Tag: Father

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 16:21-27)

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Jesus calls Peter Satan only a short time after he tells him “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” Peter, who recognizes Jesus as the Messiah, rebukes Jesus for hearing and doing the will of the Father; namely, to undergo his passion, death, and resurrection for the salvation of the world. In today’s Gospel, Jesus goes on to tell Peter: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” There is no other way to eternal life except in the mystical body of Christ—through Him, with Him, and in Him.

Father in heaven, help me recognize my cross and pick it up. Give me the opportunity to be aware of you today in the people you place before me, through prayer, and in receiving the Eucharist. Rather than turn away from my cross, give me the grace to make it a means of participating in the redemptive suffering of your Son. In the mystery of this participation, instill in my heart with your love the hope of the resurrection and eternal life in the world to come.

From the second reading: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Saturday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 25:14-30)

Jesus told his disciples this parable: “A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one—to each according to his ability. Then he went away. Immediately the one who received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five. Likewise, the one who received two made another two. But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money.”

Today’s Gospel contains the well-known parable of the talents, which Jesus shares with his disciples to teach them about the importance of using their God-given gifts and resources wisely and faithfully. The first and second servants do well in using God’s gifts; the third, does not do well. While the first two servants were faithful stewards, the third acted out of fear and hid his talents. It’s hard not to look with pity on the third servant. His fear paralyzed him. Yet, it was not success or profit the master sought in entrusting his possessions to the servants but an open and faithful trust in him, a share in his joy.

God, help me choose to receive and use your gifts not out of servile fear but out of love in response to love. You are the giver of all good things, and I strive to use your gifts faithfully but tend toward disuse or misuse of them. Because your love and generosity extend boundlessly beyond my imagination, teach me to be faithful to you, living in your love and unafraid of the outcome. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says of those animated by God’s gift of spiritual freedom in charity “[they] no longer stand before God as a slave, in servile fear, or as a mercenary looking for wages, but as a son responding to the love of him who “first loved us.”

From the Gospel acclamation: “I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” Lord, I want to be your good and faithful servant. Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, bring me into the presence of Jesus your Son.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper and had said, “Master, who is the one who will betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.” So the word spread among the brothers that that disciple would not die.

Peter questions Jesus about John and what is in store for himself in the near future. He questions Jesus’ will for them. Jesus’ response is simply “You follow me.” Because God loves each person as a separate, unrepeatable human being, he asks us to follow him in a unique way—apart from the path even of those closest to us. By saying this to Peter, Jesus corrects his path, guiding him away from the distractions of speculating about the future and on Jesus’ relationship with the other disciples. Am I on task with God’s will, or am I looking distractedly at others and at other things?

God, help me understand and be confident about the particular path you have given me to follow. As Saint Thomas Aquinas says, the substitutes for you that the world offers are honor, power, pleasure, and wealth. These are in themselves a sufficient obstacle to you in everyday life. Add to that busying myself with the relative merits of others and the graces they receive, and I am sure to miss hearing the words you say to Peter that you also say to me: “What concern is it of yours? You follow me.”

From the Gospel acclamation: “I will send to you the Spirit of truth, says the Lord; he will guide you to all truth.”

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Jesus said to Simon Peter: “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”

Today’s Gospel from John tells the story of Peter’s encounter with Jesus after his resurrection, where he appears to Peter and the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” For Peter’s threefold denial before Jesus’ death, Jesus now gives Peter a threefold invitation to love and serve him. The consequence of Peter’s commitment, his yes to following the Lord, will mean his life is no longer his own. And the “someone else” who dressed and led Peter is the same Christ, who desires the same for me as he did for Peter: that I love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and that I love my neighbor as myself.

God, help me understand that to follow you means abandoning my own will for yours. Help me joyfully surrender every gift you have given me as a means to give you glory. Peter became distressed when Jesus asked him a third time “Do you love me?” Countless times from that moment on Peter must have heard that question in his heart. Lord, you know I love you; you know also that because of sin, I will fail you, myself, and others in giving you due glory. Help me listen out for you throughout the day and receive your grace so that I can hear your voice and follow you.

Lord, stay with me today. When inevitable conflicts come, help me remember to ask for your guidance and to know and do your will. Saint Philip Neri, pray for us!

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus prays that the disciples may know the unity between him and the Father and that they may believe that God sent him. As they go out into the world to spread the Gospel, Jesus’ prayer expresses the desire for unity among the disciples and among those who hear the word from them. By being brought to perfection in the glory Jesus has given them, his followers come to know God and the eternal life Jesus offers them through his death and resurrection. “Father, they are your gift to me,” Jesus prays. That gift taken from the Father becomes Jesus’ self-gift of dying on the cross to bring all to eternal life with the Father.

Father in heaven, through the unity of your love, you give to your Son all who have lived in the world and those who will be born into the world. In giving this gift, he gives you glory through his perfect gift of self to the world in his sacrificial death and in his resurrection. Nobody is left out in the prayer that your Son offers for the whole world. For this, Jesus prays “that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.” God, help me understand my role in proclaiming this. What Saint Paul says in the first reading, I can say of my life and how I live out my faith: “I am on trial for hope in the resurrection of the dead.”

Thank you, God, for making of me and of the whole world a gift to your Son. Keep me always in his care and guide me in this world on the path to eternal life.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: “I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”

Jesus prays for his disciples so that they may be one just as he is one with the Father. To be one with the Father is to be consecrated in his truth. Jesus’ prayer is that the disciples be sent out into the world just as he was sent out, consecrated in the truth. In the first reading, Paul echoes Jesus’ prayer for protection. He says as he speaks to the presbyters of the Church of Ephesus: “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them.” He urges them to be vigilant and departs from them saying, “And now I commend you to God.”

Lord, help me see and live in the truth today so that I can be consecrated in you, truth itself. Help me look toward eternal life, and the means to it: to know you, the only true God. I am easily led away from you throughout the day, and the result is that I accept confused and distorted views in place of your clarity and truth. The psalmist in today’s responsorial says, “Confess the power of God!” Give me the grace today to remain in your truth.

From the Gospel acclamation: “Your word, O Lord, is truth; consecrate us in the truth.”

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them.”

Aware that his time on earth is coming to an end, Jesus prays to his Father in heaven. He asks that the Father would glorify him and protect his disciples. Jesus also prays that the disciples would be one, just as he and the Father are one. In the same way Jesus begins the Lord’s Prayer with “Our Father,” the relationship that Jesus has with him is one that he invites others into—a relationship of protection, unity, and love.

God, help me understand that the prayer of Jesus is not something relegated to the past but is active and vital in the world today. Jesus says, “I pray for them.” At the right hand of the Father and daily in the celebration of Mass, he intercedes unendingly for the whole world. Help me recognize and receive the graces that pour forth from him through the Advocate and in the Eucharist and sacraments of his Church. As Saint John Paul II said of the Eucharist: “Could there ever be an adequate means of expressing the acceptance of that self-gift which the divine Bridegroom continually makes to his Bride, the Church, by bringing the Sacrifice offered once and for all on the Cross to successive generations of believers and thus becoming nourishment for all the faithful?”

Lord, open my eyes today the beauty of the Son, who is always faithful to your will. Hear his prayer and guide me to you as I strive to follow him.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.