17 August 2025 (Sunday) / 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time / Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

17 August 2025 (Sunday)

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Jeremiah 38: 4-6, 8-10
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 40: 2, 3, 4, 18
Second Reading: Hebrews 12: 1-4
Alleluia: John 10: 27
Gospel: Luke 12: 49-53

First Reading : Jeremiah 38:4‐6,8‐10

The king’s leading men spoke to the king. ‘Let Jeremiah be put to death: he is unquestionably disheartening the remaining soldiers in the city, and all the people too, by talking like this. The fellow does not have the welfare of this people at heart so much as its ruin.’ ‘He is in your hands as you know,’ King Zedekiah answered ‘for the king is powerless against you.’ So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the well of Prince Malchiah in the Court of the Guard, letting him down with ropes. There was no water in the well, only mud, and into the mud Jeremiah sank. Ebed‐melech came out from the palace and spoke to the king. ‘My lord king,’ he said ‘these men have done a wicked thing by treating the prophet Jeremiah like this: they have thrown him into the well, where he will die.’ At this the king gave Ebed‐melech the Cushite the following order: ‘Take three men with you from here and pull the prophet Jeremiah out of the well before he dies.’

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 39(40):2‐4,18

Lord, come to my aid!

I waited, I waited for the Lord and he stooped down to me; he heard my cry.

Lord, come to my aid!

He drew me from the deadly pit, from the miry clay. He set my feet upon a rock and made my footsteps firm.

Lord, come to my aid!

He put a new song into my mouth, praise of our God. Many shall see and fear and shall trust in the Lord.

Lord, come to my aid!

As for me, wretched and poor, the Lord thinks of me. You are my rescuer, my help, O God, do not delay.

Lord, come to my aid!

Second Reading : Hebrews 12:1‐4

With so many witnesses in a great cloud on every side of us, we too, then, should throw off everything that hinders us, especially the sin that clings so easily, and keep running steadily in the race we have started. Let us not lose sight of Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which was still in the future, he endured the cross, disregarding the shamefulness of it, and from now on has taken his place at the right of God’s throne. Think of the way he stood such opposition from sinners and then you will not give up for want of courage. In the fight against sin, you have not yet had to keep fighting to the point of death.

Alleluia: John 10: 27
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
27 My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them, and they follow me.
(27. The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me).
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel : Luke 12:49‐53

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already! There is a baptism I must still receive, and how great is my distress till it is over! ‘Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on a household of five will be divided: three against two and two against three; the father divided against the son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother‐in‐law against daughter‐in‐law, daughter‐in‐law against mother‐in‐law.’

For our reflection today:

"I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" (Lk 12: 49). The Apostles, together with diverse communities of the faithful, carried this divine flame to the far corners of the earth. In this way they opened a path for humanity, a luminous path, and they collaborated with God, who wants to renew the face of the earth with his fire. How different is this fire from that of war and bombing! How different is the fire of Christ, spread by the Church, compared with those lit by the dictators of every epoch of the last century too who leave scorched earth behind them. The fire of God, the fire of the Holy Spirit, is that of the bush that burned but was not consumed (cf. Ex 3: 2). It is a flame that blazes but does not destroy, on the contrary, that, in burning, brings out the better and truer part of man, as in a fusion it elicits his interior form, his vocation to truth and to love. A Father of the Church, Origen, in one of his Homilies on Jeremiah, cites a saying attributed to Jesus, not contained in the sacred Scriptures but perhaps authentic, which reads: "Whoever is near to me, is near to the fire" (Homily on Jeremiah, L. I [III]). In Christ, in fact, there is the fullness of God, who in the Bible is compared to fire. We just observed that the flame of the Holy Spirit blazes but does not burn. And nevertheless it enacts a transformation, and thus must also consume something in man, the waste that corrupts him and hinders his relations with God and neighbour. (Pope Benedict XVI, 23 May 2010)

Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,
Most High Servant,
Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love (Blessed  and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)