OCTOBER 16, 2012 : TUESDAY OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 468

Lk 11:37-41

Reading 1 Gal 5:1-6

Brothers and sisters:
For freedom Christ set us free;
so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

It is I, Paul, who am telling you
that if you have yourselves circumcised,
Christ will be of no benefit to you.
Once again I declare to every man who has himself circumcised
that he is bound to observe the entire law.
You are separated from Christ,
you who are trying to be justified by law;
you have fallen from grace.
For through the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of righteousness.
For in Christ Jesus,
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything,
but only faith working through love.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 119:41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48

R. (41a) Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
Let your mercy come to me, O LORD,
your salvation according to your promise.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
Take not the word of truth from my mouth,
for in your ordinances is my hope.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
And I will keep your law continually,
forever and ever.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
And I will walk at liberty,
because I seek your precepts.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
And I will delight in your commands,
which I love.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.
And I will lift up my hands to your commands
and meditate on your statutes.
R. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.

Gospel Lk 11:37-41

After Jesus had spoken,
a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home.
He entered and reclined at table to eat.
The Pharisee was amazed to see
that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.
The Lord said to him, "Oh you Pharisees!
Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish,
inside you are filled with plunder and evil.
You fools!
Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?
But as to what is within, give alms,
and behold, everything will be clean for you."

www.usccb.org

Meditation: "Give alms from what you have within"

 Is the Lord welcomed at your table and are you ready to feast at his table? A Pharisee, after hearing Jesus preach, invited him to dinner, no doubt, because he wanted to hear more from this extraordinary man who spoke the word of God as no one else had done before. It was not unusual for a rabbi to give a teaching over dinner. Jesus, however, did something which offended his host. He did not perform the ceremonial washing of hands before beginning the meal. Did Jesus forget or was he deliberately performing a sign to reveal something to his host? Jesus turned the table on his host by chiding him for uncleanness of heart. Which is more important to God – clean hands or a clean mind and heart? Jesus chided the Pharisees for harboring evil thoughts that make us unclean spiritually – such as greed, pride, bitterness, envy, arrogance, and the like. Why does he urge them, and us, to give alms? When we give freely and generously to those in need we express love, compassion, kindness, and mercy. And if the heart is full of love and compassion, then there is no room for envy, greed, bitterness, and the like. Do you allow God's love to transform your heart, mind, and actions toward your neighbor?
"Lord Jesus, fill me with your love and increase my thirst for holiness. Cleanse my heart of every evil thought and desire and help me to act kindly and justly and to speak charitably with my neighbor."
www.dailyscripture.net

Laws That Bind or Free

Tuesday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Father Daniel Ray, LC  Listen to podcast version here.    Luke 11: 37-41 After Jesus had spoken, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home. He entered and reclined at table to eat. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal. The Lord said to him, "Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you." Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe that you are present here as I turn to you in prayer. I trust and have confidence in your desire to give me every grace I need to receive today. Thank you for your love, thank you for your immense generosity toward me. I give you my life and my love in return. Petition: Lord, grant me this grace of conversion. 1. Law for the Law’s Sake: The Mosaic Law was intended to free them for worship, delivering them from slavery to pagan gods and from slavery to sin. When the Law (and the added customs and regulations) became an end in itself, it was truncated and severed from the One to whom it was meant to lead. Today in the Catholic Church there are enough laws, customs and regulations to make even the most rigorous Pharisee proud. The danger is that we can fall into one of two traps. First, we can adhere to them with such vigor that we lose sight of the One they are freeing us to worship. We don’t allow our hearts and minds to be educated and formed by them, we just follow them blindly. We wind up cleaning the outside of the cup and stopping there, without going on to see God’s love and let it purify our hearts. 2. The Second Trap: The second trap we can fall into is at the other extreme: to give ourselves an easy pass by presuming that “if my heart is in the right place, I don’t need to worry about all these rules and such.” With a lax attitude we permit ourselves to ease up on fulfilling these laws which in truth will free us. “I know today is Sunday and I should go to Mass, but it’s vacation! God knows I’m a good person.” Yet it is in the Sunday Mass that we receive the many graces necessary toward our being that “good person”. The commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, as with any of the Ten Commandments and customs of the Church, is there to lead us to God. These free us from our often confused subjective conclusions about how we should worship God and live our lives. 3. Cleaning the Cup: “Charity covers a multitude of sin” (1 Peter 4:8). The law of love is the most important of all the commandments of the Lord. In Chapter 12 of the Gospel of Mark, Christ responds to a scribe’s question about the first of all the commandments: “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Love of God and neighbor is both the source and the summit of the Law of the Old Covenant and of the New. Living these two greatest commandments purifies and cleanses our hearts—the inside of the cup. So when Christ says to give alms, he is telling the Pharisees to love their neighbors. Then their hearts will be clean. Conversation with Christ: Lord, I want my heart always to be focused on you. I need your guidance, for I can’t do it alone. I need you to teach me how to love you, how to worship and serve you. The laws you give me free me and guide me toward you. Help me to see your hand leading me ever closer to you. Resolution: If there is a rule or custom of the Church that I don’t understand or don’t practice, I will read up on it to come to understand better how it frees me and guides me in my relationship with Christ.

