Churches of the Day

Friday of the Twenty-Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, Year 2

Saint of the Day: Sep 25; –St Finbarr  bishop, 
C/f A short look at this saint’s life can be found below today's Readings and Reflection.

FIRST READING            Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
There is a time for every occupation under heaven

There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven:

A time for giving birth, a time for dying;
a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.
A time for killing, a time for healing;
a time for knocking down, a time for building.
A time for tears, a time for laughter;
a time for mourning, a time for dancing.

A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them up;
A time for embracing, a time to refrain from embracing.
A time for searching, a time for losing;
a time for keeping, a time for throwing away.
A time for tearing, a time for sewing;
a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking.
A time for loving, a time for hating;
A time for war, a time for peace.

What does a man gain for the efforts that he makes? I contemplate the task that God gives mankind to labour at. All that he does is apt for its time; but though he has permitted man to consider time in its wholeness, man cannot comprehend the work of God from beginning to end.

The Word of the Lord.              Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm           Ps 143: 1-4. R/v 1
Response                                 Blessed be the Lord, my rock.

1. Blessed be the Lord, my rock. He is my love, my fortress;
he is my stronghold, my saviour, my shield, my place of refuge.                  Response

2. Lord, what is man that you care for him, mortal man, that you keep him in mind;
man who is merely a breath whose life fades like a passing shadow?        Response

Gospel Acclamation        Eph 1: 17
Alleluia, alleluia!
May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our mind,
so that we can see what hope his call holds for us.
Alleluia !

or                                                Mk 10: 45
Alleluia, alleluia!
The Son of Man came to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL 

The Lord be with you.             And with your spirit
A reading from the Gospel according to Luke   9:18-22    Glory to you, O Lord
You are the Christ of God' The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously.

One day when Jesus was praying alone in the presence of his disciples he put this question to them,
'Who do the crowds say I am?'
And they answered, 'John the Baptist; others Elijah;
and others say one of the ancient prophets come back to life'. '
But you,' he said 'who do you say I am?'
It was Peter who spoke up. 'The Christ of God' he said.
But he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone anything about this. 'The Son of Man' he said 'is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day.

The Gospel of the Lord.       Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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Gospel Reflection    Friday       Twenty Fifth Week in Ordinary Time        Luke 9:18-22

Some questions are easier to answer than others. In the gospel reading, Jesus asks the disciples two questions. The first question would have been much easier for them to answer, ‘Who do the crowds say I am?’ They had their answers immediately, John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the ancient prophets come back to life.

However, they would have found Jesus’ second question more difficult to answer,
‘But you, who do you say I am?’ This question required them to look into their own hearts and be open and honest about who they understood Jesus to be. We sense a hesitation on the part of the disciples. It was Peter who eventually spoke up on behalf of the others, ‘The Christ of God’.

Peter confesses Jesus to be the long awaited Jewish Messiah. He thereby showed great insight into Jesus, and, yet, it was only a limited insight. His answer left open the question as to which kind of Messiah Jesus would turn out to be. Jesus immediately began to indicate the kind of Messiah he would be by speaking of himself as the Son of Man who was destined to suffer, to be rejected by the religious authorities and to be put to death, all in the service of his loving mission to humankind. It was probably not the kind of Messiah Peter had in mind. There was more to Jesus than even Peter understood. There is always more to the Lord than we can grasp or understand. He is more loving, more merciful, than we could ever grasp.

In one of his letters, Saint Paul spoke of ‘the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge’ (Eph 4:19). We spend our lives growing in our appreciation of the Lord’s love for us, until we reach that eternal moment when we will see him as he really is.

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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. and used with the permission of the publishers. http://dltbooks.com/
The Scripture Reflection is made available with our thanks from his book Reflections on the Weekday Readings : The Word is near to you, on your lips and in your heart by Martin Hogan and published by Messenger Publications , c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

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Saint of the Day: Sep 25; –St Finbarr  bishop, 

Finbarr, born probably at Garranes near Bandon and died in the first quarter of the seventh century. He came to live at Loch Irce (Gougane Barra), but when disciples gathered round him he moved to Cork. The monastery which he founded there became a famous centre of learning.

Traditions
 The tradition is that Finbar was from Inchigeela and lived as a hermit at Gougane Barra, in west Cork. When disciples gathered round him, he moved his monastic settlement to the mouth of the Lee, where the present city of Cork grew up.

Patrick Duffy discusses his name, his origins and some of the traditions about him.

Origin of his name
Several lives of this saint have been written. According to these, the saint's original name was Lóchán, but when he went as a young man to be tonsured as a monk for the first time, the man shaving his head said: "The hair of this servant of God is beautiful." Another said: "You have spoken well, because his name will be changed and he shall be called Finn-barr, that is 'beautiful hair', from the beautiful head he offered in sacrifice to God." So he was called Finbarr by some and Barra by others, Barra being generally used in the Irish language.

