TWELFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Saturday

Year II

Readings

First Reading
Lam 2:2, 10–14, 18–19

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 74:1b–2, 3–5, 6–7, 20–21

Gospel
Mt 8:5–17

All three of today’s readings are child-centered. In the passage from Genesis Abraham’s three visitors announce that Sarah will bear a child. In the poem from Lamentations, the laughter of Sarah is answered by the tears of the mothers of Jerusalem, whose children faint from hunger and breathe their last in their arms. And in the Gospel, a centurion asks Jesus to cure his servant boy. Although the three passages are not at all alike, an air of expectancy pervades all three. Sarah, the desperate women of Jerusalem, and the centurion all wait on the power of God to do for them what they cannot do for themselves—to bring new life to the barren womb, the ravaged city, the sick child.

Jesus commends the centurion’s words: “I too am a man subject to authority,” which is to say, “I know power when I see it.” So must we, for recognition of God’s power, revealed in Jesus, admits us from east and west to the table with Abraham in the kingdom of God.

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