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| "Come Unto Me" -- by Carl Heinrich Bloch |
FIRST READING: Baruch 4: 5 - 12, 27 - 29
5
Be of good comfort, O people of God, the memorial of Israel:
6
You have been sold to the Gentiles, not for your destruction: but
because you provoked God to wrath, you are delivered to your
adversaries.
7
For you have provoked him who made you, the eternal God, offering
sacrifice to devils, and not to God.
8
For you have forgotten God, who brought you up, and you have grieved
Jerusalem that nursed you.
9
For she saw the wrath of God coming upon you, and she said: Give ear,
all you that dwell near Sion, for God hath brought upon me great
mourning:
10
For I have seen the captivity of my people, of my sons, and my
daughters, which the Eternal hath brought upon them.
11
For I nourished them with joy: but I sent them away with weeping and
mourning.
12
Let no man rejoice over me, a widow, and desolate: I am forsaken of
many for the sins of my children, because they departed from the law
of God.
27
Be of good comfort, my children, and cry to the Lord: for you shall
be remembered by him that hath led you away.
28
For as it was your mind to go astray from God; so when you return
again you shall seek him ten times as much.
29
For he that hath brought evils upon you, shall bring you everlasting
joy again with your salvation.
33
Let the poor see and rejoice: seek ye God, and your soul shall live.
34
For the Lord hath heard the poor: and hath not despised his
prisoners.
35
Let the heavens and the earth praise him; the sea, and every thing
that creepeth therein.
36
For God will save Sion, and the cities of Juda shall be built up. And
they shall dwell there, and acquire it by inheritance.
37
And the seed of his servants shall possess it; and they that love his
name shall dwell therein.
17
And the seventy-two returned with joy, saying: Lord, the devils also
are subject to us in thy name.
18
And he said to them: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven.
19
Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions,
and upon all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall hurt you.
20
But yet rejoice not in this, that spirits are subject unto you; but
rejoice in this, that your names are written in heaven.
21
In that same hour, he rejoiced in the Holy Ghost, and said: I confess
to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to
little ones. Yea, Father, for so it hath seemed good in thy sight.
22
All things are delivered to me by my Father; and no one knoweth who
the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and
to whom the Son will reveal him.
23
And turning to his disciples, he said: Blessed are the eyes that see
the things which you see.
24
For I say to you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see
the things that you see, and have not seen them; and to hear the
things that you hear, and have not heard them.
