Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B First Reading and Responsorial Psalm

A reading from the first book of Kings.

So Elijah went off to Sidon.  And when he reached the city gates, there was a widow gathering sticks.  Addressing her, Elijah said, “Please bring a little water in a vessel for me to drink.”  She was setting off to bring it when he called after her.  “And please,” he said, “bring me a scrap of bread in your hand.”  “As your God lives,” she replied, “I have no baked bread-only a handful of flour in the jar and a little oil in the jug; I am just gathering a stick or two to go and prepare this for myself and my child to eat, and then we will die.”  But Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said, but first make a little cake of it and bring it to me, and then make some for yourself and your child.  For thus says Our God, the God of Israel:  Jug of flour will not be spent nor jug of oil be emptied, before the day when Our God sends rain on the face of the earth.  The woman went and did as Elijah had told her, and they had food to eat every day-she, Elijah and the child.  The jar of meal was not spent nor the jug of oil emptied, just as Our God had foretold through Elijah.

The Word of God recorded in the first book of Kings.

R: Praise God, O my soul!

Adonai, You keep faith forever

         secure justice for the oppressed,

And You give food to the hungry.

Adonai, You set captives free.

R: Praise God, O my soul!

You give sight to the blind.

You raise up those that were bowed down

And love the just.

You protect strangers.

R: Praise God, O my soul!

The orphan and the widow You sustain,

but the way of the wicked You thwart.

The Most High will reign forever,

your God, O Zion, through all generations.  Alleluia.

R:  Praise God, O my soul!