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 Wednesday, October 29th, and the Gospel reading is Luke 13, 22-30, and the scripture to reflect on is Luke 13, 30. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last. Today’s reading made me think of the Disney movie Pocahontas.
There is this scene where she is in a canoe singing a song called Just Around the Riverbend.
It’s about trying to understand what the future beholds.
I think if the Pocahontas story was told from a Christian view, she would automatically know the most important thing for her to do was believe in Jesus and trust in Him. Today’s Saint of the Day, Saint Narcissa.
She was born October 29, 1832, and died December 8, 1869.
She’s the patron saint of Ecuador.
Narcissa was born to a farming family in Ecuador, the sixth of nine children.
Both her parents were devout.
Her mother died when she was six, and this event, Narcissa first met the suffering of the cross.
When she received the sacrament of confirmation, she felt eternal grace by calling her to live a life of union with the cross.
She responded to this call by increasing her prayer, penance, and efforts to practice virtue.
Narcissa sought spiritual direction and made private vows of virginity, poverty, and obedience, but she always felt called to remain as a laywoman.
When she was 19, her father died, and Narcissa moved to the city of Guaiaquil and worked as a seamstress. Then she also began to help the poor, the sick, and abandoned children.
Meanwhile, no one knew that she was also spending hours of her day in prayer and penance.
Some years later, she moved to Peru and lived as a laymember in the Dominican convent.
One night, a sister discovered that the holy simple woman had died when she smelled a beautiful aroma coming from her bedroom. The door that Jesus is talking about is the door to heaven.
Everybody can go there if you believe, trust, and love him. Narcissa knew that our smallest sacrifices could draw down graces upon the world.
Like her, we could share in Jesus' redemption of the world.
Let’s pray, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dear God, thank you so much that you loved us so much that you sent Jesus, your only Son, to be at the door which we can enter into heaven. And help us that we give glory to you in all that we do.
Saint Narcissus, 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!