Daily Gospel for Tuesday, 1 April 2014

Daily Gospel for Tuesday, 1 April 2014

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

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Saints of the Day:

SAINT HUGH

Bishop

(1053-1132)

It was the happiness of this Saint to receive from his cradle the strongest impressions of piety by the example and care of his illustrious and holy parents. He was born at Chateau-neuf, in the territory of Valence in Dauphiné, in 1053. His father, Odilo, who served his country in an honorable post in the army, labored by all the means in his power to make his soldiers faithful servants of their Creator, and by severe punishments to restrain vice.

By the advice of his son, St. Hugh, he afterwards became a Carthusian monk, and died at the age of a hundred, having received Extreme Unction and Viaticum from the hands of his son. Our Saint likewise assisted, in her last moments, his mother, who had for many years, under his direction, served God in her own house, by prayer, fasting, and plenteous alms-deeds. Hugh, from the cradle, appeared to be a child of benediction. He went through his studies with great applause, and having chosen to serve God in an ecclesiastical state, he accepted a canonry in the cathedral of Valence.

His great sanctity and learning rendered him an ornament of that church, and he was finally made Bishop of Grenoble. He set himself at once to reprove vice and to reform abuses, and so plentiful was the benediction of Heaven upon his labors that he had the comfort to see the face of his diocese in a short time exceedingly changed. After two years he privately resigned his bishopric, presuming on the tacit consent of the Holy See, and, putting on the habit of St. Bennet, he entered upon a novitiate in the austere abbey of Casa-Dei in Auvergne. There he lived a year, a perfect model of all virtues to that house of Saints, till Pope Gregory VII. commanded him, in virtue of holy obedience, to resume his pastoral charge.

He earnestly solicited Pope Innocent II. for leave to resign his bishopric, that he might die in solitude, but was never able to obtain his request. God was pleased to purify his soul by a lingering illness before He called him to Himself. Some time before his death he lost his memory for everything but his prayers.

He closed his penitential course on the 1st of April in 1132, wanting only two months of being Eighty years old, of which he had been fifty-two years bishop. Miracles attested the sanctity of his happy death, and he was canonized by Innocent II. in 1134.

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

SAINT MARY OF EGYPT

Hermit

(c. 344-421)

At the tender age of twelve, Mary left her father's house that she might sin without restraint, and for seventeen years she lived in shame at Alexandria. Then she accompanied a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and entangled many in grievous sin.

She was in that city on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and went with the crowd to the church which contained the precious wood. The rest entered and adored; but Mary was invisibly held back. In that instant her misery and pollution burst upon her. Turning to the Immaculate Mother, whose picture faced her in the porch, she vowed thenceforth to do penance if she might enter and stand like Magdalen beside the Cross. Then she entered in. As she knelt before Our Lady on leaving the church, a voice came to her which said, "Pass over Jordan, and thou shalt find rest."

She went into the wilderness, and there, in 420, forty-seven years after, the Abbot Zosimus met her. She told him that for seventeen years the old songs and scenes had haunted her; ever since, she had had perfect peace. At her request he brought her on Holy Thursday the sacred body of Christ.

She bade him return again after a year, and this time he found her corpse upon the sand, with an inscription sayings "Bury here the body of Mary the sinner."

The Bollandists place her death on April 1, 421. The Greek Church celebrates her feast on 1 April, while the Roman Martyrology assigns it to 2 April, and the Roman Calendar to 3 April. The Greek date is more likely to be correct; the others may be due to the fact that on those days portions of her relics reached the West.

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

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Book of Ezekiel 47: He brought me back to the door of the house; and behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward; (for the forefront of the house was toward the east;) and the waters came down from under, from the right side of the house, on the south of the altar. 2 Then he brought me out by the way of the gate northward, and led me round by the way outside to the outer gate, by the way of the gate that looks toward the east; and behold, there ran out waters on the right side. 3 When the man went out eastward with the line in his hand, he measured one thousand cubits,[a] and he caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the ankles. 4 Again he measured one thousand, and caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the knees. Again he measured one thousand, and caused me to pass through waters that were to the waist. 5 Afterward he measured one thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass through; for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. 6 He said to me, Son of man, have you seen? Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the bank of the river. 7 Now when I had returned, behold, on the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. 8 Then he said to me, These waters flow out toward the eastern region, and will go down into the Arabah; and they will go toward the sea; and flow into the sea which will be made to flow out; and the waters will be healed. 9 It shall happen, that every living creature which swarms, in every place where the rivers come, shall live; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish; for these waters have come there, and the waters of the sea shall be healed, and everything shall live wherever the river comes.

Footnotes:

a. Ezekiel 47:3 a cubit is the length from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow on a man's arm, or about 18 inches or 46 centimeters.

12 By the river on its bank, on this side and on that side, shall grow every tree for food, whose leaf shall not wither, neither shall its fruit fail: it shall produce new fruit every month, because its waters issue out of the sanctuary; and its fruit shall be for food, and its leaf for healing.

Psalm 46: 2 Therefore we won’t be afraid, though the earth changes,

    though the mountains are shaken into the heart of the seas;

3     though its waters roar and are troubled,

    though the mountains tremble with their swelling.

Selah.

5 God is within her. She shall not be moved.

    God will help her at dawn.

6 The nations raged. The kingdoms were moved.

    He lifted his voice, and the earth melted.

8 Come, see Yahweh’s works,

    what desolations he has made in the earth.

9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.

    He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear.

    He burns the chariots in the fire.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 5: After these things, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, there is a pool, which is called in Hebrew, “Bethesda”, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water; 4 for an angel went down at certain times into the pool, and stirred up the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. 5 A certain man was there, who had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been sick for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be made well?”

7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.”

8 Jesus said to him, “Arise, take up your mat, and walk.”

9 Immediately, the man was made well, and took up his mat and walked.

Now it was the Sabbath on that day. 10 So the Jews said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry the mat.”

11 He answered them, “He who made me well, the same said to me, ‘Take up your mat, and walk.’”

12 Then they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your mat, and walk’?”

13 But he who was healed didn’t know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a crowd being in the place.

14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

15 The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath.

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Commentary of the Day:

Saint Maximus of Turin (?-c.420), Bishop

Sermon for Lent ; CC Sermon 50, p. 202 ; PL 57, 585

« Do you want to be healed? » Lent leads to baptism.

We read in the Old Testament that in the times of Noah, since all humankind had been won over by sin, heaven's floodgates opened and rain poured down for forty days... This was a symbol: it was less about a flood than about a baptism. For it was indeed a baptism that bore away the misdeeds of the sinners and spared the uprightness of Noah. And so today, just as it was then, our Lord has given Lent to us so that the skies can open for the same number of days to inundate us with the floods of divine mercy. Once washed in the saving waters of baptism, this sacrament enlightens us and, just as formerly, its waters bear away the evil of our sins and confirm the uprightness of our virtues.

Today's situation is just the same as in Noah's time. Baptism is flood to sinners and consecration for the faithful. In baptism the Lord rescues justice and destroys injustice. We can see this in the example of one and the same man: before he was cleansed by the spiritual commands, the apostle Paul was a persecutor and blasphemer (1Tm 1,13). But once he had been bathed with the heavenly rain of baptism, the blasphemer died, the persecutor died, Saul died. Then the apostle, the just man, Paul came to life... Anyone who lives Lent in a religious manner and observes the Lord's decrees will see sin die in him and grace come to life...; such as these die as sinners and live as righteous persons.

-------