22ND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) – SEPTEMBER 01, 2013

Saturday, August 31, 2013 

22^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C

5:30 pm  Novena to Our Lady 

6:00 pm  Sunset Mass in English

First Reading 

SIRACH 3:17-18, 20, 28-29

17 My child, be gentle in carrying out your business, and you will be better loved than a lavish giver.

18 The greater you are, the more humbly you should behave, and then you will find favour with the Lord;

20 for great though the power of the Lord is, he accepts the homage of the humble.

28 For the disease of the proud there is no cure, since an evil growth has taken root there.

29 The heart of the sensible will reflect on parables, an attentive ear is the sage's dream.

“The Word of the Lord”

PSALMS 68:4-7, 10-11

4 Sing to God, play music to his name, build a road for the Rider of the Clouds, rejoice in Yahweh, dance before him.

5 Father of orphans, defender of widows, such is God in his holy dwelling.

6 God gives the lonely a home to live in, leads prisoners out into prosperity, but rebels must live in the bare wastelands.

7 God, when you set out at the head of your people, when you strode over the desert,

10 Your family found a home, which you in your generosity provided for the humble.

11 The Lord gave a command, the good news of a countless army.

Second Reading 

HEBREWS 12:18-19, 22-24

18 What you have come to is nothing known to the senses: not a blazing fire, or gloom or total darkness, or a storm;

19 or trumpet-blast or the sound of a voice speaking which made everyone that heard it beg that no more should be said to them.

22 But what you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival,

23 with the whole Church of first-born sons, enrolled as citizens of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and to the spirits of the upright who have been made perfect;

24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to purifying blood which pleads more insistently than Abel's.

“The Word of the Lord”

Gospel Reading 

LUKE 14:1, 7-14

1 Now it happened that on a Sabbath day he had gone to share a meal in the house of one of the leading Pharisees; and they watched him closely.

7 He then told the guests a parable, because he had noticed how they picked the places of honour. He said this,

8 'When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take your seat in the place of honour. A more distinguished person than you may have been invited,

9 and the person who invited you both may come and say, "Give up your place to this man." And then, to your embarrassment, you will have to go and take the lowest place.

10 No; when you are a guest, make your way to the lowest place and sit there, so that, when your host comes, he may say, "My friend, move up higher." Then, everyone with you at the table will see you honoured.

11 For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be raised up.'

12 Then he said to his host, 'When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relations or rich neighbours, in case they invite you back and so repay you.

13 No; when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;

14 then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you and so you will be repaid when the upright rise again.'

“The Gospel of the Lord”

21ST SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) – AUGUST 25, 2013

Saturday, August 24, 2013 

21^st Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C

5:30 pm  Novena to Our Lady 

6:00 pm  Sunset Mass in English

First Reading 

ISAIAH 66:18-21

18  I am coming to gather every nation and every language. They will come to witness my glory.

19  I shall give them a sign and send some of their survivors to the nations: to Tarshish, Put, Lud, Meshech, Tubal and Javan, to the distant coasts and islands that have never heard of me or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory to the nations,

20  and from all the nations they will bring all your brothers as an offering to Yahweh, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules and on camels, to my holy mountain, Jerusalem, Yahweh says, like Israelites bringing offerings in clean vessels to Yahweh's house.

21  And some of them I shall make into priests and Levites, Yahweh says.

“The Word of the Lord”

PSALMS 117:1-2

1  Alleluia! Praise Yahweh, all nations, extol him, all peoples,

2  for his faithful love is strong and his constancy never-ending.

Second Reading 

HEBREWS 12:5-7, 11-13

5  Have you forgotten that encouraging text in which you are addressed as sons? My son, do not scorn correction from the Lord, do not resent his training,

6  for the Lord trains those he loves, and chastises every son he accepts.

7  Perseverance is part of your training; God is treating you as his sons. Has there ever been any son whose father did not train him?

11  Of course, any discipline is at the time a matter for grief, not joy; but later, in those who have undergone it, it bears fruit in peace and uprightness.

12  So steady all weary hands and trembling knees

13  and make your crooked paths straight; then the injured limb will not be maimed, it will get better instead.

“The Word of the Lord”

Gospel Reading 

LUKE 13:22-30

22  Through towns and villages he went teaching, making his way to Jerusalem.

23  Someone said to him, 'Sir, will there be only a few saved?' He said to them,

24  'Try your hardest to enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed.

25  'Once the master of the house has got up and locked the door, you may find yourself standing outside knocking on the door, saying, "Lord, open to us," but he will answer, "I do not know where you come from."

26  Then you will start saying, "We once ate and drank in your company; you taught in our streets,"

27  but he will reply, "I do not know where you come from; away from me, all evil doers!"

28  'Then there will be weeping and grinding of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrown out.

29  And people from east and west, from north and south, will come and sit down at the feast in the kingdom of God.

30  'Look, there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.'

“The Gospel of the Lord”

20TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) – AUGUST 18, 2013

Saturday, August 17, 2013 

20^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C

5:30 pm  Novena to Our Lady 

6:00 pm  Sunset Mass in English

First Reading

JEREMIAH 38:4-6, 8-10

4  The chief men then said to the king, 'You must have this man put to death: he is unquestionably disheartening the remaining soldiers in the city, and all the people too, by talking like this. This man is seeking not the welfare of the people but their ruin.'

5  King Zedekiah answered, 'He is in your hands as you know, for the king is powerless to oppose you.'

6  So they took Jeremiah and put him into the storage-well of the king's son Malchiah in the Court of the Guard, letting him down with ropes. There was no water in the storage-well, only mud, and into the mud Jeremiah sank.

8  Ebed-Melech came out from the palace and spoke to the king.

9  'My lord king,' he said, 'these men have done a wicked thing by treating the prophet Jeremiah like this: they have thrown him into the storage-well. He will starve to death there, since there is no more food in the city.'

