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 Monday, August 18th, and the Gospel reading is Matthew 19, 16-22, and the Scripture to Reflect on is 19, 17.
Why do you ask me about what is good?
One there is, who is good?
If you would enter life, keep the commandments.
If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it?
What would you buy?
Now pretend you had all those things, and someone asked you to give all that stuff away.
What would you do?
Would you be sad or willing to lose it all?
Jesus was testing the man to see if the rich man will do what he says, if he wants to be Jesus' follower.
We have to do what Jesus says, even if it’s hard, like giving up our nice things or money.
But if we want to be Jesus' followers, then we have to make sure that we know that God is most important and do whatever he tells us to do.
Today’s Saint of the Day is Saint Helena.
She was born in the year 250.
She’s the patron saint of difficult marriages and divorces.
Saint Helena was born in the village of Derpenum in the year 250.
She’s the daughter of an innkeeper.
One day, a Roman dictator came to say.
His name was Constance with a group of soldiers.
When he saw Helena serving food, he was amazed by her beauty and kindness.
They were married right away.
Saint Helena told him about her faith in God, and so Constance converted and believed in the one true God.
Soon, they had a son named Constantine.
The emperor wanted Constance to marry a woman of a higher rank, so he and Saint Helena divorced, and Helena moved back to her hometown.
After his father’s death, Constantine became ruler over a big part of Rome.
He made laws that Orthodox Christians were not to be persecuted and brought Helena to the palace.
He let her have access to the royal treasury.
She would take trips to the Holy Land to look for relics.
Constantine wanted his mother to receive the Holy Cross, so Saint Helena set off to the Holy Land to search for the blessed relic.
Along the way, Saint Helena built many churches on the paths of where Jesus walked.
She met an old Jewish man that told her that the Holy Cross was located.
He told her that it was under the temple of a false god, Venus, so Saint Helena had that temple demolished.
They dug deep down in the earth and found three crosses.
They didn’t know which one was the true cross.
A funeral was passing by.
They placed the crosses on the dead body.
After the third cross was placed on the body, it rose from being from the dead, a true miracle.
The cross was left in Jerusalem, but Saint Helena took a piece of it and a couple nails.
Jesus said that when he comes back to earth, he will reward people who gave up things for God and will give them a hundred times more than they had.
We only have to remember to make God the most important in our lives.
Let’s pray.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dear God, help us to keep you first in our lives, and help us not to make money or things or even people more important than you.
And like Saint Helena, help us to make sure truth of Jesus is the most important thing to live for.
You are our God.
Saint Helena, 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!