THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for May 8th, 2014
Thursday of the Third Week of Easter
Liturgical texts here
WHILE a forest fire can devastate the trees, it is precisely the heat of fire that opens up pine cones, thus, reseeding the woodland all over again.
Persecution is a fire that, while consuming religious freedom and purifying the Church of dead wood, opens up seeds of new life. Those seeds are both the martyrs who give witness to the Word by their very blood, and those who witness by their words. That is, the Word of God is the seed that falls into the ground of hearts, and the blood of the martyrs waters it…