We cannot buy or earn our way into Heaven. We can only love our way into Heaven. Love not as in the emotion, but the living sacrifice of willing the good in another, through the grace of the Lord our God. Our faithfulness must therefore mirror the faithfulness of God our Heavenly Father.
When we pray, we come enter into His presence in perfect contrition for what we have done and what we failed to do. In humble adoration of our merciful Lord, we dwell in His love; knowing that He heal and restore us. So that we may go out into the world sharing the joy of the Gospel.
Lord I am not worthy to come into Your presence, only say the word and I shall be healed. Amen
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem pray for us…
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First reading
Hosea 5:15-6:6 ·
What I want is love, not sacrifice and holocausts
The Lord says this:
They will search for me in their misery.
‘Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us;
he has struck us down, but he will bandage our wounds;
after a day or two he will bring us back to life,
on the third day he will raise us
and we shall live in his presence.
Let us set ourselves to know the Lord;
that he will come is as certain as the dawn
his judgement will rise like the light,
he will come to us as showers come,
like spring rains watering the earth.’
What am I to do with you, Ephraim?
What am I to do with you, Judah?
This love of yours is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that quickly disappears.
This is why I have torn them to pieces by the prophets,
why I slaughtered them with the words from my mouth,
since what I want is love, not sacrifice;
knowledge of God, not holocausts.
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Gospel
Luke 18:9-14
The tax collector, not the Pharisee, went home justified.
Jesus spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else: ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.’
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