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The BreadCast


Daily Exposition of the Readings for Catholic Mass...

as well as Prayers to the Saints on the General Roman Calendar (for the U.S.).  

From the books Our Daily Bread and Prayers to the Saints by James H. Kurt - both with imprimatur.

Oct 2, 2023

(Zec.8:20-23;   Ps.87:1-7,Zec.8:23;   Lk.9:51-56)

 

“Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”

 

God is with us, brothers and sisters.  And though all upon earth turn their faces from Him now, though in ignorance they reject Him and our preaching of His Word – there shall come a day when all nations find their home in Him.  In that day the Lord shall reign.

As Jesus sets His face toward Jerusalem and His coming death at the hands of His own people, He passes through many towns and sends harbingers of His drawing nigh.  In today’s gospel we read of the Samaritans’, the dreaded “half-breed” of Israelites, rejection of His presence among them: “The Samaritans would not welcome Him because He was on the way to Jerusalem.”  And for this should they not be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah? request the sons of thunder, James and John.  But it is “only to reprimand them” that Jesus makes answer to such an idea.  Indeed, they reject the Son of God, but in this moment they certainly know not what they do.  Should they be any different than the Jews who will offer Him up for crucifixion or the apostles who will abandon Him?

From the gospel we must take solace, brothers and sisters, when our words fall on deaf ears, when the Word of God seems not to take root in souls.  We are only emissaries of His Word, and that Word will bear fruit only in His time.  But, of course, at the same moment we mourn rejection, we must be buoyed by the vision delivered by Zechariah in our first reading and confirmed so wonderfully in our psalm, for in it is the Truth of the resurrection that follows the Lord’s crucifixion.  We are told that “the inhabitants of one city shall approach those of another and say, “Come!  Let us go to implore the favor of the Lord,” and that “in those days ten men of every nationality, speaking different tongues, shall take hold, yes, take hold of every Jew by the edge of his garment and say, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”  Not only will they hear the Word of God, they will beg its presence in their lives!  For the Lord shall draw them inextricably to His mountain.  “And of Zion they shall say: ‘One and all were born in her; and He who has established her is the Most High God.’”

Brothers and sisters, we dwell now in Zion; Holy Church is the New Jerusalem.  And hearts shall turn to her with longing – she shall find her treasured place here at the end of the age.  We need not fear or be anxious, for the day of the Lord shall come, when “all shall sing, in their festive dance: ‘My home is within you.’”  Continue on to every town, bearing His love.

 

*******

O LORD, all who desire the salvation wrought by Jesus

 will be welcomed into your House.

 

 YHWH, in Jerusalem let us make our home, in your holy Church.  To this House all nations shall come, for it is here you dwell on earth.  Heaven is indeed in our midst: you are with us.  And it is for you the heart of every man longs – O let us be born into your kingdom!

Toward Jerusalem the face of your Son is set; it is always to this place He comes.  Here He dies and here He is raised, and here He dwells unto eternity….  In His blood let us be reborn.  In Him your glory is known among us, O LORD, for you have established Him forever as our Home. 

Let us all come to Jesus in the New Jerusalem to implore your favor, O Most High God.  And let us bring all souls to these gates, that in glory they might enter in and find their place in Him.  His messengers let us be until the end of the age.