RELIGION AND ART

 ' Ask, and it will be given to you' Reading Esther 12, 14-16, 23-25  I am alone, Lord, and have no-one but you Queen Esther, seized with mortal anguish, had recourse to the Lord. She lay prostrate upon the ground, together with her handmaids, from morning until evening, and said:  «God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are you. Help me, who am alone and have no help but you, for I am taking my life in my hand. As a child I used to hear from the books of my forefathers that you, o Lord, always free those who are pleasing to you.  Now help me, who am alone and have no one but you, o Lord, my God. And now, come to help me, an orphan. Put in my mouth persuasive words in the presence of the lion and turn his heart to hatred for our enemy, so that he and those who are in league with him may perish.  Save us from the hand of our enemies; turn our mourning into gladness and our sorrows into wholeness». Responsorial Psalm: Lord, on the day...

''Come, you whom my Father has blessed'' First Reading Leviticus 19:1-2,11-18  Only pass judgement on your neighbour according to justice The Lord spoke to Moses; he said: ‘Speak to the whole community of the sons of Israel and say to them: ‘“Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. ‘“You must not steal nor deal deceitfully or fraudulently with your neighbour. You must not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God. I am the Lord. You must not exploit or rob your neighbour. You must not keep back the labourer’s wage until next morning. You must not curse the dumb, nor put an obstacle in the blind man’s way, but you must fear your God. I am the Lord. ‘“You must not be guilty of unjust verdicts. You must neither be partial to the little man nor overawed by the great; you must pass judgement on your neighbour according to justice. You must not slander your own people, and you must not jeopardise your neighbour’s life. I am the Lord. You must not bear hatr...

1ST SUNDAY OF LENT 'If You are the Son of God' First Reading Genesis 2:7-9,3:1-7  The Creation, and the sin of our first parents The Lord God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. The Lord God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. Now the serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made. It asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’ The woman answered the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.”’ Then the serpent said to ...

‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? Reading Isaiah 58:9b-14   You will be like a spring whose waters never run dry Thus says the Lord: «If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted, then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday. Then the Lord will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land.  He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; ‘Repairer of the breach’, they shall call you, ‘Restorer of ruined homesteads’.  If you hold back your foot on the Sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight, and the Lord's holy day honorable; if you honor it by not following your...

'Your light shall break forth like the dawn'  First Reading Isaiah 58:1-9  The sort of fast that pleases me Thus says the Lord God: «Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God. They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God. ‘Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?’. Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high! Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed and lie in sackcloth and ashes? »Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable t...

Thursday after Ash Wednesday 'Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it' First Reading Deuteronomy 30:15-20  I set before you today life or death, blessing or curse Moses said to the people: ‘See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin on you today, if you love the Lord your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own. But if your heart strays, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn into worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may liv...