MONDAY

1 Ordinary Time Yr 2
F IRST R EADING
From the beginning of the book of Genesis Gn 1:1—2:4a
The creation of the heavens and the earth
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness
was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said,
“Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from
the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there
was morning, one day. And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it
separate the waters from the waters.” God made the firmament and separated the waters which were
under

5 the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. God called the firmament
Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. And God said, “Let the earth put
forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to
its kind, upon the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according
to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw
that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and
let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the
heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule
the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of
the heavens to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light
from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth
day.And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth
across the firmament of the heavens.” God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that
moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in
the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. And
God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and
beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according
to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according
to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have do minion over the
fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” God created man in his own image, in the image of God he
created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God
6 said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the
fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” And God
said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every
tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of
the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every
green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God
finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had
done. God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he
had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the
day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens

R ESPONSORY Rv 4:11; Est 4:9-10

Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power;
— For you have created all things; by your will they exist.
You have made heaven and earth and every wonderful thing under heaven, King of the universe.
— For you have created all things; by your will they exist.
S ECOND R EADING
From a homily on Genesis by Origen, priest
(In Gen. Hom 13, 4:PG 12,234-245)

God will make his heavenly likeness shine out in us

Let us make man in our own image and likeness (Gn 1:26). The work of so great and skilled an artist as the
Son of God, the creator of this image, can never be destroyed by malice, though it can be obscured through
negligence. God’s image remains within you always, even though you yourself superimpose upon it the
earthly likeness of the man of dust. This earthly likeness is not produced in you by God. You paint it
yourself, using various kinds of sins as if they were a palette of assorted colors. In view of this the only
remedy is to invoke the help of him who tells us through his prophet: I have wiped out your transgression
like a cloud

7and swept away your sins like a mist (Is 44:22). When God has eradicated those multi-colored stains
of sins, the beautiful image which God created in you will appear in all its radiance. You can see from this
how holy scripture makes use of forms and figures to teach the soul how to recognize and purify itself.
Perhaps you might like to consider this image under yet another aspect. In the register of our lives
there are some entries that God makes and some that we make ourselves; the latter are the record of our
sins. Mark the apostle’s words: God, he says, has cancelled the legal bond which stood against us; God has
set it aside, nailing it to the cross (Col 2:14). What Saint Paul here calls a bond is the obligation we put
ourselves under on account of our sins. Each and everyone of us is answerable for the sins he or she
commits; we write our own record. When Daniel describes the court of God sitting in judgment, he says
that the books were opened. There is no doubt that there were the books containing the record of people’s
sins. When we sin, we ourselves write our own case record. From this it is clear that our side of the register
is made up of sins, while God’s side consists of acts of virtue. Saint Paul bears me out when he says: You
yourselves are a letter written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, a letter written not on stone
tablets but on human hearts (2 Cor 3:3). So then, you have within yourselves God’s record written by the
Holy Spirit; but if you sin, you draw up a legal bond against yourself.
Observe, however, that once you have come to the cross of Christ and the grace of baptism, that bond of
yours is nailed to the cross and canceled in the baptismal font. Do not rewrite what has been canceled; do
not renew what has been abolished. Keep within you God’s record only; let what the Holy Spirit has
written be all that remains in your heart.

R ESPONSORY 1 Corinthians 15:47-49

The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man, from heaven.
— As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly, and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly.
Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.
— As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly, and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly.

8 TUESDAY
F IRST R EADING
From the book of Genesis Gn 2:4b-25
Another Account of Creation
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the
LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of
the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no
man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground— then
LORD god formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul. and the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man
whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the
sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.
“The name of the first is Pi'shon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Hav'ilah, where there is
gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is
Gi'hon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris,
which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphra'tes. The LORD God took the man and put
him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may
freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for
in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for
him.” So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and
brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living
creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast
of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib
which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her

