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
Today we borrow the end of the doctrinal section in Hebrews. It is a remarkable document. It cannot be compared to any other text in the New Testament (except perhaps 1 Pe, and yet it is solid because based on the fundamental Christian tradition with its two poles: on the one hand, the highness of Jesus as a divine being, and on the other, his fundamental humanity to suffering and death. Again, we get a brilliant resumé: the high priest who is at once sacrifice once and for all, establishing a new covenant. Again, the Old Testament is the inspiration, and psalm 110 is the response psalm.
FIRST READING Hebrews 10, 11-18
Christ by one sacrifice has forever
brought to perfection those who allow themselves to be sanctified.
From the letter to the Hebrews
Brothers and sisters,
Every priest performs the service standing daily
and recites again and again the same sacrifices
that can never take away sins.
Christ, on the other hand
is seated forever at the right hand of God
having offered a single sacrifice for sins,
still only waiting for the moment
when his enemies
be made a footstool for His feet.
For by one sacrifice He has forever
brought to perfection those who allow themselves to be sanctified.
For this we also have the testimony of the Holy Spirit.
First He says :
‘This is the covenant I will make with them; after those days
says the Lord :
I will put My laws in their hearts.
I graft them into their minds.’
And to this He adds :
‘I will remember their sins and iniquities no longer.’
And where these are forgiven
there is no more need for a peace offering.
INTERLUDIUM Ps. 110(109), 1, 2, 3, 4
Thou art a priest like Melchisedec for ever.
The Lord spake unto my lord :
sit at my right hand ;
I lay thy enemies as a footstool before thy feet.
From Zion the Lord stretch forth the sceptre of thy power ;
Rule in the midst of your adversaries.
Your people stand around you in white armour,
the young men in the field like morning dew.
Sworn has the Lord, it shall not repay Him :
Thou art a priest like Melchisedec for ever.
ALLELUIA Ps. 145(144), 13cd
Alleluia.
True is God in all his words
And holy in all He does.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Mk. 4, 1-20
Once a sower went out to sow.
From the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Mark
At that time
Jesus began to teach on the shore of the lake.
Very many people gathered with Him,
so that He had to get into a boat lying on the water
To take a seat there,
while all the people were on land along the lake.
He taught them many things through parables,
and in His instruction He said to them :
‘Listen.
‘Once a sower went out to sow.
‘As he was sowing
a portion fell on the road and the birds came to eat it.
‘Another portion fell on the rocky places
where it didn’t have much earth ;
it shot up quickly because it was in shallow soil.
‘But when the sun had risen
it suffered from the heat,
so that it withered for lack of root.
‘Yet another portion fell among thistles and these sprung up
so that the seed choked and produced no fruit.
‘Another portion finally fell on good soil
and because it sprung up and developed,
it produced fruit
and brought forth thirty-, sixty- and a hundredfold.’
And He added :
‘He who has ears to hear, he listens.’
When He was alone again
His surroundings, including the twelve,
Him questions concerning the parables.
He answered them :
‘To you is given the secret of the Kingdom of God
but those outside it receive everything in parables,
that they may look keenly with their eyes but not see,
and listen with their ears but do not understand,
lest they should repent and be forgiven.’
And He continued :
‘Do you not understand this parable?
‘Then how will you understand all parables?
‘The sower sows the word.
‘Who on the road
– where the word is sown –
are the people to whom when they have heard it,
Satan comes immediately
and snatches away the word sown within them.
‘In the same way
are those who are sown on rocky places
the people who when they have heard the word,
immediately take it up with joy;
but they have not taken root, living by the moment,
and if they are oppressed or persecuted because of the word,
they fall immediately.
‘Those sown among the thistles are others again ,
who did hear the word,
but when the cares of the world,
the delusion of wealth
and the lusts for everything else intrude,
these stifle the word and so it remains without fruit.
‘Those sown in good ground
are those who hear the word,
take it in and bear fruit:
thirty-, sixty- and a hundredfold.’
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Fratelli tutti
Encyclical of
POPE FRANCISCUS
On brotherhood and social friendship
173. In this perspective, I recall the need for a reform
is needed ‘of both the organisation of the United Nations and the
international economic and financial structure so that the concept of
a family of nations can be given real substance’.151 Undoubtedly
this presupposes precise legal limits to avoid a
authority co-opted by only a few countries, and to
at the same time prevent the imposition, on the basis of ideological differences, of a
culture being imposed or the essential freedoms of the weakest nations
being restricted. After all, ‘the international community is a legal
community based on the sovereignty of each member state ,
without ties of subordination that deny its independence
or limit’. But ‘the task of the United Nations, starting from
the postulates of the preamble and the first articles of the Charter,
be seen as the development and promotion of the sovereignty
of justice, knowing that justice is an indispensable requirement
to realise the ideal of universal brotherhood[…].
One must support the unquestionable supremacy of law and the tireless
use of negotiation, good offices and arbitration to be guaranteed,
as proposed by the Charter of the United Nations, a truly
fundamental standard of law’. One should avoid depriving this organisation
of its legitimacy, because its problems and shortcomings
can only be addressed and resolved jointly.
To be continued
Every day at 1 am
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
Fratelli tutti Official English translation
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