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Monday, March 24, 2014

Catholic Mass Readings For Monday, March 24, 2014

"The Brow of the Hill near Nazareth" -- by James Tissot.jpg
"The Brow of the Hill near Nazareth" -- by James Tissot

FIRST READING: 2 Kings 5: 1 - 15

1 Naaman, general of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable: for by him the Lord gave deliverance to Syria: and he was a valiant man and rich, but a leper.
2 Now there had gone out robbers from Syria, and had led away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid, and she waited upon Naaman's wife.
3 And she said to her mistress: I wish my master had been with the prophet, that is in Samaria: he would certainly have healed him of the leprosy which he hath.
4 Then Naaman went in to his lord, and told him, saying: Thus and thus said tile girl from the land of Israel.
5 And the king of Syria sad to him: Go, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and tell changes of raiment,
6 And brought the letter to the king of Israel, in these words: When thou shalt receive this letter, know that I have sent to thee Naaman my servant, that thou mayest heal him of his leprosy.
7 And when the king of Israel had read the letter, he rent his garments, and said: Am I God, to be able to kill and give life, that this man hath sent to me, to heal a man of his leprosy? mark, and see how he seeketh occasions against me.
8 And when Eliseus the man of God had heard this, to wit, that the king of Israel had rent his garments, he sent to him, saying: Why hast thou rent thy garments? let him come to me, and let him know that there is a prophet in Israel.
9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and stood at the door of the house of Eliseus:
10 And Eliseus sent a messenger to him, saying: Go, and wash seven times in the Jordan, and thy flesh shall recover health, and thee shalt be clean.
11 Naaman was angry and went away, saying: I thought he would hare come out to me, and standing would hare invoked the name of the Lord his God, and touched with his hand the place of the leprosy, and healed me.
12 Are not the Abana, and the Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel, that I may wash in them, and be made clean? So as he turned, and was going away with indignation,
13 His servants came to him, and said to him: Father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, surely thou shouldst have done it: how much rather what he now hath said to thee: Wash, and thou shalt he clean?
14 Then he went down, and washed in the Jordan seven times: according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored, like the flesh of a little child, and he was made clean.
15 And returning to the man of God with all his train, be came, and stood before him, and said: In truth, I know there is no other God in all the earth, but only in Israel: I beseech thee therefore take a blessing of thy servant.

PSALM: Psalms 42: 2 - 3; 43: 3 - 4

2 As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after thee, O God.
3 My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?
3 Send forth thy light and thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles.
4 And I will go in to the altar of God: to God who giveth joy to my youth.

GOSPEL: Luke 4: 24 - 30

24 And he said: Amen I say to you, that no prophet is accepted in his own country.
25 In truth I say to you, there were many widows in the days of Elias in Israel, when heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there was a great famine throughout all the earth.
26 And to none of them was Elias sent, but to Sarepta of Sidon, to a widow woman.
27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet: and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian.
28 And all they in the synagogue, hearing these things, were filled with anger.
29 And they rose up and thrust him out of the city; and they brought him to the brow of the hill, whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
30 But he passing through the midst of them, went his way.


Saturday, March 22, 2014

Sunday Catholic Mass Readings For March 23, 2014

"The Woman of Samaria at the Well" -- by James Tissot.jpg
"The Woman of Samaria at the Well" -- by James Tissot


FIRST READING: Exodus 17: 3 - 7

3 So the people were thirsty there for want of water, and murmured against Moses, saying: Why didst thou make us go forth out of Egypt, to kill us and our children, and our beasts with thirst?
4 And Moses cried to the Lord, saying: What shall I do to this people? Yet a little more and they will stone me.
5 And the Lord said to Moses: Go before the people, and take with thee of the ancients of Israel: and take in thy hand the rod wherewith thou didst strike the river, and go.
6 Behold I will stand there before thee, upon the rock Horeb: and thou shalt strike the rock, and water shall come out of it that the people may drink. Moses did so before the ancients of Israel:
7 And he called the name of that place Temptation, because the chiding of the children of Israel, and for that they tempted the Lord, saying: Is the Lord amongst us or not?

PSALM: Psalms 95: 1 - 2, 6 - 9

1 Come let us praise the Lord with joy: let us joyfully sing to God our saviour.
2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.
6 Come let us adore and fall down: and weep before the Lord that made us.
7 For he is the Lord our God: and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
8 Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts:
9 As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works.

SECOND READING: Romans 5: 1 - 2, 5 - 8

1 Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2 By whom also we have access through faith into this grace, wherein we stand, and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God.
5 And hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.
6 For why did Christ, when as yet we were weak, according to the time, die for the ungodly?
7 For scarce for a just man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man some one would dare to die.
8 But God commendeth his charity towards us; because when as yet we were sinners, according to the time.

