Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: Green.

First readingWisdom 9:13-18 ©

Who can divine the will of God?

What man indeed can know the intentions of God?

Who can divine the will of the Lord?

The reasonings of mortals are unsure

and our intentions unstable;

for a perishable body presses down the soul,

and this tent of clay weighs down the teeming mind.

It is hard enough for us to work out what is on earth,

laborious to know what lies within our reach;

who, then, can discover what is in the heavens?

As for your intention, who could have learnt it, had you not granted Wisdom

and sent your holy spirit from above?

Thus have the paths of those on earth been straightened

and men been taught what pleases you,

and saved, by Wisdom.

Responsorial PsalmPsalm 89(90):3-6,12-14,17 ©

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

You turn men back to dust

  and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’

To your eyes a thousand years

  are like yesterday, come and gone,

  no more than a watch in the night.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

You sweep men away like a dream,

  like the grass which springs up in the morning.

In the morning it springs up and flowers:

  by evening it withers and fades.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

Make us know the shortness of our life

  that we may gain wisdom of heart.

Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?

  Show pity to your servants.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

In the morning, fill us with your love;

  we shall exult and rejoice all our days.

Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:

  give success to the work of our hands.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

Second readingPhilemon 9-10,12-17 ©

He is a slave no longer, but a dear brother in the Lord

This

is Paul writing, an old man now and, what is more, still a prisoner of

Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for a child of mine, whose father I

became while wearing these chains: I mean Onesimus. I am sending him

back to you, and with him – I could say – a part of my own self. I

should have liked to keep him with me; he could have been a substitute

for you, to help me while I am in the chains that the Good News has

brought me. However, I did not want to do anything without your consent;

it would have been forcing your act of kindness, which should be

spontaneous. I know you have been deprived of Onesimus for a time, but

it was only so that you could have him back for ever, not as a slave any

more, but something much better than a slave, a dear brother;

especially dear to me, but how much more to you, as a blood-brother as

well as a brother in the Lord. So if all that we have in common means

anything to you, welcome him as you would me.

Gospel AcclamationJn15:15

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:Ps118:135

Alleluia, alleluia!

Let your face shine on your servant;

and teach me your decrees.

Alleluia!

GospelLuke 14:25-33 ©Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my discipleGreat

crowds accompanied Jesus on his way and he turned and spoke to them.

‘If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife,

children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my

disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot

be my disciple.

  ‘And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a

tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had

enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then

found himself unable to finish the work, the onlookers would all start

making fun of him and saying, “Here is a man who started to build and

was un[...]