Be Made Clean

JUNE 30, 2023 FRIDAY

Friday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time (Green)

CYCLE A - YEAR I

Lectionary: 375

Reading I

Gn 17:1, 9-10, 15-22

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him

and said: “I am God the Almighty.

Walk in my presence and be blameless.”

God also said to Abraham:

“On your part, you and your descendants after you

must keep my covenant throughout the ages.

This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you

that you must keep:

every male among you shall be circumcised.”

God further said to Abraham:

“As for your wife Sarai, do not call her Sarai;

her name shall be Sarah.

I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her.

Him also will I bless; he shall give rise to nations,

and rulers of peoples shall issue from him.”

Abraham prostrated himself and laughed as he said to himself,

“Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?

Or can Sarah give birth at ninety?”

Then Abraham said to God,

“Let but Ishmael live on by your favor!”

God replied: “Nevertheless, your wife Sarah is to bear you a son,

and you shall call him Isaac.

I will maintain my covenant with him as an everlasting pact,

to be his God and the God of his descendants after him.

As for Ishmael, I am heeding you: I hereby bless him.

I will make him fertile and will multiply him exceedingly.

He shall become the father of twelve chieftains,

and I will make of him a great nation.

But my covenant I will maintain with Isaac,

whom Sarah shall bear to you by this time next year.”

When he had finished speaking with him, God departed from Abraham.

Responsorial Psalm

128:1-2, 3, 4-5

R. (4) See how the Lord blesses those who fear him.

Blessed are you who fear the LORD,

who walk in his ways!

For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;

blessed shall you be, and favored.

R. See how the Lord blesses those who fear him.

Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine

in the recesses of your home;

Your children like olive plants

around your table.

R. See how the Lord blesses those who fear him.

Behold, thus is the man blessed

who fears the LORD.

The LORD bless you from Zion:

may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem

all the days of your life.

R. See how the Lord blesses those who fear him.

Alleluia

Mt 8:17

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Christ took away our infirmities

and bore our diseases.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Mt 8:1-4

When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him.

And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said,

“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”

He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,

“I will do it. Be made clean.”

His leprosy was cleansed immediately.

Then Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one,

but go show yourself to the priest,

and offer the gift that Moses prescribed;

that will be proof for them.”

GOSPEL REFLECTION:

Much of the life and work of Jesus was spent with the ill and the disabled, and often with people like this leper who nobody wanted. In the mind and heart of Jesus, nobody is unwanted. Throughout our lives, Jesus wants us with him, offering us the gift of love and calling, asking only love and the effort to love in return. ‘How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me?' is a psalm we might pray as we grow in awareness of all that Jesus does for his people.

PRAYER:

Inspired by the man who suffered with leprosy, I begin my prayer not with my demanding a request, but with the phrase. ‘Lord, if you choose to, you can...’