MEMORIAL OF SAINT BENEDICT BISCOP, ABBOT AND SAINT MARGUERITE, BOURGEOYS, RELIGIOUS AND FOUNDRESS

FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

SAINTS OF THE DAY: FEAST DAY ~ JANUARY 12, 2024

Greetings, beloved family and Happy Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time!

Today, we continue to pray for God’s grace and mercy upon us through this Ordinary Time, and may the Lord grant us the grace to serve Him in spirit and in truth🙏
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Today’s Readings: Friday, January 12, 2024
Reading 1, First Samuel 8:4-7, 10-22
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 89:16-17, 18-19
Gospel, Mark 2:1-12

DEVOTION OF THE MONTH OF JANUARY – MONTH OF THE HOLY NAME OF JESUS: The month of January is traditionally dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus. After the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit, the Angel Gabriel appeared to St. Joseph and told him that the Child’s name should be called Jesus, meaning “God Saves.” According to Jewish law, on the 8th day after his birth a male child was to be circumcised, receive his name, and become a full member of God’s covenant people. According to the old Roman liturgical calendar, the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus was celebrated on January 1st, eight days after Christmas, the same day that He was given His sacred name. Currently we celebrate the Solemnity of the Mother of God on January 1st and honor the Holy Name of Jesus on January 3rd. For Catholics, Jesus’ sacred name is the object of a special devotion symbolized by the monogram “IHS,” (sometimes called a Christogram), which is the first three letters of the Greek spelling of His name.

On this feast day, we continue to remember our beloved late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on the first memorial anniversary of his death. We pray for the repose of his gentle soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, may the Lord receive them into the light of Eternal Kingdom. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May the gentle soul of Pope Benedict XVI and souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in perfect peace with our Lord Jesus Christ… Amen 🙏 ✝️🕯✝️🕯✝️🕯

Please let us continue to pray for peace all over the world, particularly in the Middle East, for an end to the current war in Israel-Palestine, and the Ukraine-Russia conflicts and for peace in our families and throughout our divided and conflicted World. Amen 🙏

PRAYER FOR THE DEAD: In your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brothers and sisters. In this life, you embraced them with your tender love; deliver them now from every evil, and bid them eternal rest. The old order has passed away: welcome them into paradise, where there will be no sorrow, no weeping or pain, but fullness of peace and joy with your Son and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen🙏

A PRAYER FOR PEACE: Lord Jesus Christ, You are the true King of peace. In You alone is found freedom. Please free our world from conflict. Bring unity to troubled nations. Let Your glorious peace reign in every heart. Dispel all darkness and evil. Protect the dignity of every human life. Replace hatred with Your love. Give wisdom to world leaders. Free them from selfish ambition. Eliminate all violence and war. Glorious Virgin Mary, Saint Michael the Archangel, Every Angel and Saint: Please pray for peace. Pray for unity amongst nations. Pray for unity amongst all people. Pray for the most vulnerable. Pray for those suffering. Pray for the fearful. Pray for those most in need. Pray for us all. Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us. Jesus, hear our prayers. Jesus, I trust in You! Amen 🙏

Prayers for Peace | https://mycatholic.life/catholic-prayers/prayers-for-peace/

Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Benedict Biscop, Abbot and Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys, Religious and Foundress.

SAINT BENEDICT BISCOP, ABBOT: St. Benedict (628-690), sometimes referred to as Bennet or Biscop Baducing, lived in the seventh century. He descended from a noble family and was an officer of the court of Oswi, the religious king of the Northumbers. At the age of 25 (c. 653) St. Benedict made the first of his five trips to Rome on a pilgrimage. He returned filled with a zeal and hunger for learning Holy Scripture and to living his faith. Soon after his return to England, Prince Alefrid, son of King Oswi, also wanted to make a pilgrimage to some shrines of the Apostles and asked Bennet to accompany him. However, the king would not allow his son to make the journey, so Bennet made a second trip to Rome. He was so filled with the Holy Spirit and the desire to grow in holiness that he yearned to learn as much as he could about divine things. So he went to the great monastery of Lerins which was famous for its discipline and there took the monastic habit, spending two years in observance of the rule.

