Taking a Break
Jan 18: Thursday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
We all need to take a rest every now and then. That includes Jesus, because He is like us in all ways but sin.
Because of those two things, Jesus’ sympathy is infinite. He helps everyone who asks.
Reading 1
Heb 7:25—8:6
Jesus is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them.
It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens. He has no need, as did the high priests, to offer sacrifice day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did that once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints men subject to weakness to be high priests, but the word of the oath, which was taken after the law, appoints a son, who has been made perfect forever.
The main point of what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up. Now every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus the necessity for this one also to have something to offer. If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are those who offer gifts according to the law. They worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle. For God says, “See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises.
While Jesus is in the line of high priests, He’s not like them. He, the Second Person of the Trinity, intercedes for us with the First Person of the Trinity. This is one of those “sacred mysteries” that sounds really weird because it is. It probably won’t really make sense in this life.
But we do know that Jesus was God and Man, and He offered Himself as a sacrifice so no one else would ever have to again.
Responsorial Psalm
40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 17
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not;
then said I, “Behold I come.”
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
“In the written scroll it is prescribed for me,
To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and your law is within my heart!”
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
I announced your justice in the vast assembly;
I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know.
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
May all who seek you
exult and be glad in you,
And may those who love your salvation
say ever, “The LORD be glorified.”
R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.
God doesn’t want sacrifice from us; Jesus already has that handled. He wants obedience. But not the blind obedience of an animal. He wants you to delight in his law.
Alleluia
2 Tm 1:10
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus destroyed death by offering Himself as a sacrifice, to die. But that’s not the end! He’s the good news brings light and life to everyone, even after death.
Gospel
Mk 3:7-12
Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples. A large number of people followed from Galilee and from Judea. Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him. He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him. And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God.” He warned them sternly not to make him known.
Jesus, a man, needed a little break, so he went to the beach. But because he could work miracles and heal the sick, the crowd followed and wouldn’t let him have a moment of peace. The guy needs a vacation!1
But He also has infinite patience and mercy. The crowd keeps coming, and He keeps healing them.
Not even Satan and his demons will slow Jesus down. Why they shout “You are the Son of God!”, it’s not that they’re trying to out Him or something like that. It’s an effort to control Him. It was believed that knowing the exact name of an opposing spirit would give you control over it. But they can’t control Jesus, because He’s not just a man. The fact that they can’t fight back tells you He’s more than that.
I tried to find a funny picture here, but they all seemed vaguely sacrilegious, so I decided against it.