Daily Reading for Sunday, August 4th, 2013

Reading 1, Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23

² Sheer futility, Qoheleth says. Sheer futility: everything is futile!

²¹ For here is one who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully and must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This is futile too, and grossly unjust;

²² for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun-

²³ since his days are full of sorrow, his work is full of stress and even at night he has no peace of mind? This is futile too.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9

¹ Come, let us cry out with joy to Yahweh, acclaim the rock of our salvation.

² Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, acclaim him with music.

⁶ Come, let us bow low and do reverence; kneel before Yahweh who made us!

⁷ For he is our God, and we the people of his sheepfold, the flock of his hand. If only you would listen to him today!

⁸ Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as at the time of Massah in the desert,

⁹ when your ancestors challenged me, put me to the test, and saw what I could do!

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Gospel, Luke 12:13-21

¹³ A man in the crowd said to him, 'Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.'

¹⁴ He said to him, 'My friend, who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?'

¹⁵ Then he said to them, 'Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for life does not consist in possessions, even when someone has more than he needs.'

¹⁶ Then he told them a parable, 'There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land,

¹⁷ thought to himself, "What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops."

¹⁸ Then he said, "This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them,

¹⁹ and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time."

²⁰ But God said to him, "Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?"

²¹ So it is when someone stores up treasure for himself instead of becoming rich in the sight of God.'

Reading 2, Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11

¹ Since you have been raised up to be with Christ, you must look for the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at God's right hand.

² Let your thoughts be on things above, not on the things that are on the earth,

³ because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God.

⁴ But when Christ is revealed -- and he is your life-you, too, will be revealed with him in glory.

⁵ That is why you must kill everything in you that is earthly: sexual vice, impurity, uncontrolled passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god;

⁹ and do not lie to each other. You have stripped off your old behaviour with your old self,

¹⁰ and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its Creator;

¹¹ and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised and uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.

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