Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned,

         and revealed them to little children.

 

                         " The best way to know God is humility, and the greatest obstacle is pride."

 

 St. Henry 

＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊   

Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16

 Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger,

The staff of my fury!  Against a godless nation I send him, against a people who provoke my wrath I dispatch him, to plunder and pillage, to tread them down like mud in the streets.  But the mind of his king is far from this, his heart harbors other thoughts; what he wants is to destroy, to make an end of all nations.

 For the king says; “By my own strength I have done this and by my own wisdom, for I am clever. I have moved the frontiers of peoples, I have plundered treasures, I have brought inhabitants down to the dust, I have toppled kings from their thrones.

 As one reaches into a nest, so my hands have reached into nations’ wealth. As one gathers deserted eggs, so have I gathered the riches of the earth. No one flapped a wing or opened its mouth to chirp a protest.”  Does the axe claim more credit than the man who wields it?

Does the saw magnify itself more than the one who uses it? This would be like a rod wielding the man who lifts it up; will those not made of wood, be controlled by the cudgel? Therefore the Lord, Yahweh Saba­oth, is ready to send a wasting sickness upon the king’s sturdy warriors. Beneath his plenty, a flame will burn like a consuming fire.

 

Ps 94:5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 14-15

The Lord will not abandon his perple.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊ 

Matthew 11:25-27

 On that occasion Jesus said, “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I praise you, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to simple people.  Yes, Father, this is what pleased you.

 Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

 

Gospel Reflection：

Witness of the Little Ones

One of the several events that led the intellectually gifted Edith Stein to convert to catholic faith was witnessing a simple, ordinary woman, walking into a church to pray. In Edith’s own words:

“We stopped in at the cathedral for a few minutes; and, while we looked around in respectful silence, a woman carrying a market basket came in and knelt down in one of the pews to pray briefly. This was something entirely new to me…..

Here was someone interrupting her everyday shopping errands to come into this church, although no other person was in it, as though she were here for an intimate conversation. I could never forget that.”

Edith never forgot it. That little example given unawared by that simple woman led to Edith’s conversion and gave us the martyr and saint, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

 

St. Henry was married to a woman who was later canonized in her own right, St. Cunigunde of Luxmbourg, but the two had no children.

Some accounts say that the couple took vows of virginity and never consummated their childlessness is not universally accepted.