13th Week, Saturday, Jul 4th

Amos 9:11-15 / Matthew 9:14-17

Amos holds out hope to Israel: God said, “I will rescue my people.”

If we refuse to breathe, the air doesn’t punish or suffocate us. We punish or suffocate ourselves. If we beat our fist against a brick wall, the brick wall doesn’t punish our fist by making it bleed. We punish or bloody it ourselves. This may help us understand better the situation between Israel and God.

14th Sunday A : Come to me all who are Burdened

Starters:
“Do you have any idea who I am?" 
The Los Angeles Times published the story of a commercial airline flight cancellation which resulted in a long line of travelers trying to get bookings on another flight. One man in the line grew increasingly impatient with the slow-moving line.  At last, he pushed his way to the front and angrily demanded a first-class ticket on the next available flight. "I’m sorry," said the ticket agent, “First I’ll have to take care of the people who were ahead of you in the line." The irate man then pounded his fist on the ticket counter, saying, "Do you have any idea who I am?" Whereupon, the ticket agent picked up the public address microphone and said, "Attention, please! There is a gentleman at the ticket counter who does not know who he is. If there is anyone in the airport who can identify him, please come to the counter." Hearing this, the man retreated, and the people waiting in line burst into applause.   We are like this man. We have forgotten how to wait patiently. In today’s gospel, Jesus invites us to learn his meekness and humility. (Tony Kadavil)

St. Thomas Feast - Jul 3rd: Liturgy

Introduction

The gospel has some beautiful texts about St. Thomas. Not only the “My Lord and my God” after his doubt and hesitation to believe, but also “Let us too go and die with him,” and the question “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How could we know the way?” And the  Lord’s, “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Tradition has him go as far as Persia and the Malabar region in India, where the Christians are still called “the Christians of St. Thomas.”

13th Week, Wednesday, Jul 1

Amos 5:14-15, 21-24 / Matthew 8:28-34 

Take your sacrifices away: “It is justice that I want from you.”

The God of Amos was a God of concern for the poor. He scorned those Israelites who came to offer sacrifice on religious feasts but trampled on the poor the rest of the year. God said of these people: “I hate your religious festivals; I cannot stand them! . . .Instead, let justice flow like a stream, and righteousness like a river that never goes dry.” Amos 5:21,24

Revisit the Issue of Ministries in the Church

"We need to revisit the issue of ministries in the Church"

Exclusive interview with biblical scholar Anne-Marie Pelletier, member of new papal commission on women deacons.

Céline Hoyeau
France

June 25, 2020

Anne-Marie Pelletier. (Photo by CORINNE SIMON/CIRIC)

13th Week: June 29- July 4: Reflections

29 Monday (Saints Peter & Paul the Apostles): https://www.franciscanmedia.org/solemnity-of-saints-peter-and-paul/ Mt 16: 13-19: 13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

13th Week, Monday, Jun 29th

Amos 2:6-11, 13-16 / Matthew 8:18-22 

Amos prophesies in Israel: “You trample on the poor!”

This week’s readings are from Amos. He’s the first of the so-called writing prophets, those whose works are recorded in books. Although Amos came from Tekoa, in the southern kingdom of Judah, he was sent by God to prophesy to the northern kingdom of Israel. Amos was ill-equipped to be a prophet. He himself said: “I am a herdsman, and I take care of fig trees. But the Lord . . . ordered me to come and prophesy to his people Israel.” Amos 7:14-15

13 Sunday A - Liturgical Prayers

1. It Is Me You Welcome2. Come In, Feel At Home 
Greeting (See Second Reading)
Consider yourselves dead to sin
but alive in Christ Jesus.
May Jesus, the Lord of life,
be always with you. R/ And also with you.

Introduction by the Celebrant

 1. It Is Me You Welcome
Are we aware that when we receive strangers we receive the Lord himself? We have Jesus’ own words for this. In the stranger God visits us. This applies not only to us in our families, but also in our Church communities. How do we welcome “outsiders” in our churches, and people who have moved from other parishes? Do we welcome the Lord in them? Remember how the Lord welcomes us here.

12th Week, Friday, Jun 26th

2 Kings 25: 1-12 / Matthew 8: 1-4 

Babylon strikes Judah again: The city and the Temple were destroyed.

Judah’s “day of reckoning” dawned in 587 B.C. That date is branded forever on the heart of every Jew. It marks the year when Babylonian armies descended upon Jerusalem and reduced the city and the Temple to a pile of charred rubble. The people who survived the devastating defeat were led off to captivity in Babylon. There they joined many relatives and friends who had been taken captive ten years before.

Against Religious Nationalism by Joseph Lobo

 Joseph Lobo, SJ 

In some countries a form of religious-cultural nationalism is back in vogue. Religion is exploited both to obtain popular support and to launch a political message that is identified with people’s loyalty and devotion to a nation.[1] It is taken for granted that people have in religion a common identity, origin and history, and that these support an ideological, cultural and religious homogeneity that is strengthened by geopolitical boundaries.