Collect for 8th Sunday Year C

COLLECT AND GOSPEL REFLECTION

 

The Mass Collect and Gospel Reflection.

COLLECT FOR 8TH SUNDAY YEAR C

The Collect for 8^th Sunday of Year C reads as follows.

Grant us, O Lord, we pray,

that the course of our world may be directed by Your peaceful rule

and that Your Church may rejoice, untroubled in Her devotion.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,

who lives and reigns with You

in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS 

In making this prayer tangible for during the week, the following reflection questions emerged:

1.    What is the peaceful rule of God?

2.    What areas of my life need to be directions by God’s peaceful rule?

3.    How can the Church rejoice untroubled in Her devotion?

4.    What is the Church’s devotion?

GOSPEL REFLECTION

The Gospel is taken from St. Luke (6:39-45). These statements of Christ spoken centuries ago to his fellow Jews of Palestine are as true and as crystal clear today as they were in the year 29 A.D. They are the words of him who was the Truth. They are put before us today for there are few amongst us who do not need to be reminded of their lesson. We are all so prone to see the neighbour’s faults and shortcomings and so inclined to cover up or deny our own.

While we ourselves are blind to, or wanting in, many necessary virtues, yet we can spot this lack in our brother Christian and have the audacity to offer to lead him on the right road. We are often lacking in the basic knowledge of the teachings of our faith and yet we can find a thousand faults in the official doctrine of the teaching Church. We can all criticise minor defects in our neighbour’s Christian behaviour whilst our own Christian way of living is giving far greater scandal.

In other words, most if not all of us, are to some degree hypocrites. We pretend to be what we are not, but should be. We pretend to be producing good fruit: figs and grapes, whereas we are only thorn bushes and brambles which produce nothing but harmful thorns which sting and poison ourselves and our neighbours. And while I am making these comments I shouldn't be at all surprised if some of my listeners are saying in their hearts: "Mrs. X or John Y is getting it today, I hope they are taking it in," when what we should all be saying is : "How truly our Lord read my heart. How many times in the past week have I criticised my fellow men without knowing all, or any perhaps, of the true facts. How seldom have I honestly examined my own conscience to see my own more serious defects and tried to correct them?"

When our Lord spoke these words, his purpose and intention was not to condemn his hearers, the vast majority of whom were guilty of the defects he mentioned, but rather to open their minds and their hearts to their shortcomings so that they would change for the better and learn to live with their neighbour’s faults, and do all in their power to correct their own.

It is for the very same purpose the Church has selected this particular lesson for us today. We are all guilty of rash judgement and unjustified criticism, to a greater or lesser degree. Let us turn this criticism on ourselves rather, and judge ourselves honestly and sincerely and in a short while we may, with God's grace helping us, notice a change in our Christian conduct. We shall not become saints in a week or a month but little by little, imperceptibly at first perhaps, we shall find ourselves becoming more Christian and therefore more charitable towards our neighbour and less critical of the faults of others.

Excerpted from The Sunday Readings by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M. (from Catholic Culture.Org).

LENT IS ON  THE WAY

Ash Wednesday ( this coming Wednesday) is the start of Lent. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of Abstinence and Fast.  The Church decrees that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday  are days of fasting and abstinence for all adult Catholics from 14-65 years.  It is only a minimum requirement laid down by the Church, but fasting, prayer and almsgiving are essential tools in our journey of conversion of heart  in this season of penance. For health reasons, the Church does not expect the sick and infirm to fast and abstain.

What does the Church mean by fasting?   The Church's expectation of fasting means to eat much less than would normally be eaten on these 2 days specifically, by eating one main meal and two light snacks. A traditional main meal dish on Ash Wednesday is either fish pie or vegetable casserole. It is highly recommended that we maintain fasting by not eating between these snacks and main meal on these two days.  Abstinence requires that we abstain from all meat and meat products.

Have you decided on  your personal penance yet?   The key to remember in choosing it is to have the key elements of prayer, fasting and alms-giving. Also we need to look at our lives with the lens of God - what do we need to change?. Lent is our spiritual spring- a change of heart.

I am yet to finally decide but I hope that I can manage a better Lent than previous ones.  I pray that your Lent will be blessed too.

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