Monday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

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

Saint: Saint Oswald (-992)

Readings of the Day

Rule of Saint Benedict: Ch 23 Excommunication for Faults; Ch 24 Degrees of Excommunication

Mass: 1 Pt 1:3-9; Resp Ps 111; Mk 10-17-27

Exquisite in all their delights.

MARY, QUEEN OF PEACE,

PRAY FOR US.

Welcome to Monday. Ash Wednesday cometh. A good place to begin on this particular Monday is with the words of Saint Peter: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ..." (1 Pet 1:3). God is praised! We consider too these words, while reflecting on the wisdom of Pope Saint Gregory the Great below. In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:6-7). I belief, help my unbelief. Dear Job, pray for us.

We continue to pray for the people of Ukraine and Russia.

It is great comfort in tribulation if, in times of adversity, we recall the gifts the Creator has given us. Nor will overwhelming sorrow break us, if we quickly call to mind the gifts which have sustained us. For it is written: On the day of prosperity do not forget affliction, and on the day of affliction do not forget prosperity. For if a man receives God's gifts, but forgets all his affliction, he can fall through his own excessive joy ...

Thus both attitudes must be united so that one may be supported by the other: the memory of the gift can temper the pain of affliction, and the foreboding and fear of the affliction can modify the joy of the gift.

(From the Moral Reflections on Job by Saint Gregory the Great, pope, in Office of Readings, Eighth Week in Ordinary Time, Monday)

SAINT OSWALD,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: This is from a Sunday stroll. It seemed fitting for a Monday, a day of revving up the engines for the week ahead, no matter how discombobulated we feel. Lent is coming soon.

© Gertrude Feick 2022