TUESDAY OF THE FIFTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME, JULY 13, 2021

MASS READINGS

Responsorial Psalm 69:3, 14, 30-31, 33-34

R. (see 33) Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

I am sunk in the abysmal swamp

where there is no foothold;

I have reached the watery depths;

the flood overwhelms me.

R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

But I pray to you, O LORD,

for the time of your favor, O God!

In your great kindness answer me

with your constant help.

R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

But I am afflicted and in pain;

let your saving help, O God, protect me;

I will praise the name of God in song,

and I will glorify him with thanksgiving.

R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;

you who seek God, may your hearts revive!

For the LORD hears the poor,

and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”

R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

REFLECTION:

"Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live."

Chile celebrates today the Optional Memorial of St. Teresa of the Andes. Born Juanita Fernández Solar, on July 13, 1900 in Santiago Chile.

From her adolescence she was devoted to Christ. She entered the monastery of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns at Los Andes on May 7, 1919, where she was given the name of Teresa of Jesus. She died on April 12 of the following year after having made her religious profession.

She was beatified by John Paul II on April 3, 1987, at Santiago and proposed as a model for young people. She is the first Chilean and the first member of the Teresian Carmel in Latin America to be beatified, * and the fourth Carmelite Saint Teresa, together with Saints Teresa of Avila, of Florence and of Lisieux.

In the last few years there has been an increase of popularity of all things Carmelite. Not only about St. Teresa of Avila, or St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), "The Song at the Scaffold" a story about a Carmelite convent during Frances' Reign of Terror, and even a full production of a forgotten French opera, "The Dialogues of the Carmelites" which are based in that same book.

Any literature from or about St. Teresa of the Andes until recently was out of print. Until now. Pretty much all those books are back now in circulation thanks to the Institute of Carmelite Studies.

Formed.org also has a great 6 part mini-series based in the life of this young saint.

St. Teresita of the Andes lived a quiet life of prayer and sacrifice. Our apostolate is also one of prayer and sacrifice for the Priesthood that Christ instituted on Earth.

Let us pray for her intercession for our apostolate, and for all the priests of the world.

Prayer

God of mercy, joy of the saints,

you set the young heart of Blessed Teresa ablaze

with the fire of virginal love for Christ and for his Church;

and even in suffering you made her a cheerful witness to charity.

Through her intercession,

fill us with the delights of your Spirit,

so that we may proclaim by word and deed

the joyful message of your love to the world.

We ask this through Christ, our Lord. *

*Texts taken from the “Carmelite Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours,” Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome: 1993.