TWELFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Friday

Year II

Readings

First Reading
2 Kgs 25:1–12

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 137:1–2, 3, 4–5, 6

Gospel
Mt 8:1–4

Meditation on Today’s Readings

Taken from the Vatican II Sunday and Weekday Missal
Written by Celia Sirois

In today’s Gospel a leper approaches Jesus and asks to be cured. In response, Jesus shows himself as powerful in deed as he has been in word, having just concluded the Sermon on the Mount. Just as he insisted in the Sermon that he had not come to abolish the law and the prophets, so here he sends the leper to the priest to fulfill the requirement of the law as set forth in Leviticus 14. Clearly, Matthew wants us to see Jesus as a true son of Abraham, a faithful Jew who walks blamelessly in God’s presence.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of Zedekiah in the reading from 2 Kings. Zedekiah was Jehoiachin’s uncle, whom the Babylonians installed as king after Jehoiachin and his entourage were led into captivity. But Zedekiah would not heed the word of the Lord spoken through the prophet Jeremiah. Had he done so, he would have died in peace. Once again divine judgment is accomplished in the history of God’s people. Only this time, the agent of God is not Assyria but Babylon. The temple is burned, the city walls torn down, and fifty years of exile begin.

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