www.regnumchristi.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16
LUKE 11:37-41
(Galatians 5:1-6; Psalm 119)
KEY VERSE: "Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil" (v 39). 
READING: When Jesus was invited to dine at the home of a Pharisee, he was criticized by his host for failing to wash his hands before eating. This was not a matter of cleanliness but of the Pharisaic practice which prescribed that hands must be washed before a meal in a certain way. Jesus' reply that was more than he bargained for--a full-scale condemnation of a the legalistic religious attitude of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were scrupulous about the smallest details of ritual cleanliness, whereas Jesus was more concerned with moral purity than with outward observance of rituals. He made the comparison of tableware that had been washed clean on the outside but remained filthy inside. These religious leaders were contaminating the people with their emphasis on externals while ignoring the essence of the Law of Moses, which was charity and justice.
REFLECTING: Do I serve the Lord out of devotion or obligation?
PRAYING: Lord Jesus, cleanse me from all my unknown offenses.

Optional Memorial Memorial of Hedwig, religious 
Hedwig was the daughter of the Duke of Croatia, and the aunt of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. She was married to Prince Henry I of Silesia and Poland in 1186 at age 12. The mother of seven, she cared for the sick both personally and by founding hospitals. Upon her husband's death, she gave away her fortune and entered the monastery at Trebnitz. Just as her devotion always made her seek God, so she bountifully bestowed alms on the needy. She gave aid to colleges and to religious persons dwelling within or outside monasteries, to widows and orphans, to the weak and the feeble, to lepers, to the imprisoned, to travelers and needy women withinfants. No one who came to her for help went away empty. God also conferred on her such grace that when she lacked human means to do good, and her own powers failed, she had the power of Christ to relieve the bodily and spiritual troubles of all who sought her help.

Optional Memorial Margaret Mary Alacoque, virgin 
Healed from a crippling disorder by a vision of the Blessed Virgin, Margaret Mary was prompted to give her life to God. After receiving a vision of Christ fresh from the scourging, she was moved to join the Order of the Visitation in 1671. Margaret Mary received a revelation from our Lord in 1675, which included Twelve promises to her and to those who practiced a true to devotion to His Sacred Heart, whose crown of thorns represent his sacrifices. The devotion encountered violent opposition, especially in Jansenist areas, but has become widespread and popular.

The Twelve Promises of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary for those devoted to His Sacred Heart:
1. I will give them all the graces necessary for their state of life.
2. I will establish peace in their families.
3. I will console them in all their troubles.
4. They shall find in My Heart an assured refuge during life and especially at the hour of their death.
5. I will pour abundant blessings on all their undertakings.
6. Sinners shall find in My Heart the source of an infinite ocean of mercy.
7. Tepid souls shall become fervent.
8. Fervent souls shall speedily rise to great perfection.
9. I will bless the homes where an image of My Heart shall be exposed and honored.
10. I will give to priests the power of touching the most hardened hearts.
11. Those who propagate this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart, never to be effaced.
12. The all-powerful love of My Heart will grant to all those who shall receive Communion on the First Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they shall not die under my displeasure, nor without receiving their Sacraments; My heart shall be their assured refuge at that last hour. 

 Optional Memorial St. Gerard Majella

Gerard Majella is the patron of expectant mothers. He was born at Muro, Italy, in 1726 and joined the Redemptorists at the age of 23, becoming a professed lay brother in 1752. Because of his great piety, extraordinary wisdom, and his gift of reading consciences, he was permitted to counsel communities of religious women. Gerard was falsely accused of being the father of a pregnant woman�s child, and he maintained a role of silence on the issue. When the woman cleared him of the charges, he was made the patron of all things in association with pregnancy. His charity, obedience, and selfless service as well as his ceaseless mortification for Christ, made him the perfect model of lay brothers. He was afflicted with tuberculosis and died in 1755 at the age of twenty-nine. His last will consisted of the following small note on the door of his cell: "Here the will of God is done, as God wills, and as long as God wills." St. Gerard is invoked as a patron of expectant mothers as a result of a miracle effected through his prayers for a woman in labor. Canonized in 1904 by Pope Saint Pius X

