Today, August 8
Feast of the Day
No feast of the day
Saint of the Day
Dominic de Guzman, born in Caleruega, Spain, around 1172, began his priestly life in Osma as a cathedral canon. In 1205, he and Bishop Diego of Osma were sent to the south of France to combat the Albigensian heresy. The Albigensians believed that all matter was evil, and all good resided solely in the spiritual realm. Dominic worked tirelessly to defend the truth of the Incarnation, the redemption of humankind through the Body and Blood of Christ, using his extensive knowledge and great skill as a preacher. He also felt that he should live the life of a beggar, as Jesus had instructed the apostles.
By 1216, Dominic had founded the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) and soon had houses in all the university cities in Europe. The priests were highly educated and could be sent where the need was greatest, fighting heresy and preaching the importance of the sacraments. Dominic himself walked from city to city, preaching and inviting vocations. He died at Bologna in 1221, but the order had already begun to flourish, having both the intellectual and popular appeal of the founder himself. He was canonized in 1234 and is a patron saint of the Dominican Republic (named after the Latin word for Sunday), astronomers, scientists, and falsely accused persons..
©2011 Living with Christ, Novalis - Bayard Press Canada Inc., http://www.livingwithchrist.ca/. Reprinted with permission.
Readings of the Day
Book of Habakkuk 1,12-17.2,1-4.
Are you not from eternity, O LORD, my holy God, immortal? O LORD you have marked him for judgment, O Rock, you have readied him for punishment! Too pure are your eyes to look upon evil, and the sight of misery you cannot endure. Why, then, do you gaze on the faithless in silence while the wicked man devours one more just than himself? You have made man like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler. He brings them all up with his hook, he hauls them away with his net, He gathers them in his seine; and so he rejoices and exults. Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his seine; For thanks to them his portion is generous, and his repast sumptuous. Shall he, then, keep on brandishing his sword to slay peoples without mercy? I will stand at my guard post, and station myself upon the rampart, And keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what answer he will give to my complaint. Then the LORD answered me and said: Write down the vision Clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily. For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. The rash man has no integrity; but the just man, because of his faith, shall live.
Psalms 9(9A),8-9.10-11.12-13.
The LORD sits enthroned forever; he has set up his throne for judgment. He judges the world with justice; he governs the peoples with equity. The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of distress. They trust in you who cherish your name, for you forsake not those who seek you, O LORD. Sing praise to the LORD enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations his deeds; for the avenger of blood has remembered; he has not forgotten the cry of the poor.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 17,14-20.
A man approached Jesus, knelt down before him, and said, "Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him." Jesus said in reply, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him here to me." Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured. Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, "Why could we not drive it out?" He said to them, "Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
Daily Reflection
The faith which the Church hands down to you has all the authority of the scriptures behind it. This is the faith, and none other, which you must learn to proclaim and in which you must persevere. Our spiritual life must not be put at risk through ignorance, and since there are some who do not read the bible, either because they are too busy or because they are illiterate, the essence and core of our faith has been captured, and can be memorized, in the few short lines of the Creed… To begin with, simply take the words as they stand at their face value, put your faith in them and commit them to memory. Later, as opportunity offers, you can take the propositions one by one and study them as truths of the sacred scriptures. This summary of our faith is not a merely human composition but the more striking sayings of the scriptures have been assembled together to form one comprehensive statement. And as a small mustard seed carries within itself the potential of large branches (Mt 13:32), so the words of our creed are pregnant with the whole content of our religion as it is expressed both in the Old and the New Testament. Pay attention, then, brethren, to the truths of the faith now being handed down to you and “write them on the tablets of your hearts” (2Cor 3:3)... As the apostle Paul says: “In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate bore witness to that great claim; I charge you to keep the faith unstained until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Tim 6: 13f.).