June 15 - Most Holy Trinity Sunday, Year C
The BreadCast
(Prv.8:22-31; Ps.8:2,4-9; Rm.5:1-5; Jn.16:12-15) “Everything that the Father has is mine.” From the beginning Jesus is with the Father, one with the Father, the pure reflection of His being which cannot be separated from the substance of the Father. Through Him all things were made, and indeed He is reflected in all things. And it is by the power of the Holy Spirit, who takes from what is the Father’s and Son’s, that anything that comes to be comes to be. And man is the crown of the creation of this Most Holy Triumvirate. ...
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June 14 - Saturday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
The BreadCast
(2Cor.5:14-21; Ps.103:1-4,8-9,11-12; Mt.5:33-37) “The love of Christ impels us who have reached the conviction that since one died for all, all died.” How strong is Paul’s “yes” for the Lord. With what ardor does he cry out: “The old order is passed away; now all is new!” How purely he is led in the Spirit to call to our very souls, “In Christ’s name: be reconciled to God!” He has no need to swear by earth or heaven of his conviction that Jesus died for our salvation. He is indeed a new creation and can but speak of...
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June 13 - Prayer to St. Anthony of Padua
The BreadCast
O gentle preacher of the Word, the fire of the Holy Spirit upon your soul for the conversion of heretics and the leading of all to God – hold us in your arms even as the infant Jesus who appeared to you along the way, and pray that the Word may be instilled in our hearts even as it was in your own, that we shall never go astray but always have the consolation of the Spirit of God and His love and innocence to lead us through this life till we find ourselves at home in the Father’s arms, where you dwell in peace with all His blessed saints. Pray for us, our teacher and brother, this...
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June 13 - Friday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
The BreadCast
(2Cor.4:7-15; Ps.116:10-11,15-18; Mt.5:27-32) “While we live we are constantly being delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh.” In our gospel we continue to see how the grace of Jesus supersedes the Law of Moses. Yesterday we were told not only must we not murder, but that we must not even be angry with or speak ill of another. Today Jesus tells us the commandment against adultery applies even to our eyes, to our thoughts, and that God allows no divorce… And of what does Jesus...
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June 12 - Thursday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
The BreadCast
(2Cor.3:15-4:1,3-6; Ps.85:9-14; Mt.5:20-26) “See the splendor of the gospel showing forth the glory of Christ.” Today the gospel is preached: Jesus, the image of God, has come among us, “glory dwelling in our land,” and removed the veil from our understanding so that now we “are being transformed from glory to glory into His very image by the Lord who is the Spirit.” The words of life are spoken by the Lord; the Holy Spirit comes amongst us as light to illumine our minds and lead us beyond the bounds of the law to the kingdom of God...
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June 11 - Prayer to St. Barnabas
The BreadCast
O son of encouragement and of consolation in the Holy Spirit, you who were filled with faith and lived that faith for the Lord, giving up all things to bring His Name forth to the ends of the earth, calling all souls and confirming them in the truth by the authority of the risen Son – whose footsteps go forth today as did yours upon the birth of the Church; what souls are so blessed to be set apart by the Spirit to perform His works in this dying world, to bring His light to those who sit in darkness? Pray the Lord shall indeed send out laborers into His vineyard and they shall with the same...
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June 11 - Wednesday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
The BreadCast
(2Cor.3:4-11; Ps.99:5-9; Mt.5:17-19) “Not the smallest letter of the law, not the smallest part of a letter, shall be done away with until it all comes true.” Jesus comes to fulfill the law and the prophets. The law watches over us while we are here in this world. It guards us and puts to death the sin that is inherent in our earthly nature. There is great glory in this blessed protection, as is witnessed in our psalm today – “Holy is the Lord, our God” – because it acquaints us with God’s justice and, as said, watches...
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June 10 - Tuesday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
The BreadCast
(2Cor.1:18-22; Ps.119:129-133,135; Mt.5:13-16) “God is the one who firmly establishes us.” “Light of the world” and “salt of the earth” – this is what we are by the power of God. It is by Him we are “set on a hill” to give “light to all in the house”; it is we who preserve the integrity of creation. It is a holy call and a demanding one, and we should not waver in our resolve to follow the Lord and fulfill His work and His will; for it is indeed His will that we show His goodness before the eyes of men, and so “He who anointed...
