TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY: AUGUST 18, 2024
Greetings, beloved family, and Happy Sunday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time.
On this Sunday, as our children and children all over the world begin the new school year, with special intention through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, and the Saints, we pray for their safety and well-being, especially those beginning the new school year. May God grant them the courage to face new challenges and wisdom to make good choices. We pray for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding and for God’s guidance and protection upon them during this school year and always. We pray for safe travels, to and from school. We also pray for all teachers, staff and parents, and guardians. May the good Lord provide for those in need. And we continue to pray for peace, love, and unity in our families and our world. May God keep us all safe and well. Amen 🙏
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” ~ Proverbs 3:5-6
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” ~ James 1:5
We continue to pray for the sick and dying. We especially pray for our loved ones who have recently died and 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 & the Holy Spirit forever & ever. Amen🙏
Watch “Holy Mass and Holy Rosary on EWTN on YouTube | August 18, 2024 |
Watch “Holy Mass from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | August 18, 2024 |
Pray “Holy Rosary from Lourdes, France” |August 18, 2024 |
Pray “Holy Rosary from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | August 18, 2024 |
Pray “The Chaplet of Divine Mercy | from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | August 18, 2024 |
Pray “Holy Rosary ALL 20 Mysteries VIRTUAL🌹JOYFUL🌹LUMINOUS🌹SORROWFUL🌹GLORIOUS” on YouTube |
Memorare Chaplet | Prayer in Difficult Times (Powerful Prayer) |
Today’s Bible Readings: Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) | August 18, 2024
Reading 1, Proverbs 9:1-6
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 34:2-3, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15
Reading 2, Ephesians 5:15-20
Gospel, John 6:51-58
NOVENA TO SAINT MONICA: Today begins the Novena to Saint Monica (especially prayed for wayward children). Traditionally prayed every day from August 18–26 orr any time of year)
Memorial of Saint Monica is August 27
Memorial of Saint Augustine is August 28
Saint Monica was the mother of Saint Augustine. She is credited for being a holy and faith-filled mother whose prayers brought about the conversion of her son, Augustine. This novena can be prayed for any intention, especially for wayward children.
Dear Saint Monica, you were once the mournful mother of a prodigal son. Your faithfulness to prayer brought you and your son so close to God that you are now with him in eternity. By your intercession and God’s grace, your son St. Augustine became a great and venerable Saint of the Church. Please take my request to God with the same fervor and persistence with which you prayed for your own son. (Mention your intentions here)
With your needs, worrie, and anxieties, you threw yourself on the mercy and providence of God. Through sorrow and pain, you constantly devoted yourself to God. Pray for me that I might join you in such a deep faith in God’s goodness and mercy. Above all, dear Saint Monica, pray for me that I may, like your son, turn from my sin and become a great Saint for the glory of God.
Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be… Amen 🙏
SCRIPTURE REFLECTIONS:
Bible Readings for today, Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) | USCCB | https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081824.cfm
Gospel Reading ~ John 6:51–58
“My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink”
“Jesus said to the crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” 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 drink, 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.”
Today’s Gospel reading is the continuation of the discourse of the Bread of Life, of the Lord our God, our Saviour, Who has given Himself in His own Most Precious Body and Most Precious Blood to us to share and partake so that all of us who have eaten of His Body and drank of His Blood, we may receive new life and grace from Him, and receive the assurance of eternal life from Him, that one day we shall share with God the true and full happiness, joy and glory that we shall enjoy forever in His Presence, no longer being separated or sundered from Him anymore because of our sins and wickedness. This is a core tenet and belief that we have as Christians, that the Eucharist that we receive and partake is the Lord Himself, truly present in the bread and wine. We believe in the doctine of transubstantiation, in which the bread and wine offered during the every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by the power and authority of God Himself, passed down to the Church and all of us God’s faithful people through His Apostles and their successors, our bishops and priests, they have converted those bread and wine into the very essence and reality of Our Lord’s own Body and Blood, an unbloody sacrifice united and is indeed the very same bloody Sacrifice that Our Lord Himself has offered from His Cross, as He laid suffering and dying, pierced and nailed to His Cross, that is His Altar, from which His Blood, the Blood of the Lamb of God, and His broken Body became the most perfect and worthy sacrifice and offering for the atonement of our innumerable sins and faults.
