Antiphon
Ps 95 (94): 6-7
O come, let us worship God
and bow low before the God who made us,
for he is the Lord our God.
Collect
Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care,
that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace,
they may be defended always by your protection.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading
1 KGS 11:4-13
When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to strange gods,
and his heart was not entirely with the LORD, his God,
as the heart of his father David had been.
By adoring Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians,
and Milcom, the idol of the Ammonites,
Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD;
he did not follow him unreservedly as his father David had done.
Solomon then built a high place to Chemosh, the idol of Moab,
and to Molech, the idol of the Ammonites,
on the hill opposite Jerusalem.
He did the same for all his foreign wives
who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
The LORD, therefore, became angry with Solomon,
because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel,
who had appeared to him twice
(for though the LORD had forbidden him
this very act of following strange gods,
Solomon had not obeyed him).
So the LORD said to Solomon: "Since this is what you want,
and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes
which I enjoined on you,
I will deprive you of the kingdom and give it to your servant.
I will not do this during your lifetime, however,
for the sake of your father David;
it is your son whom I will deprive.
Nor will I take away the whole kingdom.
I will leave your son one tribe for the sake of my servant David
and of Jerusalem, which I have chosen."
Responsorial Psalm
PS 106:3-4, 35-36, 37 AND 40
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Blessed are they who observe what is right,
who do always what is just.
Remember us, O LORD, as you favor your people;
visit us with your saving help.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
But they mingled with the nations
and learned their works.
They served their idols,
which became a snare for them.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to demons.
And the LORD grew angry with his people,
and abhorred his inheritance.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Alleluia
JAS 1:21BC
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you
and is able to save your souls.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
MK 7:24-30
Jesus went to the district of Tyre.
He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it,
but he could not escape notice.
Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.
She came and fell at his feet.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth,
and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
He said to her,
“Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She replied and said to him,
“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”
Then he said to her,
“For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed
and the demon gone.
February 8
Saint Josephine Bakhita (1869 - 1947)
Born in Olgossa in the Darfur region of southern Sudan, Josephine was kidnapped at the age of 7, sold into slavery and given the name Bakhita, which means fortunate. She was resold several times,
finally in 1883 to Callisto Legnani, Italian consul in Khartoum, Sudan.
Two years later, he took Josephine to Italy and gave her to his friend Augusto Michieli. Bakhita became babysitter to Mimmina Michieli, whom she accompanied to Venice’s Institute of the Catechumens, run by the Canossian Sisters. While Mimmina was being instructed, Josephine felt drawn to the Catholic Church.
She was baptized and confirmed in 1890, taking the name Josephine.
When the Michielis returned from Africa and wanted to take Mimmina and Josephine back with them, the future saint refused to go. During the ensuing court case, the Canossian Sisters and the patriarch of Venice intervened on Josephine’s behalf. The judge concluded that since slavery was illegal in Italy,
she had actually been free since 1885.
Josephine entered the Institute of St. Magdalene of Canossa in 1893 and made her profession three years later. In 1902, she was transferred to the city of Schio (northeast of Verona), where she assisted her religious community through cooking, sewing, embroidery, and welcoming visitors at the door. She soon became well loved by the children attending the sisters’ school and the local citizens. She once said, “Be good, love the Lord, pray for those who do not know Him. What a great grace it is to know God!”
The first steps toward her beatification began in 1959.
She was beatified in 1992 and canonized eight years later.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will proclaim Your Praise!
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 99 (100)
Come, let us adore the Lord,
for he is our God.
Rejoice in the Lord, all the earth,
and serve him with joy.
Exult as you enter his presence.
Come, let us adore the Lord,
for he is our God.
Know that the Lord is God.
He made us and we are his
– his people, the sheep of his flock.
Come, let us adore the Lord,
for he is our God.
Cry out his praises as you enter his gates,
fill his courtyards with songs.
Proclaim him and bless his name;
for the Lord is our delight.
His mercy lasts forever,
his faithfulness through all the ages.
Come, let us adore the Lord,
for he is our God.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
Come, let us adore the Lord,
for he is our God.
Hymn
Eternal Father, through your Word
You gave new life to Adam’s race,
And call us now to live in light,
New creatures by your saving grace.
To you who stooped to all who sin
We render homage and give praise:
To Father, Son and Spirit blest
Whose loving gift is endless days.
Stanbrook Abbey Hymnal
Psalm 17 (18)
Thanksgiving
The word of the Lord is a shield for all who make him their refuge.
The Lord’s ways are pure;
the words of the Lord are refined in the furnace;
the Lord protects all who hope in him.
For what God is there, but our Lord?
What help, but in the Lord our God?
God, who has wrapped me in his strength
and set me on the perfect path,
who has made my feet like those of the deer,
who has set me firm upon the heights,
who trains my hands for battle,
teaches my arms to bend a bow of bronze.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
The word of the Lord is a shield for all who make him their refuge.
Psalm 17 (18)
Lord, your right hand upheld me.
You have given me the shield of your salvation;
your right hand holds me up;
by answering me, you give me greatness.
You have stretched the length of my stride,
my feet do not weaken.
I pursue my enemies and surround them;
I do not turn back until they are no more.
I smash them to pieces, they cannot stand,
they fall beneath my feet.
You have wrapped me round with strength for war,
and made my attackers fall under me.
You turned my enemies’ backs on me,
you destroyed those who hated me.
They cried out, but there was no-one to save them;
they cried to the Lord, but he did not hear.
I have ground them up until they are dust in the wind,
trodden them down like the mud of the street.
You have delivered me from the murmurings of the people
and placed me at the head of the nations.
A people I do not even know serves me –
at a mere rumour of my orders, they obey.
