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Mass Readings

Catholic Ireland

Liturgical Readings for : Saturday, 27th July, 2024
Léachtaí Gaeilge
Next Sunday's Readings

Saturday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle 2

FIRST READING 

A reading from the book of the Prophet Jeremiah       7:1-11
Do you take this Temple that bears my name for a robbers’ den?

The word that was addressed to Jeremiah by the Lord,
Go and stand at the gate of the Temple of the Lord and there proclaim this message. Say,
“Listen to the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who come in by these gates to worship the Lord. The Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says this:
Amend your behaviour and your actions and I will stay with you here in this place. Put no trust in delusive words like these: This is the sanctuary of the Lord, the sanctuary of the Lord, the sanctuary of the Lord!

But if you do amend your behaviour and your actions, if you treat each other fairly, if you do not exploit the stranger, the orphan and the widow (if you do not shed innocent blood in this place), and if you do not follow alien gods, to your own ruin, then here in this place I will stay with you, in the land that long ago I gave to your fathers for ever.

Yet here you are, trusting in delusive words, to no purpose! Steal, would you, murder, commit adultery, perjure yourselves, burn incense to Baal, follow alien gods that you do not know? – and then come presenting yourselves in this Temple that bears my name, saying: Now we are safe – safe to go on committing all these abominations! Do you take this Temple that bears my name for a robbers’ den? I, at any rate, am not blind – it is the Lord who speaks.

The Word of the Lord               Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm           Ps 83
Response                                 How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, God of hosts.

1. My soul is longing and yearning, is yearning for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my soul ring out their joy to God, the living God.                                 Response

2. The sparrow herself finds a home and the swallow a nest for her brood;
she lays her young by your altars, Lord of hosts, my king and my God.                   Response

3. They are happy, who dwell in your house, for ever singing your praise.
They are happy, whose strength is in you; they walk with ever growing strength. Response

4. One day within your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
The threshold of the house of God I prefer to the dwellings of the wicked.             Response

Gospel  Acclamation       Heb 4: 12
Alleluia, alleluia!

The word of God is something alive and active:
it can judge the secret emotions and thoughts.
Alleluia!

or                                              Jm 1: 21
Alleluia, alleluia!

Accept and submit to the word, which has been planted in you
and can save your souls.
Alleluia

GOSPEL 

The Lord be with you                       And with your spirit.
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew   13:24-30          Glory to you, O Lord
Let them both grow till the harvest.

Jesus put another parable before the crowds,wheat-vs-tares
The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, the darnel appeared as well.
The owner’s servants went to him and said,
Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?”
Some enemy has done this” he answered.
And the servants said, Do you want us to go and weed it out?”
But he said,

“No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it.
Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers:
First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.

The Gospel of the Lord          Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

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Gospel Reflection           Saturday        Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time    Matthew 13:24-30

It has often been said that our weaknesses are the shadow side of our strengths. The line between the good and the not-so-good in our lives can be very subtle. If we are overzealous in trying to root out what is not so good in someone’s life, or, indeed, in our own, we might damage what is good there too. In the parable Jesus speaks in today’s gospel reading, the owner’s servants wanted to root out the weeds that had appeared among the wheat. The owner had to restrain them. This was not the time for such separation; it is not always easy to distinguish wheat from weeds at an early stage of growth, and both can be closely intertwined. The separation would come at harvest time. In the meantime, patience is needed with the weeds. Jesus may have been warning against a kind of religious zeal that is too eager to identify weeds, what is considered worthless, and to separate it out from wheat, what is considered good.

Saint Paul showed some of this kind of religious zeal before he encountered Christ on the road to Damascus. He saw the followers of Jesus as weeds in the field of Judaism; they had to be identified and rooted out. He was blind to the presence of God among them. Sometimes, there is no mistaking evil and evil people. However, we can also get it terrible wrong and misjudge others. There are times when we may need to live with the weaknesses of others for the sake of their great strengths. We are all a mixture of wheat and weed. The Lord’s good work is ongoing in our lives, and yet it is always hindered by the presence of sin. Only beyond this earthly life will we be fully conformed to image of God’s Son. In the meantime, we need a certain amount of patience with ourselves and others, while seeking to grow more fully into the person of Christ and helping each other to do so.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. and used with the permission of the publishers.  http://dltbooks.com/
The Scripture Reflection is made available with our thanks from his book Reflections on the Weekday Readings 2024: The Word is near to you, on your lips and in your heart by Martin Hogan and published by Messenger Publications 2022/23, c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

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