Thursday – THE LORD’S HOLY VISION

Jesus Christ ascended to God, his Father in heaven

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

Opening word
Today, too, we meet the Risen One here.
He comes into our midst and goes before us to the Father.
Even though He has ascended into heaven,
he still entrusts us with His mission.
He promises the power of the Holy Spirit,
which makes us strong to proclaim the Good News.
Let us pray that this Eucharist feeds our faith
and makes our witness true.

FIRST READING       Acts 1:1-11
In front of them the Lord was lifted up.

My first book, Teófilus, I wrote
about all that Jesus did and taught until the day
on which He gave His commission to the apostles
whom He had chosen by the Holy Spirit,
and on which He was taken up to heaven.
After His death, He showed them with many proofs
that He was alive.
He appeared to them for forty days
and spoke to them about the Kingdom of God.
As He ate with them
he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem,
but to await the promise of the Father
which, He said, ye have heard from Me:
“John baptised with water ,
but ye shall in a few days
be baptised with the Holy Spirit.”
As they were once gathered together
they asked Him the question:
“Lord, wilt thou restore the kingdom to Israel at this time?”
But He answered them:
“It does not come to you to know day and hour
which the Father hath set in His power.
But ye shall receive power
from the Holy Spirit who is coming upon you,
to be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
in all Judea and Samaria
and to the ends of the earth.”
After these words
he was lifted up in their sight
and a cloud hid Him from their eyes.
As they gazed at Him tensely at His ascension,
suddenly two men in white robes stood by them saying:
“Men of Galilee,
what are you looking at the sky?
This Jesus who was taken away from you into heaven
shall return in the same way
as ye have seen Him go to heaven.”

Answer Psalm            Ps 47(46), 2-3, 6-7, 8-9

Refrain
God ascends to throne under loud cheers,
the Lord with blasts of trumpets.

All nations, clap their hands,
rejoice before God with joyful shouts.
For great is the Lord and formidable everywhere,
a mighty prince over all the earth.

God rises to the throne under loud cheers,
the Lord with sounding of trumpets.
Sing now to God, let sound your song,
to our King a song of praise!

King is God over all the earth,
so sing a psalm to Him.
King is God over all nations,
seated on His holy throne.

SECOND READING           Ephesians 1:17-23
God set Him at His right hand in the heavens.

From the letter of the holy apostle Paul to the Christians of
Ephesus

Brothers and sisters,

I beseech the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory,
to give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation
to know Him truly.
May He enlighten your inner eye
to see
how great is the hope to which He calls you,
how rich is the glory of His inheritance
in the midst of the saints
and how great is His power in us who believe.
The same strength and power He demonstrated in Christ,
when He raised Him from the dead
and set Him at His right hand in the heavens,
high above all dominions,
powers, might and loftiness
and above every name that is named,
not only in this age but also in the age to come.

Everything God has put under His feet,
and Himself, exalted above all things,
he has given as Head to the Church
which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fulfils all in all.

Verse for the gospel           Mt 28, 19a.20

Alleluia.
Go and make all nations my disciples,
says the Lord;
I am with you all the days until the consummation of the world.
Alleluia.

GOSPEL                    Lk. 24, 46-53
And while He was blessing them, He was taken up into heaven.

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples:
“Thus the scriptures speak of the suffering and death
of the Messiah
and about his resurrection from the dead on the third day,
about the proclamation among all nations,
of the repentance and forgiveness of sins in His Name.
Beginning with Jerusalem, you must bear witness to all this.
Therefore I send to you what has been promised by my Father;
tarry therefore in the city
until thou shalt be equipped with power from on high.”

Now He led them out as far as Bethany,
He lifted up His hands and blessed them.
And while He was blessing them He removed Himself from them
and He was taken up into heaven.
They worshipped Him
and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.
They kept themselves constantly in the temple
and they glorified God.

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Laudato Si
Encyclical of
Pope Francis
On caring for the common home

5. Saint John Paul II has been dealing with this topic with growing interest
with this theme. In his first encyclical, he noted “The
man often seems to perceive no other meaning of his natural environment
perceive than that which serves the purposes of use and
consumption”. He then invited a global ecological
conversion. At the same time, however, he noted that there is little commitment
to “the moral conditions for a credible human ecology
ensuring”. The destruction of the human environment is something very
serious, not only because God has entrusted the world to human beings
but because human life itself is a gift that must be protected from various
forms of degradation that must be protected. Any effort to take care of the
world and improve it requires a profound change
of “lifestyles, of models of production and consumption, of the
established power structures that now dominate societies”.
Authentic human development has a moral character
and presupposes full respect for the human person, but must also
pay attention to the world of nature and “take into account the
the nature of each being and its interrelationship in an ordered
system”. Therefore, man’s ability to change reality must
change develop on the basis of the first original gift
of things by God.
To be continued
Every day at 1 am