Saturday – Our Lady on Saturday

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

Paul educates the Thessalonians – and all Christians – on two important attitudes we need to master if we want to progress on the path to holiness. Yesterday, we heard the admonitions related to fornication and how married people should treat each other. Today Paul moves on to the second domain in which Christians can bear witness to the faith through their way of life: brotherly love. It is at the heart of proclamation and comes from God himself. We should never fail to question ourselves on it – and be questioned on it!

FIRST READING               I Thess. 4, 9-12

Ye yourselves have learned from God to love one another.

Brothers and sisters,

About brotherly love there is no need to write to you.
Ye yourselves have learned from God to love one another,
and ye therefore practice love
towards all brothers throughout Macedonia.
We only exhort you, brothers and sisters,
to do this much more.
Take pride in looking after your own affairs quietly
and support yourselves with honest labour,
as we have commanded you.
Then your behaviour will
make a dignified impression on outsiders
and thou wilt not be dependent on anyone.

INTERLUDIUM         Ps. 98(97), 1, 7-8, 9

Righteously God governs the world,
the nations with equity.

Sing to the Lord a new song
because He did wonders.
His hand asserted itself powerfully,
the power of His holy arm.

The sea consented with all its beasts,
the earth with all that lives there;
the streams gurgle with approval,
the mountains jubilate along.

They greet the Lord, who comes near,
who approaches as King of the Earth.
Righteously He rules the world,
the nations with equity.

ALLELUIA            Ps. 95(94),8ab

Alleluia.
Listen today to the voice of the Lord
and be not obstinate.
Alleluia.

GOSPEL               Mt 25:14-30

Because ye were faithful over little :
Enter into the joy of the Lord.

At that time, Jesus spoke to his disciples in parables.
He said:
‘It shall be with the kingdom of heaven
as with the man
who, on leaving for a foreign country
called his servants to him
to entrust them with his property.
To one he gave five talents,
to another two,
to a third one,
each according to his ability.
Then he left.
He who had received the five talents
immediately went to work with them and earned five more.
Likewise, the one who received the two
earned two more.
But the one who got the one
went to dig a hole in the ground
and hide his lord’s money.
A long time later, the lord of those servants came back
and held reckoning with them.
The one who had received five talents stepped forward
and offered five more talents saying:
Lord, five talents hast thou entrusted to me;
behold, five talents I have earned with it.
His master spoke to him:
Excellent, good and faithful servant,
over little art thou faithful, over much will I appoint thee.
Enter into the joy of thy lord.
Now the one of the two talents stepped forward and said:
Lord, two talents hast thou entrusted to me;
behold, two talents have I earned with it.
His master spoke to him:
Excellent, good and faithful servant,
over little art thou faithful, over much will I appoint thee.
Enter into the joy of thy lord.
Finally
also he who had received the one talent stepped forward and said:
Lord, I have experienced that thou art a hard man,
who reaps where thou hast not sown
and reaps in where thou hast not scattered.
Therefore I was afraid
and went to hide thy talent in the ground.
Here thou hast thy property back.
But his master answered him:
Poor and lazy servant,
so you knew that I reap where I have not sown
and bring in where I have not sown?
That is why you should have deposited my money with the bankers
then when I arrived
i would have recovered my property with interest.
So take that talent away from him
and give it to whoever has the ten talents.
For to every one who has will be given,
even be given in abundance;
but he who has not,
even what he has will be taken away from him.
And cast that unprofitable servant out into the darkness;
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

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Laudato Si

Encyclical of

POPE FRANCISCUS

On caring for the common home

98. Jesus lived in complete harmony with creation and the others
were amazed: “What kind of person is that, that even the winds and the
sea obey Him?” (Mat 8:27). He did not appear as an ascetic separated from the
world-divorced ascetic or as an enemy of the pleasant things of
life. Referring to Himself, He said, “Look, that glutton and
wine drinker” (Mat 11:19). He was far removed from the philosophies that were the
body, matter and the things of this world despised. Yet
these unhealthy dualisms had a considerable influence over the centuries
on some Christian thinkers and disfigured the gospel. Jesus
worked with his hands and was in daily contact with God’s
created matter to shape it with his skill as a craftsman
shape it. It should be noted here that most of the
part of his life was devoted to this effort to shape a simple
existence that did not arouse any surprise: “Is that not the
carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mar. 6:3). Thus He sanctified the work
sanctified and endowed it with special value for our maturation. The
saint John Paul II taught that “when man through in union
with Christ crucified for us, endures the effort of the work
endures, he collaborates in a sense with the Son of God in the
redemption of mankind”.