Thursday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time
August 31, 2023
First Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3:7-13
7 For this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith; 8 for now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord. 9 For what thanksgiving can we render to God for you, for all the joy which we feel for your sake before our God, 10 praying earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? 11 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you; 12 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
3 Thou turnest man back to the dust, and sayest, “Turn back, O children of men!” 4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. 5 Thou dost sweep men away; they are like a dream, like grass which is renewed in the morning: 12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. 13 Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on thy servants! 14 Satisfy us in the morning with thy steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
42 “Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. 45 Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, `My master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with the drunken, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, 51 and will punish him, and put him with the hypocrites; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.”
Reflection of the Day: “Truly we are passing through disastrous times, when we may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: ‘There is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land’ (Hosea 4:1). Yet in the midst of this tide of evil, the Virgin Most Merciful rises before our eyes like a rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man.” — Pope St. Pius X
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