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
First reading, response psalm and gospel deal with radical forgiveness of guilt. The parable of the prodigal son is a parable for all times and for every sinner. Yet the introduction places the parable in a context where Pharisees and scribes are inevitably identified with the eldest son. They do not accept the mercy of God for the sinner. But do we ourselves accept that mercy so readily when we ourselves are asked to forgive? Do we follow the Father’s example?
FIRST READING Mic.7, 14-15.18-20
God will cast our sins to the bottom of the sea.
From the prophet Micah
Take your shepherd’s staff and pasture your people, Lord,
the sheep that are your inheritance ;
among the trees, in the midst of the forest ,
they are so lonely.
Let them pasture in Bazan and Gilead,
as in former days.
I will show them wonders ,
as in the days when thou didst go forth out of Egypt.
What God is like unto thee, who forgives the guilt,
who passes over sin,
committed by the rest of his inheritance ;
who does not let his wrath last forever ,
but who finds his joy in goodness ?
He will have mercy on us again,
He will crush our guilt
under his feet.
All our sins He will refer
to the bottom of the sea.
To Jacob Thou wilt show thy faithfulness,
To Abraham Thou wilt show thy goodness,
as Thou didst swear to our fathers,
in the days of old.
Responsorial Ps. 103(102), 1-3, 3-4,9-10, 11-12
The Lord is merciful and benevolent.
Glorify, my soul, the Lord,
His holy Name from the depths of your being !
Glorify, my soul, the Lord,
forget not his benefits!
It is He who forgives you your debts,
He who heals you of your troubles.
It is He who saves you from destruction,
who surrounds you with his favor and mercy.
He does not keep reproaching you constantly,
He is not forever wroth.
He does not deal with us as we deserve,
does not repay us our trespasses.
As wide as heaven spans the earth ,
so all-encompassing is his mercy.
As far as the distance from east to west,
He drives out sin from us.
VERSE FOR THE GOSPEL Lk. 15, 18
I will go to my father again
and I will say to him :
Father, I have done wrong against heaven and against you.
GOSPEL Lk. 15, 1-3.11-32
Your brother was dead and has become alive.
From the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Luke
In those days, again and again
sinners of all kinds kept coming to Jesus
to listen to Him.
The Pharisees and the scribes murmured about this and said :
“That man receives sinners and eats with them.”
He held out to them this parable :
“A man had two sons.
“Now the younger of them said to his father.
Father give me the portion of the property to which I am entitled.
“And he distributed his wealth among them.
“Not long after the youngest son gathered everything together
and went to a faraway country.
“There he squandered his wealth in a life of debauchery.
“When he had used it all up
a terrible famine came over that land
and he began to suffer want.
“Now he went into the service of one of the inhabitants of that country
who sent him out into the fields to herd pigs.
“And though he would have liked to fill his belly
with the husks the pigs ate,
no one gave them to him.
“Then he came to his senses and said :
How many of my father’s day laborers have food in abundance ,
and I am starving here.
“I will go to my father again
and I will tell him :
Father, I have done wrong against heaven and against you;
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
but take me on as one of your day laborers.
“So he went on his way to his father.
“His father saw him coming in the distance
and he was moved by pity .
He rushed towards him,
fell around his neck and kissed him warmly.
“But the son said to him :
Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
“But the father ordered his servants :
Fetch quickly the finest garment and put it on him,
put a ring on his finger and put sandals on him.
Get the fatted calf and slaughter it; let us eat and celebrate,
for this son of mine was dead and has come back to life,
he was lost and has been found.
“So they began to celebrate.
“Meanwhile, his eldest son was in the fields.
“However, when he returned and approached the house
he heard music and dancing.
“He called one of the servants
and asked what it meant.
“The latter replied :
Your brother has come home
and your father has had the fatted calf slaughtered
because he got him back safe and sound.
“But he became angry and would not go in.
“When his father came out and urged him on
he answered his father :
For so many years I have served thee and never have I transgressed thy commandments,
yet you have never given me a goat
to celebrate with my friends.
“And now that son of yours has come
who has squandered your fortune with wicked women,
you have ordered the fatted calf to be slaughtered for him.
“Then the father replied :
Boy, you are always with me
and all that is mine is also yours.
“But there must be feasting and merriment ,
because that brother of yours was dead and has come to life,
was lost and has been found.”
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Laudato Si
Encyclic of
POPE FRANCIS
On the care of the common home
The globalisation of the technocratic paradigm
106. The fundamental problem is another, even deeper problem; the way humanity has in fact taken up technology and its development together with a homogeneous and one-dimensional paradigm. In such a paradigm, a conception of the subject emerges that increasingly in the logical-rational process understands and thus possesses the object that is outside it. This subject manifests itself in establishing the scientific method with its experimentation, which is already explicitly a technique of possession, domination and change. It is as if the subject were facing a formless reality entirely at the disposal of its manipulation. The intervention of the human being in nature has always taken place, but for a long time it has had the character of a guiding, a sustaining of the possibilities offered by things themselves. It involved receiving what natural reality makes possible as from its own hand in itself. By contrast, what is more important now is to extract all that is possible from things by putting the human hand on everything, which tends to ignore or forget the reality itself of what it has before it. Therefore, the human being and things have ceased to shake hands amicably and have thus become each other’s adversaries. From here, one easily arrives at the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which has so enthused the economists, the theorists of finance and technology. This presupposes the lie about the infinite availability of the planet’s goods, which leads to “squeezing them out” to the limit and beyond. It concerns the false assumption that “there exists an unlimited amount of energy and usable resources, that their immediate regeneration is possible and that the negative effects of manipulating nature can be easily offset”.
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