Sunday, 16 January 2011

Reflections for the 2nd Week in Ordinary Time


The Second Week in Ordinary Time 


Our religion is the one Word, Jesus. Our religion is a Person, not an organization nor a theory nor a moral code.  It is to know a Person, to love a Person and life is to please a Person. The Person is Jesus. Jesus has died for us. He has risen for us and he is with us now even more than when he walked the roads of Palestine. “Do not be afraid, I am with you”.- “till the end of time”. “Through him all good things come” (Mass prayer).

Our religion is to know Jesus: to know him personally as an intimate friend. “I do not call you servants, but my friends”. Without this friendship there is no religion. He welcomes all, saint and sinner, rich and poor, learned and illiterate, the well and the ill. His friendship will change us radically – to our very roots.

Our religion is not learning but experiencing – experiencing Jesus.
Following Jesus Day By Day

Give Time to Reflection and Prayer
on His Word.
Experience the Fruit.
Monday January 17, 2011
Memorial of Saint Anthony, abbott

Reading 1
Brothers and sisters:
Every high priest is taken from among men
and made their representative before God,
to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.
He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring,
for he himself is beset by weakness
and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself
as well as for the people.
No one takes this honor upon himself
but only when called by God,
just as Aaron was.
In the same way,
it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest,
but rather the one who said to him:
You are my Son:
this day I have begotten you;
just as he says in another place,
You are a priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek.
In the days when he was in the Flesh,
he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears
to the one who was able to save him from death,
and he was heard because of his reverence.
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered;
and when he was made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
Because Jesus is Son of God and equal with the Father in every respect even though he is man he can offer a sacrifice in atonement for our sins against God which satisfies all the demands of justice and opens to us the floodgates of God’s mercy. It cost him dearly, because he did it in the weakness of human nature. He learnt obedience, not in that he was not obedient at first, but that he has experienced what it costs to be obedient to God in a sinful and hostile world. He knows it not as God but as a man who has now the knowledge that comes from experience. Because he has suffered the weakness of men and women and still been faithful even till death on a Cross, he can be one with us in sympathy and love.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (4b) You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The LORD said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand
till I make your enemies your footstool.”

Gospel
The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.
People came to Jesus and objected,
“Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them,
“Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast on that day.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”
January 18, 2011
Tuesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1
Brothers and sisters:
God is not unjust so as to overlook your work
and the love you have demonstrated for his name
by having served and continuing to serve the holy ones.
We earnestly desire each of you to demonstrate the same eagerness
for the fulfillment of hope until the end,
so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who,
through faith and patience, are inheriting the promises.
When God made the promise to Abraham,
since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself,
and said, I will indeed bless you and multiply you.
And so, after patient waiting, Abraham obtained the promise.
Now, men swear by someone greater than themselves;
for them an oath serves as a guarantee
and puts an end to all argument.
So when God wanted to give the heirs of his promise
an even clearer demonstration of the immutability of his purpose,
he intervened with an oath,
so that by two immutable things,
in which it was impossible for God to lie,
we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged
to hold fast to the hope that lies before us.
This we have as an anchor of the soul,
sure and firm, which reaches into the interior behind the veil,
where Jesus has entered on our behalf as forerunner,
becoming high priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek.
The author of this letter is writing to Christians who are facing active persecution. They are being encouraged and forced to publicly deny the Lord Jesus. In this passage he gives them confidence that it is worthwhile to persevere. God will be faithful to his promises. Today when we live in a world which is hostile to Christ Jesus and all he stands for, we too are encouraged to stand firm in our belief because God is a faithful God. We will not lose by suffering for him.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (5) The Lord will remember his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart
in the company and assembly of the just.
Great are the works of the LORD,
exquisite in all their delights.

Gospel
As Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath,
his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain.
At this the Pharisees said to him,
“Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?”
He said to them,
“Have you never read what David did
when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?
How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest
and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat,
and shared it with his companions?”
Then he said to them,
“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
The Sabbath was meant to be a day of renewal though for many it became just the observance of rules. The disciples were hungry and began to eat the grains as they passed through the field. They couldn’t have taken much, but for the Pharisees, this was harvesting. Harvesting was forbidden on the Sabbath. Jesus points to what David did when he and his followers were hungry. He ‘broke’ the Law by eating the sacred bread and was not condemned for it. Jesus is greater than David and greater than Moses who first gave the Law. Our religion is being in love with Jesus and trying to please Him in everything. This is the only law there is. Sunday, the Day of the Lord, is a day of renewal for us, in the first place spiritually but also physically and emotionally. Do you value the inner meaning of Sunday?

