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4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, 28 January 2024 Note: Saints’ Commentaries, 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 compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-578. 8-) 1st Reading: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Responsorial: Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 7-9; 2nd Reading: I Corinthians 7:32-35; Gospel Reading: Mark 1: 21-28, CCTNtv, Gospel video. Commentaries of the Saints: Mark Chapter 1 from CATENA AUREA BY SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS.
Others: The Devil - Venerable Fulton J. Sheen Demonic - Venerable Fulton J. Sheen The Holy Spirit—Venerable Fulton J. Sheen I Have Made You Too Small In My Eyes - BE MAGNIFIED See the “Media Tweets” of @Michael65413248 (we have not endorsed on their other Retweets). Many Thanks, Michael Lewis & Friends.
Breakthrough on DEFEATING Dementia! New
1. Do you want this kind of “pastoral care”? Latest updates! 2. 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! 3. 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. 4. 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.
Note: Before you read further, kindly be informed that we have found out on 1 December 2023 that the REAL Seer Sister Lucia from the Fatima Apparitions had been “missing” starting around 1960. It was reported that Pope John Paul II & Pope Benedict XVI could be involved in this. The Imposter has been declared “venerable” by Pope Francis on June 22, 2023. Twitter. Medjugorje Visionary Ivan on Seeing Pope John Paul II in an Apparition Pope Benedict's Sign From Heaven to Dr Hesemann on the Day of His Passing! 31st December, 2022
Homilies, Angelus / Regina Caeli of
No record available.
In the Encyclical published last Wednesday, by referring to the primacy of charity in the life of Christians and of the Church, I wanted to recall that the privileged witnesses of this primacy are the Saints, who made their lives a hymn to God-Love despite their thousands of different tones. We celebrate them every day of the year in the liturgy.
I am thinking, for example, of those whom we are commemorating in these days: the Apostle Paul with his disciples Timothy and Titus, St Angela Merici, St Thomas Aquinas, St John Bosco. These saints are very different: the first belong to the beginnings of the Church and were missionaries of the first evangelization; in the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas is the model of a Catholic theologian who found in Christ the supreme synthesis of truth and love; in the Renaissance, Angela Merici presented a path of holiness also to those who were living in a secular environment; in the modern epoch, Don Bosco, inflamed with love for Jesus the Good Shepherd, cared for the most underprivileged children and became their father and teacher.
In truth, the Church's entire history is a history of holiness, animated by the one Love whose source is God. Indeed, only supernatural love, like the love that flows ever new from Christ's heart, can explain the miraculous flourishing down the centuries of Orders, male and female religious Institutes and other forms of consecrated life.
In the Encyclical, I cited among the Saints most famous for their charity John of God, Camillus of Lellis, Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac, Giuseppe Cottolengo, Luigi Orione and Teresa of Calcutta (cf. n. 40).
This array of men and women, moulded by the Spirit of Christ who made them models of dedication to the Gospel, leads us to consider the importance of consecrated life as an expression and school of love.
The Second Vatican Council emphasized that the imitation of Christ in chastity, poverty and obedience should be entirely oriented to the achievement of perfect charity (cf. Perfectae Caritas, n. 1).
Precisely in order to shed light on the importance and value of consecrated life, the Church celebrates this coming 2 February, Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, as the Day of Consecrated Life. In the afternoon of that day, just as John Paul II liked to do, I will preside at Holy Mass in the Vatican Basilica, to which the consecrated men and women who live in Rome are specially invited. Let us together thank God for the gift of consecrated life and pray that it may continue to be an eloquent sign of his merciful love in the world.
Let us now turn to Mary Most Holy, mirror of love. With her motherly help may Christians and especially consecrated persons walk expeditiously and joyfully on the path of holiness. Pope Benedict XVI (Angelus, 29 January 2006)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-578. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-579. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-579. 8-)
As the journeying People of God, we are here to pause at our Mother’s temple. The presence of the Mother makes this temple a family home for us sons and daughters. Together with generations and generations of Romans, we recognize in this house of our mother our own home, the home where we can find refreshment, consolation, protection, shelter. The Christian people have understood, from the very beginning, that in difficulties and trials we need to turn to our Mother, as the most ancient Marian hymn has it: Beneath your protection, we seek refuge, O Holy Mother of God; do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin. Amen.
