Saturday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria, priest (+1539). Founder of the Congregation of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul, later the Barnabites, in Cremona, Italy, with the objective of reforming the customs of the clerics and of the faithful.
Mass Readings
First Reading – Gn 27:1-5, 15-29
When Isaac was so old that his eyesight had failed him, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “Son!” “Yes, father!” he replied. Isaac then said, “As you can see, I am so old that I may now die at any time. Take your gear, therefore–your quiver and bow–and go out into the country to hunt some game for me. With your catch prepare an appetizing dish for me, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my special blessing before I die.” Rebekah had been listening while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau. So, when Esau went out into the country to hunt some game for his father, Rebekah [then] took the best clothes of her older son Esau that she had in the house, and gave them to her younger son Jacob to wear; and with the skins of the kids she covered up his hands and the hairless parts of his neck. Then she handed her son Jacob the appetizing dish and the bread she had prepared. Bringing them to his father, Jacob said, “Father!” “Yes?” replied Isaac. “Which of my sons are you?” Jacob answered his father: “I am Esau, your first-born. I did as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your special blessing.” But Isaac asked, “How did you succeed so quickly, son?” He answered, “The LORD, your God, let things turn out well with me.” Isaac then said to Jacob, “Come closer, son, that I may feel you, to learn whether you really are my son Esau or not.” So Jacob moved up closer to his father. When Isaac felt him, he said, “Although the voice is Jacob’s, the hands are Esau’s.” (He failed to identify him because his hands were hairy, like those of his brother Esau; so in the end, he gave him his blessing.) Again he asked Jacob, “Are you really my son Esau?” “Certainly,” Jacob replied. Then Isaac said, “Serve me your game, son, that I may eat of it and then give you my blessing.” Jacob served it to him, and Isaac ate; he brought him wine, and he drank. Finally, his father Isaac said to Jacob, “Come closer, son, and kiss me.” As Jacob went up and kissed him, Isaac smelled the fragrance of his clothes. With that, he blessed him saying, “Ah, the fragrance of my son is like the fragrance of a field that the LORD has blessed! “May God give to you of the dew of the heavens; And of the fertility of the earth abundance of grain and wine. “Let peoples serve you, and nations pay you homage; Be master of your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you.”
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 135:1B-2, 3-4, 5-6 (R. 3a)
R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!
or: R. Alleluia.
Praise the name of the LORD;
Praise, you servants of the LORD
Who stand in the house of the LORD,
in the courts of the house of our God. R.
Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good;
sing praise to his name, which we love;
For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself,
Israel for his own possession. R.
For I know that the LORD is great;
our LORD is greater than all gods.
All that the LORD wills he does
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and in all the deeps.R.
Gospel – Mt 9:14-17
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Featured Saints
St. Athanasius of Jerusalem, martyr (†451). Deacon killed by a heretic monk for spreading the doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon against Monophysitism.
St. Athanasius the Athonite, monk (†c. 1004). Instituted a small monastery on Mount Athos, Greece, initiating cenobitic life there.
St. Cyrilla, martyr (†fourth century). Widow killed for her faith during the Diocletian persecution in Cyrene, Libya. After sustaining red-hot coals with incense in her hands at length, rather than throw them to the ground and thus seem to offer incense to the gods, she was cruelly scourged with hooks.
Sts. Teresa Chen Jinxie and Rosa Chen Aixie, virgins and martyrs (†1900). They died in defence of their virginity during the Boxer Rebellion persecution in China.
St. Martha, laywoman (†551). Mother of St. Simon Stylite, whom she educated in the Faith.
Blessed George Nichols and Richard Yaxley, priests, and Thomas Belson, and Humphrey Pritchard, laymen, martyrs (†1589). Martyred in Oxford, England, during the anti-Catholic persecutions of Elizabeth I.
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