Mass Readings for : Wednesday, 17th July, 2024

Liturgical Readings for : Wednesday, 17th July, 2024

Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle 2

FIRST READING

A reading from the book of the Prophet Isaiah 10:5-7. 13-16
Does the axe claim more credit than the man who wields it?

The Lord of hosts says this:
‘Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, the club brandished by me in my fury!
I sent him against a godless nation;
I gave him commission against a people that provokes me,
to pillage and to plunder freely and to stamp down like the mud in the streets.
But he did not intend this, his heart did not plan it so.
No, in his heart was to destroy, to go on cutting nations to pieces without limit.

For he has said:
‘By the strength of my own arm I have done this and by my own intelligence,
for understanding is mine;
I have pushed back the frontiers of peoples and plundered their treasures.
I have brought their inhabitants down to the dust.
As if they were a bird’s nest, my hand has seized the riches of the peoples. not a beak opening, not a chirp.’

Does the axe claim more credit than the man who wields it, or the saw more strength than the man who handles it?
It would be like the cudgel controlling the man who raises it, or the club moving what is not made of wood!
And so the Lord of hosts is going to send a wasting sickness on his stout warriors;
beneath his plenty, a burning will burn like a consuming fire.

The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 93
Response The Lord will not abandon his people.

1. They crush your people, Lord, they afflict the ones you have chosen.
They kill the widow and the stranger and murder the fatherless child. Response

2. And they say: ‘The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob pays no heed.’
Mark this, most senseless of people; fools, when will you understand? Response

3. Can he who made the ear not hear? Can he who formed the eye not see?
Will he who trains nations not punish? Will he who teaches men not have knowledge? Response

4. The Lord will not abandon his people nor forsake those who are his own:
for judgement shall again be just and all true hearts shall uphold it. Response

Gospel Acclamation Mt 11: 25-27
Alleluia, alleluia!
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to mere children.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL

The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 11:25-27 Glory to you, O Lord
You have hidden these things from the learned and the clever and revealed them to mere children.

Jesus exclaimed,
‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth,
for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.
Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.

Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father;
and no one knows the Son except the Father,
just as no one knows the Father except the Son
and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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Gospel Reflection Wednesday Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time Matthew 11:25-27

In the first reading, the Lord, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, critiques the arrogance of the ruler of the empire of Assyria. Failing to recognize his role in God’s greater purpose, he puts his military successes down to his own strength and intelligence. It is as if the axe were to claim more credit than the one who uses it.

In the gospel reading, Jesus refers to ‘the learned and the clever’, by which is meant those religious experts who are so sure of their interpretation of God’s law as to reject Jesus’ revelation of God through his words and deeds. However, although the learned and the clever may be rejecting Jesus’ revelation of God, the ‘little ones’ are welcoming it. Those who are aware of their own poverty and need before God have come to recognize the intimate relationship between the Father and the Son. They have welcomed God’s coming to them through the words and deeds of Jesus. What is hidden to the learned and the clever is clear to the little ones. There is a sense in which we have to bend very low if we are to receive the revelation of God that Jesus came to give us. As Jesus says in the opening beatitude, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Mt 5:3). As Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, God often choses ‘what is foolish in the world to shame the wise… what is weak in the world to shame the strong’ (1 Cor 1:27). There is a self-emptying that is needed on our part if God’s purpose for our lives is to come to pass.