Catholic lectionary for 5 February 2025

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Hebrews, Chapter 12, verses 4-7, 11-15

¹ An exhortation to constant faith, patience, and godliness

⁴Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

⁵And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

⁶For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

⁷If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
...

¹¹Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

¹²Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

¹³And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

¹⁴Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

¹⁵Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

Read more:Hebrews, Chapter 12

Comments:

Comments on the current fragment

Comments on the book

Comments on the part

12

12:4 Unto blood - Unto wounds and death.

12:5 And yet ye seem already to have forgotten the exhortation - Wherein God speaketh to you with the utmost tenderness.Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord - Do not slight or make little of it; do not impute any affliction to chance or second causes but see and revere the hand of God in it. Neither faint when thou art rebuked of him - But endure it patiently and fruitfully. Heb 3:11, etc

12:6 For - All springs from love; therefore neither despise nor faint.

12:7 Whom his father chasteneth not - When he offends.

Topics:

Mark, Chapter 6, verses 1-6

¹ Christ is contemned of his countrymen

¹And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him.

²And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?

³Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

⁴But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

⁵And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

⁶And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

Read more:Mark, Chapter 6

Comments:

Comments on the current fragment

Comments on the book

Comments on the part

6

6:1 Mat 13:54; Luk 4:16.

6:3 Is not this the carpenter? - There can be no doubt, but in his youth he wrought with his supposed father Joseph.

6:5 He could do no miracle there - Not consistently with his wisdom and goodness. It being inconsistent with his wisdom to work them there, where it could not promote his great end; and with his goodness, seeing he well knew his countrymen would reject whatever evidence could be given them. And therefore to have given them more evidence, would only have increased their damnation.

6:6 He marvelled - As man. As he was God, nothing was strange to him.

Topics:

NOTES

There is only one real barrier between a person and God: distrust. More precisely, there are many barriers, but this alone proves truly insurmountable. Everything else can be overcome - if not by the person, then by God, through...

There can hardly be any doubt that the raising of Jairus' daughter is yet another testimony to the nearness of the Kingdom, whose breath can not only heal a person from illness but also restore him to life if death...

There can hardly be any doubt that the raising of Jairus' daughter is yet another testimony to the nearness of the Kingdom, whose breath can not only heal a person from illness but also restore him to life if death has come prematurely even according to the laws of the untransformed world. The most interesting aspect of the account is that the raising depends entirely not so much on the faith of the dying girl as on Jairus' own faith, although his daughter was already at an age when one can speak seriously of faith. One might, of course, say that she may not have known—and most likely did not know—to whom her father had turned for help. Yet the fact that in this situation faith was required above all from Jairus himself allows us to see the Kingdom from a somewhat unexpected perspective: through the relationships of which it actually consists.

It is not by chance that the Savior speaks of love as a new commandment. Previously, love, like hatred, was only a characteristic of the quality of one's relationship with a neighbor; now, in the Kingdom, it becomes the spiritual environment that could, in a certain sense, be called the Kingdom's nature. Its structure is formed by the relationships that bind its inhabitants to God, to Christ, and to one another. The quality and intensity of these relationships determine the measure in which the fullness of the Kingdom is revealed in a particular place and at a particular time. Evidently, by the complete trust Jairus showed in the One who brought the Kingdom into the world, he not only entered into it himself but also brought into it those whom he loved and for whom he petitioned Jesus.

Of course, this in itself did not yet guarantee that the person for whom someone prayed would attain salvation and the fullness of life in the Kingdom into which another person's request had brought him. But in a special, extreme situation, the first step can evidently be taken in this way as well. The important thing is that it should not prove to be the only and final step.

Who would go to a carpenter for healing? That question arose among the people of Nazareth when Jesus, already famous for miracles, visited...

FAQ

How are we to interpret that Jesus is the "brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon"? Does this imply that Mary had other children?

No, Mary had no children other than Jesus Christ. The individuals referred to as His brothers in the Gospels, according to historians and biblical scholars, were...

${currentDateString}