THURSDAY OF WEEK 5 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2026

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Accept and submit to the word
which has been planted in you
and can save your souls. JM 1:21

1 KINGS 11:4-13

Why is it, My Soul's Beloved, that we are so fickle? When our souls are bereft of suffering, when things do not go our way, when those we love are facing great trials, we cling to You day and night and plead with You to rescue them and us from all our calamities. But, no longer than everything is right again and life becomes serene and joyous again, we forget that we owe You constant obedience and love. 

Solomon owed everything to You. His wisdom was God's gift to him, including his fame and his wealth. The hand of God bless him, and yet in his old age, he forgot completely to whom his allegiance was due. All too often, we bend backwards to please people, those with power, influence, or those we love, and we fail in our duty to God and to keeping Your commandments, which are imperative if we are to live fruitful and holy lives pleasing to You.

There is only one God, and Him alone we must fear because You are good and because You first loved us. Have pity and mercy on us, O Lord, for having strayed, either deliberately or through ignorance. Bring us back, O Lord. Wash away our iniquity, cleanse us from our sins, and restore and heal us in every way.

When Solomon grew old his wives swayed his heart to other gods; and his heart was not wholly with the Lord his God as his father David’s had been. Solomon became a follower of Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, and of Milcom, the Ammonite abomination. He did what was displeasing to the Lord, and was not a wholehearted follower of the Lord, as his father David had been. Then it was that Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the god of Moab on the mountain to the east of Jerusalem, and to Milcom the god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrifice to their gods.
The Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned from the Lord the God of Israel who had twice appeared to him and who had then forbidden him to follow other gods; but he did not carry out the Lord’s order. The Lord therefore said to Solomon, ‘Since you behave like this and do not keep my covenant or the laws I laid down for you, I will most surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants. For your father David’s sake, however, I will not do this during your lifetime, but will tear it out of your son’s hands. Even so, I will not tear the whole kingdom from him. For the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen, I will leave your son one tribe.’

PSALM 105(106):3-4,35-37,40

O Lord, remember me out of the love you have for your people.

They are happy who do what is right,
who at all times do what is just.
O Lord, remember me
out of the love you have for your people.

But instead they mingled with the nations
and learned to act as they did.
They worshipped the idols of the nations
and these became a snare to entrap them.

They even offered their own sons
and their daughters in sacrifice to demons,
till his anger blazed against his people;
he was filled with horror at his chosen ones.

O Lord, remember me out of the love you have for your people.

MARK 7:24-30

My Soul's Beloved, 

You had every intention of healing the woman's little daughter who had an unclean spirit. She heard of You. She believed You could do for her daughter what You had done for so many. Her love for her child emboldened her to plead persistently that You do what she asked of You with complete faith and confidence. Soon, before all who were present, You would praise her persistence in not taking no for an answer, and her faith in You would be rewarded. But first, You wanted to teach them and us how we are to approach You when we make our prayers of petition to You.

We ought not to give up when our prayers are not answered immediately. Persistence purifies us as we humbly continue to make our cause known to You who already knows our hearts and desires to give us all that is good for us. We are not to be easily offended, but understand who You are and who we are. You are God; we are not. We keep asking, pleading, praying, even with tears and loud cries, until at a favorable time, at a time of Your choosing, You will give us all we ask for and more. And in the waiting and praying, our faith, hope, and love are strengthened.

Jesus left Gennesaret and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, but he could not pass unrecognised. A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him straightaway and came and fell at his feet. Now the woman was a pagan, by birth a Syrophoenician, and she begged him to cast the devil out of her daughter. And he said to her, ‘The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs.’ But she spoke up: ‘Ah yes, sir,’ she replied ‘but the house-dogs under the table can eat the children’s scraps.’ And he said to her, ‘For saying this, you may go home happy: the devil has gone out of your daughter.’ So she went off to her home and found the child lying on the bed and the devil gone.

ST. SCHOLASTICA, VIRGIN, ON TUESDAY OF WEEK 5 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2026

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Bend my heart to your will, O Lord,
and teach me your law. PS 118:36, 29

1 KINGS 8:22-23,27-30

My Soul's Beloved, 

Solomon's story is the story of so many of us who begin well but end badly. In fact, Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived in the Old Testament, ended up a fool because he ultimately relied on his own wisdom rather than on the wisdom of God.

