27th Week: Oct 6-11:
Oct 6 Monday: Saint Bruno, priest & Blessed Marie Rose Durocher, virgin (in U.S.A.): Lk 10:25-37:
In today’s Gospel, a scribe asks Jesus a very basic religious question: “What should I do to inherit eternal life?” In answer to the question, Jesus directs the scribe’s attention to the Sacred Scriptures. The Scriptural answer is, “love God and express it by loving your neighbor.” However, to the scribe, the word “neighbor” meant another scribe or Pharisee – never a Samaritan or a Gentile. Hence, the scribe insists on clarification of the word “neighbor.” So, Jesus tells him the parable of the Good Samaritan. The parable clearly indicates that a “neighbor” is anyone who needs help. Thus, the correct approach is not to ask, “Who is my neighbor?” but rather to ask, “Am I a good neighbor to others?” Jesus, the Heavenly Good Samaritan, gives us a final commandment during the Last Supper, “Love one another as I have loved you,” because the invisible God dwells in every human being.
Life messages: 1) Let us remember that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho passes right through our home, parish, school, and workplace. We may find our spouse, children or parents lying “wounded” by bitter words or scathing criticism or by other more blatant forms of verbal, emotional, or physical abuse. Hence, Jesus invites us to show our love to others, in our own home, in school, in the workplace, and in the neighborhood, as the Good Samaritan did. 2) Let us check to see if we are good neighbors. We become good neighbors when we are people of generosity, kindness, and mercy toward all who are suffering. Our sincere smile, a cheery greeting, an encouraging word of appreciation, a heartfelt “Thank you!” can all work wonders for a suffering soul. 3) Let us allow Jesus the “Good Samaritan” to touch our lives. We allow Him to heal us from Original sin by the oil and water of Baptism, we receive the special anointing of the Spirit by the oil of Confirmation, we prepare for our healing and death by the oil of the Anointing of the sick, and our souls are nourished by the Bread and Wine of His Sacred Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. 4) Let us accept the invitation to be loving and merciful to our enemies. This means people we hate, as well as those who hate us. It is an invitation for people of all times to love their enemies – to love those they have previously hated.
Oct 7 Tuesday: Our Lady of the Rosary:
Memorial: Lk 1:38-42 (Weekday: Lk 10:38-42) This feast was established by Pope St. Pius V in thanksgiving for the naval victory at Lepanto, 7 Oct 1571, which stopped the Ottoman Turks’ invasion of Europe. Pope St. Pius V named the Feast Our Lady of Victory; it was originally celebrated on the first Sunday of October. Pope Gregory XIII later renamed the day, the Feast of the Holy Rosary.
Importance: The word Rosary means "Crown of Roses" and each prayer in the Rosary is considered a flower presented to Mary. The Rosary is also called the “Breviary of the Common People” (The Breviary has 150 Psalms; The Rosary has 150 Hail Marys), and the “Psalms of the Illiterate.” The prayers we repeat are Biblical and hence “inspired,” and the mysteries we meditate upon are taken from the lives of Jesus and Mary. The “Our Father” is a prayer taught us by Jesus himself. The “Hail Mary” is also rooted in the Scriptures. Its first half echoes the words of the Archangel Gabriel and those of Elizabeth, both addressed to Mary. The third prayer — the “Glory be to the Father” (ancient in its wording), surely reflects the unceasing prayer of adoration and praise found in the Book of Revelation. The various events in the lives of Jesus and Mary on which we meditate during the Rosary are expressions of the Paschal Mystery, that is, the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, in which Mary shared.
History: Prayer using beads is as old as mankind. The Hindus in India used to recite the thousand names of their gods and goddesses and their "mantra” prayers using a multi-beaded string, and their sages wear such strings around the neck, constantly rolling the beads in prayer. The Jews used beads to repeat the psalms, the Laws of Moses and the memorized sayings of the prophets. The Muslims use strings with a hundred beads for their prayer. In the ninth century, the Christian monks who recited the 150 psalms instructed the illiterate common people to recite the Our Father 150 times. It was in the eleventh century that the Europeans added the Hail Mary to the Our Father. According to legend, in 1214, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Dominic Guzman and instructed him to pray the Rosary in a new form as an effective antidote against the Albigensian heresy. The Rosary devotion attained its present form by 1500 A.D. An additional boost to the Rosary devotion was given in 1917, when our Blessed Mother, in her sixth apparition to the three shepherd children, on the thirteenth of September, asked them to, "Say the Rosary every day… Pray, pray a lot and offer sacrifices for sinners… I am Our Lady of the Rosary.” The “Fatima prayer” ("O, my Jesus, f0rgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, and lead all souls to Heaven especially those who have most need of Your Mercy”), was added in the early twentieth century. Pope St. John Paul II opened the 21st century by enriching the Rosary (October 16, 2002), with the addition of the “Luminous Mysteries” (Rosarium Virginis Mariae).
