2013년 1월 16일 연중 제1주간 수요일
제1독서
히브리서.2,14-18
14 자녀들이 피와 살을 나누었듯이, 예수님께서도 그들과 함께 피와 살을 나누어 가지셨습니다. 그것은 죽음의 권능을 쥐고 있는 자, 곧 악마를 당신의 죽음으로 파멸시키시고, 15 죽음의 공포 때문에 한평생 종살이에 얽매여 있는 이들을 풀어 주시려는 것이었습니다.
16 그분께서는 분명 천사들을 보살펴 주시는 것이 아니라, 아브라함의 후손들을 보살펴 주십니다. 17 그렇기 때문에 그분께서는 모든 점에서 형제들과 같아지셔야 했습니다. 자비로울 뿐만 아니라, 하느님을 섬기는 일에 충실한 대사제가 되시어, 백성의 죄를 속죄하시려는 것이었습니다. 18 그분께서는 고난을 겪으시면서 유혹을 받으셨기 때문에, 유혹을 받는 이들을 도와주실 수가 있습니다.
복음
마르코.1,29-39
그 무렵 29 예수님께서는 회당에서 나오시어, 야고보와 요한과 함께 곧바로 시몬과 안드레아의 집으로 가셨다. 30 그때에 시몬의 장모가 열병으로 누워 있어서, 사람들이 곧바로 예수님께 그 부인의 사정을 이야기하였다. 31 예수님께서 그 부인에게 다가가시어 손을 잡아 일으키시니 열이 가셨다. 그러자 부인은 그들의 시중을 들었다.
32 저녁이 되고 해가 지자, 사람들이 병든 이들과 마귀 들린 이들을 모두 예수님께 데려왔다. 33 온 고을 사람들이 문 앞에 모여들었다. 34 예수님께서는 갖가지 질병을 앓는 많은 사람을 고쳐 주시고, 많은 마귀를 쫓아내셨다. 그러면서 마귀들이 말하는 것을 허락하지 않으셨다. 그들이 당신을 알고 있었기 때문이다.
35 다음 날 새벽 아직 캄캄할 때, 예수님께서는 일어나 외딴곳으로 나가시어 그곳에서 기도하셨다. 36 시몬과 그 일행이 예수님을 찾아 나섰다가 37 그분을 만나자, “모두 스승님을 찾고 있습니다.” 하고 말하였다.
38 예수님께서 그들에게 말씀하셨다. “다른 이웃 고을들을 찾아가자. 그곳에도 내가 복음을 선포해야 한다. 사실 나는 그 일을 하려고 떠나온 것이다.” 39 그러고 나서 예수님께서는 온 갈릴래아를 다니시며, 회당에서 복음을 선포하시고 마귀들을 쫓아내셨다.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013 Daily Mass Reading
January 16, 2013
Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Reading 1
Heb 2:14-18
Since the children share in blood and Flesh,
Jesus likewise shared in them,
that through death he might destroy the one
who has the power of death, that is, the Devil,
and free those who through fear of death
had been subject to slavery all their life.
Surely he did not help angels
but rather the descendants of Abraham;
therefore, he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every way,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest before God
to expiate the sins of the people.
Because he himself was tested through what he suffered,
he is able to help those who are being tested.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 105:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8-9
R. (8a) The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Give thanks to the LORD, invoke his name;
make known among the nations his deeds.
Sing to him, sing his praise,
proclaim all his wondrous deeds.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Glory in his holy name;
rejoice, O hearts that seek the LORD!
Look to the LORD in his strength;
seek to serve him constantly.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
You descendants of Abraham, his servants,
sons of Jacob, his chosen ones!
He, the LORD, is our God;
throughout the earth his judgments prevail.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He remembers forever his covenant
which he made binding for a thousand generationsB
Which he entered into with Abraham
and by his oath to Isaac.
R. The Lord remembers his covenant for ever.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Gospel
Mk 1:29-39
On leaving the synagogue
Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.
They immediately told him about her.
He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.
Then the fever left her and she waited on them.
When it was evening, after sunset,
they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons.
The whole town was gathered at the door.
He cured many who were sick with various diseases,
and he drove out many demons,
not permitting them to speak because they knew him.
Rising very early before dawn,
he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.
Simon and those who were with him pursued him
and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.”
He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages
that I may preach there also.
For this purpose have I come.”
So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons
throughout the whole of Galilee.
http://www.staygreat.com/
he changed
Before daylight, Jesus got up
and went out of town to a lonely
place, where he prayed. Mark 1:35
When winter comes to the South
Pole, 24 hours of total darkness
sets in. Richard Byrd worked alone
over 4 months in this darkness
gathering weather data. Why did he
Why did he do it alone? He put it
this way in his book Alone: "To
taste peace, and solitude. It was
all that simple. We are caught up
in winds that blow every which
way. The thinking man is driven to
long desperately for some quiet
place where he can reason undis-
turbed and take inventory." The
experience changed dramatically.
