St. Andrew Bobola
Andrew Bobola is a Polish-born martyr. He was born in Sandormir,
Poland, in 1591 to a noble family. He was ordained a Jesuit in 1622 and
three years later became a parish priest in Vilna, Lithuania, the town
in which he had studied. He also served as superior of the Jesuit
community for a time.
He worked extensively with the sick and
made and even stronger efforts to help them during a plague outbreak,
but he is best known as a successful missionary to the Orthodox. He did
this for almost 20 years, preaching along the roads and converting whole
villages to Catholicism.
However, he was captured after Mass on
May 10, 1657 by the Cossacks and brutally tortured. Six days later, he
was beheaded and died a martyr, refusing to denounce his Catholic faith.
His tomb was opened in 1808 and his body was found incorrupt. He is now entombed in a Jesuit church in Krakow, Poland.
He was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1938.
Acts 1:15-17,20-26;
5 In those days Peter stood up among the brethren (the company of persons was in all about a hundred and twenty), and said,
16 "Brethren, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which
the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David, concerning
Judas who was guide to those who arrested Jesus.
17 For he was numbered among us, and was allotted his share in this ministry.
20 For it is written in the book of Psalms, `Let his
habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it'; and
`His office let another take.'
21 So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
22 beginning from the baptism of John until the day
when he was taken up from us -- one of these men must become with us a
witness to his resurrection."
23 And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsab'bas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthi'as.
24 And they prayed and said, "Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which one of these two thou hast chosen
25 to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside, to go to his own place."
26 And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthi'as; and he was enrolled with the eleven apostles.
John 17:11-19
11 And now I am no more in the world, but they are in
the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name,
which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
12 While I was with them, I kept them in thy name,
which thou hast given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost
but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13 But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14 I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15 I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth.
18 As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.
Psalms 102:1-2,11-12,19-20
1Hear my prayer, Lord; let my cry for help come to you.
2 Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly.
11My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.
12 But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations.
19“The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high, from heaven he viewed the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners
Second Reading
1 John 4:11-16
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
Father in heaven, gather together all Your scattered children wherever we may be
Sunday May 16 2021
7th Sunday of Easter (B)
Acts
1:15-17,20-26;
Ps.
102:1-2,11-12,19-20;
1
Jn. 4:11-16; Jn. 17:11-19 (Ps Wk III)
When Jesus prays that we may all be one, as he does in
today’s Gospel reading, it is important to realise that he is not speaking
about Church unity, but rather about the unity of the whole human race, for a
total reversal of the disaster of Babel (Gen 11), where the unity of the human
race was broken through the desire to build a tower reaching up to heaven and
so on their own human terms attain to divinity, immortality and absolute
transcendence. The unity envisaged in the New Testament, especially in the
Letters to the Ephesians (1:22) and the Colossians (1:18) is that Christ is the
head of everything. A similar expression is also found in the theology of some
of the early Church Fathers. It is also well expressed in the Third Eucharistic
Prayer:
“Father in heaven, gather together all Your scattered children
wherever we may be.”
