"Christ is our rock."First, we need to, “ . . . laying aside all malice . . . all guile,

and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings.”　 then desire the Word of God,　

In Isaiah it says, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone,

Jesus is to be our fixed point and our foundation on which we stand.

 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊   

Genesis 16:1-12, 15-16 (or 16:6b-12, 15-16)

Sarai, Abram's wife

Had not borne him a child, but she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar, and she said to Abram,

"Now, since the Lord has kept me from having children, go to my servant;

perhaps I shall have a child by her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

Abram had been in the land of Canaan ten years when Sarai, his wife, took Hagar,

her Egyptian maid, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as wife. He went in to Hagar and she became pregnant.

 

When she was aware of this, she began to despise her mistress. Sarai said to Abram,

"May this injury done to me be yours. I put my servant in your arms and now that she knows she is pregnant;

I count for nothing in her eyes. Let the Lord judge between me and you." Abram said to Sarai, "

Your servant is in your power; do with her as you please." Then Sarai treated her so badly that she ran away.

 

The angel of the Lord found her near a spring in the wilderness and said to her, "Hagar, servant of Sarai,

where have you come from and where are you going?" She said, "I'm running away from Sarai, my mistress."

The angel of the Lord said to her, "Go back to your mistress and humbly submit yourself to her."

The angel of the Lord said to her, "I will so increase your descendants, that they will be too numerous to be counted."

 

Then the angel of the Lord said to her, "Now you are with child and you will have a son,

and you shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your distress. He shall be a wild ass of a man,

his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, defiant towards all his brothers."

Hagar gave birth to a son and Abram called the child Hagar bore him,

Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.

 

Ps 106:1b-2, 3-4a, 4b-5 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

 

＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊     

Matthew 7:21-29

Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the kingdom of heaven,

but the one who does the will of my heavenly Father. Many will say to me on that day,

'Lord, Lord, did we not speak in your name? Did we not cast out devils and perform many miracles in your name?

Then I will tell them openly, 'I have never known you; away from me, you evil people!'

 

"Therefore, anyone who hears these words of mine, and acts according to them, is like a wise man,

who built his house on rock. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded, and the wind blew and struck that house.

But it did not collapse, because it was built on rock. But anyone who hears these words of mine,

and does not act accordingly, is like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain poured, the rivers flooded,

and the wind blew and struck that house; it collapsed, and what a terrible collapse that was!"

When Jesus had finished this discourse, the crowds were struck by the way he taught,

because he taught with authority, unlike their teachers of the law.

 

Gospel Reflection ：

"Christ is our rock."

Recent natural disasters have shown the importance of good foundations,

as we have seen pictures of whole houses being swept away by flash floods or being reduced to matchwood.

Jesus uses the image of building on rock to show how we are to build our lives on him,

rather than on the shifting sands of fashionable ideologies or social trends. Christ is our rock.

He is the one who gives solidity and purpose to life, preventing us from being swept away

by attitudes that are self-centred or driven by emotion. But how do we build our lives on Christ?

 

By building up our relationship with him. This means that we know him, rather than just about him.

We get to know Christ personally through daily prayer, and not simply from knowing our catechism or from hearing an occasional sermon.

Christ teaches that he will say, "I have never known you; away from me," even to those who have carried out good works in his name.

They have used his name, but they didn't know him, since they did it for themselves rather than for Christ.

May our knowledge of Christ grow ever deeper, and our union ever stronger.