DAILY READINGS & REFLECTION
NOVEMBER 3, 2023
FRIDAY OF THE THIRTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
(OPTIONAL MEMORIAL OF SAINT MARTIN DE PORRES, RELIGIOUS)
FIRST READING
ROMANS 9:1-5 OR (PHILIPPIANS 4:4-9)
1 I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; 5 to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever. Amen.
The Word of the Lord
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RESPONSORIAL PSALM
PSALMS 146(147):12-15, 19-20 OR (PSALMS 131:1-3)
Response: Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your sons within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He makes peace in your borders;
he fills you with the finest of the wheat.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the LORD!
GOSPEL
They were watching Jesus
LUKE 14:1-6 OR (MATTHEW 22:34-40)
1 One Sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. 2 And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?" 4 But they were silent. Then he took him and healed him, and let him go. 5 And he said to them, "Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?" 6 And they could not reply to this.
The Gospel of the Lord
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REFLECTION
DAILY QUOTE FROM THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
The law does not forbid mercy on the Sabbath, by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD)
"As they were silent from ill will, Christ refutes their unrelenting shamelessness by the convincing arguments that he uses. 'Whose son of you,' he says, 'or whose ox shall fall into a pit, and he will not immediately draw him out on the sabbath day?' If the law forbids showing mercy on the sabbath, why do you take compassion on that which has fallen into the pit?... The God of all does not cease to be kind. He is good and loving to people."
(excerpt from COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 101)
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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.