THIRD WEEK OF EASTER
SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY: APRIL 20, 2024
MEMORIAL OF SAINT MARCELLINUS, BISHOP, SAINT BEUNO, ABBOT AND SAINT AGNES OF MONTEPULCIANO, RELIGIOUS
Greetings beloved family and Happy Saturday 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 20, 2024” |
Pray “Holy Mass from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | April 20, 2024 |
Pray “Holy Rosary from Lourdes, France” | April 20, 2024 |
Pray “Holy Rosary from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | April 20, 2024 |
Pray “The Chaplet of Divine Mercy | from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | April 20, 2024 |
Pray “Holy Rosary ALL 20 Mysteriels VIRTUAL🌹JOYFUL🌹LUMINOUS🌹SORROWFUL🌹GLORIOUS” on YouTube |
Memorare Chaplet | Prayer in Difficult Times (Powerful Prayer) |
Today’s Bible Readings: Saturday, April 20, 2024
Reading 1, Acts 9:31-42
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 116:12-13, 14-15, 16-17
Gospel, John 6:60-69
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 Marcellinus, Bishop; Saint Beuno, Abbot and Saint Agnes of Montepulciano, Religious. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for those who are sick, we particularly pray for sick children and those who are terminally ill. May God grant them His divine healing and intervention. We also pray for sick animals.
SAINT MARCELLINUS, BISHOP: St. Marcellinus of Gaul also known as Marcellin was the first bishop of Embrun from 354 AD. He was born in Africa of a noble family, a native of Africa Proconsularis and became a priest. He journeyed to Gaul with two other bishops of North Africa, Vincent and and Domninus and preached the Gospel with great success in the vicinity of the Alps. Then he fixed his residence at Embrun, where he built an oratory, in which he spent his nights in prayer after consecrating the day to the works of the ministry. St. Marcellinus, went to Rome with Vincent and Domnin, to attend a synod in 313 to judge the Donatists movement.
The Saint’s example and discourses converted a great number of the idolaters among whom he lived. When the whole city had been converted to Christianity, St. Eusebius of Vercelli consecrated his oratory at his request. St. Marcellinus himself received episcopal consecration, and worked with all his power for the spread of the Kingdom of God. He commissioned Vincent and Domninus to preach in several places that he could not visit in person. Saint Marcellinus was noted for his piety. By his pious example as well as by his earnest words, he converted many of the heathens among whom he lived. Heaven confirmed his apostolic labors with miracles. He died at Embrun in 374.
PRAYER: God, Light and Shepherd of souls, You established St. Marcellinus as Bishop in Your Church to feed your flock by his word and form it by his example. Help us through his intercession to keep the Faith he taught by his word and follow the way he showed by his example. Amen🙏
SAINT BEUNO, ABBOT: St. Beuno, also known as Bono, was a 7th-century Welsh abbot, confessor, and saint. Baring-Gould gives St Beuno’s date of death as April 21, 640, making that date his traditional feastday. However, celebrated on April 20th (Catholic). He was born 545 AD,at Berriew, United Kingdom to his Parents, Saint Bugi.
Saint Beuno, founded and served as abbot in Clynnog Fawr (Carnarvonshire), North Wales. He was Uncle, spiritual teacher, and guardian of Saint Winifred. Late in life he received a series of visions. Legend says that when Winfred was beheaded by a jilted suitor, Beuno placed the severed head back on the body and Winifred lived. St. Beuno died on April 21, 640 AD, Clynnog-fawr, United Kingdom. People still sit sick children on the great stone slab of his tomb in hopes of their healing. He’s Patron Saint of sick children, diseased cattle and sick animals.
Saint Beuno, Abbot ~ Pray for us🙏
SAINT AGNES OF MONTEPULCIANO, RELIGIOUS: St Agnes of Montepulciano was known as a miracle worker during her lifetime, renowned for her diligence in prayer and her extraordinary charity. Although born of a wealthy family in Gracchiano, Italy, she believed that charity is the only way to acquire the virtue of humility: there is no humility without charity; the one nourishes the other. St. Agnes of Montepulciano (1268–1317) was born into a noble family in Tuscany. Her birth was announced with strange lights surrounding her dwelling, considered a sign that she was a favored child. At nine years of age she requested to enter the local Franciscan monastery in Montepulciano. Although doing so at her young age was against Church law, she obtained special permission from the pope. She became a model nun, reached a high degree of contemplative prayer, and executed her duties so well that she was chosen to help found and lead a new monastery in Proceno when she was just 15 years old, again with special permission at her young age. She lived there for 20 years and became known as a great mystic and visionary while cultivating a special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. She became locally famous for her miracles as well as for her austerities. She lived on bread and water, slept on the ground, and used a stone for a pillow. Eventually, Agnes returned to Montepulciano. By request she founded and led an even larger monastery, this time receiving a vision that it should be a convent of Dominican nuns dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Through her prayers she cured the sick, multiplied food, and raised to life a child who had drowned. Her feast day is April 20.
