Come back!
Yes every day is a struggle, every day we must fight! Even if we should lose our way, to temptation and sin, we must return to God our Father who loves us dearly. For He so loved us that He gave us His our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, so that we always have a way back to Him.
How wonderful if in our journey towards greater holiness we discover and it remains ingrained in us that we are new arks! We carry His presence with us. In obedience to His Word and Will for us, we do not even seek to be fruitful for Him. For we already are!
Guard my soul Lord, for I am Yours. Amen
Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary pray for us…
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First reading
Jeremiah 3:14-17
Come back, my disloyal children
Come back, disloyal children – it is the Lord who speaks – for I alone am your Master. I will take one from a town, two from a clan, and bring you to Zion. I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and these shall feed you on knowledge and discretion. And when you have increased and become many in the land, then – it is the Lord who speaks – no one will ever say again: Where is the ark of the covenant of the Lord? There will be no thought of it, no memory of it, no regret for it, no making of another. When that time comes, Jerusalem shall be called: The Throne of the Lord; all the nations will gather there in the name of the Lord and will no longer follow the dictates of their own stubborn hearts.
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Gospel
Matthew 13:18-23
The man who hears the word and understands it yields a rich harvest
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You are to hear the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom without understanding, the evil one comes and carries off what was sown in his heart: this is the man who received the seed on the edge of the path. The one who received it on patches of rock is the man who hears the word and welcomes it at once with joy. But he has no root in him, he does not last; let some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, and he falls away at once. The one who received the seed in thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this world and the lure of riches choke the word and so he produces nothing. And the one who received the seed in rich soil is the man who hears the word and understands it; he is the one who yields a harvest and produces now a hundredfold, now sixty, now thirty.’
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