Liturgical Readings for : Tuesday, 21st May, 2024
Tuesday of the Seventh week in Ordinary Time, Year 2
Optional memorial of Ss Christopher Magallánes, priest and Companions
FIRST READING
A reading from the letter of St James 4:1-10
When you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly.
Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force. Why you don’t have what you want is because you don’t pray for it; when you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly, you have prayed for something to indulge your own desires.
You are as unfaithful as adulterous wives; don’t you realise that making the world your friend is making God your enemy? Anyone who chooses the world for his friend turns himself into God’s enemy. Surely you don’t think scripture is wrong when it says: the spirit which he sent to live in us wants us for himself alone? But he has been even more generous to us, as scripture says:
God opposes the proud but he gives generously to the humble.
Give in to God, then; resist the devil, and he will run away from you. The nearer you go to God, the nearer he will come to you. Clean your hands, you sinners, and clear your minds, you waverers. Look at your wretched condition, and weep for it in misery; be miserable instead of laughing, gloomy instead of happy. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 54
Response Entrust your cares to the Lord and he will support you.
1. O that I had wings like a dove to fly away and be at rest.
So I would escape far away and take refuge in the desert. Response
2. I would hasten to find a shelter from the raging wind,
from the destructive storm, O Lord, and from their plotting tongues. Response
3. For I can see nothing but violence and strife in the city.
Night and day they patrol high on the city walls. Response
4. Entrust your cares to the Lord and he will support you.
He will never allow the just man to stumble. Response
Gospel Acclamation Jn 14: 23
Alleluia, alleluia!
If anyone loves me he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him .
Alleluia!
Or Gal 6: 14
Alleluia, alleluia!
The only thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you And with your spirit.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 9: 30-37 Glory to you, O Lord
The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men. If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all.
Jesus and his disciples made their way through Galilee; and he did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples; he was telling them,
‘The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men;
they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.’
But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.
They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?‘
They said nothing because they had been arguing which of them was the greatest. So he sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.’
He then took a little child, set him in front of them, put his arms round him, and said to them, ‘Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Tuesday Seventh Week in Ordinary Time Mark 9:30-37
In today’s first reading, James declares that conflict between people first starts with self-serving desires and ambitions in the human heart. ‘You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy, so you fight to get your way’. The truth of what James says is played out in our gospel reading. The disciples of Jesus are at odds with one another, arguing among themselves, because of the self-serving desires and ambitions in their heart. They all want to be considered the greatest. A little later in Mark’s gospel, James and John will ask for the best seats in Jesus’ kingdom, one at his right and the other at his left, which creates more conflict among the twelve. We may have known similar situations in our own experience, where people’s self-serving ambition leads to conflict and rows. The response of both James and Jesus to this all too human phenomenon is very similar. James says, ‘Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up’.
Rather, than lifting ourselves up at other people’s expense, we ‘give in to God’, as James says. We allow God to have first place in our lives, rather than our own self-serving ambitions, allowing God to life us up. Jesus says that those who want to be first must make themselves last of all and servant of all, including being the servant of those considered at the time the least important and influential members of society, such as children. Allowing God to have first place in our lives is, for Jesus, allowing others to have first place in our lives, especially the most vulnerable. Both James and Jesus show us the kind of ambition that our faith encourages us to cultivate.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
