Friday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
In The Hands Of God
Liturgical Cycle: A | Lectionary Cycle: II
Introduction
Year II. Ephesians continues to praise God. In Christ we have received the truth as found in the gospel, and we were given the Spirit. We are God’s own people, whose task is to give praise and glory to God.
Gospel. Christ continues to denounce the Pharisees. In the contradictions of a life that wants to be faithful to the gospel, Christians have to go God’s way, not their own. They entrust themselves into the hands of God, who cares and to whom we are very precious.
Opening Prayer
Lord our God,
we stand before you with empty hands.
Our good intentions, the things we do
are powerless to save us.
God, help us to accept this truth,
for it hurts our pride.
Teach us to receive gratuitously
your grace, your merciful love
and also the help and love of our neighbour.
Save us from ourselves and from sin
by the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord.
First Reading
In Christ we were also chosen,
destined according to the purpose of him
who accomplished all things
according to his own plan and decision,
so that we who first hoped in Christ,
might live for the praise of his glory.
You, on hearing the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation,
and have believed in him
were marked with the seal
of the promised Holy Spirit,
the first pledge of our inheritance
Toward redemption as God’s possession,
to the praise of his glory.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (12) Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Exult, you just, in the LORD;
praise from the upright is fitting.
Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
For upright is the word of the LORD,
and all his works are trustworthy.
He loves justice and right;
of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
From heaven the LORD looks down;
he sees all mankind.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Alleluia Verse
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
May your kindness, LORD, be upon us;
who have put our hope in you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Meanwhile, a large crowd had gathered so tightly that they pushed and crushed one another. Then Jesus spoke to his disciples in this way,
“Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
Nothing is covered that will not be uncovered; or hidden, that will not be made known.
Whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in hidden places will be proclaimed from housetops.
I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who can only kill the body and then have nothing more they can do.
But I will tell you whom to fear: Fear the one who, after killing you, can throw you into hell.
This is the one you must fear.
Don’t you buy five sparrows for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.
Even the hairs of your head are numbered. Don’t be afraid! Are you less valuable in God’s eyes than many sparrows?
Prayers of the Faithful
– That our faith may be a personal encounter with a living God to whom we commit ourselves, we pray:
– That we may not boast about what we have done for God, but recognise with humility and gratitude what God has done for us, we pray:
– That with great trust we may put ourselves into the hands of God, who loves us deeply in Christ, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord God, merciful Father,
in the face of contradiction and opposition
your Son Jesus went his loyal way to you,
for he knew that he lived
in the palm of your hand.
In these signs of bread and wine
we too entrust ourselves to you,
for we know that we are your friends
and that you care for us
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
Our God and Father,
you love us as we are,
even when you see our faults and failures.
You forget the evil we do
and we are good enough for you
to give us your Son Jesus Christ.
Accept our thanks
and let your Son fill us
with his Spirit of trust and love,
that we too may learn
to trust and love one another
and to be a community in which Jesus lives,
he who is our Lord for ever.
Blessing
Jesus assures us that God cares for us and that we are precious to him. Ask him to keep us in his love. May God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
REFLECTIONS
Luke 12:1-7
Don’t let you be wasted
According to the Gospel of Luke, one reason Jesus lost his temper was the people's hypocrisy. In Chapter 11, he presented an angry Jesus who came out strongly against the Pharisees and religious scholars for being untruthful and hypocritical. “Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees,” Jesus tells his disciples. The Jews regarded yeast as a corrupting agent that corrupted food. That is why they insisted on using unleavened bread at the Passover. When Jesus talks of “the yeast of the Pharisees”, the reference is about the behaviour that corrupts their lives –hypocrisy.
In contrast to the Pharisees' hypocrisy, the followers of Jesus must practice transparency. The Church is not a secret society. Its purpose is to share Christ's vision with the whole world. This is crucial to the reign of God in the world. “What you have whispered in locked rooms will be proclaimed from the rooftops.” This, of course, will involve dangers. The Gospel will be resisted, and those who proclaim the Gospel will face persecution and death. This has been the history of the Church. Thousands have sacrificed their lives simply because they were followers of Jesus.
But for a Christian, death is not an enemy. It is something that every Christian awaits eagerly – to return to his Father’s house. That’s why Jesus reiterates to his disciples not to be afraid of those who kill you. The following sentence could be confusing: “Be afraid of the one who, after killing, has the power to cast into Gehenna.” The one we are really to fear is the one who can make us deny Christ and all that Christ means, and to die in that state of denial.
‘Gehenna’ in Hebrew meant ‘Valley of Hinnom’ or ge-ben-hinnom, ‘Valley of the Son of Hinnom’. This valley was situated in the southwest of Jerusalem. In the time of the kings, it had been the centre of a cult in which children were sacrificed (cf. 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31) and hence, seen as a place of abomination. In the time of Jesus, this valley was turned into the dumping site for all the wastes of the city of Jerusalem. When Jesus talks about casting someone into Gehenna, he must have meant, “ to waste one’s life or throw one’s life into the dumping pit.”
If you allow yourself to corrupt your life through hypocrisy and falsehood, you choose to ruin your life and is not worthy of anything other than to be wasted in the dumping pit of Gehenna! But whatever threats hang over us, we are not to fear because Our Faith is in a God who values the lives of the children of God.