Reflecting on the Sixth
Sunday after the Epiphany

Year B

Prayer

Psalm 6

Prayer for healing

 

O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,

or discipline me in your wrath.

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing;

O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.

My soul also is struck with terror,

while you, O Lord—how long?

Turn, O Lord, save my life;

deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.

For in death there is no remembrance of you;

in Sheol who can give you praise?

I am weary with my moaning;

every night I flood my bed with tears;

I drench my couch with my weeping.

My eyes waste away because of grief;

they grow weak because of all my foes.

Depart from me, all you workers of evil,

for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.

The Lord has heard my supplication;

the Lord accepts my prayer.

All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror;

they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame.

 

Job 30:16-31

Job’s lament at his condition

 

“And now my soul is poured out within me;

days of affliction have taken hold of me.

The night racks my bones,

and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

With violence he seizes my garment;

he grasps me by the collar of my tunic.

He has cast me into the mire,

and I have become like dust and ashes.

I cry to you and you do not answer me;

I stand, and you merely look at me.

You have turned cruel to me;

with the might of your hand you persecute me.

You lift me up on the wind, you make me ride on it,

and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.

I know that you will bring me to death,

and to the house appointed for all living.

“Surely one does not turn against the needy,

when in disaster they cry for help.

Did I not weep for those whose day was hard?

Was not my soul grieved for the poor?

But when I looked for good, evil came;

and when I waited for light, darkness came.

My inward parts are in turmoil, and are never still;

days of affliction come to meet me.

I go about in sunless gloom;

I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

I am a brother of jackals,

and a companion of ostriches.

My skin turns black and falls from me,

and my bones burn with heat.

My lyre is turned to mourning,

and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.”

 

John 4:46-54

Jesus heals a boy

 

Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.