WELCOME TO OUR LITURGY: I marvel at the extraordinary faith of the paralytic’s friends as they lowered him through the roof in front of Jesus. What was more important? The man’s spiritual health came first. Jesus forgave his sins. Then Jesus demonstrated his divine power by curing the paralytic. Jesus, Forgiver-Healer, is in our midst today. There was need for forgiveness and healing in Jesus time, just as much as it is needed in our time, for you and me.

First Reading:
Isaiah 43: 18 – 19, 21 – 22, 24 – 25

18 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
21 the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.
22 “Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel!
24 You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.
25 “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

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WELCOME TO OUR LITURGY: The leper asked Jesus: ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ The leper had no right in law to speak to anyone. He was banished outside the camp. But Jesus meets the demands of human need with great compassion. He stretched out his hand and touched him. To Jesus the leper was not unclean, just a desperate human being. Jesus said: “Be made clean.” The leper was healed. Jesus warned the man not to tell anyone what had happened. But the cured man told everyone. I am cleansed by Christ in Baptism. I with to spread his word faithfully.

First Reading:
Leviticus 13: 1-2, 44-46.

1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
2 “When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling or an eruption or a spot, and it turns into a leprous disease on the skin of his body, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests,
44 he is a leprous man, he is unclean; the priest must pronounce him unclean; his disease is on his head.
45 “The leper who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry, `Unclean, unclean.’
46 He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp.

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WELCOME TO OUR LITURGY: St Paul refused financial support from the Christian community in Corinth while he was living with them. He would not be accused of living of the fat of the land. He would not do anything that would bring discredit on his preaching of the Gospel, He regarded his apostleship a privilege and a duty. Becoming all things to all people (Paul’s strategy) is to get alongside them, trying to understand them, listening to them, so that the sharing of the Good News (which is Jesus) would be well-received.

First Reading:
Job 7: 1-4, 6-7.

1 “Has not man a hard service upon earth, and are not his days like the days of a hireling?
2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hireling who looks for his wages,
3 so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
4 When I lie down I say, `When shall I arise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and come to their end without hope.
7 “Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good.

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WELCOME TO OUR LITURGY: Placing our faith in God’s word and entrusting everything we are, have and want in His hands is a demonstration of His authority in our lives. With faith we can ask anything of God. Through Him, we can seek to perfect our lives so we can be with Him for eternity. Through the working of the Holy Spirit, we are transformed by God’s love. Today I will pray for those who do not have faith: “Lord have mercy. In You I trust.”

First Reading:
Deuteronomy 18: 15 – 20

15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren — him you shall heed –
16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, `Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’
17 And the LORD said to me, `They have rightly said all that they have spoken.
18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
19 And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.
20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’

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