Project BLACK MAMBA: Eastertide

'Tis the Optional Memorial of Saint Augustine of Canterbury, Bishop, O.S.B. (died circa 605), the "Apostle to the English:" Saint-link ūnus, Saint-link duo, & Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Wayback Machine. Quoth the Holy Family bulletin:

St. Augustine was sent in 597 from St. Andrew's monastery in Rome by St. Gregory the Great (3 September) to preach the Gospel in England. He was aided there by King Æthelbert & chosen bishop of Canterbury. He converted many to the faith & established many dioceses, especially in the kingdom of Kent. He died on 26 May, about the year 605

'Tis also the festival of Blesseds Edmund Duke, Richard Hill, Richard Holiday, & John Hogg, Priests & Martyrs (died 1590), martyred in the reign of the queen Elizabeth I, four of the Eighty-five Martyrs of England & Wales: Martyr-link Echo Delta, Martyr-link Romeo Hotel-India, Martyr-link Romeo Hotel-Oscar, Martyr-link Juliett Hotel, & Wikipedia-link Dryburne; Wikipedia-link LXXXV.

Scripture of the Day
Mass Readings—Easter Weekday
The Acts of the Apostles, chapter eighteen, verses twenty-three thru twenty-eight;
Psalm Forty-seven, verses two & three, eight & nine, & ten;
The Gospel according to John, chapter sixteen, verses twenty-three(b) thru twenty-eight.

Commentary: Easter Gospel reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):

Friends, today’s Gospel urges us to expect the Father to answer our prayers because he loves us. “On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God.”

Keep in mind that prayer is not designed so much to change God’s mind or to tell God something he doesn’t know. God isn’t like a big city boss or a reluctant pasha whom we have to persuade. He is, rather, the one who wants nothing other than to give us good things—though they might not always be what we want.

The entire point of religion is to make us humble before God and to open us to the path of love. Everything else is more or less a footnote. Liturgy, prayer, the precepts of the Church, the commandments, sacraments, sacramentals—all of it—are finally meant to conform us to the way of love. When they instead turn us away from that path, they have been undermined.

Mass Readings—Optional Memorial of St. Augustine
The First Letter to the Thessalonians, chapter two, verses two(b) thru eight;
Psalm Ninety-six, verse three;
The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter nine, verses thirty-five thru thirty-eight.