November 20, 2016: First Reading (2 Sm 5:1-3)

Second Reading (Col 1;12-20)

Gospel (Lk 23:35-43)
November 21, 2016: First Reading (Rv 14:1-3; 4n-5)
Gospel (Lk 21:1-4)
November 22, 2016: First Reading (Rv 14:14-19)
Gospel (Lk 21:5-11)
November 23, 2016: First Reading (Rv 15:1-4)
Gospel (Lk 21:12-19)
November 24, 2016: First Reading (Rv 18:1-2; 21-23)
Gospel (Lk 21:20-28)
November 25, 2016: First Reading (Rv 20:1-4; 11-21, 2)
Gospel (Lk 21:29-33)
November 26, 2016: First Reading (Rv 22:1-7)
Gospel (Lk 21:34-36)
VATICAN NEWS:

Pope to Caritas: reject whatever hu-

miliates and exploits humans

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met leading representatives of Caritas on Thursday and urged them to
persevere in their fight against poverty and at the same time learn from the poor themselves. The
participants at the audience in the Vatican included leading Caritas officials from across the world.

The Pope did not read his prepared remarks, instead handing out the text of his address and speaking
off the cuff, followed by a question and answer session with those present.

In his prepared remarks the Pope noted that we are called to act against social exclusion of the weak-
est and strive for their integration. With our society dominated by the throw-away culture, we need to
overcome that indifference and learn the art of solidarity.

Your mission, he went on, is to promote charity and justice in our world in the light of the gospel and
the teaching of the Church by involving the poor as the true protagonists of their development.

Stressing it is possible to change things, the Pope said poverty, hunger, illnesses and oppression are
not an inevitable misfortune and cannot be considered as permanent situations.

He urged the Caritas representatives to reject everything that humiliates humans and every form of
exploitation that degrades people and expressed his joy over an upcoming campaign by Caritas on
the subject of migration.

Turning to the issue of peace and reconciliation, Pope Francis urged the Caritas representatives to
promote these issues and cooperate in their charitable work with other faith communities who put
human dignity at the centre of their mission. In conclusion, he encouraged them both to fight against
poverty and at the same time learn from the poor themselves, from their values and their sense of
solidarity and sharing with each other.

(from Vatican Radio)

Website: http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-to-caritas-reject-whatever-humiliates-and-exp

Pope Francis: God's love is faithful

beyond reason
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated Mass in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence on Thursday
morning – the liturgical memory of St. Elisabeth of Hungary, the devout queen who was a 3 rd Order
Franciscan renowned for her solicitude to the needy.

In remarks following the Readings of the Day, Pope Francis addressed words to the gathered faithful
that focused on the episode proclaimed from the Gospel according to St. Mark, in which Our Lord wept
for the sins of Jerusalem. The Holy Father spoke especially of the stark contrast of God’s steadfast
and faithful love for His people, and His people’s faithlessness – which is our faithlessness:

“That is what pains the heart of Jesus Christ, this story of infidelity, this story of not recognizing the
caresses of God, the love of God, a God in love with you who is looking for you, and desirous of seeing
you happy. Jesus saw in that moment [when, shortly before His passion, He wept over Jerusalem’s
sinfulness] what awaited him as the Son – and He wept ... ‘because they did not recognize the time of
their visitation.’. This drama has not only happened in history and ended with Jesus. It is the drama of
every day. It is even my drama. Can any of us really say, ‘I know how to recognize the hour in which I
have been visited? does God visit me?’”

The Pope went on to highlight the way that the Liturgy of two days ago – Tuesday – offered occasions
to reflect on three moments of God’s visitation: correction, entering into dialogue with us, and “inviting
himself into our home.” Pope Francis then asked the faithful to make an examination of conscience,
to ask whether each one of us listens to the words of Jesus when He knocks on our door and says,
“Amend your life!” Everyone in fact runs a risk:

“Each of us can fall into the same sin of the people of Israel, the same sin of Jerusalem, not recognizing
the time in which we have been visited – and every day the Lord visits us, every day He is knocking
at our door – but we must learn to recognize this, that we not end up in that so painful a situation: ‘The
more I loved them, as I called them, the more they fled from me’. ‘But I am sure of things. I go to
Mass, I'm sure ...’. Do you make a daily examination of conscience on this? Did the Lord visit me
today? Have I heard some call, some inspiration to follow Him more closely, to do a work of charity,
to pray a little more? I do not know, so many things to which the Lord invites us every day to meet with
us.”

It is central therefore to recognize when we are “visited” by Jesus, and to open ourselves to His love:

“Jesus wept not only for Jerusalem, but for all of us. He gives His life, that we might recognize his
visitation. St. Augustine said a word, a very strong sentence: ‘I am afraid of God, of Jesus, when He
passes!’ But why are you afraid? ‘I’m afraid I will not recognize it!’ If you’re not careful with your heart,
you'll never know if Jesus is visiting you or not. May the Lord give all of us the grace to recognize the
times we have been visited, we are visited and shall be visited, so that we open the door to Jesus and
so ensure that our heart is more enlarged by love, and that we might therefore serve the Lord Jesus
in love.”

