Thursday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time
Featured Saints and Commemorations
Our Lady of Częstochowa. Patroness of Poland.
Bl. Dominic of the Mother of God Barberi, priest (+1849). He journeyed from Italy to work for the conversion of England.
St. Ninian, bishop (+432), the earliest known bishop to have visited Scotland.
Blessed Jacques Retouret, priest and martyr (†1794). Carmelite religious from the monastery of Limoges, who during the French Revolution was imprisoned on a galley, where he died of hypothermia.
St. Teresa of Jesus Jornet Ibars, virgin (†1897). Spanish religious; she founded the Institute of the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly.
St. Joan Elizabeth Bichier des Âges, virgin (†1838). She founded the Congregation of the daughters of the Cross in Maillé, France, to educate children and care for the sick.
Blessed Laurentia Harasymiv, virgin and martyr (†1952). Religious from the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, in Ukraine, she aided the faithful, in the absence of priests who had disappeared in Soviet concentration camps. She was arrested and deported to the concentration camp of Kharsk, Siberia, where she died of tuberculosis.
Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified Baouardy, virgin (†1878). Born in Galilee and educated in France, she entered the Discalced Carmelites and founded the convents of the Order in Mangalore (India) and Bethlehem (Palestine).
Blessed Ceferino Namuncurá, layman (†1905). Son of a Mapuche chieftain of Patagonia. He desired to become a missionary priest, dedicated to the conversion of his people, but died of tuberculosis at age 19, before his dream could be fulfilled.
St. Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of the Most High (cf. Gn 14: 18-20). His priesthood prefigures that of Christ (cf. Hb 5:6).
Mass Readings
First Reading – 1 Thes 3:7-13
We have been reassured about you, brothers and sisters,
in our every distress and affliction, through your faith.
For we now live, if you stand firm in the Lord.
What thanksgiving, then, can we render to God for you,
for all the joy we feel on your account before our God?
Night and day we pray beyond measure to see you in person
and to remedy the deficiencies of your faith.
Now may God himself, our Father, and our Lord Jesus
direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase
and abound in love for one another and for all,
just as we have for you,
so as to strengthen your hearts,
to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones. Amen.
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 90:3-5a, 12-13, 14 and 17 (R.14)
R. Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!
You turn man back to dust,
saying, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are as yesterday, now that it is past,
or as a watch of the night. R.
Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants! R.
Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
And may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours;
prosper the work of our hands for us!
Prosper the work of our hands! R.
Gospel – Mt 24:42-51
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this: if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.
“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant,
whom the master has put in charge of his household
to distribute to them their food at the proper time?
Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so.
Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.
But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’
and begins to beat his fellow servants,
and eat and drink with drunkards,
the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day
and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely
and assign him a place with the hypocrites,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
