Our Lady of Mount Carmel 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊ 

Exodus 11:10-12:14*

　   （........) Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt and said,

　 “This month is to be the beginning of all months, the first month of your year.  Speak to the community of Israel and say to them: On the tenth day of this month let each family take a lamb, a lamb for each house. 　 If the family is too small for a lamb, they must join with a neighbor, the nearest to the house, according to the number of persons and to what each one can eat.

　 You will select a perfect lamb without blemish, a male born during the present year, taken from the sheep or goats.　 Then you will keep it until the fourteenth day of the month. On that evening all the people will slaughter their lambs 　 and take some of the blood to put on the doorposts and on top of the doorframes of the houses where you eat. 　That night you will eat the flesh roasted at the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

　 Do not eat the meat lightly cooked or boiled in water but roasted entirely over the fire – the head, the legs and the inner parts. 　 Do not leave any of it until the morning. If any is left till morning, burn it in the fire. 　And this is how you will eat: with a belt round your waist, sandals on your feet and a staff in your hand.

You shall eat hastily for it is a passover in honor of Yahweh.  On that night I shall go through Egypt and strike every firstborn in Egypt, men and animals; and I will even bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt, I, Yahweh! 　 The blood on your houses will be the sign that you are there. I will see the blood and pass over you; and you will escape the mortal plague when I strike Egypt.

This is a day you are to remember and celebrate in honor of Yahweh. It is to be kept as a festival day for all gene­rations forever.

 

Ps 116:12-13, 15 & 16bc, 17-18

I will take cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊ 

Matthew 12:1-8

 It happened that Jesus walked through the wheat fields on a Sab­bath. His disciples were hungry, and began to pick some heads of wheat and crush them to eat the grain.  When the Pharisees noticed this, they said to Jesus, “Look at your disciples; they are doing what is prohibited on the Sabbath!”

Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he and his men were hungry?   He went into the house of God, and they ate the bread offered to God, although neither he nor his men had the right to eat it, but only the priests.   And have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath rest, yet they are not guilty?

 I tell you, there is greater than the Temple here.   If you really knew the meaning of the words: It is mercy I want, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent.  Besides the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

 

 Gospel Reflection：

Points of the law has been the main contention between Jesus and the religious authorities during His time. The latter are kin on making others observe the Law. In this way, they have a neat criterion to classify people as righteous or sinner. The problem is, the Law is a burden to ordinary people.

They cannot fulfill it without harm to their daily living. Only the rich and persons of leisure can afford to follow it. Thus, the Law which is supposed to make life worth living by sanctifying human endeavor becomes a yoke and burden to the majority. And this is what Jesus wants the Pharisees to understand.

That they consider the situation of those who cannot fulfill the tenets of the Law because of necessity. It is not sterile legalism that should govern their thoughts and actions but mercy and compassion on which the Law is founded.