1ST READING
Spreading the Gospel is hard work. There will be times when we will go hungry. There will be times when the people would not want to listen. There will be times when we get rejected. Praise the Lord! It happened to Jesus and now we have the joy of being persecuted for the sake of His name. Should we give up? No! The harder it is for the Gospel to find root in a place, the deeper the rooting will be when it happens. We need to trust in the Lord and keep proclaiming the Gospel whether the people like it or not. We should continue living the Gospel in their midst as a powerful witness to the truth.
1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
9 You recall, brothers and sisters, our toil and drudgery. Working night and day in order not to burden any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers. 11 As you know, we treated each one of you as a father treats his children, 12 exhorting and encouraging you and insisting that you walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his Kingdom and glory. 13 And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly, that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe.
P S A L M
Psalm 139:7-8, 9-10, 11-12
R: You have searched me and you know me, Lord.
7 Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence where can I flee? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I sink to the nether world, you are present there. (R) 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, if I settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall guide me, and your right hand hold me fast. (R) 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light” — 12 for your darkness itself is not dark, and night shines as the day. (R)
GOSPEL
It is the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees that upsets Jesus the most. Hypocrisy is the death of an ideal. It is the surest way to kill something dead in its tracks. We should keep hypocrisy away from our lives and anything we are involved in. Let us live in simplicity and truth so that the scourge of hypocrisy will be dead to us.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION
Whoever keeps the word of Christ, the love of God is truly perfected in him.
Matthew 23:27-32
27 Jesus said “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. 28 Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing. 29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, 30 and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ 31 Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; 32 now fill up what your ancestors measured out!
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