20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) - 17 August 2025
17th August 2025
“You are a fire always burning but never consuming; you are a fire consuming in your heat all the soul's selfish love; you are a fire lifting all chill and giving light.” - St Catherine of Siena
A reflection on the theme of today's Gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"We are fond of talking peace today, but all we mean by peace is lack of disturbance. Our Lord said, ‘I came not to bring peace.’ God hates peace in those who are destined for war! And we are destined for war, spiritual war. We’ve forgotten that we’re in a combat. We are in genuine combat. When our first parents were driven out of the garden of Paradise, God stationed an angel with a flaming sword, a two-edged sword that turned this way and that. Why? To keep our first parents from going back to eat of the Tree of Life and thus immortalise their evil. And the only way we can ever get back again into paradise is by having that sword run into us. It’s flaming because it’s love. It’s two-edged because it cuts, and it penetrates. It’s not the sword that’s thrust outward to hack off the ear of the servant of the high priest as Peter did. It’s the sword that’s thrust inward to cut out all of our seven pallbearers of the soul, the pride and covetousness, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth.
"This was the sword she [St Thérèse of Lisieux] loved. And this sword is what we’ve forgotten in our modern world with the dripping away of discipline, the ascetic principle. The disciplinary principle of the Christian world had moved to the totalitarian countries. And concerning the sword, I quoted the sword in relationship to the Garden of Eden, but in the prophecy of Zechariah, we read this:
"‘This is the very word of the Lord of Hosts: O sword, awake against My shepherd.’ (Zechariah 13:7)
"Who is the shepherd? Our Lord. So Zechariah is having the heavenly Father say, 'Sword awake! Awake against My shepherd, against My Son, against Him who works with Me.' So when our Blessed Lord came to this earth, the sword of Herod was raised against Him. Did anyone ever raise a sword against a two-year-old Caesar? Or a six-month-old Stalin? Why the sword against Him? Because He plays a role in salvation. It belongs to warriors. And as the heavenly Father ran the sword into His own Son, the Son ran the sword into His own Mother. Simeon said to Mary, ‘You, too, shall be pierced to the heart.’ (Luke 2:35) So the Father ran a sword into His Son, the Son into His own Mother, and Our Lord into us.
"‘I have come not to bring peace, but the sword.’ This, then, is the way of the warrior and the little girl who wanted to be a soldier. And there was not much difference in her mind between a soldier and a missionary."
(Fulton Sheen’s: Saint Thérèse: A Treasured Love Story)
Prayer for Purification
Jesus, pour Thy Precious Blood over me, my body, mind, soul, and spirit; my conscious and sub-conscious; my intellect and will; my feelings, thoughts, emotions and passions; my words and actions; my vocation, my relationships, family, friends and possessions. Protect with Thy Precious Blood all other activities of my life. Lord I dedicate all of these things to Thee, and I acknowledge Thee as Lord and Master of all.
Mary, Immaculate Conception, pure and holy Virgin Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, draw each of us under Thy veil; guard me and shield me against all attacks and temptations that would violate the virtue of chastity.
Lord Jesus Christ, I beg Thee for the grace to remain guarded beneath the protective mantle of Mary, surrounded by the holy briar from which was taken the Holy Crown of Thorns, and saturated with Thy Precious Blood in the power of the Holy Spirit, with our Guardian Angels for the greater glory of the Father. Amen. 💖💐🙏