First Reading

The Book of Jeremiah (Jer 13: 1-11)

This wicked people shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.

The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth;
wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.
I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on.
A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus:
Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing,
and go now to the Parath;
there hide it in a cleft of the rock.
Obedient to the LORD’s command, I went to the Parath
and buried the loincloth.
After a long interval, the LORD said to me:
Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth
which I told you to hide there.
Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth
from the place where I had hid it.
But it was rotted, good for nothing!
Then the message came to me from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD:
So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot,
the great pride of Jerusalem.
This wicked people who refuse to obey my words,
who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts,
and follow strange gods to serve and adore them,
shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.
For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins,
so had I made the whole house of Israel
and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD;
to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.
But they did not listen.

— The word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm

Deuteronomy 32: 18-19, 20, 21

You have forgotten God who gave you birth.

You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,
You forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing
and anger toward his sons and daughters.

“I will hide my face from them,” he said,
“and see what will then become of them.
What a fickle race they are,
sons with no loyalty in them!”

“Since they have provoked me with their ‘no-god’
and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’;
with a foolish nation I will anger them.”

Gospel

Alleluia, alleluia.

The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew (Mt 13: 31-35)

The mustard seed becomes a large bush and the birds come and dwell in its branches.

Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush,
and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.”

He spoke to them another parable.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened.”

All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.
He spoke to them only in parables,
to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:

I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.

— The Gospel of the Lord.

First Reading

The Book of Jeremiah (Jer 13: 1-11)

This wicked people shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.

The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth;
wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.
I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on.
A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus:
Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing,
and go now to the Parath;
there hide it in a cleft of the rock.
Obedient to the LORD’s command, I went to the Parath
and buried the loincloth.
After a long interval, the LORD said to me:
Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth
which I told you to hide there.
Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth
from the place where I had hid it.
But it was rotted, good for nothing!
Then the message came to me from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD:
So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot,
the great pride of Jerusalem.
This wicked people who refuse to obey my words,
who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts,
and follow strange gods to serve and adore them,
shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.
For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins,
so had I made the whole house of Israel
and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD;
to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.
But they did not listen.

— The word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm

Deuteronomy 32: 18-19, 20, 21

You have forgotten God who gave you birth.

You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,
You forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing
and anger toward his sons and daughters.

“I will hide my face from them,” he said,
“and see what will then become of them.
What a fickle race they are,
sons with no loyalty in them!”

“Since they have provoked me with their ‘no-god’
and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’;
with a foolish nation I will anger them.”

Gospel

Alleluia, alleluia.

I am the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light of life.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel oh Jesus Christ according to Saint John (Jn 11: 19-27)

I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.

Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died].
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,

“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”

Jesus said to her,

“Your brother will rise.”

Martha said to him,

“I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day.”

Jesus told her,

“I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”

She said to him,

“Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world.”

— The Gospel of the Lord.

Gospel

Alleluia, alleluia.

I am the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light of life.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke (Lk 10: 38-42)

Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.

Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,

“Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me.”

The Lord said to her in reply,

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.”

— The Gospel of the Lord.

First Reading

Second Book of the Kings (2 Kgs 4: 42-44)

They shall eat and there shall be some left over.

A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing to Elisha, the man of God,
twenty barley loaves made from the firstfruits,
and fresh grain in the ear.
Elisha said,

“Give it to the people to eat.”

But his servant objected,

“How can I set this before a hundred people?”

Elisha insisted,

“Give it to the people to eat.”

“For thus says the LORD,
‘They shall eat and there shall be some left over.’

And when they had eaten, there was some left over,
as the LORD had said.

— The word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 145: 10-11, 15-16, 17-18

The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.

Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,
and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might.

The eyes of all look hopefully to you,
and you give them their food in due season;
you open your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

The LORD is just in all his ways
and holy in all his works.
The LORD is near to all who call upon him,
to all who call upon him in truth.

Second Reading

Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians (Eph 4: 1-6)

One body, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Brothers and sisters:
I, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace:
one body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all.

— The word of the Lord.

Gospel

Alleluia, alleluia.

A great prophet has risen in our midst. God has visited his people.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John (Jn 6: 1-15)

 He distributed the loaves to those who were reclining, as much as they wanted.

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.
A large crowd followed him,
because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.
Jesus went up on the mountain,
and there he sat down with his disciples.
The Jewish feast of Passover was near.
When Jesus raised his eyes
and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,
he said to Philip,

“Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”

He said this to test him,
because he himself knew what he was going to do.
Philip answered him,

“Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough
for each of them to have a little.”

One of his disciples,
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,

“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;
but what good are these for so many?”

Jesus said,

“Have the people recline.”

Now there was a great deal of grass in that place.
So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.
Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks,
and distributed them to those who were reclining,
and also as much of the fish as they wanted.
When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,

“Gather the fragments left over,
so that nothing will be wasted.”

So they collected them,
and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments
from the five barley loaves
that had been more than they could eat.
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said,

“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”

Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off
to make him king,
he withdrew again to the mountain alone.

— The Gospel of the Lord.

In prayer, there is always the necessary character and the required character; as Jesus said: if you pray, do not seek praise and do not say much, because the need for praise is the prayer of a hypocrite. The character required and necessary for prayer is humility. The attitude and mood necessary for those who pray are faithfulness and loyalty, a humble and joyful trust... Catechesis on David's prayer with Fr Sylvain Rafaralahimboa.

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Zatti, our brother

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