Daily Reading
First Reading
Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall celebrate at the time appointed for them. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, there shall be a passover offering to the Lord, and on the fifteenth day of the same month is the festival of unleavened bread to the Lord; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. For seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire; on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation: you shall not work at your occupations.
The Lord spoke to Moses: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall raise the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall raise it.
And from the day after the sabbath, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the elevation offering, you shall count off seven weeks; they shall be complete. You shall count until the day after the seventh sabbath, fifty days; then you shall present an offering of new grain to the Lord.
Now, the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you: you shall deny yourselves and present the Lord’s offering by fire;
Speak to the people of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month, and lasting seven days, there shall be the festival of booths[a] to the Lord. The first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. Seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire; on the eighth day you shall observe a holy convocation and present the Lord’s offerings by fire; it is a solemn assembly; you shall not work at your occupation.
These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you shall celebrate as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the Lord offerings by fire—burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day.
Psalm
Psalm 81:3-4, 5-6, 10-11ab
Blow the trumpet at the new moon,
at the full moon, on our festal day.
For it is a statute for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
He made it a decree in Joseph,
when he went out over the land of Egypt.
I hear a voice I had not known:
“I relieved your shoulder of the burden;
your hands were freed from the basket.
I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
“But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me.
Gospel Reading
Matthew 13:54-58
He came to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor except in their own country and in their own house.” And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.
Reflection
Friends, in today’s Gospel, on his return to Nazareth, the Lord identifies himself as a prophet. Jesus is not just one more in a long line of prophets but rather the personal and perfect embodiment of the transformative speech of God. As Pope Benedict XVI puts it in Verbum Domini, “Now the word is not simply audible; not only does it have a voice, now the word has a face, one which we can see: that of Jesus of Nazareth.”
Therefore, we are not surprised that the Gospels consistently portray Jesus’s words as irresistibly powerful. At the tomb of his friend, “he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’” and “the dead man came out.” Precisely because Jesus is the divine Word, what he says is. Origen of Alexandria said that just as all of Jesus’s acts were like words, so all his words were like acts.
The Church, which is Jesus’s Mystical Body, is the privileged bearer of his Word to the world down through the ages until the Lord returns. This is why the Church continues to unleash transformative power.