5th Sunday in Ordinary Time: "Shelter...the homeless"

Reading 1 IS 58:7-10

"Thus says the LORD:
Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them,
and do not turn your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard."

"The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him. 

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens."

CCC 2241

Always in life there is a balance between competing goods, had the needs of persons always paramount:

“do not turn your back on your own”

We do have a duty toward our citizens and families before strangers, a duty imposed by God under the virtue of piety: our origin from our parents imposes a duty to honor them; also to country of origin.

As well, saying we welcome born strangers from other countries while being unwelcoming to the unborn child by supporting abortion is sinful, an affront to God which makes repentance and sacramental confession necessary before returning to receive Communion.

If we welcome the immigrant or refugee we can see but reject the preborn child we cannot see, we also reject God and sin in His sight. Coming forward to receive God in holy Communion while rejecting His image and creation in the preborn child adds sin to sin and frustrates out eternal salvation, placing us in jeopardy of damnation instead.

Third Sunday after Epiphany: "but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out"

“But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

By these words our Lord wished to signify that many persons born in infidelity shall be saved, and that many who are born in the bosom of the Church shall be cast into Hell, where the worm of conscience, by its gnawing, shall make them weep bitterly for all eternity.

Let us examine the remorses of conscience which a damned Christian shall suffer in Hell: the remorse arising from the thought of the little which was required to do in order to save his soul; from the remembrance of the trifles for which he lost his soul; from the knowledge of the great good which he has lost through his own fault ... 

Each of the reprobate will say for eternity: If I abstained from such a gratification; if in certain circumstances I overcame human respect; if I avoided the occasion of sin, such a companion, I should not now be damned; if I had frequented some pious sodality; if I had gone to confession every week; if in temptations I had recommended myself to God, I would not have relapsed into sin. I have so often proposed to do these things but I have not done them. I began to practice these means of salvation, but afterwards gave them up; and thus I am lost.

This torment will be increased by the remembrance of the good example given them by some young companions who led a chaste and pious life even in the midst of the world. It will be still more increased by the recollection of all the gifts which the Lord had bestowed upon them, that by their cooperation they might acquire eternal salvation; the gifts of nature – health, riches, respectability of family, talents; all gifts granted by God, not to be employed in the indulgence of pleasures and in the gratification of vanity, but in the sanctification of their souls, and in becoming saints.

Commentary by St Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, C.Ss. R.

January 11, Epiphanytide: "I must be about My Father's business"

"And His Mother said to Him, Son, why have You done so to us? Behold, in sorrow Your father and I have been seeking You. And He said to them, How is it that you sought Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?"
Luke 2: 42-52

Like the prophets before him Jesus expressed the deepest respect for the Temple in Jerusalem. It was in the Temple that Joseph and Mary presented him forty days after his birth. At the age of twelve he decided to remain in the Temple to remind his parents that he must be about his Father's business. He went there each year during his hidden life at least for Passover. His public ministry itself was patterned by his pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the great Jewish feasts.

CCC 583

January 10: Epiphanytide "When Jesus was 12 years old..."

Luke 2:42-52
When Jesus was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. And after they had fulfilled the days, when there were returning, the Boy Jesus remained in Jerusalem, and His parents ...

CCC 534 The finding of Jesus in the temple is the only event that breaks the silence of the Gospels about the hidden years of Jesus. Here Jesus lets us catch a glimpse of the mystery of his total consecration to a mission that flows from his divine sonship: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's work?" Mary and Joseph did not understand these words, but they accepted them in faith. Mary "kept all these things in her heart" during the years Jesus remained hidden in the silence of an ordinary life.

The Most Holy Name of Jesus: "nor is there any other Name"

... given to man by which we may be saved."

-- Acts 4, 8-12

The invocation of the holy name of Jesus is the simplest way of praying always. When the holy name is repeated often by a humbly attentive heart, the prayer is not lost by heaping up empty phrases, but holds fast to the word and "brings forth fruit with patience." This prayer is possible "at all times" because it is not one occupation among others but the only occupation: that of loving God, which animates and transfigures every action in Christ Jesus.

-- CCC 2668 

Image Credit: Fish Eaters where more may be found on devotion to the holy name of Jesus Christ by clicking here.