Roman Catholic The Word Among Us Daily Mass Reading & Daily Meditation for Monday, 19 January 2015

Roman Catholic The Word Among Us Daily Mass Reading & Daily Meditation for Monday, 19 January 2015
Meditation - Hebrews 5:1 Every high priest is appointed to help others by offering gifts and sacrifices to God because of their sins. 2 A high priest has weaknesses of his own, and he feels sorry for foolish and sinful people. 3 That is why he must offer sacrifices for his own sins and for the sins of others. 4 But no one can have the honor of being a high priest simply by wanting to be one. Only God can choose a priest, and God is the one who chose Aaron.
5 That is how it was with Christ. He became a high priest, but not just because he wanted the honor of being one. It was God who told him,
“You are my Son, because today
    I have become your Father!”
6 In another place, God says,
“You are a priest forever
    just like Melchizedek.”[a]
7 God had the power to save Jesus from death. And while Jesus was on earth, he begged God with loud crying and tears to save him. He truly worshiped God, and God listened to his prayers. 8 Jesus is God’s own Son, but still he had to suffer before he could learn what it really means to obey God. 9 Suffering made Jesus perfect, and now he can save forever all who obey him. 10 This is because God chose him to be a high priest like Melchizedek.[Footnotes:
5.6 Melchizedek: When Melchizedek is mentioned in the Old Testament, he is described as a priest who lived before Aaron. Nothing is said about his ancestors or his death (see 7.3 and Genesis 14.17-20).]
2nd Week in Ordinary Time
In the days when he was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears. (Hebrews 5:7)
It’s both wonderful and mysterious how Jesus lived while he was on the earth. We know that as God made flesh, he entered fully into our human condition. He displayed compassion, sorrow, tenderness, and mercy, and he also experienced tiredness, hunger, pain, temptation, and fear. He was human just like us, subject to all the experiences we face. But at the same time, he was fully God, and that meant he never let any of these experiences lead him to sin.
Here’s one good side to the mystery of Jesus: he knows what we’re going through because he’s been through it. At the same time he knows that we don’t have the same strength that he had to overcome sin. In other words, he gets it! He doesn’t condemn us; he forgives us. Knowing our weaknesses and not wanting to lose any of us, he is extremely patient with us. He went so far as to shed his blood for us.
How did the Father respond to Jesus’ dedication to us? Resurrection! He didn’t relieve Jesus’ suffering or remove the cross from him, but he transformed his Son’s death into new life. So when you feel the challenges of everyday life, when your sin weighs heavily on you, when you feel there is no way out of temptation, you can turn to Jesus, because he never gave up on you! He is still interceding for you, joining his prayers to yours and lifting them up to his heavenly Father.
What more assurance can we have than this great high priest, who has ransomed us from sin? He forgives and forgets, then he sends us back out into the world to pass on his message of forgiveness! So come to the Lord with all your “stuff.” He won’t turn you away. He won’t ask, “Why weren’t you strong enough?” He’s only going to say, “Neither do I condemn you. Now, get up and stick with me. We’ve got work to do.”
“Jesus, thank you for your prayers, your forgiveness, your patience with me—again! I not only place myself at your mercy, but at your service.” Amen!
Psalms 110: (A psalm by David.)
The Lord Gives Victory
1 The Lord said to my Lord,
    “Sit at my right side,[a]
    until I make your enemies
    into a footstool for you.”
2 The Lord will let your power
    reach out from Zion,
    and you will rule
    over your enemies.
3 Your glorious power
will be seen
    on the day
    you begin to rule.
You will wear the sacred robes
    and shine like the morning sun
    in all of your strength.[b]
4 The Lord has made a promise
    that will never be broken:
“You will be a priest forever,
    just like Melchizedek.”[Footnotes:
110.1 right side: See the note at 16.11.
110.3 You will. . . strength: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.]
Mark 2: People Ask about Going without Eating
18 The followers of John the Baptist and the Pharisees often went without eating.[a] Some people came and asked Jesus, “Why do the followers of John and those of the Pharisees often go without eating, while your disciples never do?”
19 Jesus answered:
The friends of a bridegroom don’t go without eating while he is still with them. 20 But the time will come when he will be taken from them. Then they will go without eating.
21 No one patches old clothes by sewing on a piece of new cloth. The new piece would shrink and tear a bigger hole.
22 No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would swell and burst the old skins.[b] Then the wine would be lost, and t]he skins would be ruined. New wine must be put into new wineskins.[Footnotes:
2.18 without eating: The Jewish people sometimes went without eating (also called “fasting”) to show their love for God or to show sorrow for their sins.
2.22 swell and burst the old skins: While the juice from grapes was becoming wine, it would swell and stretch the skins in which it had been stored. If the skins were old and stiff, they would burst.]
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