DAILY READINGS & REFLECTION
SEPTEMBER 18, 2024
WEDNESDAY OF THE TWENTY-FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
(MEMORIAL OF SAINT JOSEPH OF CUPERTINO, PRIEST)
FIRST READING
1 CORINTHIANS 12:31--13:13 OR (1 CORINTHIANS 12:31; 13:1-10, 13)
12 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. 13 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The Word of the Lord
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RESPONSORIAL PSALM
PSALMS 32(33):2-5, 12, 22 OR (PSALMS 25:1-5, 8-10)
Response: Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Praise the LORD with the lyre,
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!
Sing to him a new song,
play skilfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
For the word of the LORD is upright;
and all his work is done in faithfulness.
He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!
Let thy steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
even as we hope in thee.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
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GOSPEL
How shall I compare this generation?
LUKE 7:31-35 OR (MATTHEW 11:25-30)
31 "To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.' 33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine; and you say, He has a demon.' 34 The Son of man has come eating and drinking; and you say, `Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' 35 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children."
The Gospel of the Lord
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REFLECTION
DAILY QUOTE FROM THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
The song and dances of the prophets, by Ambrose of Milan, 339-397 A.D.
"'Therefore, wisdom is justified by all her children.' He fittingly says 'by all,' because justice is preserved around all. In order that an acceptance of the faithful may happen, a rejection of the unbelieving must occur. Very many Greeks say this, Wisdom is justified by all her works, because the duty of justice is to preserve the measure around the merit of each. It aptly says, We have piped to you, and you have not danced. Moses sang a song when he stopped the flow in the Red Sea for the crossing of the Jews (Exodus 15:1-18), and the same waves encircled the horses of the Egyptians and, falling back, drowned their riders. Isaiah sang a song of his beloveds vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7), signifying that the people who before had been fruitful with abundant virtues would be desolate through shameful acts. The Hebrews sang a song when the soles of their feet grew moist at the touch of the bedewing flame, and while all burned within and without, the harmless fire caressed them alone and did not scorch (Daniel 3:19-25). Habakkuk also learned to assuage universal grief with a song and prophesied that the sweet passion of the Lord would happen for the faithful (Habakkuk 3:13). The prophets sang songs with spiritual measures, resounding with prophecies of universal salvation. The prophets wept, softening the hard hearts of the Jews with sorrowful lamentations" (Isaiah 46:12).
(excerpt from EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 6.6-7)
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Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.