Hello everyone! Heyo! Welcome back to Scattering Flowers with Elise and Miles, a podcast where we read the daily Gospels and the Saint of the Day.
Let’s get started! Today is Tuesday, January 27th, and the Gospel reading is Mark 3, 31-5, and the scripture to reflect on is Mark 3, 35.
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.
I love my family.
They are very special to me.
My brother is my best friend, my parents are pretty cool, and I like it when my grandparents visit.
Family is a gift from God.
He gives us our parents to take care of us and brothers and sisters for companionship.
He gives us aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins, but sometimes families aren’t perfect.
My brother and I definitely fight sometimes, and sometimes we don’t act out of love how we should.
Sometimes I get upset with a rule or something my parents might require of me, and my grandparents sometimes let me down.
But this is all because we’re human, right?
But did you know that we are a part of another kind of family?
We belong to God.
In the Gospel reading from today, some people came up to Jesus and told him that his family was looking for him.
Jesus looked around at the people who were listening to him and emphasized that all people who loved God were welcome to be a part of his family.
So what does that mean for us?
It means that we can do God’s will and be in Christ’s family too.
Family is not just about being related by blood, but we are also related by the blood of Jesus.
Today’s Saint of the Day is Saint Angela Morisi.
She was born 1474 and died 1540.
She is a patron saint of sick and people with disabilities.
Angela was the fifth of sixth children in a middle-class farming family in northern Italy.
When she was young, Angela learned about the saints from her father who would read aloud their stories.
She had a special devotion to Saint Ursula, who according to legend was a young virgin and princess who died a martyr.
Unfortunately, Angela knew sorrow at an early age.
Three brothers, one sister, and both of her parents died when Angela was a young girl.
Angela and her remaining sister went to live with an uncle.
After her uncle died, Angela became a lay Franciscan, returning her hometown to Desenzano.
Angela observed a great need for the education and care for poor women.
In her time, women who did not marry or enter religious life often ended up on the streets as prostitutes or beggars.
Together with some other women, Angela began to care for and educate women in need.
In 1535, when Angela was in her 60s, her company of St.
Ursula was officially established in Brescia.
Angela wanted her companions to live, work, and pray among the people they served.
Four years after her death, the company became a religious congregation, the first women’s teaching order in the church.
God calls us his children, and he loves us no matter what, so that means we are part of his family.
We should love one another.
We should care and love all of those around us.
Even if you have five siblings or none, you still have brothers and sisters through Jesus.
We are in his family.
Angela was a determined woman who clearly perceived the needs of others and allowed those needs to move her.
No doubt she was so sensitive to others' needs because she had experienced the gentleness, love, and sensitivity of God towards her.
Her life demonstrates the charity that flows from knowing and loving God and was attractive to each person’s needs.
Let’s pray.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dear God, thank you for letting us be a part of your family.
Help us to do your will, and help us to open our eyes and our hearts.
Saint Angela, 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!