Word of the day

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Date02/09/2019

Reading of the day

A reading from the first letter to Thessalonians
1 THES 4:13-18

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,
about those who have fallen asleep,
so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose,
so too will God, through Jesus,
bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord,
that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord,
will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord himself, with a word of command,
with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God,
will come down from heaven,
and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive, who are left,
will be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air.
Thus we shall always be with the Lord.
Therefore, console one another with these words.

Gospel of the day

From the Gospel according to Luke
LK 4:16-30

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Rolling up the scroll,
he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
"Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."
And all spoke highly of him
and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
They also asked, "Is this not the son of Joseph?"
He said to them, "Surely you will quote me this proverb,
'Physician, cure yourself,' and say, 'Do here in your native place
the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'"
And he said,
"Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you,
there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
Again, there were many lepers in Israel
during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian."
When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.
But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

Words of the Holy Father

It is beautiful how Jesus presents himself, which is Jesus’ identity card in the Synagogue of Nazareth! Let us hear how he does it: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Lk 4:18). Jesus presents himself in the Synagogue of his village as the Anointed One, the One who was anointed by the Holy Spirit. esus is filled with the Holy Spirit and is the source of the Spirit promised by the Father (cf. Jn 15:26; Lk 24:49; Acts 1:8, 2:33). In reality, on the evening of Easter, the Risen One breathes on his disciples, saying to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22); and on the Day of Pentecost the power of the Spirit descends upon the Apostles in an extraordinary form (cf. Acts 2:1-4), as we know. If the Spirit works in every sacrament, it is in a special way that in Confirmation “the faithful receive the Holy Spirit as a Gift” (Paul vi, Apostolic Constitution Divinae Consortium Naturae). And at the moment of anointing, the Bishop says these words: “Be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit”: the Holy Spirit is God’s great gift. And we all have the Spirit within. The Spirit is in our heart, in our soul. And the Spirit guides us in life so that we may become the true salt and the true light for mankind. (General Audience, 23 may 2018)