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
To love God and to love one’s neighbor as oneself is above all burnt offerings and casualties. So spoke the Scribe yesterday. All the texts today continue on that thought, which should govern our Lent. Hosea says, “piety I desire, no sacrifices, and love of God more than burnt offerings.” The famous psalm 51 continues: “What I sacrifice, God, is my penitence; a crushed and humiliated heart You do not reject.” The gospel illustrates this in the attitude of the tax collector ” God, be merciful to me a sinner”. It is our confession of guilt, every day. Kyrie, eleison.
FIRST READING Hos. 6, 1-6
Piety I desire, not sacrifices.
From the Prophet Hosea
Thus speaks the Lord :
“In their misery
my people shall seek me from the early morning
and say :
“Come, let us return to the Lord ;
He has torn us apart, He will also heal us ;
He has inflicted wounds, He will also bind them up.
“After two days He makes us alive again,
on the third day He raises us again
to live again before His face.
“We want to love the Lord,
to strive to know Him.
“And surely as the dawn He shows Himself,
He comes upon us as the rain,
like the spring rain that waters the earth.
“What shall I begin with thee, Ephraim?
“What shall I begin with thee, Judah?
“Your piety is like the morning mist,
like the dew that disappears early in the morning.
“Therefore I have struck at you through the prophets,
I have brought death by the words of my mouth :
My judgment broke through like the light.
“For piety I desire, not sacrifice,
and love of God more than burnt offerings.”
RESPONSORIAL SONGS Ps. 51(50), 3-4, 18-19, 20-21ab
In love I am pleased, and not in burnt offerings
(Hos. 6,6).
God, have mercy on me in your mercy,
erase my sinfulness in your mercy.
Wash my guilt completely from me,
cleanse me from all my sins.
In gifts Thou hast no pleasure,
whatever I offer Thee, Thou wilt not have.
What I offer, God, is my penitence,
a crushed and humiliated heart Thou wilt not reject.
Be merciful also to Zion again in thy goodness,
build up again the walls of Jerusalem.
Then receive Thou all the sacrifices which Thou hast commanded,
then shall they come again to sacrifice upon thy altar.
VERSE FOR THE GOSPEL Am. 5, 14
Seek the good and not the evil,
that you may live and God may abide with you.
GOSPEL Lk. 18, 9-14
The tax collector goes home justified, but not the Pharisee.
From the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Luke
In those days Jesus told, in view of some who were,
– convinced of their own righteousness –
despised the others,
the following parable:
“Two people went up to the temple to pray,
one was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
“The Pharisee stood with his head lifted up
and prayed to himself as follows :
God, I thank You that I am not like the rest of the people,
robbers, unjust, adulterers,
or like that tax collector over there.
I fast twice a week
and give tithes of all my income.
“But the tax collector remained at a distance
and would not even lift his eyes to heaven ;
but he patted himself on the chest and said :
God, be merciful to me, sinner.
“I tell you :
This one went home justified and not the other ;
for whoever exalts himself will be humbled,
but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
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Laudato Si
Encyclic of
POPE FRANCIS
On the care of the common home
113. Incidentally, people meanwhile no longer seem to believe in a happy future, they no longer blindly trust in a better future based on the current state of the world and technical skills. They become aware that the progress of science and technology does not equal the progress of humanity and history and suspect that there are other paths for a happy future. Nevertheless, neither can they imagine giving up on the opportunities offered by technology. Humanity has changed profoundly and the accumulation of constant novelties sanctifies an ephemerality that pulls us, with superficiality, in one direction. It becomes difficult to stop to regain the depth of life. If architecture reflects a zeitgeist, megastructures and mass-built houses express the spirit of globalised technology, where the constant novelty of products combines with an oppressive boredom. Let us not resign ourselves to this and let us not refrain from questioning the purposes and meaning of everything. Otherwise, we will only legitimise the state of affairs and need more surrogates to endure the emptiness.
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