All Souls’ Day is the day to pray for the souls of the departed,
the part of a human being that can live on with God after death.
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.
Consideration
If God is for us, who will be against us? The only thing we are absolutely sure of is God’s love for us. We can never be sure of ourselves: We keep bumping up against our own limitations, we remain sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. But his love is reliable, unconditional, unbreakable. Nothing can separate us from this love, which is in Christ Jesus. Paul lists: Neither fear, nor persecution, nor danger . . . And even if we should let go of the Lord, even then He will not let go of us. It is a challenge for each of us: What problems, trials from our personal lives can we add to Paul’s list? Are we too able to say: Neither…,nor…,nor…. can separate me from the love of Christ?
FIRST READING Isaiah 25:6a.7-9
From the prophet Isaiah
On that day the LORD of the heavenly powers
on this mountain will set up a banquet for all nations.
On this mountain He will tear the veil
that lies over the peoples and the cloth that covers all nations.
God the LORD will destroy death forever;
He will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth.
For so the LORD has decreed.
On that day people will say:
This is our God.
We hoped in Him and He has saved us.
This is the LORD in whom we had put our trust: Let us be glad and rejoice
for the salvation He has brought us.
SECOND READING Apocalypse 21,1-5a,6b-7
From the revelation of the holy apostle John.
I, John, saw
a new heaven and a new earth;
the first heaven and the first earth were gone
and the sea no longer existed.
And I saw the holy City, the new Jerusalem,
of God coming down from heaven,
beautiful as a bride adorned before her husband.
Then I heard a mighty voice calling from the throne:
“Behold here God’s dwelling among men!
He will dwell with them,
they shall be His people,
and He, God-with-him, will be their God.
He will wipe away all tears from their eyes
and death will be no more;
no mourning, no weeping, no sorrow shall there be
for all the old has passed away.”
And He who is seated on the throne spoke:
“Behold, I make all things new.
I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the Origin and the End.
Whoever is thirsty, I will give him to drink for nothing
from the fountain of the water of life.
He who overcomes will receive all this
and I will be his God and he my son”.
GOSPEL Luke 23:44-46,50,52-53; 24:1-6a
From the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.
It was about the sixth hour;
darkness fell over all the region
until the ninth hour
because the sun gave no more light.
The veil of the temple tore in the middle.
Then Jesus cried out in a loud voice:
“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”.
Having said this, He gave up the ghost.
Now there was a certain Joseph,
a member of the High Council,
a benevolent and righteous man.
This one went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
Having taken it off the cross
he wrapped it in a shroud.
Then he laid Him in a tomb
which had been carved in stone
in which no one had ever been laid before.
On the first day of the week, however
the women went to the tomb very early in the morning,
with the fragrant spices they had prepared.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,
went in
but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus there.
While they did not know what to make of that,
suddenly two men stood before them
in a bright white robe.
When they were overcome with terror,
bowed their heads to the ground,
the men asked her:
“Why do you seek the living among the dead?
He is not here, He is risen.”
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Laudato Si
Encyclic of
POPE FRANCIS
On caring for the common home
94. The rich and the poor have equal dignity, because “the Lord made them all” (Spr. 22, 2) , “He Himself made small and great (Wis. 6, 7) and “makes the sun rise on the wicked and the good” (Mt. 5, 45) . This has practical implications, such as those formulated by the bishops of Paraguay: “Every peasant has the natural right to own a reasonable plot of land, on which he can build his house, work for the livelihood of his family and have security regarding his own existence. This right must be guaranteed so that its exercise is not pretence but real. And this means that apart from having the title of owner, the farmer must be able to rely on the means of technical training, loans, insurance and access to the market.”
To be continued
The Bible text in this issue is taken from The New Translation of the Bible,
©Dutch Bible Society 2004/2007.
Considerations from Liturgical suggestions for weekdays and Sundays
Laudato Si Official English translation
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