The Silent Life Speaks the Loudest.


The Sixteenth Monday of Ordinary Time; or, the Memorial of Saint Sharbel Makhlūf, Priest.

Lessons from the primary feria, according to the ordinary form of the Roman Rite:

• Exodus 14: 5-18.
[Responsorial] Exodus 15: 1-6.
• Matthew 12: 38-42.

…or, from the proper:

• Sirach 3: 17-24.
• Psalm 15: 2-5.
• Matthew 19: 27-29.

…or, any lessons from the common of Pastors for One Pastor, or the common of Holy Men and Women for a Monk.


The Seventh Monday after Pentecost; and, the Commemoration of Saint Christina, Virgin & Martyr.*

Lessons from the dominica**, according to the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite:

• Romans 6: 19-23.
• Psalm 33: 12, 6.
• Matthew 7: 15-21.


The Seventh Monday after Pentecost; the Feast of the Holy Great Martyr Christine; and, the Feast of the Holy Martyrs Boris & Gleb.

First & fourth lessons from the menaion for Boris & Gleb, second & fifth from the pentecostarion, third & sixth from the menaion for Christine, according to the Ruthenian recension of the Byzantine Rite:

• Romans 8: 28-29.
• I Corinthians 9: 13-18.
• II Corinthians 6: 1-10.
• John 15: 17—16: 2.
• Matthew 16: 1-6.
• Luke 7: 36-50.










FatherVenditti.com


10:23 AM 7/24/2017 — When I first entered the seminary, I had worked for two summers as a tour guide at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, not too terribly far from my home, and right down the street from where I had gone to high school. And I became friends with another seminarian who was of the Maronite Rite, and that was my first experience with the Maronite Catholic Church.
     The saint we commemorate today, Saint Sharbel, is one of the Maronite Church’s greatest saints; so, in lieu of a homily, I would like simply to read to you the very brief description of his life from the Ordo:

Sharbel Makhlūf was born in 1828 in a small mountain village in north Labanon. He became a monk of the Maronite Church and was ordained in 1859. Devoted to the Blessed Virgin, he spent the last twenty-three years of his life as a hermit. Despite temptations to wealth and comfort, he taught the value of poverty, self-sacrifice and prayer by the example of his life. He possessed the gift of performing miracles even during this lifetime. His tomb at the monastery of Saint Maron in Amaya, Lebanon, is a popular place of pilgrimage. He died in 1898, and was canonized by Pope Blessed Paul VI in 1977.

* Christina of Tuscany was martyred at the age of ten under Diocletian in the year 300. The Roman Missal does not indicate a Mass available for her commemoration, but offers no reason for this; thus, the commemoration is made by an additional Collect, Secret and Postcommunion added to those of the feria, as is usual whenever a Mass for a commemoration is not taken by choice.

** In the post-Pentecost season, the lessons for ferial days are taken from the previous Sunday.