The Daily Gospel for Monday, December 28, 2015

The Daily Gospel for Monday, December 28, 2015

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."[John 6:68]
The Holy Innocents, martyrs - Feast
Feast of the Church: Holy Innocents, Martyrs - Feast

THE HOLY INNOCENTS
Martyrs

Herod, who was reigning in Judea at the time of the birth of Our Saviour, having heard that the Wise Men had come from the East to Jerusalem in search of the King of the Jews, was troubled.

He called together the chief priests, and learning that Christ was to be born in Bethlehem, he told the Wise Men: "When you have found Him, bring me word again, that I also may come and adore Him." But God having warned them in a dream not to return, they went back to their homes another way. St. Joseph, too, was ordered in his sleep to "take the Child and His Mother and fly into Egypt."

When Herod found that the Wise Men did not return, he was furious, and ordered that every male child in Bethlehem and its vicinity of the age of two and under should be slain.

These innocent victims were the flowers and the first-fruits of His martyrs, and triumphed over the world, without having ever known it or experienced its dangers.

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Father,
the Holy Innocents offered you praise
by the death they suffered for Christ.
May our lives bear witness
to the faith we profess with our lips.

(The Weekday Missal Collins -1979-)

[Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]]

Saints of the day:

Saint Anthony the Hermit
Saint Anthony the Hermit
Feastday: December 28
Anthony was born about circa 468 at Valeria in Lower Pannonia. When he was eight years old, his father died and he was first entrusted to the care of St. Severinus. After the death of Severinus, an uncle, BishopConstantius of Lorsch in Bavaria took charge of his upbringing. While in Bavaria, Anthony became a monk. He returned to Italy in 488 and joined the cleric Marius and his companions as a hermit at Lake Como. However, he gained so many disciples that he was forced to flee. Anthony then went to Lerins in Gaul and became a monk there. However, he lived only two years at Lerins before his death, renowned for his miracles and spirituality
The Holy Innocents, martyrs - Feast
The First Letter of John 1:5 And this is the message which we have heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him — none!

6 If we claim to have fellowship with him while we are walking in the darkness, we are lying and not living out the truth. 7 But if we are walking in the light, as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of his Son Yeshua purifies us from all sin.

8 If we claim not to have sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we acknowledge our sins, then, since he is trustworthy and just, he will forgive them and purify us from all wrongdoing.

10 If we claim we have not been sinning, we are making him out to be a liar, and his Word is not in us.

2:1 My children, I am writing you these things so that you won’t sin. But if anyone does sin, we have Yeshua the Messiah, the Tzaddik, who pleads our cause with the Father. 2 Also, he is the kapparah for our sins — and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

Psalm 124:2 If Adonai hadn’t been for us

when people rose to attack us,

3 then, when their anger blazed against us,

they would have swallowed us alive!

4 Then the water would have engulfed us,

the torrent would have swept over us.

5 Yes, the raging water

would have swept right over us.

7 We escaped like a bird from the hunter’s trap;

the trap is broken, and we have escaped.

8 Our help is in the name of Adonai,

the maker of heaven and earth.

The Holy Gospel of Yeshua the Messiah according to Saint Matthew 2:13 After they had gone, an angel of Adonai appeared to Yosef in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and escape to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you to leave. For Herod is going to look for the child in order to kill him.” 14 So he got up, took the child and his mother, and left during the night for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until Herod died. This happened in order to fulfill what Adonai had said through the prophet,

“Out of Egypt I called my son.”[Matthew 2:15 Hosea 11:1]

16 Meanwhile, when Herod realized that the Magi had tricked him, he was furious and gave orders to kill all the boys in and around Beit-Lechem who were two years old or less, calculating from the time the Magi had told him. 17 In this way were fulfilled the words spoken through the prophet Yirmeyahu,

18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,

sobbing and lamenting loudly.

It was Rachel sobbing for her children

and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no longer alive.”[Matthew 2:18 Jeremiah 31:14(15)]

The Holy Innocents, martyrs - Feast

Commentary of the day:
Blessed John Henry Newman (1801-1890), Cardinal, founder of the Oratory in England, theologian 
Sermon 6: “The Mind of Little Children”; PPS II, 6

“Martyrs incapable of confessing the name of your Son, and yet glorified by his birth” (Post communion)

It is surely right to celebrate the death of the Holy Innocents: for it was a blessed one. To be brought near to Christ, and to suffer for Christ, is surely an unspeakable privilege; to suffer anyhow, even unconsciously. The little children whom He took up in his arms, were not conscious of His loving condescension; but was it no privilege when He blessed them? Surely this massacre had in it the nature of a Sacrament; it was a pledge of the love of the Son of God towards those who were included in it. All who came near Him, more or less suffered by approaching Him, just as if earthly pain and trouble went out of Him, as some precious virtue for the good of their souls; —and these infants in the number. 
Surely His very presence was a Sacrament; every motion, look, and word of His conveying grace to those who would receive it: and much more was fellowship with Him. And hence in ancient times such barbarous murders or Martyrdoms were considered as a kind of baptism, a baptism of blood, with a sacramental charm in it, which stood in the place of the appointed Laver of regeneration. Let us then take these little children as in some sense Martyrs, and see what instruction we may gain from the pattern of their innocence. 

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