FIRST READING
“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest. ”
A reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 4:1-5, 11)
Brethren: While the promise of entering his rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them; but the message which they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall never enter my rest,”’ although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this place he said, “They shall never enter my rest.” Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience.
The word of the Lord.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM Psalm 78:3 and 4bc.6c-7.8 (R. 7b)
R. Never forget the deeds of the Lord!
The things we have heard and understood,
the things our fathers have told us,
but will tell them to the next generation:
the glories of the LORD and his might. R.
They should arise and declare it to their children,
that they should set their hope in God,
and never forget God’s deeds,
but keep every one of his commands, R.
R. Never forget the deeds of the Lord!
So that they might not be like their fathers,
a defiant and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was fickle,
whose spirit was not faithful to God. R.
ALLELUIA Luke 7:16
Alleluia. A great prophet has risen among us, and God has visited his people. Alleluia.
GOSPEL
“The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark (Mark 2: 1- 12)
When Jesus returned to Capemaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room for them, not even about the door; and he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and when they had made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like this? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they questioned like this within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question like this in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins”— he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.” And he rose, and immediately took up the pallet and went out before them all; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Today’s Reflection
The First Reading of today shows us that the Israelites made a choice of being ruled by a human being rather than having God as their king. However, they have to bear the consequences of such a demand. The four men in the gospel manifested their trust in Jesus and brought a paralytic to his side hoping for a cure. Jesus manifested his divinity as he forgave the sins of the paralyzed man and cured him of his ailment. The message of today’s readings is that we should be ready to face the consequences of the choices we make in life. Hence the need to trust in God rather than on our own strength and thus make the right choices so that the paralyzing situations of our life can be cured and our sins forgiven by God.