Daily Gospel for Thursday, 27 March 2014

Daily Gospel for Thursday, 27 March 2014
"Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68
Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
Saints of the Day:
SAINT JOHN OF EGYPT
(+ 394)
Till he was twenty-five, John worked as a carpenter with his father. Then feeling a call from God, he left the world and committed himself to a holy solitary in the desert. His master tried his spirit by many unreasonable commands, bidding him roll the hard rocks, tend dead trees, and the like. John obeyed in all things with the simplicity of a child.
After a careful training of sixteen years he withdrew to the top of a steep cliff to think only of God and his soul. The more he knew of himself, the more he distrusted himself. For the last fifty years, therefore, he never saw women, and seldom men. The result of this vigilance and purity was threefold: a holy joy and cheerfulness which consoled all who conversed with him; perfect obedience to superiors; and, in return for this, authority over creatures, whom he had forsaken for the Creator.  
St. Augustine tells us of his appearing in a vision to a holy woman, whose sight he had restored, to avoid seeing her face to face. Devils assailed him continually, but John never ceased his prayer.
From his long communings with God, he turned to men with gifts of healing and prophecy. Twice each week he spoke through a window with those who came to him, blessing oil for their sick and predicting things to come. A deacon came to him in disguise, and he reverently kissed his hand. To the Emperor Theodosius he foretold his future victories and the time of his death.
The three last days of his life John gave wholly to God: on the third he was found on his knees as if in prayer, bud his soul was with the blessed. He died in 394.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Saint Rupert of Salzberg
Feastday: March 27
Birth: Unknown
Death: 717
Bishop and missionary, also listed as Robert of Hrodbert. A member of a noble Frankish family, he was appointed bishop of Worms, Germany, and then dedicated himself to spreading the faith among the Germans. With the patronage of Duke Thedo of Bavaria, he took over the deserted town of luvavum about 697, which was renamed Salzburg, Austria. Rupert founded a church, a monastery, and a school; brought in groups of missionaries; and established a nunnery at Nonnberg with his sister, Eerentrudis, serving as the first abbess. He died at Salzburg and is venerated as the first archbishop of this major diocese in the West. Rupert is revered as the Apostle of Bavaria and Austria.
Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
Psalm 95:1 Oh come, let’s sing to Yahweh.
    Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let’s come before his presence with thanksgiving.
    Let’s extol him with songs!
6 Oh come, let’s worship and bow down.
    Let’s kneel before Yahweh, our Maker,
7 for he is our God.
    We are the people of his pasture,
    and the sheep in his care.
Today, oh that you would hear his voice!
8     Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah,
    as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers tempted me,
    tested me, and saw my work.
Jeremiah 7:23 but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24 But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. 25 Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: 26 yet they didn’t listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers.
27 “You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you. 28 You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to Yahweh their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 11:14 He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke; and the multitudes marveled. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of the demons.” 16 Others, testing him, sought from him a sign from heaven. 17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. A house divided against itself falls. 18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. 19 But if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore will they be your judges. 20 But if I by God’s finger cast out demons, then God’s Kingdom has come to you.
21 “When the strong man, fully armed, guards his own dwelling, his goods are safe. 22 But when someone stronger attacks him and overcomes him, he takes from him his whole armor in which he trusted, and divides his plunder.
23 “He that is not with me is against me. He who doesn’t gather with me scatters.
Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
Commentary of the Day:
Saint John Eudes (1601-1680), priest, preacher, founder of Religious Insitutes 
The Kingdom of Jésus, 3, 4 (trans. Breviary, Friday of the 33rd week) 
"The kingdom of God has come upon you"
We ought to imitate and complete in ourselves the various states and mysteries of Christ. We should frequently beseech him to bring them to perfection in us and in the whole Church. For, though in his person they are perfected, the mysteries of Jesus have not yet reached completion in us, his members, nor in the Church, which is his mystical body (Eph 5,30). The Son of God plans to make us sharers in his mysteries, and, in a certain manner, continue them in us and in the Church... This is how he wishes to complete his mysteries in us. For this reason the apostle Paul can say that the whole Christ is being brought to perfection in the Church, and that all of us are contributing to his being built up and arriving at full maturity (Eph 4,13)... In another text the same apostle says that by his physical sufferings he is completing what still remains of Christ's sufferings (Col 1,24)... 
When he is born again in our souls by the holy sacraments of baptism arid the blessed eucharist, and conforms us to his likeness, the Son of God wishes to complete in us the mysteries of his incarnation, birth and hidden life. He makes it possible for us to live an interior spiritual life, hidden with him in God. He intends to bring to perfection in us the mysteries of his passion, death and resurrection by causing us to suffer, to die and to rise with him and in him. Finally, he plans to complete his state of glorious immortality in us by bringing it about that we shall lead a glorious everlasting life with him and in him in heaven... 
Thus the mysteries of Jesus will not reach their completion until the end of the time which he has decreed, that is, until the end of the world.
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