Churches of the Day

Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year 1

Set your heart on God's kingdom, by  depending on God we can become strong

Memorial of St Aloysius Gonzaga, Jesuit, model novice, worked in a plague hospital, died in 1568, aged 23, Patron of youth.
C/f A short life of this saint can be found below todays' Readings and Reflection.

FIRST READING   

A reading from the second letter of St Paul to the Corinthians  12:1-10
So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast.

Must I go on boasting, though there is nothing to be gained by it? But I will move on to the visions and revelations I have had from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who, fourteen years ago, was caught up whether still in the body or out of the body, I do not know;
God knows-right into the third heaven. I do know, however, that this same person-whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know; God knows- was caught up into paradise and heard things which must not and cannot be put into human language. I will boast about a man like that, but not about anything of my own except my weaknesses. If I should decide to boast, I should not be made to look foolish, because I should only be speaking the truth; but I am not going to, in case anyone should begin to think I am better than he can actually see and hear me to be.

In view of the extraordinary nature of these revelations, to stop me from getting too proud I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and stop me from getting too proud! About this thing, I have pleaded with the Lord three times for it to leave me, but he has said, 'My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness.' So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ's sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.

The Word of the Lord          Thanks be to God

Responsorial Psalm      Ps33
Response                           Taste and see that the Lord is good.

1. The angel of the Lord is encamped around those who revere him, to rescue them.
Taste and see that the Lord is good. He is happy who seeks refuge in him.                         Response

2. Revere the Lord, you his saints. They lack nothing, those who revere him.
Strong lions suffer want and go hungry but those who seek the Lord lack no blessing.    Response

3.  Come, children, and hear me that I may teach you the fear of the Lord.
Who is he who longs for life and many days, to enjoy his prosperity?                                  Response

Gospel  Acclamation       Mt 4: 4
Alleluia, alleluia!
Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God .
Alleluia!

Or                                           2 Cor 8: 9
Alleluia, alleluia!
Jesus Christ was rich, but he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL             

A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew     6:24-34
Do not worry about tomorrow.

Jesus said to his disciples:
'No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.

'That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing! Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are we not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life? And why worry about clothing?

Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you men of little faith?

So do not worry; do not say, "What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?" It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.'

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


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Gospel Reflection       Saturday,        Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time         Matthew 6:24–34

We all spend a certain amount of our lives trying to figure out what our priorities should be. People often find that there can be a tension between the demands of work and the demands of home, for example. Where should the priority lie at any particular time? Sometimes we just have to live with the tension of competing priorities and try to order them as best we can. We will probably never get the perfect solution to competing priorities. However, we can get our most basic priorities right, those fundamental priorities that shape all the decisions we make as to what is the best thing to do in the here and now. It is those basic priorities that Jesus is talking about in the gospel reading.

When he says that you cannot be the slave both of God and of money he is declaring that money should never be our ultimate priority. When he says do not worry about what you are to eat or about your clothing, but set your hearts on God’s kingdom first, and his righteousness, he is declaring that doing God’s will, living in accordance with the values of God’s kingdom, is a higher priority than food or clothing. He states this as one who elsewhere demands that we feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Jesus is talking in the gospel reading about that fundamental priority, that decision for God and his kingdom, which is to shape everything else that we do in life. He seems to be saying that we must get that right first, and then all else will follow.
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The scripture readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and used with the permission of the publishers. http://dltbooks.com/
The Gospel reflection comes from: Weekday Reflections for the Liturgical Year ; I Want to Know Christ   by Martin Hogan, published by The Messenger  c/f   www.messenger.ie/bookshop/
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Saints of the Day: June 21, St Aloysius Gonzaga,

Summary : St Aloysius Gonzaga, an Italian aristocrat who became a member of the Society of Jesus. While still a student at the Roman College, he died as a result of caring for the victims of a serious epidemic. Pope Benedict XIII canonised him. In 1926 Pope Pius XI named him the patron saint of Catholic youth.

Patrick Duffy looks at why Pope Pius XI decided to make Aloysius the patron saint of youth.

Noble Family
St. Aloysius was born of a noble Italian family in Castiglione, near Mantua, Lombardy. He was the eldest son of the Marquis Ferrante Gonzaga; his mother Marta Tana was of the della Rovere family - Popes Sixtus IV (1471-1484) and his nephew  Julius II (1503-1513) - and was lady-in-waiting to the queen of Spain. As a child his father trained Aloysius for a military career and had him dress as a soldier and take part in military parades. Where his father was rough and domineering, his mother was gentle and religious.

