5 September 2025 (Friday) / Friday of week 22 in Ordinary Time or Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa)

5 September 2025 (Friday)

Friday of week 22 in Ordinary Time or Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa)

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Colossians 1: 15-20
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 100: 2-5
Alleluia: John 8: 12
Gospel: Luke 5: 33-39

First Reading : Colossians 1:15‐20

Christ Jesus is the image of the unseen God and the first‐born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers – all things were created through him and for him.
Before anything was created, he existed, and he holds all things in unity. Now the Church is his body, he is its head. As he is the Beginning, he was first to be born from the dead, so that he should be first in every way; because God wanted all perfectionvto be found in him and all things to be reconciled through him and for him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, when he made peace by his death on the cross.

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 99(100):2‐5

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

Cry out to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing for joy.

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

Know that he, the Lord, is God. He made us, we belong to him, we are his people, the sheep of his flock.

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

Go within his gates, giving thanks. Enter his courts with songs of praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name.

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

Indeed, how good is the Lord, eternal his merciful love. He is faithful from age to age.

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

Alleluia: John 8: 12
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
12 I am the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light of life.
(12. When Jesus spoke to the people again, he said: I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark, but will have the light of life).
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel : Luke 5:33‐39

The Pharisees and the scribes said to Jesus, ‘John’s disciples are always fasting and saying prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees too, but yours go on eating and drinking.’ Jesus replied, ‘Surely you cannot make the bridegroom’s attendants fast while the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come, the time for the bridegroom to be taken away from them; that will be the time when they will fast.’ He also told them this parable, ‘No one tears a piece from a new cloak to put it on an old cloak; if he does, not only will he have torn the new one, but the piece taken from the new will not match the old. ‘And nobody puts new wine into old skins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and then run out, and the skins will be lost. No; new wine must be put into fresh skins. And nobody who has been drinking old wine wants new. “The old is good” he says.’

For our reflection today:

The question about one’s destiny is very alive in the heart of man. It is a great, difficult question, yet decisive: “What will happen to me tomorrow?” There is a risk that wrong answers can lead to forms of fatalism, despair, or even proud and blind certainty. In the Letter to the Colossians, we find that the truth of “predestination” in Christ is closely connected to the truth of “creation in Christ.” “He is the image of the invisible God,” writes the apostle,” the firstborn of all creation; for by Him all things were created.” (Col 1:15-16). Thus, the world, created in Christ, the eternal Son, from the beginning carries within itself, as the first gift of Providence, the call, indeed the pledge of predestination in Christ, which is joined to the fulfillment of the definitive eschatological salvation, and first and foremost of man, the purpose of the world. We thus understand another fundamental aspect of divine Providence: its saving purpose. God indeed “wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). In this perspective, it is necessary to expand a certain naturalistic view of Providence, limited to the good governance of physical nature or even natural moral behavior. In reality, divine Providence is expressed in the achievement of the purposes that correspond to the eternal plan of salvation. (St. John Paul II, General Audience, 28 May 1986)

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