MASS READINGS FOR 8TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
QUINQUAGESIMA (BCP)

 First reading Sirach 27:4-7

‘Do not praise a man before you hear him reason.’

When a sieve is shaken, the refuse appears; so a person’s filth in his thoughts. The kiln tests the potter’s vessels; likewise the test of a person is in his reasoning. The fruit discloses the cultivation of a tree; so the expression of a thought discloses the cultivation of a person’s mind.

Do not praise a man before you hear him reason, for this is the test of people. [Read more…]

MASS READINGS FOR 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time
First reading
1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23

‘The Lord gave you into my hand today, and I would not put out my hand against the Lord’s anointed.’

In those days: Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Ziph with three thousand chosen men of Israel to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph.
David and Abishai went to the army by night. And there lay Saul sleeping within the encampment, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head, and Abner and the army lay round him. Then Abishai said to David, ‘God has given your enemy into your hand this day. Now please let me pin him to the earth with one stroke of the spear, and I will not strike him twice.’ But David said to Abishai, ‘Do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand against the Lord’s anointed and be guiltless?’ So David took the spear and the jar of water from Saul’s head, and they went away. No man saw it or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the Lord had fallen upon them. [Read more…]