Let your tongue broadcast the message of the Gospel in the “holy place” of your parish activities, in the “house” of your family, amongst the “people” of your acquaintance (Introit). In the Epistle St. Paul relates how he received God’s Word through Divine mercy; how he then became Christ’s witness, testifying everywhere to Christ’s Resurrection which calls for our faith in His divinity.
Before curing the man “deaf and dumb,” Jesus took him apart. If we are to “hear” His Voice at our Sunday Mass, we must go “apart” from the outside “multitude” of weekday distractions. Only then, like the cured deaf mute, shall we be able to return and “publish” the truth.
Realising our chronic indifference and frequent defiance of His Word, let us cry, “O God, be not silent” (Gradual) lest we shut out Thy Voice forever. The Prayer reveals how the Mercy of God is more willing to give than we are to ask or even deserve.
This same Mercy will receive our offering of “His Sacrifice and ours” to “support our weakness” (Secret) and will bestow help for body and soul on receiving “His Sacrament and ours” (Postcommunion).
Today, had it not been a Sunday would have been the Feast of St. Louis King C., King of France in the XIII Century, who built the Sainte Chapelle in Paris which housed the Crown of Thorns and relics of the True Cross. The King attended two Masses daily and felt it better to die than commit a mortal sin. Two practices which spread to the Church from his chapel: Kneeling at Et Homo factus est in the Credo and at Christ’s death in the reading of the Passion. A Saint to help us increase our Faith and devotion!