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“Stephen said to the people…‘You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the Holy Spirit… You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it.’  When they heard this, they were infuriated, and they ground their teeth at him.” (Acts 7:51-8:1, from the first reading at today’s Third Week of Easter Mass)

An important reading for personal reflection, directed at those of us that have followed all the rituals. Yet, as those in Stephen’s time, they are “uncircumcised in heart and ears.” They are not truly belonging to God’s people, not attentive to God’s word.

Helen Booker a much loved former SJJ maintenance worker died yesterday due to heart issues and a stroke. Pray for her peaceful repose.  Pray for her daughter Jeanette at this difficult time. Our prayers are requested for the son of former SJJ language teacher Laura Bracho, who is in the hospital with COVID, liver failure, and gangrene. “All who fear God, both the great and the small, give praise to him!  For his salvation and strength have come, the power of Christ.” (Revelations 19:5, from the Opening Prayer at today’s Mass) St. John Berchmans, pray for us.  St. Ignatius Loyola, pray for us.

“For if a man imagines himself to be somebody, when he is nothing, he is deluding himself.” (Galatians 6:3)

Pride is a denial of God, an invention of the devil, contempt for men. It is a flight from God’s help, the harbinger of madness, the author of downfall.  It is the source of anger, the gateway of hypocrisy.  It is the source of hardheartedness, the denial of compassion.  It is the foe of God. – John Climacus, seventh-century monk