SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (YEAR B)

SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY: MAY 5, 2024

Greetings, beloved family and Happy Sixth Sunday of Easter!

We thank God for the  gift of life and for the gift of the new month of May. The entire month of May is dedicated to our beloved Mother Mary, the Mother of God. May she continue to intercede for us and may God’s grace and mercy be with us all during this season of Easter🙏

Watch “Holy Mass and Holy Rosary on EWTN | May 5, 2024” |

Watch “Holy Mass from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | May 5, 2024 |

Pray “Holy Rosary from Lourdes, France” | May 5, 2024 |

Pray “Holy Rosary from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | May 5, 2024 |

Pray “The Chaplet of Divine Mercy | from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy” | May 5, 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: Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B, May 5, 2024
Reading 1, Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 98:1, 2-3, 3-4
Reading 2, First John 4:7-10
Gospel, John 15:9-17

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/

Today’s Bible Readings: Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year B), Sunday, May 5, 2024
Reading 1, Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 98:1, 2-3, 3-4
Reading 2, First John 4:7-10
Gospel, John 15:9-17

SCRIPTURE REFLECTIONS

Bible Readings for today, Sixth Sunday of Easter | USCCB | https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading

Gospel Reflection ~ John 15:9–17

“No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”

“Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says to His disciples, ‘I call you friends’. The disciples represent us all. What Jesus says to them, He says to each one of us. We probably have many images of Jesus. The image of Jesus in today’s Gospel reading is that of a friend. He offers Himself to us as a faithful friend. He says that He reveals His friendship for us in two ways. Friends trust one another enough to share what is deepest in their hearts. In our Gospel reading, Jesus says He has done just this with us all, ‘I have made known to you, everything I have learnt from my Father’. What was deepest in Jesus’ heart was His relationship with God, His Father, and He has shared that relationship with us. In the words of the second reading, He has revealed God to be Love. He hasn’t simply spoken to us about God’s love but has given expression to God’s love in His whole way of life and, especially, in His death. Like a trusting friend, Jesus has opened up His heart, God’s heart, to us. There is a second way in which Jesus says He reveals his friendship for us. A faithful friend will go the extra mile for us. They will make sacrifices for us, not because of some sense of duty, but just out of the love they have for us. They will stand by us to the end because it is what they want to do in their heart of hearts. Jesus has made the ultimate sacrifice for us. In the Gospel reading He says, ‘A man can have no great love than to lay down his life for his friends’. Jesus revealed the depth of His friendship for us by laying down His life for us. His great mission in life was to reveal God’s love to us, and He was faithful to that mission even though He paid for that faithfulness with His life. In laying down His life for us, He showed the extent and depth of His friendship for us. This Sunday, we are invited to hear those words of Jesus as addressed to each of us personally, ‘I call you friends’. His friendship is His incredible gift to us, and it is a gift He will never take back. He is the ultimate and supreme ‘faithful friend’.

Jesus also says in the Gospel reading that He has befriended us in this complete way, ‘so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete’. The gift of true friendship is a blessing which always brings us joy. A faithful friend is one of the great joys of life. Jesus Himself knew the joy of God His Father’s friendship. By befriending us, He wants us to share in His joy. By loving us as God loves him, he wants us to know a joy that nothing in this world can give us, a joy that is complete. We can seek happiness in all kinds of places, but true joy, a joy that is deeply rooted and lasting, is found when we open ourselves up to the gift of the Lord’s faithful friendship. We will only fully experience the joy Jesus speaks about in eternal life when we will be fully opened up to God’s love, but here and now Jesus wants us to begin to experience this joy by receiving the gift of His friendship. We can sometimes struggle to receive this gift of the Lord’s faithful love, just as at the Last Supper Peter struggled to allow Jesus to wash his feet. ‘Never’, he said, ‘you shall never wash my feet’. Yet, the Lord keeps offering us this gift in the hope we will receive it or, in the words of the Gospel reading, that we will remain in His love, His friendship. The Lord’s friendship is faithful, it remains, but He needs us to remain in h
His friendship, to remain in His love, if His friendship is to be fully alive in us. The primary way we remain in His loving friendship, Jesus says, is by allowing His faithful love to flow through us and embrace the lives of others. We are to love one another as He loves us, to find ways of befriending one another as He has befriended us. Jesus poured out on us the love He received from God is Father, and we are to pour out on others the love we receive from Jesus. When this happens, then our joy will be complete.

