Friday of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of St. John Eudes, priest (†1680 Caen – France). For many years, he dedicated himself to preaching popular missions in diverse parishes, combatting the errors of Jansenism. He founded the Eudist Fathers, dedicated to preaching missions, and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity to help wayward girls wishing to amend their lives. The saint was a great propagator of the devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Mass Readings
First Reading – Ez 37:1-14
The hand of the LORD came upon me, and led me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the center of the plain, which was now filled with bones. He made me walk among the bones in every direction so that I saw how many they were on the surface of the plain. How dry they were! He asked me: Son of man, can these bones come to life? I answered, “Lord GOD, you alone know that.” Then he said to me: Prophesy over these bones, and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: See! I will bring spirit into you, that you may come to life. I will put sinews upon you, make flesh grow over you, cover you with skin, and put spirit in you so that you may come to life and know that I am the LORD. I prophesied as I had been told, and even as I was prophesying I heard a noise; it was a rattling as the bones came together, bone joining bone. I saw the sinews and the flesh come upon them, and the skin cover them, but there was no spirit in them. Then the LORD said to me: Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord GOD From the four winds come, O spirit, and breathe into these slain that they may come to life. I prophesied as he told me, and the spirit came into them; they came alive and stood upright, a vast army. Then he said to me: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They have been saying, “Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are cut off.” Therefore, prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 107:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9 (R.1)
R. Give thanks to the Lord; his love is everlasting.
Let the redeemed of the LORD say,
those whom he has redeemed from the hand of the foe
And gathered from the lands,
from the east and the west, from the north and the south. R.
They went astray in the desert wilderness;
the way to an inhabited city they did not find.
Hungry and thirsty,
their life was wasting away within them. R.
They cried to the LORD in their distress;
from their straits he rescued them.
And he led them by a direct way
to reach an inhabited city. R.
Let them give thanks to the LORD for his mercy
and his wondrous deeds to the children of men,
Because he satisfied the longing soul
and filled the hungry soul with good things. R.
Gospel – Mt 22:34-40
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
Featured Saints
St. Louis of Anjou, bishop (†1297). Nephew of King St. Louis IX, at age 22 he was raised to the Episcopal See of Toulouse, France, after embracing the Franciscan vocation.
Blessed Hugh Green, priest and martyr (†1642). Catholic priest executed in Dorchester, England, for his fidelity to the Church and to his ministry during the reign of Charles I.
Blessed Louis Flores and Peter of Zúñiga, priests, and companions, martyrs (†1622). They were captured, tortured and martyred as they disembarked at the port of Nagasaki, Japan.
St. Ezekiel Moreno y Díaz, bishop (†1906). Spanish Augustinian religious, missionary in Philippines and later Bishop of Pasto, Colombia. He contributed to the construction of the present Shrine of Our Lady of Las Lajas in Ipiales, located within his diocese.
St. Bartholomew of Simeri, abbot (†1130). Hermit from the forested region surrounding Sila, Italy. Under the inspiration of Our Lady, he gathered many disciples and built the monastery of Santa Maria Nuova Odigitria.
Blessed Jordan of Pisa, priest (†circa 1311). Dominican Florentine religious, and professor of theology in Paris. He masterfully explained sublime doctrine in simple language.
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