First Reading

Reading from the first book of Samuel

1 Samuel 15:16-23

In those days, Samuel said to Saul: “I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” He replied: “What did he say?” Samuel continued: “Though you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying: ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked Amalekites. Fight against them until you have annihilated them.’ Why did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?”

Saul answered Samuel: “No. I obeyed the Lord. I carried out the mission he gave me. I brought back Agag, king of Amalek, and I annihilated the Amalekites. But the people took the best of the sheep and oxen from the plunder to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to the Lord’s voice? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.”

Gospel

Reading from the holy Gospel according to Saint Mark

Mark 2:18-22

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins too; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”