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Ordinary Time: August 27th

Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time

Other Commemorations: St. Agostina Livia Pietrantoni, Virgin (RM)

MASS READINGS

August 27, 2017 (Readings on USCCB website)

COLLECT PRAYER

O God, who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found. 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.

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When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 15:13-20).

The feast of St. Monica, which is ordinarily celebrated today, is superseded by the Sunday liturgy.

Click here for commentary on the readings in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Sunday Readings
The first reading is taken from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah 22:19-23. Because of the reference to the "key of the house of David" in this text, some Fathers saw in it a messianic prophecy, foretelling the removal from power of the leaders of the Chosen People of the Old Testament, and the transfer of that power to Christ, who in turn handed it to Peter as head of the Church, the new Chosen People.

The second reading is from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans 11:33-36 in which he offers praise and thanks to God for including everyone in the salvation He offered, first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles.

The Gospel is from St. Matthew 16:13-20. Jesus, the true Son of God, became man in order to make all men His brothers and co-heirs with Him, to the divine, eternal kingdom. To carry on His divine mission on earth (after He had ascended into heaven), He founded the Church on the twelve Apostles. This Church was to be God's new Chosen People (hence perhaps the twelve Apostles take the place of the heads of the twelve tribes of the Chosen People of old). It was to be made up of all races from all parts of the world. As its mission was to bring the message of salvation to all men, it was to go on until the end of time. For this Church, this divinely instituted society of human beings, to carry out its mission of helping all men to reach their eternal kingdom, it was necessary to be sure of the road and the aids offered to its members. In other words, the Church should be certain that what it told men to believe and to practice was what God wanted them to believe and to practice. Today's reading from St. Matthew tells us how Christ provided for this necessity. In making Peter the head of the Apostolic College, the foundation-stone of his Church, the guarantor of its stability in the symbol of the keys and the promise that all his decisions would be ratified in heaven, Christ gave him the power of freedom from error when officially teaching the universal Church.

In other words, Peter received the primacy in the Church and the gift of infallibility in his official teaching on matters of faith and morals. As the Church was to continue long after Peter had died, it was rightly understood from the beginning that the privileges given to him and which were necessary for the successful mission of the Church, were given to his lawful successors-the Popes.

This has been the constant belief in the Church from its very beginning. The first Vatican Council solemnly defined this dogma and it was reconfirmed recently in the second Vatican Council. In giving these powers to Peter and to his lawful successors Christ was planning for our needs. In order to preserve and safeguard the right conduct of all its members He provided a central seat of authoritative power in His Church. Through the gift of infallibility He assured us that whatever we were commanded to believe (faith) or to do (morals) would always be what He and his heavenly Father wanted us to believe and to do.

How can we ever thank Christ for these marvelous gifts to his Church, that is, to us? Let us say a fervent: "thank you, Lord; You have foreseen all our needs and provided for them, grant us the grace to do the little part you ask of us in order to continue our progress on the one direct road to heaven."

Excerpted from The Sunday Readings by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.

Commentary on the Readings for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
"A Samaritan (seeing the robbers' victim) was moved with compassion, bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and took care of him. And Jesus said, 'Go and do thou also in like manner'" (Gospel).

St. Bede suggests that this victim is Adam and the human race robbed by Satan (pictured at left). Jesus, our Divine Rescuer (pictured at right), comes to pour "wine and oil" into our "wounds": the "life"-giving Wine of His Precious Blood (PostCommunion), the "cheerful...oil" of all His Sacraments (Communion Verse).

Otherwise, having left the "Jerusalem" of Divine Life, how could we "run without stumbling" (Prayer) lifeless into the Dead Sea next to "Jericho"? "We are not sufficient of ourselves..our sufficiency is from God." Without Jesus the Ten Commandments would be dead "letters upon stones" (Epistle)

What Christ does for us, we "in like manner" are to do unto others, friend and foe. "Samaritan-charity" is Christ's own teaching.

Excerpted from My Sunday Missal, Confraternity of the Precious Blood

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini
This saint, the first United States citizen to be canonized, was born in Italy of parents who were farmers. She was the thirteenth child, born when her mother was fifty-two years old. The missionary spirit was awakened in her as a little girl when her father read stories of the missions to his children. She received a good education, and at eighteen was awarded the normal school certificate.

For a while she helped the pastor teach catechism and visited the sick and the poor. She also taught school in a nearby town, and for six years supervised an orphanage assisted by a group of young women. The bishop of Lodi heard of this group and asked Frances to establish a missionary institute to work in his diocese. Frances did so, calling the community the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. An academy for girls was opened and new houses quickly sprang up.

