DAILY READINGS & REFLECTION
SEPTEMBER 5, 2025
FRIDAY OF THE TWENTY-SECOND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
(OPTIONAL MEMORIAL OF SAINT TERESA OF KOLKATA, RELIGIOUS)
FIRST READING
COLOSSIANS 1:15-20 OR (ISAIAH 58:6-11)
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; 16 for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities all things were created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. 19 For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
The Word of the Lord
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RESPONSORIAL PSALM
PSALMS 99(100):1-5 OR (PSALMS 34:2-11)
Response: Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the lands!
Serve the LORD with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Know that the LORD is God!
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him, bless his name!
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures for ever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
R. Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
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GOSPEL
The unity of the new and the old
LUKE 5:33-39 OR (MATTHEW 25:31-46 / MATTHEW 25:31-40)
33 And they said to him, "The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink." 34 And Jesus said to them, "Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? 35 The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days." 36 He told them a parable also: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it upon an old garment; if he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine desires new; for he says, `The old is good.'"
The Gospel of the Lord
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REFLECTION
DAILY QUOTE FROM THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
Christ will send you wise men and scribes, by Clement of Alexandria, 150-215 A.D.
"A scribe is one who, through continual reading of the Old and New Testaments, has laid up for himself a storehouse of knowledge. Thus Christ blesses those who have gathered in themselves the education both of the law and of the gospel, so as to 'bring forth from their treasure things both new and old.' And Christ compares such people with a scribe, just as in another place he says, 'I will send you wise men and scribes' (Matthew 23:34)"
(excerpt from FRAGMENT 172)
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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.