SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY: MAY 25, 2024

Greetings, beloved family and Happy Saturday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time!

Watch ” Holy Mass and Holy Rosary | EWTN on YouTube | May 25, 2024 |

Watch “Holy Mass from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | May 25, 2024 |

Pray “Holy Rosary from Lourdes, France” | May 25, 2024 |

Pray “Holy Rosary from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | May 25, 2024 |

Pray “The Chaplet of Divine Mercy | from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | May 25, 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, May 25, 2024
Reading 1, James 5:13-20
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 141:1-2, 3, 8
Gospel, Mark 10:13-16

Today, we enter once again into the season of Ordinary Time, which will continue until the end of this current liturgical year in November this year. Please let us all continue to pray for the repose of the souls of all the faithful departed and for peace in our families and throughout our divided and conflicted World🙏

MEMORIAL OF SAINT BEDE THE VENERABLE, PRIEST AND DOCTOR; SAINT GREGORY VII, POPE, RELIGIOUS; SAINT MARY MAGDALENE DE PAZZI, VIRGIN ~ FEAST DAY: MAY 25TH Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Bede the Venerable, Priest and Doctor; Saint Gregory VII, Pope, Religious and Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, Virgin. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the sick, especially those suffering from terminal diseases. We pray for Scholars, Writers and Historians. We also pray for peace, love and unity in our families and our world and for the poor and needy. And we continue to pray for the Church, the Clergy, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world.🙏

SAINT BEDE THE VENERABLE, PRIEST AND DOCTOR: St. Bede (672–735 A.D.), was an English priest, monk, and scholar and sometimes known as “the Venerable Bede” for his combination of personal holiness and intellectual brilliance. St. Bede was born during 673 near the English town of Jarrow to a wealthy family. His parents sent him at a young age, at the age of seven to the Benedictine monastery to be  educated by the monks. He studied at the monastery founded by a Benedictine abbot who would later be canonized in his own right as St. Benedict Biscop. The abbot’s extensive library may have sparked an early curiosity in the boy, who would grow up to be a voracious reader and prolific writer. Later, St. Bede returned to Jarrow and continued his studies with an abbot named Ceolfrid, who was a companion of St. Benedict Biscop. The abbot and a group of other monks instructed St. Bede not only in scripture and theology, but also in sacred music, poetry and the Greek language. St. Bede’s tutors could see that his life demonstrated a remarkable devotion to prayer and study, and Ceolfrid made the decision to have him ordained a deacon when he was 19. Another Benedictine monk and future saint, the bishop John of Beverley, ordained St. Bede in 691. He studied for 11 more years before entering the priesthood at the age of 30, around the beginning of the eighth century. Afterward, St. Bede took on the responsibility of celebrating daily Mass for the members of his Benedictine community, while also working on farming, baking, and other works of the monastery.

As a monk, St. Bede gave absolute priority to prayer, fasting and charitable hospitality. He regarded all other works as valueless without the love of God and one’s neighbor. However, St. Bede also possessed astounding intellectual gifts, which he used to survey and master a wide range of subjects according to an all-encompassing vision of Christian scholarship. St. Bede declined a request to become abbot of his monastery. Instead, he concentrated on writing, and produced more than 45 books –  primarily about theology and the Bible, but also on science, literature, and history. He also taught hundreds of students at the monastery and its school, which became renowned throughout Britain. During St. Bede’s own lifetime, his spiritual and intellectual gifts garnered wide recognition. His writings on scripture were considered so authoritative that a Church council ordered them to be publicly read in English churches. Some of the most illustrious members of English society made pilgrimages to his monastery to seek his guidance, and he was personally invited to Rome by Pope Sergius. St. Bede, however, was unfazed by these honors. Perhaps inspired by the Benedictine monastic ethos, which emphasizes one’s absolute commitment to the monastic community, he chose not to visit Rome, or to travel any significant distance beyond the Monastery of Sts. Peter and Paul in Jarrow, during his entire adult life.

