SAINT APOLLINIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR
Psalter I | GREEN
“She was a Christian deaconess in Alexandria during the Roman Empire’s persecutions of Christians. She was arrested during an uprising against Christians and tortured, having her teeth broken with pincers. Refusing to renounce her faith, she was burned alive.”
Entrance Antiphon: Ps 94: 6-7
O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God.
Collect
Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care, that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace, they may be defended always by your protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
First reading: 1 Kings 8:1-7, 9-13
The elders of Israel and all the leaders of the tribes, the princes in the ancestral houses of the children of Israel, came to King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from the City of David, which is Zion. All the people of Israel assembled before King Solomon during the festival in the month of Ethanim (the seventh month). When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark; they carried the ark of the Lord and the meeting tent with all the sacred vessels that were in the tent. (The priests and Levites carried them.) King Solomon and the entire community of Israel present for the occasion sacrificed before the ark sheep and oxen too many to number or count. The priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place beneath the wings of the cherubim in the sanctuary, the holy of holies of the temple. The cherubim had their wings spread out over the place of the ark, sheltering the ark and its poles from above. There was nothing in the ark but the two stone tablets which Moses had put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel at their departure from the land of Egypt. When the priests left the holy place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord so that the priests could no longer minister because of the cloud, since the Lord’s glory had filled the temple of the Lord. Then Solomon said, “The Lord intends to dwell in the dark cloud; I have truly built you a princely house, a dwelling where you may abide forever.”
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 132:6-7, 8-10
R/ Lord, go up to the place of your rest!
- Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar. Let us enter into his dwelling, let us worship at his footstool.
- Advance, O Lord, to your resting place, you and the ark of your majesty. May your priests be clothed with justice; let your faithful ones shout merrily for joy. For the sake of David your servant, reject not the plea of your anointed.
Gospel Acclamation: Matthew 4:23
Alleluia, alleluia. Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom and cured every disease among the people. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: Mark 6:53-56
After making the crossing to the other side of the sea, Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret and tied up there. As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed.
Prayer over the Offerings
O Lord, our God, who once established these created things to sustain us in our frailty, grant, we pray, that they may become for us now the Sacrament of eternal life. Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon: Cf. Ps 106: 8-9
Let them thank the Lord for his mercy, his wonders for the children of men, for he satisfies the thirsty soul, and the hungry he fills with good things.
Prayer after Communion
O God, who have willed that we be partakers in the one Bread and the one Chalice, grant us, we pray, so to live that, made one in Christ, we may joyfully bear fruit for the salvation of the world. Through Christ our Lord.
Meditation
“They brought the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.” King Solomon built a Temple for the Lord in Jerusalem, and the Temple became a sign of God’s presence among the people of Israel. It contained the Ark of the Covenant, and after its dedication a cloud filled it, and this showed that God was indeed among his people. Through our baptism we become temples of the Holy Spirit, which means that God abides in us and through us he is present in the world. We therefore have to make the world feel God’s presence and action through us. We learn from the Gospel that one effective way of doing this is by taking people to Jesus. The Gospel tells us that wherever people heard Jesus was, they took the sick to him so that he could heal them. We should also take our sick friends and relations to Jesus for healing through our prayers of intercession and our words of encouragement. We should encourage those who are spiritually lukewarm or indifferent to turn to Jesus and seek an encounter with him. We should be among those who draw people closer to Jesus, and not among those who send people away from him.