The Sunday Readings for February 2024 and Catholic Doctrine

The meaning of the Sunday Mass Readings for February 2024 is made clearest by Catholic Doctrine. Doctrines are the Magisterium’s authoritative, essentially unchangeable clarifications of Revelation and Faith that, to be Catholic, must be accepted as objectively true. Doctrines give ontological facts; they describe reality. Much of what the Magisterium (the pope and bishops) teach is not doctrine; much of what they say is application of Revelation and Faith, not clarification of Revelation and Faith. Let’s learn the always-true doctrines in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that tell us what is especially important to take away from this February’s Readings.[1]

February 4, Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s Alleluia fittingly proclaims, “Christ took away our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Matthew 8:17). It comes after the First Reading about Job’s suffering, the Responsorial Psalm praising the Lord Who heals the brokenhearted, and St. Paul’s reference to weakness in the Second Reading. It comes before the Gospel report of Christ’s miracles of healing. Jesus’ “healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death” (CCC 1505[2]). “All that Jesus did, said, and suffered had for its aim restoring fallen man to his original vocation” (CCC 518), which was “the inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman, and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation” (CCC 376).

Today’s Gospel also tells us that Jesus “went off to a deserted place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35). This verse is cited by the Catechism in its section on how Jesus prayed (CCC 2599-2606). Jesus’ “words and works are the visible manifestation of his prayer in secret” (CCC 2602). To be truly and faithfully Catholic is to make praying a regular and essential part of one’s life in imitation of Jesus. Prayer is one of the four pillars of the Catholic Faith, along with creed, the Sacraments, and morality (CCC 13). While prayer should be very personal, it should never contradict Catholic Doctrine (CCC 2558).

• From the Second Reading[3] (1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23): 1 Cor 9:19 is cited in CCC 876; and 1 Cor 9:22 in CCC 24.
• From the Alleluia (Matthew 8:17): Mt 8:17 is cited in CCC 517 and 1505.
• From the Gospel (Mark 1:29-39): Mk 1:35 is cited in CCC 2606.

February 11, Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s First Reading, Responsorial Psalm, and Gospel have the same theme as last week’s Readings – suffering and healing. The Catechism cites a verse from the Responsorial Psalm (Psalms 32:5) to teach that “[i]llness becomes a way to conversion” (CCC 1502). Illness, and any suffering, can “make a person more mature, helping him discern in his life what is not essential so that he can turn toward that which is. Very often [suffering] provokes a search for God and a return to him” (CCC 1501).

As Jesus does to the leper in today’s Gospel, “so in the sacraments Christ continues to touch us in order to heal us” (CCC 1504). “[A]mong the seven sacraments there is one especially intended to strengthen those who are being tried by illness, the Anointing of the Sick” (CCC 1511). The Anointing of the Sick is not only for those at the point of death, but also for those who begin to be in danger of death, such as before a serious operation or even due to pronounced frailty in old age. This sacrament may be received again if one has recovered from a serious illness but gets another serious illness. It may also be received during the same illness if one’s condition becomes worse (CCC 1514-1515).

• From the Responsorial Psalm (Psalms 32:1-2, 5, 11): Ps 32:5 is cited in CCC 1502.
• From the Alleluia (Luke 7:16): Lk 7:16 is cited in CCC 1503.
• From the Gospel (Mark 1:40-45): Mk 1:40-41 is cited in CCC 2616; and Mk 1:41 in CCC 1504.

February 18, First Sunday of Lent

Today’s Gospel has the same verses about the gospel, or good news, that Jesus Himself preached that were in the Gospel for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time: “The kingdom of God is at hand.” As we continue to hear the Gospel of St. Mark during this liturgical year (Year B), we will continue to hear many times that Christ spoke about the Kingdom of God.

So let us recall what the Kingdom of God is. The Kingdom will give back to saved humanity the perfect happiness in which God created humanity, the “original vocation” mentioned in this column’s commentary on the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, but what was lost because of sin. The Kingdom is what Our Lord taught us to pray for in the Our Father: God’s will being done on earth as fully as it is already being done in Heaven. It is the new Heaven and new earth that fulfills God’s covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David. It is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. Christ began to establish the Kingdom during His life on earth through His own ministry, especially His death and Resurrection, and by founding the Catholic Church. Christ will complete His establishment of the Kingdom at His Second Coming. Then, those who enter the Kingdom will have the kind of existence Jesus has had since His Resurrection. Everyone in the new Heaven and the new earth of the fully established Kingdom of God will experience perfect happiness – including eternal freedom from suffering and death – because everyone in it will fully share in the perfect love that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have with Each Other. (CCC 218-221, 257-260, 541-556, 638-655, 763-769, 988-1004).

