October 22nd, 2018

Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

LECTIONARY
473

FIRST READING
EPH 2:1-10

You were dead in your transgressions and sins
in which you once lived following the age of this world,
following the ruler of the power of the air,
the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient.
All of us once lived among them in the desires of our flesh,
following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses,
and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.
But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works
that God has prepared in advance,
that we should live in them.

PSALM
PS 100:1B-2, 3, 4AB, 4C-5

Response: The Lord made us, we belong to him.

Sing joyfully to the LORD all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.

Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him; bless his name, for he is good:
the LORD, whose kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all generations.

GOSPEL
LK 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God.”

Daily Reflection

22nd October 2018

John Paul II

Paul, writing to the Ephesians, points out how God, through Jesus, has saved us from death. Left to our human nature, we spiral into death. But with God’s grace, we rise to life. Human nature, when it follows its innate inclinations, tends to look at itself and ends up being selfish, self-centred and fails to look up to the Creator. Christ’s salvific death re-aligns this inclination. Through Him, God “brought us to life” enabling us to be “seated with Him in the heavens”.

Today’s Gospel begins with a man asking Jesus to arbitrate and ask his brother to share the inheritance with him. While Jesus rejects the role of judge, he points to the deeper reality of life and wealth as gifts from God by using a parable. While the man has the capacity to safeguard his grain for years to come, his life and death remain in God’s hands.

Do you possess life or does life possess you?