Thursday of the Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time

Year of Saint Joseph

Year of the Family "Amoris Laetitia The Joy of Love"

National Back to School Month

Saints: Blessed Dominic Barberi (1792-1849); Saint David Lewis (1616-1679); Our Lady of Czestochowa; Saint Caesarius of Arles (c.470-542); Blessed Jacques Retouret (1747-1794); Saint Teresa of Jesus' Transverberation

Readings of the Day

RB: Ch 68 The Assignment of Impossible Tasks

Mass: Th 3:7-13; Resp Ps 90; Mt 24:42-51

Fill us at daybreak with your kindness.

STAY AWAKE! FOR YOU DO NOT KNOW ON WHICH DAY YOUR LORD WILL COME.

(Mt 24:42)

Something I like about one of our saints of the day, Blessed Dominic Barberi, is that he received many Anglicans into full communion with the Church, including now Saint John Henry Newman (1801-1890). Jesus, Crown of Saints, have mercy on us. 

There are at least two prayers to keep in our hearts and on our lips today, especially if we are assigned an impossible task as presented in our reading from the Holy Rule. If assigned a burdensome task or something you cannot do, you should, with complete gentleness and obedience, accept the order given ... trusting in God's help, you must in love obey (RB 68:1, 5). It just may be that what you thought was burdensome is life giving instead. And now we turn to Saint Paul's words to the Thessalonians, and an instruction by Saint Columban.

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we have for you, so as to strengthen your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones. Amen.

(1 Th 3:12-13)

For you are our all: our life, our light, our salvation, our food and our drink, our God. Inspire our hearts, I ask you, Jesus, with that breath of your Spirit; wound our souls with your love, so that the soul of each and every one of us may say in truth: Show me your soul's desire, for I am wounded by your love.

(From an instruction by Saint Columban, abbot, in Office of Readings, Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday)

BLESSED DOMINIC BARBERI,

SAINT DAVID LEWIS,

OUR LADY OF CZESTOCHOWA,

SAINT CAESARIUS OF ARLES,

BLESSED JACQUES,

SAINT TERESA OF JESUS' TRANSVERBERATION,

SAINT JOSEPH,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: This is an awesome photo of berries of mountain ash. "It's a shrub", I'm told, "not a full size tree. Lovely!"

© Gertrude Feick 2021