Daily Gospel for Wednesday,
16 April 2014
"Simon Peter
answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal
life." John 6:68
Wednesday of Holy Week
Saints of the Day:
EIGHTEEN MARTYRS OF SARAGOSSA and ST. ENCRATIS, or
ENGRATIA
Virgin, Martyr
(+ 304)
St. Optatus and
seventeen other holy men received the crown of martyrdom on the same day, at
Saragossa, under the cruel Governor Dacian, in the persecution of Diocletian,
in 304. Two others, Caius and Crementius, died of their torments after a second
conflict.
The Church also
celebrates on this day the triumph of St. Encratis, or Engratia, Virgin. She
was a native of Portugal. Her father had promised her in marriage to a man of
quality in Roussillon; but fearing the dangers and despising the vanities of
the world, and resolving to preserve her virginity, in order to appear more
agreeable to her heavenly Spouse and serve Him without hindrance, she stole from
her father's house and fled privately to Saragossa, where the persecution was
hottest, under the eyes of Dacian. She even reproached him with his
barbarities, upon which he ordered her to be long tormented in the most inhuman
manner: her sides were torn with iron hooks, and one of her breasts was cut
off, so that the inner parts of her chest were exposed to view, and part of her
liver was pulled out. In this condition she was sent back to prison, being
still alive, and died by the mortifying of her wounds, in 304.
The relics of all these
martyrs were found at Saragossa in 1389.
Lives of the Saints, by
Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Saint Bernadette Soubirous (of Lourdes)
Feastday: April 16
Death: 1879
Famed visionary of
Lourdes, baptized Mary Bernard. She was born in Lourdes, France, on January 7,
1844, the daughter of Francis and Louise Soubirous. Bernadette, a severe asthma
sufferer, lived in abject poverty. On February 11, 1858, she was granted a
vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a cave on the banks of the Gave River near
Lourdes. She was placed in consider able jeopardy when she reported the vision,
and crowds gathered when she had futher visits from the Virgin, from February
18 of that year through March 4.The civil authorities tried to frighten
Bernadette into recanting her accounts, but she remained faithful to the
vision. On February 25, a spring emerged from the cave and the waters were
discovered to be of a miraculous nature, capable of healing the sick and lame.
On March 25, Bernadette announced that the vision stated that she was the
Immaculate Conception, and that a church should be erected on the site. Many
authorities tried to shut down the spring and delay the construction of the
chapel, but the influence and fame of the visions reached Empress Eugenie of
France, wife of Napoleon Ill, and construction went forward. Crowds gathered,
free of harassment from the anticlerical and antireligious officials. In 1866,
Bernadette was sent to the Sisters of Notre Dame in Nevers. There she became a
member of the community, and faced some rather harsh treatment from the
mistress of novices. This oppression ended when it was discovered that she
suffered from a painful, incurable illness. She died in Nevers on April
16,1879, still giving the same account of her visions. Lourdes became one of
the major pilgrimage destinations in the world, and the spring has produced
27,000 gallons of water each week since emerging during Bernadette's visions.
She was not involved in the building of the shrine, as she remained hidden at
Nevers. Bernadette was beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1933 by Pope Pius XI.
Wednesday of Holy Week
Isaiah 50: 4 The Lord Yahweh has given me the tongue of those
who are taught,
that I may know how to sustain with words
him who is weary.
He wakens morning by
morning,
he wakens my ear to hear as those who are
taught.
5 The Lord Yahweh has
opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious.
I have not turned back.
6 I gave my back to
those who beat me,
and my cheeks to those who plucked off the
hair.
I didn’t hide my face from shame and
spitting.
7 For the Lord Yahweh
will help me.
Therefore I have not been confounded.
Therefore I have set my
face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be
disappointed.
8 He who justifies me is
near.
Who will bring charges against me?
Let us stand up
together.
Who is my adversary?
Let him come near to me.
9 Behold, the Lord
Yahweh will help me!
Who is he who will condemn me?
Behold, they will all
grow old like a garment.
The moths will eat them up.
Psalm 69:8 I have become
a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my mother’s children.
9 For the zeal of your
house consumes me.
The reproaches of those who reproach you
have fallen on me.
10 When I wept and I
fasted,
that was to my reproach.
21 They also gave me
gall for my food.
In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to
drink.
22 Let their table
before them become a snare.
May it become a retribution and a trap.
31 It will please Yahweh
better than an ox,
or a bull that has horns and hoofs.
33 For Yahweh hears the
needy,
and doesn’t despise his captive people.
34 Let heaven and earth
praise him;
the seas, and everything that moves
therein!
Holy Gospel of Jesus
Christ according to Saint Matthew 26: 14 Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the
chief priests, 15 and said, “What are you willing to give me, that I should
deliver him to you?” They weighed out for him thirty pieces of silver. 16 From
that time he sought opportunity to betray him.
17 Now on the first day
of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying to him, “Where do you
want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
18 He said, “Go into the
city to a certain person, and tell him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is at hand.
I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.”’”
19 The disciples did as
Jesus commanded them, and they prepared the Passover. 20 Now when evening had
come, he was reclining at the table with the twelve disciples. 21 As they were
eating, he said, “Most certainly I tell you that one of you will betray me.”
22 They were exceedingly
sorrowful, and each began to ask him, “It isn’t me, is it, Lord?”
23 He answered, “He who
dipped his hand with me in the dish, the same will betray me. 24 The Son of Man
goes, even as it is written of him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of
Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had not been born.”
25 Judas, who betrayed
him, answered, “It isn’t me, is it, Rabbi?”
He said to him, “You
said it.”
Wednesday of Holy Week
Commentary for Today:
Blessed John Henry Newman (1801-1890), priest,
founder of a religious community, theologian
Meditations and Prayers, Part III, 2, 2 « Our Lord refuses
sympathy», § 15
"Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me."
He took other human friends, when He had given up His Mother—the twelve
Apostles—as if He desired that in which He might sympathize. He chose them, as
He says, to be, "not servants but friends" (Jn 15,15). He made them
His confidants. He told them things which He did not tell others. It was His
will to favor, nay, to indulge them, as a father behaves towards a favorite
child. He made them more blessed than kings and prophets and wise men, from the
things He told them. He called them "His little ones" (Jn 13,33), and
preferred them for His gifts to “the wise and prudent” (Mt 11,25). He exulted,
while He praised them, that they had continued with Him in His temptations (Lk
22,28), and as if in gratitude He announced that they should sit upon twelve
thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (v.30). He rejoiced in their
sympathy when His solemn trial was approaching.
He assembled them about Him at the last supper, as if they were to support
Him in it. "With desire," He says, "have I desired to eat this
Pasch with you, before I suffer" (Lk 22,15). Thus there was an interchange
of good offices, and an intimate sympathy between them. But it was His adorable
will that they too should leave Him, that He should be left to Himself. One
betrayed, another denied Him, the rest ran away from Him, and left Him in the
hands of His enemies... Thus he trod the winepress alone. He who was Almighty,
and All-blessed, and who flooded His own soul with the full glory of the vision
of His Divine Nature, would still subject that soul to all the infirmities
which naturally belonged to it; and, as He suffered it to rejoice in the
sympathy, and to be desolate under the absence, of human friends, so, when it
pleased Him, He could, and did, deprive it of the light of the presence of God.
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