FEBRUARY 13, 2016 : SATURDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY

Saturday after Ash Wednesday
Lectionary: 222

Reading 1IS 58:9B-14

Thus says the LORD:
If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the LORD will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.
He will renew your strength,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.
The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,
and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;
“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,
“Restorer of ruined homesteads.”

If you hold back your foot on the sabbath
from following your own pursuits on my holy day;
If you call the sabbath a delight,
and the LORD’s holy day honorable;
If you honor it by not following your ways,
seeking your own interests, or speaking with maliceB
Then you shall delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Responsorial PsalmPS 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6

R. (11ab) Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
Incline your ear, O LORD; answer me,
for I am afflicted and poor.
Keep my life, for I am devoted to you;
save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God.
R. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for to you I call all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
R. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.
Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my pleading.
R. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.

Verse Before The GospelEZ 33:11

I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord,
but rather in his conversion, that he may live.

GospelLK 5:27-32

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.
Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,
and a large crowd of tax collectors
and others were at table with them.
The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying,
“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

www.usccb.org

Meditation: Jesus calls sinners to follow him

When your neighbor stumbles through sin or ignorance, do you point the finger to criticize or do you lend a helping hand to lift him or her up? The prophet Isaiah tells us that God repays each in kind. When we bless others, especially those who need spiritual as well as physical and material help, God in turn blesses us. When Jesus called a despised tax collector to be his disciple he surprised everyone including Levi (also known as Matthew). The religious leaders were especially upset with Jesus' behavior towards public sinners like Levi. People in Palestine were divided into roughly two groups: the orthodox Jews who rigidly kept the law and all its petty regulations, and the rest who didn't keep all the minute regulations. The orthodox treated the latter like second class citizens. They scrupulously avoided their company, refused to do business with them, refused to give or receive anything from them, refused to intermarry, and avoided any form of entertainment with them, including table fellowship. Jesus' association with the latter, especially  with tax collectors and public sinners, shocked the sensibilities of these orthodox Jews.

When the Pharisees challenged Jesus unorthodox behavior in eating with public sinners, Jesus' defence was quite simple. A doctor doesn't need to treat healthy people - instead he goes to those who are sick. Jesus likewise sought out those in the greatest need. A true physician seeks healing of the whole person - body, mind, and spirit. Jesus came as the divine physician and good shepherd to care for his people and to restore them to wholeness of life. The orthodox were so preoccupied with their own practice of religion that they neglected to help the very people who needed the greatest care. Their religion was selfish because they didn't want to have anything to do with people not like themselves. Jesus stated his mission in unequivocal terms: I came  not to call the righteous, but to call sinners. Ironically the orthodox were as needy as those they despised. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Do you thank the Lord for the great mercy he has shown to you? And do you seek the good of all your neighbors and show them mercy and kindness?

What does it mean to "leave all and follow the Lord"? Bede the Venerable (673-735 AD), an Anglo-Saxon monk who wrote numerous commentaries on the Scriptures, explains what it meant for Matthew and for us to "follow" as disciples of the Lord Jesus:

"By 'follow' he meant not so much the movement of feet as of the heart, the carrying out of a way of life. For one who says that he lives in Christ ought himself to walk just as he walked, not to aim at earthly things, not to pursue perishable gains, but to flee base praise, to embrace willingly the contempt of all that is worldly for the sake of heavenly glory, to do good to all, to inflict injuries upon no one in bitterness, to suffer patiently those injuries that come to oneself, to ask God’s forgiveness for those who oppress, never to seek one's own glory but always God's, and to uphold whatever helps one love heavenly things. This is what is meant by following Christ. In this way, disregarding earthly gains, Matthew attached himself to the band of followers of One who had no riches. For the Lord himself, who outwardly called Matthew by a word, inwardly bestowed upon him the gift of an invisible impulse so that he was able to follow."

Are you ready to forsake all for the Lord Jesus Christ?

"Lord Jesus, our Savior, let us now come to you: Our hearts are cold; Lord, warm them with your selfless love. Our hearts are sinful; cleanse them with your precious blood. Our hearts are weak; strengthen them with your joyous Spirit. Our hearts are empty; fill them with your divine presence.  Lord Jesus, our hearts are yours; possess them always and only for yourself."  (Prayer of Augustine, 354-430)

A Daily Quote for Lent: Our All-powerful Physician, by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD

"Our wound is serious, but the Physician is all-powerful. Does it seem to you so small a mercy that, while you were living in evil and sinning, he did not take away your life, but brought you to belief and forgave your sins? What I suffer is serious, but I trust the Almighty. I would despair of my mortal wound if I had not found so great a Physician." (excerpt from Sermon 352, 3)

www.dailyscripture.net

SATURDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, LUKE 5:27-32
(Isaiah 58:9b-14; Psalm 86)

KEY VERSE: "I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners" (v 32).
TO KNOW: Jews regarded tax collectors as sinners because they were suspected of exacting more than their due from their own people. Moreover, they were viewed as traitors because they worked for the occupying Roman government. Jesus accepted people as they were, and he invited a tax collector named Levi ("Matthew" in Mt 9:9) to leave his post and follow him as a disciple. In gratitude, Levi gave a banquet in Jesus' honor and invited a large number of people who were considered public sinners. When the religious leaders criticized Jesus because of his table fellowship with so called "sinners," he told them that he had not come for those who self-righteously believed they had no need for repentance, but for those who recognized their need to change their lives.
TO LOVE: Where do I need conversion in my life?
TO SERVE: Lord Jesus, help me to examine the faults that I need to overcome this Lent.​

www.togetherwithgodsword.com

Saturday 13 February 2016

Sat 13th. Isaiah 58:9-14. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may be faithful in your sight—Ps 85(86):1-6. Luke 5:27-32.

