Saturday, August 23, 2025
Happy Saturday, friend! We are so excited to share with you what's coming up this week as we all prepare our hearts by praying with readings for Sunday, the day of rest with our Lord.
Live Liturgically // This Week’s Feast Days
Saturday, August 23 (today!) // Optional Memorial of Saint Rose of Lima, Virgin
Sunday, August 24 // Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
Monday, August 25 // Optional Memorial of Saint Louis of France // Optional Memorial of Saint Joseph Calasanz, priest
Wednesday, August 27 // Memorial of Saint Monica
Thursday, August 28 // Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Friday, August 29 // Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist
Letter from the Editor //
Dear Sister,
On this Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Readings open with a beautiful image of the Lord gathering people from “nations of every language,” and then sending from them fugitives out to “distant coastlands” so that His glory is proclaimed to the nations (Isaiah 66:18-19). We see how from before the coming of Christ, the Lord planned to bring all people to Himself and to His “holy mountain” to make an offering of worship (Isaiah 66:20). We see this same hope repeated by Jesus in the Gospel as He prophesies that “people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God” (Luke 13:29).
Sister, the Lord invites us to be a part of the people coming to live with Him forever. However, responding to His invitation is only the first step. The second step is the actual journey—the journey of our lives as daughters of God. In the Gospel, Jesus tells us how many will strive for Heaven “but will not be strong enough” (Luke 13:24). Thankfully, the Lord offers us His grace to help us on the way. He loves us so much as His children, that He helps us love Him more through offering us “discipline” which we receive with docility and let it change us. The Lord allows us to experience our hardships so that we can offer them to Him, unite them with Jesus’ redemptive act of suffering. They can become a means of sanctification if we “endure [our] trials as ‘discipline’” (Hebrew 12:7). When we think about it in this way we can see that “the fidelity of the LORD endures forever” (Psalm 117:2).
In Christ’s Love,
Susanna
Read the Readings for the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time:
First Reading // Isaiah 66:18-21
Psalm // Psalm 117:1, 2
Second Reading // Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13
Gospel // Luke 13:22-30
Susanna Spencer holds a master's in Theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville and is the Devotions Editor for Blessed is She. She is a freelance writer and editor and a teacher-in-training living with her philosopher husband and four kids in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She loves reading theology, attending beautiful liturgies, cooking delicious food, and casually following baseball. She is the author of the Gospel Studies including Seek His Kingdom: A Meditation on Matthew , Listen to Him: A Meditation on Mark, and Abide in His Love: A Meditation on John. She was narrator for Found: Advent With the Good Shepherd and Rescued: Lent With the Lamb of God and a contributing author and editor for our children’s devotional prayer book, Rise Up. She was the Theological Editor of the Blessed Conversations Studies. Find out more about her here.
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