Daily Reading

First Reading

1 Samuel 15:16-23

Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” He replied, “Speak.”

Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But from the spoil the people took sheep and cattle, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” And Samuel said,

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
    as in obedience to the voice of the Lord?
Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice,
    and to heed than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is no less a sin than divination,
    and stubbornness is like iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
    he has also rejected you from being king.”

Psalm

Psalm 50:8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23

Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
    your burnt offerings are continually before me.
I will not accept a bull from your house,
    or goats from your folds.
But to the wicked God says:
    “What right have you to recite my statutes,
    or take my covenant on your lips?
For you hate discipline,
    and you cast my words behind you.
These things you have done and I have been silent;
    you thought that I was one just like yourself.
But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.
Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me;
    to those who go the right way
    I will show the salvation of God.”

Gospel Reading

Mark 2:18-22

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”

Reflection

Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Lord says his disciples do not fast because God is holding a great wedding banquet.

You find the theme of the wedding throughout the Old Testament as a motif to express God’s covenant with his people. We’ve fallen apart in sin. We’ve gone into exile. And what does God want? He wants to call us back to a great wedding banquet.

Throughout the ministry of Jesus you find that same motif: He will gather the scattered tribes—yes, the elite, but also the sinners and the outcasts. All are welcome around the table of the Lord, establishing this wedding banquet and unity that God wants with his people.Jesus presents himself as the coming together of heaven and earth. He’s the coming together of divinity and humanity in his own person. He is this wedding banquet. “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Because this great banquet is going on!