ST. JOSEPH VAZ ON THURSDAY OF WEEK 1 IN ORDINARY TIME - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Jesus proclaimed the Good News of the kingdom
and cured all kinds of sickness among the people. MT 4:23

HEBREWS 3:7-14

My Soul's Beloved,

We were created by God for God. We were redeemed by God for God. We are sanctified by God for God. We belong to You and nothing and no one can snatch us from You unless we desire it. Lord God, Son of the Living God, we were created by God to become co-heirs with You and receive a share in Your glory in the Kingdom of God. In You and as members of Your body, we are destined to be like You just as You became like us in all things save sin and this must be our desire t00, to be like You in all things save sin. 

You constantly woo us to turn away from the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Holy Spirit enables us through grace to resist temptation if we desire to do so. But it depends on us. Do I want to resist temptation? I am weak Lord and without Your help, I will fail, falter, and fall every time but You O Lord will remain faithful I can count on You.

Thank You Lord for blessing me, please help me to be a blessing to everyone I meet. 

Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today’, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.

PSALM 94(95):6-11

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

Come in; let us bow and bend low;
let us kneel before the God who made us:
for he is our God and we
the people who belong to his pasture,
the flock that is led by his hand.

O that today you would listen to his voice!

‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah in the desert
when your fathers put me to the test;
when they tried me, though they saw my work.

For forty years I was wearied of these people

and I said: “Their hearts are astray,
these people do not know my ways.”
Then I took an oath in my anger:
“Never shall they enter my rest.”’

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

MARK 1:40-45

My Soul's Beloved,

Thank You for the Sacrament of Reconciliation cleansing me from the leprosy of sin every time I confess my sins with a contrite and repentant heart, resolving with Your help to sin no more. Nothing kills the conscience and separates us from You so completely as grave sins. Keep us from deadly sins O Lord and grant us the grace to go to confession often. The more frequently I avail myself of the forgiveness of my sins and receive the abundant mercy and grace that You won for me on the Cross, the more delicate will be my conscience, the more repulsive will I find sin, and the more fiercely will I avoid the near occasion of sin.

May I never forget how eagerly You grant all the graces we need to repent of our sins, how You long for the sinner to come home, and how gladly and willingly You forgive and forget all our transgressions whether great or small. 

A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: ‘If you want to’ he said ‘you can cure me.’ Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘Of course I want to!’ he said. ‘Be cured!’ And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured. Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him, ‘Mind you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering for your healing prescribed by Moses as evidence of your recovery.’ The man went away, but then started talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even so, people from all around would come to him.