Prayer to St. Gerard Majella Patron Saint of Motherhood
O good St Gerard, powerful intercessor before God and wonder worker of our day, confidently I call upon you and seek your aid.  On Earth you always fulfilled God's designs, help me now to do the holy will of God.  Implore the Master of Life, from whom all paternity proceeds, to render me fruitful in offspring, that I may raise up children to God in this life, and in the world to come, heirs to the Kingdom of His Glory. Amen.

www.daily-word-of-life.com

Let your loving kindness come to me, O Lord.
‘You clean the outside, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.’
Dear Lord, it seems that you were an uncomfortable dinner guest, looking beyond the etiquette to the real person of your host. It is so easy to do the outward actions that make us respectable in case others look down on us for not conforming. But, on the other hand, there is no point in not conforming for the sake of it.

What is within usually shows on the outside so we ask you to give us your grace to tear down the façade. It is, of course, important to have something genuine behind the façade. What is genuine? It would be good to have true humility behind the facade—that is, accepting oneself and looking with eyes of love on everyone else.
www.churchresources.info

THOUGHT FOR TODAY
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
I order, I command, I beg, I insist, I entreat you to lay aside all fear of God. It is ridiculous. You do not understand what God is like. He is the most sympathetic of friends, always biased in our favour, always most indulgent, most generous...

What fear have you of the Judgement? Would you like to be judged by me at the Gates of Heaven? Would you feel confident that I should be lenient? Of course you would! Very well then! God will be more lenient still, because he is better than I am, and loves you, as is His right, in a still more fatherly way. This is absolutely true and you must change your ideas about this completely.

You must feel nothing but confidence in the infinite mercy of God.

- Abbe de Tourville
 
From Living Water: An Anthology of Letters of Direction by Robin Baird-Smith [David Lovell Publishing 2003]
www.churchresources.info

MINUTE MEDITATIONS
Abundant Love   
Saving Lord, we know in faith that in you we live and move and have our being. In the times we feel you are far away from us, fill us with the trust that you care for us with your abundant love.

— from Holding Jesus
www.americancatholic.org

October 16
St. Marguerite d’Youville
(1701-1771)

We learn compassion from allowing our lives to be influenced by compassionate people, by seeing life from their perspective and reconsidering our own values.

Born in Varennes, Canada, Marie Marguerite Dufrost de Lajemmerais had to interrupt her schooling at the age of 12 to help her widowed mother. Eight years later she married Francois d'Youville; they had six children, four of whom died young. Despite the fact that her husband gambled, sold liquor illegally to Native Americans and treated her indifferently, she cared for him compassionately before his death in 1730.
Even though she was caring for two small children and running a store to help pay off her husband's debts, Marguerite still helped the poor. Once her children were grown, she and several companions rescued a Quebec hospital that was in danger of failing. She called her community the Institute of the Sisters of Charity of Montreal; the people called them the "Grey Nuns" because of the color of their habit. In time, a proverb arose among the poor people of Montreal, "Go to the Grey Nuns; they never refuse to serve." In time, five other religious communities traced their roots to the Grey Nuns.
The General Hospital in Montreal became known as the Hotel Dieu (House of God) and set a standard for medical care and Christian compassion. When the hospital was destroyed by fire in 1766, she knelt in the ashes, led the Te Deum (a hymn to God's providence in all circumstances) and began the rebuilding process. She fought the attempts of government officials to restrain her charity and established the first foundling home in North America.
Pope John XXIII, who beatified her in 1959, called her the "Mother of Universal Charity." She was canonized in 1990.

Comment:

Saints deal with plenty of discouragement, plenty of reasons to say, "Life isn't fair" and wonder where God is in the rubble of their lives. We honor saints like Marguerite because they show us that, with God's grace and their cooperation, suffering can lead to compassion rather than to bitterness.

Quote:

"More than once the work which Marguerite undertook was hindered by nature or people. In order to work to bring that new world of justice and love closer, she had to fight some hard and difficult battles" (John Paul II, canonization homily).

October 16
St. Hedwig
(1174?-1243)

Rarely do humans realize the possibilities of the wise use of earthly power and worldly wealth. Hedwig was one of the few. Born to nobility toward the close of the 12th century, she was married at an early age to Henry, duke of Silesia (now Poland). Through her persuation and personal efforts, several monastic institutions of both men and women were established in Silesia. Several hospitals, one for lepers, were likewise founded. She was personally a great force in establishing peace in the surrounding areas during power struggles. To her great sorrow, she was unable to prevent a pitched battle between the forces of two of her sons, one of whom was dissatisfied over the partition of estates that Henry had made between them.

