There were as many as three readings today: daily Saturday reading, as well as the ones dedicated to Mother of God in honour of Her revered Iberian icon, as well as to the all reverends in connection with their joint celebration.
Because of the lack of space, I will focus only on daily readings, on some significant points, which are important to understand.
The first part of the apostle’s daily reading
deals with the attitude towards food, and in general to everything that
in one way or another can affect
other people. Continuation of
previous readings, which prepares for fasting, in the opinion that, if
possible, one should take care of conscience of the surrounding people.
Yes, if people are tempted by something essential (e.g., Christ’s
faith), they should not be pleased
contrary to Christ. But in many
cases, the person inclined to attribute to faith in Christ his / her
personal preferences or dislikes, tastes and other things that may not
be truly related to the faith of Christ, i.e. in fact to put one’s
certain views almost to the same level of significance as the faith of
Christ. The apostle does not deny the existence of personal beliefs
(which can also be part of the group, for example, national), but
encourages the search for unity in Christ.
In the second part, the unfolded glory, Paul thanks God and praises Him.
The readings of the daily Gospel are devoted to
the theme of alms, fasting, and prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. I
wrote about that earlier, here I give links to those publications. Some
of them are translated to English already.
https://oleksandr-zhabenko.github.io/uk/Matthew6.html
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/posts/pfbid0hc1EJse6VZJpo3izv8tXC53Zq2SQZSCRWZn1e5BJVBGdWpTWWYFFSdfpRTVJdsmXl
(today added the English translation)
https://oleksandr-zhabenko.github.io/en/Matthew6-3.html
22022023.html
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/posts/pfbid08rd4a5HnHnjtYWi7ixpEFz5jbpoQEnszbuwyHSCmVqQcs1Ah1ehLh35JobG1yhRhl
There are many things that are important for understanding the words of Christ.
I note that vain repetitions as the heathen
, in the original
vattologeo
is a difficult word to understand. There are different
versions about what it actually means. Many believe that it is a
combination of the two words vatto
and logeo
which mean to say
something vain
and to say something intelligent, meaningful,
reasonable
— and can mean all possible manifestations of inattention,
uncollectedness, disbelief, and so on.
On faith, see more in the essay at the link:
https://oleksandr-zhabenko.github.io/en/PowerOfHuman.html
I will not comment on the Lord’s Prayer now. It is extremely deep, I just don’t want now to focus on something in particular. It is a example and model of Christian prayers.
Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!