Archive for October 2, 2021

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted: October 2, 2021 by CatholicJules in Sunday Reflections
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What God Has Joined: Scott Hahn Reflects on the Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings:

Genesis 2:18–24

Psalm 128:1–6

Hebrews 2:9–11

Mark 10:2–16

In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees try to trap Jesus with a trick question.

The “lawfulness” of divorce in Israel was never an issue. Moses had long ago allowed it (see Deuteronomy 24:1–4). But Jesus points His enemies back before Moses, to “the beginning,” interpreting the text we hear in today’s First Reading.

Divorce violates the order of creation, He says. Moses permitted it only as a concession to the people’s “hardness of heart”—their inability to live by God’s covenant Law. But Jesus comes to fulfill the Law, to reveal its true meaning and purpose, and to give people the grace to keep God’s commands.

Marriage, He reveals, is a sacrament, a divine, life-giving sign. Through the union of husband and wife, God intended to bestow His blessings on the human family—making it fruitful, multiplying it until it filled the earth (see Genesis 1:28).

That’s why today’s Gospel moves so easily from a debate about marriage to Jesus’ blessing of children. Children are blessings the Father bestows on couples who walk in His ways, as we sing in today’s Psalm.

Marriage also is a sign of God’s new covenant. As today’s Epistle hints, Jesus is the new Adam—made a little lower than the angels, born of a human family (see Romans 5:14; Psalm 8:5–7). The Church is the new Eve, the “woman” born of Christ’s pierced side as He hung in the sleep of death on the Cross (see John 19:34; Revelation 12:1–17).

Through the union of Christ and the Church as “one flesh,” God’s plan for the world is fulfilled (see Ephesians 5:21–32). Eve was “mother of all the living” (see Genesis 3:20). And in Baptism, we are made sons and daughters of the Church, children of the Father, heirs of the eternal glory He intended for the human family in the beginning.

The challenge for us is to live as children of the kingdom, growing up ever more faithful in our love and devotion to the ways of Christ and the teachings of His Church.

On Today’s Gospel

Posted: October 2, 2021 by CatholicJules in Personal Thoughts & Reflections
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“For I tell you that their angels in heaven are continually in the presence of my Father in heaven.”

Do you pray to your guardian Angel? If not why not?

Know this, that they are Blessings from God our Heavenly Father sent for our protection and to guide us on our pilgrim journey home to Him. And when we have lost our way and have strayed far from the presence of our Lord through our grievous sins, they continually intercede for us in His presence! And they strive to lead us back into His merciful arms.

Blessed are you, Holy Angel, since in His love for me, God has chosen you to take care of my life, you who from the first moment of my existence has never abandoned me, who day and night assists me to turn away from evil and help me to do good.

I give you thanks for what you have already done for me, and I ask you to continue to protect me. Be my help in my needs, my consolation in my sorrows, my support in my discouragements, defend me against the enemies of my salvation, remove from me the opportunities to sin, obtain for me the grace to be faithful and docile to you.

But above all, protect me at the hour of death, and do not leave me until you have brought me to my Lord.

O my guardian angel, since in his love the Lord has entrusted me to you, enlighten me, guide me, keep me and govern me.’ Amen

First reading

Baruch 4:5-12,27-29 ·

Take courage, my children, call on God

Take courage, my people,

constant reminder of Israel.

You were sold to the nations,

but not for extermination.

You provoked God;

and so were delivered to your enemies,

since you had angered your creator

by offering sacrifices to demons, not to God.

You had forgotten the eternal God who reared you.

You had also grieved Jerusalem who nursed you,

for when she saw the anger fall on you

from God, she said:

Listen, you neighbours of Zion:

God has sent me great sorrow.

I have seen my sons and daughters taken into captivity,

to which they have been sentenced by the Eternal.

I had reared them joyfully;

in tears, in sorrow, I watched them go away.

Do not, any of you, exult over me,

a widow, deserted by so many;

I suffer loneliness because of the sins of my own children,

who turned away from the Law of God.

Take courage, my children, call on God:

he who brought disaster on you will remember you.

As by your will you first strayed away from God,

so now turn back and search for him ten times as hard;

for as he brought down those disasters on you,

so will he rescue you and give you eternal joy.

Gospel

Matthew 18:1-5,10

Anyone who welcomes a little child in my name welcomes me

The disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ So he called a little child to him and set the child in front of them. Then he said, ‘I tell you solemnly, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And so, the one who makes himself as little as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

    ‘Anyone who welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. See that you never despise any of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven are continually in the presence of my Father in heaven.’