Weekday Readings

Third Week of the Year January 27 - February 1, 2025 Monday Mk 3.22-30 Jesus loves his Father. The truth of that Trinitarian relationship is at the core of His Person. His bearing witness to that relationship is always paramount. The source of his power and his authority is the Father's sending him as the Son into the world. The energy of his mission is the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father-Son relationship. The eminent source of all good--all that is good and beautiful comes from the Father of lights--is at the center of Christ's reality. Sharing in this relationship is the Kingdom of God. Jesus uses the examples in the Gospel to demonstrate the logic of his mission. Jesus’ mission reproduces in mystery the relationship within the Holy Trinity. Blasphemy against the actual manifestation of that Trinitarian relationship blocks the whole movement of grace. From that blasphemy there is no recourse. It is the beginning of the death of hell, an abyss of total denial of God's light even as it is eternally offered by God and eternally rejected in obstinacy—this is hell. Tuesday Mark 3.31-35 The circle of disciples sits around Jesus. I sit among them. Jesus gazes at us all. He tells us: You are all my relatives. The bonds of blood are not deeper than that of grace in God's Kingdom. There is nothing more absolute than that I should sit in the circle of those who do the will of the Father. My prayer is consciousness of, and rejoicing in, that union. My prayer is to sit in simple abandonment to the will of the Father, His presence and work. Is it that my union with God is such that I will be dissolved into God’s summit being as the Buddhists teach? No, it is that I should sit in the circle, as it were, person to person, in love, as in the Trinity, the Persons in relation, one to the other, “relatives” one to the other, in this mystery known only through faith and realized only in the love that is the Holy Spirit. Mary, the Mother of God, is the absolute model of this belonging to the Kingdom in the obedience of faith. Wednesday Mark 4.1-20 In this drama depicted in the parable I have played all the parts. I have been the one who has allowed Satan to steal away the seed of Christ's word. I have been the one who has danced with joy at the word, but then quickly panicked, ran like hell, fled the word in the midst of the crumbling edifices of my world. I have felt myself slowly being choked with all the gagging attractions of the fast thrills and suffocating surfeit of acquisitions and experiences. I have lain strangled on the floor of the materialistic world. But now in God’s grace I am good soil; yes, I am good soil by the power of the Holy Spirit. I am quite content to be yielding thirty, sixty, a hundred percent in the good earth of God's Kingdom. I will be still and receptive as the good earth to hear the secrets of God's Kingdom. Thursday Mark 4.21-25 My prayer is silence. Yes, I pray the psalms in the Church's rhythm of Liturgical hours. I read and read again the Sacred Scripture, letting the words sink down, supported by the solid commentaries of those wise and orthodox. Then, after that, the sacred words carry my heart into the heart of God's own Wisdom, the Word, Jesus in the bosom of the Father. But my prayer is fundamentally silence. It is the silence of love and full surrender into the presence of the Trinity. The measure is beyond measure. We must give all away and we receive infinitely more. My prayer is my ears bathed in silence, listening, listening out of love. But my prayer is silence that the Word be received and the lamps be lit. Ultimately, the silence only serves the Word who is Light so I may be a light set upon a lamp stand. Friday Mark 4.26-34 My prayer is patience. Love is patient; love is kind. My prayer is patience. I am acted upon like the land is patient under the sun, in the rain. The sun, the rain, the seed, they all cause me to grow in ways beyond anything I could imagine or that I could cause by my reckoning and my scheming. I am tired of paradigms hot off the academic press. I am patient to wait upon the power of the Holy Trinity who grasps my poor earth in the fecundity of divine love’s enveloping me. My prayer is patience, waiting, with a resolute will to be still and to receive all, the sun, the rain, the seed. If there is a concern it is for the birds of the air that they should find their nests in the shade of the large branches. In my prayer the Church is the fullness of Christ, the mustard seed come to growth providing shelter for the birds of the air. Saturday Mark 4.35-41 They took him with them just as he was. He needed nothing else. He had no baggage, no books, no notes. Just as he was. All that he needed was within him. And from within him came the power to still the winds and the sea. From within him came salvation. Who then is this that even the sea and the wind obey him? He is the one who is just as he is. Let me take you, O Lord Jesus, just as you are. Let me not add anything or take anything away from who and what you are. Let me stop analyzing you; stop theorizing about you; stop adding to you and subtracting from you. Let me stop trying to be au currant about you with my eye upon the approving crowd. Let me take you as you are; as you are given to me by the Father within the Spirit. Ultimately, let the Church give you to me as she has received you, just as you are, and has in turn handed you down to me, just as you are, O Lord, Whom the sea and the wind obey.. Second Week of the Year William Fredrickson, OBLOSB, D.Min. --
For questions, comments or other communication, please contact: William Fredrickson Fredrickson46@msn.com

