Memorial of St. Dominic, Priest

The Responsorial Psalm says, “I remember the deeds of the Lord” (Psalm 77).  

In Deuteronomy 4: 32-40 Moses sums up the great deeds by which God showed his greatness and his favor to Israel. He wants the people to “remember the deeds of the Lord” so that they can keep his instruction to “know and fix in your heart that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below, and that there is no other.” They will need this to “keep his statutes and commandments… that you and your children after you may prosper….” 

Most of the words in the Mass are remembrances of what God has done for us, how he has acted to reveal his wisdom, his power, and his love. If we fail to attend Mass, or to participate consciously and attentively when we do, we soon lose our awareness of what God is — both in himself and for us. And while Christian ministry is by no means confined to Mass, still the Eucharist is what sustains and guides us in all we do for others, and it is to the Eucharist that we bring the joys and sorrows that our interaction with others has stirred up in us. The Introductory Rites launch us into praise and thanksgiving. The Liturgy of the Word re-tells the stories of God’s interaction with his people. In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the great saving deed of Jesus’ death and resurrection is made present to us here and now, so that we might offer ourselves with and in Jesus for the life of the world. And the Rite of Communion is a foretaste of Christ’s triumph and of the “marriage feast of the Lamb,” given to strengthen our hope and nurture our desire. The Mass makes each of us able to say, “I remember the deeds of the Lord.” 

Without this remembrance, and unless we are deeply aware of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as a preview of our own, how could we accept what Jesus says in Matthew 16: 24-28: “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it”? The resurrection of the body is not some philosophical theory erected into religious belief. It is a divine promise previewed in Jesus’ own body rising from the dead. Our religion is not based on the speculation of wise men and gurus, inspired as this might be. Our religion is based on the record of what Jesus, God-made-man, actually did in and through his human body on earth. The ministry of Christians is primarily the witness, the testimony of people who have experienced the life of the risen Jesus acting on them from without and acting through them from within. To minister well, we “remember the deeds of the Lord.”  

Initiative: Be a priest. Remember what Jesus did. Let him do it now in you. 

— Fr. David M. Knight

View today’s Mass readings, Lectionary #411, on the USCCB website here

Fr. David M. Knight (1931-2021) was a priest of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee, a prolific writer, and a highly sought after confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master. He authored more than 40 books and hundreds of articles that focus primarily on lay spirituality and life-long spiritual growth.