Instead, the world came to him – through the visitors he received, according to the Benedictine tradition of hospitality, and through his voluminous reading. And Bede, in turn, reached the world without leaving his monastery, writing books that were copied with reverence for centuries and still read today. He is one of the last Western Christian writers to be numbered among the Church Fathers. But St. Bede understood that love, rather than learning, was his life’s purpose. “It is better,” he famously said, “to be a stupid and uneducated brother who, working at the good things he knows, merits life in heaven, than to be one who –  though being distinguished for his learning in the Scriptures, or even holding the place of a teacher – lacks the bread of love.” St. Bede died at Jarrow,  England on the vigil of the feast of the Ascension of Christ in 735, shortly after finishing an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospel of John. He wrote commentaries on Holy Scripture and treatises on theology and history. He is well known as an author, teacher (Alcuin was a student of one of his pupils), and scholar, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gained him the title “The Father of English History”. He’s the Patron Saint of Scholars, English writers and historians; Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, England, San Beda University, San Beda College Alabang.

PRAYER: O God, who bring light to your Church through the learning of the Priest Saint Bede, mercifully grant that your servants may always be enlightened by his wisdom and helped by his merits. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever… Amen🙏

SAINT GREGORY VII, POPE, RELIGIOUS: Pope St. Gregory VII sought to reform the Church and secure its freedom against the intrusion of civil rulers during his 11th century pontificate. He was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 April 1073 to his death in 1085. He was a monk of Cluny. Before ascending to the papacy, he fought against the abuse of lay investiture, the source of the evils from which the Church was suffering. His energetic stance as Pope Gregory VII earned for him the enmity of Emperor Henry IV. He was exiled to Salerno where he died. The future Pope St. Gregory VII was born Hildebrand of Sovana, in the Italian region of Tuscany sometime between 1020 and 1025. His father Bonzio is thought to have been a carpenter or peasant farmer, while his mother’s name is unknown. His uncle Laurentius was abbot of a monastery in Rome. Sent to the school run by his uncle’s monastery, Hildebrand entered a world of discipline and fervent devotion. After his primary education, he entered religious life as a monk. Hildebrand served as chaplain to his mentor John Gratian who had a brief and turbulent reign as Pope Gregory VI. In 1046 Hildebrand left Rome for Cologne along with Gratian, who was forced to leave Rome and resign from the Papacy. After the former Pope’s death in 1047, Hildebrand left for France and spent more than a year in the monastery at Cluny. During 1049 he made the acquaintance of Bruno of Toul, who would soon become Pope Leo IX. Under his reign, Hildebrand was put in charge of a historic monastery, which he rescued from structural and administrative ruin through a series of reforms. Hildebrand served Leo IX as an adviser and legate until the Pope’s death in 1054. While others considered him a possible successor to Leo, Hildebrand did not wish to be elected, though he continued his work as an influential and respected cardinal during several subsequent pontificates.

In April 1073, Hildebrand was finally elected as Pope Gregory VII. Though he still did not want the office, his electors praised him as “a devout man … mighty in human and divine knowledge, a distinguished lover of equity and justice, a man firm in adversity and temperate in prosperity.” Overwhelming challenges confronted the new Pope – including scandalous corruption among the clergy, a hardening schism between the churches of Rome and Constantinople, and a struggle against civil rulers who claimed a right to choose the Church’s clergy and control its properties. In March of 1074 Gregory promulgated a sweeping set of reforming decrees. These met with widespread opposition, but the Pope stood his ground. The resulting standoff pitted him against the German Emperor Henry IV, who sought to depose the Pope when threatened with excommunication. The Pope carried out his threat and declared that the emperor’s subjects were no longer bound to obey him as their ruler. The emperor was forced, in 1077, to come before the Pope as a penitent, spending three days waiting in the snow before he was received and given the conditions of his reconciliation. Though temporarily reconciled, Henry was excommunicated for later attacks, which included supporting a rival Pope and invading Rome. Pope St. Gregory never gave up his pontificate, but was forced to flee the city in 1084. “I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile,” he proclaimed, just before his death in Salerno on May 25, 1085. Remembered as a champion of the Church’s freedom against state intrusion, St. Gregory VII was canonized by Benedict XIII in 1728. He’s the Patron Saint of Diocese of Sovana.

Pope Gregory VII Quote: “It is the custom of the Roman Church which I unworthily serve with the help of God, to tolerate some things, to turn a blind eye to some, following the spirit of discretion rather than the rigid letter of the law.”

