Saints + Scripture

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

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

Saints of the Day
'Tis the Memorial of Saint Maria Goretti, Virgin & Martyr (1890-1902), martyred by her attempted rapist, Alessandro Serenelli, who repented & testified at her cause for canonization.

Commentary: Wayback Machine.

Scripture of the Day
Mass Readings—Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
The Book of Hosea, chapter two, verses sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-one, & twenty-two;
Psalm One Hundred Forty-five (R/. eight[a]), verses two & three, four & five, six & seven, & eight & nine;
The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter nine, verses eighteen thru twenty-six.

Commentary: Daily Readings.

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

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus demonstrates his miraculous power to heal the sick and raise the dead. He cured a woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years who came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak. And he took the hand of the official’s daughter and raised her from the sleep of death.

Christianity is, first and foremost, a religion of the concrete and not the abstract. It takes its power not from a general religious consciousness, not from an ethical conviction, not from a comfortable abstraction, but from the person of Jesus Christ.

It is Christ—in his uncompromising call to repentance, his unforgettable gestures of healing, his unique and disturbing praxis of forgiveness, his provocative nonviolence, and especially his movement from godforsaken death to shalom-radiating resurrection—who moves the believer to change of life and gift of self.

And it is the unique Christ—depicted vividly in the poetry of Dante, the frescoes of Michelangelo, the sermons of Augustine, the stained-glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, and the sacred ballet of the liturgy—who speaks transformatively to hearts and souls across the Christian centuries.

Video reflection by Monsignor James Vlaun (U.S.C.C.B.): Daily Reflection.

Mass Readings—Memorial of Saint Maria Goretti
The First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter six, verses thirteen(c), fourteen, fifteen(a), & seventeen thru twenty;
Psalm Thirty-one (R/. six), verses three(c/d) & four, six & eight(a/b), & sixteen(b/c) & seventeen;
The Gospel according to John, chapter twelve, verses twenty-four, twenty-five, & twenty-six.

Commentary: Memorial Readings.