"The Son of Man has nowhere on earth to lay His head": poverty and self-denial open the way to sacredness in Christ

In today's Gospel for holy Mass the Lord describes His earthly life of poverty: "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."

Christ does not find here on earth a lasting city and urges us by His example and the gift of grace to imitate Him.  He also, by choosing a life of preaching and teaching in order to seek the lost sheep of the house of Israel, must always depend upon the kindness of strangers, of whatever Providence His heavenly Father gives through the goodness of creatures.  In these two ways then He makes clear what is necessary for those who will cooperate with Him in His mission to save souls through the preaching and teaching of the Kingdom of God.

He instructs us that if we would have Him and His holiness which brings us to heaven, then we must invite those He sends, our bishop and priests, without shame into whatever kind of poverty afflicts us, into all the circumstances of our lives.  This includes, of course, exposing before His all-seeing gaze the greatest poverty: the absence of God.  What makes God most absent in our lives is sin.

Our priests are sent to us by the bishops, Christ for us today, into all the circumstances of our lives, into whatever poverties from which we suffer, in order to give us the wealth of God.  God comes first into our poverty of sinfulness through mercy, in particular through the absolution from the condemnation of sin and death in the sacrament of Confession.  Then God makes us one with Him through the Body and Blood of His Son, the greatest treasure on earth.

Christ has nowhere to lay His head until we are willing to invite Him into the poverty of our lives. We do this, so that the holiness of Christ is ours, every time we welcome His priests into our midst, to relieve us of the poverty of sin through absolution in Confession and bestowing the gift of grace in His Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.

“Beware of false prophets"

who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.

-- Mt 7:15-20

Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature.

-- CCC 150 

Nativity of Saint John the Baptist: "The LORD called me from birth"

You are my servant, he said to me

-- Is 49:1-6

St. John the Baptist is the Lord's immediate precursor or forerunner, sent to prepare his way. "Prophet of the Most High", John surpasses all the prophets, of whom he is the last. He inaugurates the Gospel, already from his mother's womb welcomes the coming of Christ, and rejoices in being "the friend of the bridegroom", whom he points out as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". Going before Jesus "in the spirit and power of Elijah", John bears witness to Christ in his preaching, by his Baptism of conversion, and through his martyrdom.

-- CCC 523

Art: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Birth of St. John the Baptist

"Please put up with me"

For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached,
or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received
or a different gospel from the one you accepted,
you put up with it well enough.

--  2 COR 11:1-11

Man, having been wounded in his nature by original sin, is subject to error and inclined to evil in exercising his freedom.

-- CCC  1714

"Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly"

God loves a cheerful giver

-- 2 COR 9:6-11

"This Kingdom shines out before men in the word, in the works and in the presence of Christ." To welcome Jesus' word is to welcome "the Kingdom itself." The seed and beginning of the Kingdom are the "little flock" of those whom Jesus came to gather around him, the flock whose shepherd he is. They form Jesus' true family. To those whom he thus gathered around him, he taught a new "way of acting" and a prayer of their own.

-- CCC 764

"We hold this treasure in earthen vessels"

that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us

-- 2 Cor 4:7-15

"The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with sighs too deep for words." The Holy Spirit, the artisan of God's works, is the master of prayer.

-- CCC 741

Friday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

San Antonio di Padova / Saint Anthony: "Every high priest is taken from among men"

... and made their representative before God

-- Heb 5:1-10

In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis:

It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).
Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.

-- CCC 1548