Churches of the Day

Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle 2

Happy Independence Day to our American Viewers
Saturday Mass of Our Lady

 Saints of the Day: 4 July; St  Elizabeth of Portugal, queen, widow
C/f A short life of this saint can be found below todays' Readings and Reflection.
Happy Independence Day to our American Viewers

FIRST READING          Amos 9:11-15
I mean to restore the fortunes of my people Israel and I will plant them in their own country.

It is the Lord who speaks -
'That day I will re-erect the tottering hut of David, make good the gaps in it, restore its ruins and rebuild it as it was in the days of old, so that they can conquer the remnant of Edom and all the nations that belonged to me.'

It is the Lord who speaks, and he will carry this out.
'The days are coming now-it is the Lord who speaks-
when harvest will follow directly after ploughing, the treading of grapes soon after sowing, when the mountains will run with new wine and the hills all flow with it.
I mean to restore the fortunes of my people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them, plant vineyards and drink their wine, dig gardens and eat their produce.
I will plant them in their own country, never to be rooted up again
out of the land I have given them, says the Lord, your God.'

The Word of the Lord          Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm        Ps 84: 9. 11-14. R/v 9
Response                              The Lord speaks peace to his people.

1. I will hear what the Lord God has to say, a voice that speaks of peace,
peace for his people and his friends and those who turn to him in their hearts.   Response

2. Mercy and faithfulness have met; justice and peace have embraced.
Faithfulness shall spring from the earth and justice look down from heaven.       Response

3 The Lord will make us prosper and our earth shall yield its fruit.
Justice shall march before him and peace shall follow his steps.                              Response

Gospel  Acclamation                    Ps 118: 135
Alleluia, alleluia!
Let your face shine on your servant, and teach me your decrees.
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 holy Gospel according to Matthew 9:14-17           Glory to you, O Lord
Surely the bridegroom's attendants would never think of mourning as long as the bridegroom is still with them?

John's disciples came to Jesus and said,
'Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?'
Jesus replied,
'Surely the bridegroom's attendants would never think of mourning as long as the bridegroom is still with them?
But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunken cloth on to an old cloak, because the patch pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse.
Nor do people put new wine into old wine skins; if they do, the skins burst, the wine runs out, and the skins are lost.
No; they put new wine into fresh skins and both are preserved.'

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

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Gospel Reflection          Saturday             Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time       Matthew 9:14-17

In today’s first reading, the prophet Amos announces the coming of a time when ‘the mountains will run with new wine’ when people will again ‘plant vineyards and drink their wine’. In the gospel reading, Jesus declares that the ‘new wine’ of his ministry requires new wineskins. The traditional regulations relating to fasting are not compatible with the new wine Jesus brings because they are more suited to a time of mourning that to the period of his ministry which had more of the character of a wedding celebration. A wedding celebration often drew in the entire village. It was a rare opportunity for people to enjoy a feast with good food and wine. In every age the community of believers needs to find wineskins that can contain the new wine of Jesus’ ministry.

Is there a celebratory element to the way we preach the gospel, to how we live out our faith, to how we worship together? On one occasion, Jesus associated children enacting a funeral with the ministry of John the Baptist and children pretending to play the flute (as at a wedding) with his own ministry, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed and you did not weep’ (Lk 7:32). In the past, certain expressions of the Christian faith, including within the Roman Catholic tradition, have seemed more funereal than celebratory. God’s gift of Jesus to us is always good news, even when our own personal circumstances leave a lot to be desired. This is why Paul, while in prison, could say to the members of the church in Philippi, many of whom ‘were suffering for him (Christ)’ (Phil 1:29) to ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice’ (Phil 4:4).

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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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Saints of the Day: 4 July; St  Elizabeth of Portugal, queen, widow
Elizabeth, of the house of Aragon, had an unhappy marriage with the King Denis of Portugal. When he died, she persevered in prayer and good deeds and as widow lived in poverty as a Franciscan tertiary. She is the Patroness of Catholic Charities.

Elizabeth: an agent of peace
Elizabeth both in her own family and between the nations of Portugal and Spain. She cared for lepers with her own hands and had an extraordinary knowledge. She also engaged in building projects: 20th century scholars identify an "Isabeline" style of architecture called after her.

Patrick Duffy tells her story.

Marriage to King Denis of Portugal
Elizabeth, or Isabel, was born in Saragossa, Spain, in 1271, the daughter of Peter III, king of Aragón and Queen Constanza. She was christened Elizabeth after her great-aunt Elizabeth of Hungary. Many European monarchs sought to have her as a bride for their sons and one must wonder how much she understood when at the age of twelve she was married to King Denis of Portugal who was then twenty.

Family
Elizabeth and Denis had two children. Their daughter, Constanza, was born after the couple had been married for eight years, and Afonso, the crown prince, a year later. But Denis fathered seven other children by other women. Elizabeth agreed to care for these and educate them.

