Thursday of the Twenty-sixth week in Ordinary Time

Book of Nehemiah

The whole people gathered as one in the open space before the Water Gate, and they called upon Ezra the scribe to bring forth the book of the law of Moses which the LORD prescribed for Israel.
On the first day of the seventh month, therefore, Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which consisted of men, women, and those children old enough to understand.
Standing at one end of the open place that was before the Water Gate, he read out of the book from daybreak till midday, in the presence of the men, the women, and those children old enough to understand; and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.
Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the occasion.
Ezra opened the scroll so that all the people might see it (for he was standing higher up than any of the people); and, as he opened it, all the people rose.
Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people, their hands raised high, answered, "Amen, amen!" Then they bowed down and prostrated themselves before the LORD, their faces to the ground.
(The Levites Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah explained the law to the people, who remained in their places.)
Ezra read plainly from the book of the law of God, interpreting it so that all could understand what was read.
Then (Nehemiah, that is, His Excellency, and) Ezra the priest-scribe (and the Levites who were instructing the people) said to all the people: "Today is holy to the LORD your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep"-for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law.
He said further: "Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our LORD. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!"
(And the Levites quieted all the people, saying, "Hush, for today is holy, and you must not be saddened.")
Then all the people went to eat and drink, to distribute portions, and to celebrate with great joy, for they understood the words that had been expounded to them.

Psalms

The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul;
The decree of the LORD is trustworthy,
giving wisdom to the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
The command of the LORD is clear,
enlightening the eye.
The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
The ordinances of the LORD are true,
all of them just.
They are more precious than gold,
Than a heap of purest gold;
Sweeter also than syrup
Or honey from the comb.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke

The Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit.
He said to them, "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.
Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.
Into whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this household.'
If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you.
Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another.
Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you,
cure the sick in it and say to them, 'The kingdom of God is at hand for you.'"
Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say,
'The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.' Yet know this: the kingdom of God is at hand.
I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.

Bl. Francis Xavier Seelos()

Bl. Francis Xavier SeelosPriest(1819-1867) Bl. Francis Seelos was born at Füssen, Bavaria, Germany, on January 11, 1819, and baptized the same day at the parish church. He was one of 12 children born to Mang and Frances Schwarzenbach Seelos. From his earliest years, he expressed a desire for the priesthood. As an adult, he studied philosophy and theology at Munich. At Munich, Bl. Francis Seelos was touched by the letters published in the Catholic newspaper Sion, which described the lack of spiritual care for German-speaking immigrants. After visiting the Redemptorists at Altötting, he decided to enter the Congregation: asking to be allowed to work as a missionary in the United States. On December 22, 1844, Bl. Francis Seelos was ordained a priest at Baltimore, Maryland. He was assigned for six years to St. Philomena’s Parish in Pittsburgh as an assistant to St. John Neumann. Regarding their relationship, Bl. Francis said, "He has introduced me to the active life" and "has guided me as a spiritual director and confessor." Along with several years of parish ministry in Maryland, Bl. Francis Seelos had responsibility for training Redemptorist students. His availability and innate kindness in understanding and responding to the needs of the faithful quickly made him well known as an expert confessor and spiritual director. People would seek him out from neighboring towns. His confessional was open to all: "I hear confessions in German, English, French, of Whites and of Blacks." He practiced a simple lifestyle and a simple manner of expressing himself. The themes of his preaching, rich in Biblical content, were always understood by his varied listeners. Bl. Francis Seelos was described as a man with a constant smile and a generous heart, especially toward the marginalized. For several years, he preached in English and German throughout the Midwest and in the Middle Atlantic states. Assigned to St. Mary of the Assumption Church community in New Orleans, he zealously served his Redemptorist confreres and parishioners. In 1867, he passed away from yellow fever, which he contracted while visiting the sick.

St. Mary Faustina Kowalska(Virgin (1905-1938))

