Daily Gospel for Friday, 27 March 2015

Daily Gospel for Friday, 27 March 2015

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."[John 6:68]

Friday of the Fifth 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, andseldom 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 Salzburg

Feastday: March 27

Birth: 60

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 majordiocese in the West. Rupert is revered as the Apostle of Bavaria and Austria.

Friday of the Fifth week of Lent

The Book of Genesis seems to go beyond all these experiences of science and, by saying that man is the image of God, it makes us understand that the answers to the mystery of his humanity must not be sought in his resemblance with the world. Man resembles God more than nature. It is in this sense that the psalm could say, “You are gods” (Ps 82,6), words that Jesus will repeat.Book Jeremiah 20:10 I have heard many whispering their plot:

“‘Terror in every direction’?
Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!”
Even all my close friends
are watching for me to make a false step —
“Maybe he can be tricked,
then we’ll get the better of him,
then we’ll take our revenge on him.”
11 But Adonai is with me like a dreaded warrior;
so my persecutors will stumble, defeated,
greatly ashamed because of their failure;
their lasting disgrace will not be forgotten.
12 Adonai-Tzva’ot, you who test the righteous
and see people’s hearts and thoughts,
let me see you take vengeance on them,
for I have committed my cause to you.
13 Sing to Adonai! Praise Adonai!
For he rescues those in need
from the clutches of evildoers.
Psalm 18:2 He said:
(1) “I love you, Adonai, my strength!
3 (2) “Adonai is my Rock, my fortress and deliverer,
my God, my Rock, in whom I find shelter,
my shield, the power that saves me,
my stronghold.
4 (3) I call on Adonai, who is worthy of praise;
and I am saved from my enemies.
5 (4) “For the cords of death surrounded me,
the floods of B’liya‘al terrified me,
6 (5) the ropes of Sh’ol were wrapped around me,
the snares of death lay there before me.
7 (6) In my distress I called to Adonai;
I cried out to my God.
Out of his temple he heard my voice;
my cry reached his ears.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 10:31 Once again the Judeans picked up rocks in order to stone him. 32 Yeshua answered them, “You have seen me do many good deeds that reflect the Father’s power; for which one of these deeds are you stoning me?” 33 The Judeans replied, “We are not stoning you for any good deed, but for blasphemy — because you, who are only a man, are making yourself out to be God [a].” 34 Yeshua answered them, “Isn’t it written in your Torah, ‘I have said, “You people are Elohim’ ”?[b] 35 If he called ‘elohim’ the people to whom the word of Elohim was addressed (and the Tanakh cannot be broken), 36 then are you telling the one whom the Father set apart as holy and sent into the world, ‘You are committing blasphemy,’ just because I said, ‘I am a son of Elohim’?
37 “If I am not doing deeds that reflect my Father’s power, don’t trust me. 38 But if I am, then, even if you don’t trust me, trust the deeds; so that you may understand once and for all that the Father is united with me, and I am united with the Father.” 39 One more time they tried to arrest him, but he slipped out of their hands.
40 He went off again beyond the Yarden, where Yochanan had been immersing at first, and stayed there. 41 Many people came to him and said, “Yochanan performed no miracles, but everything Yochanan said about this man was true.” 42 And many people there put their trust in him.[Footnotes:
John 10:33 Hebrew: Elohim
John 10:34 Psalm 82:6]
Friday of the Fifth week of Lent
Commentary of the day:
Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005 
General Audience 6/12/79 
“ Is it not written in your law, 'I said, You are gods' ? ”
“Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gn 1,26). As if the Creator himself retracted to create man; as if, in creating him, not only he called him to existence by saying: “May it be!” but, in a particular way, he drew man from the mystery of his own being. This is comprehensible because it does not concern only the being, but the image. The image must reflect, it must reproduce, in a certain way, the substance of its prototype...It is obvious that this resemblance is not meant as a portrait, but in the sense that the life of a human being is similar to that of God... 
By defining man the “image of God”, the book of Genesis reveals what is peculiar to man, what distinguishes him from all other creatures of the visible world. Science, we know, has tried and continues trying to show in different ways the bonds of man with the natural world, to show his dependence on this world, so as to insert him in the history of evolution of the different species. 

With all our respect for this type of research, we cannot limit ourselves to this. If we analyse man in the depths of his being we see that he differs from the natural world more than he resembles it. Anthropology and philosophy too proceed in this same way, as they try to analyse and understand the intelligence, freedom, conscience and spirituality of man.
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