The children of strangers beg for my favor;
they hide away and tremble where they hide.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
Lord, your right hand upheld me.
Psalm 17 (18)
Long life to the Lord!
Praised be the God who saves me.
The Lord lives, my blessed Helper.
Let the God of my salvation be exalted.
God, you give me my revenge,
you subject peoples to my rule,
you free me from my enraged enemies.
You raise me up from those who attack me,
you snatch me from the grasp of the violent.
And so I will proclaim you among the nations, Lord,
and sing to your name.
Time and again you save your king,
you show your loving kindness to your anointed,
to David and his descendants forever.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
Long life to the Lord!
Praised be the God who saves me.
Uncover my eyes, Lord,
– and I will consider the wonders of your Law.
First Reading
Galatians 4:8-31
Once you were ignorant of God, and enslaved to ‘gods’ who are not really gods at all; but now that you have come to acknowledge God – or rather, now that God has acknowledged you – how can you want to go back to elemental things like these, that can do nothing and give nothing, and be their slaves?
You and your special days and months and seasons and years!
You make me feel I have wasted my time with you.
Brothers, all I ask is that you should copy me as I copied you. You have never treated me in an unfriendly way before; even at the beginning, when that illness gave me the opportunity to preach the Good News to you, you never showed the least sign of being revolted or disgusted by my disease that was such a trial to you; instead you welcomed me as an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. What has become of this enthusiasm you had? I swear that you would even have gone so far as to pluck out your eyes and give them to me. Is it telling you the truth that has made me your enemy? The blame lies in the way they have tried to win you over: by separating you from me, they want to win you over to themselves. It is always a good thing to win people over – and I do not have to be there with you – but it must be for a good purpose, my children! I must go through the pain of giving birth to you all over again, until Christ is formed in you. I wish I were with you now so that I could know exactly what to say; as it is, I have no idea what to do for the best.
You want to be subject to the Law? Then listen to what the Law says. It says, if you remember, that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave-girl, and one by his free-born wife. The child of the slave-girl was born in the ordinary way; the child of the free woman was born as the result of a promise. This can be regarded as an allegory: the women stand for the two covenants. The first who comes from Mount Sinai, and whose children are slaves, is Hagar – since Sinai is in Arabia – and she corresponds to the present Jerusalem that is a slave like her children. The Jerusalem above, however, is free and is our mother, since scripture says: Shout for joy, you barren women who bore no children! Break into shouts of joy and gladness, you who were never in labor. For there are more sons of the forsaken one than sons of the wedded wife. Now you, my brothers, like Isaac, are children of the promise, and as at that time the child born in the ordinary way persecuted the child born in the Spirit’s way, so also now. Does not scripture say: Drive away that slave-girl and her son;
this slave-girl’s son is not to share the inheritance with the son of the free woman?
So, my brothers, we are the children, not of the slave-girl, but of the free-born wife.
Responsory
It is we that are children of the promise,
as Isaac was,
sons of the free woman,
not of the slave.
Freedom is what we have – Christ has set us free!
The Lord is the Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom.
Freedom is what we have – Christ has set us free!
Second Reading
St Augustine's Exposition on Galatians
Let Christ take shape within you
St Paul says, Be like me – who, though I was born a Jew,
have learnt through spiritual insight to look down on things of the body – as I have become like you – that is, I am a man.
Next he very properly reminds them of his love for them,
so that they should not think that he is their enemy.
My brethren, hear me: you have never done me harm – implying,
‘do not therefore think that I mean to do you any harm’.
My children, he adds – so that they should imitate him as they would imitate a parent. I must go through the pain of giving birth to you all over again, until Christ is formed in you.
Now he speaks more in the person of the Church, their mother,
for as he says elsewhere, I was gentle and unassuming,
like a nurse feeding and looking after her children.
Christ takes shape in a believer through the faith that is in his inmost soul. Such a believer, gentle and humble of heart, is called to the freedom of grace. He does not boast of the merit he gains from good works, for they are worth nothing. It is grace itself that is the beginning of merit, so that Christ, who said in so far as you did this to one of the least of these, you did it to me can call the believer the ‘least’ part of himself. Thus Christ is formed within the believer who accepts the form of Christ,
who comes close to Christ by means of spiritual love.
Therefore the believer who imitates Christ becomes (as far as he is permitted)
the same as Christ whom he imitates.
Whoever claims to abide in Christ, says John, must walk as Christ himself walked.
Human beings are conceived and given shape by their mothers, and once they have taken shape, their mothers go into labour and give them birth; so we may wonder what is meant by I must go through the pain of giving birth to you all over again, until Christ is formed in you. We can take the birth-pangs as meaning the anxiety he felt over them, that they should be born in Christ; or again, that he is suffering because he sees them surrounded by dangers that could lead them astray. The care and worry he feels, which he compares to the pangs of giving birth,
may last until they are fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself,
not tossed one way and another and carried along by every wind of doctrine.
Hence it is not about the beginnings of faith that St Paul is speaking, the faith by which they were born, but about the strengthening and perfecting of that faith: I must go through the pain of giving birth to you all over again, until Christ is formed in you. Elsewhere he talks of the same labor in other words: My anxiety for all the churches. When any man has had scruples,
I have had scruples with him; when any man is made to fall, I am tortured.
Responsory
We are to follow the truth in a spirit of charity;
so may we grow in all ways into Christ,
who is the Head.
The path of the just grows ever brighter,
like the light of dawn opening out into full day;
so may we grow in all ways into Christ,
who is the Head.
Let us pray.
Guard your family, Lord,
with constant loving care,
for in your divine grace
we place our only hope.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
Let us praise the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.