January 19, 2011
Wednesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1
Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High,
met Abraham as he returned from his defeat of the kings
and blessed him.
And Abraham apportioned to him a tenth of everything.
His name first means righteous king,
and he was also “king of Salem,” that is, king of peace.
Without father, mother, or ancestry,
without beginning of days or end of life,
thus made to resemble the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.
It is even more obvious if another priest is raised up
after the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become so,
not by a law expressed in a commandment concerning physical descent
but by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed.
For it is testified:
You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
Jesus is our High Priest because in his Resurrection he conquered death and lives to intercede for us. He lives for ever in the new humanity that he has won. He continually offers the Sacrifice of his Life which he offered physically and temporarily on the Cross. Because he is eternal, his Sacrifice is also eternal. Melchizedek is a type of Christ Jesus. Christ has entered into the very presence of God to intercede for us with his Blood. As our High Priest he takes us too into the very presence of God.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (4b) You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The LORD said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand
till I make your enemies your footstool.”

Gospel
Jesus entered the synagogue.
There was a man there who had a withered hand.
They watched Jesus closely
to see if he would cure him on the sabbath
so that they might accuse him.
He said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up here before us.”
Then he said to the Pharisees,
“Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”
But they remained silent.
Looking around at them with anger
and grieved at their hardness of heart,
Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”
He stretched it out and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel
with the Herodians against him to put him to death.
Opposition to Jesus is growing. The shadow of the cross is already falling. He had come to reveal the mercy and kindness of God. So he had forgiven the paralytic his sins, called a tax collector and eaten with outcasts. He had embraced the leper, defended his disciples for plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath and now he heals the man with the withered hand in the synagogue. The people are enthusiastic for him but the Jewish hierarchy recognizes that he is becoming the centre of their religion and they will not accept him. It is not Church structures and traditions which are important. Jesus is the centre of our religion. When we love Jesus personally we will reach out to others. Even if we can’t help them in their physical needs we will share with them our love. Do you love Jesus and for his sake everyone else?

January 20, 2011
Thursday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1
Jesus is always able to save those who approach God through him,
since he lives forever to make intercession for them.
It was fitting that we should have such a high priest:
holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners,
higher than the heavens.
He has no need, as did the high priests,
to offer sacrifice day after day,
first for his own sins and then for those of the people;
he did that once for all when he offered himself.
For the law appoints men subject to weakness to be high priests,
but the word of the oath, which was taken after the law,
appoints a son, who has been made perfect forever.
The main point of what has been said is this:
we have such a high priest,
who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne
of the Majesty in heaven, a minister of the sanctuary
and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up.
Now every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices;
thus the necessity for this one also to have something to offer.
If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest,
since there are those who offer gifts according to the law.
They worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary,
as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle.
For God says, “See that you make everything
according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry
as he is mediator of a better covenant,
enacted on better promises.
Because he is our High Priest Jesus does not live for himself. He lives for God and for us whom he reconciles with God through the offering of his life. Since he is a man like us he can be close to us and since he is also Son of God he can enter into the presence of God. He does so to intercede for us and win for us ‘every blessing in the heavenly world”. He is the only priest who actually enters into the sanctuary where God lives rather than some kind of earthly imitation.

Responsorial Psalm
R. (8a and 9a) Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not;
then said I, “Behold I come.”

Gospel
Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples.
A large number of people followed from Galilee and from Judea.
Hearing what he was doing,
a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem,
from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan,
and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon.
He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd,
so that they would not crush him.
He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases
were pressing upon him to touch him.
And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him
and shout, “You are the Son of God.”
He warned them sternly not to make him known.
Jesus withdrew but he didn’t cease from his work of mercy. The leaders stood in his way but he continued to love. He was God’s witness. With him the Kingdom of God had come. The crowds kept coming. They came to be healed. Few really believed. It was difficult to get to Jesus. If someone wanted to meet Jesus, there was no way to meet him except for a few moments. We are in a much more blessed situation if we have faith. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Now he is present bodily in the Blessed Sacrament. We can meet him whenever we want and spend as much time, one to one, as we would like. He is always ready to receive us. He always has time. Do we have faith? Do you have the faith to make Jesus you friend and guru in the Blessed Sacrament?

