SUNDAY 31st JULY, 2016. MASS READING

Sunday 31 July 2016

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Liturgical Colour: Green.

Readings at Mass

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Entrance Antiphon	Ps 69: 2, 6

O God, come to my assistance;

O Lord, make haste to help me!

You are my rescuer, my help;

O Lord, do not delay.

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Collect

Draw near to your servants, O Lord,

and answer their prayers with unceasing kindness,

that, for those who glory in you as their Creator and guide,

you may restore what you have created

and keep safe what you have restored.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

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First reading
Ecclesiastes 1:2,2:21-23

Vanity of vanities, Qoheleth says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!

  For so it is that a man who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun? What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.

EITHER:

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 89:3-6,12-14,17

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

You turn men back to dust

  and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’

To your eyes a thousand years

  are like yesterday, come and gone,

  no more than a watch in the night.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

You sweep men away like a dream,

  like the grass which springs up in the morning.

In the morning it springs up and flowers:

  by evening it withers and fades.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

Make us know the shortness of our life

  that we may gain wisdom of heart.

Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?

  Show pity to your servants.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

In the morning, fill us with your love;

  we shall exult and rejoice all our days.

Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:

  give success to the work of our hands.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

OR:

Alternative Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 94:1-2,6-9

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;

  hail the rock who saves us.

Let us come before him, giving thanks,

  with songs let us hail the Lord.

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

Come in; let us bow and bend low;

  let us kneel before the God who made us:

for he is our God and we

  the people who belong to his pasture,

  the flock that is led by his hand.

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

O that today you would listen to his voice!

  ‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,

  as on that day at Massah in the desert

when your fathers put me to the test;

  when they tried me, though they saw my work.’

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

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Second reading
Colossians 3:1-5,9-11

Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ is revealed – and he is your life – you too will be revealed in all your glory with him.

  That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each other lies. You have stripped off your old behaviour with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its creator; and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised or the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.

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Gospel Acclamation	Jn17:17

Alleluia, alleluia!

Your word is truth, O Lord:

consecrate us in the truth.

Alleluia!

Or	Mt5:3

Alleluia, alleluia!

How happy are the poor in spirit:

theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Alleluia!

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Gospel	Luke 12:13-21

A man in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.’ ‘My friend,’ he replied, ‘who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.’

  Then he told them a parable: ‘There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time.” But God said to him, “Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?.” So it is when a man stores up treasure for himself in place of making himself rich in the sight of God.’

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Prayer over the Offerings

Graciously sanctify these gifts, O Lord, we pray,

and, accepting the oblation of this spiritual sacrifice,

make of us an eternal offering to you.

Through Christ our Lord.

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Communion Antiphon	Wis 16: 20

You have given us, O Lord, bread from heaven,

endowed with all delights and sweetness in every taste.

Or	Jn 6: 35

I am the bread of life, says the Lord;

whoever comes to me will not hunger

and whoever believes in me will not thirst.

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Prayer after Communion

Accompany with constant protection, O Lord,

those you renew with these heavenly gifts

and, in your never-failing care for them,

make them worthy of eternal redemption.

Through Christ our Lord.