Quote of Saint Catherine of Siena (writing to a nun of Montepulciano about Saint Agnes): “A heart and sense that are full of this world and of self-love cannot be filled with Christ crucified and cannot taste true and sweet prayer. Understanding this, the sweet Agnes, stripped herself of herself and put on Christ crucified. She did this not only for herself, but for us as well. Her example obliges you to follow it steadfastly.”
Saint Agnes of Montepulciano, Religious ~ 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, Saturday of the Third Week of Easter | USCCB | https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading
Gospel Reading ~ John 6:60-69
“For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father”
“Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that His disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” As a result of this, many of His disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with Him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
Today’s Gospel reading is the culmination and end of the ‘Bread of Life’ discourse by the Lord in which the Lord Jesus referred to Himself specifically as the Living Bread from Heaven, by which all the life originated from, and without Him, there can be no true life and existence. He spoke of how all those who partake, eat, drink and share from His Body and Blood will live forever, and that He would give Himself to those who believe in Him, being broken and offered on the Altar of His Cross at Calvary, His Precious Body crushed and broken for us, and His Precious Blood poured out and shared for us to drink, coming down from His Cross, as the manifestation of God’s ever enduring love and compassion towards us. Many of the Lord’s disciples and followers left Him behind once He told them about this truth, how He would give them His own Body and Blood to partake. The disciples themselves groaned and complained that this truth was too hard and too difficult for people to accept. However, although many of the Lord’s disciples and followers left Him, His closest collaborators and disciples stayed by His side despite all the discomfort and uneasiness surrounding His revelation of the truth to the people. The Lord Himself also predicted His own suffering, persecution and death to His disciples, which must have also been difficult for quite a few among them to accept or understand, but those who have kept their faith in the Lord shouldered on and kept on going, and remained faithful to Him. Those were the same ones who began the expansion and growth of the Church, led by St. Peter and the other Apostles.
Our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles, detailed the works of the Apostles, especially that of St. Peter who went from place to place, ministering to the people of God and proclaiming His truth and Good News, speaking to many who were convinced by him to become disciples and followers of the Lord. After the conversion of Saul, who became St. Paul the Apostle, the early Church as mentioned, had reprieve and moment of calm between the persecutions, and the Church rapidly grew as the disciples of the Lord, the missionaries and the faithful went on great journeys and missionary works, spreading the Good News of the Gospels to more and more of the people, to the people in the Jewish diaspora and to the Gentiles or the non-Jewish people alike. More and more people turned to the Lord and believed in His words, thanks to the dedication of the Apostles and the others who had given their all to the service of God. For example, the actions of St. Peter, he helped and ministered to the sick and the dying in the community, as he performed many miracles just like how the Lord used to do when He was still around. This authority and power has been given to St. Peter, to the other Apostles and disciples of the Lord from God Himself, through which God showed forth His might and power, the truth of His words and everything that the Church has proclaimed in His Name. St. Peter healed the paralysed man Aeneas in the Name of the Lord, brought Tabitha, the faithful old woman and servant of God, back to life after a period of illness, and everyone who witnessed all these works, and the dedication which St. Peter had shown must have been really impressed by what they had heard, experienced and seen. St. Peter and the other disciples of the Lord were proclaiming essentially what the Lord Himself had told His disciples, followers and all the people in our Gospel reading today.
As we reflect on the words of the Sacred Scriptures today, each and every one of us are called to remain firm in our faith as Christians, as those who have been called by the Lord and responded with faith, to follow Him in all things. We are called and reminded to stay by His side no matter what challenges and trials may come our way, just as many of our predecessors can attest to God’s loving providence and His constant presence in their lives and works. We should continue to strive to live our lives worthily as Christians, doing whatever we can in order to proclaim the Risen Lord in our communities and among those whom we encounter daily and regularly in our lives and ministry. As Christians, we are expected to uphold all of our tenets and beliefs, faithfully and sincerely in our every day moments and lives, and to be exemplary in our actions and way of life. May the Risen Lord, our God and Saviour Jesus Christ continue to be with us and guide us always, and may He continue to empower and strengthen us so that we may persevere faithfully and continue to commit ourselves to His path, much as how our early Christian predecessors had done, in their missionary and evangelising zeal. Therefore, we should follow the good examples of the Apostles and the many other saints, Holy men and women of God, including the Saints whose feast we celebrate today. May all of us be drawn to love the Lord more and dedicate ourselves to a Holy life and existence much as shown us with great and exemplary life of the Saints. May God in His infinite grace and mercy, grant us His grace and be with His Church always, and bless its every works and good efforts and bless us all in our every good works and endeavours, now and always. Amen🙏
Let us pray:
My glorious Lord, Your teaching on the Most Holy Eucharist is beyond human comprehension. It is a mystery so deep that we will never fully understand this precious gift. Open my eyes, dear Lord, and speak to my mind so that I may listen to Your words and respond with the deepest faith. Jesus, I trust in You ~ Amen🙏
Save Us, Savior of the World. Our Blessed Mother Mary and Saint Marcellinus, Bishop; Saint Beuno and Saint Agnes of Montepulciano ~ 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💖