We seek refuge. Our fathers in faith taught that in turbulent moments we should gather under the mantle of the Holy Mother of God. At one time those who were persecuted and in need sought refuge with high-ranking noble women: when their cloak, regarded as inviolable, was held out as a sign of welcoming, protection had been granted. So it is for us with regard to Our Lady, the highest woman of the human race. Her mantle is always open to receive us and gather us. The Christian East reminds us of this, where many celebrate the Protection of the Mother of God, who in a beautiful icon is depicted with her mantle sheltering her sons and daughters and covering the whole world. Monks of old recommended, in times of trial, that we take refuge beneath the mantle of the Holy Mother of God: calling upon her as “Holy Mother of God” was already a guarantee of protection and help, this prayer over and again: “Holy Mother of God”, “Holy Mother of God”… Just like this.
This wisdom, that comes to us from far off, helps us: the Mother protects the faith, safeguards relationships, saves those in storms and preserves them from evil. Where our Mother is at home, the devil does not enter in. Where our Mother is at home, the devil does not enter in. Where our Mother is present, turmoil does not prevail, fear does not conquer. Which of us does not need this, which of us is not sometimes distressed or anxious? How often our heart is a stormy sea, where the waves of our problems pile up and the winds of our troubles do not stop blowing! Mary is our secure ark in the midst of the flood. It will not be ideas or technology that will give us comfort or hope, but our Mother’s face, her hands that caress our life, her mantle that gives us shelter. Let us learn how to find refuge, going each day to our Mother.
Do not despise our petitions, the hymn continues. When we petition her, Mary implores on our behalf. There is a beautiful title in Greek that says this: Grigorousa, that is, “she who intercedes swiftly”. And it is this swiftly that Luke uses in the Gospel to indicate how Mary went to Elizabeth: quickly, immediately! She intercedes at once, she does not delay, we heard in the Gospel, when she brings the people’s concrete need to Jesus at once: “They have no wine” (John 2:3), they have no more! This is what she does each time, if we call on her: when there is no hope, when joy is scarce, when our strength is all used up, when life’s star grows dark, our Mother intervenes. And if we call on her, she intervenes even more. She is attentive to our weariness, sensitive to storms – the storms of life, she is close to our hearts. And she never, never despises our prayers; she does not let even one of them fall to the ground. She is our Mother, she is never ashamed of us; on the contrary, she waits for the chance to help her children.
One event can help us understand this. Next to a hospital bed, a mother was keeping watch over her son, who was in pain after an accident. The mother complained to the priest, saying: “There is one thing that the Lord did not grant us mothers”. “What is that?” asked the priest. “To take away the pain of our children”, answered the woman. Here we see a mother’s heart: she is not embarrassed by injuries, by her children’s vulnerability, but wants to take these injuries upon herself. And God’s Mother – and our Mother – can take things upon herself, can console, keep watch and cure.
The hymn continues: deliver us from all dangers. The Lord himself knows that we need refuge and shelter in the midst of so many dangers. This is why at the most critical moment on the cross, he said to his beloved disciple, to every disciple: “Behold, your Mother!” (John 19:27). The Mother is not an “extra”, something optional; she is Christ’s witness. And we need her as a traveller needs refreshment, as a small child needs to be carried in one’s arms. There is great danger for the faith if we live without our Mother, without her protection, allowing ourselves to be carried along by life like leaves by the wind. The Lord knows this, and recommends that we welcome his Mother. This is not a question of spiritual etiquette, but is needed for us to live. Loving her is not a poem; it is a question of being alive. For without a Mother we cannot be sons and daughters. And before all else, we are sons and daughters, beloved sons and daughters, who have God as Father and Our Lady as Mother.
