Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Official Translation

Reading 1 - Malachi 1.14b-2.2b, 8-10
I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts,
and my name is dreadful among the nations.

And now, this commandment is for you, O Priests:
If you will not listen,
and if you will not take it to heart,
in order to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts,
I will send poverty upon you,
and I will curse your blessings; I will curse them.

For you have left the way,
and have scandalized many in the law;
you have made void the covenant of Levi,
says the Lord of hosts.
I have therefore made you contemptible,
and base before all people,
just as you have not kept my ways,
and took personages into account in the law.

Do we not all have one Father?
Has not one God created us?
Why then does each one of us despise his brother,
violating the covenant of our fathers?

Responsorial - Psalm 131.1, 2, 3 Response: Ps 31.1a, see John 14.27

R. In you, O Lord, I have your peace.

Lord, my heart is not proud,
nor are my eyes lofty.
Neither have I walked among the great,
nor among wonderful things above me.

R. In you, O Lord, I have your peace.

Have I not calmed and quieted my soul
Like a child upon his mother?
Like a weaned child
thus is my soul.

R. In you, O Lord, I have your peace.

O Israel, hope in the Lord,
from this moment until forever.

R. In you, O Lord, I have your peace.

Reading 2 - 1 Thessalonians 2.7b-9, 13

We became children in your midst, as a nursing mother cherishes her children,
Loving you so much that we willingly shared with you
not only the Gospel of God but even our own souls
for you had become beloved to us.
For you remember, brothers and sisters, our labor and toil.
Working night and day, lest we burden any of you,
we preached among you the Gospel of God.

Therefore, we give thanks to God unceasingly
that, when you had received the word of God by hearing us,
you took it not as a human word, but (as it truly is) the word of God,
who also is working in you believers.

Gospel - Matthew 23.1-12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and his disciples, saying:
“The scribes and the Pharisees
have sat in the chair of Moses.
Therefore, observe and do all things whatsoever they say to you,
but do not act according to their works.
For they speak and do not act.
For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens
and lay them on the shoulders of humans:
but they do not wish to move them with their own finger.
They do all their works for the attention of humans.
For they make their phylacteries broad and enlarge their fringes.
And they love the first places at feasts and the first chairs in the synagogues,
and salutations in the marketplace, and to be called by humans, ‘Rabbi’.
But as for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’.
For one is your teacher, and you are all brothers.
And do not call your father upon the earth,
For one is your Heavenly Father.
And do not be called masters: for your master is one: the Christ.
But the greatest of you, will be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled,
and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”