January 28, 2025.

Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, priest, and doctor of the church.

A reading from the letter to the Hebrews.

Brothers and sisters,

Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come,

and not the very image of them,

it can never make perfect those who come to worship

by the same sacrifices that they offer continually each year. Otherwise, would not the sacrifices

have ceased to be offered? Since the worshippers once cleansed would no longer have had any consciousness of sins,

but in those sacrifices there is only a yearly remembrance of sins, for it is impossible

that the blood of bulls and goats take away sins. For this reason, when he came into the world, he said,

sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. In burnt offerings

and sin offerings, you took no delight. Then I said, as is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will,

O God. First, he says, sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings, you neither desired

nor delighted in. These are offered according to the law. Then he says,

Behold, I come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. By this will,

we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm.

The response is,

Here am I, Lord, I come to do your will.

I have waited, waited for the Lord, and he stooped toward me,

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