The 4th of September, 2022 is the Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time. The Bible scriptures for the holy mass readings for this day came from the Year 2022 of Liturgical Calendar.
Reading 1: WIS 9:13-18B
The first reading from the Wisdom of Solomon.
“For what man will know the counsel of God? Or who will conceive what the Lord wills?
For the thoughts of mortals are unstable, and our plans are prone to fail.
For a corruptible body weighs down the soul. The earthy tent burdens a mind that is full of cares.
We can hardly guess the things that are on earth, and we find the things that are close at hand with labor; but who has traced out the things that are in the heavens?
Who gained knowledge of your counsel, unless you gave wisdom, and sent your holy spirit from on high?
It was thus that the ways of those who are on earth were corrected, and men were taught the things that are pleasing to you.”
Responsorial Psalm: PS 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17
Response: Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations.
You turn man to destruction, saying, “Return, you children of men.”
For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night.
R: Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations.
You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass.
In the morning it sprouts and springs up. By evening, it is withered and dry.
R: Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations.
So teach us to count our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Relent, Yahweh! How long? Have compassion on your servants!
R: Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations.
Satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us. Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands.
R: Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations.
Reading 2: PHLM 9-10, 12-17
The second reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to Philemon.
Yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul, the aged, but also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have become the father of in my chains.
I am sending him back. Therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I desired to keep with me, that on your behalf he might serve me in my chains for the Good News.
But I was willing to do nothing without your consent, that your goodness would not be as of necessity, but of free will.
For perhaps he was therefore separated from you for a while that you would have him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother-especially to me, but how much rather to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
If then you count me a partner, receive him as you would receive me.
Gospel of the Day: LK 14:25-33
From the gospel verse according to Luke.
Now great multitudes were going with him. He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can’t be my disciple.
Whoever doesn’t bear his own cross and come after me, can’t be my disciple.
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?
Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation and isn’t able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy and asks for conditions of peace.
So therefore, whoever of you who doesn’t renounce all that he has, he can’t be my disciple.”
