Saturday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time
Mass Readings
First Reading – 1 Cor 10:14-22
My beloved ones, avoid idolatry. I am speaking as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I am saying. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the Blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the Body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one Body, for we all partake of the one loaf. Look at Israel according to the flesh; are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? So what am I saying? That meat sacrificed to idols is anything? Or that an idol is anything? No, I mean that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to become participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons. Or are we provoking the Lord to jealous anger? Are we stronger than him?
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 116:12-13, 17-18 (R. 17)
R. To you, Lord, I will offer a sacrifice of praise.
How shall I make a return to the LORD
for all the good He has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD. R.
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
My vows to the LORD I will pay
in the presence of all His people. R.
Gospel – Lk 6:43-49
Jesus said to His disciples: “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command? I will show you what someone is like who comes to Me, listens to My words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who listens and does not act is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed.”
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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