He writes: "I live more simply now
and with more peace." Jesus spent
set aside regular periods of prayer.
What tends to keep me from pray-
ing on a daily basis?
When we begin to live more
seriously inside, we begin to live
more simply outside.
Ernest Hemingway
http://www.franciscanretreats.net/
“Rising very early before dawn, Jesus left and went off to a deserted place, were he prayed.”
Jesus, in the Gospel selected for today’s Liturgy, first of all heals Peter’s mother-in-law when he stopped in Peter’s home and found her ill with a fever. By evening the disciples brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons in the whole village. Jesus cured them all.
Early the following morning, Jesus took some time for himself. – time for prayer and spiritual refreshment. We notice this balance in Jesus’ life often in the Scriptures. No matter how hard and how long he worked for others, he always found time for himself and for prayer to his Father. What an example he is for us! If we work a little overtime, it is our prayer time that suffers. We spent so much time doing this or that that it isn’t necessary to pray today. So goes the rationalization and, quite the contrary, it is more necessary then than ever to pray, to take time to thank God for helping us do what we have done and for the strength to continue our work we have begun.
Jesus, listen to our prayers and strengthen our resolve to do your work.
http://www.evangeli.net/gospel/gospel.html
Very early in the morning, before daylight, Jesus went off to a lonely place where He prayed
oday, we are clearly shown how Jesus split his working hours. On one hand He prayed and, on the other, He consecrated time to his mission of praying with words and deeds. Contemplation and Action. Prayer and Work. Being with God while amongst men.
We indeed see Jesus dedicated in body and soul to his task as Messiah and Savior: He cures the sick, as Saint Peter's mother in law and many others; He comforts the sad ones, drives out demons and preaches. People bring him the ailing and those with evil spirits. And they all want to hear his words. His disciples tell him: «Everyone is looking for you» (Mk 1:37). More often than not He surely had an exhausting activity that did not give him even time to breathe. But, at the same time, Jesus also had to look for some lonely place where He could pray: «Very early in the morning, before daylight, Jesus went off to a lonely place where He prayed» (Mk 1:35). In other Gospels we can also find Jesus devoted to praying in different hours and even at night. He knew how to distribute his time, so that his working days would have a proper balance between work and prayer.
We often say: —I have no time! We are so busy with our homework, our professional activity, the countless tasks in our agenda... So, quite often, we believe we should be relieved from our daily prayers. We do a lot of important things, but often run the risk of forgetting the absolutely necessary one: prayer. We have to establish a balance to be able to do the former without neglecting the latter.
Saint Francis brings it up like that: «We must faithfully and devotedly work, without extinguishing the spirit of the holy prayer and devotion which the worldly things must be submitted to».
Maybe we should organize ourselves a little bit better. Discipline us, by “domesticating” our time. Certainly, what is important must be done. But what is necessary should be an absolute must.
http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
The last line from the first Reading today states," Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested". I had to reread this passage several times to try and grasp the enormous suffering that Jesus endured with his death by crucifixion. Over the course of my lifetime I have often wondered "WHY"- why did Jesus have to die such a humiliating and horrific death? Was it so that we might be able to experience, by imagining, how it must have felt, from a human perspective? Did the suffering have to be so huge so that we could appreciate a supreme sacrifice that was made on our behalf- in order to help us appreciate God’s love for us or to help us develop our own willingness to suffer for our faith or for the well being of others? The Reading tells us..."through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." God's love for us and the supreme sacrifice made for us is overwhelming and all we are asked to do, as expressed in the Psalm, is to acknowledge our faith, live our faith, give thanks, invoke God's name, and look for ways to model what we have been taught, especially through the life of Jesus.
The Gospel message then turns to a very straightforward message telling the story of Jesus healing the mother in law of Simon and then healing a number of people living in the villages that Jesus visited. I am struck by the inclusion of telling us “he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed". Jesus was obviously very busy and surrounded by people all the time but he too recognized the need for quiet, individual prayer and He modeled that for us. The simple and straight forward message for us, as exemplified by Jesus, is to take time out in our very busy lives to be quiet, to be reflective and to pray, asking God to be with us in our decisions, our interactions, our struggles, our lives.
http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/
"Jesus healed many who were sick"
Who do you take your troubles to? Jesus' disciples freely brought their troubles to him because they found him ready and able to deal with any difficulty, affliction, or sickness which they encountered. When Simon brought Jesus to his home, his mother-in-law was instantly healed because Jesus heard Simon’s prayer. Jerome, an early church bible scholar and translator (c. 347-420), reflects on this passage:
“Can you imagine Jesus standing before your bed and you continue sleeping? It is absurd that you would remain in bed in his presence. Where is Jesus? He is already here offering himself to us. ‘In the middle,’ he says, ‘among you he stands, whom you do not recognize’ (Cf. John 1:26) ‘The kingdom of God is in your midst’ (Mark 1:15). Faith beholds Jesus among us. If we are unable to seize his hand, let us prostrate ourselves at his feet. If we are unable to reach his head, let us wash his feet with our tears. Our repentance is the perfume of the Savior. See how costly is the compassion of the Savior.”
