January 12: Daily Readings & Quote

St. Margaret Bourgeoys

Our Lady's love is like a stream that its source in the Eternal Fountains, quenches the thirst of all, can never be drained, and ever flows back to its Source.

-St. Margaret Bourgeoys

Today's readings are:

Genesis 27-28

Mark 4:35-41

1

¹ When Isaac was so old that his eyesight had failed him, he called his older son Esau and said to him, "Son!" "Yes, father!" he replied.

2

Isaac then said, "As you can see, I am so old that I may now die at any time.

3

Take your gear, therefore--your quiver and bow--and go out into the country to hunt some game for me.

4

² With your catch prepare an appetizing dish for me, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my special blessing before I die."

5

Rebekah had been listening while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau. So when Esau went out into the country to hunt some game for his father,

6

Rebekah said to her son Jacob, "Listen! I overheard your father tell your brother Esau,

7

'Bring me some game and with it prepare an appetizing dish for me to eat, that I may give you my blessing with the LORD'S approval before I die.'

8

Now, son, listen carefully to what I tell you.

9

Go to the flock and get me two choice kids. With these I will prepare an appetizing dish for your father, such as he likes.

10

Then bring it to your father to eat, that he may bless you before he dies."

11

"But my brother Esau is a hairy man," said Jacob to his mother Rebekah, "and I am smooth-skinned!

12

Suppose my father feels me? He will think I am making sport of him, and I shall bring on myself a curse instead of a blessing."

13

His mother, however, replied: "Let any curse against you, son, fall on me! Just do as I say. Go and get me the kids."

14

So Jacob went and got them and brought them to his mother; and with them she prepared an appetizing dish, such as his father liked.

15

Rebekah then took the best clothes of her older son Esau that she had in the house, and gave them to her younger son Jacob to wear;

16

and with the skins of the kids she covered up his hands and the hairless parts of his neck.

17

Then she handed her son Jacob the appetizing dish and the bread she had prepared.

18

Bringing them to his father, Jacob said, "Father!" "Yes?" replied Isaac. "Which of my sons are you?"

19

Jacob answered his father: "I am Esau, your first-born. I did as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your special blessing."

20

But Isaac asked, "How did you succeed so quickly, son?" He answered, "The LORD, your God, let things turn out well with me."

21

Isaac then said to Jacob, "Come closer, son, that I may feel you, to learn whether you really are my son Esau or not."

22

So Jacob moved up closer to his father. When Isaac felt him, he said, "Although the voice is Jacob's, the hands are Esau's."

23

(He failed to identify him because his hands were hairy, like those of his brother Esau; so in the end he gave him his blessing.)

24

Again he asked him, "Are you really my son Esau?" "Certainly," he replied.

25

Then Isaac said, "Serve me your game, son, that I may eat of it and then give you my blessing." Jacob served it to him, and Isaac ate; he brought him wine, and he drank.

26

Finally his father Isaac said to him, "Come closer, son, and kiss me."

27

As Jacob went up and kissed him, Isaac smelled the fragrance of his clothes. With that, he blessed him, saying, "Ah, the fragrance of my son is like the fragrance of a field that the LORD has blessed!

28

"May God give to you of the dew of the heavens And of the fertility of the earth abundance of grain and wine.

29

"Let peoples serve you, and nations pay you homage; Be master of your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you."

30

Jacob had scarcely left his father, just after Isaac had finished blessing him, when his brother Esau came back from his hunt.

31

Then he too prepared an appetizing dish with his game, and bringing it to his father, he said, "Please, father, eat some of your son's game, that you may then give me your special blessing."

32

"Who are you?" his father Isaac asked him. "I am Esau," he replied, "your first-born son."

33

With that, Isaac was seized with a fit of uncontrollable trembling. "Who was it, then," he asked, "that hunted game and brought it to me? I finished eating it just before you came, and I blessed him. Now he must remain blessed!"

34

On hearing his father's words, Esau burst into loud, bitter sobbing. "Father, bless me too!" he begged.

