St. Agatha, Virgin, Martyr 2020:
FIRST LECTURE OF THE MASS
Hebrews 12:18-19, 21-24
18For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest,19and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers entreat that no further messages be spoken to them.21Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear."22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,23and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,24and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM
Psalms 48:2-4, 9-11
1Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, 2beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King. 3Within her citadels God has shown himself a sure defense. 8As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God, which God establishes for ever. [Selah] 9We have thought on thy steadfast love, O God, in the midst of thy temple. 10As thy name, O God, so thy praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Thy right hand is filled with victory;
GOSPEL OF THE MASS
Mark 6:7-13
7And he called to him the twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff;no bread, no bag, no money in their belts;9but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. 10And he said to them, "Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them." 12So they went out and preached that men should repent. 13And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.
WEDNESDAY FOURTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME 2020:
Ordinary Time.FIRST LECTURE OF THE MASS
2 Sm 24:2, 9-17
King David said to Joab and the leaders of the army who were with him,
Tour all the tribes in Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba
and register the people, that I may know their number.
Joab then reported to the king the number of people registered:
in Israel, eight hundred thousand men fit for military service;
in Judah, five hundred thousand.
Afterward, however, David regretted having numbered the people,
and said to the LORD:
I have sinned grievously in what I have done.
But now, LORD, forgive the guilt of your servant,
for I have been very foolish.
When David rose in the morning,
the LORD had spoken to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying:
"Go and say to David, 'This is what the LORD says:
I offer you three alternatives;
choose one of them, and I will inflict it on you.'"
Gad then went to David to inform him.
He asked: "Do you want a three years' famine to come upon your land,
or to flee from your enemy three months while he pursues you,
or to have a three days' pestilence in your land?
Now consider and decide what I must reply to him who sent me."
David answered Gad: "I am in very serious difficulty.
Let us fall by the hand of God, for he is most merciful;
but let me not fall by the hand of man."
Thus David chose the pestilence.
Now it was the time of the wheat harvest
when the plague broke out among the people.
The LORD then sent a pestilence over Israel
from morning until the time appointed,
and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beer-sheba died.
But when the angel stretched forth his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it,
the LORD regretted the calamity
and said to the angel causing the destruction among the people,
"Enough now! Stay your hand."
The angel of the LORD was then standing
at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
When David saw the angel who was striking the people,
he said to the LORD: "It is I who have sinned;
it is I, the shepherd, who have done wrong.
But these are sheep;what have they done?
Punish me and my kindred."
RESPONSORIAL PSALM
Ps 32:1-2, 5, 6, 7
R. (see 5c) Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
Blessed is he whose fault is taken away,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed the man to whom the LORD imputes not guilt,
in whose spirit there is no guile.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
my guilt I covered not.
I said, "I confess my faults to the LORD,"
and you took away the guilt of my sin.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
For this shall every faithful man pray to you
in time of stress.
Though deep waters overflow,
they shall not reach him.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
You are my shelter;from distress you will preserve me;
with glad cries of freedom you will ring me round.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
GOSPEL OF THE MASS
Mk 6:1-6
Jesus departed from there and came to his native place,
accompanied by his disciples.
When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue,
and many who heard him were astonished.
They said, "Where did this man get all this?
What kind of wisdom has been given him?
What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary,
and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?
And are not his sisters here with us?"
And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them,
"A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and among his own kin and in his own house."
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there,
apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
He was amazed at their lack of faith.