Daily Readings for February 15, 2018

1ST READING

Our moral choices are always choices between life and death. To follow the laws of God means life; to reject His laws leads to death. Let us pray for the grace to know all the moral issues, make life-giving choices, and give a good example to the world of what it means to be a Christian.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

15 Moses said to the people: “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy. 17 If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, 18 I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy. 19 I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, 20 by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the Lord swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

P S A L M

Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6

R: Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

1 Blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent, 2 but delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night. (R) 3 He is like a tree planted near running water that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade. Whatever he does, prospers. (R) 4 Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away. 6 For the Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes. (R)

GOSPEL

To take up our cross is a metaphor for our willingness to embrace the trials and difficulties of living as a disciple of Jesus. Each day we need to choose between following Jesus and rejecting the lies and temptations of the devil and the world. Choose life and banish the devil. Don’t let him get a foot in the door of your life which happens when you choose to sin.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

Repent, says the Lord; the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Luke 9:22-25

22 Jesus said to his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, be killed and on the third day be raised.” 23 Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?