9to the man. The man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called
Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to
his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
R ESPONSORY 1 Co 15:45,47,49
The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
--- The first man was from the earth; the second man is from heaven.
Just as we have born the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
---The first man was from earth; the second man is from heaven.
S ECOND R EADING
From The Paradise by Saint Ambrose, bishop
(Lib. 1,2—2,6)
God placed man in the earthly paradise
The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, to the east, and there he placed the man that he had molded
(Gn 2:8). Since we read in Genesis that there was a garden planted by God to the east and there he had
placed the man whom he had molded, we have already found the author of this garden. Who in fact could
form the garden if not the Omnipotent? Because he speaks and everything is made (Ps 32:9), even though
not needing the things that he wanted to be generated. He himself therefore planted the garden of which
Wisdom says: Every plant that has not been planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted (Mt 15:13).
The plant of the angels and saints is good. The saints are those of whom it is written that in the future times
will sit peacefully under the vine and under the fig tree (Mi 4: 4) and they are like angels. Therefore the
garden has many trees—fruit bearing trees, trees full of sap and virtue, of which it is said: The trees of the
forest rejoice (Ps 95:12), always flowering through the freshness of merits, like that tree planted along the
course of water, whose leaves do not fall because all the fruit in it is abundant. This is the garden. But the
place in which it is planted is called delight. For this the holy David says: they drink from the torrents of
your delight (Ps 35:9). You have read in fact that a river came out from Eden to irrigate the garden (Gn
2:10); therefore these trees planted in the garden

10 are irrigated as from a flood of the torrent of the Spirit. From God, of whom in another place it is
said: A river and its streams gladden the city of God (Ps 45:5). It refers to that city which is the free
heavenly Jerusalem, in which the merits of the saints abound.
In this garden God places the man he has molded. It means that he does not place the man in so much
as he is the image of God, but the man of flesh; in fact an incorporeal being does not occupy place. Thus he
places him in a garden like the sun in the heaven, to await the kingdom of heaven, as the creation awaits the
revelation of the sons of God. Now if a garden is that in which the shoots were born, it seems that the
garden is the soul that multiplies the seed that is received, in which every virtue is planted, where there was
also the tree of life, that is Wisdom, as Solomon says; because Wisdom has not arisen from the earth, but
from the Father: it is in fact the splendor of the eternal light and emanation of the omnipotent glory (cf. Ws
7:25.26; Heb 1:3).
R ESPONSORY Gn 2:15.8
The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden,
— to cultivate and care for it.
Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east,
and he placed there the man whom he had formed.
— to cultivate and care for it.

20 WEDNESDAY
F IRST R EADING
From the book of Genesis Gn 3:1-24
The Fall of Man
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the
woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent,
“We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree
which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” the serpent said to the woman,
“You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like
God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a
delight to the eyes

11, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave
some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked;
and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man
and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the
LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in
the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were
naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman
whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the
woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.” The
LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all cattle,
and above all wild animals;
upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed;
he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
To the woman he said,
“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”
And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you;

12and you shall eat the plants of the field.

In the sweat of your face
 you shall eat bread
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the LORD God made for
Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now,
lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever”— therefore the LORD
God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the
man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every
way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
R ESPONSORY Rom 5:12,20-21
Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin.
--- Where sin increased grace abounded all the more.
Just as sin reigned in death, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life.
--- Where sin increased grace abounded all the more.
S ECOND R EADING
From a letter by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, bishop
When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son
When God introduced his first-born Son into the world, he said Let all the angels of God adore him (Heb
1:6). Though we are anointed with the Holy Spirit and became through grace to the children of God, in that
some times we are also called gods, we do not ignore the mediocrity of our nature. We are in fact of the
earth and belong to the number of servants. On the contrary, Christ is not bound to the laws of our nature,
but, in truth, is the Son of God, the Lord of the universe and from the heavens has deigned to descend to us.
We who want to believe justly, do not say that God the Father has made him flesh, nor that the divine
nature has been born from a woman before clothing himself with the human nature; but we affirm that the
Word, whose nature is divine, was born a man from the holy Virgin and came into this world, and we adore
in the unity of only one person the one God and Lord Christ Jesus:

