January 6: Daily Readings & Quotes

St. Fafaela Maria Porras

Have a good appetite. God does not want His spouses to look as though He fed them on lizards. 

- St. Fafaela Maria Porras

Today's readings are:

Genesis Chapters 11-12

Mark 2:13-17

1

¹ The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words.

2

² While men were migrating in the east, they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.

3

They said to one another, "Come, let us mold bricks and harden them with fire." They used bricks for stone, and bitumen for mortar.

4

³ Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth."

5

LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men had built.

6

Then the LORD said: "If now, while they are one people, all speaking the same language, they have started to do this, nothing will later stop them from doing whatever they presume to do.

7

Let us then go down and there confuse their language, so that one will not understand what another says."

8

Thus the LORD scattered them from there all over the earth, and they stopped building the city.

9

⁴ That is why it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the speech of all the world. It was from that place that he scattered them all over the earth.

10

⁵ This is the record of the descendants of Shem. When Shem was one hundred years old, he became the father of Arpachshad, two years after the flood.

11

Shem lived five hundred years after the birth of Arpachshad, and he had other sons and daughters.

12

⁶ When Arpachshad was thirty-five years old, he became the father of Shelah.

13

Arpachshad lived four hundred and three years after the birth of Shelah, and he had other sons and daughters.

14

When Shelah was thirty years old, he became the father of Eber.

15

Shelah lived four hundred and three years after the birth of Eber, and he had other sons and daughters.

16

⁷ When Eber was thirty-four years old, he became the father of Peleg.

17

Eber lived four hundred and thirty years after the birth of Peleg, and he had other sons and daughters.

18

When Peleg was thirty years old, he became the father of Reu.

19

Peleg lived two hundred and nine years after the birth of Reu, and he had other sons and daughters.

20

When Reu was thirty-two years old, he became the father of Serug.

21

Reu lived two hundred and seven years after the birth of Serug, and he had other sons and daughters.

22

When Serug was thirty years old, he became the father of Nahor.

23

Serug lived two hundred years after the birth of Nahor, and he had other sons and daughters.

24

When Nahor was twenty-nine years old, he became the father of Terah.

25

Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years after the birth of Terah, and he had other sons and daughters.

26

When Terah was seventy years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

27

This is the record of the descendants of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran became the father of Lot.

28

⁸ Haran died before his father Terah, in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

29

Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.

30

Sarai was barren; she had no child.

31

⁹ Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and brought them out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to go to the land of Canaan. But when they reached Haran, they settled there.

32

¹⁰ The lifetime of Terah was two hundred and five years; then Terah died in Haran.

1

The LORD said to Abram: "Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father's house to a land that I will show you.

2

"I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

3

¹ I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you."

4

Abram went as the LORD directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.

5

² Abram took his wife Sarai, his brother's son Lot, all the possessions that they had accumulated, and the persons they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,

6

Abram passed through the land as far as the sacred place at Shechem, by the terebinth of Moreh. (The Canaanites were then in the land.)

7

The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." So Abram built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.

8

From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel, pitching his tent with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. He built an altar there to the LORD and invoked the LORD by name.

9

³ Then Abram journeyed on by stages to the Negeb.

10

There was famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, since the famine in the land was severe.

11

When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai: "I know well how beautiful a woman you are.

12

When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'She is his wife'; then they will kill me, but let you live.

13

⁴ Please say, therefore, that you are my sister, so that it may go well with me on your account and my life may be spared for your sake."

14

When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw how beautiful the woman was; and when Pharaoh's courtiers saw her,

15

they praised her to Pharaoh. So she was taken into Pharaoh's palace.

16

⁵ On her account it went very well with Abram, and he received flocks and herds, male and female slaves, male and female asses, and camels.

17

But the LORD struck Pharaoh and his household with severe plagues because of Abram's wife Sarai.

18

Then Pharaoh summoned Abram and said to him: "How could you do this to me! Why didn't you tell me she was your wife?

19

Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife? Here, then, is your wife. Take her and be gone!"

20

Then Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and all that belonged to him.

13

⁷ Once again he went out along the sea. All the crowd came to him and he taught them.

14

As he passed by, ⁸ he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. He said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him.

15

While he was at table in his house, ⁹ many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him.

16

¹⁰ Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors and said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

17

Jesus heard this and said to them (that), "Those who are well do not need a physician, ¹¹ but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."