Invitation
May I hereby call your attention to
the daily reading of the Gospel?
This invitation wants to share with you the joy of the Gospel.
Everyone, no one excepted,
can experience that joy by opening his heart
to the healing effect of God’s word.
Available every day.
Consideration
The image of Joseph as a pre-image of Jesus is not that far-fetched and has been repeated over and over again since the Church Fathers. Joseph is his father’s beloved son. He is sent to his brothers but is hated by them and sold for silver. Afterwards, he saves them from death. The parable of the gospel is also not misunderstood. The beloved son is put to death by the vineyard workers (Israel) outside the vineyard (city gate). The listening Jews pronounce the verdict on that conduct themselves, and Jesus agrees with their judgement. We shudder at this terrible tragedy, but it befits us to join Paul in feeling the suffering of the Jewish people (Rom). No Christian was ever commissioned to execute judgment on the Jewish people.
FIRST READING Gen. 37, 3-4.12-13a. 17b-28
Behold, here comes the dreamer; let us kill him.
From the Book of Genesis
Israel loved Joseph more than all his other sons,
because he had gotten him in his old age.
He had had a beautiful robe made for him.
The brothers noticed that their father loved Joseph more
than he did them,
and they began to hate him so much
that they could not find a good word to say about him.
Once his brothers were at Shechem
to pasture their father’s flocks,
when Israel said to Joseph :
“You know that your brothers are pasturing the flock at Shechem.
Would you not like to go to them?”
Joseph thereupon went after his brothers
and indeed found them at Dotan.
They had already seen him coming in the distance,
and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
They said to one another :
“Here he comes, the great dreamer!
“Now we have the chance.
“We’ll kill him and throw him in a well.
“We can say that a wild beast has devoured him.
“Then we’ll see what becomes of his dreams!”
When Judah heard this,
he tried to rescue Joseph from their hands and said :
“We must not kill him.”
Reuben said to them :
“Do not shed blood!
“Yonder in the steppe is a well ;
throw him into it, but do not lay hands on him.”
After all, he wanted to rescue him from their hands
and bring him back to his father.
As soon as Joseph came to his brothers ,
they took off his robe,
the beautiful robe he was wearing,
grabbed him and threw him into the well.
The well was empty and there was no water in it.
While they were eating,
they suddenly saw a caravan of Ishmaelites,
coming from Gilead.
The camels were loaded with gum, balm and resin ;
they were on their way to Egypt
to deliver the merchandise there.
Now Judah said to his brothers :
“What do we gain by killing this brother of ours
and covering his blood!
Let us rather sell him to the Ishmaelites
and not lay hands on him ;
he is after all a brother of ours, our own flesh.”
His brothers agreed.
When Midianite merchants passed by ,
the brothers pulled Joseph out of the pit
and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites.
The merchants carried Joseph off to Egypt.
INTERLUDIUM Ps. 105(104), 16-17, 18-19, 20-21
Never forget the miracles the Lord did.
The Lord sent a famine over the land
and caused the breadsticks to break.
He sent a single man before them
when Joseph was sold into slavery.
His feet were shackled with shackles,
his neck in a band of iron ;
until what he had foretold happened ,
the word of the Lord set him free.
The king had him released from the dungeon,
the ruler of the people set him free.
He appointed him lord of his house,
steward of all his goods.
VERSE FOR THE GOSPEL Ez. 18, 31
Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed,
says the Lord,
and renew your hearts and your minds.
GOSPEL Mt 21:33-43,45-46
This is the heir ; let us kill him.
From the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Matthew
In those days Jesus spoke
to the high priests and the elders of the people :
“Listen to another parable :
There was once a landowner who planted a vineyard ;
he put a fence around it,
carved out a winepress
and built a watchtower.
“Thereupon he leased it to winegrowers
and left for a foreign country.
“When the time of harvest had come
he sent his servants to the wine-growers
to receive the harvest.
“But the wine-growers seized his servants.
“They mistreated one,
killed another, and stoned a third.
“Thereupon he sent other servants,
more numerous than the first;
but they treated them the same way.
“Finally, he sent his son to them ,
thinking
that they would spare his son.
“But when the wine-growers saw the son ,
they said among themselves :
That is the heir ;
let us kill him
and appropriate his inheritance.
“They seized him,
threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Now when the owner of the vineyard comes,
what will he do to those wine-growers?”
They answered Him :
“He will make those wretches die a miserable death
and his vineyard he will lease to other vine-growers,
who will hand over the proceeds to him at appointed times.”
Then Jesus spoke to them :
“Have ye never read in the Scriptures :
The stone which the builders rejected
has just become the cornerstone.
By order of the Lord it has happened
and it is wonderful in our eyes.
“Therefore I say to you :
The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you
and given to a people
who do bring forth the fruits thereof.”
When the high priests and Pharisees
had heard His parables
they understood that He was speaking about them.
So they considered a means of getting hold of Him,
but they were afraid of the people
because they thought He was a prophet.
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Laudato Si
Encyclic of
POPE FRANCIS
On the care of the common home
105. One tends to believe that “any acquisition of power is simply progress, growth of security, utility, well-being, vitality, fullness of values”, as if reality, good and truth would spontaneously blossom out of the very power of technology and economics. The fact is that “modern man has not been raised to the proper use of power”, because immense technical growth has been accompanied by a development of the human being in terms of responsibility, values and consciousness. Every era tends to develop a scant self-knowledge of its own limits. Therefore, humanity today may not see the seriousness of the challenges it faces, and “the possibility of man misusing his power is constantly increasing”, when “there are no standards for freedom, but only for perceived demands of utility and security”. The human being is not fully autonomous. Its freedom sickens when it surrenders to the blind forces of the unconscious, of immediate needs, of selfishness, of brutal violence. In this sense, the human being is unprotected exposed to its own power, which keeps growing, without having the tools to control it. It may have superficial mechanisms at its disposal, but we can argue that man lacks an adequately close-knit ethic, a culture and a spirituality that truly sets a limit and restrains him within a clear self-control.
To be continued
The Bible text in this issue is taken from The New Bible Translation,
©Dutch Bible Society 2004/2007.
Considerations from Liturgical Suggestions for Weekdays and Sundays
Laudato Si Official English translation