THIRD WEEK OF EASTER
SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY: APRIL 19, 2024
MEMORIAL OF SAINT ELPHEGE, BISHOP AND MARTYR; SAINT EXPEDITUS, MARTYR AND SAINT TIMON, BISHOP AND MARTYR
Greetings, beloved family and Happy Friday of the Third Week of Easter!
We continue to celebrate and rejoice in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. May God’s grace and mercy be with us all during this Easter season and always🙏
Watch “Holy Mass and Holy Rosary on EWTN | April 19, 2024” |
Pray “Holy Mass from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | April 19, 2024 |
Pray “Holy Rosary from Lourdes, France” | April 19, 2024 |
Pray “Holy Rosary from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | April 19, 2024 |
Pray “The Chaplet of Divine Mercy | from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | April 19, 2024 |
Pray “Holy Rosary ALL 20 Mysteriels VIRTUAL🌹JOYFUL🌹LUMINOUS🌹SORROWFUL🌹GLORIOUS” on YouTube |
Today’s Bible Readings: Friday, April 19, 2024
Reading 1, Acts 9:1-20
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 117:1, 2
Gospel, John 6:52-59
DEVOTION OF THE MONTH OF APRIL – MONTH OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST: The month of April is traditionally dedicated to devotion to Jesus in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The Catholic Church teaches that the Blessed Sacrament is the real and living presence of Christ—His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—received into our souls with every reception of Holy Communion. Our Eucharistic Lord is the source and summit of our Christian life, the ultimate proof of His infinite love for us.
THE POPE’S MONTHLY INTENTIONS FOR 2024: FOR THE MONTH OF APRIL – FOR THE ROLE OF WOMEN: We pray that the dignity and immense value of women be recognized in every culture, and for the end of discrimination that they experience in different parts of the world. 🙏
PRAYER FOR PEACE ~ POPE FRANCIS:
Lord God of peace, hear our prayer!
We have tried so many times and over so many years to resolve our conflicts by our own powers and by the force of our arms. How many moments of hostility and darkness have we experienced; how much blood has been shed; how many lives have been shattered; how many hopes have been buried… But our efforts have been in vain. Now, Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace. Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage to say: “Never again war!”; “With war everything is lost”. Instill in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace. Lord, God of Abraham, God of the Prophets, God of Love, you created us and you call us to live as brothers and sisters. Give us the strength daily to be instruments of peace; enable us to see everyone who crosses our path as our brother or sister. Make us sensitive to the plea of our citizens who entreat us to turn our weapons of war into implements of peace, our trepidation into confident trust, and our quarreling into forgiveness. Keep alive within us the flame of hope, so that with patience and perseverance we may opt for dialogue and reconciliation. In this way may peace triumph at last, and may the words “division”, “hatred” and “war” be banished from the heart of every man and woman. Lord, defuse the violence of our tongues and our hands. Renew our hearts and minds, so that the word which always brings us together will be “brother”, and our way of life will always be that of: Shalom, Peace, Salaam! Amen🙏
During this Easter season, please let us all continue to pray for peace all over the world, particularly in Africa, 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 🙏
On this special feast day, as we continue to celebrate our risen Lord, with special intention through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, and the Saints, we pray for the Clergy and religious as they serve in the Lord’s Vineyard. We also pray for the sick and dying. We especially pray for our loved ones who have recently died and we continue to remember our beloved, we pray for the repose of their gentle souls 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 their gentle souls through the mercy of God rest in perfect peace with our Lord Jesus Christ… 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🙏
Prayers for Peace | https://mycatholic.life/catholic-prayers/prayers-for-peace/
As we continue to rejoice in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Elphege (Alphege, Aelfheah, also called Godwine ), Bishop and Martyr; Saint Expeditus, Martyr (He is considered the Patron Saint of emergencies; expeditious solutions; against procrastination; merchants and navigators) and Saint Timon, Bishop and Martyr. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the Church, the Clergy, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners and for Christians all over the world. We also pray for the poor and the needy and God’s grace in times of urgent need, especially during these incredibly challenging times and season of Easter. 🙏
SAINT ELPHEGE, BISHOP AND MARTYR: St. Elphege (Alphege, Aelfheah, also called Godwine ), Bishop and Martyr, who was venerated as a martyr after his murder by the Danes. St. Elphege, born of noble and virtuous parents, abandoned the world at an early age and entered the monastery of Derherste in Gloucestershire. After some years he began to lead the life of a recluse in a cell in the neighborhood of the Abbey of Bath, of which he was appointed Abbot until 984, when, through the instrumentality of Dt. Dunstan, he was elected Bishop of Winchester. In 1006, he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope John XVIII in Rome. This period in English history was greatly disturbed by the incursions of the Danes, who sacked and pillaged the country that was then governed by the weak King Ethelred. The Archbishop hurried to the scenes of blood and endeavored to turn the cruelty of the pagans from his people to himself.
