Saturday of the Thirty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

Year of Saint Joseph

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

Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Saints: All Saints of the Benedictine Family; Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Foundress (1850-1970); Saint Machar (8th century); Blessed Maria Teresa Scrilli (1825-1829)

Readings of the Day

RB: Ch 35:12-18 Kitchen Servers of the Week

Mass: Wis 18:14-16; 19:6-9; Resp Ps 105; Lk 18:1-8

Remember the marvels the Lord has done!

MARY, MOTHER OF DIVINE GRACE,

PRAY FOR US.

In today's Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples and us too about the necessity to pray always without becoming weary (Lk 18:1). It is important as Saint Benedict echoes in a tool for good works: "devote yourself often to prayer" (RB 4:56), as does another one of the saints we commemorate today, Italian born, sent to New York in 1889 by Pope Leo XIII, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini: "We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not depend on material success; nor on sciences that cloud the intellect. Neither does it depend on arms and human industries, but on Jesus alone." Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Not unrelated, here is a rendition of a Rabia of Basra (Islamic saint, 717-801) poem by Daniel Ladinsky in Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (Penguin, 2002), p. 11.

IN MY SOUL

In

my soul

there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church

where I kneel.

Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.

Is there not a region of love where sovereignty is 

illumined nothing,

where ecstasy gets poured into itself

and becomes

lost,

where the wing is fully alive

but has no mind or

body?

In

my soul

there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque,

a church

that dissolve, that

dissolve in

God.

ALL SAINTS OF THE BENEDICTINE FAMILY,

SAINT FRANCES XAVIER CABRINI,

SAINT MACHAR,

BLESSED MARIA TERESA SCRILLI,

SAINT JOSEPH,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: Enjoying unseasonably mild November days, I went on an overdue walkabout yesterday and found myself at a favorite lookout. It's been a while. 

© Gertrude Feick 2021