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 except,
can experience that joy by opening his heart
to the healing power of God’s word.
Available every day.
Consideration
The people of God were given this law at Sinai: Every fifty years the injustices that have crept in must be corrected. After all, man’s weakness demands reparation. This means sewing up the meshes of our relationships with genuine goodness, so that everyone can breathe again and rejoice in the salvation that God is preparing for us.
FIRST READING Lev. 25. 1. 8-17
In the fiftieth year, everyone is restored
to his former possession.
From the book of Leviticus
God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai:
“After the lapse of seven Sabbath years, seven times seven years ,
together forty-nine years,
on the day of atonement,
the tenth day of the seventh month,
loudly sound the trumpet.
In all thy land thou must sound the trumpet.
That fiftieth year must be a holy year for you:
Then you must proclaim in the land
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2333333333326hat all the inhabitants release their slaves.
It must be a jubilee year for you,
everyone is restored to his former property
and returns to his family.
The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee year for you;
you shall not sow then, nor reap the aftergrowth
and pluck not the grapes of thy unpruned vineyard,
for it is the jubilee year; it must be holy to you.
Only what the land produces of its own accord may you eat.
In the jubilee year
everyone shall be restored to his former possession.
When ye sell a piece of land to a fellow people
or buy land from him, you may not disadvantage one another.
If you buy land from a fellow citizen,
then in setting the price
take into account the number of years since the last jubilee year.
And he must calculate the selling price
according to the number of years that it still yields crops.
The price will be higher, if many years are yet to come,
and lower, if few years must pass,
for he is selling you a number of crop years.
Do not disadvantage your fellow people;
have reverence for your God.
I am the LORD your God.”
INTERLUDIUM Ps. 67(66), 2-3, 5, 7-8
Give that the nations honor You, O God,
that all nations honor You!
God, be merciful to us and bless us,
show us the light of thy countenance;
That on earth thy ways may be known,
in all lands thy salvation.
Let all nations rejoice for joy
because Thou dost rule the nations justly
and governs all things on earth.
The earth gave us its fruits,
the blessing of our God.
God so grant us His blessing
that all the earth may fear Him.
ALLELUIA John 6, 64b, 69b
Alleluia.
Your words, Lord, are spirit and life ;
Your words are words of eternal life.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Mt. 14, 1-12
Herod ordered John to be beheaded.
His disciples went to report it to Jesus.
From the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew
At that time, Jesus’ renown began to
penetrated to the prince Herod,
and he therefore said to his courtiers:
“That must be John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead ;
hence those miraculous powers work in him.”
For the sake of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip,
Herod had John seized
aond cast into prison handcuffed,
because John had said to him:
It is not lawful for you to have her as a wife.
Therefore Herod had actually wanted to put him to death ,
but he was afraid to do so
because the people mistook John for a prophet.
However, when the daughter of Herodias
danced before the company on Herod’s birthday,
she pleased him so much that he swore an oath
to give her everything she would ask for.
Her mother had clued her in on the answer
and so she said:
“Give me, here still, on a platter
the head of John the Baptist.”
Although this was close to the king’s heart, he still wanted to
also because of his table companions, he wanted to honor his oath
and he ordered it to be given.
He therefore ordered
John to be beheaded in prison.
His head was brought in on a platter
and given to the girl who brought it to her mother.
His disciples came and took the corpse and buried it;
Then they went to report it to Jesus.
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Laudato Si
Encyclic of
POPE FRANCIS
On the care of the common home
5. Saint John Paul II dealt with this theme with growing interest. In his first encyclical, he noted that it seems that the human being “perceives no other meanings of his natural environment than those that serve the purposes of use and consumption.” He then invited a global ecological conversion. At the same time, however, he noted that there is little commitment to “securing the moral conditions for an authentic human ecology.” The destruction of the human environment is something very serious, not only because God has entrusted the world to human beings, but because human life itself is a gift that must be protected from various forms of decay. Any effort to care for and improve the world requires a profound change in “lifestyles, models of production and consumption, structures of established power structures that now dominate societies.” Authentic human development has a moral character and presupposes full respect for the human person, but must also pay attention to the world of nature and “take into account the nature of each being and its interrelationship in an ordered system.” Therefore, the ability of the human being to change reality must develop on the basis of the first original bestowal of things by God.
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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