OCTOBER 13, 2018 : SATURDAY OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 466

Reading 1GAL 3:22-29

Brothers and sisters:
Scripture confined all things under the power of sin,
that through faith in Jesus Christ
the promise might be given to those who believe.

Before faith came, we were held in custody under law,
confined for the faith that was to be revealed.
Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ,
that we might be justified by faith.
But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian.
For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus.
For all of you who were baptized into Christ
have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither slave nor free person,
there is not male and female;
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants,
heirs according to the promise.

Responsorial PsalmPS 105:2-3, 4-5, 6-7

R. (8a) The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Sing to him, sing his praise,
proclaim all his wondrous deeds.
Glory in his holy name;
rejoice, O hearts that seek the LORD!
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Look to the LORD in his strength;
seek to serve him constantly.
Recall the wondrous deeds that he has wrought,
his portents, and the judgments he has uttered.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
You descendants of Abraham, his servants,
sons of Jacob, his chosen ones!
He, the LORD, is our God;
throughout the earth his judgments prevail.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.

AlleluiaLK 11:28

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are those who hear the word of God
and observe it.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

GospelLK 11:27-28

While Jesus was speaking,
a woman from the crowd called out and said to him,
"Blessed is the womb that carried you
and the breasts at which you nursed."
He replied, "Rather, blessed are those
who hear the word of God and observe it."

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Meditation: "Hear the word of God and keep it"

Who do you seek to favor and bless? When an admirer wished to compliment Jesus by praising his mother, Jesus did not deny the truth of the blessing she pronounced. Her beatitude (which means "blessedness" or "happiness") recalls Mary's canticle: All generations will call me blessed (Luke 1:48). Jesus adds to her words by pointing to the source of all true blessedness or happiness - union with God in heart, mind, and will. 

We can hear God's Word and believe it
Mary humbly submitted herself to the miraculous plan of God for the incarnation of his only begotten Son - the Word of God made flesh in her womb - by declaring: I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word (Luke 1:38). Mary heard the word spoken to her by the angel sent by God and she believed it.

On another occasion Jesus remarked that whoever does the will of God is a friend of God and a member of his family - his sons and daughters who have been ransomed by the precious blood of Christ (Luke 8:21). They are truly blessed because they know their God personally and they find joy in hearing and obeying his word.

Jesus unites us with our heavenly Father
Our goal in life, the very reason we were created in the first place, is for union with God. We were made for God and our hearts are restless until they rest in him. Lucian of Antioch (240-312), an early Christian theologian and martyr, once said that "a Christian's only relatives are the saints." Those who follow Jesus Christ and who seek the will of God enter into a new family, a family of "saints" here on earth and in heaven. Jesus changes the order of relationships and shows that true kinship is not just a matter of flesh and blood. Our adoption as sons and daughters of God transforms all our relationships and requires a new order of loyalty to God and his kingdom. Do you hunger for God and for his word?

"Lord Jesus, my heart is restless until it rests in you. Help me to live in your presence and in the knowledge of your great love for me. May I seek to please you in all that I do, say, and think."

Daily Quote from the early church fathers: Blessings for hearing and keeping the Word, by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"Mary was more blessed in accepting the faith of Christ than in conceiving the flesh of Christ. To someone who said, 'Blessed is the womb that bore you,' he replied, 'Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.' Finally, for his brothers, his relatives according to the flesh who did not believe in him, of what advantage was that relationship? Even her maternal relationship would have done Mary no good unless she had borne Christ more happily in her heart than in her flesh." (excerpt from HOLY VIRGINITY 3.1)

www.dailyscripture.net

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, LUKE 11:27-28
Weekday
(Galatians 3:22-29; Psalm 105)

KEY VERSE: "Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it" (v. 28).
TO KNOW: Although Jesus performed many miracles, some still refused to believe in him. Others accused him of working miracles by the power of Satan (Lk 11:15). Still others demanded that he show them "a sign from heaven" (v. 16) as proof of God's power at work in him. A woman in the crowd recognized that Jesus was the sign that they sought. She praised Jesus' mother for being fortunate to have born such a son. However, Jesus knew that his mother was blessed, not because of her physical maternity, but because she heard God's word and obeyed it. Mary is the model disciple because she spent her whole life in obedience to God's word. She said "yes" to the incarnation, and she submitted herself to God's will even when it directed her to the foot of the cross.
TO LOVE: Have I found blessings by obeying God's word?
TO SERVE: Lord Jesus, give me the grace to hear and obey your word. ​

