32 Sunday A: 10 Virgins: 5 Wise and 5 Foolish

 
Michel DeVerteuil
General Comments
Today’s passage is a teaching on “what the kingdom of heaven will be like” (verse 1). This biblical expression means the coming of grace into the world. The passage therefore is a teaching on grace, inviting us to recognise and celebrate our experiences of grace, and to prepare ourselves for future comings.
“Will be” is a reminder that the final and definitive coming of grace lies in the future, but the teaching also refers to the many partial but real comings of grace that we and our communities (including the worldwide human family) have experienced.

All Souls Day - Nov 2

From Fr. Tony Kadavil:

All Souls’ Day is a day specially set apart that we may remember and pray for our dear ones who have gone for their eternal reward and who are currently in a state of ongoing purification.

Ancient belief: 1) People of all religions have believed in the immortality of the soul, and have prayed for the dead.

All Souls Day - Nov 2- Liturgical Prayers

Greeting

Neither death nor life,
nothing that exists, nothing still to come,
nor any created thing
can ever come between us and the love of God
made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
May this risen Lord be always with you. R/ And also with you.

30th Week, Friday, Oct 30

Philippians 1:1-11 / Luke 14:1-6

God is at work in our lives: He’ll finish what he began in us.

 

A group of people was touring a factory where expensive pianos were made. First, the guide showed the people a large room where workers were sawing and shaping rough wood. Next, the guide took them to a room where workers were working on frames. Then, the guide took them to a room where metal strings and ivory keys were being assembled inside the frames of the pianos.

Sts. Simon and Jude, Apostles, Oct 28

Ephesians 2:19-22 / Luke 6:12-19 

We are being built into a temple

Charles Schulz, author of the Peanuts cartoon, once said, "How can you go to something that you are already a part of? If you are a Christian, you are the 'Church.' " Someone else said, "That's precisely my problem with the Church. How can I believe that Christ founded it, 

All Saints - Nov 1

From Fr. Tony Kadavil:

NOVEMBER 1, 2017 ALL SAINTS DAY (L-17)

One-page synopsis: The feast and its objectives: All baptized Christians who have died and are now with God in glory are considered saints. All Saints Day is intended to honor the memory of countless unknown and uncanonized saints who have no feast days. Today we thank God for giving ordinary men and women a share in His holiness and Heavenly glory as a reward for their Faith. This feast is observed to teach us to honor the saints, both by imitating their lives and by seeking their intercession for us before Christ, the only mediator between God and man (I Tim. 2:5). The Church reminds us today that God's call for holiness is universal, that all of us are called to live in His love and to make His love real in the lives of those around us. Holiness is related to the word wholesomeness. We grow in holiness when we live wholesome lives of integrity truth, justice, charity, mercy and compassion, sharing our blessings with others.

All Saints - Liturgical Prayers

Rev 7:2-4, 9-14; Ps 24:1-2,3-4,5-6 ;1 Jn 3:1-3;  Mt 5:1-12

Greeting (Rom 1, 7)
To all of you who are God's beloved
and called to be saints,
grace and peace from God our Father
and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord's peace stay with you. R/ And also with you.

Introduction by the Celebrant
On this celebration of All Saints, we ask ourselves: What is our idea of saints? Are they to us idealistic dreamers out of touch with the world and with people, passive and joyless like their plaster statues? Today's liturgy tells us a different story. They are ordinary people like us, of the same flesh and blood as we. But they had the courage to be different, to do the ordinary things of life in the extraordinary way of Christ from whom they drew their courage. They put us to shame with their quiet but strong gentleness, their integrity, their commitment to God and to people in justice and truth and peace. Let us ask the Lord here with us for the strength to follow him the way they did.

30th Week: Oct 26-31:

Oct 26 Monday: Lk 13:10-17: 10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. 12 And when Jesus saw her, he called her and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” 13 And he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised God. 14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people,

31 Sunday A: Practising what we Preach

Gospel text: Matthew 23:1-12


Michel DeVerteuil
General Comments
Today’s gospel passage contains several different teachings, each of them very deep and relevant to us today, and each expressed in its own imaginative language. Since they are all so special it might be better to focus on each one individually  although we may come to see a common thread running through them all.

30 Sunday A: Liturgical Prayers

Greeting (See Second Reading)

We have become imitators of the Lord
and it was with the joy of the Spirit
that we accepted the gospel;
we have become servants of the real, living God.
May Jesus, the Lord we expect, be always with you.
R/ And also with you.

Introduction by the Celebrant