After she and her husband had made mutual vows of celibacy, she lived mostly at the monastery at Trebnitz where, although not a formal member of the religious institute, she nevertheless participated in the religious exercises of the community. She died in1243 and was buried at Trebnitz.

Comment:

Whatever possessions we4 may be blessed with are not for our own needs or personal comfort alone; they are also to be used in assisting others. Use of these goods should always promote, never impede, progress in God's love. It is true that earthly things of themselves in no way contradict God love but rather are evident of it. Even so, we cna become so interested in and entriced by what we sense that we become forget of the God from whom these blessings come.

Quote:

Hedwig sacrificed her wish to become a religious in later life in order to use her earthly goods to help the poor. She chose poverty, distrusting the comforts her means might have afforded her and denying herself even such basic necessities as shoes in winter. She wore the religious habit, lived the life of a religious but would not give up the administration of her possessions so that she and those she was able to help might better appreciated the supernatural life of God's grace.

October 16
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
(1647-1690)

Margaret Mary was chosen by Christ to arouse the Church to a realization of the love of God symbolized by the heart of Jesus.

Her early years were marked by sickness and a painful home situation. "The heaviest of my crosses was that I could do nothing to lighten the cross my mother was suffering." After considering marriage for some time, Margaret entered the Order of Visitation nuns at the age of 24.
A Visitation nun was "not to be extraordinary except by being ordinary," but the young nun was not to enjoy this anonymity. A fellow novice (shrewdest of critics) termed Margaret humble, simple and frank, but above all kind and patient under sharp criticism and correction. She could not meditate in the formal way expected, though she tried her best to give up her "prayer of simplicity." Slow, quiet and clumsy, she was assigned to help an infirmarian who was a bundle of energy.
On December 21, 1674, three years a nun, she received the first of her revelations. She felt "invested" with the presence of God, though always afraid of deceiving herself in such matters. The request of Christ was that his love for humankind be made evident through her. During the next 13 months he appeared to her at intervals. His human heart was to be the symbol of his divine-human love. By her own love she was to make up for the coldness and ingratitude of the world—by frequent and loving Holy Communion, especially on the first Friday of each month, and by an hour's vigil of prayer every Thursday night in memory of his agony and isolation in Gethsemane. He also asked that a feast of reparation be instituted.
Like all saints, Margaret had to pay for her gift of holiness. Some of her own sisters were hostile. Theologians who were called in declared her visions delusions and suggested that she eat more heartily. Later, parents of children she taught called her an impostor, an unorthodox innovator. A new confessor, St. Claude de la Colombiere, a Jesuit, recognized her genuineness and supported her. Against her great resistance, Christ called her to be a sacrificial victim for the shortcomings of her own sisters, and to make this known.
After serving as novice mistress and assistant superior, she died at the age of 43 while being anointed. "I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus."

Comment:

Our scientific-materialistic age cannot "prove" private revelations. Theologians, if pressed, admit that we do not have to believe in them. But it is impossible to deny the message Margaret Mary heralded: that God loves us with a passionate love. Her insistence on reparation and prayer and the reminder of final judgment should be sufficient to ward off superstition and superficiality in devotion to the Sacred Heart while preserving its deep Christian meaning.

Quote:

Christ speaks to St. Margaret Mary: "Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love. In return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in this sacrament of love.... I come into the heart I have given you in order that through your fervor you may atone for the offenses which I have received from lukewarm and slothful hearts that dishonor me in the Blessed Sacrament" (Third apparition).

www.americancatholic.org

St. Gerard Majella

Feastday: October 16
Patron of expectant mothers
Died: 1755

St. Gerard Majella, religious, is the patron of expectant mothers. He was born at Muro, Italy, in 1726 and joined the Redemptorists at the age of 23, becoming a professed lay brother in 1752. He served as sacristan, gardener, porter, infirmarian, and tailor. However, because of his great piety, extraordinary wisdom, and his gift of reading consciences, he was permitted to counsel communities of religious women.

This humble servant of God also had the faculties of levitation and bi-location associated with certain mystics. His charity, obedience, and selfless service as well as his ceaseless mortification for Christ, made him the perfect model of lay brothers. He was afflicted with tuberculosis and died in 1755 at the age of twenty-nine.

