[Salvation]

Catholic Culture

Daily Readings for: September 25, 2012
(Readings on USCCB website)

Collect: O God, who founded all the commands of your sacred Law upon love of you and of our neighbor, grant that, by keeping your precepts, we may merit to attain eternal life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

ACTIVITIES

• Religion in the Home for Elementary School: September
• Religion in the Home for Preschool: September

PRAYERS

• September Devotion: Our Lady of Sorrows

Ordinary Time: September 25th

Tuesday of the Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Old Calendar: St. Finbar, bishop (Hist)

Historically today is the Feast of St. Finbar who lived in the sixth century in Ireland. He was a native of Connaught, and instituted a monastery or school at Lough Eirc, to which such numbers of disciples flocked, that it changed a desert into a large city. This was the origin of the city of Cork, which was built chiefly upon stakes, in marshy little islands formed by the river Lea. His baptismal name was Lochan; the surname Finbarr, or Barr the White, was given to him after. He was Bishop of Cork seventeen years, and died in the midst of his friends at Cloyne, fifteen miles from Cork. His body was buried in his own cathedral at Cork, and his relics, some years after, were put in a silver shrine, and kept there, this great church bearing his name to this day. St. Finbarr's cave or hermitage was shown in a monastery which seems to have been begun by our Saint, and stood to the west of Cork.

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St. Finbarr
The patron saint of Cork, was born in Achaid Duborcon near Crookstown, Co. Cork, the son of a Connacht father, a metalworker, who moved to Munster to find work and married a slave girl.

Finbarr left home with three unidentified ascetics and spent much time in Scotland before establishing various hermitages in his native area, notably at Kilclooney and on an island in Gougane Barra, which bears his name.

Among many wondrous tales associated with him is, one in which he is led by an angel from the source of the river Lee at Gougane Barra to its marshy mouth, where he founded his most important monastery, out of which grew the see and the city of Cork. Another of Finbarr's great legends was the chase and expulsion of the great lake serpent from the lake in Gougane, which created the channel that is now the river Lee.

Finbarr died at Cloyne in 633 ad and his remains were taken to Cork to be enclosed in a silver shrine. A pattern is made to Gougane Barra on the Sunday nearest to the feast of St Finbarr which falls on the 25th of September.

[Salvation]

The Word Among Us

Meditation: Luke 8:19-21

25th Week in Ordinary Time

“My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” (Luke 8:21)

You’re driving home one evening, using your new GPS system to nav­igate. Suddenly, the GPS instructs you to turn down an unfamiliar side road. You’re positive that you should stay with the road you’re already on. But you stick with the GPS and make the turn. Seconds later, you real­ize you’ve made a mistake that will cause you a significant delay in get­ting home. That’s what you get for listening to a machine!

There’s a similar issue involved in how we listen to God. When Jesus spoke of “those who hear the word of God and act on it” (Luke 8:21), he wasn’t talking about blind conformity. We are not machines programmed to obey God’s com­mands “according to the letter.” In fact, this kind of observance can leave us feeling hollow. We may be doing all the right things, but we’re still not happy. Jesus is talking about a new kind of obedience, one that involves our brains and hearts just as much as it involves our compliance and willpower.

This kind of obedience comes when we learn to hear God’s voice in our hearts. It’s an obedience that is flexible and personal, not a rigid adherence to every detail of the law. Think, for instance, of the time when Jesus told a woman caught in adultery that her sins were for­given. Think, too, of the time when he healed a man on the Sabbath. In both instances, there was a techni­cal break with the Law of Moses. But rather than stick to the letter of the law, he demonstrated a new approach, which he later called a new command: “Love one another” (John 13:34).

Today, you may run across oppor­tunities to follow this law of love. Perhaps you’ll be eager to argue with someone about a social issue—but the Spirit will prompt you to keep quiet and just be present to them. Perhaps you’ll feel like ignoring someone whom others around you reject—but you know the right thing to do is reach out. It can be tough to follow these inspirations, but it’s worth it. For each time you listen to Jesus, you become more like him.

“Jesus, help me to listen with my heart. Teach me how to obey your law of love.”

Proverbs 21:1-6, 10-13; Psalm 119:1, 27, 30, 34-35, 44