GOSPEL: John 4: 5 - 42 OR John 4: 5 - 15, 19 - 26, 39 - 42

5 He cometh therefore to a city of Samaria, which is called Sichar, near the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 There cometh a woman of Samaria, to draw water. Jesus saith to her: Give me to drink.
8 For his disciples were gone into the city to buy meats.
9 Then that Samaritan woman saith to him: How dost thou, being a Jew, ask of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered, and said to her: If thou didst know the gift of God, and who he is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
11 The woman saith to him: Sir, thou hast nothing wherein to draw, and the well is deep; from whence then hast thou living water?
12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
13 Jesus answered, and said to her: Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again; but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him, shall not thirst for ever:
14 But the water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.
15 The woman saith to him: Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come hither to draw.
16 Jesus saith to her: Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
17 The woman answered, and said: I have no husband. Jesus said to her: Thou hast said well, I have no husband:
18 For thou hast had five husbands: and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband. This thou hast said truly.
19 The woman saith to him: Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
20 Our fathers adored on this mountain, and you say, that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore.
21 Jesus saith to her: Woman, believe me, that the hour cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain, not in Jerusalem, adore the Father.
22 You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know; for salvation is of the Jews.
23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore him.
24 God is a spirit; and they that adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth.
25 The woman saith to him: I know that the Messias cometh (who is called Christ). Therefore, when he is come, he will tell us all things.
26 Jesus saith to her: I am he, who am speaking with thee.
27 And immediately his disciples came; and they wondered that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said: What seekest thou? or, why talkest thou with her?
28 The woman therefore left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men there:
29 Come, and see a man who has told me all things whatsoever I have done. Is not he the Christ?
30 They went therefore out of the city, and came unto him.
31 In the mean time the disciples prayed him, saying: Rabbi, eat.
32 But he said to them: I have meat to eat, which you know not.
33 The disciples therefore said one to another: Hath any man brought him to eat?
34 Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work.
35 Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then the harvest cometh? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and see the countries; for they are white already to harvest.
36 And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting: that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together.
37 For in this is the saying true: That it is one man that soweth, and it is another that reapeth.
38 I have sent you to reap that in which you did not labour: others have laboured, and you have entered into their labours.
39 Now of that city many of the Samaritans believed in him, for the word of the woman giving testimony: He told me all things whatsoever I have done.
40 So when the Samaritans were come to him, they desired that he would tarry there. And he abode there two days.
41 And many more believed in him because of his own word.
42 And they said to the woman: We now believe, not for thy saying: for we ourselves have heard him, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.

OR

5 He cometh therefore to a city of Samaria, which is called Sichar, near the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 There cometh a woman of Samaria, to draw water. Jesus saith to her: Give me to drink.
8 For his disciples were gone into the city to buy meats.
9 Then that Samaritan woman saith to him: How dost thou, being a Jew, ask of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered, and said to her: If thou didst know the gift of God, and who he is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
11 The woman saith to him: Sir, thou hast nothing wherein to draw, and the well is deep; from whence then hast thou living water?
12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
13 Jesus answered, and said to her: Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again; but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him, shall not thirst for ever:
14 But the water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.
15 The woman saith to him: Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come hither to draw.
19 The woman saith to him: Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
20 Our fathers adored on this mountain, and you say, that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore.
21 Jesus saith to her: Woman, believe me, that the hour cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain, not in Jerusalem, adore the Father.
22 You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know; for salvation is of the Jews.
23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore him.
24 God is a spirit; and they that adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth.
25 The woman saith to him: I know that the Messias cometh (who is called Christ). Therefore, when he is come, he will tell us all things.
26 Jesus saith to her: I am he, who am speaking with thee.
39 Now of that city many of the Samaritans believed in him, for the word of the woman giving testimony: He told me all things whatsoever I have done.
40 So when the Samaritans were come to him, they desired that he would tarry there. And he abode there two days.
41 And many more believed in him because of his own word.
42 And they said to the woman: We now believe, not for thy saying: for we ourselves have heard him, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.


Friday, March 21, 2014

Catholic Mass Readings For Saturday, March 22, 2014


FIRST READING: Micah 7: 14 - 15, 18 - 20

14 Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thy inheritance, them that dwell alone in the forest, in the midst of Carmel: they shall feed in Basan and Galaad according to the days of old.
15 According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt I will shew him wonders.
18 Who is a God like to thee, who takest away iniquity, and passest by the sin of the remnant of thy inheritance? he will send his fury in no more, because he delighteth in mercy.
19 He will turn again, and have mercy on us: he will put away our iniquities: and he will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea.
20 Thou wilt perform the truth of Jacob, the mercy to Abraham: which thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old.

PSALM: Psalms 103: 1 - 4, 9 - 12

1 Bless the Lord, O my soul: and let all that is within me bless his holy name.
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all he hath done for thee.
3 Who forgiveth all thy iniquities: who healeth all thy diseases.
4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction: who crowneth thee with mercy and compassion.
9 He will not always be angry: nor will he threaten for ever.
10 He hath not dealt with us according to our sins: nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For according to the height of the heaven above the earth: he hath strengthened his mercy towards them that fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our iniquities from us.

