Today's Mass Readings

²The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes. ¹⁰The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep silence. They have cast up dust on their heads. They have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. ¹¹My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city. ¹²They ask their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” when they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul is poured out into their mothers’ bosom. ¹³What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is as big as the sea. Who can heal you? ¹⁴Your prophets have seen false and foolish visions for you. They have not uncovered your iniquity, to reverse your captivity, but have seen for you false revelations and causes of banishment. ¹⁸Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief. Don’t let the your eyes rest. ¹⁹Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.

¹God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture? ²Remember your congregation, which you purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your inheritance; Mount Zion, in which you have lived. ³Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins, all the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary. ⁴Your adversaries have roared in the middle of your assembly. They have set up their standards as signs. ⁵They behaved like men wielding axes, cutting through a thicket of trees. ⁵They behaved like men wielding axes, cutting through a thicket of trees. ⁶Now they break all its carved work down with hatchet and hammers. ⁷They have burned your sanctuary to the ground. They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name. ²⁰Honor your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth. ²¹Don’t let the oppressed return ashamed. Let the poor and needy praise your name.

⁵When he came into Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking him, ⁶and saying, “Lord, my servant lies in the house paralyzed, grievously tormented.” ⁷Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” ⁸The centurion answered, “Lord, I’m not worthy for you to come under my roof. Just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹For I am also a man under authority, having under myself soldiers. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and tell another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and tell my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” ¹⁰When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to those who followed, “Most certainly I tell you, I haven’t found so great a faith, not even in Israel. ¹¹I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, ¹²but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” ¹³Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way. Let it be done for you as you have believed.” His servant was healed in that hour. ¹⁴When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. ¹⁵He touched her hand, and the fever left her. She got up and served him. ¹⁶When evening came, they brought to him many possessed with demons. He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick; ¹⁷that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, “He took our infirmities, and bore our diseases.”