10  At this the king gave Ebed-Melech the Cushite the following order: 'Take thirty men with you from here and pull the prophet Jeremiah out of the storage-well before he dies.'

“The Word of the Lord”

PSALMS 40:2-4, 18

2  [For the choirmaster Of David Psalm] I waited, I waited for Yahweh, then he stooped to me and heard my cry for help.

3  He pulled me up from the seething chasm, from the mud of the mire. He set my feet on rock, and made my footsteps firm.

4  He put a fresh song in my mouth, praise of our God. Many will be awestruck at the sight, and will put their trust in Yahweh.

18  Poor and needy as I am, the Lord has me in mind. You, my helper, my Saviour, my God, do not delay.

Second Reading 

HEBREWS 12:1-4

1  With so many witnesses in a great cloud all around us, we too, then, should throw off everything that weighs us down and the sin that clings so closely, and with perseverance keep running in the race which lies ahead of us.

2  Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which lay ahead of him, he endured the cross, disregarding the shame of it, and has taken his seat at the right of God's throne.

3  Think of the way he persevered against such opposition from sinners and then you will not lose heart and come to grief.

4  In the fight against sin, you have not yet had to keep fighting to the point of bloodshed.

“The Word of the Lord”

Gospel Reading 

LUKE 12:49-53

49  'I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already!

50  There is a baptism I must still receive, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!

51  'Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

52  For from now on, a household of five will be divided: three against two and two against three;

53  father opposed to son, son to father, mother to daughter, daughter to mother, mother-in-law to daughter-in-law, daughter-in-law to mother-in-law.'

“The Gospel of the Lord”

19TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) – AUGUST 11, 2013

Saturday, August 10, 2013 

19^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C

5:30 pm  Novena to Our Lady 

6:00 pm  Sunset Mass in English

First Reading 

WISDOM 18:6-9

6 That night had been known in advance to our ancestors, so that, well knowing him in whom they had put their trust, they would be sure of his promises.

7 Your people thus were waiting both for the rescue of the upright and for the ruin of the enemy;

8 for by the very vengeance that you exacted on our adversaries, you glorified us by calling us to you.

9 So the holy children of the good offered sacrifice in secret and with one accord enacted this holy law: that the holy ones should share good things and dangers alike; and forthwith they chanted the hymns of the ancestors.

“The Word of the Lord”

PSALMS 33:1, 12, 18-20, 22

1 Shout for joy, you upright; praise comes well from the honest.

12 How blessed the nation whose God is Yahweh, the people he has chosen as his heritage.

18 But see how Yahweh watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his faithful love,

19 to rescue them from death and keep them alive in famine.

20 We are waiting for Yahweh; he is our help and our shield,

22 Yahweh, let your faithful love rest on us, as our hope has rested in you.

Second Reading 

HEBREWS 11:1-2, 8-19

1 Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of realities that are unseen.

2 It is for their faith that our ancestors are acknowledged.

8 It was by faith that Abraham obeyed the call to set out for a country that was the inheritance given to him and his descendants, and that he set out without knowing where he was going.

9 By faith he sojourned in the Promised Land as though it were not his, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

10 He looked forward to the well-founded city, designed and built by God.

11 It was equally by faith that Sarah, in spite of being past the age, was made able to conceive, because she believed that he who had made the promise was faithful to it.

12 Because of this, there came from one man, and one who already had the mark of death on him, descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore which cannot be counted.

13 All these died in faith, before receiving any of the things that had been promised, but they saw them in the far distance and welcomed them, recognising that they were only strangers and nomads on earth.

14 People who use such terms about themselves make it quite plain that they are in search of a homeland.

15 If they had meant the country they came from, they would have had the opportunity to return to it;

16 but in fact they were longing for a better homeland, their heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, since he has founded the city for them.

17 It was by faith that Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He offered to sacrifice his only son even though he had yet to receive what had been promised,

18 and he had been told: Isaac is the one through whom your name will be carried on.

19 He was confident that God had the power even to raise the dead; and so, figuratively speaking, he was given back Isaac from the dead.

“The Word of the Lord”

Gospel Reading 

LUKE 12:32-48

32 'There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.

33 'Sell your possessions and give to those in need. Get yourselves purses that do not wear out, treasure that will not fail you, in heaven where no thief can reach it and no moth destroy it.

34 For wherever your treasure is, that is where your heart will be too.

35 'See that you have your belts done up and your lamps lit.

36 Be like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks.

37 Blessed those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. In truth I tell you, he will do up his belt, sit them down at table and wait on them.

38 It may be in the second watch that he comes, or in the third, but blessed are those servants if he finds them ready.

39 You may be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what time the burglar would come, he would not have let anyone break through the wall of his house.

40 You too must stand ready, because the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.'

41 Peter said, 'Lord, do you mean this parable for us, or for everyone?'

42 The Lord replied, 'Who, then, is the wise and trustworthy steward whom the master will place over his household to give them at the proper time their allowance of food?

43 Blessed that servant if his master's arrival finds him doing exactly that.

44 I tell you truly, he will put him in charge of everything that he owns.

45 But if the servant says to himself, "My master is taking his time coming," and sets about beating the menservants and the servant-girls, and eating and drinking and getting drunk,

46 his master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know. The master will cut him off and send him to the same fate as the unfaithful.

47 'The servant who knows what his master wants, but has got nothing ready and done nothing in accord with those wishes, will be given a great many strokes of the lash.

48 The one who did not know, but has acted in such a way that he deserves a beating, will be given fewer strokes. When someone is given a great deal, a great deal will be demanded of that person; when someone is entrusted with a great deal, of that person even more will be expected.

“The Gospel of the Lord”