Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
All Are Saved By Faith
Other Celebrations for this Day:
Liturgical Cycle: A | Lectionary Cycle: II
Introduction
Year II. From this week until Thursday next week, we read from Ephesians, which is perhaps not written directly by Paul. Today’s reading is a long “blessing’ in the Jewish style, a thanksgiving for our salvation in Christ. God has chosen us and destined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ, who is to become the head of everything.
Opening Prayer
Lord God of the covenant,
we thank you for the gift of faith
in your Son Jesus Christ,
in the forgiveness and love
which he brought us from you.
All you let us touch and feel
is pure grace and a free gift.
Give us grateful hearts, Lord,
that recognise your goodness
in nature, in people around us,
and above all in your Son Jesus Christ,
who lives with you and with us now and forever.
First Reading
Greeting
I Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will,
to the saints in Ephesus, to you who share the Christian faith:
receive grace and peace from God our Father, and from Jesus, the Lord.
Blessings
Blessed be God the Father of Christ Jesus our LORD,
who, in Christ, has blessed us from heaven with every spiritual blessing.
God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world,
to be holy, and without sin in his presence.
From eternity, he has destined us in love,
to be his adopted sons and daughters through Christ Jesus,
thus fulfilling his free and generous will.
This goal suited him:
that his loving-kindness, which he granted us in his beloved,
might finally receive all glory and praise.
In him we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of our trespasses
according to the riches of his grace,
that he lavished on us.
In all wisdom and insight,
he has made known to us his mysterious design,
in accordance with his loving-kindness set forth in Christ
as a plan for the fullness of time,
to gather up all things in him,
things in heaven and things on earth.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (2a) The Lord has made known his salvation.
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
R. The Lord has made known his salvation.
The LORD has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
R. The Lord has made known his salvation.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
break into song; sing praise.
R. The Lord has made known his salvation.
Sing praise to the LORD with the harp,
with the harp and melodious song.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
sing joyfully before the King, the LORD.
R. The Lord has made known his salvation.
Alleluia Verse
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord;
no one comes to the Father except through me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Woe to you, for you build monuments to the prophets your ancestors killed.
So you approve and agree with what your ancestors did. Is it not so? They got rid of the prophets, and you build monuments to them!
For that reason, the wisdom of God also said: I will send prophets and apostles, and these people will kill and persecute some of them.
But the present generation will have to answer for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the foundation of the world,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was murdered between the altar and the Sanctuary.
Yes, I tell you, the people of this time will have to answer for them all.
A curse is on you, teachers of the law, for you have taken the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you prevented others from entering.”
As Jesus left that place, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees began to harass him,
asking him endless questions, setting traps to catch him in something he might say.
Prayers of the Faithful
– For all who witness to the truth, that the Spirit may put the right words in their mouths, we pray:
– For all of us, that we may do our tasks in life honestly and with zeal, we pray:
– For all who celebrate the Eucharist, that the Lord Jesus may make us trustworthy and authentic persons, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
God, loving Father,
what is there that we can give to you
which you have not given us first?
Accept these gifts
which you let our hands transform
into tokens of our gratitude.
And let us join in the thanks and praise
of your greatest gift to us,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
Thankful for all you have given us,
we ask of you today
God, our loving Father:
make us, in turn, generous and liberal
to all whom we encounter in life.
As we have received freely from you,
may we learn to give with open hands and hearts,
without asking or waiting for a word of thanks,
and giving ourselves with our gifts,
as Jesus did, your Son,
who is our Lord for ever and ever.
Blessing
Let us thank God for all the graces he has given us, especially our faith and our Lord Jesus Christ among us. Let us also be grace and blessing to one another, with the blessing of almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
REFLECTION
Luke 11: 47-54
Preaching the wrong Gospel
The tension between Jesus and the religious leaders is building up. Jesus sharpens his criticisms of the hypocrisy and falsehood of religious leaders. And this would soon lead up to his persecution, suffering, and killing. Jesus sees a pattern at work in the behaviour of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. They present themselves eager to honour the prophets their forefathers had killed, but deep down, they behave the same way: persecuting those sent by God and wanting to kill Jesus.
During the time when the Gospels were written, Christians were severely persecuted. The political authorities and religious leaders became harsh on the people of the New Way, and so many believers of Jesus were put to death.
St. Luke wants to communicate to his readers that the mission of the Church is the mission of Jesus. This mission is similar to the mission of the prophets of the Old Testament. As a consequence, accepting the Mission of Christ involves undergoing many sufferings and even death, as did the prophets.
As we reflected yesterday, Jesus loses his temper with the religious scholars and the Pharisees and lashes-out two “woes” for their hypocrisy and for guiding the people on the wrong path. Teachers of the law considered themselves to be the custodians of the Torah – who had “the key of knowledge,” but they conveniently taught the wrong catechism. They considered themselves as the owners, not communicators, of God’s truth. Thus, they manipulated it, conditioned it, and threw on others a burden that was never the will of God.
The Gospel continues to challenge the leaders of the Church today. Are the leaders of today giving a gospel which they do not live? Is the Gospel we preach becoming a burden for the people? Do we interpret the scriptures so that we make God inaccessible to ordinary people?
Wherever the Word of God is proclaimed, opposing voices and persecutions are bound to happen because the devil is never happy with the spread of God’s word. The enemies of Jesus continued their attack on him until his crucifixion. And they continued it with the apostles and the believers in the early Church. Such attacks continue to this day.
Perhaps the youngsters today have lost interest in God, religion and the Bible because we, the leaders in the Church, teachers and theological and moral ‘experts’, and Catholic parents, have failed to share with them the merciful, loving and forgiving face of God in the Gospels.