13 thus we do not make him come out of his divine nature for having assumed a human body, nor through
the common similarity that he has with us do we include him within the limits of only one human nature.
This being established, you will understand easily for what reason the Word, generated by God, had
wilfully offered himself and since he, who by his nature was free, assumed the form of a servant when he
humbled himself.
In this way, he who took to himself descent from Abraham (Heb 2:16), the Word that is God, has
become a participant of the human nature. In fact, if we think of him as similar to us as a simple man, why
does it says that he took descent from the race of Abraham, as if it were something naturally strange and
different from himself? In what way can it be said that he has assumed our own flesh in order to make
himself similar to the brothers in everything? For what makes a thing similar to another is to assume the
nature of the other thing.
I therefore understood that the Word of God, in order to make himself of the seed of Abraham, wanted
a form, a body born from a woman, and share in our human nature in a way that he is not only God, but in
the mystery of his union he lets himself be known also as man, made similar to us in everything. The
Emmanuel, therefore, is of two elements: divinity and humanity. Yet there is only one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only true Son by nature, who is both God and man; not a man who is deified, similar to those who
through grace are made participants of the divine nature, but true God, who for our salvation appeared in
human form, as Paul also affirms: When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born
under the law, in order to ransom those who were under the law, so that they could receive adoption as
sons (Gal 4:4-5).
R ESPONSORY Heb 2:16.17; Bar 3:38
Christ did not help angels but rather the descendants of Abraham;
— Therefore, he had to become like his brothers in every way, that he might be a merciful and faithful high
priest before God to expiate the sins of the people.
Our Lord has appeared on earth, and moved among men.
— Therefore, he had to become like his brothers in every way, that he might be a merciful and faithful high
priest before God to expiate the sins of the people.

14 THURSDAY
F IRST R EADING
From the book of Genesis Gn 4:1-24
Cain and Abel
4 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the
help of the LORD.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a
tiller of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4
and Abel brought some of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for
Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his
countenance fell. 6 The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If
you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for
you, but you must master it.”
Cain said to Abel his brother, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up
against his brother Abel, and killed him. 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He
said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10
And the LORD said, “What have you done? The
voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground,
which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you till the ground, it
shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to
the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold you have driven me this day away from the
ground; and from your face I shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and
whoever finds me will slay me.” Then the LORD said to him, “Not so! If any one slays Cain, vengeance
shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should
kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore E'noch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city
after the name of his son, Enoch. To E'noch was born I'rad; and Irad was the father of Mehu'ja-el, and
Mehuja-el the father of Methu'sha-el, and Methusha-el the father of La'mech. And La'mech took two wives;
the name of the one was A'dah, and the name of the other Zillah.

15 A'dah bore Ja'bal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have cattle. His brother’s name was
Ju'bal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah bore Tu'bal-cain; he was the forger
of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Na'amah. La'mech said to his wives:
“A'dah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, hearken to what I say: I have slain a man for
wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly La'mech seventy-
sevenfold.”
R ESPONSORY 1 Jn 3:12; Ws 10:3
Cain was of the evil one and killed his brother.
--- Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.
When an unrighteous man departed from wisdom in his anger, in rage he slew his brother and perished.
--- Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.

S ECOND R EADING
From the Explanations of the Psalms by Saint Ambrose, bishop
(In Ps 39, 11-14: PL 14, ,1061-1062)
The sacrifice of Abel signified our Lord Jesus Christ
who offered himself for us
At the beginning of the book of the scripture speaks of me (Ps 39:8). In the opening chapters of Genesis
it was foretold that Christ would come to fulfill his Father’s will for the redemption of mankind. This was
when the sacred writer described how in creating Eve to be man’s helpmate, God made her a type of the
Church. Where indeed can we find help for our bodily weakness and protection against the upheavals of the
world around us, except in the grace of salvation which comes to us through the Church and the faith by
which we live? In the first pages of the Bible we read: Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh! Because of
this a man will leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they will be two in one flesh (Gn
2:23.24). If you wish to know the real speaker of these words, listen to the following: this is a great
sacramental mystery; I tell you it refers to Christ and the Church (Ep 5:32).
The meaning is that the love that should exist between man and wife can be compared with Christ’s love
for his Church, we are members of Christ’s body, sharers of his flesh and bone. What greater well-being
can we have than to be so close to Christ, to cleave to him in a kind of bodily oneness, in a union with

16 that body of his which is without blemish or stain of sin?

We are told in the early pages of the same book that righteous Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God
while his murderous brother’s was rejected. This, surely, is a clear sign that the Lord Jesus was to offer
himself up for us, and that in and through his passion he would hallow a new sacrifice to supercede a rite
proper to a parricidal people. It is even more clearly expressed in the holy patriarch Abraham’s offering of
his son Isaac, in whose stead a ram was ultimately immolated. And this showed that it was man’s flesh he
has in common with the animals and not the divinity of the only Son of God, that was destined to endure
the rigors of the passion.
At the beginning of the book it is written that in due time there would come a man who held command
over the powers of heaven. This prophecy was fulfilled when the Lord Jesus arrived on earth and angels
ministered to him, according to his own prediction: You will see the heavens opened and God’s angels
ascending and descending around the Son of Man (Jn 1:51).
Again at the beginning of the book it is said that you must choose out for yourselves a full-grown
yearling lamb, a male without blemish, which the whole assembly shall then ceremonially slay (Ex 12:5.6).
The identity of that lamb you know already: Behold the Lamb of God who is to bear away the sin of all the
world! (Jn 1:29) He is the one that was slain by the entire Jewish people. It was indeed necessary that he
should die for all men, so that through his cross every sin might find forgiveness and in his blood the stains
of all the world be washed away.

