Thursday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time
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.”
Featured Saints
Sts. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. They took the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ down from the Cross and wrapped it with spices in linens and placed it in the sepulchre.
St. Aidan, Bishop (†651). Having been appointed Bishop of Lindisfarne (England), he founded a monastery there to efficaciously carry out the evangelization of the Kingdom of Northumbria.
St. Paulinus of Trier, bishop and martyr (†358). Bishop of Trier, in present-day Germany, he defended St. Athanasius against the Arians in the Synod of Arles, in 353 and was consequently exiled to Phrygia, Turkey, where he was martyred.
St. Aristides, apologist (†c.150). Athenian philosopher who converted to Christianity and renowned for his faith and wisdomhe addressed an Apology on the Christian Faith to Emperor Hadrian.
St. Raymond Nonnatus, religious (†circa 1240). One of the first companions of St. Peter Nolasco in the Order of the Mercedarians, who died on the way to Rome, where he was going to received the cardinal’s biretta.
Blessed Andrea Dotti, priest (†1315). Italian noble; he left the life of the court to join the Servite Order.
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