Tuesday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Portugal, queen (†1336). Daughter of the King of Aragon, she was given in marriage to the King of Portugal. She suffered much due to his infidelities and from false accusations. She acted as a peacemaker in grave family disputes and thereby prevented bloodshed. After the death of her husband, she became a Franciscan tertiary and spent the rest of her days in detachment and mortification.
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 favor 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.
Gospel – Mt 8:23-27
As Jesus got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on 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
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, layman (†1925). Born to a wealthy family of Turin, Italy, he habitually renounced personal privileges and comforts to help those in need, whether materially or spiritually, and showed zeal in defending virtue among youth, one of his causes being a “Eucharistic Crusade ”. He died of a fulminant case of poliomyelitis at the age of 24, and his funeral brought out thousands of mourners who regarded him as a saint.
St. Andrew of Crete, bishop (†740). Archbishop of Gortyna (Crete); eminent preacher and hymnodist.
St. Ulrich, bishop (†973). Bishop of Augsburg, in Bavaria (Germany). He died in his nineties after exercising his Episcopal ministry for 50 years.
St. Bertha of Blangy, abbess (†c. 725). In her widowhood she became a religious in the monastery which she founded, in the city of Blangy, France.
St. Caesidius Giacomantonio, priest and martyr (†1900). Franciscan who was stoned and burned in the city of Hengyang, China, while he protected the Blessed Sacrament from profanation.
Blessed Jozef Kowalski, priest and martyr (†1942). Salesian priest, arrested for practising his ministry and shipped to Auschwitz concentration camp where he continually ministered to souls despite being subjected to barbarous treatment. He was violently attacked and killed out of religious hatred by the prison guards.
Blessed Boniface of Savoy, bishop (†1270). Carthusian monk born of a noble French family and elected Archbishop of Canterbury, England.
Blessed Mary of the Crucifix Curcio, religious (†1957). Founded the Congregation of the Carmelite Missionary Sisters of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, in Santa Marinella, near Rome. She desired to unite a missionary aspect to Carmelite spirituality, with the goal of “bringing souls to God.”
Blessed Catherine Jarrige, virgin (†1836). Dominican tertiary; during the French Revolution, she helped priests who had not taken the revolutionary oath, supplying them with bread and wine for the Eucharistic celebration.
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