Mass Reflection: Sunday - 22nd September 2024

 

WIS 2:12, 17-20; PS 54:3-4, 5, 6, 8; JAS 3:16-4:3; MK 9:30-37

Our readings today bring to light the daily struggle between good and evil and how we can combat this struggle through wisdom and gratitude.

“Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?”

In our Second Reading, St. James is reminding us to not become enslaved to our passions. In a moment, it might feel good to jab back at someone in an argument or selfishly do what you can to gain the upper hand in life or even overindulge in earthly pleasures. But when we step back outside of that moment, we realize we have not gained anything and lost the ability to do something great. These are moments where we must decide between good and evil.

“But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits…”

Instead, St. James encourages us to seek wisdom from above. When we seek the Lord, we will have the strength to choose good and the wisdom to properly use what we have received from Him.

In our Gospel, we see an example of how surrendering to our passions negatively affects us. Jesus was with His disciples when they began to argue amongst themselves as to who was the greatest in the group.

We can imagine the twelve apostles spent significant amounts of time together as they followed Jesus and learned from Him. The apostles were human — they had imperfections, clashing personalities, jealous and competitive natures just like we do. There were bound to be some arguments that rose among them.

If we look at our own lives, we might find many instances where we fall into the same tendencies—we constantly compare ourselves to others, out of pride we feel the need to point out another’s faults or choose to fight back in an argument. We know we should act one way but choose another.

When Jesus hears what the apostles are discussing, He has them focus on a child. “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.”

There is much for us to take away from the example of a child, but ultimately it is centered around gratitude.

If we reflect on the moment someone receives a child, oftentimes their hearts are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude for this gift. There is no jealousy or anger, just thanksgiving, and appreciation.

The apostles are busy bickering about who was the best. Their vision was clouded on something that really didn’t matter and because of this, they could not even stop and be grateful for the gift to be so close to our Savior Jesus Christ and were chosen to be His closest followers.

When we are caught in the raging war of jealousy, fighting, and pride, and begin to become enslaved to our passions we are ultimately being ungrateful for what we have been given. We overlook the blessing God has given us and the gifts and talents He has entrusted to us.

And gratitude doesn’t stop with the acknowledgment of our blessings. It should ultimately transform how we live our lives. In gratitude, the raging wars will subside within us, and we can begin to use the many blessings God has already given to us for His glory.

Today, let us recall that we have an infinitely loving God who cares deeply for us. Consider all that He has blessed you with, and how you can use those blessings for His glory.

Mass Reading: Sunday - 22nd September 2024

First reading
Wisdom 2:12,17-20
The wicked prepare to ambush the just man

The godless say to themselves:

‘Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he annoys us
and opposes our way of life,
reproaches us for our breaches of the law
and accuses us of playing false to our upbringing.

‘Let us see if what he says is true,
let us observe what kind of end he himself will have.
If the virtuous man is God’s son, God will take his part
and rescue him from the clutches of his enemies.
Let us test him with cruelty and with torture,
and thus explore this gentleness of his
and put his endurance to the proof.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death
since he will be looked after – we have his word for it.’

The word of the Lord.

________

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 53(54):3-6,8

The Lord upholds my life.

O God, save me by your name;
    by your power, uphold my cause.
O God, hear my prayer;
    listen to the words of my mouth.

The Lord upholds my life.

For proud men have risen against me,
    ruthless men seek my life.
    They have no regard for God.

The Lord upholds my life.

But I have God for my help.
    The Lord upholds my life.
I will sacrifice to you with willing heart
    and praise your name for it is good.

The Lord upholds my life.

________

Second reading
James 3:16-4:3
The wisdom that comes from above makes for peace

    Wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony, and wicked things of every kind being done; whereas the wisdom that comes down from above is essentially something pure; it also makes for peace, and is kindly and considerate; it is full of compassion and shows itself by doing good; nor is there any trace of partiality or hypocrisy in it. Peacemakers, when they work for peace, sow the seeds which will bear fruit in holiness.

    Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force. Why you don’t have what you want is because you don’t pray for it; when you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly, you have prayed for something to indulge your own desires.

The word of the Lord.

________

Gospel Acclamation
Jn8:12

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the light of the world, says the Lord;
anyone who follows me will have the light of life.

Alleluia!

Or:
cf.2Th2:14

Alleluia, alleluia!

Through the Good News God called us
to share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Alleluia!

________

Gospel
Mark 9:30-37
Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me

    Jesus and his disciples made their way through Galilee; and he did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples; he was telling them, ‘The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.

    They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ They said nothing because they had been arguing which of them was the greatest. So he sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.’ He then took a little child, set him in front of them, put his arms round him, and said to them, ‘Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

The Gospel of the Lord.

 

Mass Reading: Sunday - 15th September 2024

First reading
Isaiah 50:5-9
I offered my back to those who struck me

The Lord has opened my ear.

