One Minute Reflection – 14 July – “Month of the Most Precious Blood” = Tuesday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time, Readings: Isaiah 7:1-9, Psalm 48:2-8, Matthew 11:20-24 and the Memorial of St Francisco Solanus y Jiménez OFM (1549 – 1610) Priest – “The Wonder Worker of the New World” and St Camillus de Lellis MI (1550-1614) “The Giant of Charity”
“But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgement for the land of Sodom than for you.”… Matthew 11:24
REFLECTION – “Let us fix our thoughts on the blood of Christ and reflect how precious that blood is in God’s eyes, inasmuch as its outpouring for our salvation, has opened the grace of repentance to all mankind.
For we have only to survey the generations of the past, to see, that in everyone of them, the Lord has offered the chance of repentance to any, who were willing to turn to Him. When Noah preached repentance, those who gave heed to him were saved. When, after Jonah had proclaimed destruction to the people of Niniveh, they repented of their sins and made atonement to God with prayers and supplications, they obtained their salvation, notwithstanding, that they were strangers and aliens to Him.
All those, who were ministers of the grace of God, have spoken, through the Holy Spirit, of repentance.
The very Lord of all, Himself has spoken of it and even with an oath – By my life, the Lord declares, it is not the sinner’s death that I desire, so much as his repentance and, he adds, this gracious pronouncement, Repent, O house of Israel and turn from your wickedness. Say to the children of my people, though your sins may stretch from earth to heaven and though they may be redder than scarlet and blacker than sackcloth, yet if you turn wholeheartedly to me and say ‘Father’, I will listen to you as I would to a people that was holy.
Thus, by His own almighty will, He has confirmed his desire that repentance should be open to everyone of His beloved.
Let us bow, then, to that sovereign and glorious will. Let us entreat His mercy and goodness, casting ourselves upon His compassion and wasting no more energy in quarrels and a rivalry which only ends in death.” … St Pope Clement I (c 35-99) – From his Letter to the Corinthians (Chs 7, 4-8, 3; 8, 5-9, 1; 13, 1-4; 19, 2)
PRAYER – God our Father, we are Your children and You have set us aside to come home to You by the light of the way of Your divine Son. Fill us with knowledge of our need to turn to You in sorrow and repentance, that we may one day attain our final home with You. Grant we pray, that by the intercession of Saints Francisco Solanus and Camillus de Lellis, we may too become lights announcing Your love to all around us. We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever, amen.
AnaStpaul 