St. Kateri Tekakwitha, virgin

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊   

Isaiah 26:7-9, 11, 16-19

  Let the righteous walk in right­eousness.

You make smooth the path of the just,  and we only seek the way of your laws, O Yahweh.

Your name and your memory are the desire of our hearts.   My soul yearns for you in the night; for you my spirit keeps vigil.

When your judgments come to earth, the world’s inhabitants learn to be upright.

 

 Yahweh, your hand is lifted up, but they fail to see that. Let them see your zeal for your people, that they may be put to shame. Let your enemies be burned in the fire of your anger.

For they sought you in distress, they cried out to you in the time of their punishment.  As a woman in travail moans and writhes in pain, so are we now in your presence.

 We conceived, we had labor pains, but we gave birth to the wind. We have not brought salvation to the land; the inhabitants of a new world have not been born.

Your dead will live! Their corpses will rise! Awake and sing, you who lie in the dust!

For you will grow like plants drenched with the morning dew, and the earth will bring forth its dead spirits.

 

Ps 102:13-14ab & 15, 16-18, 19-21

From heaven the Lord Looks down on the earth.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Matthew 11:28-30

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest. For my yoke is easy; and my burden is light.”

 

Gospel Reflection：

Resting in the Lord

“Rest in Peace” or “Rest in the Lord” are phrases we use in the context of offering condolences when someone dies. We wish and pray that the dead soul may find its rest in the Lord. But, why should we wait till our death to find our “rest” in God? Why not here and now, right in the midst of our business of life?

Jesus offers us precisely that. Life is hard, we are weary and burdened; yet, there is always hope for dealing with the everyday challenges of life with certain restfulness. In the eastern philosophic traditions, this is the concept of “sthitaprajna.”

Roughly translated, it refers to a person who is recollected, calm, and firm, with an internal sense of liberation. Such restfulness of soul is possible when our hearts are centered in the Lord. That is what Christ invites us to do, today.

 

 

                     "I will willingly abandon this miserable body to hunger and suffering,

                                                       provided that my soul may have its  ordinary nourishment." 

                                                                                                                                                      ~~~  ST. KATERI TEKAKWITHA ~~~