Daily Readings for Lent
Today's readings: March 5, 2010
First Reading: Gn 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a;
Responsorial Psalm: 105:16-17, 18-19, 20-21 ;
Gospel: Mt 21:33-43, 45-46 ;
And here's an audio file and a video of a priest offering reflections.
First Reading: Gn 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a
Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons,
for he was the child of his old age;
and he had made him a long tunic.
When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons,
they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.
One day, when his brothers had gone
to pasture their father’s flocks at Shechem,
Israel said to Joseph,
“Your brothers, you know, are tending our flocks at Shechem.
Get ready; I will send you to them.”
So Joseph went after his brothers and caught up with them in Dothan.
They noticed him from a distance,
and before he came up to them, they plotted to kill him.
They said to one another: “Here comes that master dreamer!
Come on, let us kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns here;
we could say that a wild beast devoured him.
We shall then see what comes of his dreams.”
When Reuben heard this,
he tried to save him from their hands, saying,
“We must not take his life.
Instead of shedding blood,” he continued,
“just throw him into that cistern there in the desert;
but do not kill him outright.”
His purpose was to rescue him from their hands
and return him to his father.
So when Joseph came up to them,
they stripped him of the long tunic he had on;
then they took him and threw him into the cistern,
which was empty and dry.
They then sat down to their meal.
Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead,
their camels laden with gum, balm and resin
to be taken down to Egypt.
Judah said to his brothers:
“What is to be gained by killing our brother and concealing his blood?
Rather, let us sell him to these Ishmaelites,
instead of doing away with him ourselves.
After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.”
His brothers agreed.
They sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.
Responsorial Psalm 105:16-17, 18-19, 20-21
R. Remember the marvels the Lord has done.
When the LORD called down a famine on the land
and ruined the crop that sustained them,
He sent a man before them,
Joseph, sold as a slave.
R. Remember the marvels the Lord has done.
They had weighed him down with fetters,
and he was bound with chains,
Till his prediction came to pass
and the word of the LORD proved him true.
R. Remember the marvels the Lord has done.
The king sent and released him,
the ruler of the peoples set him free.
He made him lord of his house
and ruler of all his possessions.
R. Remember the marvels the Lord has done.
Gospel Mt 21:33-43, 45-46
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
“Hear another parable.
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,
put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.
Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.
When vintage time drew near,
he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce.
But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat,
another they killed, and a third they stoned.
Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones,
but they treated them in the same way.
Finally, he sent his son to them,
thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’
But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another,
‘This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’
They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?”
They answered him,
He will put those wretched men to a wretched death
and lease his vineyard to other tenants
who will give him the produce at the proper times.”
Jesus said to them, Did you never read in the Scriptures:
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?
Therefore, I say to you,
the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you
and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables,
they knew that he was speaking about them.
And although they were attempting to arrest him,
they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet.
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Commentary: First off - please pray for Mary K and her mom, baby Bridget, Michelle, Claire, Jenifer, Bob, Louise, Florence, Charlotte, Pat, my family, my friends, for all the kids, and parents, ... everybody. oh yeah... please, for me too. Thanks.
I always loved the story about Joseph in the first reading. Poor guy - his jealous brothers are at first planning to just kill him outright. Then Reuben, with good intentions suggests they just throw him down a well. Joseph gets captured and sold as a slave, sent to Egypt and things look really really bleak. But that is not how the story ends for Joseph, who is indeed a good man. The story is just a few chapters long - in the end, he forgives his brothers, and thanks God from the deepest regions of his soul - because Joseph credits God with making all these things good. And indeed - the way it worked out, the whole family was saved from the famine. And yes, in case you wondered - this is how the Jewish people ended up in Egypt in the first place. There was a famine, and they went there to get food, from a wise man who was helping pharaoh by interpreting a dream Pharaoh had. After seven good years, this wise man stored the grain for the people, because he knew it would be followed by 7 years of famine. That man, was Joseph - the man his brothers had tossed down the well and left for dead.
The Gospel follows along the same story line. Jesus knows He will be killed. And unlike Joseph, Jesus really does get killed in perhaps the most painful horrific way possible. But that is not how the story ends. Be encouraged when times look really bad - and be a good person still. These stories are here to remind you - have faith. You do not know how the story ends in your own life, unless you have faith that Jesus will be true to His word. If you have that faith, He will come and save you, He has prepared a place for you in Heaven, and it will be more glorious than you can even imagine.
Like last year - I will add some songs that popped through my head - some of them new, some of them old. For me, songs are very much like prayers and the church has a saying that when you sing, you pray twice. Today I added two songs that I included from last year, (which were acoustic renditions played on an afternoon in March 2009). Sometime in the last half of 2009, I re-recorded these songs and tried to do a little production on them as well. No, do NOT worry - I am not quitting my day job hahaha. But I hope you enjoy them all the same. The first is called - Sara's Prayer and the second is called Benedictus. The Benedictus comes from the Gospel of St Luke, chapter one. (go read it... it will make it much more interesting). The second song was written as a prayer... that has been around as long as men yearned for God. Sara's prayer is how that sentiment came out of my own desire to ask God to increase my faith. I dedicated it to dear friend named Sara has has always been a friend, and has given me great joy for many years, in short she is like a daughter to me. Thanks to this wild new publishing world - you can meet sweet lil doe Sara, and watch her take a leap of faith. What a fun world we live in. Be thankful.
