Tuesday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time
Mass Readings
First Reading – Gn 19:15-29
As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, “On your way! Take with you your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of Sodom.” When he hesitated, the men, by the LORD’s mercy, seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them to safety outside the city. As soon as they had been brought outside, he was told: “Flee for your life! Don’t look back or stop anywhere on the Plain. Get off to the hills at once, or you will be swept away.” “Oh, no, my lord!” Lot replied, “You have already thought enough of your servant to do me the great kindness of intervening to save my life. But I cannot flee to the hills to keep the disaster from overtaking me, and so I shall die. Look, this town ahead is near enough to escape to. It’s only a small place. Let me flee there – it’s a small place, is it not? – that my life may be saved.” “Well, then,” he replied, “I will also grant you the favour you now ask. I will not overthrow the town you speak of. Hurry, escape there! I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” That is why the town is called Zoar. The sun was just rising over the earth as Lot arrived in Zoar; at the same time, the LORD rained down sulphurous fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah from the LORD out of heaven. He overthrew those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities and the produce of the soil. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. Early the next morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood in the LORD’s presence. As he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole region of the Plain, he saw dense smoke over the land rising like fumes from a furnace. Thus it came to pass: when God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham by sending Lot away from the upheaval by which God overthrew the cities where Lot had been living.
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 26:2-3, 9-10, 11-12 (R.3a)
R. O Lord, your mercy is before my eyes.
Search me, O LORD, and try me;
test my soul and my heart.
For your mercy is before my eyes,
and I walk in your truth. R.
Gather not my soul with those of sinners,
nor with men of blood my life.
On their hands are crimes,
and their right hands are full of bribes. R.
But I walk in integrity;
redeem me, and have mercy on me.
My foot stands on level ground;
in the assemblies, I will bless the LORD. R.
“Consider this, you who forget God,
lest I rend you and there be no one to rescue you.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.” R.
Gospel – Mt 8:23-27
As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came upon the sea so that the boat was being swamped by waves, but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”
Featured Saints
St. Oliver Plunkett, bishop, martyr (+1681). Of a noble Irish family, he studied in Rome, where he was ordained and taught Theology for fifteen years before returning to his native soil, having been appointed Archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland. He administered Confirmation to 48,000 faithful over the next four years. Under a renewed surge of anti-Catholic persecution, he was accused of conspiracy and treason and executed in Tyburn during the reign of Charles II (Memorial in Ireland).
St. Junipero Serra, priest (†1784). Optional Memorial in the US. Spanish Franciscan friar who left his post as professor in the University of Padua to embark on an evangelizing mission in the New World. Working in Mexico, Texas and California, he founded 21 missions which served to firmly establish the Church in these regions.
St. Aaron. Priest of the Old Testament, from the tribe of Levi, brother of Moses.
St. Theodoric, priest (†533). Disciple of St. Remigius, who ordained him a priest. First abbot of Mont d’Or Monastery on the outskirts of Reims, France.
St. Domitian, abbot († fifth century). Distributed his possessions among the poor and became a hermit in Arles, France. With the help of St. Eucherius he founded a monastery of contemplative life in Lyon.
Sts. Justino Orona Madrigal and Atilano Cruz Alvarado, priests and martyrs (†1928). Shot to death on the region outlying Guadalajara (Mexico), during the religious persecution.
St. Zhang Huailu, martyr (†1900). Catechumen who, during the persecution in China, spontaneously declared himself a Christian and was baptized with his own blood, in the city of Zhumadian.
Blessed John Nepomucene Chrzan, priest and martyr (†1942). Polish priest killed in Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany.
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