One Minute Reflection – 5 October – Today’s Gospel: Luke 10:13–16 – Friday of the Twenty-sixth week in Ordinary Time, Year B and the Memorial of Blesseds Francis Xavier Seelos (1819-1867) and Bartholomew Longo (1841-1926)
“He who hears you, hears me and he who rejects you,
rejects me and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me.”...Luke 10:16
REFLECTION – “Someone, having listened to the verse: “Offer to God a sacrifice of praise” (Ps 50[49].14), said to himself: “I will go to church every day when I get up and sing a morning hymn; then an evening hymn at the end of the day and then, in my own home, a third and fourth hymn. This is how I will make a sacrifice of praise every day and offer it to my God.” It is good to do this if you do it in truth but beware of placing your confidence in what you do and fear lest, while your tongue is speaking eloquently before God, your life may be speaking badly…
Take care you don’t live evilly, while speaking well.”…St Augustine (354-430) Father & Doctor of the Church
“Each of us today can ask him- or herself: ‘Do I stop to listen to the Word of God? Do I take the Bible in my hands and is He talking to me? has my heart become hardened? Have I distanced myself from the Lord? Have I lost my faithfulness to the Lord and do I live with the idols that everyday worldliness offers?
Have I lost the joy of the marvel of the first encounter with Jesus?’. Thus, today is a day for listening. Listen today to our Lord’s voice and do not harden your heart’.
Indeed, let us ask for this grace, the grace to listen, so that our hearts may not harden.”…Pope Francis – Santa Marta, 23 March 2017
PRAYER – And we exult you, O Mary Assumed into Heaven, as we contemplate you who have been glorified and, in the risen Christ, have become the co-worker of the Holy Spirit in communicating divine life to mankind. In you we see the goal of holiness to which God calls all the Church’s members. In your life we recognise the clear sign of the path to spiritual maturity and Christian holiness. With you, with Blesseds Francis Xavier Seelos, Bartholomew Longo and with all the saints, we glorify God the Trinity, who sustains our earthly pilgrimage and lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen (by St Pope John Paul Nov 2000)