We see this “principle of the divine economy toward the nations” (CCC 56), that is, toward the Gentiles, in God’s covenant with (promise to) Noah in today’s First Reading that “there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth” (Gn 9:11). Whether the story of Noah is figuratively true or literally true (CCC 390), it is objectively true, just as the figurative language of “It is raining cats and dogs” is objectively true if it is raining very hard. The objective truth of the Noah story is: after Original Sin, God “has never ceased to show his solicitude for the human race. For he wishes to give eternal life to all those who seek salvation by patience in well-doing” (CCC 55).

Another meaning of the Noah story, as we find in today’s Second Reading, is that the Catholic Church “is prefigured by Noah’s ark, which alone saves from the flood” (CCC 845). “Outside the Church there is no salvation” (CCC 846), which means that in God’s plan of salvation the Church is necessary from the First Coming of Christ until the Second Coming of Christ. It does not mean that non-Catholics cannot be saved. “Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation” (CCC 847). (For an accurate understanding of conscience, see CCC 1776-1802.) However, “the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men” (CCC 848). To evangelize is “to lead others to the ‘yes’ of faith in Jesus Christ” (CCC 429) and to encourage all people to find the “fullness of the means of salvation” which only the Catholic Church possesses (CCC 830).

• From the First Reading (Genesis 9:8-15): Gn 9:8-16 is cited in CCC 2569; and Gn 9:9-10 in CCC 56.
• From the Second Reading (1 Peter 3:18-22): 1 Pt 3:18-19 is cited in CCC 632; 1 Pt 3:20-21 in CCC 845; 1 Pt 3:20 in CCC 1219; and 1 Pt 3:21 in CCC 128, 1094, and 1794.
• From the Verse before the Gospel (Matthew 4:4b): Mt 4:4 is cited in CCC 2835.
• From the Gospel (Mark 1:12-15): Mk 1:12-13 is cited in CCC 538; Mk 1:12 in CCC 333; Mk 1:15 in CCC 541, 1423, and 1427.

February 25, Second Sunday of Lent

Abraham “was purified by the test of sacrifice” – the test of whether he was willing to obey God and sacrifice his only, long-awaited, beloved son – of which we hear in today’s First Reading. “Abraham was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac . . . and thus became the father of many nations” (CCC 1819). Abraham became the father of the Jews, the Chosen People, of whom Jesus Christ was born; and so Abraham became the “father of all who believe” in Christ (CCC 147).

The Catechism takes literally the verse from today’s Second Reading that “God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (CCC 603). The powerful story of God sparing Abraham’s son from sacrifice should move us to be in awe and thanksgiving that God the Father did not spare His Only Begotten and Beloved Son from the sacrifice of the cross for our sins.

The report of the Transfiguration we hear in today’s Gospel means, among other things, that “believing in God cannot be separated from believing in the One he sent, his ‘beloved Son,’ in whom the Father is ‘well pleased’; God tells us to listen to him” (CCC 151). This means that all those who believe in God but who do not accept that Jesus Christ is God the Son are mistaken. They are not automatically denied entrance into the Kingdom of God, as was shown in the commentary on last week’s Readings. They do not lack the human dignity that only and irrevocably comes from being created in the image of God (CCC 356-361). They are mistaken. In order to be fully in touch with reality, a person must know that Jesus is God the Son.

We best listen to God the Son, we most clearly hear Him, when we listen to Catholic Doctrine, those objectively true and essentially unchangeable principles that can only be given to us by the Magisterium. Let us listen respectfully to everything taught by the Magisterium. Let us learn to distinguish in the Magisterium’s teaching that which is Catholic Doctrine and that which is church discipline, pastoral guidance, spiritual direction, theological speculation, prudential judgments, social analysis, and other statements of a non-doctrinal nature. Let us learn when we must agree with the Magisterium in order to be faithful Catholics and when we may disagree with the Magisterium and remain faithful Catholics.

• From the First Reading (Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18): Gn 22:1-18 is cited in CCC 1819; Gn 22:11 in CCC 332; and Gn 22:17-19 in CCC 706.
• From the Responsorial Psalm (Psalms 116:10, 15, 16-17, 18-19): Ps 116:17 is cited in CCC 1330.
• From the Second Reading (Romans 8:31b-34): Rom 8:31 is cited in CCC 2852; Rom 8:32 in CCC 603, 706, and 2572; and Rom 8:34 in CCC 1373 and 2634.
• From the Verse before the Gospel (Matthew 17:5): Mt 17:5 is cited in CCC 444.
• From the Gospel. (Mark 9:2-10): Mk 9:2 is cited in CCC 552; and Mk 9:7 in CCC 151 and 459.

[1] There are too many citations, or references, in the Catechism to the verses in a month of Sunday Mass readings to identify all the pertinent doctrines, so I will use my best judgment to select which verses and doctrines to cover in a column that may not exceed 2,000 words. The bullet points allow you to explore further the Biblical basis of Catholic Doctrine.

[2] CCC abbreviates Catechism of the Catholic Church. Any number after it is the number of a paragraph in the Catechism. For example, “CCC 1505” means paragraph 1505 of the Catechism.

[3] If a Reading is not listed, then none of its verses is cited by the CCC.