Liturgical Readings for : Wednesday, 10th July, 2024
Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle 2
FIRST READING
A reading from the book of the Prophet Hosea 10:1-3. 7-8. 10
It is time to go seeking the Lord .
Israel was a luxuriant vine yielding plenty of fruit.
The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built;
the richer his land became, the richer he made the sacred stones.
Their heart is a divided heart; very well, they must pay for it:
The Lord is going to break their altars down and destroy their sacred stones.
Then they will say, ‘We have no king because we have not feared the Lord’.
But what can a king do for us
Samaria has had her day. Her king is like a straw drifting on the water.
The idolatrous high places shall be destroyed- that sin of Israel;
thorn and thistle will grow on their altars.
Then they will say to the mountains, ‘Cover us!‘ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us!’
Sow integrity for yourselves, reap a harvest of kindness, break up your fallow ground:
it is time to go seeking the Lord until he comes to rain salvation on you.
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 104
Response Constantly seek the face of the Lord.
Or Alleluia!
l. O sing to him, sing his praise; tell all his wonderful works!
Be proud of his holy name, let the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice. Response
2. Consider the Lord and his strength; constantly seek his face.
Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, the judgements he spoke. Response
3. O children of Abraham, his servant, O sons of the Jacob he chose.
He, the Lord, is our God: his judgements prevail in all the earth. Response
Gospel Acclamation Jm 1: 18
Alleluia, alleluia!
By his own choice the Father makes us his children by the message of the truth,
so that we should be a sort of first-fruits of all that he created.
Alleluia!
or Mk 1: 15
Alleluia, alleluia!
The kingdom of God is close at hand, repent and believe the Good News.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew 10:1-7
Go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel
Jesus summoned his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to cast them out and to cure all kinds of diseases and sickness.
These are the names of the twelve apostles:
First, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the one who was to betray him.
These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows:
‘Do not turn your steps to pagan territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town;
go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’
The Gospel of the Lord Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Wednesday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Matthew 10:1-7
In today’s first reading, the Lord says of Israel, ‘their heart is a divided heart’. They did not seek the Lord with a pure, undivided, heart. Instead, they hedged their bets by building altars to other gods in the event of not being able to rely on the Lord. In the gospel reading, Jesus appoints the twelve as the initial labourers to work in God’s harvest. In time, they too would show themselves to have a divided heart. They did not remain faithful to Jesus when it became costly to themselves, abandoning him in the hour of his passion and death, with Peter, the leader of the twelve denying him publicly and Judas Iscariot betraying him to his enemies.
Even though they were sent as shepherds to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, they themselves became lost sheep. As Jesus would say to them on the night of the last supper, ‘You will all become deserters because of me this night; for it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered”’ (Mt 26:31). We can hardly sit in judgement on the people of Israel or on the disciples as we are all aware that our own heart can easily be divided. In the Beatitudes, Jesus declares, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God’. We are not always pure in heart, with an undivided focus on what God desires for us and our world. We need to keep hearing the call of the first reading, ‘Break up your fallow ground: It is time to go seeking the Lord’. The good news is that the Lord is always seeking us, even when our heart is divided and we fail to seek him with all our heart. He came to seek out and save the lost and he never stops seeking even when we do.
The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
