14th Sunday of the year
July 4th, 2010
"Jesus came to bring new life"
Matthew 9 : 9 - 13
We read today how sometimes people misunderstand the Gospel. They think that the Christian faith is for the privileged only, and they don”t expect to find in the Church drug addicts and the marginals of society.
Tax collecting has never been a popular profession, and the decision of Matthew, a well known tax collector, to follow Jesus, caused quite a stir among the Pharisees. They were also surprised to find Him having a meal in Matthew’s house, but God’s love is lavish and generous.
We, Christians, are supposed to give witness to this kind of love. Blaise Pascal wrote : “In the end there are only two kinds of people. The righteous who believe themselves sinners, the sinners who believe themselves righteous.”
Today is the feast of St. Elizabeth of Portugal. She was born in 1271 into the royal family of Aragon. After her husband’s death, she renounced the world and lived in poverty as a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, may I dedicate my life to the Gospel and give witness to God's forgiveness and mercy. Amen.
The prayer for each day has been prepared by various members of the Holy Family Association. All who visit our website are remembered in prayer. If you would like us to pray for a particular need, simply complete and submit the form on the right hand side of this page. You may wish to leave a comment in the space below.
Just a Thought
How the Holy Family prayer: A Reflection by Pope Benedict XVI
“I would like to invite you to reflect on the place of prayer in the life of the Holy Family of Nazareth. The home of Nazareth, in fact, is a school of prayer where we learn to listen, to ponder and to penetrate the profound meaning of the manifestation of the Son of God, drawing our example from Mary, Joseph and Jesus.
Pope Paul VI during his visit to Nazareth said “we come to understand the need for a spiritual discipline, if we wish to follow the teaching of the Gospel and become disciples of Christ.” And he added: “First, it teaches us silence. Oh! That there would be reborn in us the esteem for silence, that wonderful and indispensable atmosphere of the spirit: while we are deafened by so many noises, sounds and clamorous voices in the frantic and tumultuous times of modern life. Oh! Silence of Nazareth, teach us to be resolute in good thoughts, intent upon the interior life, ready to listen well to the secret inspirations of God and the exhortations of the true masters.”
We can glean several insights on the Holy Family’s prayer and relationship with God from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ childhood. We may begin with the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. St. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph, “when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, brought the child up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord”(2:22). Like every observant Jewish family, Jesus’ parents go up to the temple to consecrate the firstborn son to God and to offer sacrifice. Moved by fidelity to the law’s prescriptions, they set off from Bethlehem and go up to Jerusalem with Jesus, who is now forty days old. Instead of a one-year-old lamb, they present the offering of simple families; that is two young pigeons. The Holy Family’s pilgrimage is one of faith, of the offering of gifts, a symbol of prayer, and of encounter with the Lord, whom Mary and Joseph already see in the son Jesus.”
