Our site uses cookies to improve the user experience and we recommend accepting its use to take full advantage of the navigation

Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

June 26th: Memorial of Saint Josemaría, Presbyter
Download
Gospel text (Lk 5,1-11): One day, as Jesus stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, with a crowd gathered around him listening to the word of God, He caught sight of two boats left at the water's edge by the fishermen now washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to pull out a little from the shore. There He sat and continued to teach the crowd. When He had finished speaking He said to Simon, «Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch» (…).

St. Josemaría, presbyter (1902-1975)

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Saint John Paul II) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, the celebration of St. Josemaría reminds us that the mission of the baptized consists in raising the Cross of Christ above all human reality and that he felt burning within him the impassioned vocation to evangelize every human setting.

To fulfil such a rigorous mission, one needs constant interior growth nourished by prayer. St Josemaría was a master in the practice of prayer, which he considered to be an extraordinary "weapon" to redeem the world. He always recommended: "In the first place prayer; then expiation; in the third place, but very much in third place, action". It is not a paradox but a perennial truth: the fruitfulness of the apostolate lies above all in prayer and in intense and constant sacramental life. This, in essence, is the secret of the holiness and the true success of the saints.

—May the Lord help you, dear brothers and sisters, to accept this challenging ascetical and missionary instruction. May Mary sustain you, whom the holy founder invoked as "Spes nostra, Sedes Sapientiae, Ancilla Domini!" (Our Hope, Seat of Wisdom, Handmaid of the Lord).