Tuesday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time
Mass Readings
First Reading – 1 Cor 6:1-11
Brothers and sisters: How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones? Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters? If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the Church? I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers? But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers? Now indeed then it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated? Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God. That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b (R. see 4)
R. The Lord takes delight in his people.
Sing to the LORD a new song
of praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel be glad in their maker,
let the children of Zion rejoice in their king. R.
Let them praise his name in the festive dance,
let them sing praise to him with timbrel and harp.
For the LORD loves his people,
and he adorns the lowly with victory. R.
Let the faithful exult in glory;
let them sing for joy upon their couches;
Let the high praises of God be in their throats.
This is the glory of all his faithful. Alleluia. R.
Gospel – Lk 6:12-19
Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called a Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. And he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground. A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured. Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.
Featured Saints
St. Nicholas of Tolentino, priest (†1305). From the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine; undertaking his divinely inspired mission, he laboured for the salvation of souls in Tolentino, Italy, for thirty years, working many wonders and bringing about a spiritual renewal there.
St. Autbert, Bishop (†c.725). Bishop of Avranches, France, he ordered the construction of a shrine in honour of St. Michael on Mount Tombe. The edifice, enlarged over the years, is today the famous abbey of Mont Saint-Michel.
St. Theodard, bishop and martyr (c. 670). Bishop of Tongeren-Maastrich, master of St. Lambert.
St. Ambrose Edward Barlow, priest and martyr (†1641). Catholic convert from Anglicanism, he became a Benedictine priest abroad and returned to England, where he secretly ministered to Catholics of the Lancaster region for 24 years, before being arrested and executed there.
St. Nemesius, martyr(†251). Denounced as a Christian during the reign of Decius, he was scourged and burned alive in Alexandria, Egypt.
St. Pulcheria, empress and virgin (†453). Daughter of Arcadius, Byzantine Emperor. At the age of fifteen, she made a vow of virginity and transformed her living quarters into a into a place of hermitic reclusion, edifying the court with her example. She exercised an important role in the convocation of the 3rd council of Ephesus.
Blessed Sebastian Kimura and Francisco Morales, priests, and companions, martyrs (†1622). Cruelly tortured and killed with 50 other Catholics (priests, religious, couples, youths, catechists, widows and children), in Nagasaki, Japan.
Blessed Jacques Gagnot, priest and martyr (†1794). Carmelite religious who, during the French Revolution, was imprisoned in a sordid galley in Rochefort, where he died, consumed by illness.
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