Liturgical Readings for : Thursday, 1st August, 2024
Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Memorial of St Alphonsus of Ligouri, bishop an doctor of the Church
FIRST READING
A reading from the book of the Prophet Jeremiah 18:1-6.
As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so you are in mine.
The word that was addressed to Jeremiah by the Lord,
‘Get up and make your way down to the potter’s house;
there I shall let you hear what I have to say.’
So I went down to the potter’s house; and there he was, working at the wheel. And whenever the vessel he was making came out wrong, as happens with the clay handled by potters, he would start afresh and work it into another vessel, as potters do. Then this word of the Lord was addressed to me,
‘House of Israel, can not I do to you what this potter does? – it is The Lord who speaks.
Yes, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so you are in mine, House of Israel.’
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 145
Response He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God.
Or Alleluia!
1. My soul, give praise to the Lord; I will praise the Lord all my days,
make music to my God while I live. Response
2. Put no trust in princes, in mortal men in whom there is no help.
Take their breath, they return to clay and their plans that day come to nothing. Response
3. He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God, whose hope is in the Lord his God;
who alone made heaven and earth, the seas and all they contain. Response
Gospel Acclamation Jn 15: 15
Alleluia, alleluia!
I call you friends, says the Lord, because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father.
Alleluia
or Acts 16: 14
Alleluia, alleluia!
Open our heart, O Lord, to accept the words of your Son.
Alleluia
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you And with your spirit.
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew 13:47-53 Glory to you, O Lord
They collect the good ones in a basket and throw away those that are no use.
Jesus said to the crowds:
‘The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea that brings in a haul of all kinds. When it is full, the fishermen haul it ashore; then, sitting down, they collect the good ones in a basket and throw away those that are no use.
This is how it will be at the end of time: the angels will appear and separate the wicked from the just to throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.
‘Have you understood all this?’
They said, ‘Yes.’
And he said to them, ‘Well then, every scribe who becomes a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out from his storeroom things both new and old.’
When Jesus had finished these parables he left the district.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Thursday Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Matthew 13:47-53
The parable in today’s gospel reading presupposes the practice of the fishermen on the Sea of Galilee dragging a large net between two boats or drawing it towards the land after it has been dropped in the sea. Such a way of fishing would have drawn in a very large variety of fish, some of which could have been sold at the market place and others which could only be thrown away. Jesus is suggesting that his ministry casts a very wide net. He had earlier said in this gospel, in the setting of the Sermon on the Mount, that ‘your Father in heaven… makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends his rain on the righteous and the unrighteous’ (Mt 5:45). The indiscriminate nature of God’s generous providing love is reflecting in the broad, inclusive, ministry of Jesus. Like the sower, Jesus casts the seed of his word with abandon.
Jesus reveals a God who seeks to embrace all sorts, without exception. Like the potter in the first reading, Jesus did not reject what was far from perfect, what ‘came out wrong’. He was at home with tax collectors and sinners, with the weaknesses and frailties of others, knowing that God’s love at work through him could recreate all who came to him so that they could become all that God was calling them to be. Yet, having been embraced by the Lord’s love, conversion is required of us, a daily turning towards the one who is always turned towards us.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd
