DAILY READING and REFLECTIONS For Saturday, July 12, 2014 14th Week in Ordinary Time - Psalter 2 (Green/white) Readings: Isa 6:1-8; Ps 93:1-5; 1 Pet 4:14; Matt 10:24-33 Response: The Lord is King: he is robed in majesty. Rosary: Joyful Mysteries Key Verse: So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. SAINT OF THE DAY: Saint John Gaulbert, Abbot Patron of forest workers; foresters; park rangers; parks Death: 1073 Saint John Gaulbert, Abbot - Feast day is July 12th The city of Florence gave to the world Saint John Gaulbert. Although he enjoyed the benefits of an early Christian education, his youthful heart was soon attracted to the vanities of the world. A painful incident was the means God made use of, to open his eyes. Hugo, his only brother, had been murdered and St. John had resolved to avenge his death. On a certain Good Friday he met his enemy in a place where there was no escape for the latter. St. John drew his sword and would have killed his adversary on the spot, but the latter threw himself on his knees begging him by the passion of Jesus Christ to spare his life. St. John was touched at the words, embraced his enemy, entered a church and prayed with many tears for the pardon of his sins. He now entered the Order of St. Benedict, in which he made such great progress in virtue that after the death of the Abbot, the monks wished to impose this dignity upon him, but the Saint absolutely refused to accept it. Sometime later, he left the monastery with one companion in quest of greater solitude. Having visited the hermitage of Camaldoli, he finally settled at Valle Ombrosa in Tuscany. Together with two hermits whom he found there, he and his companions built a small monastery, observing the primitive rule of St. Benedict. Thus was laid the foundation of the Order of Vallombrosa. The humility of the saint was such that he would never be promoted, even to Minor Orders. His charity for the poor caused him to make a rule that no indigent person should be sent away without an alms. He founded several monasteries, reformed others, and succeeded in eradicating the vice of simony from the part of the country where he lived. He died on July 12, 1073, at about 80 years of age. TODAYS READING FROM THE NEW AMERICAN BIBLE: READING 1: Isaiah 6:1-8 1 In the year of King Uzziahs death I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne; his train filled the sanctuary. 2 Above him stood seraphs, each one with six wings: two to cover its face, two to cover its feet and two for flying; 3 and they were shouting these words to each other: Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Sabaoth. His glory fills the whole earth. 4 The door-posts shook at the sound of their shouting, and the Temple was full of smoke. 5 Then I said: Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh Sabaoth. 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding in its hand a live coal which it had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 With this it touched my mouth and said: Look, this has touched your lips, your guilt has been removed and your sin forgiven. 8 I then heard the voice of the Lord saying: Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And I said, Here am I, send me. RESPONSORIAL PSALM, Psalms 93:1, 1-2, 5 1 Yahweh is king, robed in majesty, robed is Yahweh and girded with power. 2 The world is indeed set firm, it can never be shaken; your throne is set firm from of old, from all eternity you exist. 5 Your decrees stand firm, unshakeable, holiness is the beauty of your house, Yahweh, for all time to come. GOSPEL, Matthew 10:24-33 24 Disciple is not superior to teacher, nor slave to master. 25 It is enough for disciple to grow to be like teacher, and slave like master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household? 26 So do not be afraid of them. Everything now covered up will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the daylight; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell. 29 Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not one falls to the ground without your Father knowing. 30 Why, every hair on your head has been counted. 31 So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. 32 So if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of human beings, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven. 33 But the one who disowns me in the presence of human beings, I will disown in the presence of my Father in heaven. REFLECTIONS: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God) OPENING PRAYER: Father, through the obedience of Jesus, your servant and your Son, you raised a fallen world. Free us from sin and bring us the joy that lasts for ever. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. ON READING 1: Isaiah 6:1-8 (The Lord calls Isaiah) As an introduction to what is called the Book of Immanuel (7:1-12:6) we get this account of how the Lord called Isaiah to be a prophet, sending him to his people at the time of the Syrian-Ephraimite coalition to explain to them what is going on and how they should act. The account begins with a theophany (vv. 1-4), which is one of the key points in this books message. God manifests himself seated in the manner of eastern kings, surrounded by his angelic court (the seraphim), who extol the holiness of the Lord: he clearly is Lord of all. In this vision, God is depicted as the thrice holy (v. 3), the highest form of superlative available in Hebrew. Being holy implies standing apart -- standing above everything else. God stands far above all other beings and he is their creator. In Hebrew holy includes the idea of sacred. It means that God has none of the limitations and imperfections that created beings have. The holiness and majesty of God fill Isaiah with a sense of his own uncleaness and that of his people (v. 5). Typically, visions of God in biblical history induce feelings of fear in the seer; we even see this in the angels announcement to Mary (cf. Lk 1:30): Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. Faced with Gods fascinating and mysterious presence, man discovers his own insignificance. Before the burning bush, Moses takes off