Today, August 21
Feast of the Day
No feast of the day
Saint of the Day
When Pius X was elected in 1903, it was the first time since the Middle Ages that a 'peasant' had been chosen as pope. Giuseppe Sarto was born in Riese, Italy, in 1835. His mother was a seamstress, his father a parish clerk who died when Giuseppe was 16, leaving the family in financial straits. His mother insisted that the boy continue his education and fulfill his desire to become a priest. He was ordained at 23 and involved in pastoral ministry for 17 years. He became a bishop in 1884, a cardinal in 1892 and was elected pope in 1903. He died in 1914, soon after the outbreak of World War I.
His recommendations and encyclicals reflect his pastoral background: he advocated frequent communion for adults, sacramental preparation for children, and instruction in catechism for everyone. In his concern for the Church in a rapidly changing world, he issued a decree against writers holding 'modernist' ideas in philosophy and theology and wrote an encyclical condemning Modernism in all its manifestations. He was canonized in 1954.
©2011 Living with Christ, Novalis - Bayard Press Canada Inc., http://www.livingwithchrist.ca/. Reprinted with permission.
Readings of the Day
Book of Ezekiel 37,1-14.
The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he led me out in the spirit of the LORD and set me in the center of the plain, which was now filled with bones. He made me walk among them in every direction so that I saw how many they were on the surface of the plain. How dry they were! He asked me: Son of man, can these bones come to life? "Lord GOD," I answered, "you alone know that." Then he said to me: Prophesy over these bones, and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: See! I will bring spirit into you, that you may come to life. I will put sinews upon you, make flesh grow over you, cover you with skin, and put spirit in you so that you may come to life and know that I am the LORD. I prophesied as I had been told, and even as I was prophesying I heard a noise; it was a rattling as the bones came together, bone joining bone. I saw the sinews and the flesh come upon them, and the skin cover them, but there was no spirit in them. Then he said to me: Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord GOD: From the four winds come, O spirit, and breathe into these slain that they may come to life. I prophesied as he told me, and the spirit came into them; they came alive and stood upright, a vast army. Then he said to me: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They have been saying, "Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are cut off." Therefore, prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.
Psalms 107(106),2-3.4-5.6-7.8-9.
Let the redeemed of the LORD say, those whom he has redeemed from the hand of the foe and gathered from the lands, from the east and the west, from the north and the south. They went astray in the desert wilderness; the way to an inhabited city they did not find. Hungry and thirsty, their life was wasting away within them. They cried to the LORD in their distress; from their straits he rescued them. And he led them by a direct way to reach an inhabited city. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his mercy and his wondrous deeds to the children of men, because he satisfied the longing soul and filled the hungry soul with good things.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 22,34-40.
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."
Daily Reflection
There is not one who does not love something, but the question is, what to love. The psalms do not tell us not to love, but to choose the object of our love. But how can we choose unless we are first chosen? We cannot love unless someone has loved us first. Listen to the apostle John: We love him, because he first loved us. The source of man's love for God can only be found in the fact that God loved him first. He has given us himself as the object of our love, and he has also given us its source. What this source is you may learn more clearly from the apostle Paul who tells us: The love of God has been poured into our hearts. This love is not something we generate ourselves; it comes to us through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Since we have such an assurance, then, let us love God with the love he has given us. As john tells us more fully. God is love, and whoever dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. It is not enough to say: Love is from God. Which of us would dare to pronounce the words of Scripture: God is love? He alone could say it who knew what it was to have God dwelling within him. God offers us a short route to the possession of himself. He cries out: Love me and you will have me for you would be unable to love me if you did not possess me already.