Mass Readings for : Tuesday, 27th August, 2024

Liturgical Readings for : Tuesday, 27th August, 2024

Tuesday of the Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle B
Memorial of St Monica, (mother of St Augustine)

FIRST READING

A reading from the second letter of St Paul to the Thessalonians 2:1-3. 14-17
Keep the traditions that we taught you.

To turn now, brothers, to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we shall all be gathered round him: please do not get excited too soon or alarmed by any prediction or rumour or any letter claiming to come from us, implying that the Day of the Lord has already arrived. Never let anyone deceive you in this way. It cannot happen until the Great Revolt has taken place and the Rebel, the Lost One, has appeared.

Through the Good News that we brought he called you to this so that you should share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. May our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who has given us his love and, through his grace, such inexhaustible comfort and such sure hope, comfort you and strengthen you in everything good that you do or say.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 95
Response The Lord comes to rule the earth.

1. Proclaim to the nations: ‘God is king: The world he made firm in its place;
he will judge the peoples in fairness. Response

2. Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad, let the sea and all within it thunder praise,
let the land and all it bears rejoice, all, the trees of the wood shout for joy
at the presence of the Lord for he comes, he comes to rule the earth. Response

3. With justice he will rule the world, he will judge the peoples with his truth. Response

Gospel Acclamation Acts 16: 14
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Open our heart, O Lord, to accept the words of your Son.
Alleluia !

or Heb 4: 12
Alleluia, Alleluia!
The word of God is something alive and active:
it can judge the secret emotions and thoughts.
Alleluia !

GOSPEL

The Lord be with you And with your spirit.
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew 23:23-26 Glory to you, O Lord

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew
Alas for you who pay your tithe of mint and dill and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law.

Jesus said,
‘Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You who pay your tithe of mint and dill and cummin and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law – justice, mercy, good faith! These you should have practised, without neglecting the others. You blind guides! Straining out gnats and swallowing camels!

‘Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You who clean the outside of cup and dish and leave the inside full of extortion and intemperance.

Blind Pharisee! Clean the inside of cup and dish first so that the outside may become clean as well.

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

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Gospel Reflection Tuesday Twenty First Week in Ordinary Time Matthew 23:23-26

Jesus often uses humorous images to illustrate his teaching, such as his reference to those who try to take a splinter out of someone’s eye while not noticing the plank in their own eye. We have another such humorous image in today’s gospel reading. He addresses the scribes and Pharisees as blind guides, ‘straining out gnats and swallowing camels’. They pay excessive attention to what Jesus considers to be minor matters of the Jewish Law, such as tithes to be paid on various herbs, while, at the same time, neglecting the weightier matters of the law, ‘justice, mercy and faith’ or ‘faithfulness. Justice consists in rendering to others what is their due, as human beings made in God’s image.

Mercy goes beyond justice in graciously bestowing on others even more than their due. The father in the parable of the prodigal son was merciful in that sense. Faith could refer to either dealing faithfully with others or entrusting oneself in faith to God. Faith in that second sense, a faithful relationship with God, is the source and inspiration of the more social virtues of justice and mercy. In that way, the three qualities of justice, mercy and faith would be closely aligned to the inseparable twin commandments to love God with all our being and our neighbour as ourselves. In the gospel reading, Jesus was calling on his critics to keep going back to the essential core of their religious tradition. It is a call we all need to keep hearing. We can get so preoccupied with what is relatively peripheral to our faith that we undermine what is essential there. We need to always keep in view the essential trinity that Jesus refers in the gospel reading, justice, mercy and faithfulness.