28 August 2025 (Thursday) / Saint Augustine, Bishop, Doctor on Thursday of week 21 in Ordinary Time / Saint Augustine, Bishop, Doctor Obligatory Memorial

28 August 2025 (Thursday)

Saint Augustine, Bishop, Doctor on Thursday of week 21 in Ordinary Time.

Saint Augustine, Bishop, Doctor Obligatory Memorial.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: First Thessalonians 3: 7-13
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 90: 3-5a, 12-13, 14 and 17
Alleluia: Matthew 24: 42a, 44
Gospel: Matthew 24: 42-51

First Reading : 1 Thessalonians 3:7‐13

Brothers, your faith has been a great comfort to us in the middle of our own troubles and sorrows; now we can breathe again, as you are still holding firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you, for all the joy we feel before our God on your account? We are earnestly praying night and day to be able to see you face to face again and make up any shortcomings in your faith. May God our Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, make it easy for us to come to you. May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you. And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all his saints.

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 89(90):3‐4,12‐14,17

Fill us with your love that we may rejoice.

You turn men back to dust and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’ To your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone, no more than a watch in the night.

Fill us with your love that we may rejoice.

Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart. Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever? Show pity to your servants.

Fill us with your love that we may rejoice.

In the morning, fill us with your love; we shall exult and rejoice all our days. Let the favour of the Lord be upon us: give success to the work of our hands.

Fill us with your love that we may rejoice.

Alleluia: Matthew 24: 42a, 44
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
42a, 44 Stay awake! For you do not know when the Son of Man will come.
(42. 'So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming.
43. You may be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house.
44. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect)
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel : Matthew 24:42‐51

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. ‘What sort of servant, then, is faithful and wise enough for the master to place him over his household to give them their food at the proper time? Happy that servant if his master’s arrival finds him at this employment. I tell you solemnly, he will place him over everything he owns. But as for the dishonest servant who says to himself, “My master is taking his time,” and sets about beating his fellow servants and eating and drinking with drunkards, his master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know. The master will cut him off and send him to the same fate as the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.’

For our reflection today:

Today, we heard in the Gospel the Parable of the Faithful Servant (Mt 24: 42-51). This servant, the Lord tells us, gives food to the others at the proper time. He does not do everything at once but is a wise and prudent servant who knows what needs to be done in a specific situation. He does so humbly, and is also sure of his master's trust. So it is that we must likewise do our utmost to be wise and prudent and to trust in the goodness of our "Master", the Lord, for in the end it is he himself who must take the helm of his Church. We fit into her with our small gift and do the best we can, especially those things that are always necessary: celebrating the sacraments, preaching the Word, giving signs of our charity and our love. (Pope Benedict XVI, Meeting with the priests of the Diocese of Albano, 31 August 2006)

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