Consequently, his cathedral was burned, he was made to endure great tortures, and for several months he was kept in prison. Refusing to use the goods of his Church for his ransom, he was put to death while he prayed for his enemies. His martyrdom occurred April 19, 1012. He eliminated poverty in his diocese through his aid to the poor.
PRAYER: God, You gave splendor to Your Church by granting St. Elphege the victory of martyrdom. Grant that, as he imitated the Lord’s Passion, so we may follow in his footsteps and attain everlasting joys. Amen🙏
SAINT EXPEDITUS, MARTYR St. Expeditus (died 303) also known as Expedite, was said to have been a Roman centurion in Armenia who was martyred around April 303 in what is now Turkey, for converting to Christianity. He is considered the Patron Saint of emergencies; expeditious solutions; against procrastination; merchants and navigators. At one time there was much talk of a Saint Expeditus, and some good people were led to believe that, when there was need of haste, petitioning Saint Expeditus was likely to meet with prompt settlement. However, there is no adequate reason to think that any such saint was ever invoked in the early Christian centuries; in fact it is more than doubtful whether the saint ever existed. In the “Hieronymianum” the name Expeditus occurs among a group of martyrs both on the 18th and 19th of April, being assigned in the one case to Rome, and in the other to Melitene in Armenia; but there is no vestige of any tradition which would corroborate either mention, whereas there is much to suggest that in both lists the introduction of the name is merely a copyist’s blunder. Hundreds of similar blunders have been quite definitely proved to exist in the same document.
There is also a story which pretends to explain the origin of this “devotion” by an incident of modern date. A packing case, we are told, containing a body of a saint from the catacombs, was sent to a community of nuns in Paris. The date of its dispatch was indicated by the use of the word “spedito”, but the recipients mistook this for the name of the martyr and set to work with great energy to propagate his cult. From these simple beginnings, it is asserted, a devotion to St. Expeditus spread rapidly through many Catholic countries. It should be pointed out that though the recognition of St. Expeditus as the patron of dispatch depends beyond doubt upon a play upon words – still the particular story about the Paris nuns falls to pieces, because as far back as 1781 this supposed martyr, St. Expeditus, was chosen patron of the town of Acireale in Sicily, and because pictures of him were in existence in Germany in the eighteenth century which plainly depicted him as a saint to be invoked against procrastination.
PRAYER: My Saint Expeditus of urgent and just causes, please intercede for me with Our Lord Jesus Christ. Succor me in this hour of affliction and despair, my Saint Expeditus. … My Saint Expeditus, help me to prevail through these difficult hours, protect me from all those who want to harm me, respond to my plea with urgency….Amen🙏
SAINT TIMON, BISHOP AND MARTYR St. Timon (1st c.) is mentioned by name in the Acts of the Apostles. He belonged to the group of seventy disciples who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry. After Jesus’ ascension into heaven, St. Timon was one of the original seven deacons, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, chosen by the Apostles to help with the work of ministering to the growing Christian community. Timon was later ordained a bishop by the Apostles.
He baptized many Greeks and Jews into the Christian faith. He also had the supernatural ability to heal the sick and to cast out devils. St. Timon suffered martyrdom for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. According to tradition he was thrown into a furnace, but by the power of God he came out of it unharmed, and later died by crucifixion. His feast day is April 19.
Saint Timon, Bishop and Martyr ~ Pray for us🙏
PRAYER INTENTIONS: We 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! May the Lord grant us His grace as we continue to serve Him in spirit and in truth during this Easter Season. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the sick and dying. We particularly pray for sick children, those who are sick with convulsive disorder, mental illness, strokes, heart diseases, and those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. May God restore them to good health and grant them His Divine healing and intervention. May our Mother Mary comfort them, may the Angels and Saints watch over them and may the Holy Spirit guide them in peace and comfort during this challenging time. We pray for the safety and well-being of us all and our families, for peace, love and unity in our families, our marriages and our divided and conflicted world. Every life is a gift. We pray for God’s deliverance from impossible causes or situations. We pray for the souls in Purgatory and the repose of the gentle 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 their gentle souls through the mercy of God rest in peace with our Lord Jesus Christ Amen. 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. 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 Third Week of Easter | USCCB | https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading
Gospel Reading ~ John 6:52-59
“My Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink”
“The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.”
