Friday of the 15th Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Intention: For God’s blessing on this week’s gatherings of Lasallian Student Leaders and the Brother John Johnston Institute.
Today’s Gospel | Matthew 12:1-8
Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry, how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions but only the priests could lawfully eat? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests serving in the temple violate the Sabbath and are innocent? I say to you, something greater than the temple is here. If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned these innocent men. For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”
From the Meditation on Saint Alexis | St. John Baptist de La Salle
This saint loved contempt no less than poverty. Having come back to Rome, he asked his father, who did not recognize him, to accept him in his house as a poor person. He lived there for seventeen years, always hidden, unknown, living on the scraps they gave him out of charity, abandoned by all. The house servants despised him and sometimes made fun of him on account of his poverty and misery, the way he appeared exteriorly in the midst of so much insult and contempt. He was glad to be humiliated in this world for the love of Jesus Christ.
…You have a work that is honorable only in the sight of God because it seeks to spread his kingdom. Do you accept with joy the contempt that comes to you from people? The kingdom of God, which you serve and in which you hope, is not of this world.
Prayer
Eternal Father, Jesus taught his disciples the difference between doing right to serve themselves and doing right to serve you. Give to us today clear minds and open hearts to live this teaching in our own lives. Bless us with the quiet humility to know why you made us. May we serve one another through the gifts that you have given us, using them to accomplish your will for your children, especially the young and the poor. Help us to never harden our hearts to your presence or to the miracle of your love at work among us. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.
St. John Baptist de La Salle, pray for us.
Live Jesus in our hearts forever.