Thursday – St Peter Chrysologus, birth and canonisation

Consideration
Every human endeavour comes from God himself. The prophet Jeremiah chooses an image that closely mirrors the creation story in the Book of Genesis. He speaks of clay or loam. Just like loam, human beings can slip from God’s moulding hands. A potter may work on a pot for a long time only to realise that it has taken the wrong shape, or is not as he intended. Instead of letting this discourage him, he takes a new lump of clay and starts afresh. So it is with God and us: He continues to hold us in His hands, and waits with infinite patience until we are ready to allow ourselves to be remade. But there is also a certain threat in Jeremiah’s comparison. Just as the craftsman can destroy his work and start afresh in a different way, so too, if Israel refuses to allow itself to be moulded by Him, God could start afresh with another people.

FIRST READING                Jer. 18:1–6
Like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

From the Prophet Jeremiah

This word of the Lord came to Jeremiah:
“Go to the potter’s house.
“There I will let you hear what I have to say.”
I went to the potter’s house.
He was just working at the potter’s wheel.
When the pot he was shaping
failed in his hands,
he began to make another pot from the clay,
which pleased him.
Then the word of the Lord came to me:
“House of Israel,
may I not deal with you as this potter does?
—so says the Lord—?
“Like clay in the potter’s hand,
so are you in my hand, O House of Israel.”

Interludium                      Ps . 146(145), 2abc, 2d–4, 5–6

Blessed are those who seek help from the God of Jacob.

I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing of my God all my days.

Do not put your trust in any ruler, for he is but a man like us;
he cannot bestow happiness.
One day he will breathe his last, return to the earth,
and his power will be no more.

Blessed are those who seek help from the God of Jacob,
who place their hope in the Lord God;
in Him who made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that lives therein.

ALLELUIA                  Ps. 119(118), 88

Alleluia.
Have mercy on me and let me live, O Lord,
then I shall remain faithful to what You have ordained.
Alleluia.

GOSPEL                         Mt . 13:47–53
The good fish were sorted out and placed in baskets,
the bad ones were thrown away.

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

At that time, Jesus said to the crowd:
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet
which, when cast into the sea,
gathered fish of every kind.
“When it was full, they hauled it ashore;
they sat down
to sort out the good fish and put them into baskets,
but the bad ones were thrown away.
“So it will be at the end of the world:
the angels will go out
to separate the wicked from the righteous
and throw them into the fiery furnace.
“There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
“Have you understood all this?”
They replied to Him:
“Yes.”
He said to them:
“Therefore, every scribe
who has been trained for the Kingdom of Heaven,
is like a householder
who brings out of his treasure things both new and old.”

When Jesus had finished these parables,
He went on from there.

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Laudato Si

 Encyclical of

POPE FRANCIS

 On Care for Our Common Home

192. A path towards a more creative and better-targeted development of production could, for example, redress the imbalance between excessive technological investment in consumption and scant investment in resolving the urgent
problems facing humanity; 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 vast opportunities to create and innovate, whilst protecting the environment and creating more jobs. This would be a form of creativity capable of allowing the
nobility of humankind to flourish once more, because it demonstrates greater dignity in using reason with courage and responsibility to find,
within the framework of a broader conception of quality of life,
forms of sustainable and just development.
Conversely, it demonstrates less dignity and creativity, and a greater degree of superficiality, to continue creating forms of plundering of nature, solely to offer new opportunities for consumption and immediate returns.

To be continued
Every day at 1 am