Tuesday of the Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

Year of Saint Joseph

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

National Back to School Month

Saint: Saint Aidan (-651)

Readings of the Day

RB: Ch 73 This Rule Only a Beginning of Perfection

Mass: 1 Th 5:1-5, 9-11; Resp Ps 27; Lk 4:31-37

The Lord is my life's refuge.

HEART OF JESUS, BURNING FURNACE OF CHARITY,

HAVE MERCY ON US.

This line from Saint Paul, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, presented to us in today's first reading, appeals to me. Encourage one another and build one another up (1 Th 5:11). It strikes me as so important that we encourage and support one another in our faith and with our prayer. Then then are three quotations I read early this morning that I pass along to you.

For Christians defeat is always just around the corner. Christian life is a battle against, sin, temptation, and despair. Our true strength comes from the simple, yet hard to live, commands of loving God and neighbor. A less violent future may lie in the hearts of men and women willing to organize their lives as God has commanded.

(Michele Malia McAloon, "A Christian Response to Defeat" in The Catholic Thing, August 31, 2021)

There is no holiness where you have withdrawn your hand, O Lord; no profitable wisdom if you cease to rule over it; no helpful strength if you cease to preserve it. For if you forsake us, we sink and perish; but if you visit us, we rise up and live again. We are unstable, but you make us firm; we grow cool, but you inflame us.

(From the Imitation of Christ, in Office of Readings, Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday)

What is the secret of a blessed life? Recognizing Jesus as the living God. For it is not important to know that Jesus was great in history. What matters is the place I give Him in my life.

(Pope Francis, Twitter, August 31, 2021)

And we can't close out the day without closing words from Saint Benedict, literally. Today ends the second time we've read through the Holy Rule in its entirety this year, as prescribed in Ch 58, where Saint Benedict tells us that the newcomer should have the Rule read to him "straight through", three times (RB 58:9-13). Our holy father Benedict concludes the Rule, and we complete our second read for 2021, in this way: "Are you hastening toward your heavenly home? Then with Christ's help, keep this little rule that we have written for beginners. After that, you can set out for the loftier summits of the teaching and virtues we mentioned above, and under God's protection you will reach them. Amen" (RB 58:8-9). 

SAINT AIDAN,

SAINT JOSEPH,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: I finally snapped this after looking at it morning after morning in our garden of delights.

© Gertrude Feick 2021