Invitation
May I hereby draw 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 this joy by opening his heart
to the healing effect of God’s word.
Available every day
CONSIDERATION
Christians are free people. They can choose that freedom, by submitting to God’s word and will. That seems a strange condition: How can a Christian be free when he must submit? Paul reminds us of what precedes this choice: Our life in sin and evil, our weaknesses that enslave us and: Were we really so happy then? Do they make us happy? God gives us time to reflect, to discover how great the slavery we sometimes live in is, how the evil we succumb to actually does not increase our freedom, but rather limits it. To deliver us from this slavery, the Lord has come.
FIRST READING Rom 6, 19-23
Now you have been freed from sin
and become servants of God.
From the letter of the holy apostle Paul to the Christians of Rome
Brothers and sisters,
Speaking to weak people,
I express myself in very human terms.
As you once put your limbs
in the service of uncleanness
and ever-increasing debauchery,
now you must put them at the service of righteousness
for your sanctification.
When ye were slaves of sin
Ye were free in the sight of righteousness.
What advantage had ye then
of deeds of which ye are now ashamed?
For the end of that is death.
But now,
freed from sin and made servants of God,
you reap holiness and finally eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
INTERLUDIUM Ps. 1, 1-2, 3, 4, 6
Blessed is the man who places his hope in the Lord
(Ps. 40(39), 5a)
Blessed is the man who refuses to do
what the wicked advise him;
who does not go the ways of sinners,
does not sit in the midst of mockers ;
but who finds his happiness in the Lord’s law,
contemplating it day and night.
He is like a tree planted by the water,
that bears fruit in due season;
and in summer his leaves shall not wither,
but whatsoever he doeth shall prosper him.
The wicked do not fare so;
the wind blows them away like chaff.
For the Lord looketh on the way of the righteous,
the way of sinners is a dead end.
ALLELUIA Ps. 119(118), 88
Alleluia.
Be merciful to me and let me live, Lord,
and I will be faithful to your decrees.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Lk. 12, 49-53
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?
No, I tell you, it is division.
From the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St. Luke
At that time Jesus said to his disciples:
“Fire have I come to bring to the earth,
and how I long for it to flare up!
I must undergo baptism,
and how distressed I feel until it is finished!
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to earth?
No, I tell you, it is division.
For from now on five will be divided in one house;
three shall stand against two
and two against three;
the father against the son and the son against the father;
the mother against the daughter
and the daughter toward the mother,
the mother-in-law to her daughter-in-law
and the daughter-in-law to the mother-in-law.
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Laudato Si
Encyclic of
POPE FRANCIS
On Care of the Common Home
87. When we can see God reflected in all that exists, our hearts are moved to praise the Lord for all his creatures and to worship him in union with them. This sentiment finds magnificent expression in the hymn of Saint Francis of Assisi:
Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
who is the day and through whom you give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour;
and bears a likeness of you, Most High.
Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.
Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather
through whom you give sustenance to your creatures.
Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Water,
who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.
Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night,
and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong”.[64]
To be continued
The Bible text in this edition is taken from De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling,
©Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap 2004/2007.
Contemplations from Liturgical Suggestions for the Weeks
Laudato Si Official English translation
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