Saturday 3 September
Saint Gregory the Great, Pope, Doctor First Saturday : Let us entrust ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Gospel - Luke 6:1-5 ‘The Son of Man is master of the sabbath.’ This affirmation of Jesus changed everything. The entire way to dealing with all our norms, traditions and system. Rules and regulations become instruments to love. Jesus becomes the point of reference and not any rule. We are not anymore tied down but freed to follow Jesus. Each rule gets its meaning when it serves this purpose of leading us to Jesus. When it helps me to follow Jesus in His way of love. Let’s think today: are the rules which I am following help me to love others in order to follow Jesus? The same applies for our convictions, ideas, positions etc about which we are stubborn sometimes and then those become not at all instruments of love.
Friday 2 September
Friday of week 22 in Ordinary Time First Friday: Let us entrust ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus New wine needs fresh skins. The new wine is the new reality which Jesus brought to us. The love of God brought to us by the Person of Jesus Christ. If we want to contain that love in our hearts, we have to make our hearts new and fresh. With our old heart we cannot contain this new reality of God’s love in Jesus. We have to see the way Jesus sees the world and not in the way we want to see the world. We have to transform our heart to be like the heart of Jesus to be filled with that love. “Jesus meek and humble of heart… make my heart like unto Thine”
Thursday 1 September
Thursday of week 22 in Ordinary Time Gospel - Luke 5:1-11 Jesus goes into the boat of Simon. Sits there and teaches. Then asks Simon to put out into deep water and pay out their nets for a catch. He comes, He stays and He asks. When we collaborate miracles happen! This is the relationship of God with us. He comes into our life. He becomes part of our life. He asks for initiatives in our life. May be the same initiatives which we tried. But with Him it is different. “…but if you say so, I will pay out the nets”. And the real miracle here is that they “left everything and followed him”. When we understand the role of God, His presence, in our life, we leave everything else and follow Him.
Wednesday 31 August
Wednesday of week 22 in Ordinary Time Gospel - Luke 4:38-44 In the gospel we see a very busy Jesus moving from one activity to another activity. Seems like one of our days where we move from one activity to another activity. But in the midst Jesus find a lonely place to be with His heavenly Father. All His activities revolve around this. His unity with His heavenly Father. That is the central point. From there He goes forward and not go back. Many times we don't go forward and stuck up somewhere because we miss this central point. The lonely place where we can pray. We are also busy with lots of activities and we forget to find the lonely space to have time with our heavenly Father. So the challenge the Gospel presents is to find in midst of all our activities, a space where we can be alone with our Father in heaven.