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
God gives every human being the space and time to recognise that he is a poor sinner; to acknowledge his own inability, emptiness, weakness. Only then are we able to surrender to the gratuitousness, the unconditionality, the tenderness of God’s love. In this light, we should not regard our missteps as defeats or a personal failure. Nor should they discourage us (I will never qualify for God’s grace). The only way we may see our brokenness is with the certainty that it opens us to God’s mercy, to his forgiveness, to his grace. Our sins evoke in our hearts the longing for God’s love, and, like Paul, make us true witnesses of this love.
FIRST READING Rom. 11:2, 9-36
God has shut up all in disobedience
in order to include all in his mercy.
From the letter of the holy apostle Paul to the Christians of Rome
Brothers and sisters,
God knows no repentance for his gifts of grace
nor of his calling.
As ye were formerly disobedient to God
but now, thanks to the disobedience of Israel,
have found mercy,
so Israel in turn disobeyed,
so that now she too may find mercy
as a result of the mercy shown to you.
Thus God has shut up all in disobedience
in order to enclose all in his mercy.
O unfathomable riches of God’s wisdom and knowledge!
How unfathomable His decisions,
how unsearchable His ways!
Who knows the thought of the Lord?
Who has been his counselor?
Who can claim recompense for what he has given God?
For of Him and through Him and for Him are all things.
To Him be the glory for ever! Amen.
INTERLUDIUM Ps. 69(68), 30-31, 33-34, 36-37
My prayer, Lord, I address to You,
now is the time of grace.
I bow under my grief ;
God, let Your help protect me.
God’s Name I will praise in my singing,
praise it gratefully everywhere.
Take heed, ye lowly ones, and rejoice,
take courage, all of you who seek God.
God listens to what a poor person asks Him,
does not forget his prisoners.
For God will redeem Zion,
He will rebuild Judah’s cities.
His servants will dwell there,
live there on their own property.
Their offspring will inherit the land again,
God’s Name will be in honour.
ALLELUIA John 6, 64b, 69b
Alleluia.
Your words Lord are spirit and life ;
Your words are words of eternal life.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Lk. 14, 12-14
Invite not your friends, but the poor and infirm.
From the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke
At that time Jesus said to the Pharisee
who had invited Him to the table:
“When ye give a luncheon or supper,
do not invite your friends, brothers and kinsmen
nor rich neighbours.
It might be that they in turn invite thee
and so you will get it back.
But if you give a guest meal,
then invite the poor, infirm, lame and blind.
You will be happy
because they cannot repay it to thee.
It will be repaid to you
at the resurrection of the righteous.”
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Laudato Si
Encyclic by
POPE FRANCIS
On caring for the common home
98. Jesus lived in complete harmony with creation, and the others were amazed: “What kind of person is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” (Mt 8:27) . He did not appear as an ascetic separated from the world or an enemy of the pleasant things of life. Referring to Himself, He said, “Look, that glutton and wine drinker” (Mat 11:19). He was far from the philosophies that despised the body, matter and realities of this world. Over the centuries, however, these unhealthy dualisms have had a considerable influence on some Christian thinkers and deformed the Gospel. Jesus worked with his hands and was in daily contact with God-created matter to shape it with his skill as a craftsman. It should be pointed out here that most of His life was devoted to this effort in a simple existence that did not raise any wonder: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mk 6:3) . Thus, He sanctified the work and gave it a special value for our maturation. St John Paul II taught that “by enduring the effort of the work in union with Christ crucified for us, man in a sense participates with the Son of God in the redemption of mankind”.
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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