February 14, 2013

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Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Lectionary: 220

Reading 1 from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy
Dt 30:15-20

Moses said to the people:
“Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.

Moses gives the people of Israel a choice.  Life and death.  Choose to obey God and live.

If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,
but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,
I tell you now that you will certainly perish;
you will not have a long life
on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.

But if you disobey the commandments of God, you will die.

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
For that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore
he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Therefore we have a choice.  Blessing and life.  Cursing and death.

Choose then to love God and obey His word and you will live. 

Responsorial Psalm Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6

R. (40:5a) Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

Happy the man who does not follow the example of evil men but joyfully obeys the Word of God.

He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

All his life he will stand firm and enjoy prosperity.

Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

But not the evil man.  He will be driven away like ashes before the wind.  Because God takes care  of the righteous but the evil man is destroyed.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke
Lk 9:22-25

Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”

Jesus informed His students the He about His passion and death.  That He would be persecuted by the rulers of the Jews and then killed but that He would rise on the third day.

Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?”

And then He said to them all, that the way to eternal life is the way of the Cross.  One who chooses God will be rejected by the world.  One who chooses to imitate Christ will suffer and die to himself because the world will persecute him.

But it is better to lose the whole world than to gain the world and lose one's soul.