＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

Deuteronomy : 7:6-11

You are a people consecrated to Yahweh, your God.

Yahweh has chosen you from among all the peoples on the face of the earth, that you may be his own people. Yahweh has bound himself to you and has chosen you, not because you are the most numerous among all the peoples (on the contrary, you are the least).

Rather, he has chosen you because of his love for you and to fulfill the oath he made to your fathers. Therefore, with a firm hand Yahweh brought you out from slavery in Egypt, from the power of Pharaoh.

So know that Yahweh, your God, is the true and faithful God. He keeps his covenant, and his love reaches to the thousandth generation for those who love him and fulfill his commandments, but he punishes in their own persons those who hate him and he repays them without delay.

 So keep the commandments, the norms and the laws that today I command you to practice.

 

Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 10(see 17)

The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him,

 

＊＊＊ 2nd Reading ＊＊＊

1 John 4:7-16

 My dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Those who do not love have not known God, for God is love. How did the love of God appear among us? God sent his only Son into this world that we might have life through him.

This is love: not that we loved God but that he first loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, if such has been the love of God, we, too, must love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love comes to its perfection in us.

How may we know that we live in God and he in us? Because God has given us his Spirit. We ourselves have seen and declare that the Father sent his Son to save the world.   Those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in them and they in God.

We have known the love of God and have believed in it. God is love. The one who lives in love, lives in God and God in him.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Matthew 11:25-30

On that occasion Jesus said, “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I praise you, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to simple people. Yes, Father, this is what pleased you.

 Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Come to me, all you who work hard and who carry heavy burdens and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest. For my yoke is good and my burden is light.”

 

Gospel Reflection：

Read:

The readings for today’s solemnity all speak of the love that God has for us as revealed in Jesus.

Reflect:

The Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart as a way to remind us of the concreteness of God’s love for us. it is a love that is real, that is warm, that is flesh and blood, and not a simple idea that is abstract and removed.

Ancient Greek philosophers used to say that the Supreme Being cannot be “moved” or “touched” by anything that goes on in the world. He is “detached”, unconcerned” – because his perfection prevents him from ever being moved by the plight of mere mortals.

In contrast to that, Jesus has revealed to us a God who is the exact opposite, who weeps with us, who care for us, who even died for us. God is tender and loving Father, and the solemnity we celebrate today puts that love and tenderness in very concrete terms.

Pray:

Lord, like John the Beloved Disciple, rest my weary head on your heart, so tha I may know how real, how true, how fleshand-blood your love is for me.

Act:

Pray for the gift of tenderness, kindness and warmth.