Monastic Community at Gougane Barra
The tradition is that Finbarr was the son of a metal-worker, that he trained in monastic school and was ordained. He founded a number of schools, one at Loch Irce, a beautiful place at the source of the River Lee, and now called Gougane Barra (Guagán in Irish means "little fissure"). He did not hesitate to join in the manual work of constructing the buildings for his community.

Cork
When disciples gathered round him, he moved on to make a foundation where the River Lee enters the sea, round which the town of Cork later developed and the Vikings made it their port. The motto for University College, Cork, is "Where Finbarr taught, let Munster learn". Finbarr's monastery was probably sited near where the Church of Ireland Cathedral of St Finbarr stands today. He is said to have died, not in Cork but in Cloyne.

Influence in Scotland
There are also many places in Scotland that have the name Barra, but this is probably more due to journeys made by Finbarr's disciples than to journeys by himself.

An Alias of Finian of Movilla?
Pádraig Ó Riain, the scholar who has translated all the Lives and done most research on this saint, believes Finbarr of Cork is an alias of 'Finian of Movilla'. He believes he was born and reared in an Irish colony on the west coast of Britain, that he came to Movilla, on Strangford Lough, that because of his reputation a penitential was named after him and that Colmcille came to study with him, when he was already an old man.

So the question still remains: How did he come to be established in Cork?

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Memorable Quote for Today

Forgiveness does not come easily to us,
especially when someone we have trusted betrays our trust.
And yet if we don’t learn to forgive,
we will discover that we can never really rebuild trust.

~ Rev Billy Graham ~ 

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Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
A Day of Prayer for Life

God gives us the gift of repentance. In the gospel parable of the two sons, Jesus holds up the example of the public sinners in his time being converted while the establishment figures refuse to listen to his message. Ezekiel reminds us that repentance is always possible, for the Lord remembers his mercy.

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FIRST READING

A reading from the book of Ezekiel          18:25-28
When the sinner renounces sin, he shall certainly live.

The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows:
You object, "What the Lord does is unjust".
Listen, you House of Israel: is what I do unjust?
Is it not what you do that is unjust? When the upright man renounces his integrity to commit sin and dies because of this, he dies because of the evil that he himself has committed.
When the sinner renounces sin to become law-abiding and honest, he deserves to live. He has chosen to renounce all his previous sins; he shall certainly live; he shall not die.

The Word of the Lord.              Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm           Ps 24; 4-9 R/v 6
Response                             Remember your mercy, Lord.

1. Lord, make me know your ways. Lord, teach me your paths.
Make me walk in your truth, and teach me: for you are God my saviour.          Response

2. Remember your mercy, Lord, and the love you have shown from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth.
In your love remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord.                             Response

3. The Lord is good and upright. He shows the path to those who stray,
he guides the humble in the right path; he teaches his way to the poor.              Response

SECOND READING

A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Philippians     2:1-11
In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus.

If our life in Christ means anything to you, if love can persuade at all, or the Spirit that we have in common, or any tenderness and sympathy, then be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind. That is the one thing which would make me completely happy. There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, So that nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people's interests instead. In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus:
His state was divine,
yet he did not cling to his equality with God
but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave,
and became as men are; and being as all men are,
he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross.
But God raised him high and gave him the name
which is above all other names so that all beings
in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

The Word of the Lord.              Thanks be to God.

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Alternative shorter
SECOND READING

A reading from the letter to the Philippians      2:1-5
In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus.

If our life in Christ means anything to you, if love can persuade at all, or the Spirit that we have in common, or any tenderness and sympathy, then be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind. That is the one thing which would make me completely happy.

There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, So that nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people's interests instead. In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus.

The Word of the Lord.            Thanks be to God.
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Gospel Acclamation          Jn 14: 23
Alleluia, alleluia!
If anyone loves me he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him.
Alleluia!

or                                           Jn 10: 27
Alleluia, alleluia!
The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice, says the Lord,
I know them and they follow me.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL

The Lord be with you                         And with your spirit.
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew     21:28-32       Glory to you, O Lord
Afterwards he thought better of it and went. Tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you.

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
'What is your opinion?
A man had two sons. He went and said to the first,
"My boy, you go and work in the vineyard today".
He answered, "I will not go", but afterwards
thought better of it and went.

The man then went and said the same thing to the second who answered, "Certainly, sir", but did not go.
Which of the two did the father's will?'
'The first' they said.
Jesus said to them,
'I tell you solemnly, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you, a pattern of true righteousness, but you did not believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing that, you refused to think better of it and believe in him'.

The Gospel of the Lord.                Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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For homily resources for this Sunday's Gospel click here: https://www.catholicireland.net/sunday-homily/




Taken from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, published and copyright 1966, by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc, and used by permission of the publishers.