Saturday 29 April, 2023 | St Catherine of Sienna |Readings: 1 John 1:5-2:2; Psalm 102(103):1-4,8-9,13-14,17-18; Matthew 11:25-30 (You can find these in full on the Universalis website – Click here)
In many areas of work, employees are used to undertaking a Performance Management Review to evaluate the productivity of their work. Even if this doesn’t happen on a regular basis, everyone will be measured according to their performance, and employers will want to know if their workers are efficient, if targets have been reached, and basically asking the question, “Are you worth the money you’re paid?” But it’s not just in the workplace that this happens. Each of us is often evaluated and judged by others according to so many different measures.
Whilst this also happens in the Christian workplace, the perspective for matters of faith and our own Christian discipleship is very different. St Catherine of Sienna, whose feast day we celebrate today, said, “You are rewarded not according to your work or your time, but according to the measure of your love.” St Catherine lived an extraordinary life and achieved so much. Her influence moved far and wide. She brought peace to warring cities, influenced the decisions of Pope Gregory XI and urged him to reform the clergy and the Papal states. She helped to renew the Religious Life, and left us writings filled with sound teaching and spiritual inspiration which continues to nurture and influence the lives of so many Christians in our own day. Above all, her life was characterised by love of God and her neighbour.
Her Religious Life began when she was just a teenager, and her mystical experiences throughout her life reveal a total abandonment to God. In the gospel reading today, Jesus blesses God for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to children and hiding them from the learned and clever. St Catherine’s life reveals the rewards of a life which has been characterised by love and a childlike trust in and abandonment to God. Whatever we are called to do today, whatever tasks or opportunities come our way, may we be rewarded not according to our work or our time, but according to the measure of our love.
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Mass today (Saturday 29 April, 2023) is celebrated at St Mary’s Church, Butetown at 11.30am | If you would like to send a prayer request then click on the ‘REQUEST PRAYER’ Button
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