Patience

Feast of St. Matthew, apostle and evangelist

Eph 4:1-7,11-13

I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you therefore to lead a life worthy of the vocation to which you were called. With all humility and gentleness, and with patience, support each other in love. Take every care to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together. There is one Body, one Spirit, just as one hope is the goal of your calling by God. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, over all, through all and within all. On each one of us God’s favour has been bestowed in whatever way Christ allotted it. 

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The Joy of the Resurrection

1 Cor 15:12-20

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ cannot have been raised either, and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without substance, and so is your faith. What is more, we have proved to be false witnesses to God, for testifying against God that he raised Christ to life when he did not raise him – if it is true that the dead are not raised. For, if the dead are not raised, neither is Christ; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is pointless and you have not, after all, been released from your sins. Read More

Love above all

Lk 7:36-50

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house, and took his place at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Read More

The royal path

1 Cor 12:31-13,13

Earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Read More

THE TRIUMPH OF THE FATHER IN THE HEART OF MARY

“The Heart of Mary is a pure and holy enclosure for encountering God” (Interior Word).

Is there another heart besides that of Jesus in which Our Father could dwell with all His love? Yes, in the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As the Church truthfully teaches us, the Virgin Mary, by an act of God’s grace, was preserved from original sin in view of the mission that was to be entrusted to her. She pronounced an unreserved “yes” to God’s will, thus making visible in Mary what our Father willed for His own. Read More

The Wise Virgins

Mt 25:1-13

A reading for the memorial of St. Hildegard of Bingen

Then the kingdom of Heaven will be like this: Ten wedding attendants took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were sensible: the foolish ones, though they took their lamps, took no oil with them, whereas the sensible ones took flasks of oil as well as their lamps. The bridegroom was late, and they all grew drowsy and fell asleep. But at midnight there was a cry, “Look! The bridegroom! Go out and meet him.” Read More

THE SAVIOUR OF HUMANITY

“No one comes to the Father, but by me” (Jn 14:6).

How important it is that we Christians never relativize, let alone deny, this affirmation! These are words spoken by the Son of God at the command of our heavenly Father, and they are therefore an invitation to all humanity. Those who think that the Sacrifice of the Lord can be set aside and that every religion will find its own way to God are mistaken. Whoever holds this view has not understood the Christian faith, because our Father wants us to come to Him through His Son. It was He who prepared the way for us; moreover, He Himself became the way for us. Read More