Daily Gospel for Thursday, September 17, 2015

 

Daily Gospel for Thursday, September 17, 2015
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."[John 6:68]
Friday of the Twenty-fourth week in Ordinary Time 

Saints of the day:

St. Thomas of Villanova, Bishop (1488-1555)

SAINT THOMAS OF VILLANOVA 
Bishop
(1488-1555)

Saint Thomas, the glory of the Spanish Church in the sixteenth century, was born in 1488. A thirst for the science of the Saints led him to enter the house of the Austin Friars at Salamanca. Charles V. listened to him an oracle, and appointed him Archbishop of Valencia. On being led to his throne in church, he pushed the silken cushions aside, and with tears kissed the ground.
His first visit was to the prison; the sum with which the chapter presented him for his palace was devoted to the public hospital. As a child he had given his meal to the poor, and two thirds of his episcopal revenues were now annually spent in alms. He daily fed five hundred needy persons, brought up himself the orphans of the city, and sheltered the neglected foundlings with a mother's care.
During his eleven years' episcopate not one poor maiden was married without an alms from the Saint. Spurred by his example, the rich and the selfish became liberal and generous; and when, on the Nativity of Our Lady, 1555, St. Thomas came to die, he was well-nigh the only poor man in his see.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
St. Joseph of Cupertino (1603-1663)

SAINT JOSEPH OF CUPERTINO
Priest
(1603-1663)

Joseph of Cupertino, born of pious parents, as a youth was noted for his chastity. He was admitted among the Friars Minor Conventual at the convent of Grotella, first as a lay brother because of his lack of formal education, then, by divine intervention, as a cleric.
After being ordained a priest, he afflicted his body with hairshirts, disciplines and all kinds of austerities. His spirit in truth he fed constantly with the nourishment of holy prayer, whence it came about that he was called by God to the highest level of contemplation.
Notable for his obedience and for his practice of poverty, he cultivated chastity especially, which he preserved intact despite violent temptations.
He honored the Virgin Mary with a wonderful love and shone with great charity toward the poor.
So great was his humility that, considering himself a great sinner, he earnestly besought God to remove from him his wonderful gifts.
By order of his superiors and of the sacred Inquisition, he traversed many regions.
Finally, at Osimo in Picenum, in the sixty-first year of his age, he went to heaven.

The Roman Breviary - Benziger Brothers - 1964

Friday of the Twenty-fourth week in Ordinary Time

First Letter to Timothy 6:2c-12
Psalms 49:6-7-10,17-20
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 8:1-3

Friday of the Twenty-fourth week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the day:
Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
Mulieris Dignitatem § 16

 “Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women”

The fact of being a man or a woman involves no limitation here, just as the salvific and sanctifying action of the Spirit in man is in no way limited by the fact that one is a Jew or a Greek, slave or free, according to the well-known words of Saint Paul: "For you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28). 

This unity does not cancel out diversity. The Holy Spirit, who brings about this unity in the supernatural order of sanctifying grace, contributes in equal measure to the fact that "your sons will prophesy"(Jl 3,1) and that "your daughters will prophesy". "To prophesy" means to express by one's words and one's life "the mighty works of God" (Acts 2: 11), preserving the truth and originality of each person, whether woman or man. Gospel "equality", the "equality" of women and men in regard to the "mighty works of God" - manifested so clearly in the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth - constitutes the most obvious basis for the dignity and vocation of women in the Church and in the world. Every vocation has a profoundly personal and prophetic meaning. In "vocation" understood in this way, what is personally feminine reaches a new dimension: the dimension of the "mighty works of God", of which the woman becomes the living subject and an irreplaceable witness.
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