33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - 14 November
14th November 2021
A reflection on the readings and gospel themes of the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"We must realise that a moment of crisis is not a time of despair, but of opportunity. The more we can anticipate the doom, the more we can avoid it. Once we recognise we are under Divine Wrath, we become eligible for Divine Mercy. It was because of famine the prodigal said: ‘I will arise, and will go to my father.’ The very disciplines of God create hope. The thief on the right came to God by a crucifixion. The Christian finds a basis for optimism in the most thorough-going pessimism, for his Easter is within threes days of Good Friday. Our Divine Lord had pictured the catastrophes that would fall upon a morally disordered civilisation … he did not say: ‘Fear,’ but when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand. The world is serving your souls with an awful summons - the summons to heroic efforts at spiritualisation. Catholics ought to stir up their faith, hang a crucifix in their homes to remind them that we too have to carry a cross, gather the family together every night to recite the Rosary that through corporate prayer there might be intercession for the world; go to daily Mass that the spirit of love and sacrifice might be sprinkled in our business, our social life and our duties. More heroic souls might undertake the Holy Hour daily, particularly in parishes conscious of the needs of prayers of reparation as well as petition, conducting such devotions in their churches. The forces of evil are united; the forces of good are divided. We may not be able to meet in the same pew - would to God we did - but we can meet on our knees. Those who have the faith had better keep in the state of grace and those who have neither had better find out what they mean, for in the coming age there will be only one way to stop your trembling knees, and that will be to get down on them and pray. The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about. The only way out of this crisis is spiritual, because the trouble is not in the way we keep our books, but in the way we keep our souls. The time is nearer than you think." (1947 Radio broadcast) 🙏💖
Prayer to St Michael the Archangel by Pope Leo XIII
St Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen. 🙏💖