Our first reading this Sunday from the Acts of the Apostles details the experiences of St. Peter the Apostle, who went to the town and region of Joppa which was by the Mediterranean coast, where he encountered a Roman centurion named Cornelius who was well respected by the local community and his family, in which prior to that he experienced a vision from the Lord Who showed him all sorts of food and animals which the Jewish laws and customs had considered to be unclean, and how the Lord told St. Peter to eat of those, which initially he refused to do because those were unclean according to the old Jewish customs and laws. The Lord told St. Peter that whatever He had deemed to be clean, should not be deemed as unclean. This was in fact a premonition of what St. Peter would soon encounter in his journey in Joppa as he encountered Cornelius and his family, and saw the great faith which they had in the Lord, the honour they showed to the Lord and His Apostles, and how they were willing to embrace God and His truth. However, at that time, the common perception among the Jewish people, especially those among the Pharisees was that the non-Jewish people, also known and called collectively as Gentiles, consisting of mainly the Romans and the Greeks, the Egyptians and other people of the region, all of them were commonly seen and considered as pagans and unworthy of God, and as recorded in the Gospels, this went to the extent that associating or going to the house or residence of a Gentile would render one unclean according to the Jewish laws and customs. However, the Lord revealed that His grace and love, His mercy and compassion are extended towards everyone, and all the Gentiles have also been called and led into God’s love, as He sent to them the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that He has sent to all of His Apostles and disciples. This was the testimony which St. Peter himself presented to the whole assembly of the faithful as they discerned and debated on what they ought to do regarding the believers who came from among the non-Jewish origins. We heard how the Holy Spirit descended upon the converts from among the Gentiles, as they received the same gifts that the Apostles had received, and hence, we heard how St. Peter baptised all those among the Gentiles who had been called by God and embraced Him as their Lord and Saviour.

In our second reading this Sunday from the Apostle St. John in his Epistle directed to all the faithful people of God reminding them all of the truth of God’s loving nature, and how He loves every one of His beloved children and people, and manifesting this great and most generous love for us in His Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour, the perfect example and manifestation of His eternal and ever-present love for each and every one of us. It is the same love which He has shown us all most generously, and which the Lord Himself said that God truly loved the world and all of us so much that He has given us all His only begotten Son, Jesus Himself, to be the bearer of God’s love and salvation for all of those who are truly precious to Him. The love of God has been manifested in the flesh, and became tangible, approachable and reachable to us all. While once God was transcendent and far beyond our ability to comprehend Him and His love, but through His Son, all of us have received the assurance of His ever enduring love for us, and we have received from Him the perfect gift of His love and commitment to everything which He has promised to us since the very beginning of time. By the actions which the Lord Jesus had done, in His ministry and works in our midst, in His revelation of God’s truth and love, in explaining the Law and commandments that God had bestowed on us, out of His ever constant and enduring love, and ultimately, by His own perfect and most loving sacrifice on the Cross, each and every one of us have received through Christ the assurance of life eternal.

As we reflect on the words of the Sacred Scriptures this Sunday, the Sixth Sunday of Easter, all of us are reminded yet again of why we celebrate most joyfully during this time and season of Easter, that is because the Lord has shown His love, kindness and compassion towards each and every one of us, and manifested that perfect and most wonderful love in His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, through Whom He has shown us all His ever enduring love and compassion, as He constantly reached out to us with great patience and ever-enduring care, seeking to reunite us with His loving Father and our Creator. God has indeed been so generous with His love and compassion that we should always be grateful and be reminded of His ever present love in our midst. Let us all as Christians always be full of God’s love and commit ourselves ever more to the Law and commandments which He had taught and shown us, so that by our every actions, words and deeds, and by our way of life, we will show everyone we encounter and meet in life, how we should truly live our lives so that we may truly be worthy of Our loving God, our Lord and Creator. May God in His infinite grace and mercy, grant us His grace and be with us always, and be with His Church, and may He continue to show us His ever generous love, just as we too share His love with one another, now and always. Amen 🙏

SAINTS OF THE SAINTS: MEMORIAL OF SAINT GOTHARD,  BISHOP; SAINT JUDITH (JUTTA) OF PRUSSIA, RELIGIOUS; SAINT ANGELUS OF JERUSALEM,  PRIEST AND MARTYR AND BLESSED CATERINA CITTADINI, RELIGIOUS ~ FEAST DAY: MAY 5TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Gothard,  Bishop; Saint Judith (Jutta) of Prussia, Religious; Saint Angelus of Jerusalem, Priest and Martyr and Blessed Caterina Cittadini, Religious. 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 those who are suffering from cancer and other terminal diseases. 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 souls 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. For vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for the youths, 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🙏

SAINT GOTHARD,  BISHOP: St. Gothard (960 – May 5, 1038 AD), also known as Gothard or Godehard the Bishop, was a German abbot and archbishop, who helped foster the development of Hildesheim and who played an important role in the imperial campaign to reform and reorganize the Bavarian church. St. Gothard was born in the Bavarian village of Reichersdorf about 960. St. Gothard was educated by the Canons of that area and showed so much promise that he attracted the attention of Archbishop Frederick of Salzburg. He became a priest and in 990 when the Benedictine Rule was restored to the Abbey of Heidr-Altaich he received the monastic habit. He became Prior and eventually Abbot of the Abbey. There was such good discipline under St. Gothard that the Emperor, St. Henry II, entrusted him with the reform of other monasteries. Over the course of twenty-five years he formed nine Abbots for various houses, and when St. Bernward died in 1022, St. Gothard was made Bishop of Hildesheim in his place, despite his pleas of age and lack of suitable qualifications.

