🇬🇧 Glory be to Jesus Christ! 🌞
The key verse of the reading is Galatians
III, 2 – Paul says: I only want to learn, to ascertain…
and then asks
how they received the gifts of the Holy Spirit. From this we can see how
much importance, one can say decisive, Paul attached to receiving the
gift of the Holy Spirit, grace, faith, and not to ritualistic
prescriptions and regulations. It also confirms that the present life is
not for keeping the Law, but for receiving the Holy Spirit.
Verse 3 goes on to show that in the spiritual life a person is to develop and move forward – not backward – from the less valuable to the more valuable, from the body to the Holy Spirit, and not vice versa.
I wrote about verses 6-7 when I wrote about Abraham, also about sins
and death and salvation in Christ. See the links:
14062023.html
13062023.html
and the
references cited there.
Mark VI, 3 – ‘ημας’ – ‘emas’ – ‘us’.
For a parallel passage to the first 6 verses in Matthew (Matthew
XIII, 53-58), see:
17072023.html
Mark specifies that without honour only in his own country, among
his own relatives and in his own house
(in Matthew 2 out of 3). One
might think that Mark would again provide more details in this phrase.
Instead, the examples from the Old Testament are omitted because it is
believed that the addressees of Mark’s Gospel were Christians from Rome,
former Gentiles who had not grown up with examples from the Old
Testament (unlike the Jews to whom Matthew’s Gospel was primarily
addressed).
Verse 7 speaks of the 12 apostles being sent out to preach during the time of Jesus’ earthly life. This sermon was to teach them how they should act in the future (a sort of analogue of practice during training).
To the Mother of God:
For more information on these readings in honour of the Mother of
God, see the following link and others cited there:
28082023.html
Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!