Churches of the Day

Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle 2

Saints of the Day: 8 July; St Kilian, Irish bishop and martyr of the church
C/f A short life of this saint can be found below todays' Readings and Reflection.

FIRST READING

A reading from the book of the Prophet Hosea          10:1-3. 7-8. 10
It is time to go seeking the Lord .

Israel was a luxuriant vine yielding plenty of fruit.
The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built;
the richer his land became, the richer he made the sacred stones.
Their heart is a divided heart; very well, they must pay for it:
The Lord is going to break their altars down and destroy their sacred stones. Then they will say, 'We have no king because we have not feared the Lord'. But what can a king do for us

Samaria has had her day. Her king is like a straw drifting on the water.
The idolatrous high places shall be destroyed- that sin of Israel;
thorn and thistle will grow on their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, 'Cover us!' and to the hills, 'Fall on us!'

Sow integrity for yourselves, reap a harvest of kindness, break up your fallow ground:
it is time to go seeking the Lord until he comes to rain salvation on you.

The Word of the Lord           Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm        Ps 104: 2-7. R/v 4
Response                             Constantly seek the face of the Lord.
Or                                            Alleluia!

l. O sing to him, sing his praise; tell all his wonderful works!
Be proud of his holy name, let the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice.                  Response

2. Consider the Lord and his strength; constantly seek his face.
Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, the judgements he spoke. Response

3. O children of Abraham, his servant, O sons of the Jacob he chose.
He, the Lord, is our God: his judgements prevail in all the earth.                       Response

Gospel  Acclamation     Jm 1: 18
Alleluia, alleluia!
By his own choice the Father makes us his children
by the message of the truth, so that we should be a sort of
first-fruits of all that he created.
Alleluia!

or                                          Mk 1: 15
Alleluia, alleluia!
The kingdom of God is close at hand, repent and believe the Good News.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL   

The Lord be with you.                     And with your spirit
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew      10:1-7
Go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel

Jesus summoned his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to cast them out and to cure all kinds of diseases and sickness.

These are the names of the twelve apostles:
First, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the one who was to betray him.
These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows:
'Do not turn your steps to pagan territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.
And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.'

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

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Gospel Reflection     Wednesday,       Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time          Matthew 10:1-7

In today’s first reading, the Lord says of Israel, ‘their heart is a divided heart’. They did not seek the Lord with a pure, undivided, heart. Instead, they hedged their bets by building altars to other gods in the event of not being able to rely on the Lord. In the gospel reading, Jesus appoints the twelve as the initial labourers to work in God’s harvest. In time, they too would show themselves to have a divided heart. They did not remain faithful to Jesus when it became costly to themselves, abandoning him in the hour of his passion and death, with Peter, the leader of the twelve denying him publicly and Judas Iscariot betraying him to his enemies.

Even though they were sent as shepherds to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, they themselves became lost sheep. As Jesus would say to them on the night of the last supper, ‘You will all become deserters because of me this night; for it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered”’ (Mt 26:31). We can hardly sit in judgement on the people of Israel or on the disciples as we are all aware that our own heart can easily be divided. In the Beatitudes, Jesus declares, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God’. We are not always pure in heart, with an undivided focus on what God desires for us and our world. We need to keep hearing the call of the first reading, ‘Break up your fallow ground: It is time to go seeking the Lord’. The good news is that the Lord is always seeking us, even when our heart is divided and we fail to seek him with all our heart. He came to seek out and save the lost and he never stops seeking even when we do.



The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.   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: 8 July; St Kilian, Irish bishop and martyr of the church.

Kilian who like Columbanus, Fiacra, Fursey and Feargal went on an adventure to Europe spreading the good news from Mullagh, Co Cavan. He was put to death in 689.

Patrick Duffy traces his story.

From Mullagh, Co Cavan
St Kilian was born in the parish of Mullagh, Co Cavan. which has a church and heritage centre dedicated to him. Here in 1989 the people of the parish celebrated the 13th centenary of his death. There is also a church dedicated to him at Lauragh, Tuosist, Co Kerry and a pattern is celebrated in his honour every 8th July.

Kilian is believed to have received his religious training at the monastery in Rosscarbery, Co. Cork founded by St. Fachtna in the fourth century. St. Kilian later founded his own monastery off Kilmakilloge harbour in the Kenmare area, where he trained his fellow monks and laid plans for one of the greatest pilgrimages ever undertaken from the shores of Ireland. From Kilmakilloge harbour, Kilian and his twelve companions , their heads tonsured in the traditional fashion of the Irish monks, set sail on their mission in a hide-covered boat. Their journey finally brought them to Rome where Pope Conan directed them to Germany and to the province of Franconia, where they set up their head quarters at Wurzburg in the year 686. All around, the countryside was pagan, with perhaps a few pockets of Christians here and there. The influence of the earlier Barbarian invasion was still felt.

Up the Rhine and the Main to Würzburg, Germany and Rome
Kilian is said to have sailed from neighbouring Kilmacillogue harbour with eleven companions on a mission to Germany. The group landed at the mouth of the Rhine and travelled up the river until they reached the mouth of its tributary, the Main; then they sailed up this as far as the town of Würzburg.

From there he went on to Rome arriving during the pontificate of Pope Conon (686-7) and stayed there for two years. Some accounts say Pope Conon confirmed him in his mission to Thuringia and Eastern Franconia.

Martyrdom
On his return to Würzburg, however, Kilian found that the Duke Gosbert had married his brother's widow, Geilana. When Kilian explained that according to Canon Law the marriage was unlawful, the duke agreed to separate. But Geilana was not happy and plotted against Kilian. She had him murdered along with two companions Colman and Totnan, probably in 689.

