Friday of the thirty-first week of Ordinary Time

Be ye followers of me, brethren, and observe them who walk so as you have our model. ¹⁸For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping), that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; ¹⁹Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things. ²⁰But our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹Who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory, according to the operation whereby also he is able to subdue all things unto himself.

¹Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, and most desired, my joy and my crown; so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.

¹I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord. ²Our feet were standing in thy courts, O Jerusalem. ⁴For thither did the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord: the testimony of Israel, to praise the name of the Lord. ⁵Because their seats have sat in judgment, seats upon the house of David.

℟ We shall go into the house of the Lord.

And he said also to his disciples: There was a certain rich man who had a steward: and the same was accused unto him, that he had wasted his goods. ²And he called him, and said to him: How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship: for now thou canst be steward no longer. ³And the steward said within himself: What shall I do, because my lord taketh away from me the stewardship? To dig I am not able; to beg I am ashamed. ⁴I know what I will do, that when I shall be removed from the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. ⁵Therefore calling together every one of his lord’s debtors, he said to the first: How much dost thou owe my lord? ⁶But he said: An hundred barrels of oil. And he said to him: Take thy bill and sit down quickly, and write fifty. ⁷Then he said to another: And how much dost thou owe? Who said: An hundred quarters of wheat. He said to him: Take thy bill, and write eighty. ⁸And the lord commended the unjust steward, forasmuch as he had done wisely: for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.