Sacred Heart Catholic Church

Daily Reading

• Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Reading 1 Is 35:4-7a Thus says the LORD:Say to those whose hearts are frightened:Be strong, fear not!Here is your God,he comes with vindication;with divine recompensehe comes to save you.Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,the ears of the deaf be cleared;then will the lame leap like a stag,then the tongue of the mute will sing.Streams will burst forth in the desert,and rivers in the steppe.The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground, springs of water. Responsorial Psalm Ps 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10 R. (1b) Praise the Lord, my soul!or:R. Alleluia.The God of Jacob keeps faith forever,secures justice for the oppressed,gives food to the hungry.The LORD sets captives free.R. Praise the Lord, my soul!or:R. Alleluia.The LORD gives sight to the blind;the LORD raises up those who were bowed down.The LORD loves the just;the LORD protects strangers.R. Praise the Lord, my soul!or:R. Alleluia.The fatherless and the widow the LORD sustains,but the way of the wicked he thwarts.The LORD shall reign forever;your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia.R. Praise the Lord, my soul!or:R. Alleluia. Reading 2 Jas 2:1-5 My brothers and sisters, show no partialityas you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.For if a man with gold rings and fine clothescomes into your assembly,and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in,and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothesand say, “Sit here, please, ”while you say to the poor one, “Stand there, ” or “Sit at my feet, ”have you not made distinctions among yourselvesand become judges with evil designs?Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.Did not God choose those who are poor in the worldto be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdomthat he promised to those who love him? Alleluia Cf. Mt 4:23 R. Alleluia, alleluia.Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the kingdomand cured every disease among the people.R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel Mk 7:31-37 Again Jesus left the district of Tyreand went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impedimentand begged him to lay his hand on him.He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s earsand, spitting, touched his tongue;then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,“Ephphatha!”— that is, “Be opened!” —And immediately the man’s ears were opened,his speech impediment was removed,and he spoke plainly. He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to,the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished and they said,“He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” - - -Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it… Continue Reading...

Daily Reflection

• Christ, in Human Weakness / Cristo, en su Debilidad Humana - Click here for daily reading St. Paul admonishes the Corinthians in our first reading, criticizing their distinctions, boasting, and wealth. This is not the life of a disciple of Christ, or at least not the life of an apostle, he explains. The apostles should be the “last of all, like people sentenced to death,” “a spectacle to the world,” “fools on Christ’s account,” “weak,” “in disrepute,” “hungry and thirsty,” “poorly clad and roughly treated,” “ridiculed,” “persecuted,” “slandered,” “the world’s rubbish, the scum of all” (1 Cor. 4:9–13). This is not only a description of apostles: it is a description of how Christ was treated as well. In today’s Gospel He is wandering around without food on the Sabbath with His disciples. They eat grain from a field out of necessity. Of course, Jesus uses this as an example of His royal priestly character and explains that, as God, He has authority over the Sabbath. But there remains the fact that He and His disciples needed to pick the grain in the first place. From the beginning of His public ministry, Christ walked the earth homeless, traveling with only the bare necessities, and sometimes less. He was welcomed where He went by at least some, but at times He was hungry and thirsty, poorly clad and roughly treated, ridiculed, persecuted, slandered and considered the world’s rubbish. Coming to His people as God Incarnate, He was questioned, distrusted, heckled, and threatened routinely. He endured this treatment while subjecting His body to intense fasts and strenuous journeys. We can forget this side of Christ, even when reading the Gospels. They display so wonderfully His power, wisdom, and authority, but they also show a weak wanderer who was treated poorly by those around Him and ultimately betrayed by His friends. He was never at home on earth, and He experienced the constant tension of being treated with infinitely less respect and love than He deserved. St. Paul recognized that the way to follow Christ is not to use His favor to gain distinction and wealth. The way to follow Christ is to live as He lived. This is brilliantly displayed in the lives of the Franciscan saints, who strove to live without anything on this earth, just as Christ did. They wandered about preaching and doing the will of God, as Jesus did, and welcomed every type of suffering for His sake. Some of the more well-known, like St. Francis of Assisi and St. Padre Pio, conformed themselves so perfectly to Christ in humility and weakness that they were given His very wounds. Their hands, feet, and side bled just as Christ’s did on the Cross. For them, as for Christ, this was not immediately a source of glory, but a source of intense pain. Padre Pio especially felt great shame in the stigmata, but he knew that if God desired Him to be so conformed to Christ, the best response was to bear it graciously. Let us strive to follow Christ as these… Continue Reading...