Franciscan monk from Italy
Born on 8 September 1380
Died on 20 May 1444
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 heart
to the healing power of God’s word.
Available every day
Consideration
The reading gives pause for thought. How fickle is the human heart. Jesus was welcomed triumphantly into Jerusalem and crucified a few days later. Paul and Barnabas are worshipped as gods by the crowd and stoned a short time later. The servant is no better than the master. How close glory and scorn lie to one another, yet the apostles are not bent on their own fame. The great message of the entire missionary journey is reported to the congregation upon their return: He has opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
FIRST READING Acts 14, 19–28
They recounted all that God had accomplished through their ministry.
From the Acts of the Apostles
In those days, some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium,
who stirred up the people.
So they stoned Paul,
and dragged him outside the city,
thinking he was dead.
But when the disciples gathered round him,
he got up and returned to the city.
The next day he set out with Barnabas for Derbe.
After they had preached the gospel in that city
and gained many disciples,
they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch.
There they strengthened the disciples in their faith,
They travelled through Pisidia to Pamphylia,
proclaimed the word in Perga
and reached Attalia.
From there they sailed to Antioch,
from whence,
commended to God’s grace,
they had set out to complete the work they had begun.
Upon their arrival, they called the congregation together;
and told everyone
what God had accomplished through their ministry;
and how He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
They remained there with the disciples for some time.
RESPONSORIAL Ps. 145(144), 10-11, 12-13ab, 21
Your works, O Lord,
make Your power known to the people.
or: Alleluia.
Your works shall praise You, O Lord,
Your faithful shall praise You.
They praise the glory of Your reign,
They proclaim Your power.
They make Your power known to the people,
the splendour of Your kingdom.
Your kingdom is a kingdom for all time,
Your reign is for all generations.
My mouth sings the praise of the Lord,
and all that lives praises His Name for ever.
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 14, 27-31a
My peace I give to you.
From the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
John
At that time, Jesus said to his disciples:
“Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled, nor let them be disheartened.
You have heard me say:
I am going away, but I will come back to you.
If you love me,
you will rejoice that I am going to the Father,
for the Father is greater than I.
Now, before it happens, I tell you this
so that when it does happen, you may believe.
I have much more to say to you,
but the ruler of this world is coming.
He can do nothing to me,
but the world must know that I love the Father
and that I do what He has commanded me.”
________________________________
Laudato Si’
Encyclical of
Pope Francis
On care for our common home.
II. The globalisation of the technocratic paradigm
106. The fundamental problem is another, even deeper issue,
namely the way in which humanity has, in fact, linked technology and
its development to a homogeneous and one-dimensional paradigm.
In such a paradigm, a conception of the subject emerges which,
within the logical-rational process, increasingly understands and thus possesses
the object situated outside itself. This subject
manifests itself through the establishment of the scientific method,
with its experiments, which is already explicitly a technique of possession, domination and alteration.
It is as if the subject were faced with a formless reality
that is entirely at the disposal of its manipulation.
Human intervention in nature has always taken place,
but for a long time this took the form of guidance, a
supporting of the possibilities offered by the things themselves. It
involved receiving what natural reality offers of its own accord.
In contrast, the focus is now on extracting everything possible
from things through human intervention, which tends to
reality itself. Consequently, humans and things have ceased to extend a friendly hand to one another and have thus become each other’s adversaries. From this, one easily arrives at the idea of unlimited and boundless growth, which has so enthused economists and theorists in the fields of finance and technology.
This presupposes the lie regarding the infinite availability of the planet’s resources,
which leads to ‘squeezing’ them to the limit and beyond. It concerns the false assumption that
‘there is an unlimited quantity of energy and usable resources,
that their immediate regeneration is possible, and that the negative
effects of manipulating nature can easily be compensated for”.
To be continued
Every day at 1 am
The Bible text in this edition is taken from The New Bible Translation,
© Dutch Bible Society 2004/2007.
Reflections from Liturgical Suggestions for Weekdays.
Laudato Si english translation