DAY 65: FEB 5

LEV 23-24

Appointed Festivals

23 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ² Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: These are the appointed festivals of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations, my appointed festivals.

The Sabbath, Passover, and Unleavened Bread

³ Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation; you shall do no work: it is a sabbath to the Lord throughout your settlements.

⁴ These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall celebrate at the time appointed for them. ⁵ In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight,^[a] there shall be a passover offering to the Lord, ⁶ and on the fifteenth day of the same month is the festival of unleavened bread to the Lord; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. ⁷ On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. ⁸ For seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire; on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation: you shall not work at your occupations.

The Offering of First Fruits

⁹ The Lord spoke to Moses: ¹⁰ Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. ¹¹ He shall raise the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall raise it. ¹² On the day when you raise the sheaf, you shall offer a lamb a year old, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the Lord.¹³ And the grain offering with it shall be two-tenths of an ephah of choice flour mixed with oil, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the Lord; and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin. ¹⁴ You shall eat no bread or parched grain or fresh ears until that very day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your settlements.

The Festival of Weeks

¹⁵ And from the day after the sabbath, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the elevation offering, you shall count off seven weeks; they shall be complete. ¹⁶ You shall count until the day after the seventh sabbath, fifty days; then you shall present an offering of new grain to the Lord. ¹⁷ You shall bring from your settlements two loaves of bread as an elevation offering, each made of two-tenths of an ephah; they shall be of choice flour, baked with leaven, as first fruits to the Lord. ¹⁸ You shall present with the bread seven lambs a year old without blemish, one young bull, and two rams; they shall be a burnt offering to the Lord, along with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the Lord. ¹⁹ You shall also offer one male goat for a sin offering, and two male lambs a year old as a sacrifice of well-being. ²⁰ The priest shall raise them with the bread of the first fruits as an elevation offering before the Lord, together with the two lambs; they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. ²¹ On that same day you shall make proclamation; you shall hold a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. This is a statute forever in all your settlements throughout your generations.

²² When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien: I am the Lord your God.

The Festival of Trumpets

²³ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ²⁴ Speak to the people of Israel, saying: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of complete rest, a holy convocation commemorated with trumpet blasts. ²⁵ You shall not work at your occupations; and you shall present the Lord’s offering by fire.

The Day of Atonement

²⁶ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ²⁷ Now, the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you: you shall deny yourselves^[b] and present the Lord’s offering by fire; ²⁸ and you shall do no work during that entire day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God.²⁹ For anyone who does not practice self-denial^[c] during that entire day shall be cut off from the people. ³⁰ And anyone who does any work during that entire day, such a one I will destroy from the midst of the people. ³¹ You shall do no work: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your settlements. ³² It shall be to you a sabbath of complete rest, and you shall deny yourselves;^[d] on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening you shall keep your sabbath.

The Festival of Booths

³³ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ³⁴ Speak to the people of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month, and lasting seven days, there shall be the festival of booths^[e] to the Lord. ³⁵ The first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. ³⁶ Seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire; on the eighth day you shall observe a holy convocation and present the Lord’s offerings by fire; it is a solemn assembly; you shall not work at your occupations.

³⁷ These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you shall celebrate as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the Lord offerings by fire—burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day—³⁸ apart from the sabbaths of the Lord, and apart from your gifts, and apart from all your votive offerings, and apart from all your freewill offerings, which you give to the Lord.

³⁹ Now, the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall keep the festival of the Lord, lasting seven days; a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day. ⁴⁰ On the first day you shall take the fruit of majestic^[f] trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. ⁴¹ You shall keep it as a festival to the Lordseven days in the year; you shall keep it in the seventh month as a statute forever throughout your generations. ⁴² You shall live in booths for seven days; all that are citizens in Israel shall live in booths, ⁴³ so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

⁴⁴ Thus Moses declared to the people of Israel the appointed festivals of the Lord.

The Lamp

24 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ² Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. ³ Aaron shall set it up in the tent of meeting, outside the curtain of the covenant,^[g] to burn from evening to morning before the Lord regularly; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. ⁴ He shall set up the lamps on the lampstand of pure gold^[h] before the Lord regularly.

The Bread for the Tabernacle

⁵ You shall take choice flour, and bake twelve loaves of it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. ⁶ You shall place them in two rows, six in a row, on the table of pure gold.^[i] 7 You shall put pure frankincense with each row, to be a token offering for the bread, as an offering by fire to the Lord. ⁸ Every sabbath day Aaron shall set them in order before the Lord regularly as a commitment of the people of Israel, as a covenant forever. ⁹ They shall be for Aaron and his descendants, who shall eat them in a holy place, for they are most holy portions for him from the offerings by fire to the Lord, a perpetual due.

Blasphemy and Its Punishment

¹⁰ A man whose mother was an Israelite and whose father was an Egyptian came out among the people of Israel; and the Israelite woman’s son and a certain Israelite began fighting in the camp. ¹¹ The Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name in a curse. And they brought him to Moses—now his mother’s name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan— ¹² and they put him in custody, until the decision of the Lord should be made clear to them.

¹³ The Lord said to Moses, saying: ¹⁴ Take the blasphemer outside the camp; and let all who were within hearing lay their hands on his head, and let the whole congregation stone him. ¹⁵ And speak to the people of Israel, saying: Anyone who curses God shall bear the sin. ¹⁶ One who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death; the whole congregation shall stone the blasphemer. Aliens as well as citizens, when they blaspheme the Name, shall be put to death. ¹⁷ Anyone who kills a human being shall be put to death. ¹⁸ Anyone who kills an animal shall make restitution for it, life for life. ¹⁹ Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: ²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered. ²¹ One who kills an animal shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death. ²² You shall have one law for the alien and for the citizen: for I am the Lord your God. ²³ Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel; and they took the blasphemer outside the camp, and stoned him to death. The people of Israel did as the Lord had commanded Moses.

