22ND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) – AUGUST 28, 2016

Saturday, August  27, 2016

22^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C

5:00 pm  Novena to Our Lady

5:30 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 68:4-5, 6-7, 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

HEBREW 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 21, 2016

Saturday, August 20, 2016

21st Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C

5:00 pm  Novena to Our Lady

5:30 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

HEBREW 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”

SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY (YEAR C) – AUGUST 14, 2016

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary  – Year C

5:00 pm  Novena to Our Lady

5:30 pm  Sunset Mass in English

First Reading

REVELATION 11:19, 12:1-6, 10

19 Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it. Then came flashes of lightning, peals of thunder and an earthquake and violent hail.

1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

2 She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth.

3 Then a second sign appeared in the sky: there was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and each of the seven heads crowned with a coronet.

4 Its tail swept a third of the stars from the sky and hurled them to the ground, and the dragon stopped in front of the woman as she was at the point of giving birth, so that it could eat the child as soon as it was born.

5 The woman was delivered of a boy, the son who was to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre, and the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne,

6 while the woman escaped into the desert, where God had prepared a place for her to be looked after for twelve hundred and sixty days.

10 Then I heard a voice shout from heaven, 'Salvation and power and empire for ever have been won by our God, and all authority for his Christ, now that the accuser, who accused our brothers day and night before our God, has been brought down.

“The Word of the Lord”

PSALMS 44:10-12, 16

10 you leave us to fall back before the enemy, those who hate us plunder us at will.

11 You hand us over like sheep for slaughter, you scatter us among the nations,

12 you sell your people for a trifle and make no profit on the sale.

16 from the sound of insult and abuse, from the sight of hatred and vengefulness.

Second Reading

1 CORINTHIANS 15:20-26

20 In fact, however, Christ has been raised from the dead, as the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep.

21 As it was by one man that death came, so through one man has come the resurrection of the dead.

22 Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life;

23 but all of them in their proper order: Christ the first-fruits, and next, at his coming, those who belong to him.

24 After that will come the end, when he will hand over the kingdom to God the Father, having abolished every principality, every ruling force and power.

25 For he is to be king until he has made his enemies his footstool,

26 and the last of the enemies to be done away with is death, for he has put all things under his feet.

“The Word of the Lord”

Gospel Reading

LUKE 1:39-56

39 Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah.

40 She went into Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth.

41 Now it happened that as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

42 She gave a loud cry and said, 'Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

43 Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?

44 Look, the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy.

45 Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.'

46 And Mary said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord

47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;

48 because he has looked upon the humiliation of his servant. Yes, from now onwards all generations will call me blessed,

49 for the Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name,

50 and his faithful love extends age after age to those who fear him.

51 He has used the power of his arm, he has routed the arrogant of heart.

52 He has pulled down princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly.

53 He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty.

54 He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his faithful love

55 -according to the promise he made to our ancestors -- of his mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.

56 Mary stayed with her some three months and then went home.

“The Gospel of the Lord”

19TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) – AUGUST 07, 2016

Saturday, August 06, 2016

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C

5:00 pm  Novena to Our Lady

5:30 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, 18-19, 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,

21 for in him our heart rejoices, in his holy name we trust.

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’