Monday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time
Mass Readings
First Reading – Jer 13:1-11
The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth; wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water. I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on. A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus: Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Parath; there hide it in a cleft of the rock. Obedient to the LORD’s command, I went to the Parath and buried the loincloth. After a long interval, the LORD said to me: Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth which I told you to hide there. Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth from the place where I had hid it. But it was rotted, good for nothing! Then the message came to me from the LORD: Thus says the LORD: So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot, the great pride of Jerusalem. This wicked people who refuse to obey my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts, and follow strange gods to serve and adore them, shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing. For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so had I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD; to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty. But they did not listen.
Responsorial Psalm – Dt 32:18-19, 20, 21 (R.18a)
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,
You forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing
and anger toward his sons and daughters. R.
“I will hide my face from them,” he said,
“and see what will then become of them.
What a fickle race they are,
sons with no loyalty in them!” R.
“Since they have provoked me with their ‘no-god’
and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’;
with a foolish nation I will anger them.” R.
Gospel – Mt 13:31-35
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. “The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’” He spoke to them another parable. “The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three treasures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.
Featured Saints
St. Celestine I, Pope (†432). Great propagator of the Faith; instituted the episcopate in Ireland and England; he supported the Council of Ephesus, in which Our Lady was proclaimed Mother of God.
Blessed Mary Magdalene Martinengo, abbess (†1737). From a noble family, she entered the Capuchin convent of Brescia. She was favoured with mystical phenomena and left writings that reveal her exceptional spirituality.
St. George, deacon, martyr (+1142). Arrested and executed with Saints Aurelius, Natalia, Felix and Liliosa during the persecution of Caliph Abderrahman II.
Blessed Mary Clement of the Crucified Jesus Staszewska, virgin and martyr (†1943). Polish Ursuline nun who died in Auschwitz concentration camp.
St. Simon Stylites, monk (†459). He spent many years in austere mortifications and continual prayer as a penitent atop a column for many years near Antioch, in present day Turkey.
Blessed Joachim Vilanova Camallonga, priest and martyr (†1936). Diocesan priest assassinated in L’Olleria on the outskirts of Valencia, during the Spanish Civil War.
Blessed Lucia Bufalari, virgin (†c. 1350). Religious from the Oblates of the Order of St. Augustine in Amelia, Italy, outstanding for her penitential spirit and zeal for souls.
St. Pantaleon of Bithynia, martyr (†circa 305). Physician who dedicated his practice of medicine to serve the the service of the poor in Nicomedia. He was martyred during the Diocletian persecution. A relic of his blood is housed in the Royal Monastery of the Incarnation, in Madrid. It miraculously liquefies each year on the eve of his feast.
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