his sandals and veils his face (cf. Ex 3:5-6) in the presence of Gods holiness. Before the glory of the thrice-holy God, Isaiah cries out: Woe is me! I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips (Is 6:5). Before the divine signs wrought by Jesus, Peter exclaims: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord (Lk 5:8). But because God is holy, he can forgive the man who realizes that he is a sinner before him: I will not execute my fierce anger . . . for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst (Hos 11:9) (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 208 ). Isaiah is cleansed and consoled as soon as he humbly acknowledges his unworthiness and insignificance before God (vv. 6-7). His instinctive sense of fear is immediately replaced by a generous and trusting response on the prophets part: he is ready to do what God wants ( v. 8 ). In their one to one encounters with God the prophets draw light and strength for their mission. Their prayer is not flight from this unfaithful world, but rather attentiveness to the Word of God. At times their prayer is an argument or a complaint, but it is always an intercession that awaits and prepares for the intervention of the Saviour God, the Lord of history (cf. Amos 7:2, 5; Is 6:5, 8, 11; Jer 1:6; 15:15-18 ; 20:7-18 ) (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2584). Finally, the Lord entrusts him with his mission. The message he is to deliver is hardhitting and full of paradoxes (vv. 9-10). The task given him is not, as one might at first think, to render the people incapable of hearing and understanding the word of God that could move their hearts. It is, rather, to tell them that if they fail to listen to the word of God, their hearts will be blinded: they will not be able to see things right and, because of that, the sinner will feel no need to take stock of his position and be converted. The Synoptic Gospels interpret Jesus preaching as a fulfilment of what is said here in vv. 9-10 (Mt 13:13-15; Mk 4:11-12). The Gospel of St. John sees these same words as anticipating what will happen to those who reject Jesus message: Therefore they could not believe. For Isaiah again said, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and turn for me to heal them. Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke of him (Jn 12:27-41). And St Paul also uses vv. 9-10 to reproach the Jews of Rome for rejecting the Good News of salvation in Christ which he is proclaiming to them (cf. Acts 28 : 23-28 ). The peoples hardness of heart will merit severe punishment; cities and houses will he laid waste, but all will not be lost: a holy seed will remain and from it the tree will grow back again (v. 11-13). These verses carry a message for people in all ages. Isaiah approaches God in all humility, showing him every reverence, and at the same time he puts his trust in God. For his part, the Lord cleanses his chosen ones and sends them out to help in his work of salvation. Origen, who commented on this passage a number of times, points out: May burning coals he brought from the altar of heaven to burn my lips. If the burning coals of the Lord touch my lips, they will he purified; and when they are purified and cleansed of all sin, my mouth will he opened to the Word of God and I will not utter another impure word. The seraphim who was sent to purify the prophets lips did not purify the lips of the people; therefore, they continued to live in sin, and now they deny the Lord Jesus Christ and curse him from their unclean mouths. For my part, I pray that the seraphim will come to cleanse my lips (Homiliae in Isaiam, 1, 4). All we need is the same humble docility that Isaiah had: Having received the grace God, he did not want it to be a gift granted to him to no avail, without being put to work in everything that needed to be done. Seeing the seraphim and the Lord of hosts seated on high, on his throne of glory, he said: Woe is me .... By speaking thus and making himself unworthy, he received the help of God because He took in account his humility (ibid., 6:2). And St. John Chrysostom, commenting on Isaiahs response to God, says that the prophet shows readiness to carry out is mission to the people because since the saints are friends of God, they, too, love all men dearly (In Isaiam, 6, 5). ON THE GOSPEL: Matthew 10:24-33 (Jesus Instructions to the Apostles) Today’s Gospel presents to us diverse instructions of Jesus on the behaviour that the disciples have to adopt in the exercise of their mission. What strikes most in these instructions are two warnings: (a) the frequency with which Jesus refers to the persecutions and suffering which they will have to bear; (b) the insistence repeated three times to the disciples not to be afraid. Matthew 10, 24-25: Persecutions and sufferings which mark the life of the disciples. These two verses constitute the final part of a warning of Jesus to the disciples concerning persecutions. The disciples should know that, because of the fact of being disciples of Jesus, they will be persecuted (Mt 10, 17-23). But this should not be a reason for worrying, because a disciple should imitate the life of the Master and share the trials with him. This is part of discipleship. “A disciple is not greater than the Teacher or a servant than his master; it is sufficient for the disciple to grow to be like his teacher and the servant like his master”. If they called Jesus Beelzebul, how much more will they insult his disciples. In other words, the disciple of Jesus should be worried if in his life there are no persecutions. Jesus uses these two proverbs to hint at the future that awaits His disciples: their greatest glory will consist in imitating the Master, being identified with Him, even if this means being despised and persecuted as He was before them: His example is what guides a Christian; as He Himself said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). Beelzebul (cf. Luke 11:15) was the name of the idol of the ancient Philistine city of Ekron. The Jews later used the word to describe the devil or the prince of devils (cf. Matthew 12:24), and their hatred of Jesus led them