Liturgical Readings for : Friday, 2nd August, 2024
Friday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Optional memorials of Ss Eusebius of Vercelli, bishop
and Peter Julian Eymard, priest
FIRST READING
A reading from the book of the Prophet Jeremiah 26:1-9.
The people were all crowding round in the Temple of the Lord.
At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah,
this word was addressed to Jeremiah by the Lord.
The Lord says this:
Stand in the court of the Temple of the Lord.
To all the people of the towns of Judah who come to worship in the Temple of the Lord you must speak all the words I have commanded you to tell them; do not omit one syllable.
Perhaps they will listen and each turn from his evil way: if so, I shall relent and not bring the disaster on them which I intended for their misdeeds.
Say to them, “the Lord says this:
If you will not listen to me by following my Law which I put before you, by paying attention to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send so persistently to you, without your ever listening to them,
I will treat this Temple as I treated Shiloh, and make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth”.’
The priests and prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah say these words in the Temple of the Lord.
When Jeremiah had finished saying everything that the Lord had ordered him to say to all the people,
the priests and prophets seized hold of him and said,
‘You shall die! Why have you made this prophecy in the name of the Lord, “This Temple will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, and uninhabited”?’
And the people were all crowding round Jeremiah in the Temple of the Lord.
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
Responsorial Psalm Ps 68
Response In your great love, answer me, O God.
1. More numerous than the hairs on my head are those who hate me without cause.
Those who attack. me with lies are too much for my strength.
How can I restore what I have never stolen? Response
2. It is for you that I suffer taunts, that shame covers my face,
that I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons.
I burn with zeal for your house and taunts against you fall on me. Response
3. This is my prayer to you, my prayer for your favour.
In your great love, answer me, O God, with your help that never fails. Response
Gospel Acclamation 1 Thess 2: 13
Alleluia, alleluia!
Accept and submit to the word, which has been planted in you and can save your souls.
Alleluia !
or 1 Pt 1: 25
Alleluia, alleluia!
The word of the Lord remains for ever: What is this word?
It is the Good News that has been brought to you.
Alleluia !
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you And with your spirit.
A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew 13:54-58 Glory to you, O Lord
‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?: This is the carpenter’s son, surely?
Coming to his home town, Jesus taught the people in their synagogue in such a way that they were astonished and said,
‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?:
This is the carpenter’s son, surely?
Is not his mother the woman called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Jude?:
His sisters, too, are they not all here with us?
So where did the man get it all?’:
And they would not accept him.
But Jesus said to them,
‘A prophet is only despised in his own country and in his own house’,:
and he did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Friday Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Matthew 13:54-58
Asking questions is an important expression of our faith journey. When we are trying to respond to the Lord’s presence and call in our lives, there will always be room for questions. The Lord is infinitely mysterious; he is always beyond us as well as being present among us and within us. We are always searching for him, as well as responding to his daily presence to us. As we search for him, we will ask questions, and our questions can lead us closer to him. However, in today’s gospel reading, the questions asked by the people of Nazareth did not lead them closer to Jesus. Rather, their questions lead them away from Jesus. When Jesus taught in his home synagogue, the people of Nazareth asked very good and valid questions, ‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? So where did the man get it all?’ They recognized the wisdom of his preaching and teaching, and the healing and life-giving power of his ministry, and they wondered where it all came from. These were questions that could have lead the people of Nazareth to recognize Jesus as someone who had come to them from God.
Instead, their questions led them to reject Jesus. After all, he was one of their own; they knew him as the son of a carpenter; they were very familiar with his mother and the other members of his family. How could someone so like them come from God? How could one of their own be God’s special messenger to them? They had asked good questions, but, in the end, they rejected him. The people of Nazareth could not come to terms with God powerfully present in one like themselves.
Yet, this is the mystery that is at the heart of our faith. God became human in Jesus. When we look upon the human life of Jesus, his words and deeds, his ministry, his death, we are looking upon the face of God. Here is a mystery to be delighted in, rather than rejected. Just as God came to us through one like us in all things but sin, so God continues to come to us in and through the ordinary circumstances of our day to day lives. The risen Lord who is beyond us, with God the Father, is also present with us to the end of time.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
