21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) - 21 August
21st August 2022
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) - 21 August
A reflection on today's Gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"A distinction must be made between ‘nice’ people and ‘awful’ people. The nice people think they are good; the awful people know they are not. The nice people never believe they do wrong, or break a commandment, or are guilty of any infraction of the moral law. If they do anything that reason would call wrong, they have various ways of explaining it away. Goodness is always their own, but badness is due to something outside of themselves. Some say that it is due to economic circumstances. Psychology also comes in handy to explain away their faults.
The awful people, on the contrary, generally are not rich enough to be psychoanalysed; they have never been introduced to their subconscious, and they think themselves just plain bad.
"The nice people judge themselves by the vices from which they abstain; the awful people judge themselves by the virtues from which they have fallen.
"When a nice person sees another doing something that he regards as wrong, he criticises; when an awful person sees a man going to death on a scaffold, he says with St Philip Neri, ‘There go I but for the grace of God.’ When a nice person really sins, he says, ‘What a fool I am.’ When an awful person really sins, he says, ‘What a sinner I am.’
"The nice people always follow the ethics of social orthodoxy, or convention. They lose less sleep over falsifying an income-tax return than over wearing a white tie instead of a black one at a banquet or are more scandalised at a preacher’s grammatical errors than at his false doctrines. Refinement and respectability form a large concept in his goodness, and social convention is given the force of a Divine Command; what is respectable or usual is not wrong. Living in a society where divorces are common, the nice people say, ‘Well, everybody is doing it; therefore, divorce is right.’ The nice people think they are going straight because they are travelling in the best circles; the awful people are those whose vices are open and who are generally below the level of social convention. When nice people break all the commandments of God, their friends say that ‘she is so nice’ or ‘he is so nice’; when the awful people break a few of the Commandments in a grosser way, they are labelled ‘low and unrefined.’ Nice people love to read scandals about nasty people because it makes them feel good. In truth, the nice people are those whose sins have not been found out, the awful people are those whose sins have been found out.
"Often during His lifetime, Our Lord always associated with ‘those awful people.’ He tells the story of the prodigal son who was preferred before his virtuous brother. He praises a son who rebelled and repented, rather than the one who professed loyalty and then failed. He rejoices in the lost sheep that was found and the lost coin that was recovered, because the Gospel that He preached was not a condemnation of obvious badness, but rather a condemnation of obvious goodness.
"The nice people do not find God, because, denying personal guilt, they have no need of a Redeemer. The awful people, who are passionate, sensual, warped, lonely, weak, but who nevertheless make an attempt at goodness, are quick to realise that they need another help than their own; that they cannot lift themselves by their own bootstraps. Their sins create an emptiness. From that point on, like the woman taken in sin, it is ‘Christ or nothing.’
"What surprises there will be on the Last Day when the awful people are found in the Kingdom of Heaven: ‘The harlots and the publicans will enter the Kingdom of Heaven before the Scribes and the Pharisees.’ The surprises will be threefold: first, because we are going to see a number of people there whom we never expected to see. Of some of them will we say, ‘How did he get here? Glory be to God, look at her!’ The second surprise will be not seeing a number of the nice people whom we expected to see. But these surprises will be mild compared with the third and greatest surprise of all, and that surprise will be that we are there." (Life is Worth Living)
First Holy Communion
In our parish this weekend we have a number of children making their First Holy Communion. We pray that they will always know the peace of Jesus, the light of His love, and the joy of His life within them, especially on this day when they receive Him for the first time.
Prayer in Preparation for Holy Communion
O Lord, Jesus Christ, King of everlasting glory, behold I desire to come to you this day, and to receive your Body and Blood in this heavenly Sacrament, for your honour and glory, and the good of my soul. I desire to receive you, because it is your desire, and you have so willed it: blessed be your Name forever. I desire to come to you like Mary Magdalen, that I may be delivered from all my evils, and embrace you, my only Good. I desire to come to you, that I may be happily united to you, that I may henceforth abide in you, and you in me; and that nothing in life or death may ever separate me from you. Amen. 🙏💖💐
Anima Christi (St Ignatius of Loyola)
Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Water from the side of Christ, wash me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me. O Good Jesus, hear me. Within Thy wounds hide me. Never let me be separated from Thee. From the evil one protect me. At the hour of my death, call me; and bid me come to Thee. That with Thy saints and angels, I may praise Thee forever and ever. Amen. 🙏💖💐