Wednesday, December 28, 2011 {The Holy Innocents, Martyrs (Feast)}

REFLECTION FOR TODAY
Turn yourself round like a piece of clay and say to the Lord: I am clay, and you, Lord, the potter. Make of me what you will.
-- Blessed John of Avila


READINGS FOR TODAY
First Reading: 1 John 1:5 -- 2:2
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth;
7 but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1 My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
2 and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Psalms: Psalm 124:2-5, 7-8
2 “If the Lord had not been on our side when our enemies attacked us,
3 then they would have swallowed us alive in their furious anger against us;
4 then the flood would have carried us away, the water would have covered us,
5 the raging torrent would have drowned us.”
7 We have escaped like a bird from a hunter's trap; the trap is broken, and we are free!
8 Our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Gospel: Matthew 2:13-18
(The Escape to Egypt and The Killing of the Children)
13 After they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, “Herod will be looking for the child in order to kill him. So get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you to leave.”
14 Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and left during the night for Egypt,
15 where he stayed until Herod died. This was done to make come true what the Lord had said through the prophet, “I called my Son out of Egypt.”
16 When Herod realized that the visitors from the East had tricked him, he was furious. He gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its neighborhood who were two years old and younger—this was done in accordance with what he had learned from the visitors about the time when the star had appeared.
17 In this way what the prophet Jeremiah had said came true:
18 “A sound is heard in Ramah, the sound of bitter weeping. Rachel is crying for her children; she refuses to be comforted, for they are dead.”