When he returned to Rome again, he received an order from Pope Vitalian to accompany St. Theodorus, Archbishop of Canterbury, and St. Adrian to England. Upon his arrival at Canterbury, St. Theodorus put St. Benedict in charge of the monastery of Sts. Peter and Paul. He stayed two years in Kent, studying Scripture and living the monastic life. When he returned to Northumberland, King Egfrid gave him 70 ploughs of land for building a monastery. After the monastery was built, St. Benedict went to France and brought back skillful masons to build a stone church for the monastery. Stone buildings at that time were rare in Britain and most churches were made of wood. He also brought over glaziers from France, for the art of making glass was also unknown in Britain at that time. In yet a fifth trip to Rome, St. Benedict gathered a great stock of books, especially the writings of the Fathers, along with relics and holy pictures. St. Benedict continued to enrich the church with holy relics, pictures and books. In his zeal to make his monastery as close to the Roman models as possible, St. Benedict prevailed upon Pope Agatho to let him take back to England John, abbot of St. Martin’s and preceptor in St. Peter’s Church in Rome, and placed him in the monastery to teach the monks Gregorian chants and Roman ceremonies for singing the divine office. He also built another monastery six miles away at Jarrow, and ruled both since they were regarded as one. St. Benedict suffered from severe illness for three years and two months before his death, he appointed St. Ceolfrid abbot of his monastery. St. Benedict, holy and zealous worker of God died on January 12, 690.

PRAYER: Lord, amid the things of this world, let us be wholeheartedly committed to heavenly things in imitation of the example of evangelical perfection You have given us in St. Benedict the Abbot. Amen.🙏
 
SAINT MARGUERITE, BOURGEOYS, RELIGIOUS AND FOUNDRESS: Saint Marguerite (1620-1700) was a French nun and founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal in the colony of New France, now part of Québec, Canada and was also instrumental in establishing the Canadian city of Montreal. She was devoted to the needs of the poor and uneducated, from whom people of both European as well as Native-American descent in 17th century Canada benefited from her great zeal and unshakable trust in God’s Providence. St. Marguerite Bourgeoys was born on on Good Friday, April 17, 1620 in Troyes, France to a devout parents from a middle-class family, Abraham Bourgeoys, a candle-maker and Guillemette Garnier, she was the seventh of their thirteen children. When she was nineteen years old, her mother died. The following year she was inspired to consecrate herself to serving God. She joined a lay group of young women dedicated to teaching poor children. The governor of Montreal, Canada, was in France looking for teachers for the New World. He invited Marguerite to come to Montreal to teach school and religion classes. She agreed and, upon her arrival in 1653, she began to teach the local French and Indian children. Life in the colony was physically very difficult. Marguerite discovered that many children, due to disease or malnutrition, were not likely to survive to an age suitable for attending school. Nevertheless, she began to work with the nurse in charge of Montreal’s hospital and eventually established her first school in a stable.

Marguerite made three trips across the Atlantic, returning to France to recruit more teachers for her mission and fledgling Order, which was named the Congregation of Notre Dame (Our Lady). It was a unique Order in that the sisters were teachers and were not cloistered (living together in prayer). Mother Marguerite, as she was now known, fought to keep her mission independent from other Orders and to convince the bishop to let her sisters travel as teachers in the wild ranges of the Canadian wilderness. Though the teaching sisters often lived in huts and suffered other hardships, the Order grew. They did not dedicate themselves to teaching solely children, but also set up schools wherein they taught new immigrants how to survive in their new environment. As the Order expanded, which was formally approved by the Church in 1698, Mother Marguerite passed leadership on to one of the other sisters, and spent her last few years praying and writing her autobiography. On the last day of 1699, one of the young members of her congregation lay dying. Mother Marguerite asked the Lord to take her own life in exchange. By the morning of January 1, 1700, the young sister had recovered and Mother Marguerite had a raging fever. She suffered for 12 days and on January 12, 1700, after 60 years of blessed labor for our Lord teaching and reaching out to the poor, God called her home. St. Marguerite was beatified on November 12, 1950 by Pope Pius XII and was canonized a Saint on October 31, 1982 by Pope John Paul II and she became Canada’s first female Saint. She’s the Patron Saint against poverty; impoverishment; loss of parents; people rejected by religious orders; poverty.