(from Vatican Radio)

Website: http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-gods-love-is-faithful-beyond-reason
FEATURED SAINTS:

St. Cecilia
Facts
Feastday: November 22
Patron of musicians
Birth: 2nd century
Death: 3rd century
In the fourth century a Greek religious romance on the Loves of Cecilia and Valerian
was written in glorification of virginal life with the purpose of taking the place of then-
popular sensual romances.
Consequently, until better evidence is produced, we must conclude that St. Cecilia was
not known or venerated in Rome until about the time when Pope Gelasius (496) intro-
duced her name into his Sacramentary.
It is said that there was a church dedicated to St. Cecilia in Rome in the fifth century, in
which Pope Symmachus held a council in 500.
The story of St. Cecilia is not without beauty or merit. She is said to have been quite
close to God and prayed often:
In the city of Rome there was a virgin named Cecilia, who came from an extremely rich
family and was given in marriage to a youth named Valerian. She wore sackcloth next
to her skin, fasted, and invoked the saints, angels, and virgins, beseeching them to
guard her virginity
During her wedding ceremony she was said to have sung in her heart to God and be-
fore the consummation of her nuptials, she told her husband she had taken a vow of vir-
ginity and had an angel protecting her. Valerian asked to see the angel as proof, and
Cecilia told him he would have eyes to see once he traveled to the third milestone on
the Via Appia (Appian Way) and was baptized by Pope Urbanus.
Following his baptism, Valerian returned to his wife and found an angel at her side. The
angel then crowned Cecilia with a chaplet of rose and lily and when Valerian's brother,
Tibertius, heard of the angel and his brother's baptism, he also was baptized and to-
gether the brothers dedicated their lives to burying the saints who were murdered each
day by the prefect of the city, Turcius Almachius.
Both brothers were eventually arrested and brought before the prefect where they were
executed after they refused to offer a sacrifice to the gods.
As her husband and brother-in-law buried the dead, St. Cecilia spent her time preaching
and in her lifetime was able to convert over four hundred people, most of whom were
baptized by Pope Urban.
Cecilia was later arrested and condemned to be suffocated in the baths. She was shut
in for one night and one day, as fires were heaped up and stoked to a terrifying heat -
but Cecilia did not even sweat.
When Almachius heard this, he sent an executioner to cut off her head in the baths.
The executioner struck her three times but was unable to decapitate her so he left her
bleeding and she lived for three days. Crowds came to her and collected her blood
while she preached to them or prayed. On the third day she died and was buried by
Pope Urban and his deacons.
St. Cecilia is regarded as the patroness of music, because she heard heavenly music in
her heart when she was married, and is represented in art with an organ or organ-pipes
in her hand.
Officials exhumed her body in 1599 and found her to be incorrupt, the first of all incur-
rupt saints. She was draped in a silk veil and wore a gold embroidered dress. Officials
only looked through the veil in an act of holy reverence and made no further examina-
tions. They also reported a "mysterious and delightful flower-like odor which proceeded
from the coffin."
St. Cecilia's remains were transferred to Cecilia's titular church in Trastevere and placed
under the high altar.
In 1599 Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati, nephew of Pope Gregory XIV, rebuilt the
church of St. Cecilia.

Website: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=34
GOSPEL: November 20, 2016

Thirty-fourth Sunday – Christ the King –

Luke 23:35-43
The people stayed there watching. As for the leaders, they jeered at him with the
35

words, 'He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen
One.'
36 The soldiers mocked him too, coming up to him, offering him vinegar,
37 and saying, 'If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.'
38 Above him there was an inscription: 'This is the King of the Jews'.
39One of the criminals hanging there abused him: 'Are you not the Christ? Save yourself
and us as well.'
40But the other spoke up and rebuked him. 'Have you no fear of God at all?' he said.
'You got the same sentence as he did,
41but in our case we deserved it: we are paying for what we did. But this man has done
nothing wrong.'
42 Then he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.'
43 He answered him, 'In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.'
REFLECTION:

Gospel: Today’s Gospel presents Christ the King as reigning, not from a throne,
but from the gibbet of the cross. Like the “suffering servant” of Isaiah (53:3), He is
despised and rejected, as the bystanders ridicule the crucified King, challenging
Him to prove His Kingship by coming down from the cross. The Gospel also tells of
the criminal crucified beside Jesus who recognized Him as a Savior King and asked
Jesus to remember him when Jesus entered His kingdom. Jesus promised the good
thief that he would be with Him that day in Paradise. Tradition remembers the
criminal on Jesus’ right side as “the good thief” who repented of his sins at the last
moment, though Mark and Matthew call him a “revolutionary.” Although the
Romans intended the inscription on the cross, “This is the King of the Jews,” to be
ironic, it reflected the popular Jewish speculations about Jesus’ possible identity as
the Messiah of Israel. For Luke and other early Christians that title was correct,
since the Kingship of Jesus was made manifest most perfectly in his suffering and
death on the cross, followed by His Resurrection on the third day, as He had
foretold.