Liturgical Readings for : Saturday, 5th October, 2024
Saturday of the 26th week in Ordinary Time, Year 2
Optional memorial of St Faustina Kowalska, virgin, proclaimer of Divine Mercy of God
FIRST READING
A reading from the Book of the Job 42:1-3. 5-6. 12-17
Having seen you with my own eyes, I retract all I have said.
I retract all I have said, This was the answer Job gave to the Lord:
I know that you are all-powerful: what you conceive, you can perform.
I am the man who obscured your designs with my empty-headed words.
I have been holding forth on matters I cannot understand, on marvels beyond me
and my knowledge.
I knew you then only by hearsay; but now, having seen you with my own eyes,
I retract all I have said, and in dust and ashes I repent.
The Lord blessed Job’s new fortune even more than his first one.
He came to own fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels,
a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand she-donkeys.
He had seven sons and three daughters;
his first daughter he called ‘Turtledove‘, the second ‘Cassia‘ and the third ‘Mascara‘.
Throughout the land there were no women as beautiful as the daughters of Job.
And their father gave them inheritance rights like their brothers.
After his trials, Job lived on until he was a hundred and forty years old,
and saw his children and his children’s children up to the fourth generation.
Then Job died, an old man and full of days.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God
Responsorial Psalm Ps 118
Response Let your face shine on your servant, O Lord.
1. Teach me discernment and knowledge for I trust in your commands.
It was good for me to be afflicted, to learn your statutes. Response
2. Lord, I know that your decrees are right, that you afflicted me justly.
By your decree the earth endures to this day; for all things serve you. Response
3. I am your servant, make me understand; then I shall know your will.
The unfolding of your word gives light and teaches the simple. Response
Gospel Acclamation Mt 11: 25
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 Luke 9:46-50 Glory to you, O Lord
Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.
The seventy-two came back rejoicing.
‘Lord,‘ they said ‘even the devils submit to us when we use your name.’
He said to them,
‘I watched Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Yes, I have given you power to tread underfoot serpents and scorpions and the whole strength of the enemy; nothing shall ever hurt you.
Yet do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you;
rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven.’
It was then that, filled with joy by the Holy Spirit, he said,
‘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 who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’
Then turning to his disciples he spoke to them in private,
‘Happy the eyes that see what you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see, and never saw it;
to hear what you hear, and never heard it’.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Saturday Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time Luke 10:17-24
In the gospel reading, Jesus praises God his Father in prayer because it is ‘mere children’ who are receiving the gospel message he is proclaiming, whereas the learned and the clever are not. ‘Mere children’ are primarily those adults who have the openness of the child to all that Jesus is saying and doing. Whereas those who claim to know God, the learned and the clever, are rejecting Jesus, those who are searching for God and who recognize that they have a long way to go to find God are welcoming the message and ministry of Jesus with open arms. They are the ones who are seeing what the learned and clever are failing to see and are hearing what the learned and clever are failing to hear. Jesus turns to this group at the end of the gospel reading and declares them blessed, ‘Happy the eyes that see what you see..’ Children are full of questions. I once went into a classroom in one of the primary schools and I was bombarded with questions about God, Jesus, heaven and earth. Children have an openness to learning about God. We all need to retain something of that childlike quality of the searcher and the questioner. It is an attitude that leaves us open to the new ways that the Lord can touch our lives.
In the first reading, Job declares that he thought he knew God, but it was his experience of great suffering that made him realize that he knew God ‘only by hearsay’. Having come through that painful experience he can now claim to have seen God ‘with my own eyes’. When it comes to God and to Jesus, his Son, we are all on a journey of discovery. The Lord has always so much more to reveal to us of himself and of God, which is why we need to retain the openness and humility of the child.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
