Daily Gospel for Friday, 16 January 2015

Daily Gospel for Friday, 16 January 2015
"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)
Friday of the First week in Ordinary Time
Feast of the Day:
Saint of the Day:
SAINT HONORATUS
Archbishop
(+ 429)
St. Honoratus was of a consular Roman family settled in Gaul. In his youth he renounced the worship of idols, and gained his elder brother, Venantius, to Christ. Convinced of the hollowness of the things of this world, they wished to renounce it with all its pleasures, but a fond pagan father put continual obstacles in their way. At length, taking with them St. Caprais, a holy hermit, for their director, they sailed from Marseilles to Greece, with the intention to live there unknown in some desert.
Venantius soon died happily at Methone, and Honoratus, being also sick, was obliged to return with his conductor. He first led a hermitical life in the mountains near Frejus. Two small islands lie in the sea near that coast; on the smaller, now known as St. Honoré, our Saint settled, and, being followed by others, he there founded the famous monastery of Lerins, about the year 400. Some of his followers he appointed to live in community; others, who seemed more perfect, in separate cells as anchorets. His rule was chiefly borrowed from that of St. Pachomius.
Nothing can be more amiable than the description St. Hilary has given of the excellent virtues of this company of saints, especially of the charity, concord, humility, compunction, and devotion which reigned among them under the conduct of our holy abbot.
He was, by compulsion, consecrated Archbishop of Arles in 426, and died, exhausted with austerities and apostolical labors, in 429.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
SAINT MARCELLUS I
Pope and Martyr
(+309)
St. Marcellus was elected Pope in 307, the last years of the persecution of the Church by Diocletian. He undertook the ecclesiastical reorganization of the Church and was most merciful to those who repented after having denied their Faith.
In 309, under the tyrant Emperor Maxentius, he was banished from Rome and sent into exile where he died the same year.
Saint Fursey
Feastday: January 16
Death: 650

Irish monastic founder, the brother of Sts. Foillan and Ulan, praised by St. Bede. Fursey was born on the island of Inisguia en Lough Carri, Ireland, as a noble. He founded Rathmat Abbey, now probably Killursa. In 630 Fursey and his friends went to East Anglia, England, where he founded a monastery near Ugremouth on land donated by King Sigebert. In his later years, Fursey went to France to build a monastery at Lagny, near Paris, France. He was buried in Picardy. St. Bede and others wrote about Fursey's intense ecstasies.
Friday of the First week in Ordinary Time
Letter to the Hebrews 4:1 The promise to enter the place of rest is still good, and we must take care that none of you miss out. 2 We have heard the message, just as they did. But they failed to believe what they heard, and the message did not do them any good. 3 Only people who have faith will enter the place of rest. It is just as the Scriptures say,
“God became angry
    and told the people,
‘You will never enter
    my place of rest!’”
God said this, even though everything has been ready from the time of creation. 4 In fact, somewhere the Scriptures say that by the seventh day, God had finished his work, and so he rested. 5 We also read that he later said, “You people will never enter my place of rest!”
11 We should do our best to enter that place of rest, so that none of us will disobey and miss going there, as they did.
Psalms 78:3 These are things we learned
    from our ancestors,
4     and we will tell them
    to the next generation.
We won’t keep secret
    the glorious deeds
    and the mighty miracles
    of the Lord.
6 so that each new generation
would know his Law
    and tell it to the next.
7 Then they would trust God
    and obey his teachings,
    without forgetting anything
    God had done.
8 They would be different
    from their ancestors,
    who were stubborn, rebellious,
    and unfaithful to God.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 2: Jesus Heals a Crippled Man
1 Jesus went back to Capernaum, and a few days later people heard that he was at home.[a] 2 Then so many of them came to the house that there wasn’t even standing room left in front of the door.
Jesus was still teaching 3 when four people came up, carrying a crippled man on a mat. 4 But because of the crowd, they could not get him to Jesus. So they made a hole in the roof[b] above him and let the man down in front of everyone.
5 When Jesus saw how much faith they had, he said to the crippled man, “My friend, your sins are forgiven.”
6 Some of the teachers of the Law of Moses were sitting there. They started wondering, 7 “Why would he say such a thing? He must think he is God! Only God can forgive sins.”
8 Right away, Jesus knew what they were thinking, and he said, “Why are you thinking such things? 9 Is it easier for me to tell this crippled man that his sins are forgiven or to tell him to get up and pick up his mat and go on home? 10 I will show you that the Son of Man has the right to forgive sins here on earth.” So Jesus said to the man, 11 “Get up! Pick up your mat and go on home.”
12 The man got right up. He picked up his mat and went out while everyone watched in amazement. They praised God and said, “We have never seen anything like this!”[Footnotes:
2.1 at home: Or “in the house” (perhaps Simon Peter’s home).
2.4 roof: In Palestine the houses usually had a flat roof. Stairs on the outside led up to the roof that was made of beams and boards covered with packed earth.]
Friday of the First week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the Day:
Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church 
Discourse on the Psalms, Ps. 36[37], no. 3, § 3 
“Some people came bringing to him a paralytic”
Can we not take up like the paralytic in the Gospel a man whose inner forces are weakened to the point of being unable to do any good, and open the roof of the Scripture to him so as to let him down at the Lord’s feet? 
You understand, I’m sure, that such a man is a spiritually paralyzed man. And I see this roof (of the Scriptures) and know that Christ is concealed beneath this roof. So I’m going to do, so far as I can, what the Lord approved in those who uncovered the roof of that house and let down the paralytic at his feet. Effectively, the Lord said to him: “My son, take courage! Your sins are forgiven”. And Jesus healed that man's inner paralysis, forgiving his sins and strengthening his faith. 
But there were certain people there whose eyes were incapable of seeing the healing of the inner paralysis. They took to be a blasphemer the doctor who had effected it. “Who is this man, they said, who forgives sins?” “He commits blasphemy! Who can forgive sins except God alone?” But since this doctor was God, he understood the thoughts of their hearts. They believed God really had this power but were unable to see God present in front of them. Therefore this doctor also acts on the body of the paralytic, to heal the inner paralysis of those who talked in this way. He does something they can see so that they may also believe. 
Therefore take courage, you whose hearts are weak, you who are sick to the point of being incapable of any good faced with all what happens in the world. Courage you who are interiorly paralyzed! Let us open up the roof of the Scriptures together and let ourselves down at the Lord’s feet. 
____________________________