Sing To God, O Peoples Of The Earth!

Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Reading I
Acts 20:17-27
From Miletus Paul had the presbyters
of the Church at Ephesus summoned.
When they came to him, he addressed them,
“You know how I lived among you
the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia.
I served the Lord with all humility
and with the tears and trials that came to me
because of the plots of the Jews,
and I did not at all shrink from telling you
what was for your benefit,
or from teaching you in public or in your homes.
I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks
to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus.
But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem.
What will happen to me there I do not know,
except that in one city after another
the Holy Spirit has been warning me
that imprisonment and hardships await me.
Yet I consider life of no importance to me,
if only I may finish my course
and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus,
to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s grace.

“But now I know that none of you
to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels
will ever see my face again.
And so I solemnly declare to you this day
that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you,
for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you
the entire plan of God.”
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Responsorial
Psalm 68
R. Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth
A bountiful rain you showered down,
O God, upon your inheritance;
you restored the land when it languished;
Your flock settled in it;
in your goodness, O God,
you provided it for the needy.
R. Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.
Blessed day by day be the Lord,
who bears our burdens; God, who is our salvation.
God is a saving God for us;
the LORD, my Lord, controls the passageways of death.
R. Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.
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Gospel
John 17:1-11a
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,
“Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.
Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
I glorified you on earth
by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.
Now glorify me, Father, with you,
with the glory that I had with you before the world began.

“I revealed your name to those
whom you gave me out of the world.
They belonged to you, and you gave them to me,
and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,
because the words you gave to me I have given to them,
and they accepted them and truly understood
that I came from you,
and they have believed that you sent me.
I pray for them.
I do not pray for the world
but for the ones you have given me,
because they are yours,
and everything of mine is yours
and everything of yours is mine,
and I have been glorified in them.
And now I will no longer be in the world,
but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”
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Servant of God Joseph Perez
(1890-1928)

"The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church," said Tertullian in the third century. Joseph Perez carried on that tradition.

Joseph was born in Coroneo, Mexico, and joined the Franciscans when he was 17. Because of Mexico’s civil unrest at that time (the forces of Pancho Villa had crossed into New Mexico on a raid the previous year), he was forced to take his philosophy and theology studies in California.

After ordination at Mission Santa Barbara, he returned to Mexico and served at Jerecuaro from 1922 on. The persecution under the presidency of Plutarco Calles (1924-28) forced Joseph to wear various disguises as he traveled around to visit the Catholics. In 1927 Church property was nationalized, Catholic schools were closed, and foreign priests and nuns were deported.

One day Joseph and several others were captured while returning from a secretly held Mass. Father Perez was stabbed to death by soldiers a few miles from Celaya on June 2, 1928.

When Joseph’s body was later brought in procession to Salvatierra, it was buried there amid cries of "Viva, Cristo Rey!" (Long live Christ the King!).

Comment:
The Catholic Church in Mexico today is much freer than it was in the 1920’s. Catholicism is very much alive in Mexico today, nurtured in part by martyrs like Father Perez.

Quote:
Father Joseph’s memorial card includes these words: "May almighty God grant that our prayer, which is supported by the bloody sacrifice of this martyr, may graciously appear in his sight and bring salvation to us and redemption to our country"
(Marion A. Habig, O.F.M., The Franciscan Book of Saints, p. 412).

Saint of the Day
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