Thursday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

1st Reading – 1 Thessalonians 3:7-13

As a result, we were consoled in you, brothers, in the midst of all our difficulties and tribulations, through your faith.

For we now live so that you may stand firm in the Lord.

For what thanks would we be able to repay to God because of you, for all the joy with which we rejoice over you before our God?

For night and day, ever more abundantly, we are praying that we may see your face, and that we may complete those things that are lacking in your faith.

But may God our Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you.

And may the Lord multiply you, and make you abound in your charity toward one another and toward all, just as we also do toward you, in order to confirm your hearts without blame, in sanctity, before God our Father, unto the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints. Amen.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalms 90:3-5A, 12-13, 14 AND 17

R. (14) Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!

You turn man back to dust,
saying, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are as yesterday, now that it is past,
or as a watch of the night.

R. Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!

Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants!

R. Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!

Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
And may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours;
prosper the work of our hands for us!
Prosper the work of our hands!

R. Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!

 

Alleluia – Matthew 24:42A, 44

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Stay awake!
For you do not know when the Son of Man will come.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel – Matthew 24:42-51

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.

Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into.

So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so.

Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.

But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with drunkards, the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”