Italian priest and educator
Born 16/8/1815 and died 31/1/1888 Canonised on 1/4/1934
Invitation
May I hereby draw your attention to
the daily reading of the Gospel?
This invitation wants to share with you the joy of the Gospel.
of the Gospel. Everyone, no one excepted,
can experience that joy by opening their hearts
to the healing power of God’s word.
Available every morning from 7 a.m.
CONSIDERATION
Countless crowds of faith witnesses have preceded us. They are close to us when we want to free ourselves from everything that holds us captive. Today, they encourage us to distance ourselves from evil and brokenness, from sin and addictions. They teach us to fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus: of all of them, he is the greatest witness of faith.
But to fix eyes on Jesus, is often to fix eyes on the cross: the pre-eminent symbol of faith, of love and surrender. When we look to that cross, our trials will be put into proper perspective.
FIRST READING Heb 12:1_4
Let us run with determination the race
For which we have entered.
From the letter to the Hebrews
Brothers and sisters,,
Let us join the crowd witnessing to the faith,
and shake off every burden and obstacle of sin,
to run with determination the race
For which we have entered.
Behold Jesus,
the captain and finisher of our faith.
Instead of the joy that was His due
He took upon Himself a cross
and did not count the shame :
now He sits at the right side of God’s throne.
Think of Him
who had to endure so much opposition from sinners ;
that will help you not to fall out and not to give up courage.
Your battle against sin has not yet cost you blood.
INTERLUDIUM Ps 22(21), 26b- 27, 28,30,31-32
All who seek God, praise Him.
Before all the congregation I will praise You, Lord,
Thank You before the eye of the Gog-fearing.
The poor shall eat and be satiated,
and all who seek God will praise Him,
their courage will be revived.
Then all the nations of the earth will
remember the Lord and turn to Him ;
and fall down before him
the tribes and nations everywhere.
They that rest in the earth shall worship Him,
And to Him shall he bow down who descends into the dust;
My soul shall dwell before His Face,
my offspring shall always be His servant.
It shall descend from the Lord to the generation to come,
of his righteousness to those born:
this the Lord has done.
ALLELUIA Jn 6, 64b, 69b
Alleluia.
Your words, Lord, are spirit and life;
thy words are become of everlasting life.
Alleluia.
GOSPEL Mk 5, 21-43
Girl, I say to you, stand up.
From the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
Mark
At that time, when Jesus had crossed again by boat,
many people flocked to Him.
While He was on the shore of the lake ,
there came a certain Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue.
When he saw Jesus, he fell at His feet
and begged Him urgently:
“My little daughter may die at any moment,
come and lay your hands on her
that she may be healed and live.”
Jesus went with him.
A dense crowd accompanied Him, pressing on from all sides.
Among them was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhage for 12 years.
She had had much to endure from a host of doctors
and spent her entire fortune,
but to no avail;
on the contrary, things had got worse with her.
Because she had heard about Jesus ,
she pressed forward in the crowd
and touched his cloak.
For she said to herself:
“If I can only touch his clothes ,
I will be healed.”
Immediately the bleeding stopped
and she became aware from her body
that she was cured of her ailment.
At the same moment, Jesus was aware
that a power had gone out from Him;
He turned around in the midst of the crowd and asked:
“Who touched my clothes?”
His disciples said to Him:
“Thou seest the crowd pressing in from all sides, and Thou askest:
Who has touched Me?”
But He let his gaze wander around to see who had done so.
Knowing what had happened to her,
the woman came and threw herself down before Him, anxious and trembling
and confessed to Him the whole truth.
Then Jesus spoke to her:
“Daughter, your faith has healed you.
“Go in peace and be delivered from your affliction.”
He had not yet spoken or one came
from the house of the superior of the synagogue with the message:
“Your daughter has died.
“Wherefore wouldst thou trouble the Master any longer?”
Jesus caught what was being reported
and said to the superior of the synagogue:
“Do not be afraid but keep believing.”
He let no one go with him
except Peter, James and John, the brother of James.
When they arrived at the house of the superior ,
He saw the mourning mass
of people weeping loudly and lamenting.
He went in and said to them:
“Why this mourning and weeping?
“The child has not died but is sleeping.”
Yet they laughed at Him.
But Jesus sent them all out and went
with his companions and the child’s father and mother
into the room where the child lay.
He took the child’s hand and said to her:
“Talita koemi”;
which translated means:
Girl, get up.
Immediately the girl got up and walked around
for it was twelve years old.
And they stood dumbfounded.
He emphatically imposed on them
that no one was to find out, and added
that they should feed her.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Laudato Si
Encyclic of
POPE FRANCIS
On caring for the common home
67 .We are not God. The earth was there before we were and was given to us. This allows one to answer an accusation levelled against Judeo-Christian thinking: it has been said that, starting from the story of Genesis, which invites one to subjugate the earth, one would promote a savage exploitation of nature by presenting an image of the human being as ruler and destroyer. This is not a correct interpretation of the Bible as understood by the Church. Even if it is true that Christians have sometimes interpreted the scriptures incorrectly, today we must firmly reject that from the fact that we are created in the image of God and from the command to subdue the earth an absolute dominion over the other creatures cannot be inferred. It is important to read the Bible texts in their context with proper hermeneutics and recall that they invite us to “cultivate and guard” the garden of the world. While “to cultivate” means to plough and cultivate a field, “to guard” means to protect, care for, guard, preserve, oversee. This implies a relationship of responsible reciprocity between human being and nature. Every community can take from the earth’s goodness what it needs for its own survival, but it also has a duty to protect it and ensure the continuity of its fertility for future generations. Finally, “to God belongs the earth” (Ps. 24, 1) , to Him belongs “the earth with all that is upon it” (Deut. 10, 14) . Therefore, God rejects any pretence of absolute possession: “Sale of land should not preclude repurchase, for the land belongs to Me; you are strangers and guests there” (Lev. 25, 23) .
To be continued
The Bible text in this issue is taken from The New Bible Translation,
©Dutch Bible Society 2004/2007.
Considerations from Liturgical suggestions for weekdays and Sundays
Laudato Si Official English translation
_____________________________________________________________________________