January 21, 2011
Memorial of Saint Agnes, virgin and martyr

Reading 1
Brothers and sisters:
Now our high priest has obtained so much more excellent a ministry
as he is mediator of a better covenant,
enacted on better promises.
For if that first covenant had been faultless,
no place would have been sought for a second one.
But he finds fault with them and says:
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of
Israel and the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers
the day I took them by the hand to lead
them forth from the land of Egypt;
for they did not stand by my covenant
and I ignored them, says the Lord.
But this is the covenant I will establish with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds
and I will write them upon their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach, each one his fellow citizen and kin, saying,
“Know the Lord,”
for all shall know me, from least to greatest.
For I will forgive their evildoing
and remember their sins no more.
When he speaks of a “new” covenant,
he declares the first one obsolete.
And what has become obsolete
and has grown old is close to disappearing.
God’s love cannot be understood. In Jesus his Son and our High Priest he has concluded a new Covenant with us. It was fulfilled as Jesus died for us. It is not some kind of agreement, some kind of promise. The new Covenant is the gift of the Holy Spirit, won for us by Jesus on the Cross. The Spirit recreates and transforms us and makes us the children of God. We now share the life of God and are precious to him. It is the work of God, Father and Son, and is for ever.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (11a) Kindness and truth shall meet.
Show us, O LORD, your mercy,
and grant us your salvation.
Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him,
glory dwelling in our land.

Gospel
Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted
and they came to him.
He appointed Twelve, whom he also named Apostles,
that they might be with him
and he might send them forth to preach
and to have authority to drive out demons:
He appointed the Twelve:
Simon, whom he named Peter;
James, son of Zebedee,
and John the brother of James, whom he named Boanerges,
that is, sons of thunder;
Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew,
Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus;
Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean,
and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.
Israel had rejected Jesus. The shadow of the Cross had already fallen. The Pharisees and the Herodeans planned to destroy Jesus. There was no hope now that Israel would be God’s people in the New Covenant with Jesus as Lord. He calls the Twelve to be the foundation of the New Israel - those who accept him. They are ordinary men with many weaknesses and failings. But they answer his call. He will make them fit and invest them with his power and authority. He will send them throughout the world. Down the ages Jesus calls his people to be missionaries where they live. They must live with him, imbibe his values and live a life worthy of their vocation. He will invest them with his power and authority. It is being not doing, which is first. Is the sincerity of your life a proclamation of Jesus as Lord?
January 22, 2011
Saturday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1
A tabernacle was constructed, the outer one,
in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of offering;
this is called the Holy Place.
Behind the second veil was the tabernacle called the Holy of Holies.
But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be,
passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands,
that is, not belonging to this creation,
he entered once for all into the sanctuary,
not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own Blood,
thus obtaining eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes
can sanctify those who are defiled
so that their flesh is cleansed,
how much more will the Blood of Christ,
who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

The sacrifices of the Old Covenant were only images. They may have been sacred acts but they had no power in themselves to take away sin or sanctify. No human gift can win forgiveness except the gift offered by Jesus. His gift to God was a life of obedience in love to his Father. It cost him his life on the Cross. But it has won for us all the blessings of God.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (6) God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.
All you peoples, clap your hands,
shout to God with cries of gladness,
For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome,
is the great king over all the earth.

Gospel
Jesus came with his disciples into the house.
Again the crowd gathered,
making it impossible for them even to eat.
When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him,
for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
We must see the crowds. They are flocking to Jesus. They wanted physical healing. Others, troubled by evil spirits or mental illnesses, want to be relieved. Jesus responded as no one had ever responded to people’s burdens. “Come to me all who labour and are overburdened”. The crowds were doing just that. Jesus treated each one individually, laying his hands on them and curing them. The crowds were importunate. They would brook no delay. His family heard of it. They came to protect him. They thought this was going too far. Relations with his family were strained. John (7:5) says “Even his brothers did not believe in him”.  In Matthew (10:36) Jesus says, “a man’s enemies will be the members of his own family’. Do you think much of what Jesus did and told us to do is unrealistic, e.g. resist not the evil man?

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