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Daily Readings for:February 07, 2014
(Readings on USCCB website)

Collect: Grant us, Lord our God, that we may honor you with all our mind, and love everyone in truth of heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

RECIPES

o Minestrone

ACTIVITIES

o Explaining the Mass and Sacraments

o Preschool Parent Pedagogy: Planning the Teaching of our Faith

o Teaching About the Mass

o Teaching the Trinity

o Teaching Through Example

o The Sign of the Cross

o What Truths to Teach

o Why teach at home?

PRAYERS

o Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes

LIBRARY

o I Will Arise and Return to My Father | Pope John Paul

PRAYERS

o Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes

LIBRARY

o I Will Arise and Return to My Father | Pope John Paul II

· Ordinary Time: February 7th

· Friday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time

Old Calendar: St. Romuald, abbot

According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of St. Romuald, abbot, the anniversary of the translation of his relics in 1481. His feast in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite is celebrated on June 19, the day he died in 1027.

The Supreme Lover
The Goodness of God means that God gives us what we need for our perfection, not what we want for our pleasure and sometimes for our destruction. As a sculptor, He sometimes applies the chisel to the marble of our imperfect selves and knocks off huge chunks of selfishness that His image may better stand revealed. Like a musician, whenever He finds the strings too loose on the violin of our personality, He tightens them even though it hurts, that we may better reveal our hidden harmonies.

As the Supreme Lover of our soul, He does care how we act and think and speak. What father does not want to be proud of his son? If the father speaks with authority now and then to his son, it is not because he is a dictator, but because he wants him to be a worthy son. Not even progressive parents, who deny discipline and restraint, are indifferent to the progress of their children. So long as there is love, there is necessarily a desire for the perfecting of the beloved.

That is precisely the way God's goodness manifests itself to us. God really loves us and, because He loves us, He is not disinterested. He no more wants you to be unhappy than your own parents want you to be unhappy. God made you not for His happiness, but for yours, and to ask God to be satisfied with most of us as we really are, is to ask that God cease to love.

— Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

The Word Among Us

Meditation: Sirach 47:2-11

4th Week in Ordinary Time

The Lord forgave him his sins and exalted his strength forever. (Sirach 47:11)

What a shining portrait Ben Sira, the author of Sirach, paints for us of King David! “As a youth he slew the giant and wiped out the people’s disgrace… . When he assumed the royal crown, he battled and subdued the enemy on every side… . With his whole being he loved his Maker and daily had his praises sung” (Sirach 47:4, 6, 8). This is a bright picture of a great warrior, a mighty king, a renowned musician, and a great lover of God.

But what about David’s adultery with Bathsheba? His conspiring to have Uriah abandoned and killed in battle? Wouldn’t this suggest a darker portrait, stained with sin? It seems as if there are two faces to David.

David was a “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22). But there’s no denying that his sins had a terrible impact on himself, his family, and all of Israel. But Ben Sira, a masterful portrait artist, knew what he was doing when he chose to highlight David’s love for God over his grievous sins. For when David stumbled and fell, he turned back to God, and “the Lord forgave him his sins” (Sirach 47:11). God kept his covenant with David, and ultimately, his Son, Jesus—a descendant of King David—brought redemption and healing to fallen humankind.

Our lives may not hold the sort of radical contrast of light and shadow that David’s did, but we all have our bright and dark “faces.” The good news is that God has made provision for our waywardness. He has given us the great gift of repentance.

We often think of repentance or going to Confession as a great burden, or at least an embarrassing inconvenience. But David’s story tells us that it is nothing less than a path back to the Lord and a protection against crippling guilt. Just as God showed mercy to David, he is eager to forgive you. He wants nothing more than to bring you back to his heart. He wants nothing more than to shower you with his mercy! Just as he did for David, he wants not only to forgive you but to strengthen you more and more.

“Lord Jesus, thank you for forgiving me and welcoming me back!”

Psalm 18:31, 47, 50-51; Mark 6:14-29