In typical fashion, this dedicated servant of God set about reforming his diocese with all the vigor of a young man. He built and restored churches, fostered education, especially in the Cathedral school, established order throughout the diocese, and erected a hospice for the poor and sick at the edge of Hildesheim. St. Gothard died on May 5, 1038. The pass and railroad tunnel from Switzerland into Italy takes its name from this Saint in whose honor the nearby hospice for travelers and its chapel were dedicated. He was Canonized in 1131, Rheims by Pope Innocent II. He is the Patron Saint of travelling merchants; invoked against fever, dropsy, childhood sicknesses, hailstones, the pain of childbirth, and gout; invoked by those in peril of the sea.

PRAYER: God, You made St. Gothard an outstanding exemplar of Divine love and the Faith that conquers the world, and added him to the roll of saintly pastors. Grand by his intercession that we may persevere in Faith and love and become sharers of his glory. Amen🙏

SAINT JUDITH (JUTTA) OF PRUSSIA, RELIGIOUS: St. Judith of Prussia (13th c.), also known as St. Jutta, Jutta of  Kulmsee, Jutta of Thuringia and Jutta of Sangerhausen, was a German aristocrat who became a hermit on the frontier of Prussia and is honored as the patron saint of that region. St. Judith was born to a wealthy family in Thuringia in what is now Germany. She desired to model her life after another noble saint from her country, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who lived in the previous century. St. Judith married young at the age fifteen to a man of equal rank, and together they raised a family. She had several children, all of whom embraced a religious life, in various Orders. Despite their great wealth, St. Judith desired that they should live in a simple way and share their fortune generously with the poor. Her husband was at first displeased with her because he desired a lifestyle according to their means and rank. However, Judith persevered and eventually won him over to join her in a life of greater humility and piety.

St. Judith’s husband later died while on a pilgrimage to Palestine, the Holy Land, leaving St. Judith to raise her children alone. Once her children were grown, St. Judith rid herself of her costly clothes, jewelry, and other possessions and joined the Third Order of St. Francis. She committed herself to serving the poor and the sick, especially lepers for which she incurred mockery due to her noble rank in society. She was favored with visions. In the final years of her life she relocated to Prussia to live as a hermitess in a simple hut. There she spent her days in prayer and penance for the conversion of the pagan Prussians. After she died many miracles occurred at her grave, and she became the Patron Saint of Prussia, in Eastern Germany. Her feast day is May 5th.

Saint Judith (Jutta) of Prussia, Religious ~ Pray for us🙏

SAINT ANGELUS OF JERUSALEM,  PRIEST AND MARTYR: St. Angelus of Jerusalem (1185-1220), priest, martyr, hermit, mystic, reformer, thaumaturge, missionary, convert from Judaism and a professed Priest of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. He is also known as St. Angelus of Sicily and St. Angelo. St Angelus was born in Jerusalem to a Jewish family in 1145 and died by being stabbed to death in 1220 at Licata, Sicily.  His mother converted to Christianity and Angelo, along with his twin brother John, were Baptised and converted along with her. His parents died while he was in his childhood and the Patriarch Nicodemus oversaw their education until the twins turned eighteen. He and his brother John entered the Carmelites then, at the Saint Anne convent near the Golden Gate to commence their novitiate. They were well learned and already spoke Greek, Latin and Hebrew. When he was twenty-six, Angelo was Ordained in Jerusalem and travelled throughout Palestine. Various miraculous cures were attributed to him as he travelled. His “Acta” tells us that he sought to avoid fame and when he was becoming known for his miracles, he withdrew from society to a hermitage to avoid the pilgrims who were following him. St. Angelus withdrew to a hermitage on Mount Carmel, until he was instructed by Christ in a vision, to leave Mount Carmel for Italy to preach against the Albigensians, Bulgars and other heresies.

