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TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Monday
Year II
Readings
First Reading
1 Kgs 17:1–6
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 121:1bc–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8
Gospel
Mt 5:1–12
Meditation on Today’s Readings Taken from
the Vatican
II Sunday and Weekday Missal
Written by Celia Sirois
Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes
of Jesus emphasizes their thoroughly Jewish character. In form and
in content, each one echoes the Hebrew Scriptures, with the difference
that Jesus’ Beatitudes are eschatological. They announce happiness
in the future, when the reign of God inaugurated by Jesus will be
fully realized. As Daniel Harrington explains, “the Beatitudes
function not as ‘entrance requirements’ but rather as...an
appropriate eschatological reward” for the meek and the merciful,
the pure of heart and the makers of peace.* Jesus
says that the reign of God belongs to such as these.
Consolation is the theme of all three of
today’s readings. Paul assures the Corinthians that “the
God of all encouragement” will comfort them, for they share
in the sufferings of Christ. God comforts Elijah the Tishbite, one
of the few faithful servants of God left in Israel during the reign
of Ahab and Jezebel, and miraculously provides him with bread and
meat in the Wadi Cherith. The Beatitudes of Jesus console the poor
and the persecuted by promising them abundant life in God’s
kingdom.
The copyright for the Sunday
Missal Introductions is:
Copyright (c) 2001, Daughters of St. Paul
The copyright for the Weekday
Missal Introduction is:
Copyright (c) 2002, Daughters of St. Paul |
