Friday of the First week in Ordinary Time, Feast of St. Anthony of Egypt – Year I

Send us Fan MailFriday, 17 January 2025Friday of the First week in Ordinary Time – Year ISt Anthony of Egypt, Abbot, Memorial Antiphons on page 1543 and readings on page 718 of the Daily MissalFirst Reading: Hebrews 4:1-5, 11Brothers and sisters: While the promise of entering his rest remains,  let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it.  For good news came to us just as to them;  but the message which they heard did not benefit them,  because it did not meet with faith in the hearers.  For we who have believed enter that rest,  as he has said,  “As I swore in my wrath,  ‘They shall never enter my rest,’”  although his works were finished  from the foundation of the world.  For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way,  “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”  And again in this place, he said,  “They shall never enter my rest.” Let us, therefore, strive to enter that rest,  that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience. Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 78:3 & 4bc, 6c-7, 8 (R. see 7b)R/. Never forget the deeds of the Lord!The things we have heard and understood, the things our fathers have told us, but will tell them to the next generation: the glories of the Lord and his might,They should arise and declare it to their children, that they should set their hope in God, and never forget God’s deeds, but keep every one of his commands.So that they might not be like their fathers, a defiant and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was fickle, whose spirit was not faithful to God.R/. Never forget the deeds of the Lord!Gospel: Mark 2:1-12When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days,  it was reported that he was at home.  And many were gathered together,  so that there was no longer room for them,  not even about the door;  and he was preaching the word to them.  And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.  And when they could not get near him because of the crowd,  they removed the roof above him;  and when they had made an opening,  they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay.  And when Jesus saw their faith,  he said to the paralytic,  “Child, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there,  questioning in their hearts,  “Why does this man speak like this?  It is blasphemy!  Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus,  perceiving in his spirit  that they thus questioned within themselves,  said to them,  “Why do you question thus in your hearts?  Which is easier,  to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’  or to say, ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk’?  But that you may know  that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins”— he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.” And he rose, and immediately took up the pallet  and went out before them all;  so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying,  “We never saw anything like this!”The Gospel of the Lord.