For my part, I made no resistance,
neither did I turn away.
I offered my back to those who struck me,
my cheeks to those who tore at my beard;
I did not cover my face
against insult and spittle.

The Lord comes to my help,
so that I am untouched by the insults.
So, too, I set my face like flint;
I know I shall not be shamed.

My vindicator is here at hand. Does anyone start proceedings against me?
Then let us go to court together.
Who thinks he has a case against me?
Let him approach me.
The Lord is coming to my help,
who will dare to condemn me?

The word of the Lord.

________

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 114(116):1-6,8-9

I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.

I love the Lord for he has heard
    the cry of my appeal;
for he turned his ear to me
    in the day when I called him.

I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.

They surrounded me, the snares of death,
    with the anguish of the tomb;
they caught me, sorrow and distress.
    I called on the Lord’s name.
O Lord, my God, deliver me!

I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.

How gracious is the Lord, and just;
    our God has compassion.
The Lord protects the simple hearts;
    I was helpless so he saved me.

I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.

He has kept my soul from death,
    my eyes from tears
    and my feet from stumbling.
I will walk in the presence of the Lord
    in the land of the living.

I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.

________

Second reading
James 2:14-18
If good works do not go with it, faith is quite dead

    Take the case, my brothers, of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’, without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.

    This is the way to talk to people of that kind: ‘You say you have faith and I have good deeds; I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds – now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show.’

The word of the Lord.

________

Gospel Acclamation
Jn14:6

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, says the Lord;
No one can come to the Father except through me.

Alleluia!

Or:
Ga6:14

Alleluia, alleluia!

The only thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord,
through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.

Alleluia!

________

Gospel
Mark 8:27-35
The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously

    Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say I am?’ And they told him. ‘John the Baptist,’ they said ‘others Elijah; others again, one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he asked ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter spoke up and said to him, ‘You are the Christ.’ And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.

    And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’

    He called the people and his disciples to him and said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’

The Gospel of the Lord.

 

Mass Reflection: Sunday - 15th September 2024

 

IS 50:5-9A; PS 116:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9; JAS 2:14-18; MK 8:27-35

“You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Jesus’ words in our Gospel today challenge us to become imitators of Christ. This is not an easy request. It takes sacrifice, endurance, and commitment. Yet, it is profoundly rewarding.

As Peter professes that Jesus is Christ, Jesus begins to share that He will suffer, die, and rise. We can imagine that Peter, who is a close follower of Jesus, is taken back by these words. In his humanity Peter rebukes Him. Little does Peter know that this act is the greatest act of love that man will ever know.

In our humanity, oftentimes we too rebuke Jesus. We become angry when things don’t go our way, despair when we suffer, complain when life gets hard, cringe when we are uncomfortable, or selfishly live to satisfy ourselves. We want life to be easy, comfy, free from hardships, and in our best interest. We are missing profound moments to love and serve when we live a life like that.

Jesus encourages us to think, not as human beings, but as God. He is calling us not to look at life in relation to ourselves. Rather, He wants us to be open-minded and look at life in relation to God. This requires acceptance on our part — accepting the will of God and allowing it to mold us into Christ-like people.

Jesus re-echoes this message as He addresses His disciples saying, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” We are Jesus’ disciples, and He is speaking those same words to us here and now.

Living a life of discipleship is not always easy. It requires us to be imitators of Christ — who suffered, died, and rose from the dead out of total love for each one of us. This means we are called to share in Christ’s sufferings by taking up our cross and following Him daily.

But what does this look like in our day-to-day lives?

We can start by making a firm resolution to follow Christ today, here and now, and renewing that resolution each day when we rise. This requires time with Him each day — speaking and listening.

We should also strive to pick up our crosses each day with Christ by our side. Our cross might be suffering from an illness, fighting an addiction, a day of screaming kids, or a period where things just don’t seem to go our way. Instead of avoiding these sufferings or complaining through them, we are called to carry them with Christ, allowing Him to transform us through them.
And we should strive to remain committed to Christ in every joy and every trial, never ceasing to follow Him. This means serving others even when we feel like serving ourselves, being open to what God is asking of us, and praising Him for every gift.

If we live life constantly focused on us, we will ultimately lose ourselves, but if we surrender our lives for Christ and His mission, we will gain eternal life and become more alive than we could have ever imagined, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” This takes daily commitment and requires endurance in our faith, which can only be done through active discipleship.

St. James reminds us that active discipleship is lively, meaning, our lives must be an extension of our faith. Everything that we do reflects what we believe. We cannot just hold that belief in our hearts, but we need to share it by how we live each moment of each day.

This week let us sit in Jesus’ presence and listen to what He is calling us to at this point in our lives. Let us rise each day with a commitment to follow Him, carry our daily crosses with Him, and live in total gratitude and service to God, family, and neighbor.

