Twenty-third Sunday through the year

Responsorial   Ps. 90(89), 3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17

Refrain
Thou, Lord, art always our refuge.

What is mortal perishes back to dust,
Thou sayest, “Return, child of Adam!”
To Thee a thousand years are one day,
as yesterday that is already past,
an hour of sleep in the night.

Our life breaks down like a dream in the morning,
briefly it is like grass on the field.
In the morning it germinates and sprouts,
in the evening it withers.

Teach us to value our days
and so come to wisdom of heart.
Let go, Lord, how long wilt thou torment us?
Surely be merciful to thy servants.

Give us plenty of Thy blessing in the morning,
then we rejoice in happiness all day long.
Thy glory, Lord God, may shine upon us,
guide our hands in all they do.

SECOND READING       Filem. 9b-10.12-17
Take him now not as a slave, but as a beloved brother.

Dear one,

It is Paul who writes to you, an old man,
now moreover a prisoner of Christ Jesus,
and my request applies to the child
whom I have won for the Lord here in prison,
i mean Onésimus.
I send him back to you
and with him all my love.
I would have liked to keep him here
as your deputy,
to take care of me
in my captivity for the gospel.
But I don’t want to do anything without your consent,
i don’t want to force anything:
Your goodness must be allowed to express itself spontaneously!
Perhaps that was the reason
why he was away from you for a time:
That you would get him back for good,
now no longer as a slave,
but as much more than a slave,
as a beloved brother.
To me, he is already all that,
how much more than to you,
as a man and as a Christian.
So if thou feel thyself bound to me,
welcome him as you would me.

Verse for the gospel            Ps 119(118), 135

Alleluia.
Let over thy servant thy countenance shine,
let me see your dispositions.
Alleluia.

GOSPEL          Lk. 14, 25-33
No one can be my disciple unless he detaches himself from all that he possesses.

At that time, countless people went with Jesus.
He turned around and said to them:
“If anyone comes to Me ,
that his father and mother, his wife and children,
his brothers and sisters,
yea even his own life does not esteem lower ,
he cannot be My disciple.
If anyone does not bear his cross and follow Me,
he cannot be My disciple.
If anyone of you wants to build a tower ,
will he not first
sit down in front of it to make a budget
whether he owns enough to complete it?
Otherwise it might happen to him
– if he has laid the foundation
and is unable to complete the work –
that all who see it will mock him and say:
That man began to build ,
but he was unable to reach the end.
Or what king will
– if he wants to go to war against another king –
will not first consider whether he is strong enough
to face with ten thousand men
to one who goes up against him with twenty thousand men?
If not,
then, if the opponent is still far away,
an envoy and asks for the terms of peace.
Thus none of you can be my disciple
if he does not detach himself from all that he possesses.”

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Laudato Si

Encyclical of

POPE FRANCISCUS

On caring for the common home

The globalisation of the technocratic paradigm
106. The fundamental problem is another, even deeper
problem, namely the way in which humankind has, in effect, been managing technology and
its development together with a homogeneous and one-dimensional
paradigm. In such a paradigm, a conception
about the subject emerges that increasingly in the logical-rational process
understands and thus possesses the object that is beyond it. This subject
manifests itself, by establishing the scientific method
with its experiments, which is already explicitly a technique of possession, domination
and change. It is as if the subject were facing a formless
reality that would be entirely at the disposal of its manipulation.
Man’s intervention in nature has always taken place,
but for a long time this has had the character of a guiding, a
support of the possibilities offered by things themselves. The
involved receiving that which natural reality of its own accord
offers. On the other hand, the interest is focused on taking everything possible
out of things through the intervention of man, who tends to ignore or forget the
reality itself to ignore or forget it. That is why man and
things have ceased to extend a friendly hand to each other and have thus become
become each other’s adversaries. From here, one easily arrives at the
idea of unlimited and limitless growth, which the economists, the theorists
in finance and technology have been so enthusiastic about.
This presupposes the lie about the infinite availability of the
goods of the planet, leading it to “squeeze them out” to the
border and beyond. It concerns the false assumption that
“there exists an unlimited amount of energy and usable resources ,
that its immediate regeneration is possible and that the negative
effects of manipulating nature can easily be
offset

To be continued
Every day at 1 am