SAINT ETHELDREDA
She was born in Suffolk. She was the most venerated of the women saints of Anglo-Saxon England, renowned for her dedication to a life of chastity and for the austerity of the regime she imposed on herself in her later years.
Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 26: 7, 9
O Lord, hear my voice, for I have called to you; be my help. Do not abandon or forsake me, O God, my Saviour!
Collect
O God, strength of those who hope in you, graciously hear our pleas, and, since without you mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us always the help of your grace, that in following your commands we may please you by our resolve and our deeds. 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: 2 Corinthians 11: 18, 21-30
So many others have been boasting of their worldly achievements, that I will boast myself. But if anyone wants some brazen speaking – I am still talking as a fool – then I can be as brazen as any of them, and about the same things. Hebrews, are they? So am I. Israelites? So am I. Descendants of Abraham? So am I. The servants of Christ? I must be mad to say this, but so am I, and more than they: more, because I have worked harder, I have been sent to prison more often, and whipped many times more, often almost to death. Five times I had the thirty-nine lashes from the Jews; three times I have been beaten with sticks; once I was stoned; three times I have been shipwrecked and once adrift in the open sea for a night and a day. Constantly travelling, I have been in danger from rivers and in danger from brigands, in danger from my own people and in danger from pagans; in danger in the towns, in danger in the open country, danger at sea and danger from so-called brothers. I have worked and laboured, often without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty and often starving; I have been in the cold without clothes. And, to leave out much more, there is my daily preoccupation: my anxiety for all the churches. When any man has had scruples, I have had scruples with him; when any man is made to fall, I am tortured. If I am to boast, then let me boast of my own feebleness.
Psalm 33(34): 2-7
R/ The Lord rescues the just in all their distress.
I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise always on my lips; in the Lord my soul shall make its boast. The humble shall hear and be glad.
Glorify the Lord with me. Together let us praise his name. I sought the Lord and he answered me; from all my terrors he set me free.
Look towards him and be radiant; let your faces not be abashed. This poor man called, the Lord heard him and rescued him from all his distress.
Gospel Acclamation: Jn 8: 12
Alleluia, alleluia! I am the light of the world, says the Lord; anyone who follows me will have the light of life. Alleluia!
Gospel: Matthew 6: 19-23
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moths and woodworms destroy them and thieves can break in and steal. But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworms destroy them and thieves cannot break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The lamp of the body is the eye. It follows that if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be all darkness. If then, the light inside you is darkness, what darkness that will be!”
Prayer over the Offerings
O God, who in the offerings presented here provide for the twofold needs of human nature, nourishing us with food and renewing us with your Sacrament, grant, we pray, that the sustenance they provide may not fail us in body or in spirit. Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon: Ps 26: 4
There is one thing I ask of the Lord, only this do I seek: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Prayer after Communion
As this reception of your Holy Communion, O Lord, foreshadows the union of the faithful in you, so may it bring about unity in your Church. Through Christ our Lord.
Meditation
“The eye is the lamp of the body. It is for us like an open window on reality, on the world of things and people. Through the eye we get the light and knowledge that allow us to situate things, to understand human beings and their feelings. To act well, we must be able to judge; to judge well, we must see. And Jesus adds today that we must see well. Therefore, the eye must be healthy. Just as we have, for material life, two eyes of the body, which we instinctively protect, we have, for living with God and with our neighbour, a spiritual vision, a window of the heart open on the world of God and the world of our brothers. Even when life or sin has blinded us, the Spirit is given to us “to know the gifts God has given us”. Our Saviour Jesus Christ will always be there to heal our eyes and to give us a new look. Let us ask for fidelity in following Christ, the light of the world.