to the extreme of applying it to Him. To equip them for the persecution and misunderstanding which Christians will suffer (John 15:18 ), Jesus encourages them by promising to stay close to them. Towards the end of His life He will call them His friends (John 15:15) and little children (John 13:33). Matthew 10, 26-27: Do not be afraid to say the truth. The disciples should not be afraid to be persecuted. Those who persecute them, succeed to pervert the sense of the facts and to spread calumnies which change truth into lie, and the lie into truth. But no matter how great is the lie, truth will triumph at the end and will make the lie crumble down. This is why we should not be afraid to proclaim truth, the things which Jesus has taught. Every day, the means of communication succeed to pervert the meaning of things and the persons who proclaim the truth are considered as criminals; they make the neo-liberal system to appear as just and it perverts the sense of human life. Jesus tells His disciples not to be afraid of calumny and detraction. A day will come when everyone will come to know the whole truth about everyone else, their real intentions, the true dispositions of their souls. In the meantime, those who belong to God may be misrepresented by those who resort to lies, out of malice or passion. These are the hidden things which will be made known. Christ also tells the Apostles to speak out clearly. Jesus divine teaching method led Him to speak to the crowds in parables so that they came to discover His true personality by easy stages. After the coming of the Holy Spirit ( cf. Acts 1:8 ), the Apostles would have to preach from the rooftops about what Jesus had taught them. We too have to make Christs doctrine known in its entirety, without any ambiguity, without being influenced by false prudence or fear of the consequences. Matthew 10, 28: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body. The disciples should not be afraid of those who kill the body, who torture, who strike and cause suffering. Those who torture can kill the body, but they cannot succeed to kill liberty and the spirit in the body. They should be afraid, yes, that the fear of suffering may lead them to hide or to deny the truth, and that this will lead them to offend God, because anyone who draws away from God will be lost forever. Using this and other Gospel texts (Matthew 5:22, 29; 18 : 9; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5), the Church teaches that hell exists; there those who die in mortal sin suffer eternal punishment (cf. St. Pius V Catechism, I, 6, 3), in a manner not known to us in this life (cf. St. Teresa of Avila, Life, Chapter 32). Therefore, our Lord warns His disciples against false fear. We should not fear those who can only kill the body. Only God can cast body and soul into hell. Therefore God is the only one we should fear and respect; He is our Prince and Supreme Judge--not men. The martyrs have obeyed this precept of the Lord in the fullest way, well aware that eternal life is worth much more than earthly life. Matthew 10, 29-31: Do not be afraid, but trust in Divine Providence. The disciples should not fear anything, because they are in God’s hands. Jesus orders to look at the birds in the air. Two sparrows are sold for a penny, but not one of them will fall to the ground without the Father wanting. Every hair on our head has been counted. Luke says that not one hair falls without our Father wanting it (Lk 21, 18). And so many hairs fall from our head! Because of this “Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows”. This is the lesson which Jesus draws from the contemplation of nature. An as (translated here as penny) was a small coin of very little value. Christ uses it to illustrate how much God loves His creatures. As St. Jerome says (Comm. in Matth., 10:29-31): If little birds, which are of such little value, still come under the providence and care of God, how is it that you, who, given the nature of your soul, are immortal, can fear that you are not looked after carefully by Him whom you respect as your Father? Jesus again teaches us about the fatherly providence of God, which He spoke about at length in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Matthew 6:19-34). Matthew 10, 32-33: Do not be afraid to be the witnesses of Jesus. At the end Jesus summarizes everything in this sentence: “If anyone declares himself for me in the presence of human beings, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven; 33: the one who instead will disown me in the presence of human beings, I will disown him in the presence of my Father in heaven”. Knowing that we are in God’s hands and that God is with us, at every moment, we have the necessary courage and the peace to render witness and to be disciples of Jesus. Here Jesus tells us that public confession of our faith in Him -- whatever the consequences -- is an indispensable condition for eternal salvation. After the Judgment, Christ will welcome those who have given testimony of their faith and condemn those whom fear caused to be ashamed of Him (cf. Matthew 7:23; 25: 41; Revelation 21:8). The Church honors as confessors those Saints who have not undergone physical martyrdom but whose lives bore witness to the Catholic faith. Although every Christian should be ready to die for his faith, most Christians are called to be confessors of the faith. FINAL PRAYERS: Your decrees stand firm, unshakeable, holiness is the beauty of your house, Yahweh, for all time to come. (Ps 93,5) Lord, in those moments when my heart is most burning with desire to speak words to another but my fear holds me back, let your Holy Spirit be my guide. Help me to consider what the other person needs to hear and grant me the wisdom to speak with courage and consideration. Amen. Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. -- St. Jerome The Father uttered one Word; that Word is His Son, and He utters Him forever in everlasting silence; and in silence the soul has to hear it. -- St. John of the Cross
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 01:15:29 +0000
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