Bible Diary

Daily Reading

St Joseph Vaz

LECTIONARY
308

FIRST READING

Heb 3:7-14

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

PSALM

95:6-7c, 8-9, 10-11

Response: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts

Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.

Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”

Forty years I was wearied of that generation;
I said: “This people’s heart goes astray,
they do not know my ways.”
Therefore I swore in my anger:
“They shall never enter my rest.”

GOSPEL

Mk1:40-45

And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.

Daily Reflection

Strange isn’t it, we are all created equal, yet some grab more than they require, leaving others wanting; some nations pride themselves in being superpowers and refer to the other nations as underdeveloped. The creator has gifted us all with free will, yet some in their craving for power enslave others. We are all created in the image of God, yet some are branded untouchables. This has been the scourge of human history because human beings have repeatedly failed to submit to the wisdom of God, each time thinking they knew better!

The author in the first reading cautions the Hebrews against repeating the mistake of their ancestors, who constantly challenged God’s ways and put Him to the test.

By healing the leper, in today’s Gospel, Jesus shows us that if there’s anything that is truly contagious, it is love. Using the powerful antidote of love, Jesus showed us how we should treat people who hate us, how we could cure the diseases of pride and self-righteousness and how we could bring healing to the broken-hearted, oppressed and outcasts.