Dec 14 Monday (St. John of the Cross, Priest, Doctor of the Church)
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-john-of-the-cross : Matt: 21: 23-27: 23 And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said,
Zephaniah 3:1-2, 9-13 / Matthew 21:28-32
Zephaniah prophesies: I will prepare a humble people.
Charles Colson was a top Nixon aide. He went to prison in the Watergate scandal. Later he underwent a religious conversion. Today he spends all his time preaching the Gospel, especially to prisoners. Colson was deeply influenced by C. S. Lewis’s book Mere Christianity. One passage, especially, touched him. “Pride leads to every other vice. . . .As long as you are proud you cannot know God.
Numbers 26:2-7, 15-17 / Matthew 21:23-27
Balaam prophesies: A star shall advance from Jacob.
Douglas Hyde was an English journalist who disliked the Catholic Church. One day he bought an anti-Catholic book to use in his attacks against the Church. The book had just the opposite effect on him. It led him into the Church. Something similar to this happened to Balaam in today’s reading. He set out to curse Israel, but ended up blessing her instead. Early church writers considered the words about the star in today’s reading as a prophetic reference to the star that directed the Magi to Jesus.
Ecclesiasticus 48:1-4, 9-11 / Matthew 17:10-13
Elijah is described as parting life in a fiery chariot. (2 Kings 2:11) Symbolic or not, the description gave rise to the popular belief that Elijah would return to prepare the way for the “Day of the Lord.” To this very day, Orthodox Jews put an empty chair at the seder table for Elijah. Reform Jews put a “cup of Elijah” at the table. They hope this will be the year he’ll return.
Isaiah 48:17-19 / Matthew 11:16-19
I am your God: I will show you the path to follow.
In The Upper
Room, David McIntosh tells this story about a dream his uncle
had. In the dream, his uncle’s four-year-old son had grown up to be a teenager.
The boy was walking down a road when, suddenly, he disappeared down a dark
path. As he did, he called back, “Daddy, you never showed me the right path to
follow.”
The dream was so vivid that his uncle woke up from a sound sleep. He was so disturbed by the dream that he woke his wife and told her about it. Together they knelt down on the spot and prayed for their young son. They also resolved to teach their son how to walk always in the light of God’s Word.
Isaiah 41:13-20 / Matthew 11:11-15
Before child labor laws were enacted, a ten-year-old boy was working in a factory in Naples, Italy. He wanted to earn money for music lessons. After singing for a schoolteacher, however, he was told to save his time and money. “Forget about singing,” the teacher said;
Dec 7 Monday (St. Ambrose, Bishop, Doctor of the Church): https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-ambrose Lk 5: 17-26: 17 On one of those days, as he was teaching, there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18 And behold, men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they sought to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; 19 but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. 20 ……. 26 .. (Cfr. Mt 9: 1-8). USCCB reflections: https://youtu.be/1aqVBJogCY4 Daily Catholic reflections: https://catholic-daily-reflections.com/daily-reflections/