R ESPONSORY Heb 11:4

Through faith he was attested to be righteous,
God bearing witness to his gifts,
— and through this, though dead, he still speaks.
By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice greater than Cain’s.
— and through this, though dead, he still speaks.

17 FRIDAY
F IRST R EADING
From the book of Genesis Gn 6:5-22; 7:17-24
The punishment of God with the flood
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth,
and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of
the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous
man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Ja'pheth.
 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the
earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. 13 And God said to
Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them;
behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark,
and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred
cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit
above; and set the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks. For behold, I will
bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven;
everything that is on the earth shall die.
But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife,
and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into
the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds,
and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two
of every sort shall come in to you, to keep them alive. And take with you every sort of food that is eaten,
and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” Noah did this; he did all that God
commanded him.

18 The flood continued forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose
high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on
the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains
under the whole heaven were covered; 20 the waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen
cubits deep. 21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, birds, cattle, beasts, all swarming creatures that
swarm upon the earth, and every man; 22 everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life
died. 23 He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the ground, man and animals and
creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth, Only Noah was left, and those
that were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

R ESPONSORY 2 P 2:9; Mt 24:37-39

The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and keep the unrighteous under punishment until the
day of judgment.
--- As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
They were eating and drinking, and they did not know until the flood came down and swept them all away.
--- As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

S ECOND R EADING
From a homily on Luke by Origen, priest
(Hom. 22, 7-10)
Do works of repentance
Great anger hangs over our age: the anger of God on the whole world is imminent. It will shake the
immensity of the heavens, the expanse of the earth, the rows of the stars, the splendor of the sun, the light
of the moon at night: all these beauties will pass away because of the sins of men. Once the anger of God
poured itself out only against the world, because every man had perverted his conduct on the earth (Gn
6:12); today instead the anger of God is about to strike all of creation. The heavens will perish, but you will
remain, all wear out like garments (Ps 101: 26–27). Consider how much and how terrible will be the anger

19 of God that will destroy the whole world; how he will punish those who are worthy of
condemnation and will find reason to strike. Every one of us with his behavior has prepared the reason for
the anger of God. We read in the letter to the Romans: With your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart,
you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgement will be
revealed (Rom 2:5). Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with
repentance (Lk 3:7–8).
To you also who draw near to baptism it is said: Produce fruits of repentance. Do you want to know
which are the fruits of repentance? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, benevolence,
goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self- control (Gal 5:22–23) and all the other virtues. If we had possessed
all of them, we would have done works of repentance.
And do not begin to say of yourselves: we have Abraham for our father! Because I tell you that out of
these stones God can raise up children for Abraham (Lk 3:8). The last prophet, John, with these words
prophesied the throwing out of the first people and the calling of the Gentiles; in fact it was exactly to the
Jews who boasted of being the descendants of Abraham that he said: Do not begin to say to yourselves: we
have Abraham for our father and he added for the Gentiles: Because I tell you that out of these stones God
can raise up children for Abraham
Of which stones was he speaking? Certainly not of material stones, but of insensible and obstinate
men, who, by adoring stones and pieces of wood had realized the prediction of the psalm which referred to
them: Their makers and all who trust in them will become like them (Ps 113B, 8).
Those who make idols and trust in them can be truly compared to their gods: without intelligence and
without reason, they have become like stones and pieces of wood—that though they see the order, the
harmony and the goodness of creation and the great beauty of the world, they do not want to rise up
through the creatures to the Creator, and they do not admit that there is a providence who presides such a
perfect economy. Those who see the world with the same eyes with which the animals and the unreasoning
beasts see it are blind. They are unable to discover the reason of a world even if they see it upheld by
Reason.

20 R ESPONSORY Acts 17:30-31; 14-16

God has overlooked the times of ignorance,
— but now he demands that all people everywhere repent.
In past generations he allowed all Gentiles to go their own ways.
— but now he demands that all people everywhere repent.

