Daily Gospel for Thursday, 13 February 2014

Daily Gospel for Thursday, 13 February 2014

“Peter replied, “Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life.”(John 6:68, the Message).

Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time  

Saint of the Day:

BLESSED JORDAN OF SAXONY

Dominican Priest

(C. 1190-1237)

Blessed Jordan of Saxony was a German of noble descent. He received a pious upbringing, and was noted for his charity to the poor from an early age. Educated in Germany, he received his masters' degree in theology at the University of Paris.

He joined the Order of Preachers in 1220 under Saint Dominic himself and became Prior-provincial of the Order in Lombardy in 1221. He succeeded Dominic as master-general of the Order in 1222. Under his administration, the Order spread throughout Germany, and into Denmark.

He was a noted and powerful preacher; one of his sermons brought Saint Albert the Great into the Order.

Jordan is the author of Libellus de principiis Ordinis Praedicatorum ("Booklet on the beginnings of the Order of Preachers"), a Latin text which is both the earliest biography of Saint Dominic and the first narrative history of the foundation of the Order.

Spiritual director of Blessed Diana d'Andalo, he helped her found the monastery of Saint Agnes.

He died in a shipwreck off the coast of Syria while on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

1 Kings 11:4 For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. 5 For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not completely follow the Lord, as his father David had done. 7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. 8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrificed to their gods.

9 Then the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, 10 and had commanded him concerning this matter, that he should not follow other gods; but he did not observe what the Lord commanded. 11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your mind and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. 12 Yet for the sake of your father David I will not do it in your lifetime; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. 13 I will not, however, tear away the entire kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

Psalm 106:3 Happy are those who observe justice,

    who do righteousness at all times.

4 Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people;

    help me when you deliver them;

35 but they mingled with the nations

    and learned to do as they did.

36 They served their idols,

    which became a snare to them.

37 They sacrificed their sons

    and their daughters to the demons;

40 Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,

    and he abhorred his heritage;

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 7: Mark 7: The Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith

24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre.[a] He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Sir,[b] even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30 So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Footnotes:

a. Mark 7:24 Other ancient authorities add and Sidon

b. Mark 7:28 Or Lord; other ancient authorities prefix Yes

Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the day:

Origen (c.185-253), priest and theologian

Commentary on Saint Matthew's gospel, 9, 16 ; SC 16

"Jesus went to the district of Tyre"

Jesus came out of Israel...: “Jesus went from that place and withdrew to the region of Tyre” (Mt 15,21), a name which means “gathering of the nations”. This was so that, from among the people of that territory, those who believed might be saved when they came out from it. Now, pay attention to these words: “And behold, a Canaanite woman, coming out of that district, called out saying: 'Have pity on me, Lord, son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon'” (v.22). Now in my opinion, if she had not withdrawn from that territory she would not have been able to call out to Jesus with the cries that sprang from “great faith”, as he himself testified (v.28).

It is “according to the measure of our faith” (Rm 12,6) that we come out from the territory of the pagan nations... We must certainly believe that each one of us, so long as he is a sinner, finds himself in the region of Tyre or Sidon, of Pharaoh or Egypt, or of some other land alien to God's inheritance. But when sinners abandon their wrongdoing, turning back to the good, they withdraw from those regions where sin dwells and hasten to the regions that are the portion of God...

Notice, too, that sort of journey that Jesus makes to meet the Canaanite woman; for he seems to be going towards the region of Tyre and Sidon... The righteous are directed towards the kingdom of heaven and elevation into the Kingdom of God, but sinners are directed towards the outcome of their evildoing... The Canaanite woman, by leaving these territories, also left that tendency towards decadence, when she cried out and said: “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David”... All the healings accomplished by Jesus, as the evangelists have told them, took place, then, so those who saw them might have faith. But those events are the symbol of what is always been brought about by Jesus' power, for there is no age when what was written is not being realized in exactly the same way.

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