Liturgical Readings for : Wednesday, 9th October, 2024
Wednesday of the Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year 2
Optional memorials of Bl John Henry Newman, priest
and Ss Denis, bishop and companions
and St John Leonardi, priest
A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14
They recognised the grace God had given me.
It was not till fourteen years had passed that I went up to Jerusalem again. I went with Barnabas and took Titus with me. I went there as the result of a revelation, and privately I laid before the leading men the Good News as I proclaim it among the pagans; I did so for fear the course I was adopting or had already adopted would not be allowed.
On the contrary, they recognised that I had been commissioned to preach the Good News to the ‘uncircumcised‘ just as Peter had been commissioned to preach it to the ‘circumcised.’ The same person whose action had made Peter the apostle of the circumcised had given me a similar mission to the pagans.
So, James, Cephas and John, these leaders, these pillars, shook hands with Barnabas and me as a sign of partnership: we were to go to the pagans and they to the circumcised. The only thing they insisted on was that we should remember to help the poor, as indeed I was anxious to do.
When Cephas came to Antioch, however, I opposed him to his face, since he was manifestly in the wrong. His custom had been to eat with the pagans, but after certain friends of James arrived he stopped doing this and kept away from them altogether for fear of the group that insisted on circumcision. The other Jews joined him in this pretence, and even Barnabas felt himself obliged to copy their behaviour.
When I saw they were not respecting the true meaning of the Good News, I said to Cephas in front of everyone,
‘In spite of being a Jew, you live like the pagans and not like the Jews, so you have no right to make the pagans copy Jewish ways’.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 116
Response Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News.
Or Alleluia!
1. O praise the Lord, all you nations,
acclaim him all you peoples! Response
2. Strong is his love for us;
he is faithful for ever. Response
Gospel Acclamation Ps 118: 34
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Train me to observe your law, to keep it with all my heart.
Alleluia!
or Rom 8:15
Alleluia, Alleluia!
The spirit you received is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba Father’.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 11:1-4 Glory to you, O Lord
Lord, teach us to pray.
Once Jesus was in a certain place praying, and when he had finished one of his disciples said,
‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples’.
He said to them,
‘Say this when you pray:
“Father, may your name be held holy,
your kingdom come;
give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us.
And do not put us to the test.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ
********************
Gospel Reflection Wednesday Twenty Seventh Week in Ordinary Time Luke 11:1-4
According to our first reading, it had been the custom of Peter ‘to eat with the pagans’. The reference to ‘pagans’ there is to members of the church whose background was pagan and who would have had no familiarity with Jewish food laws. It seems that Peter was initially prepared to forgo Jewish food laws so that he could share table fully with these believers in the Lord who came from a pagan background. However, according to Paul, under pressure from James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, Peter stopped doing this, for fear of offending those Jewish Christians who held that all believers should submit to the Jewish Law. Paul clearly felt that Peter should have stood up to James, resisting his pressure, and, so, Paul tells us that he opposed Peter to his face. We only have Paul’s side of the story here. Perhaps Peter would have told the story a little differently.
There is no doubt that both Peter and Paul, and James, were absolutely committed to doing the Lord’s will and working for the coming of God’s kingdom. They could easily have prayed together the words of the prayer Jesus gave to his disciples in the gospel reading, ‘Father, may your name be held holy, your kingdom come’. Although both Paul and Peter wanted to create spaces for the coming of God’s kingdom, they seemed to have different views on what that meant in practice. They had at least one strong disagreement. Perhaps, subsequent to this heated exchange, another petition of the Lord’s Prayer would have become very relevant, ‘Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us’.
We can have strong disagreements about what the Lord is asking of us as a community of believers and still remain in communion with one another. Discerning what the Lord is asking of us in complex situations is not always easy. Tensions and disagreements among committed believers are inevitable. Yet, we all need to be able to pray the prayer that Jesus gave us, recognizing that we are all brothers and sisters under God our Father, who stand in need of forgiveness as we work for the coming of God’s kingdom on earth.
________________________________
The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
