Confession heals, confession justifies, confession grants pardon of sin,

all hope consists in confession; in confession there is a chance for mercy.

                                                                                              St. Isidore, bishop and doctor

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Wisdom of Solomon 2:1a, 12-22

Led by mistaken reasons they think,

"Life is short and sad and there is no cure for death. It was never heard that anyone came back from the netherworld.

Let us set a trap for the righteous, for he annoys us and opposes our way of life;

he reproaches us for our breaches of the law and accuses us of being false to our upbringing.

 

He claims knowledge of God and calls himself son of the Lord.

He has become a reproach to our way of thinking; even to meet him is burdensome to us.

He does not live like others and behaves strangely.

According to him we have low standards, so he keeps aloof from us as if we were unclean.

He emphasizes the happy end of the righteous and boasts of having God as father.

 

Let us see the truth of what he says and find out what his end will be.

If the righteous is a son of God, God will defend him and deliver him from his adversaries.

Let us humble and torture him to prove his self-control and test his patience.

When we have condemned him to a shameful death, we may test his words."

 

This is the way they reason, but they are mistaken, blinded by their malice.

They do not know the mysteries of God nor do they hope for the reward of a holy life;

they do not believe that the blameless will be recompensed.

 

Ps 34:17-18, 19-20, 21 & 23 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.

 

＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊      

John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30

After this, Jesus went around Galilee; he would not go about in Judea,

because the Jews wanted to kill him. Now the Jewish feast of the Tents was at hand.

But after his brothers had gone to the festival, he also went up, not publicly but in secret.

 

Some of the people of Jerusalem said, "Is this not the man they want to kill?

And here he is speaking freely, and they don't say a word to him? Can it be that the rulers know that this is really the Christ?

Yet we know where this man comes from; but when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from."

 

So Jesus announced in a loud voice in the temple court where he was teaching,

"You say that you know me and know where I come from! I have not come of myself;

I was sent by the One who is true, and you don't know him. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me."

They would have arrested him, but no one laid hands on him because his time had not yet come.

 

Gospel Reflection ：

"The 'righteous' person."

The people in the passage from Wisdom are following a hedonistic lifestyle, which could be summed up by the old adage,

"eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die," a saying which draws upon lines in Isaiah and Ecclesiastes.

With no belief in resurrection or an afterlife, attention turns to the now, ignoring consequences, and focusing on pleasure.

The people mentioned in Wisdom feel irritated and threatened by the "righteous" person, who lives a different way,

who acts as a mirror to them, and shows that they are living a superficial life. And so, they ridicule the person of faith,

 

and even attack him. This becomes a prophecy of how they will treat Christ, the Righteous One at the Passion.

However, members of his Body, the Church receive such aggressive or violent rejection even to this day.

Christians are attacked or imprisoned around the world and churches are set on fire. Pray today for persecuted Christians,

men, women and children. And if you receive some ridicule for your devotion today,

unite that small suffering to Christ's for the healing of the world.