DAILY READINGS & REFLECTION
AUGUST 14, 2023
MONDAY - MEMORIAL OF SAINT MAXIMILIAN KOLBE, PRIEST AND MARTYR
FIRST READING
DEUTERONOMY 10:12-22 OR (WISDOM 3:1-9 / 1 JOHN 3:13-18)
12 Moses said to the people: “And now, Israel, what does the LORD, your God, ask of you but to fear the LORD, your God, and follow his ways exactly, to love and serve the LORD, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, 13 to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD which I enjoin on you today for your own good? 14 Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens, belong to the LORD, your God, as well as the earth and everything on it. 15 Yet in his love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them as to choose you, their descendants, in preference to all other peoples, as indeed he has now done. 16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked. 17 For the LORD, your God, is the God of gods, the LORD of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who has no favorites, accepts no bribes; 18 who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and befriends the alien, feeding and clothing him. 19 So you too must befriend the alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. 20 The LORD, your God, shall you fear, and him shall you serve; hold fast to him and swear by his name. 21 He is your glory, he, your God, who has done for you those great and terrible things which your own eyes have seen. 22 Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy strong, and now the LORD, your God, has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.”
The Word of the Lord
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RESPONSORIAL PSALM
PSALMS 146(147):12-15, 19-20 OR (PSALMS 116:10-13, 16-17)
Response: Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your sons within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He makes peace in your borders;
he fills you with the finest of the wheat.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the LORD!
GOSPEL
Not to give offense
MATTHEW 17:22-27 OR (JOHN 15:12-17)
22 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, "The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, 23 and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day." And they were greatly distressed. 24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel tax went up to Peter and said, "Does not your teacher pay the tax?" 25 He said, "Yes." And when he came home, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons or from others?" 26 And when he said, "From others," Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free. 27 However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel; take that and give it to them for me and for yourself."
The Gospel of the Lord
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REFLECTION
DAILY QUOTE FROM THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
Jesus speaks of his death and resurrection, by Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD)
"I think we have an obligation to examine this, too: that Jesus was delivered into the hands of men, not by men into the hands of men but by powers to whom the Father delivered his Son on behalf of us all. In the very act of being delivered and coming under the power of those to whom he was delivered, he destroyed him who had the power of death. For through death he destroyed him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and delivered all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage."
(excerpt from COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 13.8)
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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.