This great saint is invoked as a patron of expectant mothers as a result of a miracle effected through his prayers for a woman in labor.

Prayer: O Great Saint Gerard, beloved servant of Jesus Christ, perfect imitator of your meek and humble Savior, and devoted Child of the Mother of God: enkindle within my heart one spark of that heavenly fire of charity which glowed in your heart and made you an angel of love. O glorious Saint Gerard, because when falsely accused of crime, you did bear, like your Divine master, without murmur or complaint, the calumnies of wicked men, you have been raised up by God as the Patron and Protector of expectant mothers. Preserve me from danger and from the excessive pains accompanying childbirth, and shield the child which I now carry, that it may see the light of day and receive the lustral waters of baptism through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
www.catholic.org

LECTIO: LUKE 11,37-41

Lectio: 

 Tuesday, October 16, 2012  

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Lord,

our help and guide,

make your love the foundation of our lives.

May our love for you express itself

in our eagerness to do good for others.

You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Luke 11,37-41

Jesus had just finished speaking when a Pharisee invited him to dine at his house. He went in and sat down at table. The Pharisee saw this and was surprised that he had not first washed before the meal. But the Lord said to him, 'You Pharisees! You clean the outside of cup and plate, while inside yourselves you are filled with extortion and wickedness. Fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside too? Instead, give alms from what you have and, look, everything will be clean for you.

3) Reflection

• In today’s Gospel there is the continuation of the tense relationship between Jesus and the religious authority of his time. But in spite of the tension there was a certain familiarity between Jesus and the Pharisees. Invited to eat at their house, Jesus accepts the invitation. He does not lose his freedom before them; neither do the Pharisees before him.

• Luke 11, 37-38: The admiration of the Pharisees before the liberty of Jesus. “At that time after Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his house. He went in and sat down at table. The Pharisee saw this and was surprised that he had not first washed before the meal”. Jesus accepts the invitation to eat at the house of the Pharisee, but he does not change his way of acting, sitting at table without washing his hands. Neither does the Pharisee change his attitude before Jesus, because he expresses his admiration for the fact that Jesus did not wash his hands. At that time, to wash the hands before eating was a religious obligation, imposed upon people in the name of purity, ordered by the law of God. The Pharisee was surprised by the fact that Jesus does not observe this religious norm. But in spite of their total difference, the Pharisee and Jesus have something in common: for them life is serious. The way of doing of the Pharisee was the following: every day, they dedicated eight hours to study and to the meditation of the law of God, another eight hours to work in order to be able to survive with the family and the other eight hours to rest. This serious witness of their life gives them a great popular leadership. Perhaps because of this, in spite of the fact of being totally diverse, both, Jesus and the Pharisees, understood and criticized one another, without losing the possibility to dialogue.

• Luke 11, 39-41: The response of Jesus. “You Pharisees you clean the outside of the cup and plate, while inside yourselves you are filled with extortion and wickedness. Fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside too? Instead, give alms from what you have and, look, everything will be clean for you”. The Pharisees observed the law literally. They only looked at the letter and because of this they were incapable to perceive the spirit of the law, the objective that the observance of the law wanted to attain in the life of the persons. For example, in the law it was written: “Love the neighbour as yourself” (Lv 19,18). And they commented: “We should love the neighbour, yes, but only the neighbour, not the others!” And from there arose the discussion around the question: “Who is my neighbour?” (Lk 10, 29) Paul the Apostle writes in his second Letter to the Corinthians: “The letter kills, the spirit gives life” (2 Co 3, 6). In the Sermon on the Mountain, Jesus criticizes those who observe the letter of the law put transgress the spirit (Mt 5, 20). In order to be faithful to what God asks us it is not sufficient to observe the letter of the law. It would be the same thing as to clean the cup on the outside and to leave the inside all dirty: robbery and injustice so on. It is not sufficient not to kill, not to rob, not to commit adultery, not to swear. Only observe fully the law of God, of he who, beyond the letter, goes to the roots and pulls out from within the desires of “robbery and injustice” which can lead to murder, robbery, adultery, It is in the practice of love that the fullness of the law is attained (cf. Mt 5, 21-48).

4) Personal questions

• Does our Church today merit the accusation which Jesus addressed against the Scribes and the Pharisees? Do I deserve it?

• To respect the seriousness of life of others who think in a different way from us, can facilitate today dialogue which is so necessary and difficult. How do I practice dialogue in the family, in work and in the community?

5) Concluding prayer

Let your faithful love come to me, Yahweh,

true to your promise, save me!

Give me an answer to the taunts against me,

since I rely on your word. (Ps 119,41-42)

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