by Faith Central & Steve Welsh
from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. [Click here for Mass Readings]
[featured image is file photo]
From Loretto Abbey in the Archdiocese of Toronto.
[Click here for Mass Readings]
[featured image adapted from image at Creative Commons Wikimedia Commons Pjposullivan,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Loretto_Abbey_chapel_interior,_Toronto.JPG, with additional conditions stated at that link and in the alt-tag here]
“… Jesus enjoined them, ‘Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.’ …”
Notes:
Pope Leo XIII is credited with creating the Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel in the 1880’s, in connection with a Mystical experience relating to the battle of good vs. evil. It is, of course, important to ask Saint Michael the Archangel for assistance and Scripture notes his Angelic leadership of the Hosts of Heaven in defeating evil as Servants of God.
Yet one obvious question is that of an additional version of the prayer addressed directly to God Himself.
The above text is one attempt to adapt the text of Saint Leo XIII’s Prayer such as to address God directly. Since prayer, particularly addressed to God, is a form of pleading, there is additional adjustment to prayerfully ask God’s Assistance, as well as adjusted text to note the Infinite Greatness and Love of God. Additional concluding text is added to give thanks and praise to God for His Divine Assistance.
As can be seen, this version of the prayer also combines an Invocation of God and Cry for His Divine Assistance with an open Confession of God our Creator’s Omnipotence and Omnipresence, both Physically and Across Time and Eternity.
(c) Steven C. Welsh
[featured image is file photo]
From Loretto Abbey in the Archdiocese of Toronto.
[Click here for Mass Readings]
[featured image adapted from image at Creative Commons Wikimedia Commons Pjposullivan,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Loretto_Abbey_chapel_interior,_Toronto.JPG, with additional conditions stated at that link and in the alt-tag here]
“… Pharisees came forward … to argue with Jesus, seeking from Him a Sign from Heaven to test Him. He sighed from the Depth of His Spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation seek a sign? Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.’ … He left them, got into the boat again, and went off to the other shore.”
“Lord Jesus, send Your Spirit to help us to read the scriptures with the same mind that You read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. … Create silence in us so that we may listen to Your voice in creation and in the scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor and suffering. May Your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, may experience the force of Your resurrection and witness to others that You are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice and peace. We ask this of You, Jesus, Son of Mary, who revealed the Father to us and sent us Your Spirit. Amen. …”
“The blessings and woes we hear in today’s Gospel mark the perfection of all the wisdom of the Old Testament. That wisdom is summed up with marvelous symmetry in today’s First Reading and Psalm: Each declares that the righteous—those who hope in the Lord and delight in His Law—will prosper like a tree planted near living waters. The wicked, who put their ‘trust in human beings,’ are cursed to wither and die. …”
