Invitation
May I draw your attention to:
the daily reading of the Gospel?
This invitation aims to share with you the joy of the Gospel. Everyone, without exception,
can experience that joy by opening their hearts
to the healing power of God’s word.
Available every day
Consideration
Peter gives the church in Jerusalem the official account of the first admission of a Gentile into the church. Typical of Luke is the description that Peter goes to Joppa of his own accord – which was a Jewish city. To Caesarea, the non-Jewish city, he is ‘called’: for Luke, God is at work there. Throughout the entire book of Acts, it will always be clear that Luke attaches great importance to the working of God’s Spirit, who guides the church and its ministers.
First Reading Acts 11, 1-18
God has also granted the Gentiles repentance leading to life.
that the Gentiles too had accepted the word of God.
When Peter then came to Jerusalem,
the believers from among the circumcised reproached him, saying:
“You have entered the house of uncircumcised men
and have eaten with them.”
Then Peter began to explain the matter to them in detail:
“I was,”
he said,
“praying in the town of Joppa
when, in a trance, I saw a vision:
an object, shaped like a large sheet,
being lowered from heaven by its four corners,
descended from heaven and came right up to me.
“I looked at it intently
and saw four-footed animals,
wild beasts, creeping things and birds.
“Moreover, I heard a voice saying to me:
‘Come on, Peter, slaughter and eat.’
“But I said:
‘By no means, Lord,
for nothing unholy or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’
“But the voice from heaven spoke a second time
and answered me:
‘Do not call unholy
what God has declared clean.’
“This happened three times,
and then everything was drawn up into heaven again.
“Immediately afterwards, three men arrived at the house where we were staying;
they had been sent to me from Caesarea.
“The Spirit told me
to go with them without hesitation.
“These six brothers also went with me;
and we entered the man’s house.
“He told us
how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said:
Send someone to Joppa
to fetch Simon, called Peter.
“He will tell you
how you and your whole household may be saved.
“I had just begun to speak,
when the Holy Spirit came upon them,
just as He had come upon us at the beginning.
“Then I remembered the Lord’s words,
how He had said:
John baptised with water,
but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.
“If God has now granted them the same gift as He did to us,
who had already believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,
how could I possibly have stood in God’s way?”
When they heard this,
they were reassured,
and they glorified God, saying:
“So then, God has granted the Gentiles, too,
the conversion that leads to life.”
Responsorial Ps. 42(41), 2-3; Ps. 43(42), 3, 4
My soul thirsts for God, the living God.
Alleluia
As a deer longs for streams of water,
so my spirit longs for You, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, the living God,
shall I ever reach Him and see His face?
Send me Your light, Your guidance to lead me,
to bring me to Your mountain and into Your tent.
Then I will go to Your altar, God who gives joy,
and praise You with the harp, God, my God.
Alleluia John 10, 14
Alleluia.
I am the good shepherd, says the Lord.
I know My own and My own know Me.
Alleluia
Gospel John 10, 1-10
I am the gate for the sheep.
At that time, Jesus said:
“Truly, truly, I say to you:
whoever does not enter the sheepfold
through the gate, but by another way,
he is a thief and a robber.
But whoever enters through the gate
is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the gatekeeper opens.
The sheep listen to his voice;
he calls the sheep by name and leads them out.
And when he has brought all his sheep out,
he goes ahead of them,
and they follow him because they know his voice.
A stranger, however, they will not follow;
on the contrary, they will flee from him
because they do not know the voice of strangers.”
Jesus told them this parable,
but they did not understand what He was saying to them.
On another occasion, Jesus said to them:
“Truly, truly, I say to you:
I am the gate for the sheep.
All who have come before me
are thieves and robbers,
but the sheep have not listened to them.
I am the gate.
If anyone enters through me,
he will be saved;
he will go in and out and find pasture.
The thief comes only to steal,
to slaughter and to destroy.
I have come that they may have life,
and have it in abundance.
199a GOSPEL John 10, 11-18
In the years when the A-cycle is followed on Sundays,
this reading is used:
The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.
From the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
John
At that time, Jesus said:
I am the good shepherd.
“The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.
“But the hired hand,
who is not a shepherd and does not own the sheep,
sees the wolf coming,
abandons the sheep and runs away;
the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
“He is, after all, only a hired hand;
he has no heart for the sheep.
“I am the Good Shepherd.
“I know my own and my own know me,
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
“I lay down my life for the sheep.
“I have other sheep as well,
who are not of this sheepfold.
“I must lead them too,
and they will listen to my voice,
and there will be one flock, one shepherd.
“This is why the Father loves Me,
because I lay down My life,
only to take it up again.
“No one takes it from Me,
but I lay it down of My own accord.
“I have the power to lay it down,
and the power to take it up again:
that is the commission I have received from My Father.”
_________________________________________________-
Laudato Si
Encyclical of
Pope Francis
On care for our common home
98. Jesus lived in complete harmony with creation, and the others
were amazed: “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the
sea obey him?” (Matt. 8:27). He did not appear as an ascetic separated
from the world or as an enemy of the pleasant things of life.
Referring to himself, he said: “Look, that glutton and wine-drinker” (Matt. 11:19).
He stood far removed from the philosophies that despised the
body, matter and the things of this world.
Yet, over the centuries, these unhealthy dualisms have had a considerable influence
on some Christian thinkers and have distorted the Gospel. Jesus
worked with his hands and was in daily contact with the matter created by God,
shaping it with his skill as a craftsman. It should be noted here that the greater
part of his life was devoted to this endeavour to shape a simple
existence that aroused no wonder whatsoever: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mark 6:3).
In this way, He has sanctified work and conferred a special value upon it for our spiritual growth.
Saint John Paul II taught that “when, in union with Christ who was crucified for us,
a person endures the toil of work, he cooperates in a certain sense with the Son of God
in the redemption of humanity.
To be continued
Every day at 1 am
The Bible text in this edition is taken fromThe New Bible Translation,
©Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap 2004/2007.
Reflections from Liturgical Suggestions for Weekdays and Sundays
Laudato Si Official english translation
| The Bible text in this edition is taken from | The New Bible Translation, © Dutch Bible Society 2004/2007. |