Daily Mass Readings For Thursday, January 16, 2025
Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Reading 1 :
Hebrews 3:7-14
Alleluia :
Matthew 4:23
Gospel :
Mark 1:40-45
Liturgical vestments: Green
Thursday, January 16, 2025: Readings & Responsorial Psalm & Gospel
Each day, the Mass readings invite us into a deeper encounter with God. Through Scripture, we hear His voice speaking to our hearts, guiding us, comforting us, and calling us to a life of holiness. The Word of God is not just a story from the past; it is alive, relevant, and transformative.
Every reading is an opportunity for grace. Some days, the words challenge us to grow; other days, they console us in our struggles. But always, they nourish our souls, strengthening our faith and drawing us closer to Christ.
Let us open our hearts to the Word of God daily. May we not just hear it but live it, allowing it to shape our actions and deepen our love for Him. Lord, speak to us today, and help us to follow You more faithfully. Amen.
The Holy Spirit says:
Oh, that today you would hear his voice,
“Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion
in the day of testing in the desert,
where your ancestors tested and tried me
and saw my works for forty years.
Because of this I was provoked with that generation
and I said, ‘They have always been of erring heart,
and they do not know my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter into my rest.’”
Take care, brothers and sisters,
that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart,
so as to forsake the living God.
Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,”
so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.
We have become partners of Christ
if only we hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom
and cured every disease among the people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
Then he said to him, “See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.”
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.
Reflection
“Especially through His lifestyle and through His actions, Jesus revealed that love is present in the world in which we live. This [merciful God’s] love makes itself particularly noticed in contact with suffering, injustice and poverty.” (Saint John Paul II)
“We live in this world, where God is not so manifest as tangible things are, but can be sought and found only when the heart sets out and recognize that we do not live by bread alone, but first and foremost by obedience to God’s word.” (Benedict XVI)
“Though often unconscious collaborators with God's will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings (Cf. Col 1:24). They then fully become ‘God's fellow workers and co-workers for his kingdom’ (I Cor 3:9).” (Catechism Of The Catholic Church, Nº 307)
Today’s Gospel (cf. Mk 1:40-45) presents us with the encounter between Jesus and a man sick with leprosy. Lepers were considered impure and, according to the prescriptions of the Law, they had to remain outside inhabited centres. They were excluded from every human, social and religious relationship: for example, they could not enter a synagogue, they could not go into the temple, even for religious purposes. Jesus, instead, allows this man to draw near him; He is moved to the point of reaching out His hand and touching him. This was unthinkable at that time. This is how he fulfils the Good News he proclaims: God draws near to our lives; he is moved to compassion because of the fate of wounded humanity and comes to break down every barrier that prevents us from being in relationship with him, with others and with ourselves. He drew near... Closeness. Remember this word, closeness. Compassion. The Gospel says that Jesus, seeing the leper, was moved with compassion, tenderness. (…) And allow me a thought here for the many good priest confessors who have this behaviour of attracting people, and many people who feel that they are nothing, who feel they are “flat on the ground” because of their sins... But with tenderness, with compassion... Good confessors who do not have a whip in their hands, but just welcome, listen and say that God is good and that God always forgives, that God does not get tired of forgiving. (Angelus, 14 February 2021)
Saint of the Day
Priscilla was a Roman matron of the first century. Some have identified her with the wife of Aquila, engaged in the first Christian catechesis; or with the founder of a cemetery named for her on the Via Salaria, who received St Paul as a guest. According to others, she was a freed slave.
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