Bible Diary

Daily Reading

Memorial of Saint Dominic, Priest

LECTIONARY
412

FIRST READING

HAB 1:12—2:4

Are you not from eternity, O LORD,
my holy God, immortal?
O LORD, you have marked him for judgment,
O Rock, you have readied him punishment!
Too pure are your eyes to look upon evil,
and the sight of misery you cannot endure.
Why, then, do you gaze on the faithless in silence
while the wicked man devours
one more just than himself?
You have made man like the fish of the sea,
like creeping things without a ruler.
He brings them all up with his hook,
he hauls them away with his net,
He gathers them in his seine;
and so he rejoices and exults.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net,
and burns incense to his seine;
for thanks to them his portion is generous,
and his repast sumptuous.
Shall he, then, keep on brandishing his sword
to slay peoples without mercy?

I will stand at my guard post,
and station myself upon the rampart,
And keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what answer he will give to my complaint.

Then the LORD answered me and said:
Write down the vision
Clearly upon the tablets,
so that one can read it readily.
For the vision still has its time,
presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint;
If it delays, wait for it,
it will surely come, it will not be late.
The rash man has no integrity;
but the just man, because of his faith, shall live.

PSALM

PS 9:8-9, 10-11, 12-13

Response: You forsake not those who seek you, O Lord.

The LORD sits enthroned forever;
he has set up his throne for judgment.
He judges the world with justice;
he governs the peoples with equity.

The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of distress.
They trust in you who cherish your name,
for you forsake not those who seek you, O LORD.

Sing praise to the LORD enthroned in Zion;
proclaim among the nations his deeds;
For the avenger of blood has remembered;
he has not forgotten the cry of the poor.

GOSPEL

MT 17:14-20

A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said,
"Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely;
often he falls into fire, and often into water.
I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him."
Jesus said in reply,
"O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you?
How long will I endure you?
Bring the boy here to me."
Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him,
and from that hour the boy was cured.
Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said,
"Why could we not drive it out?"
He said to them, "Because of your little faith.
Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you will say to this mountain,
'Move from here to there,' and it will move.
Nothing will be impossible for you."

Daily Reflection

Are you facing stormy times? The readings, today, hold the solution: just fix your eyes on Jesus.

The Gospel repeats the narrative of Jesus walking across the water and calming the storm. Peter challenges Jesus – he too wants to walk on water! But he focuses on the elements rather than on Jesus and begins to sink. Isn’t that just what we tend to do when faced with troubling situations? We notice the ‘wind and the waves’, take our eyes off of Jesus, and sink. Like Peter, we too, can cry out, “Jesus, save me!” safe in the knowledge that the Lord will pull us out of the water, join us in the boat and weather the storm with us.

Like the prophet Elijah, we will find that God is in the gentle breeze, the calmness that follows the storm. All we have to do is have faith.