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23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, 10 September 2023 Note: Homilies & Angelus / Regina Caeli of Pope Saint John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI & Pope Francis I had been compiled for you after the Mass Readings below. Happy Reading! Liturgical Colour: Green.
Mass Readings from USCCB, ETWN, Universalis (Christian Art). See our Mass Readings extracts with pictures in Encouragements-483-484. 8-) 1st Reading: Ezekiel 33:7-9; Responsorial: Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; 2nd Reading: Romans 13: 8-10; Gospel Reading: Matthew 18:15-20, CCTNtv.
Others: Guilt - Venerable Fulton J. Sheen Confession - Venerable Fulton J. Sheen Still (cf. Psalm 46: 10). See Psalm 46. 8-) See the “Media Tweets” of @Michael65413248 (we have not endorsed on their other Retweets). Many Thanks Michael Lewis & Friends.
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1. Criminal Investigation Department, Singapore Police Force harassed Law-abiding Citizen. Latest! https://twitter.com/Michael65413248/status/1510086218851270658 (2 April 2022) #Singapore Police Force harassing the same law abiding business owner again from 92298844, 97397514, 83487591, 96645914, 63914706, 82825465, 97378102, 90360045, 92981234! They can’t perform to contain COVID, so they bully to appear busy? Shameless? You decide! 2. See another Police case to frame against the Innocent! Please spread the News to help them who commit no crime. Many Thanks. Till this day, the harassment continues and there is no apology from the Rulers and no compensation paid for damages inflicted. 3. See the Bloggers went MISSING before / after the Singapore General Election on 10 July 2020. Please pray for their safety as we search for them actively. Many Thanks. 5. Do you want this kind of “pastoral care”? Latest updates!
Homilies, Angelus / Regina Caeli
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-484. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-484. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-484. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-485. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-485. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-486. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-486. 8-)
Extracts: We have learned that these ways of making peace, of placing reason above revenge, of the delicate harmony between politics and law, cannot ignore the involvement of the people. Peace is not achieved by normative frameworks and institutional arrangements between well-intentioned political or economic groups. Jesus finds the solution to the harm inflicted through a personal encounter between the parties. It is always helpful, moreover, to incorporate into our peace processes the experience of those sectors that have often been overlooked, so that communities themselves can influence the development of collective memory. “The principal author, the historic subject of this process, is the people as a whole and their culture, and not a single class, minority, group or elite – the people as a whole and their culture –. We do not need plans drawn up by a few for the few, or an enlightened or outspoken minority which claims to speak for everyone. It is about agreeing to live together, a social and cultural pact” (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 239).
We can contribution greatly to this new step that Colombia wants to take. Jesus tells us that this path of reintegration into the community begins with a dialogue of two persons. Nothing can replace that healing encounter; no collective process excuses us from the challenge of meeting, clarifying, forgiving. Deep historic wounds necessarily require moments where justice is done, where victims are given the opportunity to know the truth, where damage is adequately repaired and clear commitments are made to avoid repeating those crimes. But that is only the beginning of the Christian response. We Christians are required to generate “from below”, to generate a change in culture: to respond to the culture of death and violence with the culture of life and encounter. We have already learned this from your own beloved author whom we all benefit from: “This cultural disaster is not remedied with lead or silver, but with an education for peace, built lovingly on the rubble of an angry country where we rise early to continue killing each other... a legitimate revolution of peace which channels towards life an immense creative energy that for almost two centuries we have used to destroy us and that vindicates and exalts the predominance of the imagination” (Gabriel García Márquez, Message About Peace, 1998).
How much have we worked for an encounter, for peace? How much have we neglected, allowing barbarity to become enfleshed in the life of our people? Jesus commands us to confront those types of behaviour, those ways of living that damage society and destroy the community. How many times have we “normalized” – experienced as normal occurrences – the logic of violence and social exclusion, without prophetically raising our hands and voices! Alongside Saint Peter Claver were thousands of Christians, many of them consecrated… but only a handful started a counter-cultural movement of encounter. Saint Peter was able to restore the dignity and hope of hundreds of thousands of black people and slaves arriving in absolutely inhuman conditions, full of dread, with all their hopes lost. He did not have prestigious academic qualifications, and he even said of himself that he was “mediocre” in terms of intelligence, but he had the genius to live the Gospel to the full, to meet those whom others considered merely as waste material. Centuries later, the footsteps of this missionary and apostle of the Society of Jesus were followed by Saint María Bernarda Bütler, who dedicated her life to serving the poor and marginalized in this same city of Cartagena.[1]
In the encounter between us we rediscover our rights, and we recreate our lives so that they re-emerge as authentically human. “The common home of all men and women must continue to rise on the foundations of a right understanding of universal fraternity and respect for the sacredness of every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor, the elderly, children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a statistic. This common home of all men and women must also be built on the understanding of a certain sacredness of created nature” (Address to the United Nations, 25 September 2015).
