First reading
1 Samuel 26:2, 7–9, 11–13, 22–23
Do not lift your hand against the Lord’s anointed.
Responsorial psalm
Psalm 102(103):1–4, 8, 10, 12–13
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
Second reading
1 Corinthians 15:45–49
The first Adam became a living soul; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
Gospel acclamation
John 13:34
I give you a new commandment; love one another as I have loved you.
Gospel
Luke 6:27–38
Love your enemies.
Images from the Word:
- Love your enemies
- Do good
- Be compassionate
- Lord’s anointed
- Life-giving spirit
Liturgical notes:
In the celebration of Mass
is found the high point both of the action by which God sanctifies the world in Christ and of the worship that the human race offers to the Father, adoring him through Christ, the Son of God, in the Holy Spirit.
—General Instruction of the Roman Missal, §16
As the Mass is the action of Christ and of the Church, we are both blessed by the action of Christ and join with Christ in giving true worship to God. Christ may be the Alpha, but Christ relies upon the Church to live appropriately so that he may be present as the Omega. Our God stands in need of our lives of holiness so that his plan for salvation may be achieved.
‘Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, who is coming into this world’
—communion antiphon