Liturgical Readings for : Thursday, 8th February, 2024
Thursday of Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year 2
Optional Memorials of Ss Jerome Emiliani and Josephine Baghita, virgin
International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking
FIRST READING
A reading from the first book of 1 Kings 11: 4-13
Since you behave like this and do not keep my covenant or the laws I laid down for you, I will most surely tear the kingdom away from you. For the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen, I will leave your son one tribe.
When Solomon grew old his wives swayed his heart to other gods; and his heart was not wholly with the Lord his God as his father David’s had been. Solomon became a follower of Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, and of Milcom, the Ammonite abomination. He did what was displeasing to the Lord, and was not a wholehearted follower of the Lord, as his father David had been. Then it was that Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the god of Moab on the mountain to the east of Jerusalem, and to Milcom the god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrifice to their gods.
The Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned from The Lord the God of Israel who had twice appeared to him and who had then forbidden him to follow other gods; but he did not carry out the Lord’s order.
The Lord therefore said to Solomon,
‘Since you behave like this and do not keep my covenant or the laws I laid down for you, I will most surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants.’
For your father David’s sake, however, I will not do this during your lifetime, but will tear it out of your son’s hands. Even so, I will not tear the whole kingdom from him. For the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen, I will leave your son one tribe.’
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 105
Response O Lord, remember me out of the love you have for your people.
1. They are happy who do what is right, who at all times do what is just.
a Lord, remember me out of the love you have for your people. Response
2. But instead they mingled with the nations and learned to act like them.
They worshipped the idols of the nations and these became a snare to entrap them. Response
3. They even offered their own sons and their daughters in sacrifice to demons,
till his anger blazed against his people: he was filled with horror at his chosen ones. Response
Gospel Acclamation 2 Tim 1: 10
Alleluia, alleluia!
The Lord is faithful in all his words and loving in all his deeds.
Alleluia!
Or Jn 17: 17
Alleluia, alleluia!
Accept and submit to the word which has been planted in you and can save your souls.
Alleluia!
GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 7: 24-30 Glory to you, O Lord
The house-dogs under the table can eat the children’s scraps.
Jesus left Gennesaret and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, but he could not pass unrecognised.
A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him straightaway and came and fell at his feet. Now the woman was a pagan, by birth a Syrophoenician, and she begged him to cast the devil out of her daughter.
And he said to her,
‘The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs’.
But she spoke up:
‘Ah yes, sir,’ she replied ‘but the house-dogs under the table can eat the children’s scraps’.
And he said to her,
‘For saying this, you may go home happy: the devil has gone out of your daughter‘.
So she went off to her home and found the child lying on the bed and the devil gone.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Thursday, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Mark 7:24-30
Most of the people who approach Jesus for help in the gospels are Jews, like himself. In today’s gospel reading, however, it is a pagan woman who approaches Jesus to heal her very disturbed daughter. It seems that Jesus regarded his ministry as primarily to Jews. As he says to the pagan woman, ‘The children should be fed first’, the children being the people of Israel. It is only after Jesus rose from the dead that he would instruct his disciples to preach the gospel to all nations, Jews and pagans. However, this pagan woman was not prepared to wait; her daughter was in great need. The parents of a sick child are never prepared to wait; they insist that their child be cared for immediately. When Jesus says, in a little parable, ‘it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house dogs’, the woman identifies with the house dogs, ‘but the housedogs under the table can eat the children’s scraps’.
In other words, the children and the housedogs can eat at the same time, with the housedogs benefiting from the children’s untidy eating habits. Jesus couldn’t but respond to such an ingenious response; he had to heal the woman’s daughter. His timetable of a ministry to the Jews before a ministry to pagans had to give way. Jesus shows us that we need to hold our plans, our programmes, our timetables, lightly. Human need takes priority over all else. God calls out to us through those in great need, even when that need disrupts our carefully laid out plans. God can be speaking to us through the unexpected and unplanned event and through those who are very different from us. We need something of the freedom that Jesus displayed, the freedom of the Spirit, to go where God is leading us and to do what God is asking of us.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