SATURDAY
F IRST R EADING
From the book of Genesis Gn 8:1-22
The end of the flood
But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. And God
made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; the fountains of the deep and the windows of the
heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth
continually. At the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters had abated; and in the seventh month, on the
seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ar'arat. And the waters continued
to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains
were seen.
At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made, and sent forth a raven;
and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent forth a dove from him,
to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; but the dove found no place to set her foot,
and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put forth
his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he
sent forth the dove out of the ark; and the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth a
freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited
another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she did not return to him any more.
In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried
from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the
ground was dry. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. Then God
said to Noah, 16 “Go forth from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you
Bring forth with you every living thing that.

21 is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they
may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.” 18 So Noah went forth, and
his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 And every beast, every creeping thing, and every
bird, everything that moves upon the earth, went forth by families out of the ark.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and
offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his
heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from
his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

R ESPONSORY 1 P 3:20-21; Si 44:17

In Noah’s day, eight persons were saved through water.
--- This corresponds to baptism, which now saves you.
Noah was found perfect and righteous; in the time of wrath he was not blotted out by the flood.
--- This corresponds to baptism, which now saves you.

S ECOND R EADING
From sermon on the Old Testament by Saint Augustine, bishop
(Disc. 19, 3)
The signs have changed, not faith
Do you want to reconcile yourself with God? Reflect with yourself how you must act so that God may
reconcile himself with you. Pay attention to what is read in the psalm: Because you are not pleased with
sacrifice and if I offer holocausts you do not accept them (Ps 50:18). Therefore will you remain without
sacrifice? Will you not offer anything? Will you not please God with any offering? What did God say?
That God is not pleased with sacrifice and if I offer holocausts he will not accept them. Go ahead, listen
and repeat: A contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God, a humble broken heart, O God, you will not despise (Ps
50:19).
Throw away the things that you offered, for you have found what you will offer. You offered with the
ancient fathers the victims of the flock that were called sacrifices: You are not pleased

22 with sacrifices and if I offer holocausts you do not accept them. Therefore do not choose those
things anymore, but above all search for a sacrifice. Your people say to you: “What will I offer, except the
offering I know?” In fact it is the same people: some die, others are born, it is always the same people. The
signs have changed, not the faith. The signs that indicated another thing have changed, not the thing that
they signified.
In place of Christ, a ram, in place of Christ, a lamb, a calf, a goat: all signified Christ. The ram,
because it leads the flock. It is the one which Abraham found among the bush when he was commanded to
sacrifice his son, and which he offered instead of Isaac, and above all not to leave without having offered a
sacrifice. Isaac, was the figure of Christ and also the ram was the figure of Christ. Isaac carried the wood
for himself, Christ dragged his own cross; the ram took the place of Isaac, but Christ did not substitute
himself; in Isaac and in the ram Christ is symbolized.
The ram was entangled with its horns in the bush; question the Jews then how they crowned the Lord.
He is the lamb: Behold the Lamb of God, behold he who takes away the sins of the world! (Jn 1:29). He is
the bull: look at the horns of the cross! He is the goat as to the likeness of man the sinner. All these things
are veils, before the breeze of the day blows and the shadows lengthen (Sg 2:17).
Therefore the patriarchs believed in the same Christ our Lord, not only inasmuch as Word, but also as
the only mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tm 2:5), and they transmitted to us the
same faith through preaching and the prophecy. For which the Apostle says: Moved by that same spirit of
faith, of which it is written: I believed, therefore I spoke (2 Cor 4:13).
When therefore the holy David said: You are not pleased with sacrifice and if I offer holocausts you do
not accept them, then they offered to God those sacrifices that now they do not offer anymore.
Therefore when he sang, he prophesied: he despised the sacrifices, foreseeing the future ones. The
holocausts, he said, you do not accept. But will he remain without sacrifice since he does not accept the
holocausts? May it never be! A contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God; a broken humbled heart, O God, you do
not despise (Ps 50:19). This is the offering. Do not search for the flock

23 or prepare ships; do not go to far away lands to get fragrant oblations. Search in your heart for what
is pleasing to God. It is the heart that you must sacrifice. What do you fear? There is no penitent who
perishes. Create in me, O God, a pure heart (Ps 50: 12). Therefore, so that a pure heart may be created, the
impure one has to be broken.

R ESPONSORY Micah 6:7.8; Hebrews 10:4

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams?
—You have been told what is good, and what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.
It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats take away sins.
—You have been told what is good, and what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.