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Rest on the Flight into Egypt (detail) , Caravaggio [ Web Gallery of Art ] But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.’ Can a woman forget her nursing-child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget,yet I will not forget you (Isaiah 49:14-15). Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales,  India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa ) Gospel Matthew 6:24-34 ( NRSV, Anglicised Catholic Edition )  Jesus said to his disciples: ‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither

Girl with a Pearl Earring , Johannes Vermeer, c.1685 Gospel Luke 16:1-13 (or 10-13) ( NRSV, Catholic Ed , Can) [Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred contai

Abraham and the Three Angels  ,Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, 1656 Gospel Luke 10:38-42 NRSV   Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Christ in the House of Martha and Mary , Vermeer, 1654-55 Perhaps the poorest man I've met in my life was Billy Smith. Despite his name, he was a Filipino, though as far as we Columban priests knew his father was an American. He was known to all the Columbans in northern Mindanao where in the 1970s we had many

Girl with a Pearl Earring , c.1665, Johannes Vermeer [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)                                    Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Gospel  Luke 16:1-13 [Short form 10-13]  (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition) Jesus said to the disciples,  ["There was a rich man who had a steward, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. And he called him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.' And the steward said to himself, 'What shall I do, since my master is taking the stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that people may receive me into their houses when I am put out of the stewardship.' So,