Feria of Ordinary Time

    Brothers,
when I came to you,
I did not come to announce to you the mystery of God
with the prestige of language or wisdom.
    Among you, I wanted to know nothing except
Jesus Christ, this crucified Messiah.
    And it was in weakness,
fearful and trembling,
that I presented myself to you.
    My speech, my proclamation of the Gospel,
had nothing of a language
of wisdom seeking to convince;
but it was the Spirit and his power that were manifested,
    so that your faith would rest, not on human wisdom,
but on the power of God.

        – The word of the Lord.

How I love your law:
I meditate on it all day!
I surpass my enemies in skill,
for I make your will mine forever.

I surpass all my teachers in wisdom,
for I meditate on your requirements.
I surpass the elders in understanding,
for I keep your precepts.

I turn my steps away from evil paths,
so as to observe your word.
I do not want to stray from your decisions,
for it is you who teach me.

          At that time,
   Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.
As was his custom,
he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day,
and stood up to read.
  The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.
He opened the book and found the passage where it is written:
  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring the Good News to the poor,
to proclaim release to the captives,
and to the blind recovery of sight,
to set the oppressed free,
  to proclaim a year of favor granted by the Lord.
  Jesus closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.
All eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him.
  Then he began to say to them:
“Today this passage of Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
  All bore witness to him
and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
They said to themselves:
“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
  But he said to them:
“Surely you will quote me the saying:
‘Physician, heal yourself,’
and say to me:
‘We have heard all that happened in Capernaum;
do here in your own town as well!’”
   Then he added:
“Amen, I say to you:
no prophet is accepted in his own country.
  Truly, I tell you:
In the days of the prophet Elijah,
when for three and a half years
the sky was shut and
a great famine struck the whole land,
there were many widows in Israel;
  yet Elijah was not sent to any of them,
but only to a widow in Zarephath, in the land of Sidon.
  In the time of the prophet Elisha,
there were many lepers in Israel;
and none of them was cleansed,
but only Naaman the Syrian.”

          At these words, in the synagogue,
everyone became furious.
         They got up,
drove Jesus out of the town,
and led him to the brow
of the hill on which their town was built,
to throw him down.
         But he, passing through the midst of them,
went on his way.

           – Let us acclaim the word of God.