GOSPEL: Luke 15: 1 - 3, 11 - 32

11 Now the publicans and sinners drew near unto him to hear him.
2 And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying: This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
3 And he spoke to them this parable, saying:
11 A certain man had two sons:
12 And the younger of them said to his father: Father, give me the portion of substance that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his substance.
13 And not many days after, the younger son, gathering all together, went abroad into a far country: and there wasted his substance, living riotously.
14 And after he had spent all, there came a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want.
15 And he went and cleaved to one of the citizens of that country. And he sent him into his farm to feed swine.
16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him.
17 And returning to himself, he said: How many hired servants in my father's house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger?
18 I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee:
19 I am not worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
20 And rising up he came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and running to him fell upon his neck, and kissed him.
21 And the son said to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, I am not now worthy to be called thy son.
22 And the father said to his servants: Bring forth quickly the first robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and make merry:
24 Because this my son was dead, and is come to life again: was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
25 Now his elder son was in the field, and when he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing:
26 And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.
27 And he said to him: Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe.
28 And he was angry, and would not go in. His father therefore coming out began to entreat him.
29 And he answering, said to his father: Behold, for so many years do I serve thee, and I have never transgressed thy commandment, and yet thou hast never given me a kid to make merry with my friends:
30 But as soon as this thy son is come, who hath devoured his substance with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.
31 But he said to him: Son, thou art always with me, and all I have is thine.
32 But it was fit that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead and is come to life again; he was lost, and is found.


Thursday, March 20, 2014

Catholic Mass Readings For Friday, March 21, 2014



FIRST READING: Genesis 37: 3 - 4, 12 - 13, 17 - 28

3 Now Israel loved Joseph above all his sons, because he had him in his old age: and he made him a coat of divers colours.
4 And his brethren seeing that he was loved by his father, more than all his sons, hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.
12 And when his brethren abode in Sichem feeding their father's flocks,
13 Israel said to him: Thy brethren feed the sheep in Sichem: come, I will send thee to them. And when he answered.
17 And the man said to him: They are departed from this place: for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothain. And Joseph went forward after his brethren, and found them in Dothain.
18 And when they saw him afar off, before he came nigh them, they thought to kill him.
19 And said one to another: Behold the dreamer cometh.
20 Come, let us kill him, and cast him into some old pit: and we will say: Some evil beast hath devoured him: and then it shall appear what his dreams avail him:
21 And Ruben hearing this, endeavoured to deliver him out of their hands, and said:
22 Do not take away his life, nor shed his blood: but cast him into this pit, that is in the wilderness, and keep your hands harmless: now he said this, being desirous to deliver him out of their hands and to restore him to his father.
23 And as soon as he came to his brethren, they forthwith stript him of his outside coat, that was of divers colours:
24 And cast him into an old pit, where there was no water.
25 And sitting down to eat bread, they saw some Ismaelites on their way coming from Galaad, with their camels, carrying spices, and balm, and myrrh to Egypt.
26 And Juda said to his brethren: What will it profit us to kill our brother, and conceal his blood?
27 It is better that he be sold to the Ismaelites, and that our hands be not defiled: for he is our brother and our flesh. His brethren agreed to his words.
28 And when the Madianite merchants passed by, they drew him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ismaelites, for twenty pieces of silver: and they led him into Egypt.

PSALM: Psalms 105: 16 - 21

16 And he called a famine upon the land: and he broke in pieces all the support of bread.
17 He sent a man before them: Joseph, who was sold for a slave.
18 They humbled his feet in fetters: the iron pierced his soul,
19 Until his word came. The word of the Lord inflamed him.
20 The king sent, and he released him: the ruler of the people, and he set him at liberty.
21 He made him master of his house, and ruler of all his possession.

GOSPEL: Mathew 21: 33 - 43, 45 - 46

33 Hear ye another parable. There was a man an householder, who planted a vineyard, and made a hedge round about it, and dug in it a press, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen; and went into a strange country.
34 And when the time of the fruits drew nigh, he sent his servants to the husbandmen that they might receive the fruits thereof.
35 And the husbandmen laying hands on his servants, beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
36 Again he sent other servants more than the former; and they did to them in like manner.
37 And last of all he sent to them his son, saying: They will reverence my son.
38 But the husbandmen seeing the son, said among themselves: This is the heir: come, let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance.
39 And taking him, they cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him.
40 When therefore the lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do to those husbandmen?
41 They say to him: He will bring those evil men to an evil end; and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen, that shall render him the fruit in due season.
42 Jesus saith to them: Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? By the Lord this has been done; and it is wonderful in our eyes.
43 Therefore I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof.
45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they knew that he spoke of them.
46 And seeking to lay hands on him, they feared the multitudes: because they held him as a prophet.