Saturday, December 28, 2013. 

Today's Liturgical Reading by Daily Flash, Goa. 

Feast of Holy Innocents.

First Reading : 1 John 1:5 - 2:2; Second Reading : Psalm 123[124]:2-5, 7-8; Gospel : Matthew 2:13-18. [Please share today's Gospel.]

First Reading : 1 John 1:5 - 2:2 

God Is Light

5 Now the message that we have heard from his Son and announce is this: God is light, and there is no darkness at all in him. 6 If, then, we say that we have fellowship with him, yet at the same time live in the darkness, we are lying both in our words and in our actions. 7 But if we live in the light—just as he is in the light—then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. 9 But if we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do what is right: he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make a liar out of God, and his word is not in us.

Christ Our Helper

2 I am writing this to you, my children, so that you will not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have someone who pleads with the Father on our behalf—Jesus Christ, the righteous one.2 And Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven, and not our sins only, but also the sins of everyone.

Psalm 124:2-5, 7-8

2 “If the Lord had not been on our side
    when our enemies attacked us,
3 then they would have swallowed us alive
    in their furious anger against us;
4 then the flood would have carried us away,
    the water would have covered us,
5     the raging torrent would have drowned us.”

7 We have escaped like a bird from a hunter's trap;
    the trap is broken, and we are free!
8 Our help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.


Second Reading : Also read Psalm 123 


Gospel : Matthew 2:13-18

The Escape to Egypt

13 After they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, “Herod will be looking for the child in order to kill him. So get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you to leave.” 14 Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and left during the night for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until Herod died. This was done to make come true what the Lord had said through the prophet, “I called my Son out of Egypt.”

The Killing of the Children

16 When Herod realized that the visitors from the East had tricked him, he was furious. He gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its neighborhood who were two years old and younger—this was done in accordance with what he had learned from the visitors about the time when the star had appeared.

17 In this way what the prophet Jeremiah had said came true:

18 

“A sound is heard in Ramah,

    the sound of bitter weeping.

Rachel is crying for her children;

    she refuses to be comforted,

    for they are dead.”

Focus: "....purify us from all our wrongdoing" (1 John 1:9)

Fruit: Today let me ask the Holy Spirit to convict me and cleanse me from all unrighteousness.