October reminds us of prayer: Rosary, Prayer for every stage of life.
October reminds us of prayer: Rosary, Prayer for every stage of life.
Last Sunday, Pope Leo XIV canonized seven new saints for the Church, among them St. Bartolo Longo. St. Bartolo was an Italian lawyer, a former satanic priest who converted to the true faith. He returned to the Catholicism of his youth. At that point, he thought that he had to do reparation for his past and decided to share the faith with others (evangelization). I heard a story that St. Bartolo went to Pompeii and started evangelizing. He asked someone about his faith in God. The person's answer was “Yes.” Then the saint asked about the Holy Trinity. The person answered that only one was left, one got married, and the other one died. So St. Bartolo prayed for how to evangelize these people, because they need to learn the basic things. Then he decided to teach them to pray the Rosary and evangelize the community. Through which he became a great promoter of the recitation of the rosary. The rosary saved him, and he is the founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii. As we come to the close of the Month of Rosary, it is an excellent opportunity to look to St. Bartolo Longo’s life and example for strength, hope, and inspiration.
Last Sunday, we reflected on persevering in prayer life. This Sunday's readings are on genuine and humble prayer. The first reading from the Book of Sirach (35:12-14;16-18) reminds us that “The one who serves God willingly is heard, his petition reaches the heavens.” We see in this passage the complementarity between liturgical worship and social justice. During the time of Ben Sirach, many Jews were living in the midst of pagans. Eventually, unknowingly, the Jews assimilated the pagan culture. So, Ben Sirach taught them how to lead a good life and be faithful Jews. Sirach asserts that God shows no favoritism. He listens to the humble prayers of the poor, fatherless, and widows. Ben Sirach says, three kinds of offerings please God: alms-giving, fidelity to the law, and generous sacrifices.
Luke’s Gospel (18:9-14) says that true and effective prayer demands a humble disposition. In the Gospel, we see a Pharisee and a tax collector in prayer. The self-righteous, critical attitude of the Pharisee and the tax collector’s humility and dependence on God guide us to form true and effective prayer. The fundamental attitude of the Christian disciple must be the recognition of sinfulness and complete dependence on God’s graciousness. Jesus warns in Matthew 6:5, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
The Pharisee in the parable offered thanks to God for his own qualities and success, but arrogantly contrasted his virtues against the tax collector’s sins and shortcomings. Pharisee came with a checklist of his performance. On the other hand, the tax collector came with a humble and contrite heart. This is the attitude we are called to have when we come to Mass. Every Eucharist starts with a moment of recalling our sins and asking God’s mercy: “Kyrie/Christe, Eleison.” Jesus tells his audience and us that, as a result of the tax collector’s humble prayer for mercy, he received mercy and went home truly “justified,” i.e., “reconciled with God.” St. Paul reminds us in Titus 3:5: “Not because of any righteous deeds we have done but because of His mercy, He has saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”
In the second reading (2Thimothy 4:6-8; 16-18), Paul sensed the proximity of his own death, like a runner running a race, and that he had kept the Faith right up to this point. He humbly awaits “the crown of righteousness,” which is through the grace of God. Paul says, “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith!”
The last weekend of Respect Life month, we are praying for victims of Domestic violence and human trafficking. It is against the commandment of love. The violence against another person is a failure to treat that person as someone worthy of love. An article from the United States Bishops says, “We focus here on violence against women, since 85 percent of the victims of reported cases of non-lethal domestic violence are women. Women's greatest risk of violence comes from intimate partners—a current or former husband or boyfriend.”
Today, human trafficking is a new form of slavery. The United States Bishops’ Conference says, “Human trafficking violates the sanctity, dignity, and fundamental rights of the human person.” They state that every nation is affected by this disease, and the United States is no exception. We are all called to love God and love one another. It is the essence of our discipleship. In October, we were reflecting and praying, especially through the devotion to the Rosary, on the dignity of human life from the womb to the tomb.