"If only I can touch His cloak, I shall be cured.."

Reflection for the Holy Gospel today, July 5, 2010 (Saint Francis of Assisi, Founder of the Friars Minor, Letter to the whole Order)

Listen, my brothers: If the blessed Virgin is so honored, as it is right, since she carried him in her most holy womb; if the blessed Baptist trembled and did not dare to touch the holy head of God; if the tomb in which he lay for some time is so venerated, how holy, just, and worthy must be the person who touches him with his hands, receives him in his heart and mouth, and offers him to others to be received. This is he who is now not about to die, but who is eternally victorious and glorified, upon whom the angels desire to gaze.

Look at your dignity, you brothers who are priests, and be holy since He is holy (1Pt 1,16)… It is a great
misery and a miserable weakness that when you have Him present with you in this way, you concern yourselves with anything else in this entire world! Let the whole of mankind tremble, the whole world shake
and the heavens exult when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest. O admirable heights and sublime lowliness! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! That the Lord of the
universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles himself that for our salvation he hides himself under the little form of bread! Look, brothers, at the humility of God and pour out your hearts before him! Humble yourselves, as well, that you may be exalted by him.

Therefore, hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, so that he who gives himself totally to you may receive you totally.
 

Whoever exalts himself will be Humbled.

Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Dominican tertiary, Doctor of the Church, co-patron of Europe
Dialogues, ch. 4 (©Classics of Western spirituality)

“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled“

Saint Catherine heard God say to her:

“You ask for the will to know and love Me, Supreme Truth. Here is the way, if you would come to perfect knowledge and enjoyment of Me, Eternal Life: Never leave the knowledge of yourself. Then, put down as you are in the valley of humility you will know Me in yourself, and from this knowledge you will draw all that you need. No virtue can have life in it except from charity, and charity is nursed and mothered by humility. You will find humility in the knowledge of yourself when you see that even your own existence comes not from yourself but from Me, for I loved you before you came to being. And in My Unspeakable Love for you I willed to create you in grace.

So I washed you and made you a new creation in the blood that My Only-begotten Son poured out with such burning Love. This blood gives you knowledge of the Truth when knowledge of yourself leads you to shed the cloud of selfish love. There is no other way to know the Truth. In so knowing Me the soul catches fire with Unspeakable Love, which in turn brings continual pain.

Indeed, because she has known My Truth, as well as her own sin and her neighbors’ ingratitude and blindness, the soul suffers intolerably. Still, this is not a pain that troubles or shrivels up the soul. On the contrary, it makes her grow fat. For she suffers because she loves Me, nor would she suffer if she did not love Me.”

*As meditation / reflection guide for the Holy Gospel today, March 2, 2010. 

*If you wish to go to Today’s Mass Readings and Homily at EWTN, please click HERE. If you wish to read the Gospel today, click HERE.

Follow Me.

As a reflection/insight for the Gospel today, January 16, Mark 2:13-17

John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005 
Osservatore Romano 

« Follow me» 

Each vocation is a personal and unique event but also a reality that is communal and ecclesial. No one is called to go forward on their own. Every vocation is raised up by the Lord as a gift for the whole Christian community, which is to be enabled to draw profit from it… 
It is especially to you, young people, that I should like to turn: Christ needs you if he is to accomplish his plan of salvation! Christ needs your youth and generous enthusiasm if the Gospel is to be proclaimed! Answer this call with the gift of your life to God and your brothers and sisters. 
Put your trust in Christ. He will not disappoint your desires and plans but will fill them with meaning and joy. He has said: «I am the Way, the Truth and the Life» (Jn 14,6). Open your hearts trustfully to Christ! Allow his presence to be confirmed within you through daily, reverent attention to Holy Scripture, which constitutes the book of life and of those vocations that have been fulfilled. 

Blood of Christ

Commentary for the Gospel today from DGO

Commentary of the day 

Severian of Gabala (?-c.408), Bishop in Syria 
Sermon on Caïn and Abel 

«A blood for purification that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel » (Heb 12,24) 

Cain and Abel both appeared to worship God with exactly the same rites, but 
in reality they made their offerings with very different dispositions. 
Those of the elder only seemed like a gift whereas those of the younger 
bore witness to his reverence and piety. From this arose feelings of 
jealousy…, and so Abel was murdered (Gen 4,3f.)… In 
holy Abel I find the image of Christ. For indeed, our Savior is the 
supremely Righteous One… But amongst all the men of the Old Covenant Abel 
was the prince of righteousness… Besides, our Savior himself placed Abel 
at the head of the line of all the righteous when he said to the Jews: 
«Amen, I tell you, the blood of all the righteous shed since the beginning 
of the world will be charged to this generation, from the blood of 
righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah whom you murdered between the 
sanctuary and the altar»…Here is a wonderful thing: because 
he was the first to fight for justice, Abel had the honor of being the 
first to suffer for his piety. He is a true prefiguration of Christ who was 
put to death for truth’s sake. The blood of Abel foretold the blood of 
Christ: it cried out from the earth (Gen 4,10). Our Lord’s blood cries out 
too; but the blood of Abel was a supplication, the blood of Christ the 
reconciliation of the world… That is why the apostle Paul, recalling both 
of them, confesses the superiority of Christ’s blood. He writes: «We have 
approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly 
Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of 
the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits 
of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and 
the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel» (Heb 
12,22-24)… Yes, this blood speaks: it prays for sinners, intercedes for 
the world. The blood of Christ is truly for the purification of the world; 
the blood of Christ is our redemption. 
 

Humility.

Commentary of the Day from DGO

For the Gospel today, September 30, 2009

Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), Founder of the Jesuits 
Spiritual Exercises, 2nd.Week, 12th.Day (trans.Thomas Corbishley) 

«Follow me » 

The three ways of humility.

The first way of humility is necessary for salvation.

It consists in my subjecting and abasing myself as far as I can, 
so that I always obey the law of God our Lord, at least to this extent: 
even if men were to offer to make me Lord of the entire creation, even were 
my life threatened, I should yet not think of breaking any commandment, 
divine or human…

The second way of humility is more perfect than the first.

It means that I so submit myself that I neither seek nor desire to be rich rather than poor, I do not try to be well thought of rather than disregarded, I do not want to live many years rather than few, 
where the service of our Lord God and my own salvation are equally 
promoted…

The third way of humility is the most perfect. 
Supposing that I have attained to the first two ways, and granted an equal 
measure of praise and glory to God, I desire to be poor along with Christ 
in poverty rather than rich, to be insulted along with Christ so grossly 
insulted, rather than to be thought well of: I would rather be thought a 
helpless fool for the sake of Christ who was so treated, rather than to be 
thought «wise and prudent» in the world’s eyes (Mt 11,25).

—

 Help me be humble, O Jesus. Help me abandon everything and trust You with my everything. You are My Everything. Help me not want nor desire anything but You.