Friday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time

We pray through the start of Friday and offer our day to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, asking God to guide our work, joys, and sufferings. We then sit with St Gregory the Great on Job and learn how praise can distract us while mockery can drive us into deeper prayer and truth. 
• opening prayers and the daily offering for the Mass, sins, and intentions 
• St Gregory the Great on the lure of popular favour and being called blessed 
• how ridicule can return us to interior faith and stronger prayer 
• why mockery for sin differs from mockery for virtue 
• the wisdom of the world versus the guilelessness of the just 
• closing consecration and prayers for mercy 
If you found this time of prayer and reflection fruitful and would like more opportunities to grow in your faith, consider joining the Cristeros and purchasing our publications now available on Amazon.com. The Cristeros app is available on the Apple Lab and Google Play Store. More information on the Cristeros can be found at theCristeros.org.

Transcript

Friday Prayer Opening

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Friday, in the eighth week of ordinary time.

Offering The Day To Jesus

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me. O my Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the remission of my sins, for the intentions of my family and friends, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father. Amen.

St Gregory On Mockery

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From the Moral Reflections on Job by St. Gregory the Great, Pope. Whoever is mocked by his friend, as I am, shall call upon God, and he shall hear him. A weak-minded person is frequently diverted towards pursuing exterior happiness when the breath of popular favor accompanies his good actions. So he gives up his own personal choices, preferring to remain at the mercy of whatever he hears from others. Thus he rejoices not so much to become, but to be called blessed. Eager for praise, he gives up what he had begun to be, and so he is severed from God by the very means by which he appeared to be commendable in God. But sometimes a soul firmly strives for righteousness, and yet is beset by men's ridicule. He does what is admirable, but he gets only mockery. He might have gone out of himself because of man's praise. He returns to himself when repelled by their abuse. Finding no resting place without, he cleaves more intensely to God within. All his

Praise Tempts Us To Drift

SPEAKER_00 1:39

hope is fixed on his creator, and amid all the ridicule and abuse he invokes his interior witness alone. One who is afflicted in this way grows closer to God the more he turns away from human popularity. He straightaway pours himself out in prayer, and, pressured from without, he is refined with a more perfect purity to penetrate what is within. In this context, the words apply. Whoever is mocked by his friend as I am, shall call upon God, and he shall hear him. For while the wicked reproach the just, they show them whom they should look to as the witness of their actions. Thus afflicted, the soul strengthens itself by prayer. It is united within to one who listens from on high, precisely because it is cut off externally from the praise of men. Again we should note how appropriately the words are inserted as I am. There are some people who are both oppressed by human mockery and are yet deprived of God's favorable hearing, for when the mockery is done to a man's own sin, it obviously does not produce the merit that is due to virtue.

Guilelessness Versus Worldly Wisdom

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The simplicity of the just man is laughed to scorn. It is the wisdom of this world to conceal the heart with stratagems, to veil one's thoughts with words, to make what is false appear true, and what is true appear false. On the other hand, it is the wisdom of the just never to pretend anything for show, always to use words to express one's thoughts, to love the truth as it is, and to avoid what is false, to do what is right without reward, and to be more willing to put up with evil than to perpetrate it, not to seek revenge for wrong, and to consider as gain any insult for truth's sake. But this guilelessness is laughed to scorn, for the virtue of innocence is held as foolishness by the wise of this world. Anything that is done out of innocence, they doubtless consider to be stupidity. And whatever truth approves of in practice is called folly by their earthly wisdom.

Handing Everything To Jesus

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All that I have, and all that I am, I give to your hands, Jesus, through the heart of Mary, your blessed mother. Amen. Sacred heart of Jesus, have mercy on us. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Mercy Prayers And Invitation

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If you found this time of prayer and reflection fruitful and would like more opportunities to grow in your faith, consider joining the Cristuros and purchasing our publications now available on Amazon.com. The Cristuros app is available on the Apple Lab and Google Play Store. More information on the Cristuros can be found at theCristuros.org.