Today's (March 25) Mass readings (doing God's will)

[distracted]

**Wednesday (3-25) **

**Isaiah 7:10-14, 8:10: **

The Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying: Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God; let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky! But Ahaz answered, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the Lord!” Then Isaiah said: Listen O House of David! Is it not enough for you to weary people, must you also weary my God? Therefore ***the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us!” ***

Ps 40:

Here I am, Lord; ***I come to do your will… ***

Hebrews 10:4-10:

Brothers and Sisters: It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats takes away sins. For this reason, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.’” First he says, “Sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in.” He takes away the first to establish the second.

St. Luke 1:26-38:

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, ***and of his kingdom there will be no end.” ***But Mary said to the angel, *“How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” *And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
*

In another scripture passage, Jesus says that “not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of Heaven but he who does the will of the Father.” He says that evne those who cast out demons (etc) in his name will be rejected… Hmm… kinda scary…

But the will of God will be accomplished through Christ (Isaiah)… so if we stay in Christ, maybe we will… hopefully (?)… make it?? :coffeeread:*

 

[DaveBj]

Just as a side note, it was the disparity between the wording in today’s Psalm passage and the Hebrews passage where it is quoted that started the process that ended with my becoming a Catholic

DaveBj

 

[distracted]

Just as a side note, it was the disparity between the wording in today’s Psalm passage and the Hebrews passage where it is quoted that started the process that ended with my becoming a Catholic

DaveBj

wow… very interesting… considering that … it seems to me that this would be a psg that would keep you AWAY from the Chruch… because a lot of non-Catholics use this psg to basically say that God did away with sacrifice… when Jesus came and died…

so you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do… cause i am a little

 

[DaveBj]

wow… very interesting… considering that … it seems to me that this would be a psg that would keep you AWAY from the Chruch… because a lot of non-Catholics use this psg to basically say that God did away with sacrifice… when Jesus came and died…

so you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do… cause i am a little

Sure, happy to. The problem that I ran into was with the difference in the two readings. The OT says, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened [or ‘dug out,’ as some translations say].” The quotation in Hebrews reads, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me.”

Here was a passage of scripture saying one thing in the inspired Old Testament, and something completely different in the inspired New Testament. The commentaries I was reading at the time had no explanation, other than the “ears” phrase are what’s in the Hebrew, and the “body” phrase are what was in the Septuagint that the NT writers were quoting from. In Protestantism there is no authority to say which one is the correct reading, or whether it even matters which one is the correct reading. I can still remember how I felt–I was working an overnight shift as a security guard, and all of a sudden I thought, “No authority in Protestantism, but the Catholic Church does claim authority to interpret Scripture. Maybe I’d better look into that.”

And that’s how it all began.

DaveBj