FIRST READING
“So faith, hope, love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”
A reading from the first Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13)
Brethren: Earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burnt, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The word of the Lord.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM Psalm 33 :2-3.4-5. 12 and 22 (R. 12b)
R/. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen as his heritage.
Give thanks to the Lord upon the harp;
with a ten-stringed lute sing him songs.
O sing him a song that is new;
play skilfully, with shouts of joy. R.
For the word of the Lord is faithful,
and all his works to be trusted.
The Lord loves justice and right,
and his merciful love fills the earth. R.
Blessed the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people he has chosen as his heritage.
May your merciful love be upon us,
as we hope in you, O Lord. R.
ALLELUIA John 6:63c.68c
Alleluia. Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life; you have the words of eternal life. Alleluia.
GOSPEL
“We piped to you, and you did not dance, we wailed, and you did not weep.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke (Luke 7:31-35)
At that time: Jesus said, “To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’ For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine; and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of man has come eating and drinking; and you say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners! Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Today’s Reflection
Jesus looks at his generation and calls it a childish generation. They have become depraved and perverse. They reject that which is sane and good and embrace that which is evil. They call evil good and tag good evil. They spurn God’s love and become obstinate in their rejection of God’s goodness. John came and lived an austere life, they named him a mad eccentric and put his head on a platter of gold. Jesus came, ate, drank and socialized, and they tagged him a drunkard and dragged him to a cross. Our generation seems similar to that of Jesus in its childishness. We complain of lack of time but we waste time gossiping. We pray for the fruit of the womb and also fight for the right to abort. We cry to God for protection and we reject his laws about the use of freedom. The words of Saint Paul should stir us: “When I was a child I spoke like a child and reasoned like a child but now that I am old, I leave my childish ways.”