“THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE BODY.”

There are two essential elements of life-long faithfulness in marriage,

namely: The offering of one’s self and sacrifice.

Was it not through offering/giving and sacrifice that God’s saving plan in Jesus proceeded? 

 

St. Stephen of Hungary/ St. Roch

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63*

The word of Yahweh

 Jesus publicly identifies himself as the bread that came down from heaven.

Jesus' claim is beyond their comprehension.

Jesus unequivocally identified himself “The bread I will give for the life of the world is my flesh”

Jesus will give his body literally. will be for the life of the world.

 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊ 

1 Kings 19:4-8

He himself disappeared

 “YOU ARE MOST BLESSED AMONG WOMEN.”

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary both body and soul is a defined teaching of the church.

The Blessed Virgin is our singular boost to heaven.

What made her “most blessed among women”?

God himself chose her;

She said “yes” to the announcement of the angel Gabriel.

 

 ＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab

 

Ps 45:10, 11, 12, 16 The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold.

St. LAWRENCE was born in Spain,

This holy martyr, in the first half of the 3rd century, is marked by piety and charity.

Pope Sixtus II entrusted him with the care of the archdiocese. As the deacon responsible for charitable activities in the diocese of Rome,

Saint Lawrence administered goods and catered to the needs of orphans, widows, and the poor generally.

Saint Lawrence was burnt on a gridiron. Saint Lawrence’s martyrdom is a supreme testament to love.

 

 ＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

2 Corinthians 9:6-10

Remember: the one

 

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Catholic priest and Conventual Franciscan friar.

On 10 October 1982, Pope John Paul II canonized Kolbe and declared him a martyr of charity.

Kolbe's life was strongly influenced in 1906, when he was 12, by a vision of the Virgin Mary.[9] He later described this incident:

That night I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red.

She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns.

The white one meant that I should persevere in purity and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.

 

 

St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, priest & martyr

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

Ezekiel 9:1-7; 10:18-22*

Yahweh shouted loudly

Denying one’s self and taking up one’s cross are the small gate and narrow path that leads to life.

Only by uniting our suffering in life to that of Jesus can we carry our crosses.

There is a “self-forgetfulness” as you relativize your own life

and care for the life of others – a true death that we let in without violence.

 

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, virgin & martyr

1st Reading: Nahum 2:1, 3; 3:1-3, 6-7

See, there on the mountains,

Why did Jesus set the childlike humility as the measure of greatness and the requisite to be able to enter of heaven?

The little ones are not only the children, but also the poor.

Become like children: the child is held up as a model for the disciples

not because of any supposed innocence of children

but because of their complete dependence on, and trust in,

their parents. So must the disciples be, in respect to God.

 

 

St. Pontion, pope, martyrs/ 52. Hippolytus, prest, martyrs

1st Reading: Ezekiel 25-34

Listen then, son of man,

 Saint Dominic

Canonized 13 July 1234,

Dominic came face to face with the then virulent Albigensian heresy at Languedoc.

His fellow preachers gradually became a community, and in 1215 Dominic founded a religious house at Toulouse,

the beginning of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans.

Saint Dominic, was a Castilian-French Catholic priest and the founder of the Dominican Order.

 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Jeremiah 31:31-34

The time is coming – it is Yahweh

 

 

St. Jane Frances de Chantal, religious

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Ezekiel 1:2-5, 24-28c

On the fifth of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of king Jehoiachin)

 "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David."

"Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

The woman persists, and Jesus praises her for her for faith.

She insists she deserves to be amongst God’s children even if her circumstance denies it.

Jesus said, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish."

 

 

St. Sixtus II, pope & martyr/ St. Cajetan, priest

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Jeremiah 31:1-7 

Yahweh declares