Daily Gospel for Tuesday, 28 January 2014
“Peter replied, “Master, to whom would we go? You have the words
of real life, eternal life.”(John 6:68, The Message).
Tuesday of the Third week in Ordinary Time
Saint of the Day:
SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS
Priest and Doctor of the Church
(c.1225-1274)
St. Thomas was born of noble parents at Aquino in Italy, in
1226. At the age of nineteen he received the Dominican habit in Naples, where
he was studying.
Seized by his brothers on his way to Paris, he suffered a two
years' captivity in their castle of Rocca-Secca; but neither the caresses of
his mother and sisters, nor the threats and stratagems of his brothers, could
shake him in his vocation. While St. Thomas was in confinement at Rocca-Secca,
his brothers endeavored to entrap him into sin, but the attempt only ended in
the triumph of his purity. Snatching from the hearth a burning brand, the Saint
drove from his chamber the wretched creature whom they had there concealed.
Then marking a cross upon the wall, he knelt down to pray, and forthwith, being
rapt in ecstasy, an angel girded him with a cord, in token of the gift of
perpetual chastity which God had given him. The pain caused by the girdle was
so sharp that St. Thomas uttered a piercing cry, which brought his guards into
the room. But he never told this grace to any one save only to Father Raynald,
his confessor, a little while before his death. Hence originated the
Confraternity of the "Angelic Warfare," for the preservation of the
virtue of chastity!
Having at length escaped, St. Thomas went to Cologne to study
under Blessed Albert the Great, and after that to Paris, where for many years
he taught philosophy and theology. The Church has ever venerated his numerous
writings as a treasure-house of sacred doctrine; while in naming him the
Angelic Doctor she has indicated that his science is more divine than human.
The rarest gifts of intellect were combined in him with the tenderest piety.
Prayer, he said, had taught him more than study.
His singular devotion to the Blessed Sacrament shines forth in
the Office and hymns for Corpus Christi, which he composed. To the words
miraculously uttered by a crucifix at Naples, "Well hast thou written
concerning Me, Thomas. What shall I give thee as a reward?" he replied,
"Naught save Thyself, O Lord."
He died at Fossa-Nuova, 1274, on his way to the General Council
of Lyons, to which Pope Gregory X. had summoned him.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Tuesday of the Third week in Ordinary Time
2 Samuel 6: 12 It was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the
household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.”
So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the
city of David with rejoicing; 13 and when those who bore the ark of the Lord
had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. 14 David danced before
the Lord with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod. 15 So David and
all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with
the sound of the trumpet. 17 They brought in the ark of the Lord, and set it in
its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it; and David offered
burnt offerings and offerings of well-being before the Lord. 18 When David had
finished offering the burnt offerings and the offerings of well-being, he
blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts, 19 and distributed food
among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, to
each a cake of bread, a portion of meat,[a] and a cake of raisins. Then all the
people went back to their homes.
Footnotes:
a. 2 Samuel 6:19 Vg: Meaning of Heb uncertain
Psalm 24: 7 Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O
ancient doors!
that the King of glory
may come in.
8 Who is the King of glory?
The Lord, strong and
mighty,
the Lord, mighty in
battle.
9 Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O
ancient doors!
that the King of glory
may come in.
10 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of
glory.Selah
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 3: The True
Kindred of Jesus
31 Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside,
they sent to him and called him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him; and they
said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters[a] are outside, asking
for you.” 33 And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And
looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my
brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
Footnotes:
a. Mark 3:32 Other ancient authorities lack and sisters
Tuesday of the Third week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the day:
Pope Francis
Encyclical « Lumen fidei / The Light of Faith », § 58 (trans. ©
Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
"Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and
mother"
In the parable of the sower, Saint Luke has left us these words
of the Lord about the "good soil": "These are the ones who when
they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit
with patient endurance" (Lk 8:15)... This mention of an honest and good
heart which hears and keeps the word is an implicit portrayal of the faith of
the Virgin Mary. The evangelist himself speaks of Mary’s memory, how she
treasured in her heart all that she had heard and seen (2,19.51), so that the
word could bear fruit in her life. The Mother of the Lord is the perfect icon
of faith; as Saint Elizabeth would say: "Blessed is she who believed"
(Lk 1:45).
In Mary, the Daughter of Zion, is fulfilled the long history of
faith of the Old Testament, with its account of so many faithful women,
beginning with Sarah: women who, alongside the patriarchs, were those in whom
God’s promise was fulfilled and new life flowered. In the fullness of time,
God’s word was spoken to Mary and she received that word into her heart, her
entire being, so that in her womb it could take flesh and be born as light for
humanity. Saint Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho, uses a striking
expression; he tells us that Mary, receiving the message of the angel,
conceived "faith and joy". In the Mother of Jesus, faith demonstrated
its fruitfulness; when our own spiritual lives bear fruit we become filled with
joy, which is the clearest sign of faith’s grandeur. In her own life Mary
completed the pilgrimage of faith, following in the footsteps of her Son
(Vatican II, LG 58). In her the faith journey of the Old Testament was thus
taken up into the following of Christ, transformed by him and entering into the
gaze of the incarnate Son of God.
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