Daily Gospel ~ Sunday, 3 November 2013

Daily Gospel ~ Sunday, 3 November 2013

At this, many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.(John 6:68, Messianic WEB)

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
Saint of the Day:

SAINT MARTIN de PORRES
Religious
(1579-1639)

Born at Lima in Peru in 1579 of a native mother and Spanish father, Martin entered the Dominican Order in Lima, where he continued his profession as medical assistant.

He lived a life of fasting and prayer and died in 1639.

The Weekday Missal (1975)

SAINT HUBERT
Bishop
(657-727)

St. Hubert's early life is so obscured by popular traditions that we have no authentic account of his actions. He is said to have been passionately addicted to hunting, and was entirely taken up in worldly pursuits. One thing is certain: that he is the patron saint of hunters.

Moved by divine grace, he resolved to renounce the world. His extraordinary fervor, and the great progress which he made in virtue and learning, strongly recommended him to St. Lambert, Bishop of Maestricht, who ordained him priest, and entrusted him with the principal share in the administration of his diocese.

That holy prelate being barbarously murdered in 681, St. Hubert was unanimously chosen his successor. With incredible zeal he penetrated into the most remote and barbarous places of Ardenne, and abolished the worship of idols; and, as he performed the office of the apostles, God bestowed on him a like gift of miracles.

He died in 727, reciting to his last breath the Creed and the Lord's Prayer.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

Saint Winifred

Feastday: November 3

According to legend, she was the daughter of a wealthy resident of Tegeingl, Flintshire, Wales, and the sister of St. Beuno. She was most impressed by Beuno, was supposedly beheaded on June 22 by one Caradog when she refused to submit to him, had her head restored by Beuno, and sometime later, became a nun of the convent of a double monastery at Gwytherin in Denbigshire. She succeeded an Abbess Tenoy, as Abbess and died there fifteen years after her miraculous restoration to life. A spring supposedly springing up where Winifred's head fell, is called Holy Well or St. Winifred's Well and became a great pilgrimage center where many cures have been reported over the centuries. She is also known as Gwenfrewi. Her feast day is November 3.

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Book of Wisdom 11:22 Indeed, before you the whole universe is like a grain from a balance,*

or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth.o

23 * But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things;

and you overlook sins for the sake of repentance.p

24 For you love all things that are

and loathe nothing that you have made;

for you would not fashion what you hate.q

25 How could a thing remain, unless you willed it;

or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?r

26 But you spare all things, because they are yours,

O Ruler and Lover of souls,s

12:1 for your imperishable spirit is in all things!a

12:2 Therefore you rebuke offenders little by little,

warn them, and remind them of the sins they are committing,

that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in you, Lord!(New American Bible)

Psalm 145:A praise psalm by David.*

1 I will exalt you, my God, the King.

I will praise your name forever and ever.

2 Every day I will praise you.

I will extol your name forever and ever.

8 The LORD is gracious, merciful,

slow to anger, and of great loving kindness.

9 The LORD is good to all.

His tender mercies are over all his works.

10 All your works will give thanks to you, LORD.

Your holy ones will extol you.

11 They will speak of the glory of your kingdom,

and talk about your power;

13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.

Your dominion endures throughout all generations.

the LORD is faithful in all his words,

and loving in all his deeds.†

14 The LORD upholds all who fall,

and raises up all those who are bowed down.(Messianic WEB)

2 Thessalonians 1:11 To this end we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire of goodness and work of faith, with power; 12 that the name of our Lord Yeshua† may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.2:1 Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, and our gathering together to him, we ask you 2 not to be quickly shaken in your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as from us, saying that the day of Messiah had come. (Messianic WEB)

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint Luke 19:1 He entered and was passing through Jericho. 2 There was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Yeshua was, and couldn’t because of the crowd, because he was short. 4 He ran on ahead, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was going to pass that way. 5 When Yeshua came to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” 6 He hurried, came down, and received him joyfully. 7 When they saw it, they all murmured, saying, “He has gone in to lodge with a man who is a sinner.”

8 Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have wrongfully exacted anything of anyone, I restore four times as much.”

9 Yeshua said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. 10  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”(Messianic WEB)

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Commentary of the day:

Paul VI, Pope from 1963-1978 

General Audience of 26/08/1970

"Zacchaeus was seeking to see who Jesus was"

People today, generally speaking, are no longer looking for God... They look for everything, except God. God is dead, they say; let's not be bothered about him any more. But God is not dead; for so many people of today he is lost. So then, wouldn't it be worth the trouble to look for him?
People are looking for everything: the new and the old; the difficult and the useless; the good and the bad. One might say that this kind of seeking is characteristic of modern life. But why not look for God? Isn't he a “value” worth our looking for? Isn't he a reality who is in need of a better understanding than the purely nominal one in current use? Better than that of certain superstitious and overdone religious expressions that we ought either to reject because they are false or purify because they are imperfect. Better than one that thinks itself to be already well-informed and forgets that God is an inexpressible mystery, that to know God is a question of life, eternal life, for us? (cf Jn 17,3). Isn't God what we might call a “problem” that touches us nearly, that puts into the court our thoughts, conscience, destiny and, inevitably, our meeting with him personally one day?
As for God, might he not be hidden so that we have to go look for him through an exciting and decisive initiative? And what if God himself was seeking for us?

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