Daily Gospel For Wednesday, 19 February 2014

Daily Gospel For Wednesday, 19 February 2014

“Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.’”(John 6:68)

Wednesday of the 6th Week of Ordinary Time

Saint of the Day:

SAINT BARBATUS
Bishop
(+ 682)

St. Barbatus was born in the territory of Benevento in Italy, toward the end of the pontificate of St. Gregory the Great, in the beginning of the seventh century. His parents gave him a Christian education, and Barbatus in his youth laid the foundation of that eminent sanctity which recommends him to our veneration.

The innocence, simplicity, and purity of his manners, and his extraordinary progress in all virtues, qualified him for the service of the altar, to which he was assumed by taking Holy Orders as soon as the canons of the Church would allow it. He was immediately employed by his bishop in preaching, for which he had an extraordinary talent, and, after some time, made curate of St. Basil's in Morcona, a town near Benevento. His parishioners were steeled in their irregularities, and they treated him as a disturber of their peace, and persecuted him with the utmost violence. Finding their malice conquered by his patience and humility, and his character shining still more bright, they had recourse to slanders, in which their virulence and success were such that he was obliged to withdraw his charitable endeavors among them.

Barbatus returned to Benevento, where he was received with joy. When St. Barbatus entered upon his ministry in that city, the Christians themselves retained many idolatrous superstitions, which even their duke, Prince Romuald, authorized by his example, though son of Grimoald, King of the Lombards, who had edified all Italy by his conversion. They expressed a religious veneration for a golden viper, and prostrated themselves before it; they also paid superstitious honor to a tree, on which they hung the skin of a wild beast; and those ceremonies were closed by public games, in which the skin served for a mark at which bowmen shot arrows over their shoulders. St. Barbatus preached zealously against these abuses, and at length he roused the attention of the people by foretelling the distress of their city, and the calamities which it was to suffer from the army of the Emperor Constans, who, landing soon after in Italy, laid siege to Benevento.

Ildebrand, Bishop of Benevento, dying during the siege, after the public tranquillity was restored St. Barbatus was consecrated bishop on the 10th of March, 663. Barbatus, being invested with the episcopal character, pursued and completed the good work which he had so happily begun, and destroyed every trace of superstition in the whole state. In the year 680 he assisted in a council held by Pope Agatho at Rome, and the year following in the Sixth General Council held at Constantinople against the Monothelites.

He did not long survive this great assembly, for he died on the 29th of February, 682, being about seventy years old, almost nineteen of which he had spent in the episcopal chair.

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

Saint Conrad of Piacenza

1290-1350)

Born of a noble family in northern Italy, Conrad as a young man married Euphrosyne, daughter of a nobleman.

One day while hunting he ordered attendants to set fire to some brush in order to flush out the game. The fire spread to nearby fields and to a large forest. Conrad fled. An innocent peasant was imprisoned, tortured to confess and condemned to death. Conrad confessed his guilt, saved the man’s life and paid for the damaged property.

Soon after this event, Conrad and his wife agreed to separate: she to a Poor Clare monastery and he to a group of hermits following the Third Order Rule. His reputation for holiness, however, spread quickly. Since his many visitors destroyed his solitude, Conrad went to a more remote spot in Sicily where he lived 36 years as a hermit, praying for himself and for the rest of the world.

Prayer and penance were his answer to the temptations that beset him. Conrad died kneeling before a crucifix. He was canonized in 1625.

Saint Boniface of Lausanne

Feastday: February 19

1183 - 1260

Bishop of Lausanne. He was born in Brussels, Belgium, and educated by the Cistercian nuns of La Cambra nearby. After studying in Paris, France, he taught dogma there and at Cologne, Germany. In 1230, he was made the bishop of Lausanne, Switzerland. He served nine years and then resigned to live at the Cistercian convent at La Cambra as chaplain because of an assault by agents of Emperor Frederick II after he had publicly scolded the emperor and the local clergy for their corruption.

Wednesday of the 6th Week of Ordinary Time

James 1:19 So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.[a] 22 But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.

26 If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless. 27 Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Footnotes:

a. James 1:21 or, preserve your life.

Psalm 15:2 He who walks blamelessly does what is right,
    and speaks truth in his heart;

3 He who doesn’t slander with his tongue,
    nor does evil to his friend,
    nor casts slurs against his fellow man;

4 In whose eyes a vile man is despised,
    but who honors those who fear Yahweh;
    he who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and doesn’t change;

5 he who doesn’t lend out his money for usury,
    nor take a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things shall never be shaken.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 8:22 He came to Bethsaida. They brought a blind man to him, and begged him to touch him. 23 He took hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village. When he had spit on his eyes, and laid his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything.

24 He looked up, and said, “I see men; for I see them like trees walking.”

25 Then again he laid his hands on his eyes. He looked intently, and was restored, and saw everyone clearly. 26 He sent him away to his house, saying, “Don’t enter into the village, nor tell anyone in the village.”

Wednesday of the 6th Week of Ordinary Time

Commentary of the Day:

Julian of Norwich (1342-after 1416), recluse 

Revelations of divine love, ch. 52 (trans. copyright Calssics of Western Spirituality)

"Do you see anything?"

I saw that God rejoices that he is our Father, God rejoices that he is our Mother, and God rejoices he is our true spouse, and that our soul is his beloved. And Christ rejoices that he is our brother, and Jesus that he is our saviour...
During our lifetime here we have in us a marvellous mixture of both well-being and woe. We have in us our risen Jesus Christ, and we have in us the wretchedness and harm of Adam's falling... We are so afflicted in our feelings by Adam's falling in various ways, by sin and by different pains, and in this we are made dark and so blind that we can scarcely accept any comfort. But in our intention we wait for God and trust faithfully to have mercy and grace; and this is his own working in us. And in his goodness he opens the eye of our understanding, by which we have sight, sometimes more, sometimes less, according to the ability God gives us to receive. And now we are raised to the one, and now we are permitted to fall to the other.
This mixture is so marvellous in us that we scarcely know, about ourselves or about our fellow-Christians, what condition we are in, these conflicting feelings are so extraordinary. But what matters is that we say a holy “yes” to God which we make when we feel him, truly willing with all our heart to be with him, and with all our soul and all our might. And then we hate and despise our evil inclinations... And so we remain in this mixture all the days of our life.

~~~~~~~