FIRST READING
“May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men.”
A reading from the first Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians (1Thessalonians 3:7-13)
Brethren, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith; for now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we render to God for you, for all the joy which we feel for your sake before our God, praying earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you; and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
The word of the Lord.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM Psalm90:3-4.12-13.14 and 17 (R. 14)
R. Fill us with your merciful love, O Lord, and we shall exult.
You turn man back to dust,
And say, “Return, O children of men.”
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
or like a watch in the night. R.
Then teach us to number our days,
That we may gain wisdom of heart.
Turn back, O Lord! How long?
Show pity to your servants. R.
R. Fill us with your merciful love, O Lord, and we shall exult.
At dawn, fill us with your merciful love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us;
give success to the work of our hands.
O give success to the work of our hands. R.
ALLELUIA Matthew 24:42a.44
Alleluia. Watch, therefore, and be ready; the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Alleluia.
GOSPEL
“Be ready.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Matthew 24:42-51)
At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, “Watch, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with the drunken; the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him, and put him with the hypocrites; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Today’s Reflection
Our world is full of false prophets; so often these false prophets predict the end of the world. From the 1970s to the 1990s there were sundry prophecies that the world would come to an end in the year 2000, and shortly after the year 2000, some other prophets predicted 2010 to be the end of the world. In all generations people raise questions on when the end of the world will be. Jesus advised us to “be ready” for his second coming. The best way to be ready and stand prepared is to be committed and faithful to serving God and in doing his will. As we make efforts to be ready, St Paul prays for us to remain “unblamable in holiness before God our Father.”