Jesus, the true wisdom of God, calls on His disciples, not only to come to Him, but to eat His flesh and drink His blood. This kind of language must have seemed a bit shocking at the time. We can sympathize with the Jews who asked, ‘How can this man give us His flesh to eat?’ Indeed in a following up verse, some of Jesus’ own disciples say, ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?’ Yet, in spite of the hostile reaction to His words from the Jews, and even from some of His disciples, Jesus did not try to speak in a way that was more acceptable to His hearers. The language of eating His flesh and drinking His blood was not up for negotiation. The call of Jesus to come to Him raises no hackles, but His call, ‘Eat me’, still has the power to make us sit up a bit. In calling on us to eat His flesh and drink His blood, Jesus shows us just how deeply He wants to be in communion with us. It is the Eucharist that makes possible that depth of communion between us and the Lord that He desires. The Lord wants us not merely to come to Him, but to consume Him. He wants us to take Him into ourselves, to really digest Him, in the sense of making our own His outlook on life, His values, His attitudes, His way of relating. In absorbing Him in this way He promises that we will come to share in His very life. As Jesus says in the Gospel reading, ‘Whoever eats me will draw life from me’. Jesus gives Himself to us as food and drink so that we may live with His life. Whenever we eat food, the food becomes part of us; it lives in us, but when we receive the Lord in the Eucharist, He does not become part of us in that sense. Rather we become part of Him; we live with His own life. This is a life that never ends. ‘Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life’. The Lord offers us this level of communion with Himself so that our own lives may redeem the times in which we live. The life that we receive from the Lord in the Eucharist is to flow through us and enhance and ennoble the world of which we are a part. When we say ‘Amen’ before receiving communion, we are not only saying ‘I believe this is the body of Christ’, but we are also saying ‘Amen’ to the Lord dwelling in our lives so that He may carry out His life-giving mission in the world through us. The Eucharist is at the heart of the Church’s life. According to Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter on the Eucharist, ‘The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift – however precious – among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of Himself in His sacred humanity, as well as the gift of His saving work’. We receive the Lord’s gift of Himself in this Eucharist so that His saving work can continue in our world through our lives. He comes to us as food and drink in the Eucharist so that the age in which we live might be redeemed by our presence and our lives.
Our first reading today from the Old Testament, from the Book of Proverbs, the author of this Book spoke about the Wisdom of God calling on people to come to her so as to eat the bread and drink the wine of her teaching. The Wisdom of God having established itself upon this world and then calling upon the people to come and partake in the bread and wine that has been prepared for them as food and drink so that they all might gain enlightenment and knowledge, and all these were actually precursors and premonitions of what the Lord had planned for us, in sending unto us His own beloved Son, through Whom He bestowed upon us His Wisdom, by the words of truth and the Good News He has given us and by the Holy Spirit that He has granted to all of us, so that each and every one of us who partake in His Body and Blood all have a share in His Wisdom and knowledge, and therefore come closer to the path to salvation.
In our second reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful people of God in Ephesus the Apostle St. Paul exhorted the Christians in that place to behave themselves well and to carry out their lives in accordance to their Christian faith and beliefs, and not to be easily swayed by worldliness and wickedness of the temptations and vile things around them. He reminded them not to live as how the pagans lived, and all those who lived in their worldly manners, which kept them all away from the true salvation in God. In their folly and preoccupation with worldly matters and things, they have ended up losing sight on the true treasures that they can find in God alone. We are therefore also reminded to live in the manner that is truly pleasing to God. Each and every one of us should do our part in living our lives faithfully and worthily so that in our every moments in life, in our actions, words and deeds, we will always proclaim the Lord through our exemplary and good life, showing that we are truly God’s beloved people, belonging to Him and blessed by Him. As Christians we should always be careful and vigilant with our actions, words and deeds so that they may not end up contradicting what we believe in, and which then will make us look foolish in the eyes of the world. Those who profess to believe in God and yet act in manner that is contrary to their own beliefs are essentially hypocrites and are no better than unbelievers and pagans. If we truly consider ourselves as Christians, as God’s people and as His followers, then we ought to be truly committed to Him.