PRAYER: Give to your Church, we pray, O Lord, that spirit of fortitude and zeal for justice which you made to shine forth in Pope Saint Gregory the Seventh, so that, rejecting evil, she may be free to carry out in charity whatever is right. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever… Amen 🙏
 
SAINT MARY MAGDALENE DE PAZZI,  VIRGIN: St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi (1566-1607) was an Italian noblewoman, Carmelite nun and mystic of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries who became a Carmelite nun distinguished for her intense prayer life and devotion to frequent Holy Communion. St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi was born in Florence on April 2, 1566 to a noble Florentine family. The future “Mary Magdalene” was given the name of Caterina at the time of her birth. She was the only daughter of her parents, who both came from prominent families. Caterina was drawn to the Holy Eucharist from a young age, and she resolved to serve God as a consecrated virgin shortly after receiving her First Communion at age 10. Late in the year 1582 she entered a strictly traditional Carmelite monastery, where Holy Communion was – unusually for the time period – administered daily. Receiving her religious habit the next year, she took the name of Mary Magdalene. From March to May of 1584, St. Mary became seriously ill and was thought to be in danger of death. On May 27 of that year she made her religious vows while lying sick upon a pallet. Her recovery marked the start of an extended mystical experience, which lasted 40 days and involved extraordinary experiences taken down by her religious sisters in a set of manuscripts. St. Mary served the monastery in a series of teaching and supervisory positions, while also contributing to her community through manual work. Her fellow Carmelites respected her strict sense of discipline, which was accompanied by profound charity and practical wisdom. Her experiences of suffering and temptation helped her to guide and inspire others.

Extraordinary spiritual occurrences were a frequent feature of this Carmelite nun’s life, to a much greater degree than is typical in the tradition of Catholic mysticism. Many of her experiences of God were documented by others in her community, although St. Mary herself disliked the attention and would seemingly have preferred for these events to remain private. She did wish, however, to call attention to God’s love, which she saw as tragically underappreciated and unreciprocated by mankind. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi is remembered for making dramatic gestures – running through the halls of her monastery, or ringing its bells at night – while proclaiming the urgent need for all people to awaken to God’s love, and respond in kind. The last three years of Mary’s life were characterized by intense bodily and mental suffering, yet she prayed to suffer more, so great was her love for Jesus Christ Crucified. Her earthly life came to an end on May 25, 1607, after the excruciating illness, shortly after Pope Leo XI, whose elevation to the papacy and subsequent death she had foretold. St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi was Beatified in 1626, Rome, Papal States, by Pope Urban VIII and was canonized in 1669 by Pope Clement IX. She’s the Patron Saint against bodily ills; against sexual temptation; against sickness; sick people; Naples (co-patron).

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI marked the 400th anniversary of St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi’s death in a letter to the Archbishop of Florence, her birthplace. He described her as “a symbolic figure of a living love that recalls the essential mystical dimension of every Christian life.” “May the great mystic,” the Pope wrote, “still make her voice heard in all the Church, spreading to every human creature the proclamation to love God.”

PRAYER: God, the lover of virginity, You conferred heavenly gifts on St. Mary the Virgin who was inflamed with love for You. Help us to imitate the example of purity and love given us by the one whom we honor this day. Amen🙏

SCRIPTURE REFLECTIONS:

Bible Readings for today, Saturday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time | USCCB | https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052524.cfm

Gospel Reading ~ Mark 10:13-16

“Whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it”

“People were bringing children to Jesus that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.” Then he embraced the children and blessed them, placing his hands on them.”

In today’s Gospel reading, the reference to people bringing children to Jesus is reflected in the parents who bring their children for baptism. The Lord blessing the children speaks of the wonderful way He blesses them through baptism. The contrast between how the disciples, on the one hand, and Jesus, on the other, reacted to the parents bringing children to Jesus is very striking. The disciples turned the parents and their children away, whereas Jesus insisted that the children come to Him and that nothing be placed in the way of their coming to Him. Jesus suggests that we all have to do what we can to bring children into a relationship with Himself, to support them in coming to Him. Jesus also declares in the gospel reading that as well as the responsibility we have to children we also have a lot to learn from them. We have to learn to welcome the kingdom of God as children do. Children are very receptive to good things, to gifts that come their way, including the gift of the kingdom of God, the gift of the Lord. They are open to that gift; they are very receptive to it. We can easily loose that receptiveness, the openness to the Lord, as we grow older. As adults we have to keep on recovering it; we need to keep learning to become like children so that we can welcome the gift of the Lord as openly as they do. This is the essence of the first beatitude, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’.

