First Reading: (Genesis 8:6-13, 20-22)
Responsorial Psalm: (Psalms 116:12-13, 14-15, 18-19)
Gospel: (Mark 8:22-26)
First Reading: (Genesis 8:6-13, 20-22)
At the end of forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and released a raven, which flew back and forth as it waited for the waters to dry up on earth.
He then released a dove, to see whether the waters were receding from the surface of the earth. But the dove, finding nowhere to perch, returned to him in the ark, for there was water over the whole surface of the earth; putting out his hand he took hold of it and brought it back into the ark with him.
After waiting seven more days, he again released the dove from the ark. In the evening, the dove came back to him and there in its beak was a freshly-picked olive leaf! So Noah realised that the waters were receding from the earth.
After waiting seven more days, he released the dove, and now it returned to him no more. It was in the six hundred and first year of Noah’s life, in the first month and on the first of the month, that the waters began drying out on earth. Noah lifted back the hatch of the ark and looked out.
The surface of the ground was dry! Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh and, choosing from all the clean animals and all the clean birds he presented burnt offerings on the altar. Yahweh smelt the pleasing smell and said to himself, ‘Never again will I curse the earth because of human beings, because their heart contrives evil from their infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done.
As long as earth endures: seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.’
Responsorial Psalm: (Psalms 116:12-13, 14-15, 18-19)
What return can I make to Yahweh for his generosity to me?
I shall take up the cup of salvation and call on the name of Yahweh. I shall fulfil my vows to Yahweh, witnessed by all his people.
Costly in Yahweh’s sight is the death of his faithful.
I shall fulfil my vows to Yahweh, witnessed by all his people, in the courts of the house of Yahweh, in your very heart, Jerusalem.
Gospel: (Mark 8:22-26)
They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought to him a blind man whom they begged him to touch. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.
Then, putting spittle on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked, ‘Can you see anything?’ The man, who was beginning to see, replied, ‘I can see people; they look like trees as they walk around.’
Then he laid his hands on the man’s eyes again and he saw clearly; he was cured, and he could see everything plainly and distinctly. And Jesus sent him home, saying, ‘Do not even go into the village.’
