Readings for
Sunday, February 14, 1999
Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

(From the Revised Standard Version English Bible
unless otherwise indicated)

First Reading

[Sir 15:15] If you will, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.

[Sir 15:16] He has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you wish.

[Sir 15:17] Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him.

[Sir 15:18] For great is the wisdom of the Lord; he is mighty in power and sees everything;

[Sir 15:19] his eyes are on those who fear him, and he knows every deed of man.

[Sir 15:20] He has not commanded any one to be ungodly, and he has not given any one permission to sin.

1: Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD!
2: Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart,
4: Thou hast commanded thy precepts to be kept diligently.
5: O that my ways may be steadfast in keeping thy statutes!
17: Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live and observe thy word.
18: Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
33: Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I will keep it to the end.
34: Give me understanding, that I may keep thy law and observe it with my whole heart.

1: I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,
2: with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love,
3: eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
4: There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call,
5: one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6: one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.
15: Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
16: from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love.

20: "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word,
21: that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22: The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
23: I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.
24: Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world.