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One Bread, One Body

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All Issues > Volume 34, Issue 1

<< Saturday, January 20, 2018 >>

Pope St. Fabian St. Sebastian

2 Samuel 1:1-4, 11-12, 19, 23-27
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Psalm 80:2-3, 5-7

Mark 3:20-21
Similar Reflections

A MIRACLE OF UNSELFISHNESS

"David seized his garments and rent them, and all the men who were with him did likewise. They mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan." �2 Samuel 1:11-12

David had experienced a very eventful week. Ziklag, the city in which David resided, had been "burned to the ground" by the Amalekites (1 Sm 30:3). The wives, sons, and daughters of David and his followers had been taken captive (1 Sm 30:3). "David found himself in great difficulty, for the men spoke of stoning him, so bitter were they over the fate of their sons and daughters" (1 Sm 30:6). Nonetheless, David led his followers on an exhausting march in pursuit of the Amalekites (1 Sm 30:10). He overtook them, miraculously defeated them, and recovered everyone and everything (1 Sm 30:18-19).

After this series of traumatic events, a messenger informed David that King Saul and his son, Jonathan, had been killed in a battle against the Philistines. Naturally, David was preoccupied with his own concerns, and considering that Saul had tried to kill David on several occasions, you would think that David would get some satisfaction from Saul's death or at least be relieved by it. However, David mourned deeply not only for the death of his friend Jonathan, but even for the death of his enemy, Saul (see 2 Sm 1:11ff). David's mourning was a miracle of unselfishness, which prefigured the unselfish, crucified, holy love Jesus has made possible for us to have in the new covenant. Be holy as Jesus is holy (1 Pt 1:16).

Prayer: Father, may I look to others' interests rather than my own (Phil 2:4).

Promise: "Rouse Your power, and come to save us." —Ps 80:3

Praise: Pope St. Fabian's holiness was a lasting example for both clergy and laity.

Prayer at an Abortion Chamber

Father, I come to this place as to a new Calvary,
I wish to stand here with Mary
and those others who stood by the cross of Jesus
the day he sacrificed himself for us sinners.

I firmly believe the sorrowful scene before my eyes
is nothing less than a reenactment of Jesus’ suffering and death,
already anticipated in the massacre of the Innocents of Bethlehem
and repeated in the slaughter of the least of his brethren,
the tiny children brought here today to be slain.

Father, I realize I cannot stop the killing of most of these children,
any more than Mary could have stopped the slaying of her Child that fatal day.
But in faith I unite my heart with hers
and humbly adore YOUR Divine purpose in allowing such bloodshed.

I offer You the blood of Jesus,
and, mingled with it,
the blood of these little ones,
for their own salvation and for that of their parents,
the abortionist, and our whole generation.
Remember Jesus’ own prayer from the cross
with its echo in Mary’s heart:
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

But perhaps the hour has not come for some of them.
Once you told Joseph to take the Child and his mother
far from those seeking the Child’s life.
I offer myself to you, as St. Joseph’s helper,
ready to do everything I can for my beloved Jesus and Mary
in the person of the child and mother you entrust to my care.

Dear Father, accept my prayer in the name of Jesus.

Amen.