What is it that you own if anything, that you can take to your grave with you? Everything that you have, gifts, talents or even worked so hard to achieve came from? Was it really all your personal achievement? Are you so naïve to believe that you did it all on your own? Okay so you acknowledge you had help, teachers, friends, colleagues, community and family? Who above all should you be thankful and grateful to? Prayerfully in all the years leading up to this current day you would have already come to the realisation that it was all because of God our Heavenly Father’s love for you!
As a child of God so loved by Your Heavenly Father what are others saying about you? Are you even in their thoughts and prayers? Well you may say who cares what other thinks about me? They either accept me for who I am or to they can go to ‘heaven’ (opposite *winks*) But here’s the thing, all the good that we think we do or say does not matter all. What truly matters is how our neighbours feel about us. After all are they not the ones we profess to love by the command of our Lord and Saviour Jesus. Are they being loved us by us as they should be?
Can you imagine being able to listen in to the conversations about you at your own funeral wake? What would you hope to hear? “Ah here lies a man after God’s heart!” ” She was a woman of faith always will to giver her all in all that she did.” “He was always cheerful and gentle in his ways, he brought joy to everyone.” ” She was always so loving and forgiving, she always chose to love first!” “He was always there when I needed him, in toughest moments in my life. He was there to comfort me and lift my spirits.” “If I ever needed prayers, I know I could count her, she was a light of Christ for me” “He truly loved me!” “She truly love me!”
Perhaps then we would be able to hear the words we yearn the most….”‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ ‘Come and share your master’s happiness!’ Amen!
Saint Ignatius Loyola Pray for us…..
First reading
Leviticus 25:1,8-17
The law of the jubilee year
The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai. He said:
‘You are to count seven weeks of years – seven times seven years, that is to say a period of seven weeks of years, forty-nine years. And on the tenth day of the seventh month you shall sound the trumpet; on the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout the land. You will declare this fiftieth year sacred and proclaim the liberation of all the inhabitants of the land. This is to be a jubilee for you; each of you will return to his ancestral home, each to his own clan. This fiftieth year is to be a jubilee year for you: you will not sow, you will not harvest the ungathered corn, you will not gather from the untrimmed vine. The jubilee is to be a holy thing to you, you will eat what comes from the fields.
‘In this year of jubilee each of you is to return to his ancestral home. If you buy or sell with your neighbour, let no one wrong his brother. If you buy from your neighbour, this must take into account the number of years since the jubilee: according to the number of productive years he will fix the price. The greater the number of years, the higher shall be the price demanded; the less the number of years, the greater the reduction; for what he is selling you is a certain number of harvests. Let none of you wrong his neighbour, but fear your God; I am the Lord your God.’
Gospel
Matthew 14:1-12
The beheading of John the Baptist
Herod the tetrarch heard about the reputation of Jesus, and said to his court, ‘This is John the Baptist himself; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’
Now it was Herod who had arrested John, chained him up and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. For John had told him, ‘It is against the Law for you to have her.’ He had wanted to kill him but was afraid of the people, who regarded John as a prophet. Then, during the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and so delighted Herod that he promised on oath to give her anything she asked. Prompted by her mother she said, ‘Give me John the Baptist’s head, here, on a dish.’ The king was distressed but, thinking of the oaths he had sworn and of his guests, he ordered it to be given her, and sent and had John beheaded in the prison. The head was brought in on a dish and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went off to tell Jesus.
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