Churches of the Day

Saturday,  Fifth Week of Easter

 The conflict between believer and the world is part of our Christian inheritance.

Day of Prayer for the Church in China

FIRST READING

A reading from the Acts of the Apostles     16:1-10
Come across to Macedonia and help us.

From Cilicia Paul went to Derbe, and then on to Lystra. Here there was a disciple called Timothy, whose mother was a Jewess who had become a believer; but his father was a Greek. The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of Timothy, and Paul, who wanted to have him as a travelling companion, had him circumcised. This was on account of the Jews in the locality where everyone knew his father was a Greek.

As they visited one town after another, they passed on the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, with instructions to respect them. So the churches grew strong in the faith, as well as growing daily in numbers. They travelled through Phrygia and the Galatian country, having been told by the Holy Spirit not to preach the word in Asia. When they reached the frontier of Mysia they thought to cross it into Bithynia, but as the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them, they went through Mysia and came down to Troas.

One night Paul had a vision: a Macedonian appeared and appealed to him in these words,
'Come across to Macedonia and help us.' Once he had seen this vision we lost no time in arranging a passage to Macedonia, convinced that God had called us to bring them the Good News.

The Word of the Lord.       Thanks be to God


Responsorial Psalm     Ps 99
Response                           Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Or                                        Alleluia!

1. Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing for joy.              Response

2.  Know that he, the Lord, is God. He made us, we belong to him,
we are his people, the sheep of his flock.  Response

3.  Indeed, how good is the Lord, eternal his merciful love.
He is faithful from age to age.                     Response

Gospel Acclamation     
Alleluia, Alleluia!
The Lord, who hung for us upon the tree, has risen from the tomb.
Alleluia!

or                                  Col 3:1
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ,
you must look for the things that are in heaven where Christ is, sitting at God's right hand.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL     

The Lord be with you.                        And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John   15:18-21        Glory to you, O Lord
You do not belong to the world,  because my choice withdrew you from the world.

Jesus said to his disciples:

'If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before you.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
because my choice withdrew you from the world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the words I said to you: A servant is not greater than his master.
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too; if they kept my word, they will keep yours as well.
But it will be on my account that they will do all this, because they do not know the one who sent me.'

The Gospel of the Lord.             Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.



Gospel Reflection      Saturday,       Fifth Week of Easter        John 15:18-21

We are given a sense in today’s first reading of Paul’s mission being directed by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord. They travelled in response to the promptings of the Spirit. At the end of the reading, the Spirit communicates with Paul through the medium of a vision. One night, while Paul was in Troas on the North West coast of modern Turkey, he had a vision. Someone from the Roman province of Macedonia (northern Greece today), appeared to him and appealed to him in these words, ‘Come across to Macedonia and help us’. Paul promptly responded to this invitation and it resulted in the gospel being preached on the continent of Europe for the first time.

The Spirit continues to guide the church today. We are aware that we are in a time of great transition in the church. It can be an unsettling time, but it is also an exciting time. We can be sure that the Spirit will direct us in these days. The Spirit is always at work in the life of the church, and in our own personal lives, bringing new life out of death, opening up new opportunities when past opportunities seem to have run their course.

In the gospel reading, Jesus alerts us to the likelihood that his disciples, the church, will experience the same hostility and persecution as he did. As he says, ‘A servant is not greater than his master’. We are all trying to be the Lord’s servants, and Jesus says plainly that if they persecuted him they will persecute his servants. Yet, just as the Spirit was with Jesus in his moments of struggle, so the same Spirit is with his church, all of us, in our moments of struggle, and we can trust the Spirit to bring us to where the Lord wants to take us. What the Lord needs from us is a willingness to be brought where the Spirit is leading us. This is something we all need to pray for at this time.

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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. and used with the permission of the publishers.  http://dltbooks.com/
The Scripture Reflection is made available with our thanks from his book Reflections on the Weekday Readings : The Word is near to you, on your lips and in your heart by Martin Hogan and published by Messenger Publications /c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

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Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C

The promise of the gift of the Spirit is a comfort to the  apostles as the Lord Jesus leaves them

( Text Notes: The second reading and Gospel of the 7th Sunday of Easter may be used with the first reading of today
.i.e Acta 15: 1-2,22-29, Ps 66:2-3, 56, 8, r/v 4. Apoc 22:12-14,16-17,20, Jn 17:20-26 )

FIRST READING

A reading from the  Acts of the Apostles        15:1-2. 22-29
It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves not to saddle you with any burden beyond these essentials

Some men came down from Judaea and taught the brothers,
'Unless you have yourselves circumcised in the tradition of Moses you cannot be saved'.
This led to disagreement, and after Paul and Barnabas had had a long argument with these men it was arranged that Paul and Barnabas and others of the church should go up to Jerusalem and discuss the problem with the apostles and elders.

Then the apostles and elders decided to choose delegates to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; the whole church concurred with this. They chose Judas known as Barsabbas and Silas, both leading men in the brotherhood, and gave them this letter to take with them:

'The apostles and elders, your brothers, send greetings to the brothers of pagan birth in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. We hear that some of our members have disturbed you with their demands and have unsettled your minds. They acted without any authority from us; and so we have decided unanimously to elect delegates and to send them to you with Barnabas and Paul, men we highly respect who have dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Accordingly we are sending you Judas and Silas, who will confirm by word of mouth what we have written in this letter. It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves not to saddle you with any burden beyond these essentials: you are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols; from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from fornication. Avoid these, and you will do what is right. Farewell.'

The Word of the Lord            Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm        Ps 66
Response                             Let the peoples praise you, 0 God; let all the peoples praise you.
Or                                          Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

1. O God, be gracious and bless us and let your face shed its light upon us.
So will your ways be known upon earth. and all nations learn your saving help.    Response

2. Let the nations be glad and exult for you rule the world with justice.
With fairness you rule the peoples, you guide the nations on earth.                          Response

3. Let the peoples praise you, 0 God; let all the peoples praise you.
May God still give us his blessing till the ends of the earth revere him.                   Response

SECOND READING 
A reading from the book of the Apocalypse       21:10-14. 22-23
He  showed me the holy city, coming down from God out of heaven.

In the spirit, he took me to the top of an enormous high mountain and showed me Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down from God out of heaven. It had all the radiant glory of God and glittered like some precious jewel of crystal-clear diamond. The walls of it were of a great height, and had twelve gates; at each of the twelve gates there was an angel, and over the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel; on the east there were three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. The city walls stood on twelve foundation stones, each one of which bore the name of one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

I saw that there was no temple in the city since the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were themselves the temple, and the city did not need the sun or the moon for light, since it was lit by the radiant glory of God and the Lamb was a lighted torch for it.

The Word of the Lord            Thanks be to God.

Gospel Acclamation       Jn 14: 23
Alleluia, alleluia!
Jesus said: 'If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL                     

The Lord be with you.                          And with your spirit
A reading from the Gospel according to John          14:23-29            Glory to you, O Lord
The Holy Spirit, will  remind you of all I have said to you.

Jesus said to his disciples:

'If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him,
and we shall come to him and make our home with him.
Those who do not love me do not keep my words.
And my word is not my own: it is the word of the one who sent me.

I have said these things to you while still with you;
but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.

Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you,
a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
You heard me say: I am going away, and shall return.
If you loved me you would have been glad to know that I am going to the Father,
for the Father is greater than I.
I have told you this now before it happens, so that when it does happen you may believe.

The Gospel of the Lord      Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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For homily resources for this Sunday's Gospel click here:  https://www.catholicireland.net/sunday-homily/



Taken from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, published and copyright by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc, and used by permission of the publishers.