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 that joy by opening their hearts
to the healing power of God’s word.
Available every day.
Opening word
The gospel reminds us
that the main commandment is:
To love God with heart and soul.
But God is not freely available.
Choosing God inseparably implies
that you choose for your fellow man.
In this celebration, let us ask
for strength and good courage,
so that we may learn from Him true humanity
in the concrete situations of every day.
FIRST READING Ex. 22, 20-26
If you wrong widows and orphans, my wrath will break out against you.
From the book of Exodus
Thus speaks the Lord:
“Thou must not treat a stranger badly
nor make life difficult for him,
for thou thyself hast lived as a stranger in Egypt.
“Widows and orphans thou shalt not wrong.
“If you do them wrong, and if their complaints go up to Me ,
then I will heed their complaints.
“My wrath will break loose and with the sword I will kill you:
Thy wives shall become widows, thy children orphans.
“If ye lend money to anyone of my people ,
to one in need in thy neighbourhood,
do not behave like a moneylender.
“Thou must not demand interest from him.
“If ye take someone’s cloak in pledge,
then thou must return it to him before sunset.
“He has nothing else to cover himself with,
it is the shelter of his bare body,
he must sleep in it.
“If he cries to Me for help, I will hear him,
for I am full of compassion.”
RESPONSORIAL Ps 18(17), 2, 3-4, 47 and 51ab
Refrain
Lord, Thee I love, my strength be Thou.
Lord, Thee I love, my strength art Thou,
my refuge, my fortress, my deliverer.
My God, the rock where I find refuge,
my shield, my preservation and protection.
When I call on the Lord, He be praised,
then no enemy harms me.
Praised be the Lord, blessed be my rock,
glorified be God my redeemer.
For thou hast given victory to thy king,
thy favours to thy anointed one.
SECOND READING I Thess. 1.5c-10
Thou hast turned from idols to serve God and to expect his Son from heaven.
From the holy apostle Paul’s first letter to the Christians of Thessalonica
Brothers and sisters,
Thou knowest how our action has been with you.
It was aimed at your salvation.
And ye for your part
have become imitators of us and of the Lord,
when ye accepted the word
under all kinds of trials
and yet with joy of the Holy Spirit.
Ye have become an example to all believers
in Macedonia and in Achaia.
Yes, from Thessalonica
did the word of the Lord resound,
and not only in Macedonia and Achaia;
everywhere your faith in God has become known.
We need say no more,
they will tell how we came to you
and how we were received by you;
how you were converted from idols to God
To serve the living and true God,
and to expect from heaven His Son
whom He raised from the dead,
Jesus, who saves us from the wrath to come.
Verse for the gospel John 14, 23
Alleluia.
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word;
my Father will love him
and We will come to him.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Mt 22:34-40
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbour as thyself.
From the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Matthew
In those days the Pharisees gathered, when they learned
that Jesus had gagged the Sadducees.
And one of them, a lawgiver,
asked Jesus to put Him to the test:
“Master, what is the main commandment in the Law?”
He answered him:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
all your soul and all your mind.
“This is the main and first commandment.
“The second, equivalent to it:
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
“On these two commandments hangs all the Law and the Prophets.”
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Laudato Si
Encyclic by
POPE FRANCIS
On caring for the common home
90. This does not mean making all living beings equal and depriving the human being of the special value that at the same time implies a dire responsibility. Nor does it entail a deification of the earth that would deprive us of the vocation to cooperate with it and protect its fragility. These views would end up creating a new imbalance in an attempt to escape the reality that questions us. 2 One sometimes sees an obsession with denying the human person any precedence and a battle is waged for the other species that we do not initiate to defend equal dignity among human beings. Certainly, it should fill us with concern that the other living beings are treated in an irresponsible manner, but above all, we should resent the tremendous inequality that exists among us because we continue to tolerate the fact that some consider themselves more worthy than others. We no longer notice that some drag on in humiliating misery, while others do not even know what to do with what they possess, vainly flaunt a supposed sense of superiority and leave behind such a level of wastefulness that it would be impossible to generalise, without destroying the planet. We continue to allow in the facts that some feel more human than others, as if they were born with greater rights.
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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