Liturgical Readings for : Tuesday, 29th October, 2024
Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time, Year 2
Optional Memorial of St Colman, bishop, founded 2 churches on Inis Mór, and a foundation at Kilmacduagh.
FIRST READING
A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Ephesians 5:21-33
This mystery has many implications for Christ and the Church.
Give way to one another in obedience to Christ. Wives should regard their husbands as they regard the Lord, since as Christ is head of the Church and saves the whole body, so is a husband the head of his wife; and as the Church submits to Christ, so should wives to their husbands, in everything. Husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her to make her holy. He made her clean by washing her in water with a form of words, so that when he took her to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless.
In the same way, husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies; for a man to love his wife is for him to love himself. A man never hates his own body, but he feeds it and looks after it; and that is the way Christ treats the Church, because it is his body-and we are its living parts. For this reason, a man must leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one body. This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church. To sum up; you too, each one of you, must love his wife as he loves himself; and let every wife respect her husband.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 127
Response O blessed are those who fear the Lord!
1. O blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways!
By the labour of your hands you shall eat. You will be happy and prosper. Response
2. Your wife like a fruitful vine in the heart of your house;
your children like shoots of the olive around your table. Response
3. Indeed thus shall be blessed the man who fears the Lord.
May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life! 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 Mt 11: 25
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to mere children.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 13:18-21
The seed grew and became a tree
Jesus said, ‘What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it with?
It is like a mustard seed which a man took and threw into his garden: it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air sheltered in its branches.’
Another thing he said,
‘What shall I compare the kingdom of God with?
It is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ
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Gospel Reflection Tuesday Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time Luke 13:18-21
In today’s gospel Jesus takes an image from the world of men and the world of women in that culture, a man who takes a mustard seed and throws it in his garden and a woman who takes some yeast and mixes it in with three measures of flour. In each case the small gesture produces significant results. The mustard seed becomes a tree where the birds find shelter; the yeast mixing with the flour produces bread which satisfies human hunger. These are images, Jesus declares, of the kingdom of God. Jesus seems to be saying that the coming of God’s kingdom is not always about grand gestures.
The coming of God’s kingdom, the doing of God’s will on earth as in heaven, is often to be found in what to an outside observer seems small and insignificant. Jesus is suggesting that God can work powerfully through the smallest gestures, when they reflect something of God’s Spirit. God is present in our world in and through our small acts of kindness, through our largely unnoticed actions of caring for one another. Jesus would say that even the giving of a cup of cold water has significance beyond our imagining. The eternal can be present in the simplest of gestures. Our daily efforts to be faithful to the gospel in small ways can have consequences that would surprise us. The miraculous is all around us, working through our smallest efforts at goodness, if we have eyes to see.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
