On the day of 16 August
Of Saint Stephen, king of the Hungarians, who, reborn in baptism, received the crown of the kingdom from Pope Silvester II, attended to the spread of faith in Christ among the Hungarians, established the Church in his kingdom and provided for the poor and for monasteries until his soul migrated to heaven from Alba Regalis* on the day of the Assumption.
*Royal White Castle, present day Székesfehérvár **Saint/Feast of the day segment copied from the USCCB page.

Reading 1: Ezekiel 18:1-10, 13b, 30-32

Finally! One I understand! See, back in the day - Abraham, Moses, etc., God was punishing the children for the sins of the parents. (Hence the footnotes: Fathers . . . on edge: a proverb by which the people claimed that they were being punished for their ancestors' sins rather than for their own; cf Jeremiah 31:29. ) Ezekiel comes around, and God declares a change. Everyone has to start paying for their own sins. Then he lays it out for us. He gives us a list of actions to take if we want to be virtuous, and live. Then he gives us the list of what-not-to do, or we'll die. Okay, easy enough to follow. I'm thinking about printing it out and carrying it around with me. There are some that seem weird and outdated, like the whole menstrual period thing, but I'm game. Whatever.

Gospel: Matthew 19:13-15

This is a nice story that we have been hearing since Sunday school. This is the story that we are told to let us, as children, know that even we have a place in the church. I think that it is sweet and a nice light reading after the kind of heavy lecture we just got from the Old Testament. It also goes with the themes from this week, about how children have the proper state of mind to commune God, because of their innocence. The footnotes also brought up a new point that I never got from this reading before, that I thought was faintly interesting: