: Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every person who thinks of me, Christ in the eye that sees me, Christ in the ear that hears me” (from “The Breastplate of St. Patrick”) Patron Saint of: Engineers Ireland Nigeria-- Have a Blessed Day
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:46:30 +0000
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