September 21, 2015

A reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians 4:1-7 & 11-13

4:1 And so, as a prisoner in the Lord, I beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the vocation to which you have been called:
4:2 with all humility and meekness, with patience, supporting one another in charity.
4:3 Be anxious to preserve the unity of the Spirit within the bonds of peace.
4:4 One body and one Spirit: to this you have been called by the one hope of your calling:
4:5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
4:6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all.
4:7 Yet to each one of us there has been given grace according to the measure allotted by Christ.
4:8 Because of this, he says: “Ascending on high, he took captivity itself captive; he gave gifts to men.”
4:9 Now that he has ascended, what is left except for him also to descended, first to the lower parts of the earth?
4:10 He who descended is the same one who also ascended above all the heavens, so that he might fulfill everything.
4:11 And the same one granted that some would be Apostles, and some Prophets, yet truly others evangelists, and others pastors and teachers,
4:12 for the sake of the perfection of the saints, by the work of the ministry, in the edification of the body of Christ,
4:13 until we all meet in the unity of faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as a perfect man, in the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.

Gospel

9:9 And when Jesus passed on from there, he saw, sitting at the tax office, a man named Matthew. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And rising up, he followed him.
9:10 And it happened that, as he was sitting down to eat in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners arrived, and they sat down to eat with Jesus and his disciples.
9:11 And the Pharisees, seeing this, said to his disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
9:12 But Jesus, hearing this, said: “It is not those who are healthy who are in need of a physician, but those who have maladies.
9:13 So then, go out and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the just, but sinners.”