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Mass Readings

Liturgical Readings for : Wednesday, 7th January, 2026
Léachtaí Gaeilge
Next Sunday’s Readings

 Wednesday, Jan. 7th  after Epiphany

Miracles strengthen the peoples faith in the God and the One he has sent.

Feast of the Day: Jan 7 ; St Raymond of Penyafort, religious priest
C/f short history of today’s saints can be found below today’s Readings and Reflection

FIRST READING              

A reading from the first letter of St John       4:11-18
As long as we love one another God will live in us.

My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another.
No one has ever seen God; but as long as we love one another God will live in us and his love will be complete in us.

We can know that we are living in him and he is living in us because he lets us share his Spirit.
We ourselves saw and we testify that the Father sent his Son as saviour of the world.

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God. We ourselves have known and put our faith in God’s love towards ourselves.
God is love. and anyone who lives in love lives in God,
and God lives in him.
Love. will come to its perfection in us when we can face the day of Judgement without fear; because even in this world we have become as he is.
In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love:
because to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love.

The Word of the Lord              Thanks be to God

Responsorial Psalm            Ps 71:1-2.
Response                                All nations shall fall prostrate before you, 0 Lord.

1. O God, give your judgement to the king, to a king’s son your justice,
that he may judge your people injustice. and your poor in right judgement.                                                                                                       Response                

2. The kings of Tarshish and the sea coasts shall pay him tribute.
The kings of Sheba and Seba shall bring him gifts.
Before him all kings shall fall prostrate, all nations shall serve him.                                                                                                               Response                

3. For he shall save the. poor when they cry and the needy who are helpless.
He will have pity on the weak and save the lives of the poor.                                    Response                

Gospel Acclamation             Lk 4:18
Alleluia, alleluia!
The Lord has sent me to bring the good news to the poor,
to proclaim liberty to captives.
Alleluia!

Or                                               cf. 1 Tim 3:16
Alleluia, alleluia!
Glory be to you, O Christ, proclaimed to the pagans;
glory be to you, O Christ, believed in by the world.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL       

The Lord be with you              And with your spirit.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark        6:45.52      Glory to you, O Lord
They saw him walking on the lake.

After the five thousand had eaten and were filled, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to Bethsaida, while he himself sent the crowd away. After saying good-bye to them he went off into the hills to pray.

When evening came, the boat was far out on the lake, and he was alone on the land. He could see they were worn out with rowing, for the wind was against them; and about the fourth watch of the night he came towards them walking on the lake. He was going to pass them by, but when they saw him walking on the lake they thought it was a ghost and cried out, for they had all seen him and were terrified.

But he at once spoke to them, and said, ‘Courage!      It is I!        Do not be afraid.’
Then he got into the boat with them, and the wind dropped. They were utterly and completely dumbfounded, because they had not seen what the miracle of the loaves meant; their minds were closed.

The Gospel of the Lord                Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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Gospel Reflection        7 January after Epiphany,                            Mark 6:45–52

Today’s first reading and gospel reading are linked by a reference to fear. The first reading declares that ‘in love there can be no fear’. We do not fear someone whom we know loves us fully and unreservedly. Earlier in that reading, the author had made one of the simplest and yet most profound statements about God ever made, ‘God is love’. If God is unconditional love, there is no room for fear in our relationship with God. Rather, the response to God’s love for us is to love God in return, and we express our love for God by loving those whom God loves and in the way God loves them. As the author says, ‘since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another’. If we loved one another in the way God loves us, there would be no room for fear in the way we relate to one another.

In the gospel reading, Jesus approaches the boat of his disciples as they struggle with a strong wind, and when the disciples see him they were terrified. Jesus immediately confronts their fear, ‘Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid’. If God is love and Jesus is the face of God, God in human form, then there is no need for his disciples to be afraid of him, as if they might be afraid of ghosts. There is nothing sinister about the Lord’s coming over the waters. He comes in love to help and support them. The Lord comes to us in the same way.

He comes in love to steady our ship, to calm and direct us. There is no place for fear in our relationship with him. As we welcome his coming in love, as we receive him into the boat of our lives, he calls on us to relate to each other as he relates to us, in the same loving way that leaves no place for fear. Just as no one should ever fear the Lord, no one should ever fear any of us, because in the words of the first reading, ‘fear is driven out by perfect love’.
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The scripture readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd and used with the permission of the publishers.  http://dltbooks.com/
The Gospel reflection comes with thanks from Reflections on the Weekday Readings :  You have the Words of Eternal life: by Martin Hogan and published by Messenger Publications  c/f www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

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Feast of the Day: Jan 7 ; St Raymond of Penyafort, religious, priest, missionary, codifier

St Raymond of Penafort, Priest, Religious. Born about 1175 near Barcelona (Spain), a brilliant lawyer and at the age of 47  became a canon of the cathedral and joined the Dominican Order, eventually being elected their master general. Noted for his knowledge of canon law, especially in its application to the sacrament of penance, and for his scholarly apostolate to Jews and Muslims. Raymond died there in extreme old age on 6 January 1275. He is the patron saint of canon lawyers.

Patrick Duffy outlines his life.

Early Life
Raymond was born in Peñafort in Catalonia and was related to the Counts of Barcelona and the kings of Aragon. He was a brilliant student and was already teaching philosophy at Barcelona by the time he was twenty.

From 1210 he studied canon and civil law in Bologna. In 1219 he returned to become the archdeacon and vicar of the archdiocese of Barcelona.

Joined the Dominicans

In 1222 Raymond joined the Dominican friars, having come to know the founder Dominic Guzman in the months previous to the latter’s death. The Dominicans asked him to put together a collection of cases of conscience for the instruction of confessors and moralists, a Summa casuum conscientiae, which became an authoritative work. He also exercised an apostolate of preaching, instructing and hearing confessions, becoming confessor to King James of Aragon. Through the advice given at the declaration of the nullity of James’s first marriage, he became known to the papal legate who encouraged him to preach a holy war against the Moors and in this he was quite successful.

To Rome

Pope Gregory IX (1227-41) had come to hear of Raymond and called him to Rome in 1230, appointing him papal penitentiary and his personal confessor. Gregory had Raymond edit a collection of conciliar and papal decrees which the Pope published (1234) as the Decretals and were the forerunner of the Code of Canon Law. Raymond still gave much of his time generously to the poor.

Later Life
Named  by the pope in 1235 to the archbishopric of Tarragon, Raymond declined the appointment. He returned to Spain in 1236. Two years later he was elected as the third master general of the Dominicans, succeeding Jordan of Saxony quite suddenly as the latter died by shipwreck on returning from the Holy Land. However, after two years, Raymond resigned as master general. He then spent the latter years of his life as a director of souls and confessor, but his main aim at this time was to promote the evangelisation of Muslims and Jews. To secure this, he developed higher schools for the study and teaching of Arabic and Hebrew and encouraged his Italian confrère Thomas Aquinas in writing his Summa contra Gentiles (1261-64).

Death and Influence
Raymond died in 1275 and was buried in the cathedral of Barcelona.
He was canonised by Clement VIII in 1601 and is the patron saint of canon lawyers.

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Memorable Saying of  the Day

Set your sights on the Cross of Christ. St Paul says
It is the one alone in which we must make our boast

  ~ St Raymund of Penafort ~

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