Do you allow Jesus to be the Lord and healer in your personal life, family, and community? Approach him with expectant faith. God's healing power restores us not only to health but to active service and care of others. There is no trouble he does not want to help us with and there is no bondage he can't set us free from. Do you take your troubles to him with expectant faith that he will help you?
"Lord Jesus Christ, you have all power to heal and to deliver from harm. There is no trouble nor bondage you cannot overcome. Set me free to serve you joyfully and to love and serve others generously. May nothing hinder me from giving myself wholly to you and to your service."
Psalm 105:1-4,6-9
1 O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples!
2 Sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of all his wonderful works!
3 Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice!
4 Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his presence continually! within my heart."
6 O offspring of Abraham his servant, sons of Jacob, his chosen ones!
7 He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth.
8 He is mindful of his covenant for ever, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations,
9 the covenant which he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac
http://www.daily-meditations.org/index2.html
He left and went off to a deserted place, where He prayed.
Once again we see Jesus in His busy rounds, getting up early and going away from the rush and the roar and the press and the demand of the crowds, and finding a place where He can spend some time in quiet, listening to what God wished to share with Him. This is always the fuel for the next step in the journey Jesus is taking.
The first step for us in any endeavor should be to pray and make ourselves open and available. By opening ourselves up, we offer ourselves to be recharged and renewed by God. We offer ourselves as complete and depleted servants of the Lord. It is of critical importance that we take this time apart, to listen and to be refueled. These are mini-vacations in the Lord. By taking them, we attune ourselves to Him and begin to understand where we are to go and what we are to do.
So, spend some time in silent prayer. Listen to the Lord, let Him touch you and heal you and speak His name and will to you. You need not do anything but be present, God will do all that is required.
http://www.contemplative.com/weekday_readings.htm
Today’s reading from St. Mark’s Gospel gives us the timetable of Jesus' daily life. The center of it is his prayer, his contemplative prayer. It is not prayer in the synagogue, or in the Temple, or with his community of apostles. Jesus’ prayer is simply interior union, prolonged, in solitude, silent, completely absorbing. The Trinitarian life of the Word floods the humanity of Jesus and moves him into this prayer. His prayer of solitude and interior gazing upon the Father continues within the Church in her Catholic tradition of mysticism and in the example of contemplative communities in the Church. Jesus’ center is union with the Father, expressed primarily in prayer; and all the rest is public testimony, teaching and healing, the touching of people's lives at the point of their greatest need. Deep, silent, simple prayer enables us more readily to enter into the deepest moment of ecclesial mysticism, the Holy Eucharist—the source and summit of shared divine life.
http://goodnews.ie/calendar.php
When fame begins to catch up with him Jesus heads for the mountains or for a lonely place (Mk 1:35; Lk 5:16; 6:12; Jn 6:3, 15). See also tomorrow’s reading. In today's reading, when they told him everyone was looking for him he said, ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’ There is a wrong kind of fame. Many people do everything they can to be famous, and some even resort to criminal acts. Having perhaps a deficient sense of identity they crave notice: the notice of a crowd will persuade them that they exist.
But on a smaller scale we all want to have our existence noted by at least a few people. Anyone who can live even for a while in a desert must get over the need for recognition; many have gone to live in solitude because they needed to get over it completely. Their hope is that they will discover their true identity, which is, if we are to believe Julian of Norwich, as deep as God. “I saw most surely that it is quicker for us and easier to come to the knowledge of God than it is to know our own soul. For our soul is so deeply grounded in God and so endlessly treasured that we cannot come to knowledge of it until we first have knowledge of God, who is the Creator to whom it is united.”
But for very self-conscious people, their own self is audience enough. Bishop Fénelon (1651 – 1715) wrote, “By fixing the mind wholly upon God, [abandonment to God] takes away the disposition of the soul to occupy itself with reflex acts; that is, with the undue examination and analysis of its own feelings.” And again, “"The one who prays perfectly is never thinking how well he or she prays." External solitude is not enough; we have to get rid of the invisible audience that follows us around in our heads; we have to enter into inner solitude. It was because he was able to enter into inner solitude that Jesus was able to be so fully present to people when he came down from the mountain.
http://www.presentationministries.com/