Daily Reading for Sunday, September 13th, 2015

Light Your Virtual Prayer Candle For a Loved One

Reading 1, Isaiah 50:4-9

⁴ Lord Yahweh has given me a disciple's tongue, for me to know how to give a word of comfort to the weary. Morning by morning he makes my ear alert to listen like a disciple.

⁵ Lord Yahweh has opened my ear and I have not resisted, I have not turned away.

⁶ I have offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; I have not turned my face away from insult and spitting.

⁷ Lord Yahweh comes to my help, this is why insult has not touched me, this is why I have set my face like flint and know that I shall not be put to shame.

⁸ He who grants me saving justice is near! Who will bring a case against me? Let us appear in court together! Who has a case against me? Let him approach me!

⁹ Look, Lord Yahweh is coming to my help! Who dares condemn me? Look at them, all falling apart like moth-eaten clothes!

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 116:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9

¹ Alleluia! I am filled with love when Yahweh listens to the sound of my prayer,

² when he bends down to hear me, as I call.

³ The bonds of death were all round me, the snares of Sheol held me fast; distress and anguish held me in their grip,

⁴ I called on the name of Yahweh. Deliver me, Yahweh, I beg you.

⁵ Yahweh is merciful and upright, our God is tenderness.

⁶ Yahweh looks after the simple, when I was brought low he gave me strength.

⁸ He has rescued me from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.

⁹ I shall pass my life in the presence of Yahweh, in the land of the living.

We're Back - Greatest Meat on Earth

Gospel, Mark 8:27-35

²⁷ Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, 'Who do people say I am?'

²⁸ And they told him, 'John the Baptist, others Elijah, others again, one of the prophets.'

²⁹ 'But you,' he asked them, 'who do you say I am?' Peter spoke up and said to him, 'You are the Christ.'

³⁰ And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.

³¹ Then he began to teach them that the Son of man was destined to suffer grievously, and to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again;

³² and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter tried to rebuke him.

³³ But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings do.'

³⁴ He called the people and his disciples to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.

³⁵ Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

Reading 2, James 2:14-18

¹⁴ How does it help, my brothers, when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith? Will that faith bring salvation?

¹⁵ If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on,

¹⁶ and one of you says to them, 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,' without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?

¹⁷ In the same way faith, if good deeds do not go with it, is quite dead.

¹⁸ But someone may say: So you have faith and I have good deeds? Show me this faith of yours without deeds, then! It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith.

We Will Pray with You: Light Your Virtual Prayer Candle