Sunday August 29, 2010

First Reading: Sir 3:17-18,20, 20-29

My Son, be gentle in carrying out your business, and you will be better loved than a lavish giver. The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly, and then you will find favour with the Lord; for great though the power of the Lord is, he accepts the homage of the  humble. There is no cure for the proud man’s malady, since an evil growth has taken root in him. The heart of a sensible man will reflect on parables, an attentive ear is the sage’s dream.

Ps 68

Second Reading: Heb 12:18-19, 22-24a

¹⁸ What you have come to is nothing known to the senses: not a blazing fire, or gloom or total darkness, or a storm;

¹⁹ or trumpet-blast or the sound of a voice speaking which made everyone that heard it beg that no more should be said to them.

²² But what you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival,

²³ with the whole Church of first-born sons, enrolled as citizens of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and to the spirits of the upright who have been made perfect;

²⁴ and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to purifying blood which pleads more insistently than Abel’s.

Gospel, Lk 14:1, 7-14

¹ Now it happened that on a Sabbath day he had gone to share a meal in the house of one of the leading Pharisees; and they watched him closely.

⁷ He then told the guests a parable, because he had noticed how they picked the places of honour. He said this,

⁸ ‘When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take your seat in the place of honour. A more distinguished person than you may have been invited,

⁹ and the person who invited you both may come and say, “Give up your place to this man.” And then, to your embarrassment, you will have to go and take the lowest place.

¹⁰ No; when you are a guest, make your way to the lowest place and sit there, so that, when your host comes, he may say, “My friend, move up higher.” Then, everyone with you at the table will see you honoured.

¹¹ For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be raised up.’

¹² Then he said to his host, ‘When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relations or rich neighbours, in case they invite you back and so repay you.

¹³ No; when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;

¹⁴ then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you and so you will be repaid when the upright rise again.’