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First reading: James 4:1-10
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Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force. Why you don’t have what you want is because you don’t pray for it; when you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly, you have prayed for something to indulge your own desires.
You are as unfaithful as adulterous wives; don’t you realise that making the world your friend is making God your enemy? Anyone who chooses the world for his friend turns himself into God’s enemy. Surely you don’t think scripture is wrong when it says: the spirit which he sent to live in us wants us for himself alone? But he has been even more generous to us, as scripture says: God opposes the proud but he gives generously to the humble. Give in to God, then; resist the devil, and he will run away from you. The nearer you go to God, the nearer he will come to you. Clean your hands, you sinners, and clear your minds, you waverers. Look at your wretched condition, and weep for it in misery; be miserable instead of laughing, gloomy instead of happy. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 54(55):7-11,23
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Entrust your cares to the Lord and he will support you.
O that I had wings like a dove
to fly away and be at rest.
So I would escape far away
and take refuge in the desert.
Entrust your cares to the Lord and he will support you.
I would hasten to find a shelter
from the raging wind,
from the destructive storm, O Lord,
and from their plotting tongues.
Entrust your cares to the Lord and he will support you.
For I can see nothing but violence
and strife in the city.
Night and day they patrol
high on the city walls.
Entrust your cares to the Lord and he will support you.
Entrust your cares to the Lord
and he will support you.
He will never allow
the just man to stumble.
Entrust your cares to the Lord and he will support you.
Alleluia, alleluia!
If anyone loves me he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we shall come to him.
Alleluia!