Our Lady of Fatima

She asked them to pray the rosary daily,  and asked them "to pray a lot,

a lot for the sinners and sacrifice a lot, as many souls perish in hell

because nobody is praying or making sacrifices for them.

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊   

Acts 13:26-33

 Brothers, children and descendants of Abraham,

And you also who fear God, it is to you that this message of salvation has been sent.   It is a fact that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders did not rec­­ognize Jesus. Yet in condemning him, they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath but not understood.   Even though they found no charge against him that deserved death, they asked Pilate to have him exe­cuted.   And after they had carried out all that had been written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb.

 

 But God raised him from the dead,   and for many days thereafter he showed himself to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They have now become his witnesses before the people.   Weourselves announce to you this Good News: All that God promised our ancestors,   he has fulfilled for us, their descendants, by raising Jesus, according to what is written in the second psalm: You are my Son, today I have begotten you.

 

Ps 2:6-7, 8-9, 10-11b

You are my son; this day I have begotten you!

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊      

John 14:1-6

 “Do not be troubled; trust in God and trust in me.  In my Father’s house there are many rooms. Otherwise I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you.   After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to me, so that where I am, you also may be.  Yet you know the way where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know the way?”   Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.

 

Gospel Reflection：

Desire of the Nations

The Church refers to Jesus as the “desire of the nations” and rightly so. The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, one of the ten principal Upanishads of India (written between 9^th -6^th centuries BCE), has this famous prayer, known as pavamana abhyaroha (Prayer of purification), that captures this human desire beautifully. I give it in transliterated Sanskrit with its meaning in parenthesis:

asato ma sadgamaya   (lead us from untruth to truth)

Tanaso majyotirgamaya    (from darkness to light)

mrtyor mamrtam gamaya  (from death to eternal life)