The Second Vatican Council teaches that Mary is “a sign of sure hope and solace to the people of God during its sojourn on earth” (Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, VIII, V). It is a sign, the sign that God has placed for us. If we do not follow it, we will lose our way. For there are signposts in the spiritual life, that are to be adhered to. They show to us “who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties” (ibid., 62), the Mother who has already reached her destination. Who better than she can accompany us on the journey? What are we waiting for? Just as the disciple beneath the cross received the Mother, “took her to his own home”, says the Gospel (John 19:27), so we too, from this home of our Mother, invite Mary to our home, into our hearts, our lives. We cannot stand neutral or separated from our Mother; otherwise we will lose our identity as sons and daughters and our identity as a people, and we will live out a Christianity made up of ideas, of plans, without commitment, without tenderness, without a heart. But without a heart, there is no love and the faith runs the risk of becoming just a nice story from another age. Our Mother, on the other hand, safeguards and teaches her sons and daughters. She loves them and protects them, so they may love and protect the world. Let us invite our Mother into our daily lives, make her a constant presence in our homes, our certain refuge. May we give every day to her. May we invoke her in every storm. And let us not forget to turn to her to thank her.
Gazing at her now that she has just emerged from hospital, let us look upon her tenderly and let us greet her as the Christians in Ephesus greeted her. All of us together, three times: “Holy Mother of God”. All together: “Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God”. Pope Francis I (Homily, 28 January 2018)
This Sunday’s Gospel reading (cf. Mark 1:21-28) is part of a wider narrative called the “day in Capernaum”. At the heart of today’s reading is the event of the exorcism through which Jesus is presented as a powerful prophet in word and deed.
He enters the Synagogue of Capernaum on a Saturday and he begins teaching. The people are astonished by his words because they are not ordinary words. They do not sound like the ones they are accustomed to hearing. The Scribes in fact teach but without any authority. And Jesus teaches with authority. Jesus instead teaches like one who has authority, thus revealing himself as God’s Emissary, and not a simple man who has to base his teaching solely on earlier traditions. Jesus has full authority. His doctrine is new and the Gospel says that the people commented: “a new teaching! With authority” (v. 27).
At the same time, Jesus reveals himself to be powerful also in deeds. In the Synagogue of Capernaum, there is a man who is possessed by an unclean spirit which manifests itself by shouting these words: “What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God” (24). The devil tells the truth: Jesus came to destroy the devil, to ruin the demon, to defeat him. This unclean spirit knows the power of God and he also proclaims his holiness. Jesus rebukes him saying: “Be silent, and come out of him!” (v. 25). These few words from Jesus are enough to obtain victory over Satan, who comes out of that man “convulsing him and crying out in a loud voice”, the Gospel says (v. 26).
This makes a strong impression on those present. Everyone is overcome by fear and asks themselves: “What is this? [...] he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him”. (v. 27). The power of Jesus confirms the authority of his teaching. He does not just speak with words, but he takes action. In this way, he manifests God’s plan with words and with the power of his deeds. In the Gospel in fact, we see that in his earthly mission, Jesus reveals the love of God both through preaching and through countless gestures of attention and aid to the sick, the needy, children and sinners.
Jesus is our Teacher, powerful in word and deed. Jesus imparts to us all the light that illuminates the sometimes dark paths of our lives. He also transmits to us the necessary strength to overcome difficulties, trials and temptations. Let us consider what a great grace it is for us to have known this God who is so powerful and so good! A teacher and a friend who shows us the path and takes care of us especially when we are in need.
May the Virgin Mary, the woman of listening, help us to create silence around us and within us, in order to hear, through the din of the messages of the world, the most authoritative word that there is: that of her Son Jesus who proclaims the meaning of our existence and delivers us from all slavery, even that of the Evil one. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 28 January 2021)
Important Note: We found these News record (starting from 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 25 January 2021, 8:50 SGT Last updated: 27 January 2024, 14:38 SGT
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