Day: October 4, 2023

Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi

October 4, 2023
Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, DC

Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18
Psalm 16:1b-2a, 5, 7-8, 11
Galatians 6:14-18
Matthew 11:25-30

“You are my inheritance, O Lord.” We pray this psalm today with the Church as we gather to worship God as He desires to be worshipped through the sacrifice of the Mass. We do so as the entire Church, made so by the Eucharist we offer, and we particularly do so in gratitude for our priestly vocations nurtured and formed at Theological College of the Catholic University of America. In fidelity to our call and to our ordination, we pray for our departed formators and mentors, and our departed friends and priestly brothers for their eternal repose in God’s Mercy. The responsorial psalm for this Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi speaks profoundly of the evangelical meaning of the poverty of Saint Francis and its import on our life as the Church in contemporary times and particularly on our mission as Christ’s priests, configured to Him at our ordination as Head and Shepherd of the Church. “You are my inheritance, O Lord.”