How to pray the Rosary: The ideal is to recite at least five decades of the Rosary (and if possible, the entire twenty), with one’s whole family daily. We need to say the Rosary slowly enough to make its recitation devout and reverent. We are to reflect for a minute or two on the mystery, and then concentrate on the meaning of the prayers as we say them, to avoid distractions. Besides saying the Rosary with others in the family before bedtime, let us make it a habit of reciting the Rosary during our journey to the workplace, and during our exercises. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Oct 8 Wednesday: Lk 11:1-4:
The context: The disciples were fascinated by watching their Master Jesus at prayer. They knew that John the Baptist had taught his disciples how to pray. In response to the request made by one of the apostles, Jesus taught the beautiful prayer, z z The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the Our Father “is truly the summary of the whole Gospel” (CCC #2761). The great mystical Doctor of the Church Saint Teresa of Ávila gave this advice while praying the Lord’s Prayer: “Much more is accomplished by a single word of the Our Father said, now and then, from our heart, than by the whole prayer repeated many times in haste and without attention.” And Saint Thérèse of Lisieux said that the “Our Father” was one of the prayers she prayed when she felt so spiritually barren that she could not summon up a single worthwhile thought.
A prayer in two parts: In the first part of the prayer, we address God, lovingly acknowledging Him as our Heavenly Father, praising Him, and worshipping Him. Then we ask Him that His Holy Will may be done by us in our lives on earth as perfectly as it is done in Heaven. In the second part, we ask our Father’s blessings on our present time (daily bread), our past (forgiveness of sins) and our future (protection against the tempter and his temptations). In this part we also invite the Triune God into our lives. We bring in 1) God the Father, the Provider, by asking for daily bread, 2) God the Son, our Savior, by asking forgiveness for our sins and 3) God the Holy Spirit, our Guide, Advocate, Comforter, and Illuminator, by asking for protection and deliverance from evil.
Special stress on spirit of forgiveness: In this prayer, Jesus instructs us to ask for forgiveness from others for our offenses and to give unconditional forgiveness to others for their offenses against us as a condition for receiving God’s forgiveness ourselves. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Oct 9 Thursday: Saints Denis, Bishop, and companions, martyrs and St. John Leonardi, priest Lk 11:5-13:
The context: After teaching a model prayer, Jesus instructs his disciples to pray to God their Heavenly Father with the same boldness, daring, intimacy, conviction, persistence, and perseverance that both Abraham and the “friend in need” in the parable used. Jesus gives us the assurance that God will not be irritated by our requests, nor will He be unwilling to meet them with generosity. Jesus stresses the power of intercessory prayer and the necessity for persistence, perseverance, trusting Faith, and the boldness of Faith in our prayer.
The parable: By presenting the parable of the “friend in need,” Jesus emphasizes our need for that persistent and persevering prayer which acknowledges our total dependence on God. In the ancient Hebrew world, hospitality was the essence of one’s goodness, and, hence, to welcome a visitor without food and drink was unthinkable. A traveller who was traveling in the evening to avoid the heat of the afternoon might well arrive late at night. So, in this parable, when a man received an unexpected guest late at night and found his cupboard bare, he went to the man next door, woke him up, and asked him for a loaf of bread. Because of the persistence of his neighbor, Jesus says, the householder, though not willing to get up for friendship’s sake, would get up and give him the bread he needed for his guest. This parable of The Friend at Midnight is both an assurance that prayer is always answered and an encouragement to pray. This parable stresses the necessity for our persisting in prayer as the expression of our total dependence on God. St. Paul says, “Be constant in prayer” (Rom 12:12), “pray at all times” (Eph 6:18), “be steadfast in prayer” (Col 4:2), and “pray constantly” (2 Thes 5:17). Jesus assures us, "Knock and the door will be opened" (Lk 11:10).
