Churches of the Day

Friday of the Twenty-Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle 2
As this is also the feast of our Guardian Angels, we have alternate readings below the first set of readings and reflection.

Feast of the Day: Oct 2; –The Guardian Angels 
C/f A short look at this feast can be found below todays' Readings and Reflection.
Alternate readings for this feast are available below the Day's  Readings 

FIRST READING
A reading for the book of Job 38:1. 12-21. 40:3-5
Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning, or journeyed all the way to the sources of the sea?

From the heart of the tempest the Lord gave Job his answer. He said:
Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or sent the dawn to its post,
telling it to grasp the earth by its edges and shake the wicked out of it,
when it changes the earth to sealing clay and dyes it as a man dyes clothes;
stealing the light from wicked men and breaking the arm raised to strike?

Have you journeyed all the way to the sources of the sea,
or walked where the Abyss is deepest?
Have you been shown the gates of Death
or met the janitors of Shadowland?

Have you an inkling of the extent of the earth?
Tell me all about it if you have!
Which is the way to the light and where does darkness live?
You could show them the way to their proper places, or put them on the path to where they live!
If you know all this, you must have been born with them, you must be very old by now!

Job replied to the Lord:
My words have been frivolous: what can I reply? I had better lay my finger on my lips.
I have spoken once... I will not speak again; more than once... I will add nothing.

The Word of the Lord.           Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm          Ps 138: 1-3. 7-8. 9-10, 13-14
Response                                Lead me, O Lord, in the path of life eternal.

1. O Lord, you search me and you know me, you know my resting and my rising,
you discern my purpose from afar. You mark when I walk or lie down,
all my ways lie open to you.                                                                                           Response

2. O where can I go from your spirit, or where can I flee from your face?
If I climb the heavens, you are there. If I lie in the grave, you are there.            Response

3. If I take the wings of the dawn and dwell at the sea's furthest end,
even there your hand would lead me, your right hand would hold me fast.       Response

4. For it was you who created my being, knit me together in my mother's womb.
I thank you for the wonders of my being, for the wonders of all your creation. Response

Gospel  Acclamation         Ps 144: 13
Alleluia, alleluia!
The Lord is faithful in all his words and loving in all his deeds.
Alleluia!

or                                                Ps 94: 8
Alleluia, alleluia!
Harden not your hearts today' but listen to the voice of the Lord.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL 

The Lord be with you.                      And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 10:13-16          Glory to you, O Lord
 Anyone who rejects me rejects the one who sent me.

Jesus said to his disciples: 'Alas for you, Chorazin! Alas for you, Bethsaida!
For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. And still, it will not go as hard with Tyre and Sidon at the Judgement as with you.

And as for you, Capernaum, did you want to be exalted high as heaven? You shall be thrown down to hell.
'Anyone who listens to you listens to me;
anyone who rejects you rejects me,
and those who reject me reject the one who sent me.'

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

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Gospel Reflection      Friday,           Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time          Luke 10:13–16

Sometimes we can all get frustrated at what we see as a lack of response to our efforts to reach out to people. We try to do our best for someone and we seem to get nowhere. The energy, the love, the concern, we extend to someone we care about doesn’t appear to bear any fruit. This was the experience of Jesus in today’s gospel reading. He invested time and energy in proclaiming the good news of the presence of God’s kingdom to the towns on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, places like Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, but his words fell on deaf ears and his deeds left people unmoved. We have a sense that this lack of response to his deeds and his words deeply impacted on Jesus.

The gospels tells us that on another occasion, Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem because they had not welcomed him and had not recognized him as God’s special visitor to them. God was powerfully at work through the ministry of Jesus, but Jesus was powerless before people’s refusal to recognize and receive him for who he was. God continues to work through the risen Lord today, but the risen Lord can be equally powerless before people’s refusal to welcome his presence, his message, his values, or his Spirit. The Lord is always drawing us to himself; he is always knocking on the door of our lives, but he needs us to allow ourselves to be drawn; he waits for us to open our lives to his presence. The smallest opening is all the Lord needs, what he referred to once in the gospels as faith the size of a mustard seed. He is prepared to wait on us to offer him that smallest of openings. If we do so, our lives will never be the same again. In the words of the response to today’s psalm, the Lord will lead us in the path of life eternal.

