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July 13 2020 Monday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Is 1:10-17 Hear the word of the LORD, princes of Sodom! Listen to the instruction of our God, people of Gomorrah! What care I for the number of your sacrifices? says the LORD. I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; In the blood of calves, lambs and goats I find no pleasure.When you come in to visit me, who asks these things of you? Trample my courts no more! Bring no more worthless offerings; your incense is loathsome to me. New moon...

July 11 2020 Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot Reading 1 Is 6:1-8 In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft.They cried one to the other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!” At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook...

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Msgr. Charles Pope Sobering Spiritual Truths According to St. John of the Cross In today’s post I would like to ponder some hard and sobering spiritual truths, but ones that will set us free.In calling them “hard truths”, I mean that they are not the usual cozy bromides that many seek. They speak bluntly about the more irksome and difficult realities we face. If we come to accept them, though, they have a strange way of bringing serenity by getting us to focus us on the right things rather than spending our time...

July 6 2020 Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 2:16, 17c-18, 21-22 Thus says the LORD: I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt.On that day, says the LORD, She shall call me “My husband,” and never again “My baal.”I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity,...

July 3 2020 Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle Reading 1 Eph 2:19-22 Brothers and sisters: You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Responsorial Psalm 117:1bc, 2 R. (Mark 16:15) Go out to all...

July 1 2020 Wednesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Am 5:14-15, 21-24 Seek good and not evil, that you may live; Then truly will the LORD, the God of hosts, be with you as you claim! Hate evil and love good, and let justice prevail at the gate; Then it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will have pity on the remnant of Joseph.I hate, I spurn your feasts, says the LORD, I take no pleasure in your solemnities; Your cereal offerings I will not accept, nor consider your stall-fed peace offerings....

June 30 2020 Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Am 3:1-8; 4:11-12 Hear this word, O children of Israel, that the LORD pronounces over you, over the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt:You alone have I favored, more than all the families of the earth; Therefore I will punish you for all your crimes.Do two walk together unless they have agreed? Does a lion roar in the forest when it has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from its den unless it has seized something? Is a bird...

June 29 2020 Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles Reading 1 Acts 12:1-11 In those days, King Herod laid hands upon some members of the Church to harm them. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword, and when he saw that this was pleasing to the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter also. –It was the feast of Unleavened Bread.– He had him taken into custody and put in prison under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. He intended to bring him before the people after Passover. Peter thus was being...

June 27 2020 Saturday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Lam 2:2, 10-14, 18-19 The Lord has consumed without pity all the dwellings of Jacob; He has torn down in his anger the fortresses of daughter Judah; He has brought to the ground in dishonor her king and her princes.On the ground in silence sit the old men of daughter Zion; They strew dust on their heads and gird themselves with sackcloth; The maidens of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground.Worn out from weeping are my eyes, within me all is in ferment; My gall...

June 24 2020 Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist Reading 1 Is 49:1-6 Hear me, O coastlands, listen, O distant peoples. The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me. You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory.Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength, yet my reward...

June 22 2020 Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Kgs 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18 Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, occupied the whole land and attacked Samaria, which he besieged for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel the king of Assyria took Samaria, and deported the children of Israel to Assyria, setting them in Halah, at the Habor, a river of Gozan, and the cities of the Medes.This came about because the children of Israel sinned against the LORD, their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt, from...

The Catholic Church could get its second Native American saint if a Vatican research trip to South Dakota this month leads to confirmation of two miracles performed by Nicholas Black Elk, a Lakota Sioux medicine man born in the Civil War era. Fr. Luis Escalante, a Vatican postulator, or researcher for sainthood candidates, recently spent several days in western South Dakota gathering information about Black Elk's life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Escalante spoke with local advocates for the cause, including some who testified to the reportedly miraculous powers of a man who practiced traditional Lakota rituals...

June 13, 2020 Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church Reading 1 1 Kgs 19:19-21 Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; he was following the twelfth. Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him. Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, and I will follow you.” Elijah answered, “Go back! Have I done anything to you?” Elisha left him and, taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them;...

June 11, 2020 Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle Reading 1 Acts 11:21b-26; 13:1-3 In those days a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The news about them reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to go to Antioch. When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart, for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. And a large number of people was added to the Lord. Then he went to Tarsus...

To @realdonaldtrump Through my ongoing conversations with friends, teammates, and leaders in the black community, I realize this is not an issue about the American flag. It has never been. We can no longer use the flag to turn people away or distract them from the real issues that face our black communities. We did this back in 2017, and regretfully I brought it back with my comments this week. We must stop talking about the flag and shift our attention to the real issues of systemic racial injustice, economic oppression, police brutality, and judicial & prison reform. We are...

June 6, 2020 Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 TM 4:1-8 Beloved: I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to...

A group of NFL players from across the league have gathered for a 70-second video demanding that the NFL deliver a clear message about racial injustice in the wake of the death of George Floyd.The video starts with Saints receiver Michael Thomas saying, “It’s been 10 days since George Floyd was brutally murdered.”Then comes DeAndre Hopkins to ask, “What will it take?”“For one of us to be murdered by police brutality?” Browns receiver Jarvis Landry adds.“What if I was George Floyd?” Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson asks.“If I was George Floyd,” Giants running back Saquon Barkley also asks.“What if I was...

June 5, 2020 Memorial of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr Reading 1 2 Tm 3:10-17 You have followed my teaching, way of life, purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, persecutions that I endured. Yet from all these things the Lord delivered me. In fact, all who want to live religiously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But wicked people and charlatans will go from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived. But you, remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you...

Yesterday, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees was asked by a journalist if he would be taking a knee during the National Anthem now. In the past, he has declined to. He said: I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. Let me just tell what I see or what I feel when the national anthem is played and when I look at the flag of the United States.

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees continues to stand against players kneeling during the national anthem when the season starts, and on Wednesday he told Yahoo Finance that he would never agree with the gesture. “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. Let me just tell you what I see or what I feel when the national anthem is played and when I look at the flag of the United States,” Brees said. After receiving backlash about his comments, Brees reiterated his stance later to ESPN saying that he...