Thursday, October 27, 2011 (Weekday)

REFLECTION FOR TODAY
However great the work that God may achieve by an individual, he must not indulge in self-satisfaction. He ought rather to be all the more humbled, seeing himself merely as a tool which God has made use of.
-- St Vincent de Paul
READINGS FOR TODAY
First Reading: Romans 8:31-39
(God's Love in Christ Jesus)
31 In view of all this, what can we say? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 Certainly not God, who did not even keep back his own Son, but offered him for us all! He gave us his Son—will he not also freely give us all things?
33 Who will accuse God's chosen people? God himself declares them not guilty! 34 Who, then, will condemn them? Not Christ Jesus, who died, or rather, who was raised to life and is at the right side of God, pleading with him for us!
35 Who, then, can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble do it, or hardship or persecution or hunger or poverty or danger or death?
36 As the scripture says, “For your sake we are in danger of death at all times; we are treated like sheep that are going to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us!
38 For I am certain that nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future,
39 neither the world above nor the world below—there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Psalms: Psalm 109:21-22, 26-27, 30-31
21 But my Sovereign Lord, help me as you have promised, and rescue me because of the goodness of your love.
22 I am poor and needy; I am hurt to the depths of my heart.
26 Help me, O Lord my God; because of your constant love, save me!
27 Make my enemies know that you are the one who saves me.
30 I will give loud thanks to the Lord; I will praise him in the assembly of the people,
31 because he defends the poor and saves them from those who condemn them to death.

Gospel: Luke 13:31-35
(Jesus' Love for Jerusalem)
31 At that same time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “You must get out of here and go somewhere else, because Herod wants to kill you.”
32 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell that fox: ‘I am driving out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I shall finish my work.’ 33 Yet I must be on my way today, tomorrow, and the next day; it is not right for a prophet to be killed anywhere except in Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets, you stone the messengers God has sent you! How many times I wanted to put my arms around all your
people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me! And so your Temple will be abandoned. I assure you that you will not see
me until the time comes when you say, ‘God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord.’”