First reading Exodus 22:21-27
‘If you mistreat any widow or fatherless child, my wrath will burn against you.’

Thus says the Lord: ‘You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a money-lender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. If ever you take your neighbour’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.’
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Responsorial Psalm Psalm 18(17):2-3a. 3b-4. 47, 51ab. ℟2

I love you, LORD, my strength.

I love you, LORD, my strength;
O LORD, my rock, my fortress, my saviour.

I love you, LORD, my strength.

My God, my rock where I take refuge;
my shield, my saving strength, my stronghold.
I cry out, ‘O praised be the LORD!’
and see, I am saved from my foes.

I love you, LORD, my strength.

The LORD lives, and blest be my Rock!
May the God of my salvation be exalted.
The LORD gives great victories to his king,
and shows merciful love for his anointed.

I love you, LORD, my strength.
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Second reading 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10
‘You turned away from idols to serve God and to wait for his Son.’

Brothers and Sisters: You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
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Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia, alleluia.
If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, says the Lord,
and my Father will love him, and we will come to him.
Alleluia.
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Gospel Matthew 22:34-40
‘You shall love the Lord your God and your neighbour as yourself.’

At that time: When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’