First Reading – 1 Sm 15:16-23
Samuel said to Saul: “Stop! Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.” Saul replied, “Speak!” Samuel then said: “Though little in your own esteem, are you not leader of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king of Israel and sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and put the sinful Amalekites under a ban of destruction. Fight against them until you have exterminated them.’ Why then have you disobeyed the LORD? You have pounced on the spoil, thus displeasing the LORD.” Saul answered Samuel: “I did indeed obey the LORD and fulfill the mission on which the LORD sent me. I have brought back Agag, and I have destroyed Amalek under the ban. But from the spoil the men took sheep and oxen, the best of what had been banned, to sacrifice to the LORD their God in Gilgal.” But Samuel said: “Does the LORD so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obedience to the command of the LORD? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission than the fat of rams. For a sin like divination is rebellion, and presumption is the crime of idolatry. Because you have rejected the command of the LORD, He, too, has rejected you as ruler.”
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 50:8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23 (R.23b)
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
for your burnt offerings are before Me always.
I take from your house no bullock,
no goats out of your fold.” R.
“Why do you recite My statutes,
and profess My covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast My words behind you?” R.
“When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies Me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.” R.
Gospel – Mk 2:18-22
The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to Jesus and objected, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”
Featured Saints
Blessed Peter of Castelnau, priest and martyr (†1208). Monk from the Cistercian Abbey of Fontfroide (France), commissioned by Pope Innocent III to preach against the Albigensians. He was killed with lances by heretics in Saint-Gilles-les Boucheries, Provence.
St. Bonitus of Clermont, bishop (†cerca de 710). Prefect of Marseilles, France, elected Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, to replace his brother St. Avitus. Ten years later, he renounced this post and became a hermit of the abbey of Mangleiu.
St. Arnald Janssen, priest (†1909). In his native Germany, he founded the clerical Society of the Divine Word, the Missionary Sisters, Servants of the Holy Spirit, as well as the Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration.
St. Francis Fernández de Capillas, priest and martyr (†1648). Spanish Dominican; he brought the name of Christ to the Philippines and then to Fujian, China, where he was imprisoned and beheaded.
St. John Calybites, ascetic (†fifth century). According to tradition, he abandoned his family home, while still quite young, and went to live in a hut in Constantinople, Turkey, dedicating himself to contemplation and penance.
St. Ida (Ita), virgin (†570). Memorial in Ireland. Foundress of a community of nuns in a monastery in Cluain Credhail, now called Killeedy (meaning “Chuch of St. Ida”), in the county of Limerick.
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