Mass Readings - Sunday, 04th August 2019

FIRST READING
A reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes        1: 2. 2: 21-23
What does a man gain for all his toil?

Vanity of vanities, the Preacher says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!
For so it is that a man who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully
must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all.
This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil
and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious
days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.

The Word of the Lord



Responsorial. Psalm         Ps 89

Response : O Lord, you have been our refuge
from one generation to the next.

1, You turn men back into dust
and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night.                           Response

2. You sweep men away like a dream,
like grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
by evening it withers and fades.                               Response

3. Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.                                        Response

4 In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of our hands.                       Response


Alternative Responsorial Psalm         Ps 94:1-2,6-9,Rv 7-8

Response: O that today you would listen to his voice!
‘Harden not your hearts

1. Come ring out our joy to the Lord;
hail the rock who saves us.
Let us come before him, giving thanks,
with songs let us hail the Lord.                                     Response

2. Come in; let us bow and bend low;
let us kneel before the God who made us
for he is our God and we
the people who belong to his pasture,
the flock that is led by his hand.                                    Response

3. O that today you would listen to his voice!
‘Harden not your hearts at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah in the desert
when your fathers put me to the test;
when they tried me, though they saw my work.            Response
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SECOND READING
A reading from the second letter of St Paul to the Colossians 3:1-5. 9-11
You must look to the things that are in heaven, Where Christ is.

Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look
for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right
hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are
on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden
with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you
too will be revealed in all your glory with him.
That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly
life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed,
which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each
other lies. You have stripped off your old behaviour with your old self, and
you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge
the more it is renewed in the image of its creator; and in that image there
is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the
circumcised or the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian,
slave and free man. There is only Christ. he is everything and he is in
everything.

The Word of the Lord


Gospel Acclamation Jn 17: 17

Alleluia, alleluia!
Your word is truth, O Lord,
consecrate us in the truth.
Alleluia!

Or Mt 5: 3

Alleluia, alleluia!
How happy are the poor in spirit;
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Alleluia!



GOSPEL
A reading from the Gospel according to Luke 12: 13-21
This hoard of yours, whose will it be?

A man in the crowd said to him, ‘Master, tell my brother to give me a
share of our inheritance.’ ‘My friend,’ he replied-‘who appointed me your
judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch, and
be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made
secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.’
Then he told them a parable: ‘There was once a rich man who, having
had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I
have not enough room to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I
will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my
grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have
plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy,
eat, drink, have a good time.” But God said to him, “Fool! This very night
the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose
will it be then?” So it is when a man stores up treasure for himself in
place of making himself rich in the sight of God.’

The Gospel of the Lord