Saint Ambrose Barlow OSB
(1585-1641)
Green
In 1615, he became a member of the Order of Saint Benedict and was ordained as a priest in 1617. He was arrested several times during his travels before he eventually suffered a martyr’s death in 1671.
Entrance Antiphon : Ps 118: 137, 124
You are just, O Lord, and your judgment is right; treat your servant in accord with your merciful love.
Collect
O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters, that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
First reading : 1 Corinthians 6:1-11
How dare one of your members take up a complaint against another in the law courts of the unjust instead of before the saints? As you know, it is the saints who are to ‘judge the world’; and if the world is to be judged by you, how can you be unfit to judge trifling cases? Since we are also to judge angels, it follows that we can judge matters of everyday life; but when you have had cases of that kind, the people you appointed to try them were not even respected in the Church. You should be ashamed: is there really not one reliable man among you to settle differences between brothers and so one brother brings a court case against another in front of unbelievers? It is bad enough for you to have lawsuits at all against one another: oughtn’t you to let yourselves be wronged, and let yourselves be cheated? But you are doing the wronging and the cheating, and to your own brothers. You know perfectly well that people who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of God: people of immoral lives, idolaters, adulterers, catamites, sodomites, thieves, usurers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers will never inherit the kingdom of God. These are the sort of people some of you were once, but now you have been washed clean, and sanctified, and justified through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 149:1-6,9
R/ The Lord takes delight in his people.
Sing a new song to the Lord, his praise in the assembly of the faithful. Let Israel rejoice in its Maker, let Zion’s sons exult in their king.
Let them praise his name with dancing and make music with timbrel and harp. For the Lord takes delight in his people. He crowns the poor with salvation.
Let the faithful rejoice in their glory, shout for joy and take their rest. Let the praise of God be on their lips: this honour is for all his faithful.
Gospel Acclamation : Ph2:15-16
Alleluia, alleluia! You will shine in the world like bright stars because you are offering it the word of life. Alleluia!
Gospel : Luke 6:12-19
Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them ‘apostles’: Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor. He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.
Prayer over the Offerings
O God, who give us the gift of true prayer and of peace, graciously grant that through this offering, we may do fitting homage to your divine majesty and, by partaking of the sacred mystery, we may be faithfully united in mind and heart. Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon : Cf. Ps 41: 2-3
Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God; my soul is thirsting for God, the living God.
Prayer after Communion
Grant that your faithful, O Lord, whom you nourish and endow with life through the food of your Word and heavenly Sacrament, may so benefit from your beloved Son’s great gifts that we may merit an eternal share in his life. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Meditation There was a reason why Jesus called the twelve disciples to be His apostles; to help Him spread the good news about God. They were His eyes and ears; they were His collaborators in His mission. Before choosing these twelve men, Jesus went up a mountain to spend the entire night in communion with God. It was a serious decision he had to make and he needed to draw on his Father’s wisdom. We may be asking ourselves about the choices he made: Peter denied he ever knew Jesus; James and John: Jesus nicknamed them «sons of thunder» who wanted to call down fire to incinerate a whole town. And there was a doubting Thomas; Nathanael who figured nothing good could ever come out of Nazareth and Judas who became the traitor. The amazing thing in all this is that, with one notable exception, all the men Jesus chose, repented, changed their lifestyles, proclaimed the risen Lord, and testified to the Lord with their blood. We may also ask ourselves why he chose Judas. No one knows God’s mind but what we know for sure is that God’s grace has been given to all of us. They accepted the grace, but ultimately only eleven lived faithful to it. Each of the eleven chose to be faithful, just as Judas chose to be unfaithful. The mystery is rooted in the human will to collaborate in God’s mission