Wednesday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), virgin and martyr (†1942 Auschwitz – Poland). Of Jewish origin, she embraced the Catholic Faith in 1921 and became a Carmelite nun in 1933. In 1942, she was imprisoned in the extermination camp of Auschwitz, where she died in the gas chamber.
Mass Readings
First Reading – Nm 13:1-2, 25–14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35
The LORD said to Moses [in the desert of Paran,] “Send men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan, which I am giving the children of Israel. You shall send one man from each ancestral tribe, all of them princes.” After reconnoitering the land for forty days they returned, met Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the children of Israel in the desert of Paran at Kadesh, made a report to them all, and showed the fruit of the country to the whole congregation. They told Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit. However, the people who are living in the land are fierce, and the towns are fortified and very strong. Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there. Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites dwell in the highlands, and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan.” Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said, “We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us.” So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel about the land they had scouted, saying, “The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants. And all the people we saw there are huge, veritable giants (the Anakim were a race of giants); we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them.” At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries, and even in the night the people wailed. The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: “How long will this wicked assembly grumble against Me? I have heard the grumblings of the children of Israel against Me. Tell them: By My life, says the LORD, I will do to you just what I have heard you say. Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall. Forty days you spent in scouting the land; forty years shall you suffer for your crimes: one year for each day. Thus you will realize what it means to oppose Me. I, the LORD, have sworn to do this to all this wicked assembly that conspired against Me: here in the desert they shall die to the last man.”
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 106:6-7ab, 13-14, 21-22, 23 (R.4a)
R. Remember us, O Lord, as You favor Your people.
We have sinned, we and our fathers;
we have committed crimes; we have done wrong.
Our fathers in Egypt
considered not Your wonders. R.
But soon they forgot His works;
they waited not for His counsel.
They gave way to craving in the desert
and tempted God in the wilderness. R.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea. R.
Then He spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, His chosen one,
Withstood Him in the breach
to turn back His destructive wrath. R.
Gospel – Mt 15: 21-28
At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But He did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked Him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.
Featured Saints
St. Marianne Cope, virgin (†1918). German-born American, member of the Sisters of St. Francis. She dedicated herself with great generosity to the care of the lepers on the island of Molokai, Hawaii, succeeding St. Damien de Veuster in this mission.
Blessed Richard Bere, priest and martyr (†1537). Carthusian monk starved to death in prison, during the reign of Henry VIII in England.
Blessed Falco, hermit (†tenth/ eleventh century). Born of a noble family of Calabria, Italy, he embraced monastic life with the Basilians.
Blessed Florentino Asensio Barroso, bishop and martyr (†1936). He was arrested and shot during the Spanish Civil War, a short time after taking possession of the Diocese of Barbastro.
Blessed John of Salerno, priest (†c. 1242). Dominican priest, founder of the Convent of Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, Italy. He courageously fought the Patarine heretics.
Blessed Claude Richard, priest and martyr (†1794). Benedictine priest imprisoned in Rochefort during the French Revolution; he died of an illness contracted there.
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