Tuesday 06th September 2022
St. Eleutherius
Pope Eleutherius was the Bishop of Rome from c. 174 to his death in 189. According to the Liber Pontificalis, he was a deacon of the Roman Church under Pope Anicetus (c. 154–164), and remained so under Pope Soter, whom he succeeded around 174.
Entrance Antiphon : Ps 118: 137, 124
You are just, O Lord, and your judgment is right; treat your servant in accord with your merciful love.
Collect
O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters, that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
First reading : 1 Corinthians 6:1-11
How dare one of your members take up a complaint against another in the law courts of the unjust instead of before the saints? As you know, it is the saints who are to ‘judge the world’; and if the world is to be judged by you, how can you be unfit to judge trifling cases? Since we are also to judge angels, it follows that we can judge matters of everyday life; but when you have had cases of that kind, the people you appointed to try them were not even respected in the Church. You should be ashamed: is there really not one reliable man among you to settle differences between brothers and so one brother brings a court case against another in front of unbelievers? It is bad enough for you to have lawsuits at all against one another: oughtn’t you to let yourselves be wronged, and let yourselves be cheated? But you are doing the wronging and the cheating, and to your own brothers. You know perfectly well that people who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of God: people of immoral lives, idolaters, adulterers, catamites, sodomites, thieves, usurers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers will never inherit the kingdom of God. These are the sort of people some of you were once, but now you have been washed clean, and sanctified, and justified through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.
Psalm 149:1-6,9
R/ The Lord takes delight in his people.
- Sing a new song to the Lord, his praise in the assembly of the faithful. Let Israel rejoice in its Maker, let Zion’s sons exult in their king.
- Let them praise his name with dancing and make music with timbrel and harp. For the Lord takes delight in his people. He crowns the poor with salvation.
- Let the faithful rejoice in their glory, shout for joy and take their rest. Let the praise of God be on their lips: this honour is for all his faithful.
Gospel Acclamation : Ph2:15-16
Alleluia, alleluia! You will shine in the world like bright stars because you are offering it the word of life. Alleluia!
Gospel : Luke 6:12-19
Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them ‘apostles’: Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor. He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.
Prayer over the Offerings
O God, who give us the gift of true prayer and of peace, graciously grant that through this offering, we may do fitting homage to your divine majesty and, by partaking of the sacred mystery, we may be faithfully united in mind and heart. Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon : Cf. Ps 41: 2-3
Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God; my soul is thirsting for God, the living God.
Prayer after Communion
Grant that your faithful, O Lord, whom you nourish and endow with life through the food of your Word and heavenly Sacrament, may so benefit from your beloved Son’s great gifts that we may merit an eternal share in his life. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Meditation
There is a reason behind each call, vocation or task. Behind this lies a responsibility to carry out an assignment in a manner that is satisfactory both to those who are served and to the one who called us. The reason for the call of the Apostles was ‘to be with the Lord’. But they all had a task. That is why Jesus, after selecting those He wanted to be with Him, showed them the assignment reserved for them. Bishops, priests, and religious men and women are equally called to be with the Lord and heal in different ways those who come from far and wide. We too, by virtue of our baptism, are called to join forces and cooperate with the Apostles of today and give in our own quota, for that is part of our task. We can do that through our different vocations; teachers, engineers, carpenters, farmers, etc.