February 25, 2014

Reading

The Letter of Saint James   4: 1-10

4:1 Where do wars and contentions among you come from? Is it not from this: from your own desires, which battle within your members?
4:2 You desire, and you do not have. You envy and you kill, and you are unable to obtain. You argue and you fight, and you do not have, because you do not ask.
4:3 You ask and you do not receive, because you ask badly, so that you may use it toward your own desires.
4:4 You adulterers! Do you not know that the friendship of this world is hostile to God? Therefore, whoever has chosen to be a friend of this world has been made into an enemy of God.
4:5 Or do you think that Scripture says in vain: “The spirit which lives within you desires unto envy?”
4:6 But he gives a greater grace. Therefore he says: “God resists the arrogant, but he gives grace to the humble.”
4:7 Therefore, be subject to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners! And purify your hearts, you duplicitous souls!
4:9 Be afflicted: mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your gladness into sorrow.
4:10 Be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Gospel

The Holy Gospel According to Mark   9: 30-37

9:30 Then he taught his disciples, and he said to them, “For the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and having been killed, on the third day he will rise again.”
9:31 But they did not understand the word. And they were afraid to question him.
9:32 And they went to Capernaum. And when they were in the house, he questioned them, “What did you discuss on the way?”
9:33 But they were silent. For indeed, on the way, they had disputed among themselves as to which of them was greater.
9:34 And sitting down, he called the twelve, and he said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be the last of all and the minister of all.”
9:35 And taking a child, he set him in their midst. And when he had embraced him, he said to them:
9:36 “Whoever receives one such child in my name, receives me. And whoever receives me, receives not me, but him who sent me.”
9:37 John responded to him by saying, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name; he does not follow us, and so we prohibited him.”

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