PRAYER: “O Mother Bourgeoys, you, whose compassionate power is ever increasing, show us your way of Truth, Faith and Holiness. Make us humble enough to abandon ourselves to the Will of God, generous enough to find in the Cross the joy of the Loving Giver. May your fidelity to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament lead us ever nearer to this source of light and peace. May your spirit of openness help us to be concerned for our brothers and sisters throughout the world. Finally, may Our Lady of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, bring us to this unity of eternal grace to which God has called you for all eternity. Amen”🙏

Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints, on this feast day, we humbly pray and thank God for blessing us all with the gift of His precious son, may we be saved by the name of our Savior Jesus Christ! Through the intercession of St. Marguerite, we pray for the poor, the needy, torture victims and the most vulnerable in our communities and around the world. May the Lord grant us His grace as we continue to serve Him in spirit and in truth. We pray for peace, love and unity in our marriages, our families and our world today, as we face these incredibly challenging times. We pray for God’s deliverance from impossible causes or situations. We pray for the sick and dying, especially sick children, those who are mentally and physically ill, strokes, heart diseases, and those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for an end to wars, political and religious unrest. We pray for the souls in Purgatory and the repose of the souls of the faithful departed and for all widows and widowers. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, Pope Francis, the Bishops, the Clergy and all those who preach the Gospel. We pray for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for persecuted christians, for all the innocent who suffer violence due to political or religious unrest, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world… Amen🙏

SCRIPTURE REFLECTIONS:

Bible Readings for today, Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time | USCCB | https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading

“Gospel Reading ~ Mark 2:1-12”

“The Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth”

“When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it became known that he was at home. Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, not even around the door, and he preached the word to them. They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him. After they had broken through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves, “Why does this man speak that way?  He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?” Jesus immediately knew in his mind what they were thinking to themselves, so he said, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, pick up your mat and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth” –he said to the paralytic, “I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home.” He rose, picked up his mat at once, and went away in the sight of everyone. They were all astounded and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”

“In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus was in a house in Capernaum, preaching the word of God. A paralysed man wanted to get to Jesus but he was completely dependent on others to carry him to Jesus. Fortunately, he had good friends who were determined to bring him to Jesus, to do for him what he could not do for himself. Such was their determination, that they created an opening in the roof of the house where Jesus was preaching so as to lower their friend in front of Him. The paralysed man’s faith in Jesus was matched by their faith in Jesus. Their struggle to get their friend to Jesus was inspired by their faith in Him. The Gospel reading shows that Jesus saw their efforts not as an unwelcome disturbance but as a powerful act of faith, ‘Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “My child, your sins are forgiven”’. It was the faith of his friends which allowed this man to meet Jesus personally and to hear Jesus’ very personal and liberating word to him. Even before his physical healing, the paralytic needed reassurance that God loved him unconditionally and had forgiven his sins. It was his friends that made it possible for him to hear this liberating word from God. Each one of us has a role to play in helping others to hear God’s live-giving word, spoken to us through his Son who is with us until the end of time.

