Daily Gospel for Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Daily Gospel for Wednesday, 28 May 2014
"Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.'"(John 6:68)
Wednesday of the Sixth week of Easter
Saints for Today:

SAINT GERMANUS 

Bishop 

(c. 496 - 576)

St. Germanus, the glory of the Church of France in the sixth century, was born in the territory of Autun, about the year 496. In his youth he was conspicuous for his fervor. Being ordained priest, he was made abbot of St. Symphorian's; he was favored at that time with the gifts of miracles and prophecy. It was his custom to watch the great part of the night in the church in prayer, whilst his monks slept.
One night, in a dream, he thought a venerable old man presented him with the keys of the city of Paris, and said to him that God committed to his care the inhabitants of that city, that he should save them from perishing.
Four years after this divine admonition, in 554, happening to be at Paris when that see became vacant on the demise of the Bishop Eusebius, he was exalted to the episcopal chair, though he endeavored by many tears to decline the charge. His promotion made no alteration in his mode of life. The same simplicity and frugality appeared in his dress, table, and furniture. His house was perpetually crowded with the poor and the afflicted, and he had always many beggars at his own table. God gave to his sermons a wonderful influence over the minds of all ranks of people; so that the face of the whole city was in a very short time quite changed.
King Childebert, who till then had been an ambitious, worldly prince, was entirely converted by the sweetness and the powerful discourses of the Saint, and founded many religious institutions, and sent large sums of money to the good bishop, to be distributed among the indigent.
In his old age St. Germanus lost nothing of that zeal and activity with which he had filled the great duties of his station in the vigor of his life; nor did the weakness to which his corporal austerities had reduced him make him abate anything in the mortifications of his penitential life, in which he redoubled his fervor as he approached nearer to the end of his course. By his zeal the remains of idolatry were extirpated in France.
The Saint continued his labors for the conversion of sinners till he was called to receive the reward of them, on the 28th of May, 576, being eighty years old.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Wednesday of the Sixth week of Easter
Acts of the Apostles 17:15 But those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens. Receiving a commandment to Silas and Timothy that they should come to him very quickly, they departed.
22 Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said, “You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things. 23 For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you. 24 The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, 25 neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things. 26 He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’ 29 Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man. 30 The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent, 31 because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.”
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We want to hear you again concerning this.”
33 Thus Paul went out from among them. 34 But certain men joined with him, and believed, among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
18:1 After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth.
Psalm 148:1 Praise Yah!
    Praise Yahweh from the heavens!
    Praise him in the heights!
2 Praise him, all his angels!
    Praise him, all his army!
11 kings of the earth and all peoples;
    princes and all judges of the earth;
12 both young men and maidens;
    old men and children:
13 let them praise Yahweh’s name,
    for his name alone is exalted.
    His glory is above the earth and the heavens.
14 He has lifted up the horn of his people,
    the praise of all his saints;
    even of the children of Israel, a people near to him.
Praise Yah!
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 16:12 “I have yet many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. 13 However when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, he will speak. He will declare to you things that are coming. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you. 15 All things whatever the Father has are mine; therefore I said that he takes[a] of mine, and will declare it to you.
Footnotes:
a. John 16:15 TR reads “will take” instead of “takes”
Wednesday of the Sixth week of Easter
Commentary for Today:

Catechism of the Catholic Church 

§ 797-799 (trans. rev.)

"He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you"

"What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church" (St Augustine)... The Holy Spirit makes the Church "the temple of the living God" (2Co 6,16; 1Co 3,16). Indeed, “it is to the Church herself that the 'Gift of God' has been entrusted.... In it is in her that communion with Christ has been deposited, that is to say: the Holy Spirit, the pledge of incorruptibility, the strengthening of our faith and the ladder of our ascent to God.... For where the Church is, there also is God's Spirit; where God's Spirit is, there is the Church and every grace” (St. Irenaeus).
The Holy Spirit... works in many ways to build up the whole Body in charity: by God's Word...; by Baptism, through which he forms Christ's Body (1Cor 12,13); by the sacraments, which give growth and healing to Christ's members; by "the grace of the apostles, which holds first place among his gifts" (Vat II, LG 7); by the virtues, which make us act according to what is good; finally, by the many special graces (called "charisms"), by which he makes the faithful "fit and ready to undertake various tasks and offices for the renewal and building up of the Church” (LG 12). Whether extraordinary or simple and humble, charisms are graces of the Holy Spirit which directly or indirectly benefit the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world.
-------