CATHEDRAL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Diocese of St. George's in GRENADA, CARIBBEAN
BECOME PART OF OUR CATHEDRAL FAMILY
"We recognize that the Sacraments have a visible and invisible reality, a reality open to all the human senses but grasped in its God-given depths with the eyes of faith." (USCCB) The Sacraments are divided into: the sacraments of Christian initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Eucharist); the sacraments of healing (Penance and Anointing of the Sick) and the sacraments at the service of communion and mission (Holy Orders and Matrimony). The sacraments touch all the important moments of Christian life. All of the sacraments are ordered to the Holy Eucharist “as to their end" (Saint Thomas Aquinas).
CONFESSION:
Cathedral: Saturdays: 7.00 a.m. - 8.00 a.m.
Confession is also available at other Mass centers upon request and at the Cathedral parish during office times.
HOLY HOUR & ADORATION
(Weekly)
5.30 p.m. - 6.30 p.m. at Cathedral on Fridays
(except 1st Friday’s)
5.30 p.m. - 6.30 p.m. at Tempe on Thursdays
7.00 p.m. - 8.00 p.m. at Mt. Moritz on Thursdays
MASS TIMES:
CATHEDRAL:
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Monday to Friday - 6.15 a.m., & 12.15 p.m.,
Saturday - 6.00 p.m.
Sunday - 8.00 a.m.
COMMUNITIES OF THE CATHEDRAL
Our Lady Queen of Peace, BELMONT: Saturday - 6.00 p.m.
Saints Joachim & Anne, BRIZAN: Sunday - 6.30 a.m.
Blessed Trinity, FONTENOY: Sunday - 10.00 a.m.
Church of the Uganda Martyrs, HAPPY HILL: Sunday - 8.00 a.m.
Our Lady Queen of the Universe, MT. MORITZ: Sunday - 10.00 a.m.
Our Lady Lily of the Valley, TEMPE: Sunday - 8.00 a.m.
SACRAMENTS & LITURGIES
REFLECTION AND READINGS
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INTRODUCTION:
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Welcome!
Jesus praised a widow who made a very small offering. He praised her because it was all she had. Jesus didn’t judge an offering by its size, but by what it cost the giver. We tend to judge our own contribution and that of others by standards other than those of the Gospel.​​
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First Reading: The first book of Kings chapter 17 verses 10 to 16 tells us that in the middle of a famine, a poor widow shares the last of her food with the prophet Elijah, and far from losing by so doing, she is enriched.
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Second Reading: From the letter to the Hebrews chapter 9, verses 24 to 28. Through his death Jesus Christ has taken our sins upon himself and has opened for us the door to salvation.
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Gospel: According to Mark chapter 12, verses 38 to 44. In the eyes of others the offering of the widow was the least, but in the eyes of Christ it was the greatest.
WEEKDAY READINGS / B
(PSALTER WEEK IV)
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11th Monday - Ordinary Time Weekday
Feast of St Martin of Tours, Bishop
Titus 1:1-9; Luke 17: 1-6
​12th Tuesday - Ordinary Time Weekday
Feast of St Josephat
Titus 2:1-8;11-14; Luke 17: 7-10
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13th Wednesday - Ordinary Time Weekday
Feast of St Francis Xavier Cabrini
Titus 3:1-7; Luke 17: 11-19
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14th Thursday - Ordinary Time Weekday
Philemon 1:7-20; Luke 17: 20-25
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15th Friday - Ordinary Time Weekday
Feast of St. Albert the Great, O.P.,
Bishop & Doctor of Church
2 John 1:4-9; Luke 17: 26-37
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16th Saturday - Ordinary Time Weekday
St Margaret of Scotland/ St Gertrude Virgin
3 John 1:5-8; Luke 18: 1-8
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17th Sunday - 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: Dan 12:1-3
Psalm: Ps 15:5. 8-11 r.1
Second Reading: Heb 10:11-14, 18
Gospel Acclamation: Matt 24:42.44
Gospel: Mark 13:24-32
SUNDAY REFLECTION IN ORDINARY TIME
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Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today’s Gospel episode (cf. Mk 12:38-44) concludes the series of Jesus’ teachings given in the Temple of Jerusalem and highlights two contrasting figures: the scribe and the widow. The scribe represents important, wealthy, influential people; the other person — the widow — represents the least, the poor, the weak (cf. vv. 38-39).
Jesus exposes this perverse mechanism: he denounces the oppression of the weak carried out misleadingly on the basis of religious motivations, declaring clearly that God is on the side of the least. And to really impress this lesson on the minds of the disciples he offers them a living example: a poor widow, whose social position was irrelevant because she had no husband who could defend her rights, and therefore she became easy prey to unscrupulous creditors, because these creditors hounded the weak so they would pay them. This woman, who goes to the temple treasury to put in just two coins — all that she had left — and makes her offering by seeking to pass by unobserved, almost as if ashamed. But, in this very humility, she performs an act laden with great religious and spiritual significance. That gesture full of sacrifice does not escape the gaze of Jesus, who instead sees shining in it the total self-giving to which he wishes to educate his disciples.
The lesson that Jesus offers us today helps us to recover what is essential in our life and fosters a practical and daily relationship with God. Brothers and sisters, the Lord’s scales are different from ours. He weighs people and their actions differently: God does not measure quantity but quality; he examines the heart; he looks at the purity of intentions. This means that our “giving” to God in prayer and to others in charity should always steer clear of ritualism and formalism, as well as of the logic of calculation, and must be an expression of gratuity, as Jesus did with us: he saved us freely. And we must do things as an expression of gratuity. This is why Jesus points to that poor and generous widow as a model of Christian life to be imitated. We do not know her name; however, we know her heart — we will find her in Heaven and go to greet her, certainly; and that is what counts before God. When we are tempted by the desire to stand out and give an accounting of our altruistic gestures, when we are too interested in the gaze of others and — might I say — when we act like ‘peacocks’, let us think of this woman. It will do us good: it will help us to divest ourselves of the superfluous in order to go to what truly counts, and to remain humble.
May the Virgin Mary, a poor woman who gave herself totally to God, sustain us in the aim of giving to the Lord and to brothers and sisters not something of ours but ourselves, in a humble and generous offering.
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