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Today's Readings
Reading I
1 Cor 1:17-25
Brothers and sisters:
Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel,
and not with the wisdom of human eloquence,
so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written:
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the learning of the learned I will set aside.
Where is the wise one?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
For since in the wisdom of God
the world did not come to know God through wisdom,
it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation
to save those who have faith.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 33:1-2, 4-5, 10-11
R. (5) The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Exult, you just, in the LORD;
praise from the upright is fitting.
Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten stringed lyre chant his praises.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
For upright is the word of the LORD,
and all his works are trustworthy.
He loves justice and right;
of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
The LORD brings to nought the plans of nations;
he foils the designs of peoples.
But the plan of the LORD stands forever;
the design of his heart, through all generations.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Gospel
Mk 6:17-29
Herod was the one who had John the Baptist arrested and bound in
prison
on account of Herodias,
the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married.
John had said to Herod,
“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”
Herodias harbored a grudge against him
and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.
Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man,
and kept him in custody.
When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed,
yet he liked to listen to him.
She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday,
gave a banquet for his courtiers,
his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee.
Herodias’ own daughter came in
and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests.
The king said to the girl,
“Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.”
He even swore many things to her,
“I will grant you whatever you ask of me,
even to half of my kingdom.”
She went out and said to her mother,
“What shall I ask for?”
She replied, “The head of John the Baptist.”
The girl hurried back to the king’s presence and made her request,
“I want you to give me at once
on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”
The king was deeply distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests
he did not wish to break his word to her.
So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders
to bring back his head.
He went off and beheaded him in the prison.
He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl.
The girl in turn gave it to her mother.
When his disciples heard about it,
they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. |
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Beheading of Saint John the
Baptist
August 29 |
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Saint John the Baptist was
called by God to be the precursor of His divine Son. In order to preserve
his innocence spotless, and to improve upon the extraordinary graces which
he had received in his earliest infancy, he was directed by the Holy
Spirit to lead an austere and contemplative life in the wilderness. There
he devoted himself to the continuous exercise of devout prayer and
penance.
When Saint John was thirty years old, the faithful minister of the Lord
began to discharge his mission. Clothed with the garments of penance, he
announced to all men the obligation weighing upon them of washing away
their iniquities with the tears of sincere compunction. He proclaimed the
Messiah, who was of his own age but whom he had never seen, when one day
Jesus came to be baptized by him in the Jordan. Saint John was received by
the poor folk as the true herald of the Most High God, and his voice was,
as it were, a trumpet sounding from heaven to summon all men to avert the
divine judgments. Souls were exhorted by him to prepare themselves to reap
the benefit of the mercy offered them.
When the tetrarch Herod Antipas, in defiance of all laws divine and human,
married Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip who was yet living, Saint
John the Baptist boldly reprimanded the tetrarch and his accomplice for so
scandalous an adultery. Herod, motivated by his lust and his anger, cast
the Saint into prison. About a year after Saint John had been made a
prisoner, Herod gave a splendid entertainment to the official world of
Galilee. Salome, a daughter of Herodias by her lawful husband, pleased
Herod by her dancing, to the point that he made her the foolish promise of
granting whatever she might ask. Salome consulted with her mother as to
what to ask, and that immoral woman instructed her daughter to demand the
death of John the Baptist, and that the head of the prisoner should be
immediately brought to her on a platter. This barbaric request startled
the tyrant himself; but governed by human respect he assented and sent a
soldier of his guard to behead the Saint in prison. Thus died the great
forerunner of our blessed Savior, some two years after his entrance upon
his public ministry, and a year before the death of the One he announced.
source:
http://magnificat.ca/cal/engl/08-29.htm
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