The Good Word

Shout for joy Sing joyfully Be glad and exult with all your heart On that day it shall be said Fear not be not discouraged The Lord your God is in your midst A mighty savior He will sing joyfully because of you And renew you in His love Zephaniah 3 14-18

O God only you are the one I reverence and adore I have no other God For you my soul is thirsting My body pines for you like a dry weary land without water I look to see your face for your love for me is better than life My soul clings to you Your hands surely hold me fast

Purple was the color of the wealthy and of the highest nobility and royalty This purple garment put on Jesus together with the crown woven for the occasion from thorn branches witness to the fact that Rome has accepted kingship as the crime Jesus has made a crime worthy of death As one

Shout for joy Sing joyfully Be glad and exult with all your heart On that day it shall be said Fear not be not discouraged The Lord your God is in your midst A mighty savior He will sing joyfully because of you And renew you in His love

Like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijah You Elijah it is written are destined in the time to come to put an end to wrath before the judgment day of the Lord to turn back the heart of each person to every other person Blessed is he who shall have seen you Elijah before he dies

Thus says the Lord your Redeemer the Holy One I the Lord your God teach you what is for your own good and lead you on the way you should go If only you would pay attention to my commandments

Jesus has blasphemed according to the Sanhedrin thus he is destined for death He is guilty of no capital crime so as to move the Romans to kill him but the charge that merits that penalty will soon come But first Mark as a good writer brings to completion what he had begun at the Last Supp

I am the Lord your God Who grasp your right hand It is I who say to you Fear not I will help you The afflicted and needy seek water in vain their tongues are parched with thirst I the Lord will answer them I their God will not forsake them

The Lord is the eternal God Creator of the ends of the earth He does not faint nor grow weary and His knowledge is beyond our full grasp He gives strength to the fainting He makes the weak vigorous They who hope in the Lord will renew their strength they will soar as with eagles wings the

All the readings anticipate something present but not tangibly so–even something powerfully active though not sensed in the ordinary ways The Isaiah voice Mary in the canticle response Paul in the second reading and John the Baptist in the Gospel all address hearers their original partners and