Churches of the Day

Saturday of the Twenty-Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, Year 2
The Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturday

Saints of the Day: Sep 26; –Ss Cosmas and Damian,  martyrs
C/f short history of today’s saints can be found below today’s Readings and Reflection

FIRST READING

A reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes                11:9-12:8
Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the dust returns to the earth
and the breath to God

Rejoice in your youth, you who are young; let your heart give you joy in your young days.
Follow the promptings of your heart and the desires of your eyes.
But this you must know: for all these things God will bring you to judgement.
Cast worry from your heart, shield your flesh from pain.

Yet youth, the age of dark hair, is vanity.
And remember your creator in the days of your youth,
before evil days come and the years approach when you say,
'These give me no pleasure', before sun and light and moon and stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain;

The day when those who keep the house tremble and strong men are bowed; when the women grind no longer at the mill, because day is darkening at the windows and the street doors are shut;
when the sound of the mill is faint,
when the voice of the bird is silenced, and song notes are stilled,
when to go uphill is an ordeal and a walk is something to dread.

Yet the almond tree is in flower, the grasshopper is heavy with food and the caper bush bears its fruit, while man goes to his everlasting home. And the mourners are already walking to and fro in the street before the silver cord has snapped, or the golden lamp been broken, or the pitcher shattered at the spring, or the pulley cracked at the well, Or before the dust returns to the earth as it once came from it; and the breath to God who gave it.
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher says. All is vanity.

The Word of the Lord          Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm        Ps 89: 3-6. 12-14. 17. R/v 1
Response                              O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

1. You turn men back into dust and say: 'Go back, sons of men.'
To your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.                                                                                   Response

2. You sweep men away like a dream, like grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers: by evening it withers and fades.             Response

3. Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever? Show pity to your servants.                               Response

4.  In the morning, fill us with your love we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Let the favour of the Lord be upon us: give success to the work of our hands.        Response

Gospel Acclamation          Acts 16: 14
Alleluia, alleluia!
Open our heart, O Lord, to accept the words of your Son.
Alleluia !

Or                                                 2 Tim 1: 10
Alleluia, alleluia!
Our saviour Christ Jesus abolished death,
and he has proclaimed life and immortality through the Good News.
Alleluia !

GOSPEL

The Lord be with you.                And with your spirit
A reading from the Gospel according to Luke     9:43-45      Glory to you, O Lord
The Son of Man is going to be handed over into the power of men
and they were afraid to ask him about what he had just said.

At a time when everyone was full of admiration for all he did, Jesus said to his disciples, 'For your part, you must have these words constantly in your mind: The Son of Man is going to be handed over into the power of men'.

But they did not understand him when he said this;
it was hidden from them so that they should not see the meaning of it, and they were afraid to ask him about what he had just said.

The Gospel of the Lord          Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection       Saturday,       Twenty Fifth Week in Ordinary Time             Luke 9:43-45

Jesus, it seems, did not allow other people’s admiration of him to go to his head. According to today’s gospel reading, just at the time when everyone was full of admiration for all he did, he began to speak of himself in a way that would not have endeared him to many. ‘The Son of Man is going to be handed over into the power of men’. Jesus was looking ahead to his passion and death. No one would admire him when he hung from a Roman cross. At that moment, it was mockery and scorn that he mostly received.

Yet, God would have been full of admiration for Jesus in that dark hour, not because he wanted his Son to suffer, but because Jesus on the cross was revealing God’s love for the world to the full. It was Jesus’ message of God’s merciful love for all that put him on the cross. He remained faithful to preaching and living that message, even though he knew it would result in his being handed over to death. No one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. It was this greater love, this divine love, that shone through Jesus on the cross. It was only in the light of Jesus’ resurrection that people of faith would become full of admiration not only for the way he lived but for the way he died.

Until that Easter moment, all Jesus’ talk about his coming passion and death made no sense to his disciples. In the words of the gospel reading, ‘it was hidden from them’. We who live in the light of Easter can be full of admiration, not only for all Jesus did during his earthly life, but especially for his passion and death and for the tremendous love that it revealed.

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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. and used with the permission of the publishers. http://dltbooks.com/
The Scripture Reflection is made available with our thanks from his book Reflections on the Weekday Readings : The Word is near to you, on your lips and in your heart by Martin Hogan and published by Messenger Publications , c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

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Saints of the Day: Sep 26; –Ss Cosmas and Damian,  martyrs
Ss Cosmas and Damian, martyrs. They died probably in Syria. Widely venerated as martyrs in the fifth and sixth centuries when basilicas were dedicated to them in Constantinople and Rome and when their names were included in Eucharistic Prayer I (The Roman Canon). Later legend identified them as twin brothers who practiced medicine without charge to their patients.

Ss Cosmas and Damian
The names of these two saints, brothers, probably twins, reputed to have been healers, occur in the 4th century   (Roman Canon (First Eucharistic Prayer). This indicates their early veneration. They also are in the Litany of the Saints. Along with St Luke, they are patrons of physicians and all healers.