In our first reading today from the Epistle of St. James, the Apostle continued with his exhortations to the people of God. He told the people not to give in to the many temptations of the world, highlighting the fact that all those temptations had led to many people to fall into the path of sin and destruction, which leads only to damnation and suffering for us, and that was why the Apostle exhorted all the faithful to stay away from the path of temptation, disobedience and sin, all the things which could lead the people astray from truth and therefore into their downfall and defeat. St. James told the faithful to stay rooted in their faith in God and to have genuine relationship and connection with God. Through prayer and the building of genuine commitment and relationship with God, we mankind can continue to live through our lives with renewed faith and that important connection that can help anchor us all in the faith. We must use the many opportunities, chances and moments that the Lord had given us so that we may build and establish a truly vibrant and living relationship with Him, strengthened through prayer and quality time, and through the faithful living of our lives as Christians.

As we reflect on the words from the Sacred Scriptures today, we are again constantly being reminded of the need for us all as Christians to be truly genuine in our faith and obedience to God. We should not be hypocrites who profess to believe in God and yet in our daily living, in how we live our lives, in how we act and behave, in what we say and do, we do not truly believe in the Lord, and we even sully and profane His Holy Name because our actions had been contrary to what we believe in, to our Christian faith and calling. We are called to emulate the Saints, holy men and women of God, in how they dedicated themselves and their whole lives to the Lord, let us all therefore strive to do our best to follow in their footsteps and to carry out whatever it is that God has entrusted to us to do so that by our every lives, actions and deeds, in our whole entire way of living, we may truly be worthy and will be great inspiration ourselves for all those who have witnessed us and our lives. Let us resist the temptations of worldly glory and desires, and the temptations of our ego, ambition, pride and other things that can lead us down the path towards our downfall. May God in His infinite grace and mercy, grant us His grace and be with us always, and may He empower each one of us to live ever more faithfully in each and every moments of our lives. Amen 🙏

DEVOTION OF THE MONTH OF MAY: MONTH OF OUR LADY: In addition to the myriad feast days honoring Our Lady under her many titles and virtues, the entire month of May is especially given to her praise. In the words of Pope Paul VI, May is “a month which the piety of the faithful has long dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God … For this is the month during which Christians, in their churches and their homes, offer the Virgin Mother more fervent and loving acts of homage and veneration; and it is the month in which a greater abundance of God’s merciful gifts comes down to us from our Mother’s throne.”

THE POPE’S MONTHLY INTENTIONS FOR 2024: FOR THE MONTH OF MAY – FOR THE FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS AND SEMINARIANS: We pray that religious women and men, and seminarians, grow in their own vocations through their human, pastoral, spiritual and community formation, leading them to be credible witnesses to the Gospel.🙏

https://www.usccb.org/prayers/popes-monthly-intentions-2024

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/

PRAYER INTENTIONS: As we begin this season of the Ordinary Time, through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and all the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for our children and children all over the world, we pray for their health, safety and well-being, we particularly pray for those who have no one to care for them and those who are terminally ill, we pray for God’s Divine healing upon them. 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 soul of our beloved family members who recently passed away and the souls of all the faithful departed, may the Lord receive them into the light of Eternal Kingdom. 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 Vocation to the Priesthood and Religious life. We particularly pray for all Youths and all Seminarians, with special intention for those Seminarians who will be ordained into Priesthood. 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🙏

Let us pray:

Loving Father, I turn to You in complete trust as a small child turns to a loving parent. May I never become so self-sufficient that I fool myself into thinking I am capable of finding my own fulfillment in life. Instead, may I always see You as the one and only source of true fulfillment and always trust in You alone. Jesus, I trust in You.mɓ~ Amen 🙏

Save Us, Savior of the World. Our Blessed Mother Mary and Saint Bede the Venerable; Saint Gregory VII and Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi ~ Pray for us🙏

Thanking God for the gift of this day 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 and for vocations to  priesthood and consecrated life. Have a blessed, safe, grace-filled and relaxing week🙏

Blessings and Love always, Philomena 💖