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
As yesterday puts two texts side by side with answer psalm 7. “I did not suspect what they were plotting against me”, “deliver me from my persecutors” and “Some of them wanted to take Him captive”. We are clearly approaching passion time and a dark shadow hangs over it all as a harbinger of things to come.
FIRST READING Isa. 7, 10-14
Behold, the virgin shall receive.
From the Prophet Isaiah
In those days Isaiah spoke to Achaz :
“Ask the Lord your God for a sign ,
either high in the sky or deep in hell.”
But Achaz answered :
“I do not ask for a sign ;
I do not want to test the Lord.”
And Isaiah spoke :
“Listen then, house of David ,
is it not enough for you to vex people,
that you should vex my God also?
“Therefore the Lord also gives you an unsolicited sign :
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and she shall call him “Immanuel. God-with-us’.”
RESPONSORIAL Ps. 40(39), 7-8, 9, 10, 11
Yes, I come, Lord, to do thy will.
Gift and sacrifice Thou hast never desired,
but thou hast opened my ears to thy voice.
Thou askest no burnt offering, no peace offering from me ;
so I said : yes, I am coming, as it is written of me .
To do thy will, my God, that is my joy,
Your law is engraved on my heart.
In the meetings I have preached righteousness,
my lips not closed, Lord, Thou knowest.
I did not keep your benefits hidden in my heart,
Your faithfulness, Your assistance I made known.
Thy favors I have not kept secret,
nor your faithfulness, from those around me.
SECOND READING Hebrews 10, 4-10
In the scroll it is written about me:
I have come, o God, to do your will.
From the letter to the Hebrews
Brothers and sisters,
It is out of the question
that the blood of bulls and bucks would take away sins.
That is why Christ says, when He comes into the world :
“Sacrifices and gifts Thou hast not desired,
but Thou hast prepared a body for me.
“Burnt offerings and peace offerings could not please Thee.
“Then I said :
Here am I.
“As it is written in the scroll about me :
I have come, O God, to do thy will.”
First He says :
“Sacrifices and gifts,
burnt offerings and peace offerings, which Thou didst not want;
they could not please You
though the law required them to be brought.”
And then He says :
“Here am I,
I have come to do thy will.”
So He abolishes the first in order to make the second valid.
By that will we are sanctified, once for all,
through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ.
VERSE FOR THE GOSPEL John 1, 14ab
(Alleluia.)
The Word became flesh
And has dwelt among us.
And we have beheld his glory.
(Alleluia.)
GOSPEL Lk. 1, 26-38
Thou shalt conceive and bring forth a son.
From the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Luke
At that time
the angel Gabriel was sent by God
to a town in Galilee, Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David;
the virgin’s name was Mary.
He entered her and spoke :
“Rejoice, blessed one, the Lord is with thee,
Thou art the blessed among women.”
She was startled by that word
and wondered what this greeting could possibly mean.
But the angel said to her :
“Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.
“Behold, thou shalt conceive and bear a son
and thou shalt give him the name Jesus.
“He shall be great
and shall be called Son of the Most High.
“God the Lord will give Him the throne of His father David
and He shall be king over the house of Jacob forever
and His kingship shall never come to an end.”
Mary, however, spoke to the angel :
“How shall this come to pass since I know no man?”
To this the angel answered her :
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore, whatever is brought into the world
will be called holy, Son of God.
“Know that even Elisabeth, your kinswoman,
in her old age received a son
and, though she was barren,
she is now in her sixth month;
for to God nothing is impossible.”
Now Mary said :
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord ;
be done unto me according to thy word.”
And the angel departed from her.
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Laudato Si
Encyclic of
POPE FRANCIS
On the care of the common home
120. Since everything is relative, the defence of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. An educational path for the acceptance of the weak beings that surround us, which are sometimes inconvenient or disturbing, does not seem practicable, if one does not offer protection to a human embryo, even though its arrival brings inconvenience and difficulties: “If the personal and social sense for the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance useful for social life wither away.”
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
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