Blessed Daudi Okelo
and Jildo Irwa
These two catechists died for their faith on 20 October 1918 at Paimol in Northern Uganda. They were still very young – Daudi was 16, while Jildo was only 12. During the persecutions of Christians, they were dragged outside their hut and killed for the sole reason of teaching the Christian faith.
Entrance Antiphon: Ps 129: 3-4
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.
Collect
May your grace, O Lord, we pray, at all times go before us and follow after and make us always determined to carry out good works. 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: Romans 4:1-8
What shall we say about Abraham, the ancestor from whom we are all descended? If Abraham was justified as a reward for doing something, he would really have had something to boast about, though not in God’s sight because scripture says: Abraham put his faith in God, and this faith was considered as justifying him. If a man has work to show, his wages are not considered as a favour but as his due; but when a man has nothing to show except faith in the one who justifies sinners, then his faith is considered as justifying him. And David says the same: a man is happy if God considers him righteous, irrespective of good deeds: Happy those whose crimes are forgiven,
whose sins are blotted out; happy the man whom the Lord considers sinless.
Psalm 31(32):1-2,5,11
R/ You are my refuge, O Lord; you fill me with the joy of salvation.
Happy the man whose offence is forgiven, whose sin is remitted. O happy the man to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, in whose spirit is no guile.
But now I have acknowledged my sins; my guilt I did not hide. I said: ‘I will confess my offence to the Lord.’ And you, Lord, have forgiven the guilt of my sin.
Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord, exult, you just! O come, ring out your joy, all you upright of heart.
Gospel Acclamation: Ps 18: 9
Alleluia, alleluia! Your words gladden the heart, O Lord, they give light to the eyes. Alleluia!
Gospel: Luke 12:1-7
The people had gathered in their thousands so that they were treading on one another. And Jesus began to speak, first of all to his disciples. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees – that is, their hypocrisy. Everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear. For this reason, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in hidden places will be proclaimed on the housetops. To you my friends I say: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. I will tell you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has the power to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Can you not buy five sparrows for two pennies? And yet not one is forgotten in God’s sight. Why, every hair on your head has been counted. There is no need to be afraid: you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows.”
Prayer over the Offerings
Accept, O Lord, the prayers of your faithful with the sacrificial offerings, that, through these acts of devotedness, we may pass over to the glory of heaven. Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon: Ps 33: 11
The rich suffer want and go hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no blessing.
Prayer after Communion
We entreat your majesty most humbly, O Lord, that, as you feed us with the nourishment which comes from the most holy Body and Blood of your Son, so you may make us sharers of his divine nature. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Meditation
To the disciples, Jesus recommends that they beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Leaven is useful, as it causes fermentation, but is also a sign of corruption. Saint Paul gives us a good illustration in his first letter to the Corinthians: “Purify yourselves from the old leaven so that you may be a new dough, since you are unleavened. In other words: become, in deed, what you already are by faith in Christ: a new man, created holy and righteous, the image of God, without duplicity, without corruption… To friends, he advises not to fear bodily death, for life is more than the body. Jesus is a true Master who teaches what he knows because he has lived it: he who puts all his trust in God will live, even beyond the death of the body, with the life of God. This is the true life that Jesus wants to transmit to us.