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June 9 - Prayer to St. Ephrem
The BreadCast
O harp of the Holy Spirit whose song rose up to Jesus and in honor of the Virgin Mary, whose heart was set on Heaven and the eternal light therein, and who served so well to defend the faith when from contemplation you came – pray we too shall have a song dedicated wholly to the Lord welling up in hearts set on His presence, on the kingdom that passes not away; and pray, too, the teaching of the Church shall always be true, shall always be rooted in the Spirit, expressive of the love of God. What is this world as it passes away, and who are we apart from God and His House? O how we long for...
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June 9 - Monday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
The BreadCast
(2Cor.1:1-7; Ps.34:2-9; Mt.5:1-12) “Blessed are those persecuted for holiness’ sake; the reign of God is theirs.” Here is the core teaching of our faith. Here are the beatitudes, the call to sweet humility which flows like blessed honey from the lips of our Savior. And that teaching is that the humbled shall be exalted, that those who mourn and sorrow for the lack of love we find in this tainted world and who strive to bring that love to the hard heart of man shall be blessed, are blessed, for they share in the sufferings of Christ, who wept...
info_outline(2Cor.4:7-15; Ps.116:10-11,15-18; Mt.5:27-32)
“While we live we are constantly being delivered to death for Jesus’ sake,
so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh.”
In our gospel we continue to see how the grace of Jesus supersedes the Law of Moses. Yesterday we were told not only must we not murder, but that we must not even be angry with or speak ill of another. Today Jesus tells us the commandment against adultery applies even to our eyes, to our thoughts, and that God allows no divorce… And of what does Jesus speak but that which Paul tells us as well – that our bodies, our sinful flesh, must die in order for the glory of God contained therein to shine. Jesus makes this graphically apparent when He speaks of gouging out our eye and cutting off our hand: the body must provide no hindrance to entering the reign of God, and so it must die; sin must indeed be rooted out of us.
“In earthen vessels” we are, weak and mortal, subject to the afflictions of time. The trials of this world therefore do not escape us and indeed are necessary for us to overcome, to purify, our mortal flesh. We must be chastised. We must suffer. But we do not suffer in vain. “We are persecuted but never abandoned; we are struck down but never destroyed.” The trials of this earth have no ultimate hold over us; in fact, they do not lead to death but to life. Why? Solely because it is “the dying of Jesus” we carry in our bodies; entirely because we unite our suffering to Christ’s, it becomes redemptive and not destructive. “We have that Spirit of faith,” and that Spirit of faith is life to us even in our greatest afflictions; and that Spirit of faith turns the deaths we undergo to new life. How? By our overcoming of these deaths and thereby giving death to sin.
A man is addicted to alcohol – this is a temptation and an affliction for him. By the power of Christ and faith in His Name, he puts down the bottle. Who can measure the grace at work in him? Who can capture the life he now knows? And we all have our addictions, be they anger or lust or greed or whatever, and they all must be overcome. And as we overcome them, what freedom do we find. For in this we thwart the devil’s plan to bring us to destruction by the weakness of the flesh. He does not like to see our faith in Jesus spawning such resurrections. And neither does the world like to see a man make progress in God. So the afflictions will be doubled; the world and the devil will attack our weak human vessels all the more. But “precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His faithful ones”; and the more we set aside the sins of the flesh, the more He will bless us – the greater He will preserve us from evil.
He that is in us is far greater than he that is in the world, brothers and sisters. And the more the devil tempts us, the stronger only do we become, because the God of life holds even this purveyor of death in His all-powerful hand. We must but have faith and we will find life; through all our afflictions we will rejoice.
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O LORD, all must be sacrificed
for the sake of the kingdom,
and in the death of this mortal flesh we shall find life.
YHWH, how sweet is the death of your faithful ones who unite themselves to the dying of your Son! How blessed is the fruit of such sacrifice! For not only is life revealed in the flesh of those who die for the sake of Jesus, but also in those to whom such witness speaks. And so, indeed, let our bodies die, our earthen vessels be broken, that our spirits might live forever with you in Heaven.
O LORD, despite the afflictions that come, though we are indeed delivered to death, yet we shall pay our vows in the presence of all your people; yet we shall remain faithful to our call to serve you by laying down our lives. For we are not adulterers and we wish for no lover but you alone. May we be wed to your Son in His sacrifice that we might be wed to Him in glory!
All our bonds you loose, O LORD, when we are prepared to die, when we hold to nothing of this sinful life. And so we shall not despair nor be destroyed even as we bleed for you and the love of our neighbor.