June 14 - Corpus Christi - The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ

First Reading   Deuteronomy 8:2-3,14b-16a Moses tells the people to remember how God delivered them from slavery in Egypt.
Responsorial Psalm   Psalm 147:12-15,19-20 Praise God, Jerusalem!
Second Reading   1 Corinthians 10:16-17 Though many, we are one body when we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ.
Gospel Reading John 6:51-58
 
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. One of our Eucharistic Acclamations after the Consecration is “When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again.” That is what Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11:26). How can we say that when we gather for the Eucharist we proclaim Jesus’ death? When we gather for the Eucharist it is to be an act of love, reflecting the love of Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross for us. If we gather for the Eucharist and we really don’t care about each other then our Eucharist is meaningless. Once again in the same chapter Paul says that our Eucharist is a shame if we do not love one another. When we gather for the Eucharist it is to be an act of love, reflecting the love of Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross for us. Our daily lives must reflect the Eucharist we celebrate. Each day, we must give of ourselves, pour out our lives in service and in love of others. How? In small ways — almost unnoticed, but so real and sometimes not convenient to do. For example: "Daddy, will you come play with me?" "Mom, will you help me?" The phone rings: "I wonder if you could help me…" Or "I need to talk to you because..." An older person in the family: how about a visit, a call or a letter? In Eucharist, we celebrate here in worship what we must live out there in daily life. That is why the Eucharist is essential to Catholic belief and fundamental to Catholic life. 

June 7 - Trinity Sunday : God's Love overflows

 
 
First Reading   Exodus 34:4b-6,8-9 Moses pleads for God’s mercy on Mt. Sinai.
Responsorial Psalm   Daniel 3:52-56 We praise God who is exalted above all forever.
Second Reading   2 Corinthians 13:11-13 Paul urges the Corinthians to live in peace with one another and with God.
Gospel ReadingJohn 3:16-18
Today is Trinity Sunday. Our God is not simply one. He is three-in-one. A community of persons united in love. Therefore, there’s no chance that we’re merely expressions of God’s neediness. Instead, we’re an expression of God’s love. Perfect love, which God is, is giving, generous, overflowing. It can’t contain itself. You and I might understand ourselves, then, as an overflowing of God’s love. And since we’re made in God’s image, we can say that we’re both created by overflowing love, and created for overflowing love. Which makes our existence both a gift, and a possibility- a possibility to give and receive love the way God does: a perfect love without conditions, without limits. The Trinity is not something to be argued about or explained in rational terms but a mystery to be experienced, the mystery of our own unity in God. It is a sanctifying and mysterious presence, like a bright cloud with a voice of fire and the fluttering of wings, an indwelling Spirit, a boundless Light, a presence we manifest in ourselves whenever we invoke the Holy Trinity in the Sign of the Cross: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.