Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time (II)

Official Translation

Reading 1 – 1 Samuel 15.16-23

Then Samuel said to Saul,
“Stay, and I will tell you what the Lord
said to me last night.”
He said to him, “Go on.”
Samuel said, “Though little in your own sight,
were you not made the head of the tribes of Israel?
The Lord anointed you king over Israel;
and the Lord sent you on a journey, and said,
‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinning Amalekites,
and fight against them until they are destroyed.’
Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord,
but took the plunder,
and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord?”
Saul said to Samuel,
“But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord,
and have gone the way which the Lord sent me,
and have brought Agag the king of Amalek,
and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
But the people took of the plunder,
sheep and cattle, the chief of the devoted things,
to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight
in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
and stubbornness is as idolatry.
Because you have rejected the Lord’s word,
he has also rejected you as king.”

Responsorial – Psalm 50.8-9, 16bc-17, 21+23 Resp. 23b

R. I will show God’s salvation to the just.

I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices.
Your burnt offerings are continually before me.
I have no need for a bull from your stall,
nor male goats from your pens.

R. I will show God’s salvation to the just.

“What right do you have to declare my statutes,
and to have my covenant on your lips,
since you hate instruction,
and throw my words behind you?

R. I will show God’s salvation to the just.

You have done these things, and I kept silent,
so you thought that I was just like you.
I will rebuke you, and accuse you before your own eyes.
Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me,
and to him who rightly goes his way, I will show God’s salvation .”

R. I will show God’s salvation to the just.

Gospel – Mark 2.18-22

John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting,
and they came and asked him,
“Why do John’s disciples
and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus said to them,
“Can the groomsmen fast
while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them,
they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom
will be taken away from them,
and then will they fast in that day.

No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth
on an old garment, else the patch shrinks
and the new tears away from the old,
and a worse hole is made.
No one puts new wine into old wineskins,
or else the new wine will burst the skins,
and the wine and the skins will be destroyed;
so they put new wine into fresh wineskins.”