Catholic Missal of the day: Friday, October 4 2019

Friday of the Twenty-sixth week in Ordinary Time

Friday of the Twenty-sixth week in Ordinary Time

1. Reading

Book of Baruch

1,15-22.

]During the Babylonian captivity, the exiles prayed: “Justice is with the Lord, our God; and we today are flushed with shame, we men of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem,
]that we, with our kings and rulers and priests and prophets, and with our fathers,
]have sinned in the LORD'S sight
]and disobeyed him. We have neither heeded the voice of the LORD, our God, nor followed the precepts which the LORD set before us.
]From the time the LORD led our fathers out of the land of Egypt until the present day, we have been disobedient to the LORD, our God, and only too ready to disregard his voice.
]And the evils and the curse which the LORD enjoined upon Moses, his servant, at the time he led our fathers forth from the land of Egypt to give us the land flowing with milk and honey, cling to us even today.
]For we did not heed the voice of the LORD, our God, in all the words of the prophets whom he sent us,
]but each one of us went off after the devices of our own wicked hearts, served other gods, and did evil in the sight of the LORD, our God.

Psalm

Psalms

79(78),1-2.3-5.8.9.

]O God, the nations have come into your inheritance;
they have defiled your holy temple,
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
]They have given the corpses of your servants
as food to the birds of heaven,
the flesh of your faithful ones to the beasts of the earth.
]They have poured out their blood like water
round about Jerusalem,
and there is no one to bury them.
]We have become the reproach of our neighbors,
the scorn and derision of those around us.
]O LORD, how long? Will you be angry forever?
Will your jealousy burn like fire?
]Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
]Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name's sake.

Gospel

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke

10,13-16.

]Jesus said to them, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
]But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you.
]And as for you, Capernaum, 'Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.'"
]Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."

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St. Francis of Assisi(Founder (1182-1226))

SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI (1182-1226)St. Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscans and is one of history's greatest mystics. He left home, riches and family to blaze a trail in serving the poor. In all creation, he saw the work of God. By literally imitating Jesus' life, he became the founder of evangelical poverty. He was so dead to self and his mind fixed in God that he received the stigmata. St. Francis' father was a cloth merchant. Zealous and thundering, St. Francis became a soldier. However, a vision of God turned him from a spirited youth without military potential into a man of prayer, recollection and profound humility. Praying with devotion to discern the will of God, he began to imitate the poor in order to minister to them. Like Jesus, "He took on our infirmities, and carried our diseases" (Is. 53:4). In what appeared to be an act of madness, St. Francis took his father's cloth and sold it to restore the Church of San Damiano. His father took him to court; and in full view of the bishop, St. Francis stripped off his garments, gave them to his father and declared he had no posessions. Literally imitating Jesus, St. Francis preached to the poor: going barefoot and "(taking) no gold, nor silver, nor money in his belt..." (Mt. 10:9). When he and his brethren founded a new religious order, they encountered opposition from Pope Innocent III. The pope consented only after seeing St. Francis in a vision. In the vision, St. Francis was holding up the Church of San Giovanni in Laterano. Satan retaliated by sending a band of robbers to beat St. Francis: the latter only gave small jumps and yelps of joy "because indignity was his only dignity" (G.K. Chesterton). The poverty and preaching of the Franciscans galvanized the Western world. Noblemen, zealous for the House of the Lord, raised altars where churches lay abandoned. One even donated an entire mountain to St. Francis. The order of Poor Clares and Franciscan lay movements stemmed from St. Francis' apostolate. His rule includes material poverty and self-denial to be with Christ. In 1224, while preparing for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, St. Francis prayed how to best please God. In that moment, St. Francis' biographer and those with him said: a vision filled the world, and a crucified seraph came down from heaven; who had two wings above his head, two outstretched in flight and two covering his body; whose face was beautiful beyond description, and who smiled gently at St. Francis. From the vision, St. Francis saw that he would conform to Christ by heart instead of physical martyrdom. The brilliance of that vision never left St. Francis; and neither did the ensuing stigmata, which lasted for the rest of his life. When St. Francis received Christ's stigmata, he was in bodily pain and near the end of his life. He sought to give more when he had reached his limit. Let us not create needs for ourselves, be humbled by others and bear it for Christ, reject hedonism and the near occasions of sin, and conform our will and intellect to the Divine.

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Category: Mass by Year / Catholic Missal 2019 / Catholic Missal of october 2019