Today’s readings
Mass for the school children.
The readings for daily Mass usually follow in a series. So we read from a certain book of the Bible for a while, and then we move on to another one for a while. So for the last couple of weeks, we have been listening to the story of the rise and fall of good King David, mostly from the books of Samuel. Today’s is kind of a poetic summary from the book of Sirach, the wisdom writer. Yesterday, in our first reading, we heard the story of his peaceful death and the transfer of the kingship to his son, Solomon. Today, tells us about David in more poetic, and somewhat apologetic and glowing terms. From it, we can see that, when David was at his best, he gave praise to God.
In our Gospel today, we hear about the end of Saint John the Baptist’s life. Herod’s wife, Herodias, held a grudge against John because he opposed their marriage. So she schemed to end his life. Saint John the Baptist was one who lived his entire life pointing the way to the Lord. With every fiber of his being, and until his last breath, he gave praise to God.
So both King David and Saint John the Baptist did their best to give praise to God until their dying breath. This is the role of disciples, which includes you and me. We should always give praise to God and point others to him. At our best, we should be an Assembly of holy people, helping all the world to find our God. Whatever we do, and wherever we are, people should see Jesus in us. In fact, we might be the only Jesus someone sees. Let’s never get in the way of that.
In the quiet times of Mass, spend some time thinking about how you might be Jesus to the people around you today, and ask God to give you the grace to do it.