OPTIONAL MEMORIAL OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Chapter V of the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, issued by the Holy See in December 2001, describes the Church's traditional dedication of Saturday to the Virgin Mary. "Saturdays stand out among those days dedicated to the Virgin Mary. These are designated as memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (218). The chapter also describes the importance of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in Catholic devotional life, in the Liturgy, and reflections on popular devotions to Mary, her feast days, and the Rosary.​

www.togetherwithgodsword.com

Saturday 13 October 2018

Galatians 3:22-29. Psalm 104(105):2-7. Luke 11:27-28.

The Lord will remember his covenant forever – Psalm 104(105):2-7.

‘More blessed still are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’

The woman in the crowd spoke rightly in calling Mary the mother of God blessed – after the example of the angel Gabriel. Jesus, in his full teaching style turns this one woman’s piety into a lesson for all his hearers. He declares that ‘more blessed still are those who hear the word of God and keep it’.

With this lesson brought to us by the Word of God, let us strive today and every day to hear the word of God, and keep to the end. As we return again to God’s word day by day let us ask that our hearts be made strong. Give us courage, Lord, give us joy.

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Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher

Saint of the Day for October 13

(October 6, 1811 – October 6, 1849)

Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher’s Story

Canada was one diocese from coast to coast during the first eight years of Marie-Rose Durocher’s life. Its half-million Catholics had received civil and religious liberty from the English only 44 years before.

She was born in a little village near Montreal in 1811, the 10th of 11 children. She had a good education, was something of a tomboy, rode a horse named Caesar, and could have married well. At 16, she felt the desire to become a religious, but was forced to abandon the idea because of her weak constitution. At 18, when her mother died, her priest brother invited Marie-Rose and their father to come to his parish in Beloeil, not far from Montreal.

For 13 years, Marie-Rose served as housekeeper, hostess, and parish worker. She became well-known for her graciousness, courtesy, leadership, and tact; she was, in fact, called “the saint of Beloeil.” Perhaps she was too tactful during two years when her brother treated her coldly.

When Marie-Rose was 29, Bishop Ignace Bourget—who would be a decisive influence in her life—became bishop of Montreal. He faced a shortage of priests and sisters and a rural population that had been largely deprived of education. Like his counterparts in the United States, Bishop Bourget scoured Europe for help, and himself founded four communities, one of which was the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. Its first sister and reluctant co-foundress was Marie-Rose Durocher.

As a young woman, Marie-Rose had hoped there would someday be a community of teaching sisters in every parish, never thinking she would found one. But her spiritual director, Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father Pierre Telmon, after thoroughly—and severely—leading her in the spiritual life, urged her to found a community herself. Bishop Bourget concurred, but Marie-Rose shrank from the prospect. She was in poor health and her father and brother needed her.

Finally Marie-Rose agreed, and with two friends, Melodie Dufresne and Henriette Cere, entered a little home in Longueuil, across the Saint Lawrence River from Montreal. With them were 13 young girls already assembled for boarding school. Longueuil became her Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Gethsemane. Marie-Rose was 32 and would live only six more years—years filled with poverty, trials, sickness, and slander. The qualities she had nurtured in her “hidden” life came forward—a strong will, intelligence and common sense, great inner courage, and yet a great deference to directors. Thus was born an international congregation of women religious dedicated to education in the faith.

Marie-Rose was severe with herself and by today’s standards quite strict with her sisters. Beneath it all, of course, was an unshakable love of her crucified Savior.

On her deathbed, the prayers most frequently on her lips were “Jesus, Mary, Joseph! Sweet Jesus, I love you. Jesus, be to me Jesus!” Before she died, Marie-Rose smiled and said to the sister with her, “Your prayers are keeping me here—let me go.”

