Wednesday in the thirty-first week of 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 exhortation continues. Paul lists the main commandments. The main debt we can owe to someone is love. Other debts have limits. Love does not and so that debt can never be paid off. What’s more: The whole law can be reduced to that one word: ‘Charity’.

FIRST READING                  Rom. 13:8-10
Love fulfils the whole law.

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

Brothers and sisters,

Take care that ye owe no one anything.
Your only debt remains mutual love.
He who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law.
For the commandments :
‘Thou shalt not commit adultery, nor kill, nor steal, nor covet,’
and all the others can be summed up in this one word :
‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’.
Love does no harm to the neighbour.
Love fulfils the whole law.

INTERLUDIUM                   Ps 112(111), 1-2, 4-5, 9

Well goes the man who gives away and borrows.
Alleluia.

Happy the man who is in awe of God,
who finds joy in his commandments.
His offspring will be mighty in the land,
blessed shall be the generation of the pious.

He is to the pious a light in the night,
beneficent, merciful, just.
Well goes the man who gives away and borrows,
who manages his affairs honestly.

With mildness he distributes to the poor,
he will never lose his righteousness.
His power and prestige increase continually ;
the sinner will look upon it with envy.

ALLELUIA                     John 10, 27

Alleluia.
My sheep listen to My voice, says the Lord ;
and I know them and they follow Me.
Alleluia.

GOSPEL                    Lk 14:25-33
None of you can be my disciple
if he does not detach himself from all that he possesses.

From the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke

When countless people went with Jesus
he turned and said to them :
“If anyone comes to Me ,
who leaves his father and mother, his wife and children,
his brothers and sisters,
yes even his own life,
he cannot be My disciple.
“If anyone does not carry 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 bring the work to completion –
that all who see it will mock him and say :
That man began to build ,
but he was unable to bring 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

175. The same logic, which makes it difficult to take drastic decisions
to reduce global warming does not make it possible to achieve the
eradication of poverty. We need a
global, more responsible response that simultaneously reduces
of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions
includes. While the 21st century maintains a management peculiar to
bygone eras, it is experiencing a loss of power of nation states,
especially as the economy and finance have a transnational
character that tends to dominate politics. In this context
the development of stronger and efficiently organised institutions becomes
indispensable, with powers determined impartially through
agreements between national governments and have the power
to impose sanctions. As Benedict XVI has said in the
line already developed by the Church’s social teaching: “To guide the world economy,
sanitise economies affected by the crisis, prevent a
worsening of the crisis and resulting imbalances, to
prevent, to achieve appropriate integral disarmament, security and peace
establish, to ensure environmental protection and to
regulate migratory flows, a truly political world authority is
necessary, as already outlined by my predecessor, Blessed Pope John XXIII
has already outlined”. In this perspective, diplomacy takes on an unprecedented importance
to promote international strategies that will prevent serious problems,which
will ultimately affect all.

To be continued
Every day at 1 am