Daily Readings for August 3, 2019

1st READING

Poverty among the Israelites may have been connected to their access to land that they worked on to support their families. Returning the land to its original owner every fifty years on a jubilee year seemed to address the problem of inequitable of distribution of wealth. This will work in a rural society but not in urbanized societies like ours today. The government should devise ways of caring for the poor and dispossessed while at the same time maintaining incentive for economic development. Let us pray for our civil leaders that they will address the issues of poverty.

Leviticus 25:1, 8-17

1 The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai, 8 “Seven weeks of years shall you count—seven times seven years—so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years. 9 Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, let the trumpet resound; on this, the Day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall reecho throughout your land. 10 This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when every one of you shall return to his own property, every one to his own family estate. 11 In this fiftieth year, your year of jubilee, you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth or pick the grapes from the untrimmed vines. 12 Since this is the jubilee, which shall be sacred for you, you may not eat of its produce, except as taken directly from the field. 13 In this year of jubilee, then, every one of you shall return to his own property. 14 Therefore, when you sell any land to your neighbor or buy any from him, do not deal unfairly. 15 On the basis of the number of years since the last jubilee shall you purchase the land from your neighbor; and so also, on the basis of the number of years for crops, shall he sell it to you. 16 When the years are many, the price shall be so much the more; when the years are few, the price shall be so much the less. For it is really the number of crops that he sells you. 17 Do not deal unfairly, then; but stand in fear of your God. I, the Lord, am your God.”

PSALM

Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 7-8

R: O God, let all the nations praise you!

2 May God have pity on us and bless us; may he let his face shine upon us. 3 So may your way be known upon earth; among all nations, your salvation. (R) 5 May the nations be glad and exult because you rule the peoples in equity; the nations on the earth you guide. (R) 7 The earth has yielded its fruits; God, our God, has blessed us. 8 May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth fear him! (R)

GOSPEL

Herod is a conflicted person—he wants to do the right thing, yet he also desires to be a people-pleaser. He ends up doing something he knows as unjust—imprisoning John the Baptist and having him executed to please the people. May we always do what is right instead of what is pleasing to others.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 14:1-12

1 Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus 2 and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him.” 3 Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, 4 for John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” 5 Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people, for they regarded him as a prophet. 6 But at a birthday celebration for Herod, the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests and delighted Herod 7 so much that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” 9 The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests who were present, he ordered that it be given, 10 and he had John beheaded in the prison. 11 His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. 12 His disciples came and took away the corpse and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.

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