As we reflect on the words of the Sacred Scriptures this Sunday each and every one of us are reminded that we are all expected as Christians, as the holy and beloved people of God, to be full of love and trust for the Lord and to follow Him in all of our ways. The Lord has revealed His truth and His ways to us, and gave us all His own Body and Blood to partake so that we all become part of Him, united as one people of God, and the Lord Himself dwells in us. Therefore, as the Lord Himself has brought us all into this new existence through His giving of His own Body and Blood, the Eucharist, we all should be truly transformed in all things, in all our whole lives so that we may truly be worthy to be God’s holy and chosen people. We are all presented and reminded of the great things which God Himself had done for us, as our most loving Father and Creator, in reaching out to us with His ever great, persistent and enduring love, the love which has always endured despite our repeated disobedience and stubborn attitudes against Him. The Lord has made available to us His ever generous mercy and forgiveness, and He waits for us to make the decision to turn away from our wickedness and sins, and to embrace once again His grace and kindness, His providence and compassionate love. That is why we should embrace God’s Wisdom and reject the foolishness of this world, the foolishness and stubbornness of our ego and pride, which have often become obstacles in our path towards God and His salvation. Let us all hence commit ourselves anew to the Lord and do whatever we can so that our lives, our every actions, words and deeds, our every interactions with one another may always be exemplary and be filled with righteousness and grace of God. May all of us be the shining beacons of God’s light and truth, and may each and every one of us continue to inspire our fellow brothers and sisters in living our lives worthily of the Lord and in drawing more and more people ever closer to God and His grace, His salvation and light. May God in His infinite grace and mercy, grant us His grace as we worthily proclaim God and His love to this world, so that by our actions and lives, we may truly profess Him and proclaim Him at all times with great and ever enduring faith, now and always. Amen 🙏🏾
SAINTS OF THE DAY: MEMORIAL OF SAINT HELEN (HELENA), EMPRESS AND SAINT AGAPETUS, MARTYR ~ FEAST DAY – AUGUST 18TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Helen (Helena), Empress and Saint Agapitus, Martyr. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed and those who mourn. We pray for all marriages, especially difficult marriages and also pray for all those who are divorced, we pray for peace, love, and unity in our marriage, our families and our world. We pray for the sick and dying, especially those who are suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for the poor and needy in our world. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, Pope Francis, the Bishops, the Clergy, for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world.🙏
SAINT HELEN (HELENA), EMPRESS: St. Helen, also known as St. Helena (d. 327 A.D.), was a woman of humble means from Asia Minor. She was born around 248 AD in Drepanum, which is located in modern day Turkey. Many know St. Helen as the highly influential mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, who made history by relaxing the rules against Christianity and paving the way for the rise of the Roman Catholic Church. What’s interesting to note is that she didn’t convert to Christianity until later in life. According to history, St. Helen married the future Roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus, and their son Constantine was born c. 272. Constantius divorced Helen in c. 293 to marry Emperor Maximian’s daughter for the sake of political gain. When her son Constantine became the Roman Emperor, St. Helen was given the imperial title “Augusta” and was treated like royalty. After Constantine legalized Christianity across the Roman Empire, St. Helen, a Christian convert, went to the Holy Land in search of the actual cross on which Christ was crucified, despite being in her 80s. She questioned local Christians and Jews and learned that the cross was buried under the Temple of Venus. St. Helen had the temple demolished and excavated. There she discovered the Holy Sepulcher, three crosses, the board with Pilate’s inscription, and the nails which pierced Jesus’ Sacred Body. In order to determine which cross was the Lord’s, the Bishop of Jerusalem touched them to a corpse, causing the man to come back to life. A second miraculous healing of a sick woman confirmed the discovery of the True Cross. Christians flocked to Jerusalem to venerate the Holy Cross. St. Helen then visited all the holy places of Jesus’ life and built many churches over their locations, including Bethlehem, the Mount of Olives, and the Garden of Gethsemane.
