Invitation
May I ask for your attention for
reading the Gospel every day?
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
Today’s texts expand on the core idea of yesterday’s readings: loving God and loving one’s neighbour as oneself is more important than all the fires and victims. In Hosea we read: ‘I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings’. Psalm 51 continues along the same lines: ‘My sacrifice, God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you will not despise’. The tax collector from the gospel has this same attitude when he says to God: ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner’. We too ask again and again: Kyrie eleison.
FIRST READING Hos. 6:1-6
I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice.
From the Prophet Hosea
Thus says the Lord:
“In their affliction
my people will seek me from the earliest morning
and say:
“Come, let us return to the Lord;
he has torn us to pieces but he will heal us;
he has inflicted wounds but he will bind them up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us
that we may live in his presence.
‘We want to love the Lord,
to make an effort to know Him.
‘And certainly when the dawn shows itself,
He comes upon us like the rain,
like the spring rain that drenches the earth.
’What am I to do with you, Ephraim?
“What am I to do with you, Judah?
‘Your devotion is like the morning mist,
like the dew that disappears early in the morning.
‘Therefore I have smitten you through the prophets,
I have killed you by the words of my mouth:
My judgement broke through like the light.
’For devotion I desire, not sacrifice,
and the love of God more than burnt offerings.’
INTERLUDIUM Ps. 51(50), 3-4, 18-19, 20-21ab
I take pleasure in loyalty, not sacrifice (Hos. 6,6)
God, be merciful to me in your compassion,
blot out my transgressions in your graciousness.
Wash away all my guilt,
cleanse me from all my sins.
You take no delight in offerings,
for all the things I have offered I have given you.
My sacrifice, O God, is my humble spirit;
a broken and contrite heart you will not despise.
In your goodness return to Zion,
build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will receive all the sacrifices you have commanded,
then people will come to sacrifice on your altar again.
VERSE BEFORE THE GOSPEL Am. 5, 14
Seek what is good, not what is evil,
that you may live and God may be with you.
GOSPEL Luke 18:9-14
The tax collector goes home justified, but not the Pharisee.
From the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Luke
At that time Jesus told the following parable to some who
– convinced of their own righteousness –
despised others:
‘Two people went up to the temple to pray,
one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
“The Pharisee stood with his head held high
and prayed to himself as follows:
God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of the people,
robbers, the unrighteous, adulterers,
or even that tax collector over there.
I fast twice a week
and give tithes of all that I earn.
‘But the tax collector stood at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven;
but he beat his breast and said,
God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
’I tell you:
This man went home justified rather than the other;
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
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Fratelli tutti
Encyclical of
POPE FRANCIS
On fraternity and social friendship
232. There is no endpoint in the construction of the social peace of a
country, but rather it is ’a task that does not allow for a resting period and that
commitment of all. A task that demands unrelenting
efforts to build a united nation and, despite the
obstacles, the differences and the varying approaches to the
way to achieve a peaceful society, perseverance
in the struggle to promote a culture of encounter, which requires
that the human person, his or her very high dignity and respect for
the common good be placed at the centre of every political,
social and economic activity. May this
effort of strength keep us from any temptation to take revenge and
pursue only private and short-term interests.
Violent public demonstrations on both sides do not
help to find a way out, especially because, as the bishops of
Colombia have rightly pointed out, when ‘mobilisations of the
population’ are encouraged, their origin and objectives do not always
clearly emerge, there are certain forms of political manipulation
and one encounters forms of appropriation in favour of private interests.
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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