Daily Gospel for Friday, 7 March 2014

Daily Gospel for Friday, 7 March 2014

"Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68

Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Saint(s) of the day:

Saint Perpetua and

Saint Felicity

Martyrs

(+ 203)

Perpetua was 22, of a patrician family; Felicity was a slave: both were martyred in the public stadium at Carthage, in 203, during the persecution of Septimus Severus

Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 58:1 “Cry aloud, don’t spare.

    Lift up your voice like a trumpet.

Declare to my people their disobedience,

    and to the house of Jacob their sins.

2 Yet they seek me daily,

    and delight to know my ways.

As a nation that did righteousness,

    and didn’t forsake the ordinance of their God,

they ask of me righteous judgments.

    They delight to draw near to God.

3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ say they, ‘and you don’t see?

    Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’

“Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure,

    and oppress all your laborers.

4 Behold, you fast for strife and contention,

    and to strike with the fist of wickedness.

    You don’t fast today so as to make your voice to be heard on high.

5 Is this the fast that I have chosen?

    A day for a man to humble his soul?

Is it to bow down his head like a reed,

    and to spread sackcloth and ashes under himself?

Will you call this a fast,

    and an acceptable day to Yahweh?

6 “Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen:

    to release the bonds of wickedness,

    to undo the straps of the yoke,

    to let the oppressed go free,

    and that you break every yoke?

7 Isn’t it to distribute your bread to the hungry,

    and that you bring the poor who are cast out to your house?

When you see the naked,

    that you cover him;

    and that you not hide yourself from your own flesh?

8 Then your light will break out as the morning,

    and your healing will appear quickly;

then your righteousness shall go before you;

    and Yahweh’s glory will be your rear guard.

9 Then you will call, and Yahweh will answer;

    you will cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

“If you take away from among you the yoke,

    finger pointing,

    and speaking wickedly;

Psalm 51: 3 For I know my transgressions.

    My sin is constantly before me.

4 Against you, and you only, have I sinned,

    and done that which is evil in your sight;

that you may be proved right when you speak,

    and justified when you judge.

5 Behold, I was born in iniquity.

    In sin my mother conceived me.

6 Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts.

    You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

18 Do well in your good pleasure to Zion.

    Build the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of righteousness,

    in burnt offerings and in whole burnt offerings.

Then they will offer bulls on your altar.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 9:14 Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?”

15 Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the Day:

Blessed John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005

General Audience of 21/03/1979 (trans. © copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

"Then they will fast"

Jesus answered the disciples of John the Baptist when they asked him: "Why do your disciples not fast?" Jesus answered: "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast" (Mt 9:15). In fact the time of Lent reminds us that the bridegroom has been taken away from us. Taken away, arrested, imprisoned, slapped, scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified. Fasting in the time of Lent is the expression of our solidarity with Christ...  "My love has been crucified and there is no longer in me the flame that desires material things", as the Bishop of Antioch, Ignatius, writes [at the end of the 1st and beginning of the 2nd centuries]...

Food and drink are indispensable for man to live, he uses them and must use them, but he may not abuse them in any way. The traditional abstention from food and drink has as its purpose to introduce into man's existence not only the necessary balance, but also detachment from what might be defined a "consumer attitude". In our times this attitude has become one of the characteristics of civilization and in particular of Western civilization... Man geared to material goods... very often abuses them.

It is not a question here lust of food and drink. When man is geared exclusively to possession and use of material goods—that is, of things—then also the whole civilization is measured according to the quantity and the quality of the things with which it is in a position to supply man, and is not measured with the yardstick suitable for man. This civilization, in fact, supplies material goods not just in order that they may serve man to carry out creative and useful activities, but more and more... to satisfy the senses, the excitement he derives from them, momentary pleasure, an ever greater multiplicity of sensations, [for example through] audiovisual media... It is seen from this that modern man must fast, that is, abstain not only from food or drink, but from many other means of consumption, stimulation, satisfaction of the senses.

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