In our first reading today from the Book of the prophet Samuel, the people of Israel were very indignant and insistent before the prophet Samuel, who was also the Leader and Judge over the whole people of Israel, demanding that a king should rule over them just like those of the other nations and states around them. Why did the people make such a demand from Samuel and God? At that time, God was the One Who was King and Ruler over the Israelites, and even after the days of the kings, the Lord was indeed still the one and only true King over them. He exercised His power and authority through the Judges whom He had called and chosen, in a line of Judges up to the prophet Samuel. But, the people insisted that they must have a king over them, likely because to have a king to rule them brought the people much prestige and power. Despite prophet Samuel efforts to persuade them otherwise by stating how the people might be exploited, oppressed and unjustly treated by their kings, especially if those kings were corrupt and selfish. With all the persuasion, the people of Israel were still very adamant and insisted that a king be appointed to rule over all of them. The Lord listened to those demands and told Samuel that He would choose a king to rule over His people, ending the days and time of the rule and guidance of the Judges. But eventually, what Samuel had predicted and told the people of Israel would come to reality as some of those kings who would rule over them were tyrannical and selfish, exploitative and harsh in their rule and the exercise of their power. That is what they got for putting their faith and trust in man instead of in God as they should have done. They refused to listen to the Lord and decided to take things into their own hands, choosing to follow the whim of their desires and ambitions, the temptation of worldly glory and fame all around them rather than to listen to the words of the Lord and His Wisdom speaking in their hearts and minds.

As we reflect on the words of the Sacred Scriptures today, we are all reminded of the faith that we have in God, the faith that we have in His providence and might, in His truth and love, and then what each one of us should do in proclaiming that same truth and faith amongst all the people we encounter in our various respective communities. We must always be centred on God and be faithful to Him, and not to allow the temptations of worldly desires, attachments, or our pursuits of worldly glory to distract and mislead us all down the wrong path in life. This is why we must always remind ourselves that above all else, it is the Lord our God Who is the true centre and focus of our lives, and in whatever capacity and area of life, we must not allow ourselves to be swayed by those temptations that we end up causing hardships to others because of our selfish ways and actions. We must not allow pride, ego and worldly ambitions, temptations and all those things from distracting us and keeping us away from the path of the Lord and His righteousness. As Christians, we must always keep in mind that we have to remain focused on the Lord, and keep ourselves open-minded, and be humble in our ways and thoughts, in our actions and interactions with one another. Otherwise, our pride and ego, our greed and desires will easily lead us down the same path of ruin which the people of Israel and those Pharisees had treaded upon, in failing to follow and obey God’s will. Let us all therefore lead by our own examples in life, in striving to live our lives with humility and faith from now on. Let us all seek the Lord with contrite hearts and open minds, like that of the paralysed man and his friends, who went through the trouble and efforts to bring him close to the Lord, that he might be healed from his afflictions. Each and every one of us are also afflicted with the afflictions of sin and other forms of troubles we have in life, and we should seek the Lord, our most loving God and Father, and entrust ourselves to Him, rather than to trust in worldly means and attachments we have. May the Lord be with us all, at all times, and may He continue to empower each and every one of us, in living our lives worthily and full of God’s grace and love, and may all of us continue to walk down the path of righteousness and truth, and continue to persevere in faith regardless of the challenges and trials we may have to face for the Lord’s sake. May God in His infinite grace and mercy, grant us His grace and bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen🙏

Let you pray:

My precious Jesus, fill my heart with charity toward those who need You the most but seem incapable of overcoming the sin in their lives that keep them from You. May my unwavering commitment to them be an act of charity that gives them the hope they need to surrender their life to You. Use me, dear Lord. My life is in Your hands. Jesus, I trust in You ~ Amen 🙏

Save Us, Savior of the World. Our Blessed Mother Mary and Saint Benedict Biscop and St. Marguerite Bourgeoys ~ Pray for us🙏

Thanking God for the gift of this new year and praying for justice, peace, love and unity in our families and our world and for God’s Divine Mercy and Grace upon us all as we begin this Ordinary Time. Wishing all of us a most blessed, safe, healthy, prosperous and grace-filled New Year! Amen🙏

Blessings and  love always, Philomena💖