Liturgical Readings for : Friday, 4th October, 2024
Friday of the Twenty-Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, Year 2
Memorial of St Francis of Assisi, religious
FIRST READING Job 38:1. 12-21. 40:3-5
Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning, or journeyed all the way to the sources of the sea?
From the heart of the tempest the Lord gave Job his answer. He said:
Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or sent the dawn to its post,
telling it to grasp the earth by its edges and shake the wicked out of it,
when it changes the earth to sealing clay and dyes it as a man dyes clothes;
stealing the light from wicked men and breaking the arm raised to strike?
Have you journeyed all the way to the sources of the sea,
or walked where the Abyss is deepest?
Have you been shown the gates of Death
or met the janitors of Shadowland?
Have you an inkling of the extent of the earth?
Tell me all about it if you have!
Which is the way to the light and where does darkness live?
You could show them the way to their proper places, or put them on the path to where they live!
If you know all this, you must have been born with them, you must be very old by now!
Job replied to the Lord:
My words have been frivolous: what can I reply?
I had better lay my finger on my lips.
I have spoken once… I will not speak again; more than once… I will add nothing.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 138
Response Lead me, O Lord, in the path of life eternal.
1. O Lord, you search me and you know me, you know my resting and my rising,
you discern my purpose from afar. You mark when I walk or lie down,
all my ways lie open to you. Response
2. O where can I go from your spirit, or where can I flee from your face?
If I climb the heavens, you are there. If I lie in the grave, you are there. Response
3. If I take the wings of the dawn and dwell at the sea’s furthest end,
even there your hand would lead me, your right hand would hold me fast. Response
4. For it was you who created my being, knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you for the wonders of my being, for the wonders of all your creation. Response
Gospel Acclamation Ps 144: 13
Alleluia, Alleluia!
The Lord is faithful in all his words and loving in all his deeds.
Alleluia!
or Ps 94: 8
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Harden not your hearts today’ but listen to the voice of the Lord.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 10:13-16 Glory to you, O Lord
Anyone who rejects me rejects the one who sent me.
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘Alas for you, Chorazin! Alas for you, Bethsaida!
For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. And still, it will not go as hard with Tyre and Sidon at the Judgement as with you.
And as for you, Capernaum, did you want to be exalted high as heaven?
You shall be thrown down to hell.
‘Anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects you rejects me, and those who reject me reject the one who sent me.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Friday, Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time Luke 10:13–16
Sometimes we can all get frustrated at what we see as a lack of response to our efforts to reach out to people. We try to do our best for someone and we seem to get nowhere. The energy, the love, the concern, we extend to someone we care about doesn’t appear to bear any fruit. This was the experience of Jesus in today’s gospel reading. He invested time and energy in proclaiming the good news of the presence of God’s kingdom to the towns on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, places like Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, but his words fell on deaf ears and his deeds left people unmoved. We have a sense that this lack of response to his deeds and his words deeply impacted on Jesus.
The gospels tells us that on another occasion, Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem because they had not welcomed him and had not recognized him as God’s special visitor to them. God was powerfully at work through the ministry of Jesus, but Jesus was powerless before people’s refusal to recognize and receive him for who he was. God continues to work through the risen Lord today, but the risen Lord can be equally powerless before people’s refusal to welcome his presence, his message, his values, his Spirit. The Lord is always drawing us to himself; he is always knocking on the door of our lives, but he needs us to allow ourselves to be drawn; he waits for us to open our lives to his presence. The smallest opening is all the Lord needs, what he referred to once in the gospels as faith the size of a mustard seed. He is prepared to wait on us to offer him that smallest of openings. If we do so, our lives will never be the same again. In the words of the response to today’s psalm, the Lord will lead us in the path of life eternal.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
