Saints + Scripture

Simplex Edition | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

'Tis the Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Tempus per annum, "time through the year"): Wikipedia-link.

Scripture of the Day
Mass Readings—Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
The Book of Genesis, chapter forty-four, verses eighteen thru twenty-one, twenty-three(b) thru twenty-nine & chapter forty-five, verses one thru five;
Psalm One Hundred Five (R/. five[a]), verses sixteen & seventeen, eighteen & nineteen, & twenty & twenty-one;
The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter ten, verses seven thru fifteen.

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

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus sent the twelve to evangelize the countryside. To evangelize is to proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. When this kerygma, this Paschal Mystery, is not at the heart of the project, Christian evangelization effectively disappears, devolving into a summons to bland religiosity or generic spirituality.

When Jesus crucified and risen is not proclaimed, a beige and unthreatening Catholicism emerges, a thought system that is, at best, an echo of the environing culture. Peter Maurin, one of the founders of the Catholic Worker movement, said that the Church has taken its own dynamite and placed it in hermetically sealed containers and sat on the lid.

In a similar vein, Protestant theologian Stanley Hauerwas commented that the problem with Christianity is not that it is socially conservative or politically liberal but that “it is just too damned dull”! For both Maurin and Hauerwas, what leads to this attenuation is a refusal to preach the dangerous and unnerving news concerning Jesus risen from the dead.

Video reflection by Deacon Clarence McDavid (U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops): Daily Reflection.

Video reflection by Curtis Mitch (Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology): Daily Reflection.

Video reflection by Doctor Tim Gray (Augustine Institute/Formed.org): Daily Reflection.

Papal Quote o' the Day

"Charity! Charity! Is this your hour? Let us all try to be worthy of her & prepare her ways. Let us pray, let us love, let us work so that our charity may be in our hearts & may be able to work the wonder of her triumph."
—Pope St. Paul VI (1897-1978, r. 1963-1978; feast: 29 May)

Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day

"On my first trip along the streets of Calcutta, a priest came up to me. He asked me to give a contribution to a collection for the Catholic press. I had left with five rupees, & I had already given four of them to the poor. I hesitated, then gave the priest the one that remained. That afternoon, the same priest came to see me & brought an envelope. He told me that a man had given him the envelope because he had heard about my projects & wanted to help me. There were fifty rupees in that envelope. I had the feeling, at that moment, that God had begun to bless the work & would never abandon me."
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)

Saint Quote o' the Day

"No matter what my sufferings may be, I will never complain & if I have to undergo any humiliation, I will seek refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus."
—St. Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, F.C.C. (1910-1946, feast: 28 July)

Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day

"When God with His divine nature came down to this world & took upon Himself the human nature from the womb of His Blessed Mother, He took upon Himself an instrument. Once God took upon Himself our human nature, He could act in our name. And every one of the actions of that human nature would have an infinite value. Not a sigh, a word, a tear, a step of that human nature was inseparable from the Person of God. That is why one breath of God-made-Man would have been enough to have redeemed the world. Why? Because it was the breath of God, & therefore had an infinite value. Why then did God suffer so much when He took upon Himself our human nature? God’s love knows no limits. The only way to prove perfect love is by surrender of all that one has in oneself. God took upon Himself our human nature, & He said that He loved us unto the end, even to death."
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)