Calendar Highlight:
SEPTEMBER 2, 2020
The Church has special liturgies for every day of the calendar year, according to each day of the calendar year, which primarily fall under two categories:
1. The Liturgy of the Hours
2. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
The four main readings or chants from each day's Mass liturgy, which change according to the day of the week, day of the month, liturgical season and year are:
1. The Collect
2. The First Reading
3. The Responsorial Psalm
4. The Gospel
Today we will highlight verses from the First Reading of the Mass, and the Responsorial Psalm that follows, focusing on how they help explain the mystery of God's grace working through the virtues we practice in our lives.
What are the virtues?
Virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do good.
The human virtues are stable dispositions of the intellect and the will that govern our acts, order our passions, and guide our conduct in accordance with reason and faith. They can be grouped around the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
PRUDENCE
disposes the practical reason to discern, in every circumstance, our true good and to choose the right means for achieving it.
JUSTICE
consists in the firm and constant will to give God and neighbor their due.
Fortitude ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good.
Temperance moderates the attraction of the pleasures of the senses and provides balance in the use of created goods.
These moral virtues grow through education, deliberate acts, and perseverance in struggle. Divine grace purifies and elevates them.
The theological virtues dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have God for their origin, their motive, and their object - God known by faith, God hoped in and loved for his own sake.
There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. They inform all the moral virtues and give life to them.
BY FAITH,
we believe in God and believe all that he has revealed to us and that Holy Church proposes for our belief.
BY HOPE,
we desire, and with steadfast trust await from God, eternal life and the graces to merit it.
BY CHARITY,
we love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves for love of God. Charity, the form of all the virtues, "binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Col 3:14).
The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are also bestowed upon Christians, and work together with the Theological and Cardinal Virtues. They are:
wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.
The Theological & Cardinal Virtues are incredible gifts from God that we should always try to cherish, practice and pray for with a great love for Him. This is the preparation which God has entrusted to our care in order for our virtues to grow.
Scripture tells us that God will reward our efforts by building these virtues up in us, bringing us great power and joy. How this happens and when this happens is up to God's wonderful timing. He loves and knows us us so much more than we love and know ourselves. He knows how and when his power shining through our virtues will be the absolute best for us.
How does this relate to today's scripture verses?
FROM READING I
1 Corinthians 3:7-9, RSVCE
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are equal, and each shall receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
God gave us the seeds by giving us the Theological and Cardinal Virtues, and Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Through prayer and faithful reception of the sacraments,
we are corresponding to God's grace making our soil fertile.
When we practice these virtues,
and respond to God's grace in these gifts through the help of the
Holy Spirit, we are planting the seeds for them to grow.
By practicing them with a great love for God,
we are nourishing them by watering them.
God alone will make them grow.
