Daily Mass Reflection & Daily Mass Readings

Daily Mass Reflection & Daily Mass Readings

Daily Mass Reflection & Daily Mass Readings are vital for nurturing spiritual growth and maintaining a strong connection to one’s faith. These practices offer a dedicated time to meditate on the scriptures and the teachings of the homily, helping individuals internalize the lessons and apply them to their daily lives. Regular engagement with the readings fosters a deeper understanding of religious texts, while the reflection period allows for personal introspection and spiritual renewal. Together, they provide a foundation for a more meaningful and conscious practice of faith, promoting a sense of peace, guidance, and communal belonging.

22^nd July, Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene

The experience of seeking and not finding is a very human one. There is a sense in which we are always seeking and never quite finding. It is as if there is a longing deep within us that is never quite satisfied. In today’s first reading from the Song of Songs, the bride says, ‘I sought him whom my heart loves. I sought but did not find him’. This is often our experience too. Yet, eventually she finds ‘him whom my heart loves’. That love poem has often been understood as speaking of the relationship of love between God, the bridegroom, and God’s people, the bride. In the gospel reading, Mary Magdalene is seeking the body of Jesus, but she cannot find him, ‘They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have put him’. Her failure to find the body of the one whom she loves brings her great sadness, ‘Mary stayed outside the tomb, weeping’. Eventually she found the Lord, but in a way she could never have imagined. She did not find the Lord’s body, but the Lord in all his risen glory. Indeed, it is more accurate to say that the Lord found her. As she wept, Jesus was standing there, but when Mary turned to see him she thought he was the gardener. It is only when he called her by name, ‘Mary!’ that she recognized him for who he really was. Having found him, the Lord did not allow her to cling to him, but sent her out as the first person to proclaim the good news of Easter to the other disciples, which she immediately did, telling them that ‘she had seen the Lord’. Saint Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. The longing deep within us will only be fully satisfied when we see the Lord. We look forward to that eternal day when we will see the Lord face to face. Yet, here and now, the Lord is always seeking us out and calling us by name, as he called Mary Magdalene by name. As we seek the Lord, we can be assured that the Lord is seeking us with a greater passion. If we allow the Lord to find us, if we listen for him calling our name, we will begin to see him with the eyes of faith, and, having done so, he will send us out as his witnesses in the world.

21st July – Tuesday, Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Normally when people want to see Jesus in the gospels, he makes himself available to them. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus’ mother and siblings were standing outside the house where Jesus was speaking and word came through to Jesus that ‘your mother and your brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you’. However, rather than respond to the wish of his own blood family, Jesus points to his disciples who are with him and says, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’. Jesus is declaring that he is in the process of creating a new family, a family of disciples. Rather than go out to his blood family, there is an implicit invitation to them to come and join the new family he is forming. We know from the other gospels that Mary, Jesus’ mother, became his disciple, and it is likely that other members of his blood family did so, such as James, his brother, who became a leading member of the church in Jerusalem. What we want the Lord to do for us doesn’t always correspond to what the Lord wants us to do for him. Jesus’ own blood family had to learn to let him go to the work God was calling on him to do. They had to learn that God’s will for Jesus came before their will for him. In our own relationship with the Lord, we too are asked to surrender to his will for our lives, to God’s will for our lives. In letting ourselves go to the Lord in this way, we don’t give up our freedom. Rather we allow the Lord to make us truly free, free to live as God desires us to live, free to live fully human lives, just as the Lord himself did.

22nd July >> Mass Readings

Feast of Saint Mary Magdalen

(Liturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II))

Either:

First Reading Song of Songs 3:1-4 I found him whom my heart loves.

The bride says this:

On my bed, at night, I sought him whom my heart loves. I sought but did not find him. So I will rise and go through the City; in the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my heart loves. I sought but did not find him. The watchmen came upon me on their rounds in the City: ‘Have you seen him whom my heart loves?’ Scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my heart loves.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Or:

First Reading 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 We do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh.

The love of Christ overwhelms us when we reflect that if one man has died for all, then all men should be dead; and the reason he died for all was so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them. From now onwards, therefore, we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh. Even if we did once know Christ in the flesh, that is not how we know him now. And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 62(63):2-6,8-9