August 3, 2013

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Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time 
Lectionary: 406

Reading 1LV 25:1, 8-17

The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai,

“Seven weeks of years shall you count–seven times seven years–

so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years.

Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, let the trumpet resound;

on this, the Day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall re-echo

throughout your land.

This  is the celebration of a jubilee year.  A week of years.

This fiftieth year you shall make sacred

by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.

It shall be a jubilee for you,

when every one of you shall return to his own property,

every one to his own family estate.

In this fiftieth year, your year of jubilee,

you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth

or pick the grapes from the untrimmed vines.

Since this is the jubilee, which shall be sacred for you,

you may not eat of its produce,

except as taken directly from the field.

The Jubilee year was a prefigurement of the coming of Jesus Christ who set all the captives free:

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

“In this year of jubilee, then,

every one of you shall return to his own property.

Therefore, when you sell any land to your neighbor

or buy any from him, do not deal unfairly.

On the basis of the number of years since the last jubilee

shall you purchase the land from your neighbor;

and so also, on the basis of the number of years for crops,

shall he sell it to you.

When the years are many, the price shall be so much the more;

when the years are few, the price shall be so much the less.

For it is really the number of crops that he sells you.

Do not deal unfairly, then; but stand in fear of your God.

I, the LORD, am your God.”

Since Jesus set the captives free, every year is a jubilee year in the Catholic Church.  We are all set free from the slavery of sin, in Baptism.

Responsorial PsalmPS 67:2-3, 5, 7-8

R. (4) O God, let all the nations praise you!
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.
R. O God, let all the nations praise you!
May the nations be glad and exult
because you rule the peoples in equity;
the nations on the earth you guide.
R. O God, let all the nations praise you!
The earth has yielded its fruits;
God, our God, has blessed us.
May God bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth fear him!
R. O God, let all the nations praise you!

It will be a great and wonderful day when all the nations of the earth begin to praise God.  In the meantime, we need to begin with one soul at a time.  Let us each turn to God in a personal conversion which will be an example to all who witness our lives.

GospelMT 14:1-12

Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus

and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist.

He has been raised from the dead;

that is why mighty powers are at work in him.”

Herod's conscience was bothering him when he first saw Jesus Christ, since he had put St. John the Baptist to death.  

Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison

on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip,

for John had said to him,

“It is not lawful for you to have her.”

Herod had arrested St. John because he pointed out that it was a sin for Herod to live with his brother's wife.

Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people,

for they regarded him as a prophet.

Herod wanted to kill St. John but was afraid of the people.

But at a birthday celebration for Herod,

the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests

and delighted Herod so much

that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for.

Prompted by her mother, she said,

“Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”

The king was distressed, 

but because of his oaths and the guests who were present,

he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison.

His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl,

who took it to her mother.

But he was tricked by his brother's wife into killing St. John.  His lust led him to make a promise without knowing what he was promising.  And she took advantage in order to have St. John killed in her effort to silence her conscience.

His disciples came and took away the corpse

and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.

St. John's disciples came to get his body and bury it and then went to inform Jesus.