Privileged Background
Evidence of his privileged background is that when he was twelve in 1580, he was called home to Castiglione to receive his first holy communion from Cardinal Charles Borromeo, then archbishop of Milan.

Time on His Own
As a boy Aloysius was sent to be a page and to be educated at the court of Francesco de Medici at Florence. Here, a kidney infection began to trouble him and stayed with him all his life, but it also gave him time to be on his own when he began to read about the saints. He also began to pray and and practise penance. Often he would be in the Church of Our Lady of the Annunziata, praying in front of her picture. He wanted to honour Mary with a gift, and he decided on a vow of perpetual chastity.

In Spain
The Gonzaga family was called to Spain in 1581 where his mother attended on the queen. Aloysius and his brother Ridolfo were pages for the infante Don Diego (1575-82). It was at this time, after reading a book about Jesuit missionaries in India, that he decided to become a missionary and join the Jesuits.

Desire to Join the Jesuits
His mother was happy, but his father was horrified and for three years withheld his consent and tried through many relatives, clerical and lay, to get Aloysius to change his mind. Finally, in November 1585, his father consented and Aloysius gave over all rights of inheritance to his younger brother Ridolfo.

Novitiate
Aloysius went to Rome and met Pope Sixtus V (Felice Peretti di Montalto pope 1585-90) who, after questioning him about his desire to enter the Jesuits, gave him his blessing to enter the novitiate in Rome. Here his superiors urged him to pray less, eat more, and be more sociable.

Father's death and  Aloysius as Mediator in family dispute
Soon after this, in 1586, his father Marquis Ferrante Gonzaga died. He had undergone quite a change of character since his son had entered the novitiate and was at peace with God, with himself and with his son's decision. Aloysius went for some time to Milan for studies, but was back in Rome in 1587, where he took first profession and minor orders. He did return to Mantua to sort out a family quarrel and debts for the Duke - a significant task for a young man of twenty-one. But he had an integrity that was visible to all who knew him.
Gonzaga is sometimes dismissed as a' prig, naive, sickly and unattractive'. His custody of the eyes and his vow of chastity at a young age are often mocked as showing a disdain of women, as in James Joyce's The portrait of the artist as a young man.  But to preserve his virginity in the cultural context he grew up in was a significant achievement.

The Role of Chivalry
Steeped as he was in the code of chivalry from his family background, (like St Ignatius of Loyola), it is not surprising that Aloysius chose always what gave greater glory to God.  See Brian O'Leary SJ: To the greater glory.
To him in a strange way could be applied the lines of poet Patrick Kavanagh:

He knew that posterity has no use

For anything but the soul,
The lines that speak the passionate heart,
The spirit that lives alone.
O he was a lone one,
Fol dol the di do,
Yet he loved happily
I tell you.

Caring for the Sick and Death
A plague broke out in Rome in 1589. The Jesuits opened a hospital for the victims, and Aloysius volunteered to work there. He begged in the street for food for the patients and nursed them in the hospital. He caught the plague himself and became very ill. He still avoided all comforts - like medicine to soothe his cough.

He was excited that death was approaching and he would soon be with God. He foretold that he would die in eight days at the end of the Octave of Corpus Christi. On that day, which fell on 21st June, Aloysius seemed very well in the morning, but insisted that he would die before the day was over. Fr Robert Bellarmine, who had become his spiritual father, gave him the last sacraments, and recited the prayers for the dying. Aloysius died just before midnight on 21st June 1591 at the age of twenty-three.

Canonisation and Patron of Catholic Youth

On December 31, 1726, Pope Benedict XIII canonised Aloysius Gonzaga together with another Jesuit novice, Stanislaus Kostka. In 1926 Pope Pius XI named him the patron saint of Catholic youth.

[caption id="attachment_82631" align="aligncenter" width="500"]          Tomb of St Aloysius Gonzaga in the Church of Saint Ignatius, Rome[/caption]

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Memorable Saying for Today

“Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young,
but set an example for the believersin speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”

~ Timothy 4:12 ~

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The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) Year C

Every Sunday all over the world priests takes the bread and wine, raises their eyes to heaven and say the blessing Jesus taught his disciples, then they distribute it among their communities. We all get as much nourishment as we want, and when we are finished the remains of the bread is collected and reverently stored for later sacramental use.
FIRST READING           
A reading from the Book of Genesis             14:18-20
He  brought bread and wine.

Melchizedek king of Salem brought bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High.
He pronounced this blessing:
'Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth,
and blessed be God Most High for handing over your enemies to you.'

