Daily Gospel for Thursday, 25 September 2014

Daily Gospel for Thursday, 25 September 2014
"Peter replied, 'Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. We’ve already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God.'"(John 6:68-69)
Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Saints of the Day:
SAINT FINBARR
Bishop
(6th century)
St. Finbarr who lived in the sixth century, was a native of Connaught, and instituted a monastery or school at Lough Eire, to which such numbers of disciples flocked, as changed, as it were, a desert into a large city. This was the origin of the city of Cork, which was built chiefly upon stakes, in marshy little islands formed by the river Lea.
The right name of our Saint, under which he was baptized, was Lochan; the surname Finbarr, or Barr the White, was afterward given him. He was Bishop of Cork seventeen years, and died in the midst of his friends at Cloyne, fifteen miles from Cork.
His body was buried in his own cathedral at Cork, and his relics, some years after, were put in a silver shrine, and kept there, this great church bearing his name to this day.
St. Finbarr's cave or hermitage was shown in a monastery which seems to have been begun by our Saint, and stood to the west of Cork.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Blessed Herman the Cripple
Feastday: September 25
Birth: 1013
Death: 1054
Herman was born a cripple in Altshausen, Swabia. He was so terribly deformed he was almost helpless. He was placed in Reichenau Abbey in Lake Constance Switzerland, in 1020 when he was seven and spent all his life there. He was professed at twenty, became known to scholars all over Europe for his keen mind, wrote the hymns Salve Regina and Alma Redemptoris mater to Our Lady, poetry, a universal chronicle, and a mathematical treatise. He died at Reichenau on September 21 and is sometimes called Herman Contractus
Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Book of Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That’s what the Quester says.]
    There’s nothing to anything—it’s all smoke.
What’s there to show for a lifetime of work,
    a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
One generation goes its way, the next one arrives,
    but nothing changes—it’s business as usual for old
        planet earth.
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
    then does it again, and again—the same old round.
The wind blows south, the wind blows north.
    Around and around and around it blows,
    blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind.
All the rivers flow into the sea,
    but the sea never fills up.
The rivers keep flowing to the same old place,
    and then start all over and do it again.
Everything’s boring, utterly boring—
    no one can find any meaning in it.
Boring to the eye,
    boring to the ear.
What was will be again,
    what happened will happen again.
There’s nothing new on this earth.
    Year after year it’s the same old thing.
Does someone call out, “Hey, this is new”?
    Don’t get excited—it’s the same old story.
Nobody remembers what happened yesterday.
    And the things that will happen tomorrow?
Nobody’ll remember them either.
    Don’t count on being remembered.
Psalms 90:3-11 So don’t return us to mud, saying,
    “Back to where you came from!”
Patience! You’ve got all the time in the world—whether
    a thousand years or a day, it’s all the same to you.
Are we no more to you than a wispy dream,
    no more than a blade of grass
That springs up gloriously with the rising sun
    and is cut down without a second thought?
Your anger is far and away too much for us;
    we’re at the end of our rope.
You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed
    since we were children is entered in your books.
All we can remember is that frown on your face.
    Is that all we’re ever going to get?
We live for seventy years or so
    (with luck we might make it to eighty),
And what do we have to show for it? Trouble.
    Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard.
Who can make sense of such rage,
    such anger against the very ones who fear you?
12-17 Oh! Teach us to live well!
    Teach us to live wisely and well!
Come back, God—how long do we have to wait?—
    and treat your servants with kindness for a change.
Surprise us with love at daybreak;
    then we’ll skip and dance all the day long.
Make up for the bad times with some good times;
    we’ve seen enough evil to last a lifetime.
Let your servants see what you’re best at—
    the ways you rule and bless your children.
And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,
    confirming the work that we do.
    Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 9:7-9 Herod, the ruler, heard of these goings on and didn’t know what to think. There were people saying John had come back from the dead, others that Elijah had appeared, still others that some prophet of long ago had shown up. Herod said, “But I killed John—took off his head. So who is this that I keep hearing about?” Curious, he looked for a chance to see him in action.
Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the Day:
Saint Peter Chrysologus (c.406-450), Bishop of Ravenna, Doctor of the Church 
Sermon 147; PL 52, 594-596 
Like Herod, we wish to see Jesus
Love cannot accept not being able to see what it loves. Isn’t it true of all the saints that they gave little value to all they achieved so long as they could not see God?… Thus it was that Moses dared to say: “If I have found favour with you; do let me see your face” (cf. Ex 33,13.18). And the psalmist said: “Show us your face” (Ps 79[80],4). Isn’t this the reason why the pagans made idols for themselves? In the midst of error they saw with their eyes what they worshipped. 
God knew mortals, then, to be tormented by the longing to see him. What he chose to make himself manifest was great upon earth and not the least in heaven. For that which God made like himself upon earth could not remain without honour in heaven: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” he said (Gen 1,26)… Let no one think, then, that God was mistaken in coming to men through a man. He took flesh among us that he might be seen by us. 
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