Hello everyone! Heyo! Welcome back to Scattering Flowers with Elise and Miles, a podcast where you read the daily Gospels and the Saint of the Day.
Let’s get started! Today is Thursday, May 22nd, and the Gospel reading is John 15, 9-11, and the scripture to reflect on is John 15, 10.
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
Jesus is talking to His disciples about what He expects them to do after His ascension.
He starts by saying that He has loved the disciples the same way that God loves Him.
Jesus then tells His disciples to love each other as He has loved them.
In other words, God first loves Jesus, and then Jesus loves the disciples, and then the disciples love one another.
Do you think the disciples could run out of love?
I do.
I think that it is what sin does to us.
It makes us have bad attitudes or not any more love to give or hurtful feelings towards others.
Today’s Saint of the Day is Saint Rita of Cassia.
She was born in the year 1381 and died May 22nd, 1457.
She is the patron saint of impossible situations.
Saint Rita was a married woman, a mother, a widow, and a nun.
Her real name was Margarita, called Rita for short.
From a very young age, Rita wanted to enter a convent.
However, her parents arranged a marriage for her when she was still a teenager.
Her husband was a violent man, but he mistreated Rita while continuing to be involved in violent feuds.
But she continued to be patron and forgiving.
One day, her husband was murdered by a rival family in revenge for a previous feud.
Their two sons vowed to avenge their father’s murder.
Rita prayed to God’s safeguard her sons from committing murder to the extent that she would rather see them dead than to see them commit the moral sin of murder.
Her two sons became seriously ill and died.
Soon after, Rita now felt that she could fulfill her call and continue serving God as an Augustinian nun.
It is important to notice where Jesus gets his love from.
Jesus receives love from God.
Humans can run out of love because we are sinful.
But God does not run out of love.
God always has more love to give us.
So, if we keep turning to God like Jesus did and taught his disciples to, then we’ll always have more love to receive and then always have love to share with each other.
While at the monastery, Rita performed her duties faithfully and had a great devotion to the Passion of Christ.
One day, a wound appeared on her forehead as if a thorn from Christ’s crown had pierced her.
It left a deep wound, which did not heal, and it caused her to suffer until the day she died.
Like Jesus, she wanted to be fulfilled with God’s love so that she could use it to serve him faithfully and show the love of Christ to others.
Let’s pray.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dear God, thank you for Jesus who receives your love and then shares it with others so that we can do the same.
And help us that when we forget the importance of serving you, that they will fill our hearts with more love to remember that you died on the cross for us, out of love for us.
Saint Rita, pray for us.
Amen.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Thank you so much for listening.
We’ll be back tomorrow scattering more flowers.
See ya!