Sunday

Luke 10:21 In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 22 All[g] things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

23 Then He turned to His disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; 24 for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.”

25 And behold, a certain [h]lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”

27 So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

28 And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Navarre Commentary:  “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3). But spiritual childhood does not involve weakness, softness or ignorance: “I have often meditated on this life of spiritual childhood, which is not incompatible with fortitude, because it demands a strong will, proven maturity, an open and firm character. . . . To become children we must renounce our pride and self-sufficiency, recognizing that we can do nothing by ourselves. We must realize that we need grace, and the help of God our Father to find our way and keep to it. To be little, you have to abandon yourself as children do, believe as children believe, beg as children beg” (J. Escrivá, Christ is passing by)

 

Prayer:
This is the day which the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad therein.

Monday

Commentary on Love of God…

There is a hierarchy and order in these two commandments constituting the double precept of charity: before everything and above everything comes loving God in himself; in the second place, and as a consequence of the first commandment, comes loving one’s neighbour, for God explicitly requires us to do so (1 Jn 4:21; cf. notes on Mt 22:34-40 and 22:37-38).

This passage of the Gospel also includes another basic doctrine: the Law of God is not something negative — “Do not do this” — but something completely positive — love. Holiness, to which all baptized people are called, does not consist in not sinning, but in loving, in doing positive things, in bearing fruit in the form of love of God. When our Lord describes for us the Last Judgment he stresses this positive aspect of the Law of God (Mt 25:31-46). The reward of eternal life will be given to those who do good.

27 “Yes, our only occupation here on earth is that of loving God — that is, to start doing what we will be doing for all eternity. Why must we love God? Well, because our happiness consists in love of God; it can consist in nothing else. So, if we do not love God, we will always be unhappy; and if we wish to enjoy any consolation and relief in our pains, we will attain it only by recourse to love of God. If you want to be convinced of this, go and find the happiest man according to the world; if he does not love God, you will find that in fact he is really an unhappy man. And, on the contrary, if you discover the man most unhappy in the eyes of the world, you will see that because he loves God he is happy in every way. Oh my God!, open the eyes of our souls, and we will seek our happiness where we truly can find it” (St John Mary Vianney, Selected sermons, Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost).

 

Prayer:
Blessed by the name of the Lord from henceforth and forever more.

 

Tuesday

Luke 10:30 Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among [i]thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 On the next day, [j]when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ 36 So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”

37 And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Commentary:

This parable leaves no doubt about who our neighbour is — anyone (without distinction of race or relationship) who needs our help; nor about how we should love him — by taking pity on him, being compassionate towards his spiritual or corporal needs; and it is not just a matter of having the right feelings towards him: we must do something, we must generously serve him.

Christians, who should be disciples of Christ, should share his love and compassion, never distancing themselves from others’ needs. One way to express love for one’s neighbour is to perform the “works of mercy,” which get their name from the fact that they are not duties in justice. There are fourteen such works, seven spiritual and seven corporal. The spiritual are: To convert the sinner; To instruct the ignorant; To counsel the doubtful; To comfort the sorrowful; To bear wrongs patiently; To forgive injuries; To pray for the living and the dead. The corporal works are: To feed the hungry; To give drink to the thirsty; To clothe the naked; To shelter the homeless; To visit the sick; To visit the imprisoned; To bury the dead.

Prayer:
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.  As it was in the beginning it is now and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

 

Wednesday

Luke 10:38 Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at [k]Jesus’ feet and heard His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.”

41 And [l]Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. 42 But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Commentary:

Martha has come to be, as it were, the symbol of the active life, and Mary that of the contemplative life. However, for most Christians, called as they are to sanctify themselves in the middle of the world, action and contemplation cannot be regarded as two opposite ways of practising the Christian faith: an active life forgetful of union with God is useless and barren; but an apparent life of prayer which shows no concern for apostolate and the sanctification of ordinary things also fails to please God. The key lies in being able to combine these two lives, without either harming the other. Close union between action and contemplation can be achieved in very different ways, depending on the specific vocation each person is given by God.

Far from being an obstacle, work should be a means and an occasion for a close relationship with our Lord, which is the most important thing in our life.

Prayer:
Create in me a clean heart of God and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not from thy presence nor take thy Holy Spirit from me.    Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and by thy governing spirit establish me.
Thursday

More commentary on serving God as Mary and Martha…

Following this teaching of our Lord, the ordinary Christian should strive to attain an integrated life — an intense life of piety and external activity, orientated towards God, practised out of love of him and with an upright intention, which expresses itself in apostolate, in everyday work, in doing the duties of one’s state in life. “You must understand now more clearly that God is calling you to serve him in and from the ordinary, material and secular activities of human life. He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the operating theatre, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.. . . There is no other way. Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we shall never find him. That is why I can tell you that our age needs to give back to matter and to the most trivial occurrences and situations their noble and original meaning. It needs to restore them to the service of the Kingdom of God, to spiritualize them, turning them into a means and an occasion for a continuous meeting with Jesus Christ” (J. Escrivá, Conversations)
Prayer:   O give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.

Friday

Luke 11:1 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our[a] Father [b]in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
[c]Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
[d]But deliver us from the evil one.”

Commentary: St Luke gives us a shorter form of the Lord’s Prayer, or Our Father, than St Matthew (6:9-13). In Matthew there are seven petitions, in Luke only four. Moreover, St Matthew’s version is given in the context of the Sermon on the Mount and specifically as part of Jesus’ teaching on how to pray; St Luke’s is set in one of those occasions just after our Lord has been at prayer — two different contexts. There is nothing surprising about our Lord teaching the same thing on different occasions, not always using exactly the same words, not always at the same length, but always stressing the same basic points. Naturally, the Church uses the longer form of the Lord’s Prayer, that of St Matthew.

Prayer:
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.
From St. Patrick’s ‘Breastplate’

 

Saturday

Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer in Luke…

Hallowed be thy name”: in this first petition of the Our Father “we pray that God may be known, loved, honoured and served by everyone and by ourselves in particular”. This means that we want “unbelievers to come to a knowledge of the true God, heretics to recognize their errors, schismatics to return to the unity of the Church, sinners to be converted and the righteous to persevere in doing good.” By this first petition, our Lord is teaching us that “we must desire God’s glory more than our own interest and advantage.” This hallowing of God’s name is attained “by prayer and good example and by directing all our thoughts, affections and actions towards him” (cf. St Pius X, Catechism of Christian Doctrine, 290-293).

“Thy Kingdom come”: “By the Kingdom of God we understand a triple spiritual kingdom — the Kingdom of God in us, which is grace; the Kingdom of God on earth, which is the Catholic Church; and the Kingdom of God in heaven, which is eternal bliss. . . . As regards grace, we pray that God reign in us with his sanctifying grace, by which he is pleased to dwell in us as a king in his throne-room, and that he keep us united to him by the virtues of faith, hope and charity, by which he reigns in our intellect, in our heart and in our will… As regards the Church, we pray that it extend and spread all over the world for the salvation of men… As regards heaven, we pray that one day we be admitted to that eternal bliss for which we have been created, where we will be totally happy” (Catechism of Christian Doctrine, 294-297).

Prayer:
We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for thy great  glory.