Saturday – St Elizabeth of Portugal – Our Lady on Saturday

Invitation

May I take this opportunity to 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

In Holy Scripture, a wedding is a messianic image. A wedding feast is refreshing, rejuvenating and renewing. It is full of the future. It is a new beginning. This is what the Lord also wishes to bring about with his people. To begin anew time and again, to receive joy, to bestow joy. We are invited to play our part in this.

FIRST READING           Amos 9:11–15

I will restore my people Israel,
and I will plant them in their own land.

From the Prophet Amos

Thus says the Lord:
“On that day I will restore the ruined hut of David,
I will repair its breaches,
I will raise up what has been torn down,
and I will rebuild it as in days of old.
“What remains of Edom,
and of all the nations over which my Name has been proclaimed,
they shall then take possession of it,”
– so says the Lord, who will bring this to pass.
“Behold, the days are coming – says the Lord –
when the ploughman shall follow the reaper,
and the treader of grapes the sower,
the mountains shall flow with new wine,
and all the hills shall drip with it.
“Then I will restore my people Israel
to their former state;
they shall rebuild the ruined cities and dwell in them again;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine;
they shall plant orchards and eat their fruit.
“I will plant them in their own land
and they shall no longer be uprooted
from the land I have given them.”
Thus says the Lord, your God.

INTERLUDIUM   Ps. 85(84), 9, 11–12, 13–14

I will listen to what God says to me,
surely a word of reconciliation.

I will listen to what God says to me,
surely a word of reconciliation.
A word for his people, for all who serve him,
for everyone who opens their heart to Him.

When faithfulness and mercy meet,
when peace and justice embrace one another;
then faithfulness shall spring up from the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven.

Then the Lord will bestow his blessing upon us,
and our land will yield abundant fruit.
Then righteousness will go before him,
and prosperity will follow in his footsteps.

ALLELUIA    Ps . 19(18), 9

Alleluia.
Your precepts, O Lord, are trustworthy,
they make the ignorant wise.
Alleluia.

GOSPEL            Mt . 9:14–17

Surely the friends of the bridegroom cannot be in mourning
whilst the bridegroom is with them?

From the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Matthew

One day,
the disciples of John came to Jesus and asked:
“Why do we and the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not?”
Jesus said to them:
“Surely the friends of the bridegroom
cannot be in mourning
whilst the bridegroom is with them?
“The time will come
when the bridegroom is taken from them;
then they will fast.
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth
onto an old garment;
for the patch pulls away from the garment,
and the tear becomes even worse.
“Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins;
otherwise the wineskins burst,
the wine runs out and the wineskins are ruined.
“But new wine is put into new wineskins;
then both are preserved.”