Patrick Duffy tells their story.

"The Silverless Ones"
Brothers born in Cilicia (south of Modern Turkey) and educated in Syria, they returned to Cilicia where they practised and became famous as physicians and for teaching their patients about Christ and because they refused payment for their services, they were known as The Anargyroi, or "the silverless ones". During the persecution of Diocletian (303), they were imprisoned, tortured and beheaded.


Burial and Influence
The bodies of Cosmas and Damian were taken to Syria for burial and by the year 400 a church had been built over the martyrs' grave. In the 5th century Pope St Felix IV (526-530) brought their relics to Rome and - perhaps in deference to the Eastern Church - erected a church in their honour - the first in honour of eastern saints - just off the Roman forum, where it still stands today. An inscription in the basilica reads: Martyribus medicis populo spes certa salutis. Here there is an intended pun on the word salutis: it can mean "good health" and/or "eternal salvation". So we can read it as saying to us: "Because of these martyred physicians there is a sure hope of both good health and eternal salvation."

In Art - Fra Angelico and other artists
Various Lives of Ss Cosmas and Damian gave rise to legends and artistic depictions of the two saints. One by Alonso de Sedano (active 1496 in Burgos Cathedral) shows the two saints grafting the severed leg from a recently deceased Ethiopian to replace a patient's ulcered leg. Fra Angelico also has a number of artworks including The Beheading and the Burial of the saints and one showing them healing a lady 'Palladia'.

Prayer
Pray today for physicians, surgeons, GPs, pharmacists, nurses, carers and cleaners, administrators i.e all who work in the healing professions especially involving medical emergencies.

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Memorable Proverb for Today

Our wounds are often the opening into the best
and most beautiful part of us.

~ David Rico ~

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Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
A Day of Prayer for Life

God gives us the gift of repentance. In the gospel parable of the two sons, Jesus holds up the example of the public sinners in his time being converted while the establishment figures refuse to listen to his message. Ezekiel reminds us that repentance is always possible, for the Lord remembers his mercy.

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FIRST READING

A reading from the book of Ezekiel          18:25-28
When the sinner renounces sin, he shall certainly live.

The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows:
You object, "What the Lord does is unjust".
Listen, you House of Israel: is what I do unjust?
Is it not what you do that is unjust? When the upright man renounces his integrity to commit sin and dies because of this, he dies because of the evil that he himself has committed.
When the sinner renounces sin to become law-abiding and honest, he deserves to live. He has chosen to renounce all his previous sins; he shall certainly live; he shall not die.

The Word of the Lord.              Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm           Ps 24; 4-9 R/v 6
Response                             Remember your mercy, Lord.

1. Lord, make me know your ways. Lord, teach me your paths.
Make me walk in your truth, and teach me: for you are God my saviour.          Response

2. Remember your mercy, Lord, and the love you have shown from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth.
In your love remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord.                             Response

3. The Lord is good and upright. He shows the path to those who stray,
he guides the humble in the right path; he teaches his way to the poor.              Response

SECOND READING

A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Philippians     2:1-11
In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus.

If our life in Christ means anything to you, if love can persuade at all, or the Spirit that we have in common, or any tenderness and sympathy, then be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind. That is the one thing which would make me completely happy. There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, So that nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people's interests instead. In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus:
His state was divine,
yet he did not cling to his equality with God
but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave,
and became as men are; and being as all men are,
he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross.
But God raised him high and gave him the name
which is above all other names so that all beings
in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

The Word of the Lord.              Thanks be to God.

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Alternative shorter
SECOND READING

A reading from the letter to the Philippians      2:1-5
In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus.

If our life in Christ means anything to you, if love can persuade at all, or the Spirit that we have in common, or any tenderness and sympathy, then be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind. That is the one thing which would make me completely happy.

There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, So that nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people's interests instead. In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus.

The Word of the Lord.            Thanks be to God.
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Gospel Acclamation          Jn 14: 23
Alleluia, alleluia!
If anyone loves me he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him.
Alleluia!

or                                           Jn 10: 27
Alleluia, alleluia!
The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice, says the Lord,
I know them and they follow me.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL

The Lord be with you                         And with your spirit.
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew     21:28-32       Glory to you, O Lord
Afterwards he thought better of it and went. Tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you.

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
'What is your opinion?
A man had two sons. He went and said to the first,
"My boy, you go and work in the vineyard today".
He answered, "I will not go", but afterwards
thought better of it and went.

The man then went and said the same thing to the second who answered, "Certainly, sir", but did not go.
Which of the two did the father's will?'
'The first' they said.
Jesus said to them,
'I tell you solemnly, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you, a pattern of true righteousness, but you did not believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing that, you refused to think better of it and believe in him'.

The Gospel of the Lord.                Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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For homily resources for this Sunday's Gospel click here: https://www.catholicireland.net/sunday-homily/




Taken from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, published and copyright 1966, by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc, and used by permission of the publishers.