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Alternate FIRST READING  for the feast of the Guardian angels 
A reading for the book of Exodus         23:20-23
My angel will go before you.

The Lord says this:
'I myself will send an angel before you to guard you as you go and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Give him reverence and listen to all he says. Offer him no defiance; he would nor pardon such a fault , for my name is in him. If you listen carefully to his voice and do all that  say,  I shall be enemy to your enemies, foe to your foes. My angel will go before you.

The Word of the Lord.           Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm        Ps 90:1-6, 10-11, R/v 11
Response                              The Lord has commanded his angels
                                                to keep you in all your ways

1. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
and abides in the shade of the Almighty
says to the Lord: My refuge,
my stronghold, my God in whom I trust.                Response

2. It is he who will free you from the snare
of the fowler who seeks to destroy you;
If I He will conceal you with his pinions
and under his wings you will find refuge.               Response

3. You will not fear the terror of the night
Nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the plague that prowls in the darkness
nor the scourge that lays waste at noon.               Response

4. Upon you no evil shall fall,
no plague approach where you dwell.
For you has he commanded his angels
To keep you in all your ways                                  Response

Gospel  Acclamation         Ps 102: 21
Alleluia, alleluia!
Give thanks to the Lord, all his hosts,
His servant who do his will
Alleluia!

GOSPEL 

The Lord be with you.                      And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 18:1-5. 10          Glory to you, O Lord
 Anyone who rejects me rejects the one who sent me.

The disciples came to Jesus and said, 'Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
So he called a little child to him and set the child in front of them. Then he said ,
'I tell you solemnly, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And so, the one who makes himself as little as this litttle child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Anyone who welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. See that you never despise any of these little ones, for I tell you their angels in haven are continually in the presence of my Father in heaven

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

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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/



Feast of the Day: Oct 2; –The Guardian Angels 

This feast originated in Portugal early in the sixteenth century and has figured in the general calendar since the late seventeenth century. It is based on the scriptural  belief that God assigns everyone an angel to guard body and soul -  an expression of God's personal care for each individual. A similar belief is also found in Jewish and other religious thought. The feast associates the human race with the eternal song of praise in heaven (Matthew 18:10).

It is an interesting paradox that at the height of the secularisation of cultural life in the West, New Age ideology should begin to draw strongly from the traditional Christian teaching of Guardian Angels. In 1968 just after the  Death of God movement and the publication of Harvey Cox's The Secular City, renowned sociologist, Peter Berger, wrote a book entitled A Rumour of Angels. 

Patrick Duffy explains some of the background to this feast.

Angels in the Bible
Angels are mentioned in more than half of the books of the Bible and three angels are named archangels or highest angels in different writings - Michael,  (Dan 10:13, Jude 9 and Rev 12:7), Gabriel (Dan 8:16 and Luke 1:19 and 26) and Raphael in the Book of Tobit).

Messengers
The Greek word angellos means "messenger" and in the Bible angels act as messengers of God. For example,
an angel appears to Zechariah in the temple foretelling the birth of John the Baptist (Lk 1:11-20),
to Joseph and Mary foretelling the birth of Jesus (Mt1:20-25 and Lk 1:26-38) and to the women at Jesus' tomb telling of his resurrection (Mt 28:2-7; Jn 20:11-13).

Roles
One role of angels in the Bible seems to be to encourage and minister to the needs of God's people - Raphael cures Tobit's blindness and leads Tobias to a happy marriage (Tobit 3 and 6). Another role seems to be opposing the work of Satan and his demons - like Michael in Rev 12:7-9. Demythologising writers have interpreted this as either a literary genre, or as a symbolic/metaphorical way of speaking of God's providential care. Either way it expresses faith in God's providential care.

Guardian Angels
The belief in guardian angels is based on the protecting power of God as expressed in Psalm 90:10-12:
Upon you no evil shall fall,
no plague approach where you dwell.
for you has he commanded his angels,
to keep you in all your ways.
They shall bear you upon their hands
lest you strike your foot against a stone....
and on what Jesus says about little children (Mt 18:10):
'See that you never despise any of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven are continually in the presence of my father in heaven.'



