Readings of the Day
RB: Ch 28 The Treatment of Those Who Relapse
Mass: Rm 11:29-36; Resp Ps 69; Lk 14:12-14
A saint I didn't mention as a favorite on All Saints Day was Charles Borromeo. He was a force to be reckoned with. You may be interested to look him up. A new translation of his preaching was published a couple of years ago, Charles Borromeo: Selected Orations, Homilies and Writings (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017). St Charles was a man who certainly took Jesus' teaching in today's Gospel to heart: When you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed you will be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. Charles also knew something about the importance of prayer. You can read the passage for today's Office of Readings, taken from a sermon given during the last synod he attended. Here is one paragraph:
Would you like me to teach you how to grow from virtue to virtue and how, if you are already recollected at prayer, you can be even more attentive next tine, and so give God more pleasing worship? Listen, and I will tell you. If a tiny spark of God's love already burns within you, do not expose it to the wind, for it may get blown out. Keep the stove tightly shut so that it will not lose its heat and grow cold. In other words, avoid distractions as well as you can. Stay quiet with God. Do not spend your time in useless chatter.
I also include the proclamation used at our Morning Prayer, attributed to Saint Charles Borromeo:
If you wish to make any progress in the service of God we must begin every day of our life with new eagerness. We must keep ourselves in the presence of God as much as possible and have no other view or end in all our actions but the divine honor.
SAINT CHARLES BORROMEO,
PRAY FOR US.
© Gertrude Feick 2019
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