Mass Readings for Tuesday, May 18, 2010

 Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

FIRST READING: Acts 20: 17 - 27

---

17 From Miletus he sent for the elders of the church of Ephesus.

18 When they arrived he addressed these words to them: 'You know what my way of life has been ever since the first day I set foot among you in Asia,

19 how I have served the Lord in all humility, with all the sorrows and trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews.

20 I have not hesitated to do anything that would be helpful to you; I have preached to you and instructed you both in public and in your homes,

21 urging both Jews and Greeks to turn to God and to believe in our Lord Jesus.

22 'And now you see me on my way to Jerusalem in captivity to the Spirit; I have no idea what will happen to me there,

23 except that the Holy Spirit, in town after town, has made it clear to me that imprisonment and persecution await me.

24 But I do not place any value on my own life, provided that I complete the mission the Lord Jesus gave me -- to bear witness to the good news of God's grace.

25 'I now feel sure that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will ever see my face again.

26 And so on this very day I swear that my conscience is clear as far as all of you are concerned,

27 for I have without faltering put before you the whole of God's purpose.

PSALM: Psalms 68: 10 - 11, 20 - 21

---

10 You claimed a land as your own, O God;

11 your people settled there. There you poured abundant rains, God, graciously given to the poor in their need.

20 Blessed be the Lord day by day, God, our salvation, who carries us. Selah

21 Our God is a God who saves; escape from death is in the LORD God's hands.

GOSPEL: John 17: 1 - 11

---

1 After saying this, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you;

2 so that, just as you have given him power over all humanity, he may give eternal life to all those you have entrusted to him.

3 And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

4 I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.

5 Now, Father, glorify me with that glory I had with you before ever the world existed.

6 I have revealed your name to those whom you took from the world to give me. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

7 Now at last they have recognised that all you have given me comes from you

8 for I have given them the teaching you gave to me, and they have indeed accepted it and know for certain that I came from you, and have believed that it was you who sent me.

9 It is for them that I pray. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they belong to you.

10 All I have is yours and all you have is mine, and in them I am glorified.

11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us.

Mass Readings for Sunday, May 16, 2010

The Ascension of the Lord (Solemnity)

FIRST READING: Acts 1: 1 - 11

---

1 In the first book, O The-oph'ilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,

2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

3 To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God.

4 And while staying with them he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, "you heard from me,

5 for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"

7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.

8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Sama'ria and to the end of the earth."

9 And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,

11 and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

PSALM: Psalms 47: 2 - 3, 6 - 9

---

2 For the LORD, the Most High, is terrible, a great king over all the earth.

3 He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.

6 Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!

7 For God is the king of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm!

8 God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.

9 The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted!

SECOND READING: Ephesians 1: 17 - 23 or Hebrews 9: 24 - 28; 10: 19 - 23

---

17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,

18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might

20 which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places,

21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come;

22 and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church,

23 which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all.

Or

24 For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own;

26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

27 And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment,

28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,

20 by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,

21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,

22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful;

GOSPEL: Luke 10: 46 - 53

---

46 and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,

47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

48 You are witnesses of these things.

49 And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high."

50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them.

51 While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.

52 And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy,

53 and were continually in the temple blessing God.