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Saturday

Saturday of the Twenty-Third Week of Ordinary Time

Lectio

Luke 6:43–49

Meditatio

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command?”

This question is as piercing today as it was two thousand years ago. With all our advances in science, technology, and psychology, human nature is still the same. We can still hear the truth, know what is good for us—and not do it. Jesus is questioning those who call him “Lord,” acknowledging his authority and even his divinity, but still don’t practice his teachings. At best, they hear the words but don’t reflect on their meaning or apply it to their own life situations. At worst, they think they know better and refuse to obey. Jesus seems to be chiding them, saying, “You call on me for help when things go wrong, but you don’t do what I tell you. Yet I show you how to avoid these troubles, how to be truly happy. I offer you life and you choose death instead. Do you believe I am Lord or not?” Jesus warns them that they are like a person who built a house without a foundation, and the floods came and totally destroyed it.

The person who listens to the Word of God and acts on it, instead, is like a person who digs a foundation and builds a house on rock. It can withstand the floodwaters. Many temptations and storms will arise in our lives. Jesus is asking us to listen to his words and take them to heart, to meditate and pray over them, to make them our own and live them out. He is the Eternal Word of the Father. He wants to live in us. Opening ourselves to his word can make this happen. God is love, and when we open ourselves to him he pours his love into our hearts. Then we in turn can share his love with others; we can love with his heart. Jesus tells us, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23).

Oratio

Dear Lord, I thank you for the great gift of your holy Scriptures. Give me the grace to keep your word in my heart, to meditate on it and to live it in my daily life. Live and act in me. Don’t let me place any obstacles in your way. Strengthen me against temptation, against my weakness and fear. I know that with you I have strength for everything. I place all my trust in you.

Contemplatio

“I love you, Lord, my strength, Lord, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer” (Ps. 18:2–3).

ORDINARY GRACE Weeks 18–34: Daily Gospel Reflections (By the Daughters of St. Paul)

St. Nicholas of Tolentino

BORN in answer to the prayer of a holy mother, and vowed before his birth to the service of God, Nicholas never lost his baptismal innocence. His austerities were conspicuous even in the austere Order—the Hermits of St. Augustine—to which he belonged, and to the remonstrances which were made by his superiors, he only replied, “How can I be said to fast, while every morning at the altar I receive my God?” He conceived an ardent charity for the Holy Souls, so near and yet so far from their Saviour; and often after his Mass, it was revealed to him that the souls for whom he had offered the Holy Sacrifice had been admitted to the presence of God. Amidst his loving labors for God and man, he was haunted by fear of his own sinfulness. “The heavens,” said he, “are not pure in the sight of Him whom I serve; how then shall I, a sinful man, stand before Him?” As he pondered on these things, Mary, the Queen of all Saints, appeared before him. “Fear not, Nicholas,” she said, “all is well with you: my Son bears you in His Heart, and I am your protection.” Then his soul was at rest; and he heard, we are told, the songs which the angels sing in the presence of their Lord. He died September 10th, 1310.

Reflection.—Would you die the death of the just? there is only one way to secure the fulfilment of your wish. Live the life of the just. For it is impossible that one who has been faithful to God in life should make a bad or an unhappy end.

Bl. Francis Gárate, Religious

Bl. Francis Gárate was born on February 3, 1857, in Spain’s Basque country, in a tiny hamlet near the castle where St. Ignatius of Loyola (see July 31) was born. Francis left home when he was fourteen years of age (1871) and began working as a domestic at the Jesuit college in Orduña, and three years later he entered (1874) the Society of Jesus as a coadjutor brother. He was then appointed (1877) infirmarian at the college at La Guardia, near the Portuguese border—he had some 200 young boys under his care. He thought nothing of spending an entire night at the bedside of a sick student and then doing a full day’s work the following day. After ten years, the strain on his health began to show, and in 1888 he was transferred to the University of Deusto, in Bilbao, to be doorkeeper. He filled that post for forty-one years. There is nothing remarkable in Francis’s life, except that everyone took note of his limitless kindness, goodness, humility, and prayerfulness. He prayed while he worked, and he worked while he prayed. He became holy through his unfailing dedication in serving God, as today’s prayer reminds us. He was practically never without a rosary in his hand. He died on September 9, 1929, and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1985.

Friday

St. Peter Claver, Priest and Religious

St. Peter Claver, the future saint of the slave trade, was born at Verdú, Catalonia, Spain, probably on June 25, 1580, and he entered the Society of Jesus in 1602. After studies in Barcelona, he went (1605) to the College of Montesión in Palma de Mallorca to study philosophy, and there he met the aged brother, Alphonsus Rodríguez (see October 31), who encouraged him to be a missionary in the New World. In 1610, Peter sailed for the missions in South America and was ordained (1616) in Cartagena, Colombia—the first Jesuit to be ordained in that city. Cartagena was a prosperous city teeming with merchants; it was also a port of entry for slaves from Western Africa. It is estimated that during Fr. Claver’s years there, about 10,000 slaves passed through the port annually. The journey sometimes lasted months, and the slaves spent their days and nights chained to one another. Peter waited for the slave ships to arrive with their human cargo, and when they did, he and his interpreters, all carrying baskets of fruits, biscuits, and sweets, went aboard to greet the slaves. After comforting those on deck, Peter went down into the stench-filled holds to minister to the sick and dying. When the slaves were brought ashore, he visited them daily and gave them religious instruction, until they were sold and taken to other parts of South America. During his years working among the slaves, Peter said that he must have baptized 300,000 of them. After a lingering illness, he died in Cartagena on September 8, 1654. Pope Leo XIII canonized him in 1888, and in 1896 the same pontiff declared him special patron of missions to the black nations. In today’s prayer we ask, in imitation of St. Peter Claver, for the strength to overcome all racial hatred and to love one another as brothers and sisters.

Friday of the Twenty-Third Week of Ordinary Time

Lectio

Luke 6:39–42

Meditatio

“… then you will see clearly …”

I first encountered a blind person when I was eleven years old. He was an entertainer, and my brother and I were invited to meet him. When we were introduced, the blind man reached out and took my hand. To this day I wonder how he knew where my hand was.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus uses images and short parables of blindness to warn his disciples, and us, against deliberate blindness of heart. The description of the two blind persons leading each other and ending up in a ditch would be funny if it wasn’t so pitiful. Jesus is warning his disciples and us not to get lost in little things to the point that we fail to see God acting in our daily lives and become spiritually blind, just like the two people in the parable.

Jesus challenges the disciples to apply his teaching not only intellectually, but also with their hearts and wills. He challenges us as well. If we take time for prayer, reflective reading of the Scriptures, and a daily examination on our relationships, we discover how today’s lesson applies to our lives. Jesus develops his teaching almost as if he anticipates our reasoning. How much clearer could he be with us? “Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.” First, we need to make sure we are on the right path, or at least admit we need to change directions before trying to set someone else straight. As followers of Jesus, we are called to be Christ in the world. Our Christian faith demands that we remove whatever blocks or blurs our vision of Jesus, because each of us is to be a light in a world of darkness. All we have to do is take the plank out of our own eye so we can see Jesus clearly and follow him.