Claretian Communications Foundation, Inc.
23RD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Psalter: Week 3 / (Green)
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 149: 1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a, 9b: The Lord takes delight in his people.
1st Reading: 1 Corinthians 6: 1-11
When you have a complaint against a brother, how dare you bring it before pagan judges, instead of bringing it before God’s people? Do you not know, that you shall one day judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you incapable of judging such simple problems?
Do you not know, that we will even judge the angels? And could you not decide everyday affairs?
But when you have ordinary cases to be judged, you bring them before those who are of no account in the Church! Shame on you!
Is there not even one among you wise enough to be the arbiter among believers?
But no. One of you brings a suit against another one, and files that suit before unbelievers.
It is already a failure that you have suits against each other. Why do you not rather suffer wrong and receive some damage? But no. You wrong and injure others, and those are your brothers and sisters. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Make no mistake about it: those who lead sexually immoral lives, or worship idols, or who are adulterers, perverts, sodomites, or thieves, exploiters, drunkards, slanderers or embezzlers will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Some of you were like that, but you have been cleansed, and consecrated to God and have been set right with God, by the name of the Lord Jesus, and the Spirit of our God.
Gospel: Luke 6: 12-19
At this time, Jesus went out into the hills to pray, spending the whole night in prayer with God.
When day came, he called his disciples to him, and chose Twelve of them, whom he called ‘apostles’: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew; James and John; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew and Thomas; James son of Alpheus and Simon called the Zealot; Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who would be the traitor. Coming down the hill with them Jesus stood in an open plain.
Many of his disciples were there, and a large crowd of people, who had come from all parts of Judea and Jerusalem, and from the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon. They gathered to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.
And people troubled by unclean spirits were cured. The entire crowd tried to touch him, because of the power that went out from him and healed them all.
REFLECTION:
“He called His disciples.”
Today’s Gospel narrates the choosing of the Twelve from among his disciples.
The Gospel also tells a summary of Jesus’ teaching and healing ministries. We may imagine how busy Jesus was.
However, before Jesus had engaged in all these abovementioned activities, Jesus prayed in silence. Jesus is described to be in communion with God the Father.
The Gospel passage begins by telling that Jesus went out into the hills in order to spend an entire night in prayer with God. We may reflect on the point that Jesus was simply there, silently and attentively listening to what his Father was telling him.
Jesus would always listen to his Father before doing anything, whether it was a particular task of selecting his apostles or performing his usual ministerial duties of teaching and healing the people.
Like Jesus, we are called to be in constant communion with God the Father. We are challenged to speak less before God.
We can only hear God’s voice in silence, the voice that can guide our decisions and actions.
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