DAILY READINGS & REFLECTION
AUGUST 4, 2023
FRIDAY - MEMORIAL OF SAINT JOHN VIANNEY, PRIEST
FIRST READING
LEVITICUS 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34-37 OR (EZEKIEL 3:17-21)
23 1 The LORD said to Moses, 4 "These are the festivals of the LORD which you shall celebrate at their proper time with a sacred assembly. 5 The Passover of the LORD falls on the fourteenth day of the first month, at the evening twilight. 6 The fifteenth day of this month is the LORD's feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. 7 On the first of these days you shall hold a sacred assembly and do no sort of work. 8 On each of the seven days you shall offer an oblation to the LORD. Then on the seventh day you shall again hold a sacred assembly and do no sort of work." 9 The LORD said to Moses, 10 "Speak to the children of Israel and tell them: When you come into the land which I am giving you, and reap your harvest, 11 you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest, who shall wave the sheaf before the LORD that it may be acceptable for you. On the day after the sabbath the priest shall do this. 15 "Beginning with the day after the sabbath, the day on which you bring the wave-offering sheaf, you shall count seven full weeks, 16 and then on the day after the seventh week, the fiftieth day, you shall present the new cereal offering to the LORD. 27 "The tenth of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement, when you shall hold a sacred assembly and mortify yourselves and offer an oblation to the LORD. 34 "The fifteenth day of this seventh month is the LORD's feast of Booths, which shall continue for seven days. 35 On the first day there shall be a sacred assembly, and you shall do no sort of work. 36 For seven days you shall offer an oblation to the LORD, and on the eighth day you shall again hold a sacred assembly and offer an oblation to the LORD. On that solemn closing you shall do no sort of work. 37 "These, therefore, are the festivals of the LORD on which you shall proclaim a sacred assembly, and offer as an oblation to the LORD burnt offerings and cereal offerings, sacrifices and libations, as prescribed for each day."
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RESPONSORIAL PSALM
PSALMS 80(81):3-6, 10-11 OR (PSALMS 117:1-2)
Response: Sing with joy to God our help.
Raise a song, sound the timbrel,
the sweet lyre with the harp.
Blow the trumpet at the new moon,
at the full moon, on our feast day.
R. Sing with joy to God our help.
For it is a statute for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
He made it a decree in Joseph,
when he went out over the land of Egypt.
R. Sing with joy to God our help.
There shall be no strange god among you;
you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
I am the LORD your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
R. Sing with joy to God our help.
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GOSPEL
They took offense at Jesus
MATTHEW 13:54-58 OR (MATTHEW 9:35--10:1)
54 and coming to his own country he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? 55 Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?" 57 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house." 58 And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.
The Gospel of the Lord
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REFLECTION
DAILY QUOTE FROM THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
Few miracles done because of their unbelief, by Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD)
"It seems to me that the production of miracles is similar in some ways to the case of physical things. Cultivation is not sufficient to produce a harvest of fruits unless the soil, or rather the atmosphere, cooperates to this end. And the atmosphere of itself is not sufficient to produce a harvest without cultivation. The one who providentially orders creation did not design things to spring up from the earth without cultivation. Only in the first instance did he do so when he said, 'Let the earth bring forth vegetation, with the seed sowing according to its kind and according to its likeness' (Genesis 1:11). It is just this way in regard to the production of miracles. The complete work resulting in a healing is not displayed without those being healed exercising faith. Faith, of whatever quality it might be, does not produce a healing without divine power.'
(excerpt from the COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 10.19)
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Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.