One day Bishop Scalabrini, founder of the Missionaries of Emigration, described to Mother Cabrini the wretched economical and spiritual conditions of the many Italian immigrants in the United States, and she was deeply moved. An audience with Pope Leo XIII changed her plans to go to the missions of the East. "Not to the East, but to the West," the Pope said to her. "Go to the United States." Mother Cabrini no longer hesitated. She landed in New York in 1889, established an orphanage, and then set out on a lifework that comprised the alleviation of every human need. For the children she erected schools, kindergartens, clinics, orphanages, and foundling homes, and numbers of hospitals for the needy sick. At her death over five thousand children were receiving care in her charitable institutions, and at the same time her community had grown to five hundred members in seventy houses in North and South America, France, Spain, and England.

The saint, frail and diminutive of stature, showed such energy and enterprise that everyone marveled. She crossed the Atlantic twenty-five times to visit the various houses and institutions. In 1909 she adopted the United States as her country and became a citizen. After thirty-seven years of unflagging labor and heroic charity she died alone in a chair in Columbus Hospital at Chicago, Illinois, while making dolls for orphans in preparation for a Christmas party. Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago officiated at her funeral and in 1938 also presided at her beatification by Pius XI. She was canonized by Pius XII in 1946. She lies buried under the altar of the chapel of Mother Cabrini High School in New York City.
—A Saint A Day, Berchmans Bittle, O.F.M.Cap.

Patronage: against malaria; emigrants (given on 8 September 1950 by Pope Pius XII); hospital administrators; immigrants; orphans

Symbols and Representation: ship; heart; book.

Highlights and Things to Do:

St. Agostina Livia Pietrantoni
The life of Saint Agostina is an example of the virtue of silence that is found in one's duties, charity, of quietness in one's approach rather than the absence of speech.

Sister Agostina died a violent death, at the hands of one of the patients in the hospital where she labored for God. When she was beatified this was noted, but it was her peaceful way of helping the poor who were sick that is most remembered. She is not a Martyr in the usual sense, because she was not killed for her Faith.

She was one of ten children—the second born—in a family of moderate means and rich in the practice of the Faith, including the daily Rosary. She attended school as best as she could but had to be absent frequently in order to help her mother because her father was very ill, almost crippled with arthritis. She was learned and bright and was nicknamed "the professor". At the age of seven she had to work to help the family's income. Not only did she tend the cattle and help with her younger brothers and sisters, she made shoes, worked on olive harvests and for four years salved away helping to build a road for little pay, all with a cheerful disposition, without complaint. Livia was modest, retiring, very quiet, but popular and often asked for advice. The budding Saint was pretty and had suitors who had no hope. One of the young men, who attempted to propose to her was met with Livia's enthusiasm for Jesus. She took out a holy card with His image and said: "Here is the One I will marry."

In 1866 she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joan Antida, the Rome convent. There she found that the hardest task was that all she did for Jesus was too little in her estimation; there was never anything she would refuse her Spouse. She took the name of Sister Agostina and was assigned to the Hospital of Santo Spirito, which had become far too secularized over the years. Crucifixes had been removed from the wards; one of the rules imposed on the sisters was the ban on mentioning so much as the name of God to their patients!

This did not deter her because she did not need words to tell others about God; her actions were so imbued with the love of God and neighbor that her patients grasped everything she was teaching them.

She had as yet to make her final profession, having come down with tuberculosis, she received Viaticum and then recovered. It was then that she requested to work with tubercular patients since she was already infected. This ward held a number of unruly men, some of them convicts. They blasphemed and sputtered vulgarities. She never failed to be patient and cheerful. Her consolation and inspiration during this time was Our Lady. She had a great devotion to the Mother of God, her favorite prayer was the Rosary. In her charming, silent way, she would write letters to the Saint Virgin and place them behind a picture by way of a mailbox. One of these contained the following: "Most Holy Lady, convert that wretched man whose obstinate heart I am not able to change and I promise to do two or three extra night duties in your honor."

Sister Agostina, given the chance, chose work over rest. The night before she died, she said: "We will lie down for such a long time after death that it is worthwhile to keep standing while we are alive. Let us work now; one day we will rest."

In September of 1893 Sister Agostino professed her final vows and went back to the same ward to nurse. One of the men who had been sent from a prison, a Giuseppe Romanelli, had a mother and sister who visited him. Our Saint was very kind to them. He was so troublesome in the ward that he was sent away; thereafter he wrote threatening notes. On November 13, 1894, Sister Agostino and another patient were going down the stairs of the ward, only to find themselves face to face with this four times condemned man. Romanelli wielded a knife and stabbed her several times. The patient hollered for help, but by the time it came St. Agostina was on the floor dying and saying, "Blessed Mother, help me." She was taken to a bed, no longer able to speak. Her superior asked her if she forgave the murderer, who had escaped. She nodded, Yes. She was smiling. A few moments later she had died. Two days later her funeral was held, the same day that her killer was arrested. He was sentenced for life although the Saint's family asked for mercy. He repented, received the Last Sacraments, then died in prison a year later.

The process for Sister's cause begun in 1936, the first decree was in 1945 and she was beatified in 1972 and canonized in 1998.
—Excerpted from Modern Saints by Ann Ball

Patronage: Abuse victims; martyrs; people in poverty; people ridiculed for their piety

Highlights and Things to Do:

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