Thursday, February 2, 2017
Liturgical Season: 
II The Season of Yaldo-Denho
Special Significance: 
Mayaltho (Entrance of Our Lord into the Temple)

Acts 24:16-21

16Because of this, I always strive to keep my conscience clear before God and man.e 17After many years, I came to bring alms for my nation and offerings.f 18While I was so engaged, they found me, after my purification, in the temple without a crowd or disturbance.g 19But some Jews from the province of Asia, who should be here before you to make whatever accusation they might have against me— 20or let these men themselves state what crime they discovered when I stood before the Sanhedrin, 21unless it was my one outcry as I stood among them, that ‘I am on trial before you today for the resurrection of the dead.’”h

Heb 9:11-14

Sacrifice of Jesus. 11* But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be,* passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,h 12he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.i 13For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes* can sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is cleansed,j 14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit* offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.k

Lk 2:22-24

The Presentation in the Temple. 22* When the days were completed for their purification* according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord,h 23just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,”i 24and to offer the sacrifice of “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,” in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.