St. Helen wasn’t a Christian until she was roughly 65 years old. It can be a surprising fact, as St. Helen died about 15 years later and yet she is credited with the building of numerous churches and the discovery of a number of relics, such as the true cross of Jesus Christ. Her story is powerful and reminds us that no matter what age we might be, our past can never keep us away from the mercy of God. We might have made some bad mistakes in our younger years, but for God there is no time limit on his mercy. This is good news and reassures us that whether we are 9 or 99, we still have time to embrace the love of God. St. Helen is the Patron Saint of difficult marriages, divorced people, converts, against fire; against storms; against thunder; archeologists; converts; cloth dyers; empresses; diocese of Helena, Montana; nail smiths; needle makers. Her Feast Day is August 18.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus Christ, You willed to enrich Your Church through St. Helena with a treasure beyond price and so revealed to her the hiding place of Your Cross. Through her intercession, grant that the ransom paid on that life-giving wood may win the rewards of everlasting life for us. Amen 🙏
SAINT AGAPITUS, MARTYR: St. Agapitus was a martyr of Palestrina, not far from Rome. St. Agapitus was born to an imperial patrician family in Latium, Italy. At fifteen years of age, the boy proudly, publicly proclaimed his Christianity during the persecution of Aurelian. He suffered in his youth a cruel martyrdom at Præneste, now called Palestrina, twenty-four miles from Rome, under Aurelian, about the year 274. Upon orders from the Emperor Aurelian, he was mercilessly whipped with leaded scourges, then thrown into a vile basement to remain there four days without food. After further punishment under the lash, he was suspended head downwards over a smoldering fire so that he should die from the smoke; boiling water was dashed against him, and his jaws were battered. When wild beasts hesitated to harm him, he was finally beheaded. Thus ended the glorious martyrdom of the holy youth, St. Agapitus, in the year 274. Because he was a young man, and because the heroic way he met his martyrdom brought about many conversions, his was a favourite story in times past, and often grew in the telling, but we know very little about him for sure.
St. Agapitus’ name is famous in the sacramentaries of St. Gelasius, and St. Gregory the Great, and in the ancient calendars of the church of Rome. Two churches in Palestrina and others in other places are dedicated to God under his name. Agapitus is venerated as a martyr saint, who died on August 18, 274 AD, Palestrina, Italy, a date that the latest editions of the Roman Martyrology say is uncertain. His cult, which is very ancient, was particularly popular in the eternal city where Felix III (492) caused a church to be built in his honor. Ancient inscriptions show clearly the great confidence placed in the intercession of this martyr. He’s Patron Saint Palestrina, Italy and against colic.
Saint Agapitus, Martyr ~ Pray for us 🙏
DEVOTION OF THE MONTH OF AUGUST:
MONTH OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY: August is the Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary! The Church dedicates the month of August to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is a dogma of the Catholic faith that Mary is the Immaculate Conception; that is, in preparation for the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity in her womb, she was conceived without the corruption of sin through the foreseen and infinite merits of her Son, Jesus Christ. Over the centuries, as saints and theologians reflected on how Mary pondered and treasured the sacred events from the life of Christ in her holy heart, as attested in Scripture, her pure heart was recognized as something to be imitated. Devotion to Our Lady’s purity of heart began to flower—so much so that in the 17th century, St. John Eudes promoted it alongside the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The devotion rose to a new level after the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, when Mary revealed an image of her Immaculate Heart to Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco.
THE POPE’S MONTHLY INTENTIONS FOR 2024: FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST – FOR POLITICAL LEADERS: We pray that political leaders be at the service of their own people, working for integral human development and for the common good, especially caring for the poor and those who have lost their jobs.
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 Ordinary Time, please let us all continue to pray for peace all over the world, particularly in Africa, Nigeria, 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 🙏🏾
Prayers for Peace | https://mycatholic.life/catholic-prayers/prayers-for-peace/
PRAYER INTENTIONS: During 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. We pray for all mothers, wives, those going through challenges in their marriages, Victims of verbal and spousal abuse, we pray for peace, love and unity in our families and our 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 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:
My Eucharistic Lord, I do believe; help my unbelief. I thank You for the very gift of Yourself, given to me in the reception of Holy Communion. Please continue to teach me about this Gift, dear Lord. Open my mind to understand so that I will always come forward to receive with the utmost faith, love and hope. Jesus, I trust in You ~ Amen 🙏
Save Us, Savior of the World. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and Most Precious Blood of Jesus, have mercy on us. Our Most Blessed Mother Mary, Saint Helen (Helena) and Saint Agapitus ~ 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. Have a blessed, safe, grace-filled Sunday and week 🙏
Blessings and Love always, Philomena💖