PS 67

The Nations Called to Praise God

To the leader: with stringed instruments. A Psalm. A Song.

¹ May God be gracious to us and bless us
    and make his face to shine upon us,Selah
² that your way may be known upon earth,
    your saving power among all nations.
³ Let the peoples praise you, O God;
    let all the peoples praise you.

⁴ Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
    for you judge the peoples with equity
    and guide the nations upon earth.Selah
⁵ Let the peoples praise you, O God;
    let all the peoples praise you.

⁶ The earth has yielded its increase;
    God, our God, has blessed us.
⁷ May God continue to bless us;
    let all the ends of the earth revere him.

ACTS 7:1-30

Stephen’s Speech to the Council

7 Then the high priest asked him, “Are these things so?” ² And Stephen replied:

“Brothers^[a] and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, ³ and said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you.’ ⁴ Then he left the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God had him move from there to this country in which you are now living. ⁵ He did not give him any of it as a heritage, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as his possession and to his descendants after him, even though he had no child. ⁶ And God spoke in these terms, that his descendants would be resident aliens in a country belonging to others, who would enslave them and mistreat them during four hundred years. ⁷ ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’ ⁸ Then he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham^[b] became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹ “The patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him, ¹⁰ and rescued him from all his afflictions, and enabled him to win favor and to show wisdom when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. ¹¹ Now there came a famine throughout Egypt and Canaan, and great suffering, and our ancestors could find no food. ¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there on their first visit. ¹³ On the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. ¹⁴ Then Joseph sent and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five in all; ¹⁵ so Jacob went down to Egypt. He himself died there as well as our ancestors,¹⁶ and their bodies^[c] were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

¹⁷ “But as the time drew near for the fulfillment of the promise that God had made to Abraham, our people in Egypt increased and multiplied ¹⁸ until another king who had not known Joseph ruled over Egypt. ¹⁹ He dealt craftily with our race and forced our ancestors to abandon their infants so that they would die. ²⁰ At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful before God. For three months he was brought up in his father’s house; ²¹ and when he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. ²² So Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds.

²³ “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his relatives, the Israelites.^[d] 24 When he saw one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. ²⁵ He supposed that his kinsfolk would understand that God through him was rescuing them, but they did not understand. ²⁶ The next day he came to some of them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you wrong each other?’ ²⁷ But the man who was wronging his neighbor pushed Moses^[e] aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ ²⁹ When he heard this, Moses fled and became a resident alien in the land of Midian. There he became the father of two sons.

³⁰ “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.

CAT 502-511

Mary's virginal motherhood in God's plan

502 The eyes of faith can discover in the context of the whole of Revelation the mysterious reasons why God in his saving plan wanted his Son to be born of a virgin. These reasons touch both on the person of Christ and his redemptive mission, and on the welcome Mary gave that mission on behalf of all men.

503 Mary's virginity manifests God's absolute initiative in the Incarnation. Jesus has only God as Father. "He was never estranged from the Father because of the human nature which he assumed. . . He is naturally Son of the Father as to his divinity and naturally son of his mother as to his humanity, but properly Son of the Father in both natures."¹⁶¹

504 Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary's womb because he is the New Adam, who inaugurates the new creation: "The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven."¹⁶² From his conception, Christ's humanity is filled with the Holy Spirit, for God "gives him the Spirit without measure."¹⁶³ From "his fullness" as the head of redeemed humanity "we have all received, grace upon grace."¹⁶⁴

505 By his virginal conception, Jesus, the New Adam, ushers in the new birth of children adopted in the Holy Spirit through faith. "How can this be?"¹⁶⁵ Participation in the divine life arises "not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God".¹⁶⁶ The acceptance of this life is virginal because it is entirely the Spirit's gift to man. the spousal character of the human vocation in relation to God¹⁶⁷ is fulfilled perfectly in Mary's virginal motherhood.

506 Mary is a virgin because her virginity is the sign of her faith "unadulterated by any doubt", and of her undivided gift of herself to God's will.¹⁶⁸ It is her faith that enables her to become the mother of the Saviour: "Mary is more blessed because she embraces faith in Christ than because she conceives the flesh of Christ."¹⁶⁹

507 At once virgin and mother, Mary is the symbol and the most perfect realization of the Church: "the Church indeed. . . by receiving the word of God in faith becomes herself a mother. By preaching and Baptism she brings forth sons, who are conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of God, to a new and immortal life. She herself is a virgin, who keeps in its entirety and purity the faith she pledged to her spouse."¹⁷⁰

IN BRIEF

508 From among the descendants of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son. "Full of grace", Mary is "the most excellent fruit of redemption" (SC 103): from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.

509 Mary is truly "Mother of God" since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself.

510 Mary "remained a virgin in conceiving her Son, a virgin in giving birth to him, a virgin in carrying him, a virgin in nursing him at her breast, always a virgin" (St. Augustine, Serm. 186, 1: PL 38, 999): with her whole being she is "the handmaid of the Lord" (⇒ Lk 1:38).

511 The Virgin Mary "co-operated through free faith and obedience in human salvation" (LG 56). She uttered her yes "in the name of all human nature" (St. Thomas Aquinas, S Th III, 30, 1). By her obedience she became the new Eve, mother of the living.