Family troubles
One of her greatest trials, however, was that her own son Afonso allied himself with the Spanish kingdom of Castile in a bid to overthrow his father, who, he felt, favoured one of his half-brothers. Elizabeth had to mediate between the two men closest to her heart, husband and son, each of whom led an army. Denis, believing that his wife was intriguing against him, had her exiled to the fortified city of Alenquer. She accepted this and at times did succeed in bringing peace between them.

Elizabeth's devotion
Elizabeth regularly attended the Liturgy of the Hours and sometimes even corrected the Latin of the clerical chanters. In 1320, she obtained from the bishop of Coimbra a proclamation establishing the solemn observance of the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary on 8th December throughout the whole country.

Her building projects
She also engaged in a number of building projects.  She had a convent built in Coimbra to house the Poor Clare nuns, as well as a house for herself next to the convent, a hospice for the aged poor, a hospital and an orphanage. She drafted the sketches herself, and managed the day-to-day progress of the projects. Twentieth-century scholars have identified the buildings that date back to Elizabeth by their common architectural features, speaking of an "isabeline" style of architecture.

Caring for lepers
Elizabeth would at times bring lepers to her private room, wash and bandage their wounds, replace their rags with clean clothes and serve them with a meal. One Good Friday, as the lepers were going away, one of them, unable to keep up with the rest, fell at the main entrance, where the doorkeeper found him. Not knowing of the queen's secret works of mercy, the doorkeeper rebuked the sick man and hit him on the head with a stick.

Egg-white and effective remedy in healing wounds
One of the queen's servants saw the incident and reported to the queen that the wounded man was bleeding profusely. Elizabeth immediately had him brought to a secluded room, where she washed the gash on his skull, and applied egg-white before bandaging it. When, the next day, the leper announced that he had no more pain, that the wound was closed and healed, the rumour spread that the queen had performed a miracle. Doctors have commented on this episode, praising Elizabeth's medical knowledge. It seems that the protein and fibrinogenic components in egg-white can be an effective remedy for a bleeding wound. In 1779, the Portuguese Academy of Sciences chose St. Elizabeth as its patron saint.

Widowhood and death
King Denis became ill in 1324 and died the following year. Elizabeth nursed him and he was obviously repentant. After his death she went on pilgrimage to Compostela and, although she wanted to become a Poor Clare nun, she remained a Franciscan tertiary. She retired to the house she had built near the Poor Clare convent at Coimbra and devoted herself to the care of the needy.

Peace-making and death
In 1336 Elizabeth's son, now King Afonso IV, went to war against Alfonso XI of Castile. Elizabeth was again able to make peace, but it wore her out and she died before she was able to return home.

Feast and canonisation
Pope Leo X authorised the celebration of her feast locally in 1516: Pope Urban VIII canonised her in 1626.

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Memorable Saying for Today

If you happen to see something behind me,
'That's just goodness and mercy following me all the day of my life'.

~ c/f Psalm 24, verse: 6  (plus a reflection) ~

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Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A

FIRST READING

A reading from the book of the Prophet Zechariah             9:9-10
See now, your king comes humbly to you

The Lord says this: Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion! Shout with gladness, daughter of Jerusalem!
See now, your king comes to you; he is victorious, he is triumphant, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
He will banish chariots from Ephraim and horses from Jerusalem; the bow of war will be banished. He will proclaim peace for the nations.

His empire shall stretch from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth.

The Word of the Lord.             And with your spirit.

Responsorial Psalm           Ps 144: 1-2. 8-11. 13-14. R/v 1
Response                                I will bless your name for ever, O God my King

1. I will give you glory, O God my King, I will bless your name for ever.
I will bless you day after day and praise your name for ever.                                   Response

2. The Lord is kind and full of compassion, slow to anger, abounding in love.
How good is the Lord to all, compassionate to all his creatures.                             Response

3.  All your creatures shall thank you, O Lord, and your friends shall repeat their blessing.
They shall speak of the glory of your reign and declare your might, O God.         Response

4. The Lord is faithful in all his words and loving in all his deeds.
The Lord supports all who fall and raises all who are bowed down.                       Response


SECOND READING 

A reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Romans             8:9. 11-13
If by the Spirit you put an end to the misdeeds of the body you will live.

Your interests, however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit of God has made his home in you.

In fact, unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him. and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.

My brothers, there is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves or to live unspiritual lives. If you do live in that way, you are doomed to die; but if by the Spirit you put an end to the misdeeds of the body you will live.

The Word of the Lord.                 Thanks be to God

Gospel Acclamation              Mt 11: 25
Alleluia, alleluia!
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to mere children.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL

The Lord be with you                      And with your spirit.
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew  11:25-30        Glory to you, O Lord
I am gentle and humble in heart.

Jesus exclaimed, 'I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

'Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.'

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

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.