First reading
Hebrews 10:1-10
Christ’s self-offering sanctifies us
Since the Law has no more than a reflection of these realities, and no finished picture of them, it is quite incapable of bringing the worshippers to perfection, with the same sacrifices repeatedly offered year after year. Otherwise, the offering of them would have stopped, because the worshippers, when they had been purified once, would have no awareness of sins. Instead of that, the sins are recalled year after year in the sacrifices. Bulls’ blood and goats’ blood are useless for taking away sins, and this is what he said, on coming into the world:
You who wanted no sacrifice or oblation,
prepared a body for me.
You took no pleasure in holocausts or sacrifices for sin;
then I said,
just as I was commanded in the scroll of the book,
‘God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’
Notice that he says first: You did not want what the Law lays down as the things to be offered, that is: the sacrifices, the oblations, the holocausts and the sacrifices for sin, and you took no pleasure in them; and then he says: Here I am! I am coming to obey your will. He is abolishing the first sort to replace it with the second. And this will was for us to be made holy by the offering of his body made once and for all by Jesus Christ.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 39(40):2,4,7-8,10,11
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R. (8a and 9a) Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
2 With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and he was attentive to me.
4ab And he put a new canticle into my mouth, a song to our God.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
7 Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire; but thou hast pierced ears for me. Burnt offering and sin offering thou didst not require:
8a Then said I, Behold I come.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
10 I have declared thy justice in a great church, lo, I will not restrain my lips: O Lord, thou knowest it.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
11 I have not hid thy justice within my heart: I have declared thy truth and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy mercy and thy truth from a great council.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
Gospel Acclamation Ps118:135
Alleluia, alleluia!
Let your face shine on your servant,
and teach me your decrees.
Alleluia!
Gospel
Mark 3:31-35
Who are my mother and my brothers? Those that do the will of God
The mother and brothers of Jesus arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him. A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, ‘Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.’ He replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking round at those sitting in a circle about him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.’
