DAY 74: FEB 14

NUM 12-13

Aaron and Miriam Jealous of Moses

12 While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had indeed married a Cushite woman); ² and they said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the Lord heard it. ³ Now the man Moses was very humble,^[a] more so than anyone else on the face of the earth. ⁴ Suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” So the three of them came out. ⁵ Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. ⁶ And he said, “Hear my words:

When there are prophets among you,
    I the Lord make myself known to them in visions;
    I speak to them in dreams.
⁷ Not so with my servant Moses;
    he is entrusted with all my house.
⁸ With him I speak face to face— clearly, not in riddles;
    and he beholds the form of the Lord.

Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” ⁹ And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed.

¹⁰ When the cloud went away from over the tent, Miriam had become leprous,^[b] as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam and saw that she was leprous. ¹¹ Then Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us^[c] for a sin that we have so foolishly committed. ¹² Do not let her be like one stillborn, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its mother’s womb.” ¹³ And Moses cried to the Lord, “O God, please heal her.” ¹⁴ But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.” ¹⁵ So Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days; and the people did not set out on the march until Miriam had been brought in again. ¹⁶ After that the people set out from Hazeroth, and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

Spies Sent into Canaan

13 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites; from each of their ancestral tribes you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.” ³ So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them leading men among the Israelites. ⁴ These were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur; ⁵ from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; ⁶ from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; ⁷ from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph; ⁸ from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun; ⁹ from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu; ¹⁰ from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi;¹¹ from the tribe of Joseph (that is, from the tribe of Manasseh), Gaddi son of Susi; ¹² from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli; ¹³ from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael; ¹⁴ from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi;¹⁵ from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi. ¹⁶ These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses changed the name of Hoshea son of Nun to Joshua.

¹⁷ Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up there into the Negeb, and go up into the hill country, ¹⁸ and see what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, ¹⁹ and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the towns that they live in are unwalled or fortified, ²⁰ and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be bold, and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now it was the season of the first ripe grapes.

²¹ So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. ²² They went up into the Negeb, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the Anakites, were there. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) ²³ And they came to the Wadi Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them. They also brought some pomegranates and figs. ²⁴ That place was called the Wadi Eshcol,^[d] because of the cluster that the Israelites cut down from there.

The Report of the Spies

²⁵ At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. ²⁶ And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷ And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. ²⁸ Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. ²⁹ The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea, and along the Jordan.”

³⁰ But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” ³¹ Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we.” ³² So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. ³³ There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

PS 76

Israel’s God—Judge of All the Earth

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

¹ In Judah God is known,
    his name is great in Israel.
² His abode has been established in Salem,
    his dwelling place in Zion.
³ There he broke the flashing arrows,
    the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war.Selah

⁴ Glorious are you, more majestic
    than the everlasting mountains.^[a]
5 The stouthearted were stripped of their spoil;
    they sank into sleep;
none of the troops
    was able to lift a hand.
⁶ At your rebuke, O God of Jacob,
    both rider and horse lay stunned.

⁷ But you indeed are awesome!
    Who can stand before you
    when once your anger is roused?
⁸ From the heavens you uttered judgment;
    the earth feared and was still
⁹ when God rose up to establish judgment,
    to save all the oppressed of the earth.Selah

¹⁰ Human wrath serves only to praise you,
    when you bind the last bit of your^[b] wrath around you.
¹¹ Make vows to the Lord your God, and perform them;
    let all who are around him bring gifts
    to the one who is awesome,
¹² who cuts off the spirit of princes,
    who inspires fear in the kings of the earth.

ACTS 12

James Killed and Peter Imprisoned

12 About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. ² He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. ³ After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (This was during the festival of Unleavened Bread.) ⁴ When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. ⁵ While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him.

Peter Delivered from Prison

⁶ The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. ⁷ Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists. ⁸ The angel said to him, “Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.” He did so. Then he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” ⁹ Peter^[a] went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. ¹⁰ After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the angel left him. ¹¹ Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”

¹² As soon as he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying. ¹³ When he knocked at the outer gate, a maid named Rhoda came to answer.¹⁴ On recognizing Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the gate, she ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the gate. ¹⁵ They said to her, “You are out of your mind!” But she insisted that it was so. They said, “It is his angel.” ¹⁶ Meanwhile Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the gate, they saw him and were amazed. ¹⁷ He motioned to them with his hand to be silent, and described for them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he added, “Tell this to James and to the believers.”^[b] Then he left and went to another place.

¹⁸ When morning came, there was no small commotion among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. ¹⁹ When Herod had searched for him and could not find him, he examined the guards and ordered them to be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.

The Death of Herod

²⁰ Now Herod^[c] was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. So they came to him in a body; and after winning over Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for a reconciliation, because their country depended on the king’s country for food. ²¹ On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat on the platform, and delivered a public address to them. ²² The people kept shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a mortal!” ²³ And immediately, because he had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

²⁴ But the word of God continued to advance and gain adherents. ²⁵ Then after completing their mission Barnabas and Saul returned to^[d] Jerusalem and brought with them John, whose other name was Mark.

CAT 557-560

Jesus' ascent to Jerusalem

557 "When the days drew near for him to be taken up [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem."³⁰⁴ By this decision he indicated that he was going up to Jerusalem prepared to die there. Three times he had announced his Passion and Resurrection; now, heading toward Jerusalem, Jesus says: "It cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem."³⁰⁵

558 Jesus recalls the martyrdom of the prophets who had been put to death in Jerusalem. Nevertheless he persists in calling Jerusalem to gather around him: "How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!"³⁰⁶ When Jerusalem comes into view he weeps over her and expresses once again his heart's desire: "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes."³⁰⁷

Jesus' messianic entrance into Jerusalem

559 How will Jerusalem welcome her Messiah? Although Jesus had always refused popular attempts to make him king, he chooses the time and prepares the details for his messianic entry into the city of "his father David".³⁰⁸ Acclaimed as son of David, as the one who brings salvation (Hosanna means "Save!" or "Give salvation!"), the "King of glory" enters his City "riding on an ass".³⁰⁹ Jesus conquers the Daughter of Zion, a figure of his Church, neither by ruse nor by violence, but by the humility that bears witness to the truth.³¹⁰ and so the subjects of his kingdom on that day are children and God's poor, who acclaim him as had the angels when they announced him to the shepherds.³¹¹ Their acclamation, "Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord",³¹² is taken up by the Church in the Sanctus of the Eucharistic liturgy that introduces the memorial of the Lord's Passover.

560 Jesus' entry into Jerusalem manifested the coming of the kingdom that the King-Messiah was going to accomplish by the Passover of his Death and Resurrection. It is with the celebration of that entry on Palm Sunday that the Church's liturgy solemnly opens Holy Week.