3rd
Sunday after Pentecost
18 June
2023, Canton
Praised be Jesus Christ!
The
Introit for today’s Sunday Mass sums up in an incomparable way what should be
our attitude about all sorts of things, things regarding our lives, things
about family and faith, about the mission of the Church. We could live fully as
Catholics from such words as we find in today’s Introit. They could even help
us sort out what the Church means when it proclaims the Kingship of Jesus Christ.
Réspice in me et miserére mei, Dómine; quóniam únicus et
pauper sum ego…
Take
that Introit, if you will, for your Sunday reflection! There is much here to be
unpacked, not only concerning Who God is for my life, but who I am before God.
Although
celebrating the external solemnity of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
would have been an option for this Sunday, I asked Father Lawrence if it would be
alright to celebrate the 3rd Sunday and do so in the context of June
as the month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. After Mass, together with the
Leonine Prayers, I would like to recite the Litany of the Sacred Heart with you
as well as the Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart. Hopefully, at least as
a family, you had the opportunity to do that on Friday, but it is good for us as
a community to publicly do so even without exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
Why my
preference for celebrating the Sunday today? I find the proper texts for this 3rd
Sunday after Pentecost very powerful and unified in their humble petition for
the Lord’s mercy. They can help us understand how it is that Christ reigns over
us and our world by the love of His Heart and by His saving Grace.
As
some of you may know, I was in France over Pentecost, invited to come and
celebrate the Pontifical High Mass in the Cathedral of Chartres for this year’s
41st traditional Paris-Chartres youth pilgrimage. 16,000 young
people whose average age was 20 participated in this wonderful three day event.
There were over 300 traditional priests accompanying the young people and
families; there were numerous women religious in traditional habit who cared
especially for the children and adolescents; there were men religious and
seminarians who took part as well. Even the secular media in France were
respectful in their interviews and reporting on the pilgrimage. I think it safe
to say that many French Catholics rejoiced in the pilgrimage under the
protection of the Blessed Mother, and many more were confounded by this joyous
and beautiful witness of faith, traditional faith, which did not fit the usual rhetoric
of skepticism and alienation from the institutional Church in France.
Matthew
Chapter 11, especially the concluding verses, comes immediately to my mind. I
think it can be an interpretative key for our faith experience and offer us
hope and consolation in the midst of contrast and controversy. We have every
reason in Christ to remain strong and hopeful, confident that the Lord Himself
reigns supreme and will vanquish our enemies and foes. The whole chapter 11 of
Matthew’s Gospel could be a fruitful meditation for you on the Christian life,
but the last 2 verses are the ones I would like to lay upon your hearts.
“Come
to me all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up my
yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: And you
shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.” (Catholic
Way Publishing. The Holy Bible: Douay-Rheims Version (p. 2650). Catholic Way
Publishing. Kindle Edition.) [Matt. 11:28-30]
The
Gospel for this Sunday from Luke 15 recounts the first two parables of three,
the third being that of the Prodigal Son. The first is that of the man going
off in search of his lost sheep, leaving the 99 in the desert, and the second that
of the woman sweeping her house from top to bottom in her search for the one of
ten coins which she had lost.
We
can spend a lot of time frightened by things going on around us, even at
certain levels of Church. My simple message to you would be to look to the Heart
of Jesus, Who will not allow us to be lost, not endure that we should perish. In
Christ the King we have every reason to hope.
Look
Thou upon me, O Lord, and have mercy on me; for I am alone and poor. See my
abjection and my labor; and forgive me all my sins, O my God. To Thee, O Lord,
have I lifted up my soul: in Thee, my God, I put my trust; let me not be
ashamed.
On
the civil calendar here in the United States today is Father’s Day. My prayer
for all you fathers is that you might be men after the Heart of Christ. That
His burning, all-consuming love might be yours as well! May God bless you and
bless us with such fathers as give evidence of the reason for our hope in
Christ!
Praised
be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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