Daily Reading

Blessed is he who perseveres in temptation,
for when he has been proven he will receive the crown of life 
that he promised to those who love him.
No one experiencing temptation should say,
“I am being tempted by God”;
for God is not subject to temptation to evil,
and he himself tempts no one.
Rather, each person is tempted when lured and enticed by his desire.
Then desire conceives and brings forth sin,
and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters:
all good giving and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.
He willed to give us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

R.        (12a) Blessed the man you instruct, O Lord.
Blessed the man whom you instruct, O LORD,
            whom by your law you teach,
Giving him rest from evil days. 
R.        Blessed the man you instruct, O Lord.
For the LORD will not cast off his people,
            nor abandon his inheritance;
But judgment shall again be with justice,
            and all the upright of heart shall follow it. 
R.        Blessed the man you instruct, O Lord.
When I say, “My foot is slipping,
            your mercy, O LORD, sustains me;
When cares abound within me,
            your comfort gladdens my soul. 
R.        Blessed the man you instruct, O Lord.
 

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord;
and my Father will love him
and we will come to him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The disciples had forgotten to bring bread,
and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.
Jesus enjoined them, “Watch out,
guard against the leaven of the Pharisees
and the leaven of Herod.” 
They concluded among themselves that
it was because they had no bread.
When he became aware of this he said to them,
“Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread?
Do you not yet understand or comprehend?
Are your hearts hardened?
Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?
And do you not remember,
when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand,
how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?”
They answered him, “Twelve.”
“When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand,
how many full baskets of fragments did you pick up?”
They answered him, “Seven.”
He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”
 

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings.

Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters,
when you encounter various trials,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
And let perseverance be perfect,
so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
But if any of you lacks wisdom,
he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly,
and he will be given it.
But he should ask in faith, not doubting,
for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea
that is driven and tossed about by the wind.
For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord,
since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways.

The brother in lowly circumstances  
should take pride in high standing,
and the rich one in his lowliness,  
for he will pass away “like the flower of the field.”
For the sun comes up with its scorching heat and dries up the grass,
its flower droops, and the beauty of its appearance vanishes.
So will the rich person fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

R.        (77a)  Be kind to me, Lord, and I shall live.
Before I was afflicted I went astray,
            but now I hold to your promise. 
R.        Be kind to me, Lord, and I shall live.
You are good and bountiful;
            teach me your statutes. 
R.        Be kind to me, Lord, and I shall live.
It is good for me that I have been afflicted,
            that I may learn your statutes. 
R.        Be kind to me, Lord, and I shall live.
The law of your mouth is to me more precious
            than thousands of gold and silver pieces. 
R.        Be kind to me, Lord, and I shall live.
I know, O LORD, that your ordinances are just,
            and in your faithfulness you have afflicted me. 
R.        Be kind to me, Lord, and I shall live.
Let your kindness comfort me
            according to your promise to your servants. 
R.        Be kind to me, Lord, and I shall live.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord;
no one comes to the Father except through me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The Pharisees came forward and began to argue with Jesus,
seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.
He sighed from the depth of his spirit and said,
“Why does this generation seek a sign?
Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”
Then he left them, got into the boat again,
and went off to the other shore.

Thus says the LORD:
            Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
                        who seeks his strength in flesh,
                        whose heart turns away from the LORD.
            He is like a barren bush in the desert
                        that enjoys no change of season,
            but stands in a lava waste,
                        a salt and empty earth.
            Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
                        whose hope is the LORD.
            He is like a tree planted beside the waters
                        that stretches out its roots to the stream:
            it fears not the heat when it comes;
                        its leaves stay green;
            in the year of drought it shows no distress,
                        but still bears fruit.

R (40:5a) Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
            the counsel of the wicked,
nor walks in the way of sinners,
            nor sits in the company of the insolent,
but delights in the law of the LORD
            and meditates on his law day and night.
R Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
            planted near running water,
that yields its fruit in due season,
            and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
            they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
            but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

Brothers and sisters:
If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised,
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain;
you are still in your sins.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,
we are the most pitiable people of all.