Life messages: We need to stop giving lame excuses for not praying. Modern Christians give four lame excuses for not praying: 1) We are “too busy.” This excuse should send us to our priorities list, where God needs to be first of all, if we are to be able to live in His peace. That settled, we will find that prayer in every form is our living connection with Him through which He gives us Grace, fills us with His love for us, and helps us to become our true selves. Then, with His help, we will be able to discern the truly important things in our lives and eliminate the unimportant and/or distracting, debilitating, and useless items. 2) We “don’t believe that prayer does that much good, other than giving us the psychological motivation to be better persons.” Such people forget the fact that prayer establishes and augments our responsive relationship with God, the Source of our power. 3) “A loving God should provide for us and protect us from the disasters of life, such as diseases or accidents, without our asking Him.” True – and He does! Prayer is not meant to inform God; it expresses our awareness of our need for God, Who loves us unconditionally, and of our trusting dependence upon Him. Further, if we haven’t asked Him for what we need, we may well not recognize it when He gives it to us! 4) “Prayer is boring.” People who use this excuse forget the fact that prayer is a conversation with God: listening to God speaking to us through the Bible and talking to God through personal and family prayers. We can’t have a close relationship with anyone, including God, without persistent and intimate conversation. ((https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Oct 10 Friday: Lk 11:15-26:
The context: When Jesus healed a mute man by exorcism, the jealous scribes and the Pharisees spread the malicious slander that Jesus was collaborating with Beelzebul, the head of the devils, to cast out smaller devils. Jesus’ response: Jesus makes his counterattack, first by asking the rhetorical question “By whom do your sons (the Jewish exorcists), cast them out?” The implication is that, if what they say about Him, Who casts them out with a single command, is true, the Jewish exorcists, who require so much more prayer and so many more exercises to do exorcisms, must certainly have to seek the help of the big devil to exorcise minor devils. Then Jesus asserts that no kingdom, divided against itself, can survive for long. Obviously, then, the chief devil will not help any exorcists to cast out devils. Jesus then claims that His exorcisms are proof that He has brought the Kingdom of God. When people are liberated from the control of evil spirits, it is a sure sign that the loving power of God (the finger of God), is at work. Then Jesus uses the image of a strong man guarding his house and keeping his possessions safe until someone stronger attacks and overthrows him. It is Jesus who is the stronger one driving away the evil spirits. They are helpless before him. This liberation of people and society from evil powers is one of the most dramatic proofs that the all-powerful reign of God is present in the Person of Jesus.
Life messages: 1) Jesus teaches us that the devil is relentless in his struggle against man. The devil continues to lay his traps, in spite of man’s rejecting him with the help of grace. That is why St. Peter warns us to be sober and vigilant because "your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your Faith" (1 Pt 5:8-9). 2) We have to fortify ourselves against the devil by prayer, penance, the Sacraments, and the effective use of the word of God. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Oct 11 Saturday: Saint John XXIII, Pope; Lk 11:27-28:
The context: A woman in the audience was so impressed by Jesus’ powerful refutation of the slander (that Jesus collaborated with the devil in exorcisms), that she shouted a blessing, praising the mother of Jesus: "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!" She meant that any woman would be proud to have such a great son. Jesus tells her that His mother is more blessed for obeying the word of God throughout her life.
The reason for real blessedness: Completing the truth of the blessing the woman had pronounced, Jesus states that the real source of blessedness is the willingness to hear and the readiness to obey, the word of God. Mary heard God’s message at the Annunciation, and her prompt response was, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). That is why she could boldly proclaim to her cousin Elizabeth in her canticle, “All generations will call me blessed” (Lk 1:48). No one listened more attentively to the word of God than Mary did. She was absolutely obedient, humble, loving and faithful. Jesus clarified the same truth on another occasion, stating that his “mother and brothers and sisters are those who hear the word of God and do it (Lk 8:21), just as Mary had always done. In today’s Gospel, Jesus declares that those who hear God’s word and keep it are more blessed than those who are related to Him only by blood.
Life messages: 1) We become members of the Heavenly family of the Triune God, that is, we are made children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus, by our Baptism.) But it is our fidelity in hearing the word of God and in putting that word into practice in our daily lives that makes us really blessed. What makes a person happy in this life and in the life to come is precisely the fulfillment of God’s will, as we learn through the attentive reading of, and listening to, His words. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