SAINT MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA Virgin (1905-1938) Sister Mary Faustina, an apostle of the Divine Mercy, belongs today to the group of the most popular and well-known saints. Through her, the Lord Jesus communicates to the world the great message of God's mercy and reveals the pattern of Christian perfection based on trust in God and on the attitude of mercy toward one's neighbors. She was born on August 25, 1905, in Głogowiec, Poland, to a poor and religious farming family, the third of ten children. She was baptized with the name Helena in the parish Church of Świnice Warckich. From a very tender age, she stood out for her love of prayer, work, obedience, and also her sensitivity to the poor. At the age of 9, she made her first Holy Communion: living this moment very profoundly in her awareness of the presence of the Divine Guest within her soul. She attended school for three years. At 16, she left home and went to work as a housekeeper in Aleksandrów, Łodzi i Ostrówek, to find the means of supporting herself and helping her parents. She had already felt the first stirrings of a religious vocation at age 7. After finishing school, she wanted to enter the convent, but her parents disagreed. Called during a vision of the Suffering Christ, on August 1, 1925, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and took the name Sister Mary Faustina. She lived in the Congregation for thirteen years and lived in several religious houses. She spent time at Kraków, Płock and Vilnius, where she worked as a cook, gardener and porter. Externally, nothing revealed Sr. Mary Faustina's rich, mystical interior life. She zealously performed her tasks and faithfully observed the rule of religious life. She was recollected and at the same time very natural, serene and full of kindness and disinterested love for her neighbors. Although her life was apparently ordinary, she hid within herself an extraordinary union with God. She contemplated the mystery of God's Mercy in the Word of God as well as in the everyday activities of her life, which formed the basis of her spirituality. The process of contemplating and getting to know the mystery of God's mercy helped develop her attitude of child-like trust in God as well as mercy toward neighbors. "O my Jesus, each of Your saints reflects one of Your virtues; I desire to reflect Your compassionate heart, full of mercy; I want to glorify it. Let Your mercy, O Jesus, be impressed upon my heart and soul like a seal, and this will be my badge in this and the future life" (Diary 1242). Sr. Mary Faustina was a faithful daughter of the Church, which she loved like a Mother as the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. Conscious of her role in the Church, she cooperated with God's mercy in the task of saving lost souls. At the specific request of the Lord, and following His example, she sacrificed her own life for this very goal. In her spiritual life, she also distinguished herself with a love of the Eucharist and a deep devotion to the Mother of Mercy. Her years at the convent were filled with extraordinary gifts, including revelations, visions, hidden stigmata, participation in the Passion of the Lord, the gift of bilocation, the reading of human souls, the gift of prophecy, and the rare gift of mystical engagement and marriage. The living relationship with God, the Blessed Mother, the Angels, the Saints, the souls in Purgatory - with the entire supernatural world - was as equally real for her as the world she perceived with her senses. In spite of being so richly endowed with extraordinary graces, Sr. Mary Faustina knew that they do not in fact constitute sanctity. In her Diary, she wrote: "Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God" (Diary 1107). The Lord Jesus chose Sr. Mary Faustina as the Apostle and "Secretary" of His Mercy, so that she could tell the world about His great message. "In the Old Covenant (He said to her), I sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to My people. Today, I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart" (Diary 1588). Sister Mary Faustina's mission consists of 3 tasks:- Reminding the world of the truth of our faith revealed in the Holy Scripture about the merciful love of God toward every human being.- Entreating God's mercy for the whole world and particularly for sinners, among others through the practice of new forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy presented by the Lord Jesus, such as: the veneration of the image of the Divine Mercy with the inscription: Jesus, I Trust in You, the feast of the Divine Mercy celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter, chaplet to the Divine Mercy and prayer at the Hour of Mercy (3 p.m.). The Lord Jesus attached great promises to the above forms of devotion, provided one entrusted one's life to God and practiced active love of one's neighbor.- Initiating the apostolic movement of the Divine Mercy, which undertakes the task of proclaiming and entreating God's mercy for the world and strives for Christian perfection. St. Faustina's precepts require the faithful to display an attitude of child-like trust in God, which expresses itself in fulfilling His will as well as in the attitude of mercy toward one's neighbors. Today, this movement within the Church involves millions of people throughout the world; it comprises religious congregations, lay institutes, religious, brotherhoods, associations, various communities of apostles of the Divine Mercy, as well as individual people who take up the tasks that the Lord Jesus communicates to them. The mission of the Blessed Sr. Mary Faustina was recorded in her diary, which she kept at the specific request of the Lord Jesus and her confessors. In it, she recorded faithfully all of the Lord's wishes, and also described the encounters between Him and her soul. The Lord said to her, "Your task is to write down everything that I make known to you about My mercy, for the benefit of those who, by reading these things, will be comforted in their souls and will have the courage to approach Me" (Diary 1693). In an extraordinary way, Sr. Mary Faustina's work sheds light on the mystery of the Divine Mercy. It delights not only the simple and uneducated, but also scholars who look upon it as an additional source of theological research. The Diary has been translated into many languages, among others, English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak. Sister Mary Faustina was consumed by tuberculosis and sufferings that she accepted as a voluntary sacrifice for sinners. On October 5, 1938, she passed away at Krakow at the age of 33. Her reputation of spiritual maturity, mystical union with God and holiness grew along with the cult to the Divine Mercy and the graces obtained from God through her intercession. From 1965 to 1967, the investigative process into her life and heroic virtues was undertaken in Kraków. In 1968, the Beatification Process was initiated in Rome, and completed on December 1992. On April 18, 1993, Pope John Paul II declared St. Faustina's holiness; and completed her canonization on April 4, 2000. Her resting place is in the Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy at Kraków-Łagiewniki.

St. Placid(Martyr (6th century))

SAINT PLACID Martyr(6th century) St. Placid was born at Rome in 515 to a patrician family. When he was 7, his father brought him to the monastery of Subiaco. At 13, he followed St. Benedict to the new foundation at Monte Casino. There, he grew up in the practice of piety and innocence of life. St. Placid had scarcely turned 21 when he was selected to establish a monastery on Sicilian estates that his father had given to St. Benedict. He spent four years building the monastery; and a fifth had not elapsed when a horde of barbarians burned everything to the ground. St. Placid was martyred together with thirty monks and his two brothers, Eutychius and Victorinus, and his holy sister Flavia. The monastery was eventually rebuilt with St. Placid as its patron. As we celebrate their lives and sacrifice, let us reflect upon their heroic virtues and unfailing intercession: "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever" (Ps. 107:1).

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Category: Mass by Year / Catholic Missal 2023 / Catholic Missal of october 2023