But now Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad;
your reward will be great in heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Jesus came down with the Twelve
and stood on a stretch of level ground
with a great crowd of his disciples
and a large number of the people
from all Judea and Jerusalem
and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.
And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said:
            “Blessed are you who are poor,
                        for the kingdom of God is yours.
            Blessed are you who are now hungry,
                        for you will be satisfied.
            Blessed are you who are now weeping,
                        for you will laugh.
            Blessed are you when people hate you,
                        and when they exclude and insult you,
                        and denounce your name as evil
                        on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.
            But woe to you who are rich,
                        for you have received your consolation.
            Woe to you who are filled now,
                        for you will be hungry.
            Woe to you who laugh now,
                        for you will grieve and weep.
            Woe to you when all speak well of you,
                        for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”
 

Jeroboam thought to himself:
“The kingdom will return to David’s house.
If now this people go up to offer sacrifices
in the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem,
the hearts of this people will return to their master,
Rehoboam, king of Judah,
and they will kill me.”
After taking counsel, the king made two calves of gold
and said to the people:
“You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough.
Here is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
And he put one in Bethel, the other in Dan.
This led to sin, because the people frequented those calves
in Bethel and in Dan.
He also built temples on the high places
and made priests from among the people who were not Levites.
Jeroboam established a feast in the eighth month
on the fifteenth day of the month
to duplicate in Bethel the pilgrimage feast of Judah,
with sacrifices to the calves he had made;
and he stationed in Bethel priests of the high places he had built.

Jeroboam did not give up his evil ways after this,
but again made priests for the high places
from among the common people.
Whoever desired it was consecrated
and became a priest of the high places.
This was a sin on the part of the house of Jeroboam
for which it was to be cut off and destroyed from the earth.

R.        (4a) Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
We have sinned, we and our fathers;
            we have committed crimes; we have done wrong.
Our fathers in Egypt
            considered not your wonders. 
R.        Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They made a calf in Horeb
            and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
            for the image of a grass-eating bullock. 
R.        Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
            who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
            terrible things at the Red Sea.
R.        Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat,
Jesus summoned the disciples and said,
“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
because they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
If I send them away hungry to their homes,
they will collapse on the way,
and some of them have come a great distance.”
His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread
to satisfy them here in this deserted place?”
Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”
They replied, “Seven.”
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them,
and gave them to his disciples to distribute,
and they distributed them to the crowd.
They also had a few fish.
He said the blessing over them
and ordered them distributed also.
They ate and were satisfied.
They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets.
There were about four thousand people.

He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples
and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

Jeroboam left Jerusalem,
and the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite met him on the road.
The two were alone in the area,
and the prophet was wearing a new cloak.
Ahijah took off his new cloak,
tore it into twelve pieces, and said to Jeroboam:

“Take ten pieces for yourself;
            the LORD, the God of Israel, says:
            ‘I will tear away the kingdom from Solomon’s grasp
            and will give you ten of the tribes.
One tribe shall remain to him for the sake of David my servant,
            and of Jerusalem,
            the city I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.’”

Israel went into rebellion against David’s house to this day.

R.        (11a and 9a)  I am the Lord, your God: hear my voice.
“There shall be no strange god among you
            nor shall you worship any alien god.
I, the LORD, am your God
            who led you forth from the land of Egypt.”
R.        I am the Lord, your God: hear my voice.
“My people heard not my voice,
            and Israel obeyed me not;
So I gave them up to the hardness of their hearts;
            they walked according to their own counsels.”
R.        I am the Lord, your God: hear my voice.
“If only my people would hear me,
            and Israel walk in my ways,
Quickly would I humble their enemies;
            against their foes I would turn my hand.”
R.        I am the Lord, your God: hear my voice.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Open our hearts, O Lord,
to listen to the words of your Son.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Jesus left the district of Tyre
and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,
into the district of the Decapolis. 
And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment
and begged him to lay his hand on him.
He took him off by himself away from the crowd. 
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly. 
He ordered them not to tell anyone. 
But the more he ordered them not to,
the more they proclaimed it. 
They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well. 
He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”