Daily Reflections

First Saturday of the Month

Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary
 (Compiled from prayers by St. Francis de Sales, St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Louis de Montfort.)

O most holy Mary, Virgin Mother of God, most unworthy though I am to be Thy servant, yet moved by Thy motherly care for me, and longing to serve Thee, I choose Thee this day in the presence of my guardian angel and all the court of Heaven to be my Queen, my Advocate, and my Mother. I firmly resolve to serve Thee always and to do what I can that all may render faithful service to Thee.

Most holy Mary, my Lady, into Thy blessed trust and special custody, and into the bosom of Thy tender mercy, this day, every day of my life and at the hour of my death, I commend my soul and body. To Thee I entrust all my hopes and consolations, all my trials and miseries, my life and the end of my life, that through Thy most holy intercession and Thy merits, all my actions may be ordered and disposed according to Thy will and that of Thy divine Son.

Most dear and beloved Mother, grant that I may have no other spirit but Thy spirit, to know Jesus Christ and His divine and holy Will; that I may have no other soul but Thy soul, to praise and glorify the LORD; that I may have no other heart but Thy heart, to love God with a pure and burning love like Thine.

Therefore, most devoted Mother, through the Precious Blood of Thy Son shed for me, I beg Thee to take me among Thy clients and receive me as Thy servant forever. Aid me in my every action, and beg for me the grace never, by word or deed or thought, to be displeasing in Thy sight and that of Thy most holy Son.

O Most dear and Blessed Virgin Mary, show Thyself a Mother, think of me, and do not abandon me at the hour of death. Amen.

Jeremiah 7:11; Isaiah 56:7; John 2:16

Have you made this house which bears My name a den of thieves?
– My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.

Do not turn My Father’s house into a marketplace.
– My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.

Blessed Virgin Mary 

First Saturday of the Month

Saint Stephen, King, Confessor (Traditional)

The third servant of the parable is “good-for-nothing”. Instead of being moved by the greatness of the gift—for one talent was an enormous sum—he was frozen by his deficient ideas about the master. But what fearful and demanding master would have handed over his riches to three lowly servants? The master’s response merely exposed the servant’s own deceitful argumentation and laziness (Matthew 25:14-30). Had he not already written off the master as impossible to please, he might have asked the first two servants for help, for, as Saint Paul says, “You have learnt from God yourselves to love one another”  (1 Thess 4:9-11). Love would have made him grow rich.

ST. STEPHEN, KING, CONFESSOR 

Saint Stephen, king of Hungary, consecrated his kingdom to Our Blessed Lady. This apostolic king won over his enemies and converted his people to Christianity. Pope Sylvester, 11 gave him the privilege of having a cross carried before him like an archbishop. He did all of that an apostle could do for his country. By his example and his influence, he induced the nobles and the people to embrace the Catholic faith; he gave Christian legislation to the kingdom; he founded and endowed episcopal sees, built monasteries and established charitable institutions, not only in Hungary, but even in Constantinople, Jerusalem, Ravenna, and Rome.

Saint Stephen, seven years before his death, saw his young and most innocent son, Emerick, an angel of purity and Holiness, whom God glorified by many miracles, precede him on the way to heaven. He followed him to the tomb on August 15 1034, but Innocent XI appointed his feast to be kept on September 2, in memory of the victory which the  Christian army won over the Turks at Budapest on this day. 

He died, famous for his justice, and his boundless Charity.

From a homily on Matthew by Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop
(Hom. 50:3-4: PG 58, 508-509)

Do not adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother

Do you want to honour Christ’s Body? Then do not scorn Him in His nakedness, nor honour Him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting Him outside where He is cold and naked. For He who said: This is My Body, and made it so by His words, also said: You saw Me hungry and did not feed Me, and inasmuch as you did not do it for one of these, the least of My brothers, you did not do it for Me. What we do here in the church requires a pure heart, not special garments; what we do outside requires great dedication.

Let us learn, therefore to be men of wisdom and to honour Christ as He desires. For a person being honoured finds greatest pleasure in the honour he desires, not in the honour we think best. Peter thought he was honouring Christ when he refused to let Him wash his feet; but what Peter wanted was not truly an honour, quite the opposite! Give Him the honour prescribed in His law by giving your riches to the poor. For God does not want golden vessels but golden hearts.

Now, in saying this I am not forbidding you to make such gifts; I am only demanding that along with such gifts and before them you give alms. He accepts the former, but He is much more pleased with the latter. In the former, only the giver profits; in the latter, the recipient does too. A gift to the Church may be taken as a form of ostentation, but an alms is pure kindness.

Of what use is it to weigh down Christ’s table with golden cups, when He Himself is dying of hunger? First, fill Him when He is hungry; then use the means you have left to adorn His table. Will you have a golden cup made but not give a cup of water? What is the use of providing the table with cloths woven of gold thread, and not providing Christ Himself with the clothes He needs? What profit is there in that? Tell me: If you were to see Him lacking the necessary food but were to leave Him in that state and merely surround His table with gold, would He be grateful to you or rather would He not be angry? What if you were to see Him clad in worn-out rags and stiff from the cold, and were to forget about clothing Him and instead were to set up golden columns for Him, saying that you were doing it in His honour? Would He not think He was being mocked and greatly insulted?

Apply this also to Christ when He comes along the roads as a pilgrim, looking for shelter. You do not take Him in as your guest, but you decorate floor and walls and the capitals of the pillars. You provide silver chains for the lamps, but you cannot bear even to look at Him as he lies chained in prison. Once again, I am not forbidding you to supply these adornments; I am urging you to provide these other things as well, and indeed to provide them first. No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbour a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for He is the most precious temple of all.

Entrusted with His Riches

Since God’s grace is greater than that of all who are born, the beauty of Mary shall be much extolled because she was His Mother. By her humility, by her purity, by her uprightness, and by her good will, she was pleasing and was chosen for Him. If another had pleased more than her, He would have chosen that one, for the LORD is just and right! If there had been a spot in her soul or a defect, He would have sought for himself another mother in whom there is no blemish.

This beauty, which is the most pure of all beauties, exists in the one who possesses it by means of a good will. On account of this it is right that everyone marvel at the glorious one, because of how much she was pleasing, even to the LORD choosing her as Mother…. But that God should shine forth from her was not of her own doing. That the LORD shone from her bodily, His grace it is, may He be praised because of so much mercy!

The beauty of Mary is beyond measure, because another Who is greater than she has not arisen in all the world. From this time forth let us give what is due to the LORD, because He has shed His grace on creatures without measure…. Among mothers there is no one greater than she. She was made pure like John the Baptist and like Elisha, like Elijah and like Melchizedek, who were renowned. She ascended to this degree of these heights in beauty, so she was chosen to be the Mother of the Son of the Holy One. She drew near to the limit of virtue by her soul; so that grace which is without limit dwelt in her. She who was full of the beauty of holiness looked to the LORD; He sought to dwell solemnly in her pure womb.

Jacob of Serug

Jacob of Serug († 521), called the “flute of the Holy Ghost”, was a Bishop born at Curtem on the Euphrates. He composed more than seven hundred Syriac poems and homilies. [From On the Mother of God, Mary Hansbury, Tr. ©

Matthew 25:35, 40; Proverbs 19:17

I was hungry and you gave Me food;
I was thirsty and you gave Me drink;
I was homeless and you took Me in.
– Now I tell you this:
When you did these things for the most neglected of My brothers,
you did them for Me.

Anyone who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD.
– Now I tell you this:
When you did these things for the most neglected of My brothers,
you did them for Me.