Theology
The third century Christian theologian Origen wrote:
For each of us in the church of God, no matter how small, there is a good angel of the Lord who stands before the face of God to rule and move and govern, to correct our actions and intercede for us in our sufferings.

St Jerome, writing a century and a half later does not limit guardian angels to those in the church:
'What a great dignity of souls, that each person has from birth, an angel assigned as guardian!'

Prayer
This traditional theology of "Guardian Angels" is admirably expressed in the prayer poem taught to us in childhood:

O angel of God, my guardian dear,
to whom God's love commits us here!
Ever this day be at our side
to light and guard, to rule and guide.

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Memorable Sayings  for Today 

Our Guardian Angels are our most faithful friends,
because they are with us day and night, always and everywhere.
We ought often to invoke them.

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The Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
We are the New Vineyard of the Lord

FIRST READING                        

A reading from the book of Isaiah      5:1-7
The vineyard of the Lord God of hosts is the House of Israel.

Let me sing to my friend the song of his love for his vineyard.
My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
He dug the soil, cleared it of stones, and planted choice vines in it. In the middle he built a tower, he dug a press there too. He expected it to yield grapes, but sour grapes were all that it gave.

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
I ask you to judge between my vineyard and me.
What could I have done for my vineyard that I have not done? I expected it to yield grapes. Why did it yield sour grapes instead?

Very well, I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge for it to be grazed on, and knock down its wall for it to be trampled on.
I will lay it waste, unpruned, undug; overgrown by the briar and the thorn. I will command the clouds to rain no rain on it.
Yes, the vineyard of the Lord God of hosts is the House of Israel, and the men of Judah that chosen plant. He expected justice, but found bloodshed, integrity, but only a cry of distress.

The Word of the Lord.            Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm          Ps 79: 9. 12-16. 19-20. Is 5:7
Response                               The vineyard of the Lord is the House of Israel

1. You brought a vine out of Egypt; to plant it, you drove out the nations.
It stretched out its branches to the sea, to the Great River it stretched out its shoots.       Response

2. Then why have you broken down its walls?
It is plucked by all who pass by.
It is ravaged by the boar of the forest,
devoured by the beasts of the field.             Response    

3. God of hosts, turn again, we implore,
look down from heaven and see.
Visit this vine and protect it,
the vine your right hand has planted.         Response

4. And we shall never forsake you again: give us life that we may call upon your name.
God of hosts, bring us back; let your face shine on us and we shall be saved.                      Response

SECOND READING                    

A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Philippians       4:6-9
The God of peace will be with you.

There is no need to worry; but if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, fill your minds with everything that is true, everything that is noble, everything that is good and pure, everything that we love and honour, and everything that can be thought virtuous or worthy of praise. Keep doing all the things that you learnt from me and have been taught by me and have heard or seen that I do. Then the God of peace will be with you.

The Word of the Lord                  Thanks be to God.

Gospel Acclamation              Jn 15: 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                                               Jn 15: 16
Alleluia, alleluia!
I chose you from the world to go out and to bear fruit,
fruit that will last says the Lord
Alleluia!

GOSPEL


A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew      21:33-43
He will lease the vineyard to other tenants.

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people : 'Listen to another parable.
There was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard; he fenced it round, dug a winepress in it and built a tower; then he leased it to tenants and went abroad. When vintage time drew near he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his servants, thrashed one, killed another and stoned a third.
Next he sent some more servants, this time a larger number, and they dealt with them in the same way.

Finally he sent his son to them. "They will respect my son" he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, "This is the heir. Come on, let us kill him and take over his inheritance." So they seized him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?'
They answered, 'He will bring those wretches to a wretched end and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will deliver the produce to him when the season arrives'.
Jesus said to them, 'Have you never read in the scriptures: It was the stone rejected by the builders that became the keystone. This was the Lord's doing and it is wonderful to see?

I tell you, then, that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.'

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 1966, by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc, and used by permission of the publishers.