Cult grows, Fifty Years Later
Kilian and his companions seem to have been forgotten after their martyrdom. But fifty years after their death when the English missionary St Boniface and his companion Burchard of Wessex arrived in the area, they found evidence of Kilian's influence. Burchard became the first bishop of Würzburg in 752 and transferred the relics of Kilian and his companions, which were being revered for many cures from illnesses, into the cathedral he built in Würzburg and dedicated to St Kilian.

St Kilian's Cathedral, Würzburg
The present-day cathedral named after Kilian is one of the largest Romanesque churches in Germany. Kilian is the principal patron of Würzburg; his figure appears on seals and coins and a Kilianfest held every year is the occasion of an annual mystery play about his life.

Martyrology of Tallaght
News of Kilian's martyrdom was brought back to Ireland and is recorded in the ninth-century Irish Martyrology of Tallaght: hymns and folk-songs were composed in his honour. There was  a house of Irish monks in the city of  Würzburg from the ninth century until the fifteenth and there are manuscripts of commentaries written in Old Irish on the Scriptures. In 1989 the late Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich visited the city to lecture about these writings and contacts.

P.S. Links between Würzburg and Ireland Today
Irish influence remains in Würzburg today as there is a GAA club called St Kilian's with hurling and football teams that compete successfully at European level. St Kilian's in the name of a German school (Deutsche Schule) in Dublin. It is situated on the Eurocampus in Clonskeagh, quite near to University College, Dublin. It provides a German language education from kindergarten, through primary and secondary levels.

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Memorable Sayings for Today

“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season;
reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”
(The persistence and readiness required to spread the Gospel, emphases the need for patience, determination and sound teaching in all circumstances.)

~ 2 Timothy 4:2 ~

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Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time,  Year A

FIRST READING

A reading from the book of the Prophet Isaiah           55:10-11
The rain makes the earth give growth.

Thus says the Lord:
As the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to provide seed for the sower and bread for the eating, so the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.

The Word of the Lord.            Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm          Ps 64: 10-14 R/v Luke 8:8
Response                               Some seed fell into rich soil and produced its crop.

1. You care for the earth, give it water, you fill it with riches.
Your river in heaven brims over to provide its grain.                                             Response

2. And thus you provide for the earth; you drench its furrows,
you level it, soften it with showers, you bless its growth.                                       Response

3. You crown the year with your goodness. Abundance flows in your steps,
in the pastures of the wilderness it flows.                                                                 Response

4. The hills are girded with joy, the meadows covered with flocks,
the valleys are decked with wheat. They shout for joy, yes, they sing.               Response

SECOND READING       

A reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Romans             8:18-23
The whole creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal his sons.

I think that what we suffer in this life can never be compared to the glory, as yet unrevealed, which is waiting for us. The whole creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal his sons. It was not for any fault on the part of creation that it was made unable to attain its purpose, it was made so by God; but creation still retains the hope of being freed, like us, from its slavery to decadence, to enjoy the same freedom and glory as the children of God.

From the beginning till now the entire creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth; and not only creation, but all of us who possess the first-fruits of the Spirit, we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free.

The Word of the Lord.                 Thanks be to God.

Gospel Acclamation              1 Sam 3: 9, 
Alleluia, alleluia!
Speak, Lord, your servant is listening: you have the message of eternal life.
Alleluia!

or                                                 Mt 11: 25

Alleluia, alleluia!
The seed is the word of God, Christ the sower;
whoever finds this seed will remain for ever.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL                         

A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew         13:1-23
A sower went out to sow.

Jesus left the house and sat by the lakeside, but such large crowds gathered round him that he got into a boat and sat there. The people all stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parables.

He said,
'Imagine a sower going out to sow. As he sowed, some seeds fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on patches of rock where they found little soil and sprang up straight away, because there was no depth of earth; but as soon as the sun came up they were scorched and, not having any roots, they withered away. Others fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Others fell on rich soil and produced their crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Listen, anyone who has ears!'

Then the disciples went up to him and asked, |
'Why do you talk to them in parables?'
'Because' he replied 'the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are revealed to you, but they are not revealed to them. For anyone who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough; but from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. The reason I talk to them in parables is that they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding. So in their case this prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled:
You will listen and listen again, but not understand, see and see again, but not perceive.
For the heart of this nation has grown coarse, their ears are dull of hearing, and they have shut their eyes,
for fear they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and be converted and
be healed by me.

'But happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear! I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy men longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.

'You, therefore, are to hear the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom without understanding, the evil one comes and carries off what was sown in his heart: this is the man who received the seed on the edge of the path. The one who received it on patches of rock is the man who hears the word and welcomes it at once with joy. But he has no root in him, he does not last; let some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, and he falls away at once. The one who received the seed in thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this world and the lure of riches choke the word and so he produces nothing. And the one who received the seed in rich soil is the man who hears the word and understands it; he is the one who yields a harvest and produces now a hundredfold, now sixty, now thirty.'

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/

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Shorter form
GOSPEL                    

A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew               13:1-9
A sower went out to sow.

Jesus left the house and sat by the lakeside, but such large crowds gathered round him that he got into a boat and sat there. The people all stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parables.

He said,
'Imagine a sower going out to sow. As he sowed, some seeds fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on patches of rock where they found little soil and sprang up straight away, because there was no depth of earth; but as soon as the sun came up they were scorched and, not having any roots, they withered away. Others fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Others fell on rich soil and produced their crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Listen, anyone who has ears!'

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




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.