He set off on a Genoese ship on April 1, 1219 and stopped first in Messina before heading off to Civitavecchia before he ended up in Rome to meet with the pope. The friar preached in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran while in Rome where he met both Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Dominic. He foretold that Francis would receive the stigmata while Francis foretold his premature death. From there he was a guest of the Basilians in Palermo where he was for about a month, before preaching in Agrigento for over a month before settling in Licata. He had healed seven lepers and the ailing Archbishop of Palermo Bernardo de Castanea while in Palermo. He settled on the Sicilian island though his fame as a wonderworker caused crowds to flock to him. He also had success in converting some Jews though most Jews in Palermo came to despise him for this since he himself was once Jewish. He wanted to convert a Knight named Berenger. Catholic tradition states that Berenger was living in incest and that St. Angelo convinced the knight’s companion to leave him. Berenger became enraged and arranged to have him attacked and murdered, in front of the Church of Saints Filippo and Giacomo in Licata. He didn’t die from the attack until four days after the attack and during that time, he prayed for his assassin and asked the civil authorities to pardon him. He showed the ultimate in forgiveness, setting an example for all those that he preached to. He was buried at Saints Filippo and Giacomo Church. His sepulchre at Licata quickly became a site of Pilgrimage. The Carmelites venerated him as a saint from 1456 and Pope Pius II Canonised him in 1459. His relics were translated to a new Church in Licata, Saint Maria del Carmine. It was through St Angelo’s intercession that the plague in the Kingdom of Naples was halted.

Saint Angelus of Jerusalem, Priest ~ Pray for us🙏

BLESSED CATERINA CITTADINI, RELIGIOUS: Bl. Caterina Cittadini was an Italian Roman Catholic religious from Bergamo who established the Ursuline Sisters of Saint Jerome Emiliani. The order was dedicated to the education of girls in Bergamo and in the surrounding areas and has since expanded outside of the Italian nation. Bl. Caterina was a daughter of Giovanni Battista and Magherita Lanzani. Her mother died when Caterina was seven, and her father abandoned the girl and her younger sister Giuditta. They were accepted and grew up at the orphanage of the Conventino of Bergamo. There she developed a strong faith, a big sister’s sense of responsibility, and a devotion to Our Lady and Saint Jerome Emiliani. The sisters left the orphanage in 1823 to live with their cousins Giovanni and Antonio Cittadini, both parish priests at Calolzio, Italy. Caterina became a teacher at a girl‘s public school in Somasca in 1824. The sisters felt a call to the religious life; their spiritual director recommended that they should stay in Somasca, and become the basis of a new congregation.

In 1826 the sisters rented a house in Somasca, bought and furnished a building, and in October opened a boarding school for girls. Bl. Caterina taught religion, managed the school, and instituted the oratory style of education for her girls. Word of her success spread, attracting more students. The sisters established another “Cittadini” private school in 1832, and another in 1836. Giuditta directed these new schools until her sudden death in 1840. Bl. Caterini’s cousin, Father Antonio Cittadini, died in 1841, followed quickly by her spiritual director from the orphanage. The rapid succession of tragedy ruined Bl. Caterina’s health, and she fell gravely ill, but was cured through the intercession of Saint Jerome Emilani. Bl. Caterina quit her public teaching position in 1845 to manage the schools, care for the orphans, and guide the three companions who help her. To help organize the work and lives of her companions, she wrote the beginnings of a new rule similar to that of religious orders. In 1850 she obtained permission to build a private oratory to keep the Blessed Sacrament at her boarding school. In 1851 she applied for approval of her new religious family. In 1854 her bishop encouraged her work, and told her to write the rules of the new order; her first attempt, based on the Constitution of the Ursulines of Milano was rejected. A second attempt was accepted on September 17, 1854 under the title Orsoline Gerolimiane (Ursuline Sisters of Somasca). On December 14, 1857, six months after her death, the bishop of Bergamo gave his approval; the order achieved papal recognition on July 8, 1927. The order’s mandate is to teach, and to care for the abandoned; today they work in Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Brazil, Bolivia, India, and the Philippines. Bl. Caterina died on May 5, 1857 in Somasca, Bergamo, Italy of natural causes.

Blessed Caterina Cittadini, Religious ~ Pray for us🙏

Let us pray:

My God and true Friend, You offer me everything in life. You offer me Your perfect love, given fully and without reserve. I pray that I will reciprocate that depth of love and offer to You all that You deserve. I offer You my love, worship and obedience, dear Lord. May this mutual love form a bond that will never end. Jesus, I trust in You ~ Amen🙏

Save Us, Savior of the World. Our Blessed Mother Mary and Saint Gothard; Saint Judith (Jutta) of Prussia; Saint Angelus of Jerusalem and Blessed Caterina Cittadini ~ Pray for us sinners🙏

Thanking God for the gift of this day and praying for His Divine Mercy and Grace upon us all and for vocations to  priesthood and consecrated life. Have a blessed, safe, grace-filled and fruitful Sixth Sunday of Easter and Week 🙏

Blessings and Love always, Philomena💖