In the Gospel, Jesus also shows us the possibility that the other may remain closed, refusing to change, persisting in evil. We cannot deny that there are people who persist in sins that damage the fabric of our coexistence and community: “I also think of the heart-breaking drama of drug abuse, which reaps profits in contempt of the moral and civil laws. This evil directly goes against human dignity and gradually tears away at the image the Creator has formed in us. I firmly condemn this trade which has killed so many and which is nourished by people who have no scruples. The lives of our brothers and sisters cannot be played with, nor their dignity instrumentalized. I appeal so that ways can be found to stop the drug-trade which only sows death everywhere, uproots so many hopes and destroys so many families. I also think of another tragedy: I think of the devastation of natural resources and ongoing pollution, and the tragedy of the exploitation of labour. I think too of illicit money trafficking and financial speculation, which often prove both predatory and harmful for entire economic and social systems, exposing millions of men and women to poverty. I think of prostitution, which every day reaps innocent victims, especially the young, robbing them of their future. I think of the abomination of human trafficking, crimes and abuses against minors, the horror of slavery still present in many parts of the world; the frequently overlooked tragedy of migrants, who are often victims of disgraceful and illegal manipulation” (Message for the World Day of Peace, 2014, 8), and I think too of the desire to even make some profit from that pacifist “sterile legality” which ignores the flesh of our brothers and sisters, the flesh of Christ. We must also be prepared for this, and solidly base ourselves upon principles of justice that in no way diminish charity. It is only possible to live peacefully by avoiding actions that corrupt or harm life. In this context, we remember all those who, bravely and tirelessly, have worked and even lost their lives in defending and protecting the rights and the dignity of the human person. History asks us to embrace a definitive commitment to defending human rights, here in Cartagena de Indias, the place that you have chosen as the national seat of their defence.
Finally, Jesus asks us to pray together, so that our prayer, even with its personal nuances and various emphases, becomes symphonic and arises as one single cry. I am sure that today we pray together for the rescue of those who were wrong and not for their destruction, for justice and not revenge, for healing in truth and not for oblivion. We pray to fulfil the theme of this visit: “Let us take the first step!” And may this first step be in a common direction.
To “take the first step” is, above all, to go out and meet others with Christ the Lord. And he always asks us to take a determined and sure step towards our brothers and sisters, and to renounce our claim to be forgiven without showing forgiveness, to be loved without showing love. If Colombia wants a stable and lasting peace, it must urgently take a step in this direction, which is that of the common good, of equity, of justice, of respect for human nature and its demands. Only if we help to untie the knots of violence, will we unravel the complex threads of disagreements. We are asked to take the step of meeting with our brothers and sisters, and to risk a correction that does not want to expel but to integrate. And we are asked to be charitably firm in that which is not negotiable. In short, the demand is to build peace, “speaking not with the tongue but with hands and works” (Saint Peter Claver), and to lift up our eyes to heaven together. The Lord is able to untangle that which seems impossible to us; he has promised to accompany us to the end of time and will not allow our efforts to come to nothing. Pope Francis I (Homily, 10 September 2017)
Shortly before I entered this church where the relics of Saint Peter Claver are kept, I blessed the first stones of two institutions that will minister to the those most in need, and I visited the house of Mrs Lorenza, who daily welcomes many of our brothers and sisters, offering them food and affection. These visits have done me much good because they demonstrate how the love of God is made visible each day.
As we pray the Angelus, recalling the incarnation of the Word, we also reflect on Mary who conceived Jesus and brought him into the world. We look to her this morning under the title of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá. As you well know, over a long period of time this image was abandoned, discoloured, torn and full of holes. It was treated like an old piece of cloth, shown no respect, and finally discarded.