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus speaks of the importance of eating His flesh and drinking His blood so as to draw life from Him. The Jews asked, how can this man, Jesus, give us His flesh to eat? In response to that question Jesus goes on to speak not only of eating His flesh but of drinking His blood. It is very striking language, and it would have been scandalous to many people at the time. This language is very familiar to us from the Eucharist, ‘the body of Christ’, ‘the blood of Christ’. It has been the language of the church since its very earliest days. In one of the earliest documents in the New Testament, the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul says, ‘the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion with the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a communion with the body of Christ?’ It was the Lord’s wish that in the Eucharist we would enter into communion with His body and His blood. Such communion, if entered into in faith, is an opportunity to draw life from the Lord. As Jesus says in the Gospel reading, ‘whoever eats me will draw life from me’. We come as beggars to the Eucharist, recognizing that we need to draw from the Lord’s risen life so that we can be fully alive in the way God wants us to be.
In today’s first reading, the Lord came to Saint Paul in a very striking way. There came a light from heaven all round him and, as a result, he fell to the ground and he heard the Lord say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ The story of Paul’s transformation is one of the founding stories of our Christian faith. Here was a Pharisee who, on his own admission, was a zealous persecutor of the church. Yet, the Lord managed to break through to him and completely turn his life around, so that the zealous persecutor became the equally zealous preacher of the Gospel to the Gentiles. As a Pharisee, Paul could never have envisaged the way he would spend the last thirty years of his life, but the Lord was able to envisage it. St. Paul’s story reminds us that the Lord’s plans for us may be a great deal bolder than what we might have in mind for ourselves. The Lord took St. Paul by surprise, and he can take any of us by surprise. Our calling is to allow the Lord’s vision and purpose for our lives to become more of a reality. In receiving the Lord in the Eucharist we are opening ourselves up to the Lord’s vision and purpose for our lives. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading, ‘whoever eats me will draw life from me’. In receiving the Lord in the Eucharist we give Him the opportunity to shape us in the way He wants to. St. Paul met the Lord on the road to Damascus; we meet the Lord in the Eucharist. In coming to us there He directs us to take the path He wants us to take, just as He directed St. Paul.
As we reflect on the words of the Sacred Scriptures today, each and every one of us are reminded that as Christians we have been called and chosen from this world to follow what the Lord Himself has revealed to all of us through His Church and through the Good News contained in the Scriptures. Each and every one of us have been made partakers of the New and Eternal Covenant that the Lord Himself had established with us through His Son, by His Passion, suffering and death on the Cross, and by His Resurrection from the dead. All of us as Christians have confessed our faith in all of these truths, and we have been called to listen to these same truths and commit ourselves to proclaim the Good News to others. Let us all therefore be inspired by their good examples of the Holy men and women, the Saints, especially those we celebrate today, and do whatever we can as Christians, in order to do God’s will and to proclaim His truth and Good News to more and more of those whom we encounter in our daily living. Let our lives and actions, our words and interactions be good and exemplary, worthy and bring inspiration to others who witness our works and interacted with us, that they too may be moved and driven to follow the Lord and to believe in Him as we had done in our own lives. May God in His infinite grace and mercy, be with us always, and be with His Church in our every endeavours and efforts to proclaim Him, the one and only Saviour of all. May He grant us His grace and strengthen us all that we may always ever live worthily of His Presence, now and forevermore. Amen🙏
Let us pray:
My Eucharistic Lord, Your Flesh and Blood are truly the source of eternal life for all who receive You in faith. I thank You, dear Lord, for this most precious Gift of the Most Holy Eucharist, and I pray that I will be filled with a deep hunger and thirst for You always. Jesus, I trust in You ~ Amen 🙏
Save Us, Savior of the World. Our Blessed Mother Mary and Saint Elphege, Saint Expeditus and Saint Timon ~ Pray for us 🙏
Thanking God for the gift of His Son our Lord Jesus Christ and praying for us all as we celebrate the resurrection of our loving Savior, Jesus Christ. Have a blessed, safe, joyous and grace-filled Third Week of Easter and relaxing weekend🙏
Blessings and Love always, Philomena💖