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 Monday, March 9th, and the Gospel reading is Luke 4, 24-30, and the scripture to reflect on is Luke 4, 29-30.
And they rose up and put him out of the city and led him to the bow of the hill on which the city was built, that they might throw him down the headlong, but passing through the midst of them, he went away.
In today’s Gospel story, Jesus is not sorry that he preached the things that God wanted him to preach.
He did it even if the people did not like him.
Jesus preached that God’s love and salvation are for everyone, no matter who they are.
This is an important message for us to remember even today.
We can know and have faith that we are loved by God.
Today’s Saint of the Day is Saint Francis of Rome.
She was born 1384 and died 1440.
She is the patron saint of widows.
Noble and well-educated, Francis was raised in a loving home where her parents modeled deep faith.
Francis was accompanying her mother when she visited the poor areas of Rome and learned from her how to manage a household with allegiance and common sense.
When she was young, Francis expressed to her father her desire to enter religious life, but he told her that he had already arranged for her to marry a commander of the Pope’s troops.
Francis was devastated, but her spiritual director influenced her to see as God’s will for her to become a holy as a wife and mother.
During her 40 years of marriage, Francis was greatly devoted to her husband and three children.
She dedicated all of her time to her family and to caring for the needy.
She even opened her palace to the sick and poor in times of war and famine.
Other wealthy women began to imitate this holy women’s example, and Francis eventually founded the lay congregation Benedictine Oblats, known as the Oblats of St.
Francis of Rome.
After her husband’s death, Francis joined the community, thus fulfilling her desire to offer her life to God as a religious.
Something amazing happened in the Gospel reading today.
It said that Jesus just walked right through the crowd and left.
How did he do that?
How could he just walk right through a crowd that was trying to push him off a cliff?
He could do it because Jesus is the Son of God.
He has the power of God.
He can do anything.
This is the same man who works miracles for everyone, and we should follow his example, not by doing miracles, but showing kindness to all, not just our friends.
Maybe today you can take time to write down something nice about each of your family members and hide it where they can find it as a special surprise.
Say something simple, like, Jesus loves you, and so do I.
Francis' life shows that what it’s mean to be holy and to seek God’s loving plan for us.
A human weak and frail like all of us, her life nevertheless shows the obedience of God is a better sacrifice that God has ever outdone and generosity to those who love him.
Let’s pray.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dear God, help us to remember that your love is for everyone, no matter who they are.
And help me to accept your will, even when I find it difficult.
St.
Francis of Rome, 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!