Monday of the Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Respect Life Month

Saints: Saint Theodore Guerin (1798-1856); The Blessed Martyrs of Sussex (16th-17th century); Saint Thomas Cantilupe (1218-1282); Blessed Andre de Soveral and Ambrosio Francisco Ferro (-1645); Saint Francis Borgia (1510-1572)

Readings of the Day

Rule of Saint Benedict: Ch 7:44-48 Humility

Mass: Gal 1:6-12; Resp Ps 111; Lk 10:25-37

Great are the works of the Lord.

MARY, QUEEN OF PEACE,

MARY, QUEEN OF THE MOST HOLY ROSARY,

MARY, QUEEN OF MARTYRS,

SAINT JOSEPH, DEFENDER OF LIFE,

PRAY FOR US.

Go and do likewise.

(Lk 10:37)

Welcome to Monday. As reminded by Jesus' exchange with the scholar of the law in today's Gospel, we implement Saint Benedict's first tool for good works, that is, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself (Lk 10:27/Rule of Saint Benedict 4:1-2). At the same time, we commemorate Saint Theodore Guerin, who immigrated to Indiana from France in 1840, and founded the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, Vigo County, a few miles northwest of Terre Haute, Indiana, in the Diocese of Vincennes, Indiana. It was there that she also opened the first girls' boarding school in Indiana, now Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. Not without her fair share of detractors, Catholic and Protestant alike, her own bishop even excommunicated her for "tampering" with her congregation's rule, Mother Theodore was "well known for her heroic witness to the faith, her hope, and her love for God." The excommunication was eventually lifted and James Cardinal Gibbons, in 1904, said that Mother Theodore was "a woman of uncommon valor, one of those religious athletes whose life and teachings effect a spiritual fecundity that secures vast conquests to Christ and His holy Church" (Catholic News Agency). Mother Theodore was beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1998 and canonized in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI. May Saint Theodore Guerin intercede for us, and help us to be loving and merciful, just as our Father in heaven is loving and merciful

But it's not enough to believe ... we must love ... but we must do even more than this ... We must love Him above all other things. And how hard that is! Only the saints achieved that, but then, the saints were human beings like us ... Why, then should we not achieve this too? What one person does with the grace of God, another can do too, with that same grace of God ... This must be our one and only, unchanging aspiration. Once we have achieved it, we shall have neither sorrows nor joys, nor shall we be here or there ... it will all be the same to us, for everything will be God, and we shall love Him more than we do anyone else, and our very being and feeling shall all disappear before Him.

(Rafael Arnaiz in The Collected Works: Saint Rafael Arnaiz, p. 151)

SAINT THEODORE GUERIN,

THE BLESSED MARTYRS OF SUSSEX,

SAINT THOMAS CANTILUPE,

BLESSED ANDRE DE SOVERAL AND AMBROSIO FRANCISCO FERRO,

SAINT FRANCIS BORGIA,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: Exquisite in all their delights.

© Gertrude Feick 2022