Friday, March 6, 2009

1st Week of Lent: Saturday

FIRST READING (Deuteronomy 26:16-19)
Moses spoke to the people, saying: "This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and ordinances; you shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared this day concerning the Lord that he is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his ordinances, and will obey his voice; and the Lord has declared this day concerning you that you are a people for his own possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, that he will set you high above all nations that he has made, in praise and in fame and in honour, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he has spoken."


GOSPEL (Matthew 5:43-48)
"You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighboer and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

"For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

"And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

"You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."


REFLECTION

I have always found the word peculiar to be...well...peculiar. It is a word which can signify something particular or special, or also something odd or strange. In the reading today from the Book of Deuteronomy, we hear: "And today the LORD is making this agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own." (Deut. 26:18) To read on press HERE.


PRAYER
Lord, thou hast prepared a table for me
against them that trouble me.
Let that holy Sacrament of the Eucharist
be to me a defence and shield,
a nourishment and medicine, life and health,
a means of sanctification and spiritual growth;
that I, receiving the Body of my dearest Lord,
may be one with his mystical body,
and of the same Spirit,
united with indissoluble bonds of a strong faith,
and a holy hope,
and a never-failing charity,
that from this veil I may pass into the visions of eternal charity,
from eating thy Body to beholding thy face
in the glories of thy everlasting kingdom,
O blessed and eternal Jesus. Amen.
Bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)


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