Lord God, we are raised in the faith handed down from generation to generation, but we make little or no effort to make it our own, to study it, examine it, and understand why we believe what we believe, allowing that faith to expand and grow. It is the duty of every baptized Christian to have a vibrant faith that is unshakeable. However, we are so weak in our beliefs that when asked for a reason for our beliefs and practices, we are unable to give a suitable defence.

Beloved, You have made my heart Your holy temple in which You delight to live. Sadly, Lord, I am negligent in making sure that it is a place fit for You to dwell in. Today, I make the prayer of Solomon my own, unworthy as I am, stay with me, Lord. Walk with me, direct my steps, show mercy and kindness always. Grant me the graces I need to discern Your will in all things and then do it without question or hesitation, but joyfully and promptly. Hear my prayers always on my own behalf and for those I love, and when You hear the sound of my voice crying to You, O Lord,

‘Hear the entreaty of your servant and of Israel your people as they pray in this place. From heaven where your dwelling is, hear; and, as you hear, forgive.’

In the presence of the whole assembly of Israel, Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord and, stretching out his hands towards heaven, said, ‘O Lord, God of Israel, not in heaven above nor on earth beneath is there such a God as you, true to your covenant and your kindness towards your servants when they walk wholeheartedly in your way. Yet will God really live with men on the earth? Why, the heavens and their own heavens cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built! Listen to the prayer and entreaty of your servant, O Lord my God; listen to the cry and to the prayer your servant makes to you today. Day and night let your eyes watch over this house, over this place of which you have said, “My name shall be there.” Listen to the prayer that your servant will offer in this place.
‘Hear the entreaty of your servant and of Israel your people as they pray in this place. From heaven where your dwelling is, hear; and, as you hear, forgive.’

PSALM 83(84):3-5,10-11

How lovely is your dwelling-place, Lord, God of hosts.

My soul is longing and yearning,
is yearning for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my soul ring out their joy
to God, the living God.

The sparrow herself finds a home
and the swallow a nest for her brood;
she lays her young by your altars,
Lord of hosts, my king and my God.

They are happy, who dwell in your house,
for ever singing your praise.
Turn your eyes, O God, our shield,
look on the face of your anointed.

One day within your courts
is better than a thousand elsewhere.
The threshold of the house of God
I prefer to the dwellings of the wicked.

How lovely is your dwelling-place, Lord, God of hosts.

MARK 7:1-13

My Soul's Beloved,  

We humans, like the Pharisees and some of the leaders of the law in Your day, are extremely clever when it comes to justifying our sinful actions, which are contradictory to the will and law of God. We are extremely good at making excuses for our own sinful actions while freely condemning everybody else and assigning and consigning them to hell. If we kept our gaze unflinchingly on our words and deeds, we would have far less time nitpicking the flaws of our neighbours.

Lord God, the plight of so many aging parents is heartbreaking. How heartlessly they are treated and neglected by their sons and daughters after they have sacrificed everything for them. The day will come, though, Lord, when the same harsh and coldly selfish reasons they trumpeted for their negligence in doing their duty will be used by their own children against them. For the ways of the Lord are just, and to those who have shown kindness and mercy will receive it, but those who have been wicked and selfish, disobedient and hard of heart will be punished until they pay everything they owe to the last penny.

The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered round Jesus, and they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is, without washing them. For the Pharisees, and the Jews in general, follow the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow; and on returning from the market place they never eat without first sprinkling themselves. There are also many other observances which have been handed down to them concerning the washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes. So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?’ He answered, ‘It was of you hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture:
This people honours me only with lip-service,
while their hearts are far from me.
The worship they offer me is worthless,
the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.
You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.’ And he said to them, ‘How ingeniously you get round the commandment of God in order to preserve your own tradition! For Moses said: Do your duty to your father and your mother, and, Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death. But you say, “If a man says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is Corban (that is, dedicated to God), then he is forbidden from that moment to do anything for his father or mother.” In this way you make God’s word null and void for the sake of your tradition which you have handed down. And you do many other things like this.’