FIRST READING
You shall kill the lamb in the evening, and I will pass over you.
A reading from the Book of Exodus (Exodus 11:10-12:14)
In those days: Moses and Aaron did many wonders before Pharaoh; and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household; and if the household is too small for a lamb, then a man and his neighbour next to his house shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old; you shall take it from the sheep or from the goats; and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening. Then they shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat them. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or, boiled with water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning, anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all, the gods of Egypt I will execute judgements: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever.”
The word of the Lord.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps 116: 12-13.15 and 16bc.17-18 (R. 13)
R. The cup of salvation I will raise, I will call on the name of the Lord.
Or: Alleluia.
How can I repay the Lord
for all his goodness to me?
The cup of salvation I will raise;
I will call on the name of the Lord. R.
How precious in the eyes of the Lord
is the death of his faithful.
Your servant am I, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosened my bonds. R.
R. The cup of salvation I will raise, I will call on the name of the Lord.
A thanksgiving sacrifice I make;
I will call on the name of the Lord.
My vows to the Lord I will fulfil
before all his people. R.
ALLELUIA John 10:27
Alleluia. My sheep hear my voice; says the Lord; and I know them, and they follow me. Alleluia.
GOSPEL
“The Son of man is lord of the sabbath.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Matthew 12:1-8)
At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did, when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law how on the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than, the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Today’s Reflection
The central point of the first Passover celebration of the Jews is: “It is a Passover in Yahweh’s honour.. when I see the blood I shall pass over you”. There is a meal eaten in haste on the night of their freedom. The blood of the lamb, sacrificed for the Passover meal, and sprinkled on doorposts, becomes a sign for the angel of death to pass over the houses of the Hebrews. Thus on that night the Hebrew people are led from the slavery of Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land. Jesus celebrated the last supper in the context of the Passover feast to indicate that he is the new lamb who would be sacrificed for the redemption of the world, freeing us from sin and eternal death. His body broken and blood shed on Calvary, and given sacramentally as our food and drink at the last supper become the source of our salvation. Every Eucharistic celebration commemorates and makes present that event of our redemption.