And Abraham gave him a tithe of everything.

The Word of the Lord        Thanks be to God.


Responsorial Psalm     Ps 109
Response:                         You are a priest for ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.

1. The Lord's revelation to my Master: 'Sit on my right:
I will put your foes beneath your feet.'                                                Response

2. The Lord will send from Zion your sceptre of power:
rule in the midst of all your foes.                                                          Response

3. A prince from the day of your birth on the holy mountains;
from the womb before the daybreak I begot you.                             Response

4. The Lord has sworn an oath he will not change.
'You are a priest for ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.'             Response

SECOND READING        

A reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Corinthians  11:23-26
Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death.

This is what I received from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you:
that on the same night that he was betrayed,
the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said,
'This is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me.'
In the same way he took the cup after supper, and said,
'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.'

Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death.

The Word of the Lord          Thanks be to God.

Sequence
(The last three verses marked with an asterisk *, below the asterisk constitute an optional shorter version)

Sing forth, O Zion, sweetly sing
The praises of thy Shepherd-King,
In hymns and canticles divine;
Dare all thou canst, thou hast no song
Worthy his praises to prolong,
So far surpassing powers like thine.

Today no theme of common praise
Forms the sweet burden of thy lays-
The living, life-dispensing food
­That food which at the sacred board
Unto the brethren twelve our Lord
His parting legacy bestowed.

Then be the anthem clear and strong,
Thy fullest note, thy sweetest song,
The very music of the breast:
For now shines forth the day sublime
That brings remembrance of the time
When Jesus first his table blessed.

Within our new King's banquet-hall
They meet to keep the festival
That closed the ancient paschal rite:
The old is by the new replaced;
The substance hath the shadow chased;
And rising day dispels the night.

Christ willed what he himself had done
Should be renewed while time should run,
In memory of his parting hour:
Thus, tutored in his school divine,
We consecrate the bread and wine;
And lo - a Host of saving power.

This faith to Christian men is given
­Bread is made flesh by words from heaven:
Into his blood the wine is turned:
What though it baffles nature's powers
Of sense and sight? This faith of ours
Proves more than nature e'er discerned.

Concealed beneath the two-fold sign,·
Meet symbols of the gifts divine,
There lie the mysteries adored:
The living body is our food;
Our drink the ever-precious blood;
In each, one undivided Lord.

Not he that eateth it divides
The sacred food, which whole abides
Unbroken still, nor knows decay;
Be one, or be a thousand fed,
They eat alike that living bread
Which, still received, ne'er wastes away.

The good, the guilty share therein,
With sure increase of grace or sin,
The ghostly life, or ghostly death:
Death to the guilty; to the good
Immortal life. See how one food
Man's joy or woe accomplisheth.

We break the Sacrament; but bold
And firm thy faith shall keep its hold;
Deem not the whole doth more enfold
Than in the fractured part resides:
Deem not that Christ doth broken lie;
'Tis but the sign that meets the eye;
The hidden deep reality
In all its fullness still abides.

*Behold the bread of angels, sent
For pilgrims in their banishment,
The bread for God's true children meant,
That may not unto dogs be given:
Oft in the olden types foreshowed;
In Isaac on the altar bowed,
And in the ancient paschal food,
And in the manna sent from heaven.

*Come then, good shepherd, bread divine,
Still show to us thy mercy sign;
Oh, feed us still, still keep us thine;
So may we see thy glories shine
In fields of immortality;

*O thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,
Our present food, our future rest,
Come, make us each thy chosen guest,
Co-heirs of thine, and comrades blest
With saints whose dwelling is with thee.

Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia, alleluia!
I am the living bread which has come down from heaven, says the Lord.
Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL   

The Lord be with you.          And with your spirit
A reading from the Gospel according to Luke      9:11-17        Glory to you, O Lord
They all ate as much as they wanted.

Jesus made the crowds welcome and talked to them about the kingdom of God;
and he cured those who were in need of healing.

It was late afternoon when the Twelve came to him and said,
'Send the people away, and they can go to the villages and farms round about to find lodging and food; for we are in a lonely place here.'
He replied,
'Give them something to eat yourselves.'
But they said,
'We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we are to go ourselves and buy food for all these people.'
For there were about five thousand men. But he said to his disciples,
'Get them to sit down in parties of about fifty.'
They did so and made them all sit down.
Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven, and said the blessing over them; then he broke them and handed them to his disciples to distribute among the crowd.

They all ate as much as they wanted, and when the scraps remaining were collected they filled twelve baskets.

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.