Liturgical Readings for : Saturday, 3rd February, 2024
Saturday of Fourth Week in Ordinary Time, Year 2
Optional Memorials of Ss Blaise, bishop and martyr and Ansgar, bishop
FIRST READING
A reading from the first book of Kings 3:4-13
Give your servant a heart to understand how to discern between good and evil.
King Soloman went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, since that was the greatest of the high places – Solomon offered a thousand holocausts on that altar. At Gibeon the Lord appeared in a dream to Solomon during the night. God said,
‘Ask what you would like me to give you’.
Solomon replied,
‘You showed great kindness to your servant David, my father, when he lived his life before you in faithfulness and justice and integrity of heart; you have continued this great kindness to him by allowing a son of his to sit on his throne today.
Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in succession to David my father. But I am a very young man, unskilled in leadership. Your servant finds himself in the midst of this people of yours that you have chosen, a people so many its number cannot be counted or reckoned. Give your servant a heart to understand how to discern between good and evil, for who could govern this people of yours that is so great?’
It pleased the Lord that Solomon should have asked for this.
‘Since you have asked for this,’ the Lord said, ‘and not asked for long life for yourself or riches or the lives of your enemies, but have asked for a discerning judgement for yourself, here and now I do what you ask. I give you a heart wise and shrewd as none before you has had and none will have after you. What you have not asked I shall give you too: such riches and glory as no other king ever had.’
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 118
Response Lord, teach me your statutes.
1. How shall the young remain sinless? By obeying your word.
I have sought you with all my heart: let me not stray from your commands. Response
2. I treasure your promise in my heart lest I sin against you.
Blessed are you, a Lord: teach me your statutes. Response
3. With my tongue I have recounted the decrees of your lips.
I rejoiced to do your will as though all riches were mine. Response
Gospel Acclamation Jn 10: 27
Alleluia, alleluia!
The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice, says the lord,
I know them and they follow me.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
A reading from the Gospel according to Mark 6: 30-34
They were like sheep without a shepherd.
The apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught.
Then he said to them,
‘You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while’;
for there were so many coming and going that the apostles had no time even to eat. So they went off in a boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves.
But people saw them going, and many could guess where; and from every town they all hurried to the place on foot and reached it before them. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length.
The Gospel of the Lord Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Saturday Fourth Week in Ordinary Time Mark 6:30-34
In taking his disciples away to a lonely place after their period of missionary work, Jesus highlights the value of rest and the importance of space in the midst of a busy schedule. There was much to be done, both for Jesus and his disciples. Yet, Jesus recognized that there were other values alongside the value of activity, even activity in the service of God. There was the value of being, of stepping back to spend time with oneself, with others and with God. Stepping back from our various activities can help to ensure that our doing, our work, is shaped by God’s purpose and desire. In the first reading, Solomon had just become king of Israel. There was much to be done for the young king. Yet, in that reading, we find Solomon stepping back from his work as king to spend time with the Lord in prayer, asking the Lord for the gift of the wisdom and discernment he would need for his work as king. He recognized that if he was to rule in the way the Lord wanted, he would need the Lord’s help. We all need to get that balance right in our lives between being and doing, between, on the one hand, being really present to others and to the Lord in prayer and, on the other hand, the many activities we need to engage in, some of them essential.
In the gospel reading, the prayerful rest that Jesus sought out for himself and his disciples didn’t actually materialize. When they arrived at the lonely place, people were there waiting for them and, as the compassionate shepherd, Jesus set himself to teach them at great length. Thereby, Jesus was showing his disciples and us the importance of another and higher value, the value of serving in love even those who unexpectedly disrupt our legitimate search for space, rest and prayer.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
