＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊  

Jeremiah 11:18-20

 Yahweh made it known to me

And so I know! And you let me see their scheming: “Take care, even your kinsfolk and your own family are false with you and behind your back they freely criticize you. Do not trust them when they approach you in a friendly way.”

 But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me that they were plotting, “Let us feed him with trials and remove him from the land of the living and let his name never be mentioned again.”

 Yahweh, God of hosts, you who judge with justice and know everyone’s heart and intentions, let me see your vengeance on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause.

 

Ps 7:2-3, 9bc-10, 11-12

O Lord, my God in you I take refuge.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊  

John 7:40-53

Many who had been listening to these words began to say, "This is the Prophet." Others said, "This is the Christ." But some wondered, "Would the Christ come from Galilee? Doesn't Scripture say that the Christ is a descendant of David and from Bethlehem, the city of David?" The crowd was divided over him. Some wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

 The officers of the temple went back to the chief priests, who asked them, "Why didn't you bring him?" The officers answered, "No one ever spoke like this man." The Pharisees then said, "So you, too, have been led astray! Have any of the rulers or any of the Pharisees believed in him? Only these cursed people, who have no knowledge of the law!"

Yet one of them, Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier, spoke out, "Does our law condemn people without first hearing them and knowing the facts?" They replied, "Do you, too, come from Galilee? Look it up and see for yourself that no prophet is to come from Galilee." And they all went home.

 

 Gospel Reflection：

Missing the Messiah

 Between a Master and a disciple, a book can be an obstacle. When Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, an ordinary farmer in an obscure Austrian village refused to take oath of allegiance to Hitler or serve in his army during World War II, he was arrested, tried, and condemned to death for sedition.

A few days before he was guillotined, the prison chaplain visited him and offered the New Testament to him. But Franz politely refused the Bible saying, "I am completely bound in inner union with the Lord, and any reading would only interrupt my communication with my God."

The Temple officials of Jesus' time missed the Messiah because they had their heads buried in the Scriptures and knew them too well to recognize the Messiah when he walked among them in person.

"The recollection of an injury is ....

a rusty arrow and poison for the soul."

~~~ ST. FRANCIS OF PAOLA ~~~