Marie-Rose Durocher was beatified in 1982. Her Liturgical Feast Day is October 6.

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Reflection

We have seen a great burst of charity, a genuine interest in the poor. Countless Christians have experienced a deep form of prayer. But penance? We squirm when we read of terrible physical penance done by people like Marie-Rose Durocher. That is not for most people, of course. But the pull of a materialistic culture oriented to pleasure and entertainment is impossible to resist without some form of deliberate and Christ-conscious abstinence. That is part of the way to answer Jesus’ call to repent and turn completely to God.

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LECTIO DIVINA: LUKE 11:27-28

Lectio Divina: 

 Saturday, October 13, 2018

Ordinary Time

1) Opening prayer

Father,
your love for us
surpasses all our hopes and desires.
Forgive our failings,
keep us in your peace
and lead us in the way of salvation.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel Reading - Luke 11,27-28

It happened that as Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, 'Blessed the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you!'

But He replied, 'More blessed still are those who hear the word of God and keep it!'

3) Reflection

• Today's Gospel is very brief, but it has a very important significance in the Gospel of Luke in general. It gives us the key to understand what Luke teaches regarding Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in the so-called Gospel of the Infancy (Lk 1 and 2).

• Luke 11, 27: The exclamation of the woman. "At that time, as Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said: "Blessed the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you!" The creative imagination of some apocryphal books suggests that the woman was a neighbor of Our Lady, there in Nazareth. She had a son called Dimas, who with other boys of Galilee at that time, went to war with the Romans. He was made a prisoner and killed at the side of Jesus. He was the good thief (Lk 23, 39-43). His mother, having heard about the good that Jesus did to people, remembered her neighbor Mary, and said: "Mary must be very happy to have such a son!"

• Luke 11, 28: The response of Jesus. Jesus responds, giving the greatest praise to his mother: "More blessed still are those who hear the word of God and keep it". Luke speaks little about Mary here (Lk 11, 28) and in the Gospel of the Infancy (Lk 1 and 2). For Luke, Mary is the Daughter of Sion, the image of the new People of God. He represents Mary as the model for the life of the communities. In Vatican Council II, the document prepared on Mary was inserted in the last chapter of the document Lumen Gentium on the Church. Mary is the model for the Church. And especially in the way in which Mary relates with the Word of God, Luke considers her as an example for the life of the communities: "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it". Mary teaches us how to accept the Word of God, how to incarnate it, live it, deepen it, make it be born and grow, and allow it to shape us, even when we do not understand it, or when it makes us suffer. This is the vision which is subjacent in the Gospel of the Infancy (Lk 1 and 2). The key to understand these two chapters is given to us by today's Gospel: "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!" Let us see in these chapters how Mary enters into relationship with the Word of God.

a) Luke 1, 26-38:

The Annunciation: "Let it happen to me as you have said!"
To know how to open oneself, to accept the Word of God so that it becomes incarnate.

b) Luke 1, 39-45:

The Visitation: "Blessed is she who has believed!"
To know how to recognize the Word of God in a visit and in many other facts of life.

c) Luke 1, 46-56:

The Magnificat: "The Lord has done great things for me!"
To recognize the Word in the story of the people and sing a song of resistance and hope.

d) Luke 2, 1-20:

The Birth of Our Lord: "She pondered all these things in her heart!"
There was no outward place for them. The marginalized accept the Word.

e) Luke 2, 21-32:

The Presentation: "My eyes have seen the salvation!"
The many years of life purify the eyes.

f) Luke 2, 33-38:

Simeon and Anna: "A sword will pierce your soul too!"
To accept and incarnate the Word in life, to be a sign of contradiction.

g) Luke 2, 39-52:

At twelve years old in the Temple: "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
They did not understand what He meant!

h)Luke 11, 27-28:

The praise to the mother: "Blessed the womb that bore you!"
Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.

4) Personal questions

• Do you succeed in discovering the Word of God in your life?

• How do you live devotion to Mary, the Mother of Jesus?

5) Concluding prayer

Sing to him, make music for him,
recount all his wonders!
Glory in his holy name,
let the hearts that seek Yahweh rejoice! (Ps 105,2-3)

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