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, January 8th, and the Gospel reading is Luke 4, 14-22, and the scripture to reflect on is Luke 4, 21.
And he began to say to them, Today this scripture hath been fulfilled in your hearing.
Has your parent ever said, Are you listening to me?
Or maybe they were a little upset, so they said, Your first, middle, and last name.
Oof, that means that you’re in trouble.
Sometimes, just sometimes, we don’t always listen.
And guess what?
Adults do the exact same thing, which is why in today’s scripture story, Jesus is telling the people that the good news that he is reading in the scripture will be fulfilled in their hearing.
What Jesus means when he says fulfilled in their hearing is, if the people would listen and then do what they hear being read in the scripture passage, then the good news would actually happen.
Today’s Saint of the Day is Saint Angelina of Follingo.
She was born 1248 and died 1309.
She is the patron saint of widows and is known as a great mystic.
Around the age of 40, Saint Angelina recognized the emptiness of her life and sought God’s help in the sacrament of penance.
Her Franciscan confessor helped Angelina to seek God’s pardon for her previous life and to dedicate herself in prayer in the works of charity.
Shortly after her conversion, her husband and children died.
Saying most of her possessions, she entered the secular Franciscan order.
She was alternately absorbed by meditating on the crucified Christ and by serving the poor of Folligino as a nurse and baker for their needs.
Other women joined her in a religious community.
At her confessor’s advice, Angelina wrote her book of visions and instructions.
In it, she recalls some of the temptations she suffered after her conversion.
She also expresses her thanks to God for the incarnation of Jesus.
This book in her life earned for Angelina the title Teacher of Theologians.
She was beautified in 1693 and canonized in 2013.
Jesus wants us to learn from scripture and to follow him and his words that he has given to us.
He wants us to share God’s love and forgiveness with others.
That is how scripture is fulfilled.
Angelina loved money, beautiful clothes, and large houses.
This was a problem, not because money, clothes, and houses are bad, but because Angelina loved these things more than she loved God.
If someone gave Angelina a choice between God’s love and more gold, she would walk away with more gold.
After many years of living this way, Angelina just realized how her life really was.
It looked good from the outside, but in the inside she felt miserable.
During the second half of her life, Angelina chose God over wealth.
She even wrote a book that helped others understand him and his love, which is greater than all the wealth in the world.
Let’s pray.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dear Jesus, help us to learn from scripture and to always follow you.
And help us to love you more than we love other things.
Saint Angelina of Fallingo, 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!