St. Monica 

＊＊＊1st Reading＊＊＊

1 Thessalonians 2: 1-8

You well know, brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not in vain.

 We had been ill-treated and insulted in Philippi but, trusting in our God, we dared announce to you the message of God, and face fresh opposition.  Our warnings did not conceal any error or impure motive, nor did we deceive anyone.  But as God had entrusted his Gospel to us as to faithful ministers, we were anxious to please God who sees the heart, rather than human beings.

 We never pleased you with flat We did not try to make a name for ourselves among people, either with you or anybody else, although we were messengers of Christ and could have made our weight felt.

 On the contrary, we were gentle with you, as a nursing mother who feeds and cuddles her baby.  And so great is our concern that we are ready to give you, as well as the Gospel, even our very lives, for you have become very dear to us.

  

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Matthew 23: 23-26

 Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You do not for­get the mint, anise and cumin seeds when you demand the tenth of everything, but then you forget what is most fundamental in the Law: justice, mercy and faith. You should have done these things without neglecting the others.  Blind guides! You strain out a mosquito, but swallow a camel.

Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You fill the plate and the cup with theft and violence, and then pronounce a blessing over them.  Blind Pharisee! Purify the inside first, then the outside too will be purified.

 

Reflection gospel：

“WITHOUT NEGLECTING OTHERS.”

Our modern consumerist world brags about the economic growth, continuous progress and development, and breakthroughs in medicine, science and technology, that provide a better quality of life. But is it really a better quality of life, is it real progress, that we have before us? We now live in a period in which the gap between the rich and the poor has become tremendously wide, almost impossible to bridge; in a period in which poverty and homelessness is in every corner of the world.

Are we not deceived when war and killings are justified? Are we not deceived when unfair labor practices are put into law? Are not the poor being robbed of their livelihood and food on their table when natural resources are plundered and destroyed?

Our modern economic system has successfully developed and marketed a consumerist lifestyle that exploits our fellow humans, a kind of lifestyle that exhausts and destroys the limited resources of the Earth, a lifestyle that is not sustainable, and a lifestyle that is extremely difficult for majority of the peoples of the world to attain. The poor sector of the world and the various life-forms on Earth are being used and abused. They cry out for justice and mercy.