Today’s readings can be found here. Read Fr. Epicoco’s brief reflections on the daily Mass readings, Monday through Saturday, here. For Sunday Mass reading commentary from Fr. Rytel-Andrianik, see here.
On the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, the liturgy has us read a page from Luke’s Gospel in which Jesus gives a catechesis on the devil and his way of acting. Essentially, he tells us that even evil knows the golden rule of every successful mission: to act in unity and not divided.
He divides but is not divided. Evil is, by definition, organized crime; if it were not organized it would not be effective. That is why the only thing that can counter it is an organized and undivided force of good. Divided, we are always losers; united, we can overcome all evil.
This is why the main action of evil against the Church is to destroy communion. To this end, it always finds convincing and agreeable arguments: scandals, the ineptitude of someone who occupies a position of responsibility in some ecclesial sphere, the belief that our convictions are better, pride, vainglory, attachment to possessions, the perverse pleasure of dominating others, the narcissism of considering oneself better than others, and thus the “true” Church – which apparently never seems to be the official one but rather our own, taylored to our own image and likeness. In short, there are many ways to undermine communion, and we must not allow ourselves to be misled.
Mary is a formidable aid to communion. It is she who holds the disciples together after the scandal of Jesus’ passion and death. It is she who helps forge the unity of the apostles so they will be able to welcome Pentecost. The Rosary is a simple and humble way to hold us close to her so that the power of the Risen One may complete the work he has begun in each of us.
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Father Luigi Maria Epicoco is a priest of the Aquila Diocese and teaches Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University and at the ISSR ‘Fides et ratio,’ Aquila. He dedicates himself to preaching, especially for the formation of laity and religious, giving conferences, retreats and days of recollection. He has authored numerous books and articles. Since 2021, he has served as the Ecclesiastical Assistant in the Vatican Dicastery for Communication and columnist for the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
And today we celebrate...