Memorial of Saint Justin, Martyr
This Week’s Intention: That God will continue to bless us with the opportunities to serve all persons, especially those most in need, in humility and with compassion and joy.
Today’s Gospel | Mark 12:1-12
Jesus told this parable to the chief priests, scribes and elders: “A man planted a vineyard, then he leased it to tenants and went abroad. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect his share of the produce. But they seized the man, beat him and sent him away. So another servant was sent to them who also was beaten and treated shamefully. Finally, the man sent to them his own son, thinking, ‘They will respect my son’. But those tenants said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him and killed him. Now what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and make an end of those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read the scriptures: ‘It was the stone rejected by the builders that became the cornerstone’?”
From the Thirteenth Meditation for the Time of Retreat | St. John Baptist de La Salle
You cooperate with God in his work, says Saint Paul, and the souls of the children whom you teach are the field that God cultivates through you. Because he is the One who has given you the ministry you exercise, when all of you appear before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, each will give his own account to God of what he has done as a minister of God and as a dispenser of his mysteries for children.
Come to see clearly who you are. Find fault accurately and unsparingly, so that when Jesus Christ comes to judge you, you will be able to face his judgment without being afraid. For when he comes, he will find nothing to condemn in you, because you will have anticipated his judgment, regarding not only your own person but also the talents and the graces you have received from God to fulfill well the service that he assigned to you.
Prayer
God our Father, you have called us to be your people, a consecrated community. You have made us the caretakers of your word, a place of light in the midst of darkness. Yet, we know that we often do not live up to this calling, that we sin against you through our actions or through our neglect, especially in how we treat one another. As we contemplate what it means to welcome your word into our lives, help us to turn away from all that is faithless and wrong. Strengthen us to live lives that embrace only what is good and right, lives that say yes to your will. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.
St. John Baptist de La Salle, prayer for us.
Live Jesus in our hearts forever.