Gospel and Saint of the day: 11 January 2020

First letter of St. John the apostle 5,5-13.
And who is it that wins the world if not who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is he who came with water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with water only, but with water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.
For three are those who testify:
the Spirit, the water and the blood, and these three agree.
If we accept the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; and the testimony of God is that which he gave to his Son.
Whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe in God makes him a liar, because he does not believe in the testimony that God has given to his Son.
And the testimony is this: God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son.
Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
This I have written to you because you know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God.

Psalms 147,12-13.14-15.19-20.
Glorify the Lord, Jerusalem,
praise, Zion, your God.
Because he reinforced the bars of your doors,
among you he has blessed your children.

He has made peace within your borders
and sates you with wheat flower.
Send his word to earth,
his message runs fast.

He announces his word to Jacob,
its laws and decrees to Israel.
So he didn't do with any other people,
he did not manifest his precepts to others.

From the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke 5,12-16.
One day Jesus was in a city and a man covered in leprosy saw him and threw himself at his feet praying: "Lord, if you want, you can heal me."
Jesus stretched out his hand and touched it saying: «I want it, be healed!». And immediately the leprosy disappeared from him.
He told him not to tell anyone: "Go, show yourself to the priest and make the offer for your purification, as Moses ordered, to serve as a testimony for them."
His fame spread even more; large crowds came to listen to him and be healed of their infirmities.
But Jesus withdrew to solitary places to pray.

11 JANUARY

HOLY FREEDOM

Virgin and Martyr

Santa Liberata was the daughter of Lucio Catelio Severo former consul of Rome and governor of the north-east of the Iberian peninsula in the year 122. The mother Calsia gave birth to nine twins. Full of modesty when she saw such a large birth, she decided to drown them in the sea, giving this task to the midwife who, as a Christian, did not obey. He christened them with the names of Ginevra, Vittoria, Eufemia, Germana, Marina, Marciana, Basilisa, Quiteria and Liberata. Later, after numerous vicissitudes, all martyrs died under the persecution of the emperor Hadrian. It was Don Giovanni Sanmillàn, bishop of Tuy who spread the cult of the nine saints starting from the year 1564. The bishop Don Ildefonso Galaz Torrero, in 1688 issued an edict with which he ordered the celebration of the feast of the nine sisters. The body of Santa Liberata is preserved in the cathedral of Siguenza (Spain). Santa Liberata is revered as the one who has the power to remove sad thoughts; from this it must be deduced that its protection extends to all the evils which one wishes to avoid, above all infirmities and afflictions. At the same time, it is she who brings us the good of peace and serenity. (Avvenire)

PRAYER TO SANTA LIBERATA

O most glorious Holy Virgin Liberated, who from God, with Name, you still obtained the gift of liberator of the evils and infirmities from which we are subject in this wretched, I pray you with the most intimate of my heart, to survive any infirmity and danger that may dominate me, But since little, indeed nothing, would benefit me from obtaining the health of the body from you, when I was infirm in my soul, therefore humbly I beg you to free me from sin, which is the only infirmity that of the spirit. Finally, at the extreme point of my life, as long as the infernal enemies will make every effort to bring me victory and make me eternally their slave, you assist me, or great Saint, freeing me in those distresses from the pitfalls of the common enemy, so that it can pass happily in port to eternal health. Amen.