NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Wednesday

Year II

Readings

First Reading
2 Tm 1:1–3, 6–12

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 123:1b–2ab, 2cdef

Gospel
Mk 12:18–27

Meditation on Today’s Readings

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

Today’s selection from Tobit presents us with parallel lives. Tobit and Sarah both suffer and in their suffering are verbally abused by those closest to them—Tobit by his wife, Sarah by her maid—and both contemplate death as release from suffering. But God heard their prayer. And that God is “not God of the dead but of the living,” as Jesus will demonstrate in the Gospel. The Sadducees accepted as authoritative only the first five books of the Bible; therefore, they rejected the Pharisees’ and Jesus’ teaching on resurrection. The hypothetical case they put to Jesus was an attempt to reduce that teaching to absurdity. In answer, Jesus showed that they did not understand either the true nature of resurrected life or their own Scriptures.

Our hope in resurrection rests on the power of the living God revealed in Christ Jesus. As 2 Timothy declares, “Christ Jesus…destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.” A highly scientific age may not easily accept this good news, but we must proclaim it boldly, knowing in whom we have trusted.

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