Mass Schedule

Weekend Mass
Saturday    4:00pm
Sunday    10:00am

Weekday Mass
Wednesday   8:00am
Thursday       8:00am

Reconciliation
Saturday   3:00pm

Today’s readings invite us to give priority to God in our lives, not to our possessions. Most of the time, the things that we have often possess us. When we give our “things” top priority in our lives, we become the prisoners of our possessions.

The first reading advises us to use the God-given virtue of prudence to seek true wisdom and to distinguish them from vanishing earthly realities, like riches or political and social influence. Solomon chose Wisdom before eve-rything else — and he received “everything else” along with it! In the Responsorial Psalm, we beg God to teach us how to make proper judgments and choices in our lives that we may live with Him forever.

The second reading warns us that we are accountable to God for our use or misuse of His blessings, and that the living and effective word of God must be our guide in evaluating our use of His blessings.

In today’s Gospel, we find three sections: a narrative about Jesus’ encounter with a rich man, Jesus’ sayings about wealth as a possible obstacle to discipleship, and Jesus’ promise of reward for those who share their ma-terial possessions with the needy. Here, Jesus reminds the rich man of the commandments that deal with rela-tionships with other people. He challenged him to sell what he had, and to give the money to the poor. The dis-ciples were shocked by this challenge. But Jesus de-clared that true religion consisted in one’s sharing one’s blessings with others rather than hoarding or getting inordinately attached to them.

Today’s readings invite us to make a check list of our pri-orities and attachments, and give God top priority: Are anger, lust, gluttony, evil habits, addictions, jealousy, holding grudges, infidelity, or cheating among our habits as priorities? Let us invite God into our lives daily by praying for His strengthening grace and the anointing of His Holy Spirit so that we may give God top priority, keeping the Bible as our guide. We need to gain eternal life by living out our Faith in Jesus as our God and Sav-ior, and, with God’s strengthening grace, detaching our-selves from unnecessary attachments.

Father Josuva