It was then that, a humble woman, who traditions tells us was called Maria Ramos, and the first devotee of the Blessed Virgin of Chiquinquirá, saw something different in that piece of cloth. She had the courage and faith to put this blurred and torn fabric in a special place, restoring its lost dignity. She encountered and honoured Mary who held her Son in her arms, doing precisely what was despicable and useless in the eyes of others.
And so, this woman became a model for all those who, in different ways, seek to restore the dignity of our brothers and sisters lost through the pain of life’s wounds, to restore the dignity of those who are excluded. She is a model for all those who make efforts to provide dignified accommodation and care to those most in need. She is, above all, a model for all those who pray perseveringly so that the men and women who are suffering may regain the splendour of the children of God which they have been robbed of.
The Lord teaches us through the example of the humble and those who are not valued. While he gave María Ramos, an ordinary woman, the grace to receive the image of the Blessed Virgin in its poor and torn state, he also granted to the indigenous Isabel and her son Miguel the grace of being the first to see the transformed and renewed fabric of the Blessed Virgin. They were the first to look humbly upon this completely renewed piece of fabric and recognize there the radiance of divine light which transforms and renews all things. They are the poor, humble ones, who contemplate the presence of God, and to whom the mystery of God’s love is revealed most clearly. They, the poor and simple of heart, were the first to see the Blessed Virgin of Chinquinquirá and they became missionaries and heralds of her beauty and holiness.
In this church we will pray to Mary, who referred to herself as “the handmaid of the Lord”, and to Saint Peter Claver, the “slave of the blacks forever”, as he wanted others to know him from the day of his solemn profession. He waited for the ships from Africa to arrive at the New World’s main centre of commerce in slavery. Given the impossibility of verbal communication due to the language difference, he often ministered to these slaves simply through evangelizing gestures. For a caress surpasses all languages. He knew that the language of charity and mercy was understood by all. Indeed, charity helps us to know the truth and truth calls for acts of love. These two go together, they cannot be separated. Whenever he felt revulsion towards the slaves – they came in a repulsive state – Peter Claver kissed the wounds.
Saint Peter Claver was austere and charitable to the point of heroism. After consoling hundreds of thousands of people in their loneliness, he died without honours and was not remembered, having spent the last four years of his life in sickness and confined to his cell which was in a terrible state of neglect. This how the world paid him, yet God paid him in another way.
Saint Peter Claver witnessed in a formidable way to the responsibility and care that we should have for one another. Furthermore, this saint was unjustly accused of being indiscreet in his zealousness and he faced strong criticism and persistent opposition from those who feared that his ministry would undermine the lucrative slave trade.
Here in Colombia and in the world millions of people are still being sold as slaves; they either beg for some expressions of humanity, moments of tenderness, or they flee by sea or land because they have lost everything, primarily their dignity and their rights.
María de Chiquinquirá and Peter Claver invite us to work to promote the dignity of all our brothers and sisters, particularly the poor and the excluded of society, those who are abandoned, immigrants, and those who suffer violence and human trafficking. They all have human dignity because they are living images of God. We all are created in the image and likeness of God, and the Blessed Virgin holds each one of us in her arms as her beloved children.
Let us now turn to Our Blessed Virgin Mother in prayer, so that she may help us recognize the face of God in every man and woman of our time. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 10 September 2017)
Important Note: We found these News record (on 19 April 2023). We prayed to God for direction on what to do next, we were instructed to stop updating the Homilies, Regina Caeli/ Angelus and the General Audiences from the Vatican (until the matters are resolved) as we lay persons are unable to discern quickly what is beneficial/detrimental to our souls and yours, and this work is supposed to be a Thanksgiving to Him who loves us and has blessed us. Thanks for following us.
Daily Blessings to You from Emmanuel Goh & Friends
Note: This webpage has many hyperlinks to the Vatican Webpage. The above extracts were compiled for your easy reading. This Publication is aimed to encourage all of Goodwill around the World. It is not for business or profit purposes but it is our way to thank our Creator for His continuous blessings!
Compiled on 30 August 2020, 15:17 SGT Last updated: 10 September 2023, 19:38 SGT
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