Saturday – St Cecilia, mgd. and mar.

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
“When he thought he was going to die, he summoned all his friends and said to them, ‘Sleep has departed from my eyes and my heart is broken with grief. Now I remember all the evil I have done to Jerusalem’. This then is the grace bestowed by God alone: man pays for committed sin and evil, but precisely because of it his heart is purified and he becomes a better man. Can we be patient with those who cause us harm? Do we give opportunities for repentance, or do we imprison others forever in the evil they did ? Let us become aware of our own brokenness and sin, and ask the Lord for his grace.

FIRST READING            I Makk. 6, 1-13

Because of all the evil I have done to Jerusalem,
i perish with grief and misery.

From the first Book of the Maccabees

In those days, King Antiochus heard
on his journey through the higher regions,
of a city in Elam in Persia,
which was famous for its wealth, its silver and gold.
Her temple had to be very rich
and in possession of gold shields,
helmets, breast armour and weapons
which the Macedonian king Alexander,
the son of Philip, the first king of the Greeks,
had left there.
King Antiochus therefore went there
and tried to take the city and plunder it,
but he did not succeed,
because his intention had become known to the inhabitants.
Armed, they resisted the king
and he had to flee.
Deeply disappointed, Antiochus returned to Babylon.
He was still in Persia,
when it was reported to him that the armies
that had gone to the land of Judah had been defeated ;
even Lysias, who had advanced at the head of a strong army,
had had to make way for the Jews.
The latter, because of their weapons, their force
and the great booty, gained on the defeated armies,
had become a formidable force.
The abomination he had set up on the altar of burnt offering
in Jerusalem had been erected,
they had torn down
and restored the high walls around the temple ;
they had also walled up his city of Bet-Sur.
When King Antiochus heard this, he stood aghast ;
violently shocked, he threw himself on his bed
and fell ill with grief,
because things had not gone his way, as he had desired.
So he lay there for many days
prey to repeated attacks of great melancholy.
When he thought he was going to die ,
he summoned all his friends and said to them :
“Sleep has departed from my eyes
and my heart is broken with distress.
“I said to myself :
What a torment my existence has become
and what a flood of suffering has come upon me,
while yet I was so mild and loved in spite of my power.
“But now I remember all the evil
that I have done to Jerusalem
by seizing all the silver and gold tableware
and by having the inhabitants of Judah exterminated without reason.
“That must be the reason why these calamities afflict me
and I perish from sorrow and misery on foreign soil.”

INTERLUDIUM                   Ps. 9, 2-3, 4, 6, 16b, 19

In the gate of Zion’s city I will praise You, Lord,
and rejoice for Your help.

You I will thank, Lord, from all my heart
and recount all Your wonders.
Rejoicing and elated at what Thou dost do
i want to sing Your Name, Most High.

For all my adversaries have fled,
stumbled and fell before Thy face.
The heathen Thou hast threatened,
struck down the sinners,
their name thou hast blotted out forever.

The heathen were cast into their own pit,
their foot came into the snare, which they spared me.
The poor remain not forgotten forever,
never is the hope of the needy shamed.

ALLELUIA                  I John 2, 5

Alleluia.
Whoever keeps the word of the Lord,
in Him truly is God’s love complete.
Alleluia.

GOSPEL                    Lk. 20, 27-40

The Lord is not a God of the dead but of the living.

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

In those days there came some of the Sadducees,
who denied the resurrection
came to Jesus asking :
“Master, we see written with Moses :
If anyone has a married brother who dies childless ,
then his brother must take his brother’s wife
to give to his brother an offspring.
“Now once there were seven brothers.
“The first one married and died childless.
“The second and the third took wives
and in the same way all seven died
without leaving children.
“The last also died the wife.
“Of which of them is she now the wife at the resurrection?
“Surely all seven had her for wife.”
Jesus spoke to them :
“The children of this world
marry and are given in marriage,
but those who are judged worthy
partake of the other world
and of the resurrection from the dead,
do not marry and are not given in marriage.
“For they can no longer die
because they are like angels ;
and, as children of the resurrection, they are children of God.
“That the dead are resurrected ,
moses also indicated
where it concerns the bramble,
in that he mentions the Lord:
’the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’.
“Surely the Lord is not a God of the dead but of the living
for before Him all are alive.”
Some of the scribes remarked :
“Master that Thou hast said well.”
They therefore no longer dared to ask Him anything more.

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Laudato Si

Encyclical of

POPE FRANCISCUS

On caring for the common home

192. A trajectory of more creative and better-oriented development
of production could, for example, correct the inequality between
excessive technological investment for consumption and scarce
investment for solving humanity’s pressing problems; it could
create sensible and profitable forms of reuse and recycling;
it could improve the energy efficiency of cities, and so on.
The diversification of production offers human reason very extensive opportunities to create and innovate, while protecting the environment and creating more jobs.
This would be a creativity capable of re-establishing the
nobility of man to flourish, because it shows more dignity
to use reason with courage and responsibility to
within the framework of a broader conception of quality of life
to find forms of sustainable and equitable development.
Conversely, it shows less dignity and creativity and a
greater superficiality, to continue creating forms of
plunder of nature just to provide new opportunities for
consumption and immediate returns.