Sunday of the 5th week in ordinary time

Dear friends,  You could help the sick poor that come here to the hermitage for help by donating any/some/all of the items in the below list ...it would be a great help if you could please pass on this request to your friends and family.  (Maybe a doctors office closing down or a nurse retiring...maybe a hospital has just purchased new equipment and will discard the old 'stuff')
Nazareth hermitage needs the following items in order to continue providing health care to the sick poor. The items in the below list are really important to our continued service. All of the items listed are replacements for the ones that have finally broke down,worn out or just missing. I hope you might be able to help. These items cannot be purchased here or are too costly locally.
1. blood pressure cuffs X 3 2. stethoscopes X 3 3. Thermometers X 10  4. Gauze pads---4" X 4" or 2"X2"'s 5. Tape for securing bandages 6.  Butterfly closures 7. Self adhering roller gauze or Kling type rolls. 4" X 4" or 2"X2"'s 8. Long lasting AA and AAA batteries 9. Coin Style lithium batteries ( 3V  CR2032) for the thermometers, weighing scale, etc. 10. Hemostats 11. Forceps 12. Containers to hold liquids used to hold forceps in solution. 13. Washcloths (for washing wounds)
Thank you very much.
Love and prayers,
Br. dismas Mary

READING

From an explanation of Paul's letter to the Galatians by Saint Augustine, bishop

Let us understand the workings of God's grace

Paul writes to the Galatians to make them understand that by God’s grace they are no longer under the law. When the Gospel was preached to them, there were some among them of Jewish origin known as circumcisers – though they called themselves Christians – who did not grasp the gift they had received. They still wanted to be under the burden of the law. Now God had imposed that burden on those who were slaves to sin and not on servants of justice. That is to say, God had given a just law to unjust men in order to show them their sin, not to take it away. For sin is taken away only by the gift of faith that works through love. The Galatians had already received this gift, but the circumcisers claimed that the Gospel would not save them unless they underwent circumcision and were willing to observe also the other traditional Jewish rites.

  The Galatians, therefore, began to question Paul’s preaching of the Gospel because he did not require Gentiles to follow Jewish observances as other apostles had done. Even Peter had yielded to the scandalized protests of the circumcisers. He pretended to believe that the Gospel would not save the Gentiles unless they fulfilled the burden of the law. But Paul recalled him from such dissimulation, as is shown in this very same letter. A similar issue arises in Paul’s letter to the Romans, but with an evident difference. Through his letter to them, Paul was able to resolve the strife and controversy that had developed between the Jewish and Gentile converts.

  In the present letter Paul is writing to persons who were profoundly influenced and disturbed by the circumcisers. The Galatians had begun to believe them and to think that Paul had not preached rightly, since he had not ordered them to be circumcised. And so the Apostle begins by saying: I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you to the glory of Christ, and turning to another gospel.

  After this there comes a brief introduction to the point at issue. But remember in the very opening of the letter Paul had said that he was an apostle not from men nor by any man, a statement that does not appear in any other letter of his. He is making it quite clear that the circumcisers, for their part, are not from God but from men, and that his authority in preaching the Gospel must be considered equal to that of the other apostles. For he was called to be an apostle not from men nor by any man, but through God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.