Saints + Scripture: VI Sunday in Ordinary Time

'Tis the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time: Wikipedia-link.

Scripture of the Week
Mass Readings—Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Book of Leviticus, chapter thirteen, verses one, two, forty-four, forty-five, & forty-six;
Psalm Thirty-two, verses one & two, five, & eleven;
The First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter ten, verse thirty-one thru chapter eleven, verse one;
The Gospel according to Mark, chapter one, verses forty thru forty-five.

Commentary: Reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):

Friends, our Gospel for today has to do with Jesus’ healing a leper. There aren’t that many lepers around today, but there are plenty of people that we treat as outsiders or pariahs. Like Jesus, we should be welcoming to them. Now I have nothing particularly against that way of reading the situation, but I suspect that we’ve all heard it a thousand times.

Let me propose a symbolic reading a little different from the customary one. I propose that the leper here stands, not so much for the socially ostracized, but for the one who has wandered away from right worship, the one who is no longer able or willing to worship the true God. That’s why Jesus tells the man to "go show yourself to the priest." In other words, go back to the Temple from which you’ve been away for so long.

What is so important about worship? To worship is to order the whole of one’s life toward the living God, and, in doing so, to become interiorly and exteriorly rightly ordered. To worship is to signal to oneself what one’s life is finally about. It’s nothing that God needs, but it is very much something that we need.

Video reflection by Father Greg Friedman, O.F.M.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Video reflection by Jeff Cavins: Encountering the Word.

Audio reflection by Scott Hahn, Ph.D.: Breaking the Bread.

Mass Journal: Week Seven
Reflection by Matthew Kelly, founder of the Dynamic Catholic Institute:

Now is a time when we all need to rediscover Catholicism. I try to rediscover it every day, & when I seek in earnest to do so I am never disappointed. When I am able to set my ego & personal agenda aside, more often than not I am left in awe. Catholicism is old. But let me ask you a question. If you had an ancient treasure map, would you throw it away just because it was old? No. The age of the map doesn't matter. What matters is whether or not it leads to treasure. Catholicism is a treasure map: It may be old, but it still leads to treasure. Let's rediscover it together, & help others to do the same.

Otherwise, 11 February would be the festival of Our Lady of Lourdes (apparitions 1858): Madonna-link ūna, Madonna-link duae, Wikipedia-link Madonna, & Wikipedia-link Apparitions.

Commentary: Wayback Machine.

'Twould also be the festival of Saint Gregory II, Pope (669-731), eighty-ninth (LXXXIX) Bishop of Rome, an opponent of Byzantine iconoclasm: Saint-link & Wikipedia-link; Wikipedia-link Pontiff & Wikipedia-link Iconclasm.

'Twould also be the festival of Saint Paschal I, Pope (circa 775-824, A.K.A. Pascale Massimi), ninety-eighth (XCVIII) Bishop of Rome, an opponent of Byzantine iconoclasm: Saint-link & Wikipedia-link; Wikipedia-link Pontiff & Wikipedia-link Iconclasm.

'Twould also be the festival of Saint Pedro de Jesús Maldonado Lucero, Priest & Martyr (1892-1937), martyred in the reign of the president Lázaro Cárdenas, a victim of Mexican revolutionary anti-clericalism: Martyr-link & Wikipedia-link; Martyrs-link Mexico.

Saint Quote o' the Day

"Of all human activities, man's listening to God is the supreme act of his reasoning & will."
—Pope Bl. Paul VI (1897-1978, feast day: 26 September)