Third Week of the Year

January 27 - February 1, 2025

Monday
Mk 3.22-30
Jesus loves his Father. The truth of that Trinitarian relationship is at the core of His Person. His bearing witness to that relationship is always paramount. The source of his power and his authority is the Father's sending him as the Son into the world. The energy of his mission is the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father-Son relationship. The eminent source of all good--all that is good and beautiful comes from the Father of lights--is at the center of Christ's reality. Sharing in this relationship is the Kingdom of God. Jesus uses the examples in the Gospel to demonstrate the logic of his mission. Jesus’ mission reproduces in mystery the relationship within the Holy Trinity. Blasphemy against the actual manifestation of that Trinitarian relationship blocks the whole movement of grace. From that blasphemy there is no recourse. It is the beginning of the death of hell, an abyss of total denial of God's light even as it is eternally offered by God and eternally rejected in obstinacy—this is hell.

Tuesday
Mark 3.31-35
The circle of disciples sits around Jesus. I sit among them. Jesus gazes at us all. He tells us: You are all my relatives. The bonds of blood are not deeper than that of grace in God's Kingdom. There is nothing more absolute than that I should sit in the circle of those who do the will of the Father. My prayer is consciousness of, and rejoicing in, that union. My prayer is to sit in simple abandonment to the will of the Father, His presence and work. Is it that my union with God is such that I will be dissolved into God’s summit being as the Buddhists teach? No, it is that I should sit in the circle, as it were, person to person, in love, as in the Trinity, the Persons in relation, one to the other, “relatives” one to the other, in this mystery known only through faith and realized only in the love that is the Holy Spirit. Mary, the Mother of God, is the absolute model of this belonging to the Kingdom in the obedience of faith.

Wednesday
Mark 4.1-20
In this drama depicted in the parable I have played all the parts. I have been the one who has allowed Satan to steal away the seed of Christ's word. I have been the one who has danced with joy at the word, but then quickly panicked, ran like hell, fled the word in the midst of the crumbling edifices of my world. I have felt myself slowly being choked with all the gagging attractions of the fast thrills and suffocating surfeit of acquisitions and experiences. I have lain strangled on the floor of the materialistic world. But now in God’s grace I am good soil; yes, I am good soil by the power of the Holy Spirit. I am quite content to be yielding thirty, sixty, a hundred percent in the good earth of God's Kingdom. I will be still and receptive as the good earth to hear the secrets of God's Kingdom.

Thursday
Mark 4.21-25
My prayer is silence. Yes, I pray the psalms in the Church's rhythm of Liturgical hours. I read and read again the Sacred Scripture, letting the words sink down, supported by the solid commentaries of those wise and orthodox. Then, after that, the sacred words carry my heart into the heart of God's own Wisdom, the Word, Jesus in the bosom of the Father. But my prayer is fundamentally silence. It is the silence of love and full surrender into the presence of the Trinity. The measure is beyond measure. We must give all away and we receive infinitely more. My prayer is my ears bathed in silence, listening, listening out of love. But my prayer is silence that the Word be received and the lamps be lit. Ultimately, the silence only serves the Word who is Light so I may be a light set upon a lamp stand.

Friday
Mark 4.26-34
My prayer is patience. Love is patient; love is kind. My prayer is patience. I am acted upon like the land is patient under the sun, in the rain. The sun, the rain, the seed, they all cause me to grow in ways beyond anything I could imagine or that I could cause by my reckoning and my scheming. I am tired of paradigms hot off the academic press. I am patient to wait upon the power of the Holy Trinity who grasps my poor earth in the fecundity of divine love’s enveloping me. My prayer is patience, waiting, with a resolute will to be still and to receive all, the sun, the rain, the seed. If there is a concern it is for the birds of the air that they should find their nests in the shade of the large branches. In my prayer the Church is the fullness of Christ, the mustard seed come to growth providing shelter for the birds of the air.

Saturday
Mark 4.35-41
They took him with them just as he was. He needed nothing else. He had no baggage, no books, no notes. Just as he was. All that he needed was within him. And from within him came the power to still the winds and the sea. From within him came salvation. Who then is this that even the sea and the wind obey him? He is the one who is just as he is. Let me take you, O Lord Jesus, just as you are. Let me not add anything or take anything away from who and what you are. Let me stop analyzing you; stop theorizing about you; stop adding to you and subtracting from you. Let me stop trying to be au currant about you with my eye upon the approving crowd. Let me take you as you are; as you are given to me by the Father within the Spirit. Ultimately, let the Church give you to me as she has received you, just as you are, and has in turn handed you down to me, just as you are, O Lord, Whom the sea and the wind obey..
Second Week of the Year

William Fredrickson, OBLOSB, D.Min.