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 Tuesday, October 21st, and the Gospel reading is Luke 12, 35-38, and the scripture to reflect on is Luke 12, 37.
Blessed are those servants whom the Master finds vigilant on his arrival.
I like to play hide and seek with my friends and cousins.
My brother is pretty silly when he plays it because he likes to scare people when they find him, so he’ll jump out and make a scream.
Anyway, when you play hide and seek, someone is the seeker and they count while shading their eyes for people to run and hide, and they say, ready or not, here I come.
Jesus is saying the same thing in this scripture.
When he comes back, will you be ready for action?
Today’s Saint of the Day is St.
Laura Montoya.
She was born May 26, 1874, and died October 21, 1949.
She is the patron saint of Columbia and indigenous peoples.
Laura Montoya is the first Colombian-born saint.
After her father died when she was two, Laura was sent to live with her grandmother, but this provided difficulty.
Laura suffered from lack of affection and felt orphaned.
When she was 16, Laura enrolled in a school to train to become a teacher in order to support her family frequently.
After graduating in 1893, she taught in rural areas where indigenous peoples lived.
They captured her heart, and she longed to do more for them.
Devote to the Eucharist and to prayer, Laura considered becoming a Carmelite, but her work with indigenous people drew her instead to start religious congregation devoted to teaching and helping them.
In 1914, she founded the Congregation of the Ministry Sisters of Mary Immaculate and St.
Catherine of Siena.
The bishop approved it, but sadly Laura still faced opposition due to racism even within the church.
Laura pressed forward despite this, and slowly her congregation grew and flourished.
Her last years were marked by a painful illness.
What do you think Jesus means about being vigilant?
He is talking about keeping our eyes open to the needs of others, staying alert to the ways that temptations can creep into our hearts, paying attention to the ways God speaks to us.
Maybe it’s all those things.
How will you stay vigilant in your life?
Laura often said that she wanted to become an indigenous person and live among them in order to win them all for Christ.
In this, she followed the spirit of St.
Paul who wrote, I have become all things to all people that I might be all means save some.
Whatever their race or aesthetic origin, each person we met is made in the image and likeness of God and called to holiness.
What effort do I make to try to see Christ in everybody?
Let’s pray.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dear God, help me to keep my eyes wide open to your love.
And help us that our hearts are like yours, filled with the love of you.
St.
Laura of Montoya, 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!