Twenty-fifth Sunday through the year

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

The Lord lifts the powerless from the dust
and takes the poor away from the rubbish heaps
to place them in the circle of princes.
The tone of the response psalm is clear:
God is on the side of those who live in poverty
and frees all those who are oppressed.
The Gospel challenges us to be like God,
to be a reliable support to those who are struggling.
At the beginning of peace week
we therefore feel deeply connected in this hour
to all those living and growing up in war-torn areas.
Let us urgently pray to God
for peace and unity among all peoples.

FIRST READING            Am 8, 4-7
Against those who sell the little man for money.

Hear, ye who oppress the poor
and cast out the miserable in the land,
ye who reason: When is the new moon over?
then we can sell our wheat!
And when the Sabbath?
then we can put out our grain.
Then we reduce the grain,
then we raise the price
and cheat with a counterfeit scale.
Then we buy the little man for money,
the poor for a pair of shoes,
and we trade even the waste of our wheat.
The LORD has sworn by the glory of Jacob:
None of their deeds will I ever forget!

Responsorial           Ps. 113(112), 1-2, 5-6, 7-8

Refrain
Praise the Lord, who exalts the little man.

Praise now, servants of the Lord,
praise the name of the Lord.
The name of the Lord be praised
today and for ever.

Who is like the Lord our God,
seated high above the stars?
Who oversees from on high
the firmament and the earth.

Who lifts the powerless from the dust,
snatches from rubbish heaps the poor.
To place them in the circle of princes,
amidst the mighty of his people.

SECOND READING                   I Tim. 2, 1-8
For all people are prayed to God, who wants all people to be saved.

Dear one,

Before anything else, I ask you
prayers, supplications, intercessions and thanksgivings
for all men, for kings and all high places
so that we may live an undisturbed and peaceful
live a godly and dignified life in all respects.
This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour
who wants all men to be saved
and come to the knowledge of the truth.
For God is one,
one is also the mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus
who gave Himself as a ransom for all:
At the appointed time He gave His testimony.
And of this I am appointed herald and apostle
– I speak the truth, I do not lie –
to instruct the nations in the true faith.
So I want
that in every place where the congregation meets to pray
men raise their hands in a spirit of godliness
which excludes hatred and strife.

Verse for the gospel                  2 Cor. 8,9

Alleluia.
Jesus became poor while He was rich,
that ye might become rich through His poverty.
Alleluia.

GOSPEL                 Lk 16:1-13

Thou canst not serve God and mammon.

At that time, Jesus spoke to his disciples:
“Once upon a time there was a rich man. He had a steward
who was charged to him for squandering his property.
So he called him and asked:
What do I hear from you there?
Give account of thy stewardship,
for thou canst no longer remain steward.
Then the steward reasoned to himself:
What shall I do now that my lord is taking away my stewardship?
I cannot dig, and beg: For that I am ashamed.
I already know what I will do,
so that after my dismissal as steward, I may find shelter.
He summoned his lord’s debtors, one by one,
and said to the first:
How much do you owe to my master?
The latter replied:
One hundred barrels of oil.
But he said:
Here you have your confession of debt;
sit down quickly and write: fifty.
Thereupon he asked a second one:
And how much do ye owe?
This one answered:
One hundred measures of wheat.
He said to him:
Here is your confession; write eighty.
The lord praised it in the unjust steward
that he had acted with deliberation,
for the children of this world
act among themselves with more deliberation
than the children of light.
So I say to you also:
Make your friends through the unrighteous mammon,
so that they – when it comes to take you away –
take you into the eternal tents.
He who is trustworthy in the smallest
is trustworthy also in the great;
and he who is unjust in the smallest
is also unjust in the great.
Art thou therefore not trustworthy
concerning the unjust mammon,
who then will trust thee with the true good?
If thou hast not been trustworthy
in managing another’s good ,
who will then give thee what thou canst call thine own?
No servant can serve two lords,
for he will then hate the one and love the other,
or adhere to the one and despise the other.
Thou canst not serve God and mammon.”

__________________________________________________

Laudato Si

Encyclical of

POPE FRANCISCUS

On caring for the common home

120. Because everything is in relation, the defence of nature is
also incompatible with the justification of abortion. An educational
method that leads to the acceptance of those around us who are weak,
which are sometimes inconvenient or disturbing, does not seem practicable, when one offers a
human embryo no protection, even though its arrival
brings inconvenience and difficulties: “If the personal and
social sense for the acceptance of a new life is lost, then
wither also other forms of acceptance useful for social life.

To be continued
Every day at 1 am