Invitation
May I ask for your attention for
daily reading of the Gospel?
This invitation is to share the joy
of the gospel with you. Everyone, without exception,
can experience that joy by opening their heart
to the healing power of God’s word.
Available every day
Consideration
To follow Christ is to follow Him in His total love and surrender to the Father, and in His self-giving to His fellow man. This part of the gospel expresses for us what is essentially Christian. It has been a dangerous and age-old temptation for Christians to separate these two. After all, they should be inextricably linked. Love of neighbour without love of God is pure humanism. Love of God without love of neighbour is an insult to God, for whom every human being is unique. If we keep that balance, perhaps the words addressed to us will be: You are not far from the kingdom of God.
FIRST READING Hos. 14:2-10
We will no longer say to the work of our hands, ‘You are our gods!’
From the Prophet Hosea
Thus says the Lord:
“Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
for you have stumbled over your guilt.
‘Come with your words as a gift,
repent to the Lord and say to Him:
You forgive all guilt;
accept also our good will:
We will give our words as sacrificial animals.
’Assur cannot save us;
we will no longer ride on horses
and against the work of our hands
we will never again say: You are our God.
‘You, O Lord, are the one
with whom the orphan finds compassion.
“I will heal their backsliding
and love them freely.
”My anger has turned away from them.
’I will be like the dew for Israel:
Like the lily he will blossom
and it will put down roots as strong as Lebanon.
‘Its shoots will sprout;
its splendour will be the splendour of the olive
and its fragrance the fragrance of Lebanon.
’They will again sit in its shade;
they will produce grain;
they will blossom like the vine
and be renowned as the wine of Lebanon.
‘Then what have I to do with idols, O Ephraim?
‘I am the one who answers him
and who looks after him.
’I am like an evergreen cypress:
Your fruit is due to Me.
“Who is so wise that he realises this,
who is so sensible that he realises this?
‘Truly, the ways of the Lord are righteous:
The upright walk in them,
but rebels stumble in them’.
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INTERLUDIUM Psalm 81(80), 6c-8a, 8bc-9, 10-11, ab,14, 17
I am the Lord, your only God,
hear me, O my people, when I warn you!
Now I hear a voice, which I have never heard:
I have taken the burden from your shoulders.
Your hands were left free of the baskets;
you called to me, and I set you free.
I answered you from the storm clouds,
and tested you at Meribah.
Hear, then, my people, when I admonish you,
Israel, listen to me!
Never may there be a strange god with you,
do not worship gods from other lands.
For I am the Lord, your only God,
who led you out of Egypt.
Ah, if only my people would listen to me,
if only Israel would walk in my ways;
then I would feed my people with wheat flour
and satisfy them with honey from the rock.
VERSE FOR THE GOSPEL Ps. 95(94):8ab
Listen today to the voice of the Lord
and do not be stubborn.
GOSPEL Mk. 12:28b-34
The Lord our God is one Lord; you shall love him with all your heart.
From the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Mark
At that time, a scribe approached Jesus
and asked him,
‘Which is the first of all the commandments?
Jesus replied
’The first is this:
‘Hear, O Israel!
‘The Lord our God is one Lord.
’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
‘The second is this:
You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
’There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Then the scribe said to him,
‘Teacher, you have spoken the truth:
there is only one God, and there is no other but him;
and to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding and with all your strength,
and to love your neighbour as yourself
is worth more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.‘
On seeing how wisely he had spoken, Jesus said to him,
’You are not far from the kingdom of God.’
And no one dared to ask him another question.
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Fratelli tutti
Encyclical of
POPE FRANCIS
On fraternity and social friendship
231. Often there is a great need to negotiate and thus develop concrete
paths to peace. However, the actual processes of
sustainable peace are mainly changes worked by peoples,
where each person, with their daily lifestyle, can be a real
leaven. Big changes do not come about behind a desk or in
a study. That is why ‘everyone plays a fundamental role in
a creative project to write a new page in history,
a page full of hope, full of peace, full of reconciliation’.
There is an ‘architecture’ of peace in which the various
institutions of society each contribute according to their own competencies,
but there is also a ‘handcrafting’ of peace in which we are all involved.
Based on the various peace processes that are developing in
different parts of the world, ‘we have learned that
these ways of establishing peace, of the primacy of reason over
revenge, of a delicate harmony between politics and justice,
cannot ignore the involvement of the people. The design of normative
frameworks and institutional agreements between political and economic
groups of good will is not enough. […] Moreover, it is always valuable
to include the experience of sectors that have often been made invisible
in our peace processes, so that it is precisely the
communities that colour the processes of the collective memory.
To be continued
Every day at 1 am
The Bible text in this edition is taken from The New Bible Translation,
©Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap 2004/2007.
Considerations from Liturgical suggestions for weekdays and Sundays
Fratelli tutti Official English translation
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