Mass Reading: Sunday - 08th September 2024

First reading
Isaiah 35:4-7
The blind shall see, the deaf hear, the dumb sing for joy

Say to all faint hearts,
‘Courage! Do not be afraid.
Look, your God is coming,
vengeance is coming,
the retribution of God;
he is coming to save you.’

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
the ears of the deaf unsealed,
then the lame shall leap like a deer
and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy;

for water gushes in the desert,
streams in the wasteland,
the scorched earth becomes a lake,
the parched land springs of water.

The word of the Lord.

________

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 145(146):7-10

My soul, give praise to the Lord.

It is the Lord who keeps faith for ever,
    who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry,
    the Lord, who sets prisoners free.

My soul, give praise to the Lord.

It is the Lord who gives sight to the blind,
    who raises up those who are bowed down.
It is the Lord who loves the just,
    the Lord, who protects the stranger.

My soul, give praise to the Lord.

The Lord upholds the widow and orphan
    but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign for ever,
    Zion’s God, from age to age.

My soul, give praise to the Lord.

________

Second reading
James 2:1-5
God chose the poor according to the world to be rich in faith

    My brothers, do not try to combine faith in Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord, with the making of distinctions between classes of people. Now suppose a man comes into your synagogue, beautifully dressed and with a gold ring on, and at the same time a poor man comes in, in shabby clothes, and you take notice of the well-dressed man, and say, ‘Come this way to the best seats’; then you tell the poor man, ‘Stand over there’ or ‘You can sit on the floor by my foot-rest.’ Can’t you see that you have used two different standards in your mind, and turned yourselves into judges, and corrupt judges at that?

    Listen, my dear brothers: it was those who are poor according to the world that God chose, to be rich in faith and to be the heirs to the kingdom which he promised to those who love him.

The word of the Lord.

________

Gospel Acclamation
1S3:9,Jn6:68

Alleluia, alleluia!

Speak, Lord, your servant is listening:
you have the message of eternal life.

Alleluia!

Or:
cf.Mt4:23

Alleluia, alleluia!

Jesus proclaimed the Good News of the kingdom
and cured all kinds of sickness among the people.

Alleluia!

________

Gospel
Mark 7:31-37
'He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak'

Returning from the district of Tyre, Jesus went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, right through the Decapolis region. And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, and the ligament of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it. Their admiration was unbounded. ‘He has done all things well,’ they said ‘he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.’

The Gospel of the Lord.

 

Mass Reflection: Sunday - 08th September 2024

 

IS 35:4-7A; PS 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10; JAS 2:1-5; MK 7:31-37

“Thus says the Lord: say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not!”

Our readings today offer us a message of hope — God is with us and wants to heal us. May this message come ablaze in our hearts so that we might live with unwavering faith.

Our first reading and Gospel present us with profound physical healings.

In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah is speaking to a weary people who have returned to their homeland after a period of exile. Isaiah proclaims a confident message from the Lord, “Here is your God…he comes to save you…Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared.”

Likewise, our Gospel recounts the healing of a deaf man with a speech impediment. People brought him to Jesus and begged for his healing. Jesus took the man off by himself, touched his ears and his tongue, then proclaimed, “Be opened!” Immediately he was healed.

The prophecy in our first reading and the story in our Gospel overwhelm us with comfort and peace because we have a compassionate God who sees our physical needs. Yet if we reflect further on these readings, we see that God uses these moments of physical healing as opportunities to restore something much deeper — our souls.

Oftentimes we are blind and deaf to God in our lives. We miss countless opportunities to see God working in our day-to-day moments — through our loved ones, our community, or even a stranger. We miss the quiet voice of Jesus in our hearts telling us to choose Him instead of sin, respond in love instead of anger, or care for someone else in a moment instead of ourselves.

These are how we need to be spiritually healed. And the scriptures remind us that God is with us and wants to heal us.

He offers us the sacrament of confession because He recognizes the need our souls have for healing. He is eager for us to come begging for His mercy because He wants us to be with Him in eternal life.

But that is not all Jesus wants us to do. He also wants us to seek Him daily as the blind man did. If we approach Jesus each day — during our drive to work, stopping by the church for a few moments of prayer, or even finding a quiet spot in our homes — then He will take us into a moment of complete separation from the rest of the world. In that daily moment, He will work on our hearts, heal our wounds, open our ears and our eyes so that we can better know Him, love Him, and serve Him. This is done through prayer — the intimate time between Jesus and you.

This is echoed again in our second reading, as St. James reminds us to be rich in faith. This is what truly matters in life — not the status of our lives, but the state of our souls. God has promised Himself to those who love Him. And to be rich in faith and to love God well, we must commit to that daily time with just Him. He will heal us and transform us to be rich in what truly matters.

This week let us seek God to heal our souls and transform our hearts. Let us pray that our eyes and our ears might “be open” to His workings, words, and promptings in our lives.