Liturgical Readings for : Friday, 15th November, 2024
Friday of the Thirty Second Week in Ordinary Time, Year 2
Optional memorial of St Albert the Great, Dominican friar, bishop and doctor of the Church, patron of scientists.
FIRST READING
A reading from the second letter of St John 4-9
Only those who keep to what he taught can have the Father and the Son with them.
It has given me great joy to find that your children have been living the life of truth as we were commanded by the Father. I am writing now, dear lady, not to give you any new commandment, but the one which we were given at the beginning, and to plead: let us love one another. To love is to live according to his commandments: this is the commandment which you have heard since the beginning, to live a life of love.
There are many deceivers about in the world, refusing to admit that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. They are the Deceiver; they are the Antichrist. Watch yourselves, or all our work will be lost and not get the reward it deserves.
If anybody does not keep within the teaching of Christ but goes beyond it, he cannot have God with him: only those who keep to what he taught can have the Father and the Son with them.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 118
Response They are happy who follow God’s law.
They have the Father and the Son with them.
1. They are happy whose life is blameless, who follow God’s law!
They are happy who do his will, seeking him with all their hearts. Response
2. I have sought you with all my heart: let me not stray from your commands.
I treasure your promise in my heart lest I sin against you. Response
3. Bless your servant and I shall live and obey your word.
Open my eyes that I may see the wonders of your law. Response
Gospel Acclamation 1 Pt 1:25
Alleluia, Alleluia!
The word of God is something alive and active:
it can judge the secret emotions and thoughts.
Alleluia!
Or Jn 15: 5
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 17:26-37 Glory to you, O Lord
When the day comes for the Son of Man to be revealed.
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but the day Lot left Sodom, God rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them all.
It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of Man to be revealed.
‘When that day comes, anyone on the housetop, with his possessions in the house, must not come down to collect them, nor must anyone in the fields turn back either. Remember Lot’s wife. Anyone who tries to preserve his life will lose it; and anyone who loses it will keep it safe. I tell you, on that night two will be in one bed: one will be taken, the other left; two women will be grinding corn together: one will be taken, the other left.’
The disciples interrupted.
‘Where, Lord?‘ they asked.
He said,
‘Where the body is, there too will the vultures gather’.
The Gospel of the Lord Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Friday Thirty Second Week in Ordinary Time Luke 17:20-25
The gospel describes a situation in which the normal business of life is suddenly cut short by some unexpected event. The eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building, marrying wives and husbands, that went on in the days of Noah and the days of Lot were suddenly brought to a stop by catastrophic events, the great flood and the destruction of a city. In our own lives we can have a similar experience. We are caught up in the ordinary day to day business of living, and suddenly something happens that renders all of that of secondary importance. What is it that keeps us going when those familiar routines no longer sustain us? For us as Christians, it can only be our faith in the Lord.
We know that when all else changes, when everything else collapses around us, the Lord endures. In the words of yesterday’s gospel reading, ‘the kingdom of God is among you’. God’s reign, God’s power, is among us, in and through his Son, our risen Lord. When all else fails, we can rely on that good news. Like Saint Paul, we can discover that God’s power is made perfect in weakness. In our times of greatest weakness we can experience the Lord’s power most fully.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
