TODAY’S GOSPEL READING (MATTHEW 24:37-44)

First Sunday of Advent, Year A

Stay awake so that you may be ready.

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it be when the Son of Man comes. For in those days before the Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, taking husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and they suspected nothing till the Flood came and swept all away. It will be like this when the Son of Man comes. Then of two men in the fields one is taken, one left; of two women at the millstone grinding, one is taken, one left.

‘So 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.’

V. The Gospel of the Lord. R. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE READING II (ROMANS 13:11-14)

First Sunday of Advent, Year A

Our salvation is near.

You know ‘the time’ has come; you must wake up now: our salvation is even nearer than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon – let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ.

V. The word of the Lord. R. Thanks be to God.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE READING I (ISAIAH 2:1-5)

First Sunday of Advent (Year A)

The Lord gathers all nations together into the eternal peace of God’s kingdom.

The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In the days to come

the mountain of the Temple of the Lord

shall tower above the mountains

and be lifted higher than the hills.

All the nations will stream to it,

peoples without number will come to it, and they will say:

‘Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths; since the Law will go out from Zion, and the oracle of the Lord from Jerusalem.’

He will wield authority over the nations

and adjucate between many peoples;

these will hammer their swords into ploughshares,

their spears into sickles.

Nation will not lift sword against nation,

there will be no more training for war.

 

O House of Jacob, come,

let us walk in the light of the Lord.

 

V. The word of the Lord. R. Thanks be to God.