January 18, 2013

USCCB »  Bible »  Daily Readings

« January 17  |  January 19 »

Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 309

Reading 1 from St. Paul's epistle to the Hebrews
Heb 4:1-5, 11

Let us be on our guard
while the promise of entering into his rest remains,
that none of you seem to have failed.
For in fact we have received the Good News just as our ancestors did.
But the word that they heard did not profit them,
for they were not united in faith with those who listened.

Interesting.  It is a warning to fallen away Catholics and to non-Catholics.  We have all heard the good news.  But they have not been united in faith with the Catholic Church (i.e. those who listened).

For we who believed enter into that rest,
just as he has said:
As I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter into my rest,”
and yet his works were accomplished
at the foundation of the world.

Another interesting point.  This is a reference to the Creation.  God rested on the Seventh Day.  The Sabbath.  How, then, do we enter into His rest?

Genesis 2:2
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

I don't know.  I surmise that we enter into His rest by becoming members of His Body, the Church, when we are Baptized.

I know, I know.  That doesn't make sense.  For that to make sense, we have to add a little bit more of Scripture.

First, God did not rest period.  In other words, God rested from "the work He made".  But God did not stop working.  Jesus said:

John 5:16-17
King James Version (KJV)
16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

I don't really know what it means that "God rested from the work He made" because, if we look around, the world is still being created.  And Scripture tells us that God works through us.  And Jesus confirms above, that God continues to work, to this day.

Second,  I think though, there is a difference.  God is working to this day through the mechanisms He put in place at the creation.  He sustains everything but all things are continuing on according to the laws which He established.  So, in that sense, God is resting.

Third, we enter into His rest when we begin to obey the Law which He put into our hearts which He later wrote with His finger upon stone.  We enter into His rest when we begin to obey His Word.

Fourth, and His Word is Jesus Christ.  The Body of Christ is the Church.  And we enter the Church in Baptism.

That's the best I can do.

For he has spoken somewhere about the seventh day in this manner,
And God rested on the seventh day from all his works;and again, in the previously mentioned place,
They shall not enter into my rest.
Therefore, let us strive to enter into that rest,
so that no one may fall after the same example of disobedience.

Do you see the key here?  Disobedience.  Or to put it positively, obedience.  If we obey God, we enter into His rest.  God rests when we do the works which He commanded.

Now you see why St. Peter said:

2 Peter 3:15-17
King James Version (KJV)
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.

Responsorial Psalm
PS 78:3 and 4bc, 6c-7, 8

R.(see 7b) Do not forget the works of the Lord!

What we have heard and know,
and what our fathers have declared to us,
we will declare to the generation to come
The glorious deeds of the LORD and his strength.

R. Do not forget the works of the Lord!

That they too may rise and declare to their sons
that they should put their hope in God,
And not forget the deeds of God
but keep his commands.

R. Do not forget the works of the Lord!

And not be like their fathers,
a generation wayward and rebellious,
A generation that kept not its heart steadfast
nor its spirit faithful toward God.

R. Do not forget the works of the Lord!

The sense in which this is written, the Jewish sense, is that we should not forget that God worked tremendous miracles in the Creation of the world, Noah's flood and in the Exodus of the Jews.  But there is a Christian sense also.  The Sacraments are the mighty works of God.  Do not forget them.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark
Mk 2:1-12

When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days,
it became known that he was at home.
Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them,
not even around the door,
and he preached the word to them.

In Capernaum, so many were gathered around Jesus that there was no longer room.

They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd,
they opened up the roof above him.

But four men carried a paralytic to Him and though they couldn't get around the crowd, they made a hole in the roof.

After they had broken through,
they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him,
“Child, your sins are forgiven.”

When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven."

Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves,
“Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming.
Who but God alone can forgive sins?”

The Scribes immediately charged Him with blasphemy.

Jesus immediately knew in his mind what
they were thinking to themselves,
so he said, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts?
Which is easier, to say to the paralytic,
‘Your sins are forgiven,’
or to say, ‘Rise, pick up your mat and walk’?
But that you may know
that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth”
–he said to the paralytic,
“I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home.”
He rose, picked up his mat at once,
and went away in the sight of everyone.

But Jesus challenged them.  What is easier for man?  To say, "your sins are forgiven or rise and walk?
For man it is impossible to say "rise and walk" to a paralytic.  But Jesus is God.  And so, when He said to the paralytic, "rise and walk", he did so.  And that is the proof that his sins were forgiven.

Nothing is impossible for God.

They were all astounded
and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”

Everyone was astonished at what they had just seen.