Bible Reading Sunday January 29 2012
Reading 1 Dt 18:15-20
Moses spoke to all the people, saying:
“A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you
from among your own kin;
to him you shall listen.
This is exactly what you requested of the LORD, your God, at Horeb
on the day of the assembly, when you said,
‘Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God,
nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’
And the LORD said to me, ‘This was well said.
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin,
and will put my words into his mouth;
he shall tell them all that I command him.
Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name,
I myself will make him answer for it.
But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name
an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak,
or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.'”
Responsorial Psalm Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 7-9
R. (8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.Reading 2 1 Cor 7:32-35
Brothers and sisters:
I should like you to be free of anxieties.
An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord,
how he may please the Lord.
But a married man is anxious about the things of the world,
how he may please his wife, and he is divided.
An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord,
so that she may be holy in both body and spirit.
A married woman, on the other hand,
is anxious about the things of the world,
how she may please her husband.
I am telling you this for your own benefit,
not to impose a restraint upon you,
but for the sake of propriety
and adherence to the Lord without distraction.
Gospel Mk 1:21-28
Then they came to Capernaum,
and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are?the Holy One of God!”
Jesus rebuked him and said,
“Quiet! Come out of him!”
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another,
“What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
Moses let the Israelites know that The Loving Programmer would be downloading a more powerful prophet than Him from their descendants. He made it clear that they should listen to Him.
He promised that This Prophet would download The Loving Programmer’s Operating Instructions. Those who did not obey would be punished. Anyone pretending to be a prophet and giving false instructions will die.R. If you hear The Loving Programmer’s operating instructions, obey them.
Let us be thankful for Him, and happy that He is helping us. Sing His praises, bow before Him admit His superiority to your own, human program. Consider yourself a sheep, and obey your Shepherd. Do not harden your hearts.
R. If you hear The Loving Programmer’s operating instructions, obey them.Fellow believers, I don’t want you to worry. If you don’t attach yourselves to making other human programs happy, you can be closer to The Loving Programmer. I’m not trying to keep you from Him, but to allow you to grow closer to Him without being distracted.
When Jesus, (The Program, downloaded among us in perfect, obedient, human form) came to Capernaum, He downloaded Operating Instructions form The Loving Programmer.
People were amazed: They’d never heard anyone who could tell them so clearly what to do.
Even a virus, who’d corrupted a human program, cried out through the voice of the man he controlled, “What are You doing to us, Jesus of Nazareth? Are You going to erase us? I know Who You are, The Loving Programmer’s Program, in human form.”
Jesus cleansed the man’s operating system of its virus: “Quiet! Come out of him!”
The virus was expelled from the corrupted human program, who fell to the ground in convulsions.
The people who saw this were amazed, and His fame spread through Galilee.