Readings


If you deprive yourself for the hungry …

This reading challenges us to do more, give more and be more for those who are in need. I know I mustn't sit back and think I've done enough. It might just be helping someone with a task, keeping in touch with a lonely friend, or not buying something I don't need so I can give more to someone who really is in need.

In the gospel Levi is so happy when Jesus calls him he throws a banquet. It must have been a mixed crowd. There were tax collectors, Pharisees and the ones the Pharisees labelled sinners!

But Jesus moved across social lines and boundaries. He drew everyone into his company, unlike the Pharisees who were selective about whom they ate with. May I be welcoming today in all my encounters.

www.pray.com.au

MINUTE MEDITATIONS 

Open Our Eyes

Jesus, our crucified Lord, you know us better than we know ourselves. Help us to see the ways in which we not only act out in selfishness, greed, or shortsightedness, but also in those ways we choose to ignore, forget, and step over aspects of our lives and others for which we need forgiveness.

— from The Last Words of Jesus 

February 13
St. Giles Mary of St. Joseph
(1729-1812)

In the same year that a power-hungry Napoleon Bonaparte led his army into Russia, Giles Mary of St. Joseph ended a life of humble service to his Franciscan community and to the citizens of Naples.

Francesco was born in Taranto to very poor parents. His father’s death left the 18-year-old Francesco to care for the family. Having secured their future, he entered the Friars Minor at Galatone in 1754. For 53 years he served at St. Paschal’s Hospice in Naples in various roles, such as cook, porter or most often as official beggar for that community.

“Love God, love God” was his characteristic phrase as he gathered food for the friars and shared some of his bounty with the poor—all the while consoling the troubled and urging everyone to repent. The charity which he reflected on the streets of Naples was born in prayer and nurtured in the common life of the friars. The people whom Giles met on his begging rounds nicknamed him the “Consoler of Naples.” He was canonized in 1996.

Comment:

People often become arrogant and power hungry when they try to live a lie, for example, when they forget their own sinfulness and ignore the gifts God has given to other people. Giles had a healthy sense of his own sinfulness—not paralyzing but not superficial either. He invited men and women to recognize their own gifts and to live out their dignity as people made in God’s divine image. Knowing someone like Giles can help us on our own spiritual journey.

Quote:

In his homily at the canonization of Giles, Pope John Paul II said that the spiritual journey of Giles reflected “the humility of the Incarnation and the gratuitousness of the Eucharist” (L'Osservatore Romano 1996, volume 23, number 1).

www.americancatholic.org

LECTIO DIVINA: LUKE 5,27-32

Lectio Divina: 

 Saturday, February 13, 2016

Lent Time

1) OPENING PRAYER

Lord our God, merciful Father,
when you call us to repentance,
you want us to turn to people
and to build up peace and justice among us all.According to your promise,
let us become, with your strength,
lights for those in darkness,
water for those who thirst,
rebuilders of hope and happiness for all.
May we thus become living signs
of your love and loyalty,
for you are our God for ever.

2) GOSPEL READING - LUKE 5, 27-32

When he went out after this, he noticed a tax collector, Levi by name, sitting at the tax office, and said to him, 'Follow me.' And leaving everything Levi got up and followed him.

In his honour Levi held a great reception in his house, and with them at table was a large gathering of tax collectors and others.

The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples and said, 'Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?'

Jesus said to them in reply, 'It is not those that are well who need the doctor, but the sick. I have come to call not the upright but sinners to repentance.'

3) REFLECTION

• Today’s Gospel presents the same theme on which we reflected in January in the Gospel of Mark (Mk 2, 13-17). But, this time it is only the Gospel of Luke which speaks and the text is much shorter, concentrating its attention on the principal supper which is the call and conversion of Levi and what the conversion implies for us who are entering into the time of Lent.

• Jesus calls a sinner to be his disciple. Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector, and he, immediately, left everything, follows Jesus and begins to form part of the group of the disciples. Immediately, Luke says that Levi had prepared a great banquet in his house. In the Gospel of Mark, it seemed that the banquet was in Jesus’ house. What is important here is the insistence on communion of Jesus with sinners, around the table, which was a forbidden thing.

• Jesus did not come for the just, but for sinners. The gesture of Jesus causes great anger among the religious authority. It was forbidden to sit at table with tax collectors and sinners, because to sit at table with someone meant to treat him, consider him as a brother! With his way of doing things, Jesus was accepting the excluded and was treating them as brothers of the same family of God. Instead of speaking directly with Jesus, the Scribes of the Pharisees speak with the disciples: Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answers: It is not those that are well who need the doctor; I have come to call not the upright, but sinners to repentance!” The consciousness of his mission helps Jesus to find the response and to indicate the way for the announcement of the Good News of God. He has come to unite the dispersed people, to reintegrate those who are excluded, to reveal that God is not a severe judge who condemns and expels, but rather he is Father/Mother who accepts and embraces.

4) PERSONAL QUESTIONS

• Jesus accepts and includes the persons. Which is my attitude?

• Jesus’ gesture reveals the experience that he has of God the Father. Which is the image of God which I bear and express to others through my behaviour?

5) CONCLUDING PRAYER

Listen to me, Yahweh, answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Guard me, for I am faithful,
save your servant who relies on you. (Ps 861-2)

www.ocarm.org