Liturgical Readings for : Sunday, 15th September, 2024
Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B
Peter, acknowledging Jesus as the Christ, He finds it hard to accept that Jesus must suffer and die because of who he is. So also Christians find it hard to accept the Cross as an integral part of their own identity.
FIRST READING
A reading from the book of the Prophet Isaiah 50:5-9
I offered my back to those who struck me.
The Lord has opened my ear.
For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away.
I offered my back to those who struck me,
my cheeks to those who tore at my beard;
I did not cover my face against insult and spittle.
The Lord comes to my help, so that I am untouched by the insults.
So, too, I set my face like flint; I know I shall not be shamed.
My vindicator is here at hand.
Does anyone start proceedings against me?
Then let us go to court together.
Who thinks he has a case against me? Let him approach me.
The Lord is coming to my help who dare condemn me?
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
Responsorial Psalm Ps 114:1-6. 8-9.
Response I will walk in the presence of the Lord, in the land of the living.
Or Alleluia!
1. I love the Lord for he has heard the cry of my appeal;
for he turned his ear to me in the day when I called him. Response
2. They surrounded me, the snares of death, with the anguish of the tomb;
they caught me, sorrow and distress. I called on the Lord’s name.
O Lord my God, deliver me! Response
3. How gracious is the Lord, and just; our God has compassion.
The Lord protects the simple hearts; I was helpless so he saved me. Response
4. He has kept my soul from death, my eyes from tears
and my feet from stumbling. I will walk in the presence of the Lord
in the land of the living. Response
SECOND READING
A reading from the letter of St James 2:14-18
If good works do not go with it, faith is quite dead.
Take the case, my brothers, of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him?
If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,‘ without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?
Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.
This is the way to talk to people of that kind:
You say you have faith and I have good deeds;
I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds
– now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show.’
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
Gospel Acclamation Jn 14: 5
Alleluia, alleluia!
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, says the Lord;
no one can come to the Father except through me.
Alleluia!
or Gal 6:14
Alleluia, alleluia!
The only thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord,
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 Gospel according to Mark 8:27-35 Glory to you, O Lord.
You are the Christ. Yes but the Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously.
St Peter’s confession of faith
Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi.
On the way he put this question to his disciples,
‘Who do people say I am?’
And they told him.
‘John the Baptist,‘ they said ‘others Elijah; others again, one of the prophets.’
‘But you,’ he asked ‘who do you say I am?‘
Peter spoke up and said to him, ‘You are the Christ.‘
And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him,
‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’
He called the people and his disciples to him and said,
‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it;
but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Taken from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE, published and copyright 1966 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd
