Invitation
May I draw your attention to
The daily reading of the Gospel
This invitation seeks to convey the joy
of the Gospel. Everyone, without exception
can experience that joy by opening his or her heart
to the healing power of the Word of God.
Available every day
Consideration
Of the contrast between the wisdom of the world and the power of God, Paul himself gives us an eloquent example. During his first stay in Corinth
(see also Acts 18:1-17), his preaching was not based on eloquence or science, but solely on the power of God’s Spirit and on the unshakable foundation of the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Paul reveals here the significance of his human weakness. When do we experience God’s power helping us in what we do?
FIRST READING I Cor. 2, 1-5
I had resolved to make known to you no more
than that of Jesus Christ and his cross.
From the holy apostle Paul’s first letter to the Christians in Corinth
Brothers and sisters,
When I, Paul, went to preach to you the testimony of God
I did not do so with any boasts of eloquence or knowledge.
I did not want to give you any other knowledge than that of Jesus Christ and his cross.
I preached to you nothing but Jesus Christ and His cross.
Moreover, at that time I felt weak, nervous and anxious.
The word I preached to you
owed nothing to the persuasiveness of ‘wisdom
but to the power of the Spirit:
Your faith was not to rest on human wisdom but on the power of God.
but in the power of God.
INTERLUDIUM Ps 119(118), 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102
How precious to me is your law, O Lord.
How precious is your law to me, O Lord,
I think of it all day long.
I surpass my enemies in wisdom
Because your commandment abides in me.
I am wiser than those who taught me,
because I think of your ordinance.
My insight is greater than that of the greybeards
for I always heed what you command.
I restrain my steps from evil ways
so that I always obey your word.
I never deviate from Your ordinances,
for You have given me wisdom.
ALLELUIA I Thess. 2:13
Alleluia.
Receive the word of God
not as the word of men
but as what it really is: the word of God.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Lk. 4, 16-30
The Lord has sent me
to bring good news to the poor.
No prophet is accepted in the city of his own father.
From the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St Luke
Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up.
Where he had grown up.
He went, according to his custom
to the synagogue on the Sabbath
and got up to read aloud.
The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.
He opened the scroll
and found the place where it was written
‘The Spirit of the Lord has come upon me ,
for he has anointed me.
‘He has sent me
to bring the glad tidings to the poor
to make known his deliverance to those in prison
and the blind to see;
to free the oppressed
to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favour’.
And he closed the book,
handed it back to the servant and sat down.
In the synagogue, all eyes were on Him.
Then He began to address them:
‘The word of Scripture you have just heard
has been fulfilled.
And they all agreed with Him
and marvelled
that such gracious words flowed from His mouth.
They said:
‘Is that not Joseph’s son?’.
He said to them:
‘Of course you will present me with this proverb:
Physician, heal thyself:
do all these things, as we have heard that it happened in Capernaum
now also here in your father’s city’.
But He gave him this answer:
‘Truly, I say to you.
no prophet is accepted in his own hometown.
‘And it is true what I tell you :
After all, in the time of Elijah ,
when the heavens were closed for three years and six months and there was a great famine
and a great famine reigned over the whole earth ,
there were many widows in Israel ;
Elijah, however, was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Sinai
but to a widow of Zarefath, in the region of Sidon.
‘And in the days of Elisha the prophet
there were many lepers in Israel ;
But none of them was cleansed
except the Syrian Naaman.
When they heard this
All in the synagogue were furious.
They jumped up
They drove him out of the city
and led him
to the steep edge of the mountain on which their city was built,
to throw Him into the abyss.
But He passed right through them in the middle and went away.
_________________________________________________________________
Encyclic of
POPE FRANCIS
On brotherhood and social friendship
24. We equally recognise that ‘despite the fact that the international community has
has concluded numerous agreements to end
slavery in all its forms and has initiated various strategies
to combat this phenomenon, today millions of
people – children, men and women of all ages – are
deprived of their freedom and forced to live in conditions
comparable to slavery. […] Today, just as
in the past, at the root of slavery is a conception of the human
person that allows the possibility of treating him as an object.
[…] The human person, created in God’s image and likeness, is treated
deprived of his
freedom, commercialised, reduced to the property of someone;
he is treated as a means and not an end’. The criminal
networks ‘make skilful use of modern information technology
to lure young and very young people in every part of the world’.
The aberration knows no bounds, when women are subjugated
then forced into abortion. An abomination that goes as far as
people are kidnapped for the purpose of selling their organs. All this
makes human trafficking and other forms of slavery a
global problem that needs to be taken seriously by humanity as a whole
must be taken seriously, because ‘as well as criminal organisations
use global networks to achieve their goals, likewise the
action to defeat this phenomenon calls for a common and also
global effort on the part of the various
actors that make up society’.
To be continued on
Every morning at 1 am
The Bible text in this issue is taken from The New Translation of the Bible,
The New Bible Translation, ©Dutch Bible Society 2004/2007.
Reflections on liturgical suggestions for weekdays
Fratelli tutti Official English Translation