God, our Father, You love us with endless mercy.

Just believe in Him, never lose hope for He will never fail us.

 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊ 

2 Chronicles 24:17-25*

 After the death of Jehoiada,

The officials of Judah came to pay court to the king, and the king now turned to them for advice.   The Judaeans abandoned the house of Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, for the worship of sacred trunks and idols and God’s anger fell on Judah and Jerusalem because of their guilt.

 He sent them prophets to bring them back to Yahweh, but when the prophets spoke, they would not listen.   The spirit of God took control of Zechariah, son of Je­hoiada the priest. He stood up before the people and said, “God says this: Why are you disobeying the commandments of Yahweh? You cannot prosper.

 

You have abandoned Yahweh and he will abandon you.”   They then plotted against him and by order of the king stoned him in the court of Yahweh’s House.   King Joash forgot the kindness of Je­hoiada, the father of Zechariah, and killed Jehoia­da’s son who cried out as he died, “Let Yahweh see and do justice!”(……)_

 

Ps. 89:4-5, 29-30,31-32, 33-34

Forever I will maintain my love for my servant.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊ 

Matthew 6:24-34

 No one can serve two masters; for he will either hate one and love the other, or he will be loyal to the first and look down on the second. You cannot at the same time serve God and money.

 This is why I tell you not to be worried about food and drink for yourself, or about clothes for your body. Is not life more important than food and is not the body more important than clothes?   Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow, they do not harvest and do not store food in barns, and yet your heav­enly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than birds?

 Can any of you add a day to your life by worrying about it?   Why are you so worried about your clothes? Look at the flowers in the fields how they grow. They do not toil or spin.   But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his wealth was clothed like one of these.   If God so clothes the grass in the field which blooms today and is to be burned tomorrow in an oven, how much more will he clothe you? What little faith you have!

 Do not worry and say: What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? Or: what shall we wear?   The pagans busy themselves with such things; but your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.   Set your heart first on the kingdom and justice of God and all these things will also be given to you.   Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

 

 Gospel Reflection：

Worry vs Trust

Worrying does help – for 95% of the things that we worry about do not happen! It is as if our worrying about them has such magical effect on them that those events disappear! But the problem is: worry, our magical solution to making them disappear, leaves us with ulcer in the stomach and a high blood pressure!

 

The only effective way to get rid of our worries is to learn to trust. In fact, psychologist Ericson marked “basic trust” which develops (for fails to develop) in the initial years of our life on earth as fundamental to our well-being through our entire life span.

We can also add on to this initial trust capital by modelling our life after that of Christ: He hardly worried about anything, for he totally trusted the will of the Father. Did it make his problems disappear? No, each day brought enough troubles for him as well. But he faced them with faith and trust in the Father’s love and providence.