Readings for Monday 17th Week in Ordinary Time

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Year 2

First Reading
Jer 13:1-11

The people shall be like a loincloth which is good for nothing.

A reading from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah

The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth;
   wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.
I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on.
A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus:
   Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing,
   and go now to the Parath;
   there hide it in a cleft of the rock.
Obedient to the LORD’s command, I went to the Parath
   and buried the loincloth.
After a long interval, the LORD said to me:
   Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth
   which I told you to hide there.
Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth
   from the place where I had hid it.
But it was rotted, good for nothing!
Then the message came to me from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD:
   So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot,
   the great pride of Jerusalem.
This wicked people who refuse to obey my words,
   who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts,
   and follow strange gods to serve and adore them,
   shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.
For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins,
   so had I made the whole house of Israel
   and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD;
   to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.
But they did not listen.


Responsorial Psalm
Deuteronomy 32:18-19, 20, 21

R. :

R. (see 18a) You have forgotten God who gave you birth.

You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,
   You forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing
   and anger toward his sons and daughters.

R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.

“I will hide my face from them,” he said,
   “and see what will then become of them.
What a fickle race they are,
   sons with no loyalty in them!”

R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.

“Since they have provoked me with their ‘no-god’
   and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’;
   with a foolish nation I will anger them.”

R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.

Year 1

First Reading
Ex 32:15-24, 30-34

This people has indeed committed a grave sin, in making a god of gold for themselves.

A reading from the Book of Exodus

Moses turned and came down the mountain
   with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands,
   tablets that were written on both sides, front and back;
   tablets that were made by God,
   having inscriptions on them that were engraved by God himself.
Now, when Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting,
   he said to Moses, “That sounds like a battle in the camp.”
But Moses answered, “It does not sound like cries of victory,
   nor does it sound like cries of defeat;
   the sounds that I hear are cries of revelry.”
As he drew near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing.
With that, Moses’ wrath flared up, so that he threw the tablets down
   and broke them on the base of the mountain.
Taking the calf they had made, he fused it in the fire
   and then ground it down to powder,
   which he scattered on the water and made the children of Israel drink.

Moses asked Aaron, “What did this people ever do to you
   that you should lead them into so grave a sin?”
Aaron replied, “Let not my lord be angry.
You know well enough how prone the people are to evil.
They said to me, ‘Make us a god to be our leader;
   as for the man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt,
   we do not know what has happened to him.’
So I told them, ‘Let anyone who has gold jewelry take it off.’
They gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out.”

On the next day Moses said to the people,
   “You have committed a grave sin.
I will go up to the LORD, then;
   perhaps I may be able to make atonement for your sin.”
So Moses went back to the LORD and said,
   “Ah, this people has indeed committed a grave sin
   in making a god of gold for themselves!
If you would only forgive their sin!
If you will not, then strike me out of the book that you have written.”
The LORD answered, “Him only who has sinned against me will I strike out of my book.
Now, go and lead the people to the place I have told you.
My angel will go before you.
When it is time for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”


Responsorial Psalm
Ps 106:19-20, 21-22, 23

R. :

R. (1a) Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
   and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
   for the image of a grass-eating bullock.

R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

They forgot the God who had saved them,
   who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
   terrible things at the Red Sea.

R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

Then he spoke of exterminating them,
   but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
   to turn back his destructive wrath.

R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.


Gospel Acclamation
Jm 1:18

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.


Gospel
Mt 13:31-35

The mustard seed becomes a large bush and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew

Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
   that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
   yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush,
   and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.”

He spoke to them another parable.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
   that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
   until the whole batch was leavened.”

All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.
He spoke to them only in parables,
   to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:

      I will open my mouth in parables,
         I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.


At the end of the Gospel, the Deacon, or the Priest, acclaims:

The Gospel of the Lord.

All reply:

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Then he kisses the book, saying quietly:

Through the words of the Gospel
may our sins be wiped away.


Homilies / Gospel Reflections


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