35

When Isaac explained, "Your brother came here by a ruse and carried off your blessing,"

36

³ Esau exclaimed, "He has been well named Jacob! He has now supplanted me twice! First he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing." Then he pleaded, "Haven't you saved a blessing for me?"

37

Isaac replied: "I have already appointed him your master, and I have assigned to him all his kinsmen as his slaves; besides, I have enriched him with grain and wine. What then can I do for you, son?"

38

But Esau urged his father, "Have you only that one blessing, father? Bless me too!" Isaac, however, made no reply; and Esau wept aloud.

39

Finally Isaac spoke again and said to him: "Ah, far from the fertile earth shall be your dwelling; far from the dew of the heavens above!

40

"By your sword you shall live, and your brother you shall serve; But when you become restive, you shall throw off his yoke from your neck."

41

Esau bore Jacob a grudge because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, "When the time of mourning for my father comes, I will kill my brother Jacob."

42

When Rebekah got news of what her older son Esau had in mind, she called her younger son Jacob and said to him: "Listen! Your brother Esau intends to settle accounts with you by killing you.

43

Therefore, son, do what I tell you: flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran,

44

and stay with him a while until your brother's fury subsides

45

(until your brother's anger against you subsides) and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back. Must I lose both of you in a single day?"

46

⁴ Rebekah said to Isaac: "I am disgusted with life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob also should marry a Hittite woman, a native of the land, like these women, what good would life be to me?"

1

Isaac therefore called Jacob, greeted him with a blessing, and charged him: "You shall not marry a Canaanite woman!

2

Go now to Paddan-aram, to the home of your mother's father Bethuel, and there choose a wife for yourself from among the daughters of your uncle Laban.

3

May God Almighty bless you and make you fertile, multiply you that you may become an assembly of peoples.

4

May he extend to you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham, so that you may gain possession of the land where you are staying, which he assigned to Abraham."

5

Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way; he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, and brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

6

Esau noted that Isaac had blessed Jacob when he sent him to Paddan-aram to get himself a wife there, charging him, as he gave him his blessing, not to marry a Canaanite woman,

7

and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and gone to Paddan-aram.

8

Esau realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac,

9

so he went to Ishmael, and in addition to the wives he had, married Mahalath, the daughter of Abraham's son Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth.

10

Jacob departed from Beer-sheba and proceeded toward Haran.

11

¹ When he came upon a certain shrine, as the sun had already set, he stopped there for the night. Taking one of the stones at the shrine, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep at that spot.

12

² Then he had a dream: a stairway rested on the ground, with its top reaching to the heavens; and God's messengers were going up and down on it.

13

And there was the LORD standing beside him and saying: "I, the LORD, am the God of your forefather Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you are lying I will give to you and your descendants.

14

These shall be as plentiful as the dust of the earth, and through them you shall spread out east and west, north and south. In you and your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing.

15

Know that I am with you; I will protect you wherever you go, and bring you back to this land. I will never leave you until I have done what I promised you."

16

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he exclaimed, "Truly, the LORD is in this spot, although I did not know it!"

17

³ In solemn wonder he cried out: "How awesome is this shrine! This is nothing else but an abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven!"

18

⁴ Early the next morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head, set it up as a memorial stone, and poured oil on top of it.

19

⁵ He called that site Bethel, whereas the former name of the town had been Luz.

20

Jacob then made this vow: "If God remains with me, to protect me on this journey I am making and to give me enough bread to eat and clothing to wear,

21

and I come back safe to my father's house, the LORD shall be my God.

22

This stone that I have set up as a memorial stone shall be God's abode. Of everything you give me, I will faithfully return a tenth part to you."

 

35

⁸ On that day, as evening drew on, he said to them, "Let us cross to the other side."

36

Leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him.

37

A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up.

38

Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

39

He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Quiet! Be still!" ⁹ The wind ceased and there was great calm.

40

Then he asked them, "Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?"

41

¹⁰ They were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?"