Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar

[Saint Catherine heard God say to her:] Do not look back with your back to the plow, for fear of creatures or of tribulations: it is in tribulations that you must rejoice. The world takes pleasure in doing you a thousand injustices; only be saddened by the injustices of the world because they are offenses that it does to me: for by offending me, they offend you, and by offending you, they offend me, I who have become one with you . You know well, I have given you my image and likeness, but you have lost grace through sin. To give you this life of grace, I have united my nature to you, covering it with the veil of your humanity. So, from you, my image, I borrowed your likeness by taking human form. I am one with you, as long as the soul is not separated from me by mortal sin; for he who loves me abides in me, and I in him. But this one will be persecuted by the world, because the world is not in conformity with me. This is why he pursued my only Son until the ignominious death of the cross. So the world does to you: he persecutes you, and he will persecute you to the death, because he does not love me. If the world loved me, it would love you also, but rejoice, for your joy will be great in heaven. Truly I tell you, the more tribulation abounds in the mystical body of the Church, the more it itself will abound in sweetness and consolation. (…) Rejoice therefore in sorrow, (…) with my other servants, since I, the eternal Truth, have promised you to give you joy.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

Reading the Scriptures makes it clear that the Gospel is not merely about our personal relationship with God… The Gospel is about the kingdom of God (Lk 4,43); it is about loving God who reigns in our world. To the extent that he reigns within us, the life of society will be a setting for universal fraternity, justice, peace and dignity. Both Christian preaching and life, then, are meant to have an impact on society. We are seeking God’s kingdom: “Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6,33). Jesus’ mission is to inaugurate the kingdom of his Father; he commands his disciples to proclaim the good news that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 10,7). The kingdom, already present and growing in our midst, engages us at every level of our being and reminds us of the principle of discernment which Pope Paul VI applied to true development: it must be directed to “all men and the whole man”. We know that “evangelization would not be complete if it did not take account of the unceasing interplay of the Gospel and of man’s concrete life, both personal and social” (Paul VI). This is the principle of universality intrinsic to the Gospel, for the Father desires the salvation of every man and woman (cf. 1Tim 2,4), and his saving plan consists in “gathering up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1,10). Our mandate is to “go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation” (Mk 16,15), for “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God” (Rom 8,19). Here, “the creation” refers to every aspect of human life; consequently, “the mission of proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ has a universal destination. Its mandate of charity encompasses all dimensions of existence, all individuals, all areas of community life, and all peoples. Nothing human can be alien to it”.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

What am I, O my God, thou Love of my heart? What mournful unlikeness to thee! I am but an almost imperceptible drop, and thou art the great and shoreless ocean of ineffable and most tender love. O love, Love, open to me thy pitying heart. Let the water floods of thy fatherly goodness overwhelm me; break uo the fountains of the great deep of thine infinite goodness, and let it swallow me up, that I may be absorbed and lost in the ocean of thine infinite love. Thy love is impetuous as a mighty flood; may I sink and disappear beneath its waters, even as a feeble spark is lost in the immensity of the sea.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team