“So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven because she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
Luke 7

Creighton University Online Ministries
Weekly Guide for Daily Prayer

Tenth Week of Ordinary Time: June: 6-12, 2021

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Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

Sunday in the US is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. For the rest of the world, it is the Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”

Friday is the Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, with its own special readings. Saturday is the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We begin a two-week cycle of readings from Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians, as he confronts the challenges to this early Christian community.

We have ended our readings from Mark for this Liturgical Year and take up the Gospel of Matthew, which will be part of our readings until Advent.  The week begins with the beloved teaching of the Beatitudes, found at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. The Kingdom of God belongs to the lowly, the peacemakers, those persecuted. These words are some of the most familiar of all the gospels. Jesus urges us to not hide our gifts under a bushel basket but to recognize that “you are the light of the world.” Jesus transforms what the people had been taught. We are to go beyond not killing; we are to love our enemies. He tells us that he has “not come to abolish laws but to fulfill them.”   Jesus tells us that if we haven't forgiven someone, we should leave our offerings on the altar and go forgive those with whom we need reconciliation. He speaks about adultery saying, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.”  By the end of the week, we hear Jesus encouraging us to live honestly, making elaborate promises and oaths unnecessary.“Let your ‘Yes' mean ‘Yes,' and your ‘No' mean ‘No,'” he says. The words we use are less important than the life we lead.

Sunday begins the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, when Jesus compares our faith to the mustard seed. Our faith, like that tiny seed, can grow large and put forth large branches touching those around us.

 

Daily Prayer This Week

This week we are invited to explore the depth of the love Jesus has for us and the powerful call we are given to love each other. The Sermon on the Mount can help us be contemplatives in action this week. The Beatitudes are not eight new commandments. Rather, Jesus looked at those following him and saw their weaknesses and their needs, their goodness and their desire, even the cost they are paying for following him. He looked at them and called them “Blessed.”

We can all begin this week letting Jesus look at us this way. Each morning we can practice choosing to focus our attention on some way we are spiritually poor or desiring justice, some way we are merciful or a peace maker, some way we might be experiencing the cost of being a believer, and simply ask our Lord to convince us of our blessedness there. It is likely that each of us, every day, can be attentive to some aspect of our daily lives, some part of our relationships or responsibilities, that place us right there in a place for Jesus to tell us that we will be comforted, satisfied, blessed beyond our imagining.

Some day this week, each of us will have the opportunity to be the salt that makes relationships and faithful living, have its flavor. We will have our chances to be light in the midst of the darkness that crosses our paths. We can ask Jesus those days - whether in the morning, or in brief background moments during the day - to have us not lose our flavor or to cover our light. And, all of us will face the greater responsibility of being a disciple of Jesus: avoiding anger, finding the path to reconciliation, and loving genuinely and honestly.

We can turn to the heart of Jesus and the heart of Mary at the end of the week and ask for the simple and profound grace, "Please make my heart like yours."

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