When we pray, we strengthen our relationship with the Lord.

as we ask for forgiveness we should also learn to forgive those who did us wrong.                                                                                                                                                                                                 

St. Maria Faustyna Kowalska    

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊  

Galatians 2:1-2, 7-4    

After fourteen years

I again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and Titus came with us. Following a revelation, I went to lay before them the Gospel that I am preaching to the pagans. I had a private meeting with the leaders—lest I should be working or have worked in a wrong way.

They recognized that I have been entrusted to give the Good News to the pagan nations, just as Peter has been entrusted to give it to the Jews. In the same    way that God made Peter the apostle of the Jews, he made me the apostle of the pagans.

James, Cephas and John acknowledged the graces God gave me. Those men who were regarded as the pillars of the Church stretched out their hand to me and Barnabas as a sign of fel­lowship; we would go to the pagans and they to the Jews. We should only keep in mind the poor among them. I have taken care to do this.

 When later Cephas came to Antioch, I con­fronted him since he deserved to be blamed. Before some of James’ people arrived, he used to eat with non-Jewish people. But when they arrived, he withdrew and did not mingle anymore with them, for fear of the Jewish group.

The rest of the Jews followed him in this pretense, and even Barnabas was part of this insincerity. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas publicly: If you who are Jewish agreed to live like the non-Jews, setting aside the Jewish customs, why do you now compel the non-Jews to live like Jews?

 

Ps 117:1bc, 2

Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊ 

Luke 11:1-4

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”   And Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this:

Father, hallowed be your name, may your kingdom come, give us each day the kind of bread we need, and forgive us our sins, for we also for­give all who do us wrong,

and do not bring us to the test.”

 

 Gospel Reflection：

On the Lord’s Prayer, let us listen to few words from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2766):

 “Jesus does not give us a formula to repeat mechanically. As in every vocal prayer, it is through the Word of God that the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God to pray to their Father. Jesus not only gives us the words of our filial prayer; at the same time he gives us the spirit by whom these words become in us ‘spirit and life.’

Even more, the proof and possibility of our filial prayer is that the Father ‘sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!”Since our prayer sets forth our desires before God, it is again the Father, ‘he who searches the hearts of men,’ who ‘knows what is the mind of the Spirit.

because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.’ The prayer to Our Father is inserted into the mysterious mission of the Son and of the Spirit.”