Daily Gospel for Saturday, 7 June 2014

Daily Gospel for Saturday, 7 June 2014
"Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.'"(John 6:68)
Saturday of the Seventh week of Easter
Saints for Today:

ST. ROBERT OF NEWMINSTER

(12th century)

In 1132 Robert was a monk at Whitby, England, when news arrived that thirteen religious had been violently expelled from the Abbey of St. Mary, in York, for having proposed to restore the strict Benedictine rule. He at once set out to join them and found them on the banks of the Skeld, near Ripon, living in the midst of winter in a hut made of hurdles and roofed with turf. In the spring they affiliated themselves to St. Bernard's reform at Clairvaux, and for two years struggled on in extreme poverty. At length the fame of their sanctity brought another novice, Hugh, Dean of York, who endowed the community with all his wealth, and thus laid the foundation of Fountains Abbey. In 1137 Raynulph, Baron of Morpeth, was so edified by the example of the monks at Fountains that he built them a monastery in Northumberland, called Newminster, of which St. Robert became abbot.
The holiness of his life, even more than his words, guided his brethren to perfection and within the next ten years, three new communities went forth from this one house to become centers of holiness in other parts. The abstinence of St. Robert in refectory alone sufficed to maintain the mortified spirit of the community. One Easter Day, his stomach, weakened by the fast of Lent, could take no food, and he at last consented to try to eat some bread sweetened with honey. Before it was brought, he felt this relaxation would be a dangerous example for his subjects, and sent the food untouched to the poor at the gate. The plate was received by a young man of shining countenance, who straightway disappeared. At the next meal the plate descended empty, and by itself, to the abbot's place in the refectory, proving that what the Saint sacrificed for his brethren had been accepted by Christ.
At the moment of Robert's death, in 1159, St. Godric, the hermit of Finchale, saw his soul, like a globe of fire, borne up by the angels in a pathway of light; and as the gates of heaven opened before them, a voice repeated twice, "Enter now, my friends."
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

Blessed Emmanuel Ruiz and Companions

Feastday: July 10

Death: 1860

Martyr with eleven companions in Lebanon. A Spanish Franciscan, Emmanuel and the others were caught up in the rising of the Druses in Lebanon. The Franciscan community, eight in number, and three Maronite laymen were slain by the Islamic rebels. He was beatified in 1926.

Saint Willibald

Feastday: June 7

Birth: 700

Death: 786

Bishop and missionary. A native of Wessex, England, he was the brother of Sts. Winebald and Walburga and was related through his mother to the great St. Boniface. After studying in a monastery in Waitham, in Hampshire, he went on a pilgrimage to Rome (c. 722) with his father, who died on the way at Lucca, Italy. Willibald continued on to Rome and then to Jerusalem. Captured by Saracens who thought him a spy, he was eventually released and continued on to all of the holy places and then to Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey), where he visited numerous lauras, monasteries, and hermitages. Upon his return to Italy, he went to Monte Cassino where he stayed for ten years, serving as sacrist, dean, and porter. While on a visit to Rome, he met Pope St. Gregory III (r. 731-741), who sent him to Germany to assist his cousin St. Boniface in his important missionary endeavors. Boniface ordained him in 741 and soon appointed him bishop of Eichstatt, in Franconia. the Site of Willibald's most successful efforts as a missionary. With his brother Winebald, he founded a double monastery at Heidenheim, naming Winebald abbot and his sister Walburga abbess. Willibald served as bishop for some four decades. His Vita is included in the Hodoeporicon (the earliest known English travel book). An account of his journeys in the Holy Land was written by a relative of Willibald and a nun of Heidenheim.
Saturday of the Seventh week of Easter
Acts of the Apostles 28:16 When we entered into Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him.
17 After three days Paul called together those who were the leaders of the Jews. When they had come together, he said to them, “I, brothers, though I had done nothing against the people, or the customs of our fathers, still was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, 18 who, when they had examined me, desired to set me free, because there was no cause of death in me. 19 But when the Jews spoke against it, I was constrained to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything about which to accuse my nation. 20 For this cause therefore I asked to see you and to speak with you. For because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.”
30 Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who were coming to him, 31 preaching God’s Kingdom, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, without hindrance.
Psalm 11:4 Yahweh is in his holy temple.
    Yahweh is on his throne in heaven.
His eyes observe.
    His eyes examine the children of men.
5 Yahweh examines the righteous,
    but the wicked and him who loves violence his soul hates.
7 For Yahweh is righteous.
    He loves righteousness.
    The upright shall see his face.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 21:20 Then Peter, turning around, saw a disciple following. This was the disciple whom Jesus loved, the one who had also leaned on Jesus’ breast at the supper and asked, “Lord, who is going to betray You?” 21 Peter seeing him, said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?”
22 Jesus said to him, “If I desire that he stay until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.” 23 This saying therefore went out among the brothers,[a] that this disciple wouldn’t die. Yet Jesus didn’t say to him that he wouldn’t die, but, “If I desire that he stay until I come, what is that to you?” 24 This is the disciple who testifies about these things, and wrote these things. We know that his witness is true. 25 There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they would all be written, I suppose that even the world itself wouldn’t have room for the books that would be written.
Footnotes:
a. John 21:23 The word for “brothers” here may be also correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”
Saturday of the Seventh week of Easter
Commentary for Today:

Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751), Jesuit 

Self-abandonment to divine providence, ch. 11, § 191f. (trans. ©Kitty Muggeridge)

"The whole world would contain the books that would be written"

Jesus lives and works among us, throughout our lives, from the beginning of time to the end... The life he began continues in his saints for ever... When “the world itself cannot contain everything that could be written about Jesus,” about what he did and said, about his own life; when the gospels have only sketched in a few details; when the first hour is so unknown and yet so fateful - what an infinite number of gospels would be required to record the history of every moment of that mystical life of Jesus Christ whose miracles continually multiply! They will continue till the end of time, since, in fact, time is but .the history of divine action! The Holy Spirit has picked out in clear and unmistakable characters a few moments of that. vast duration of time, preserved in the scriptures a few drops of that ocean, revealed the secret and mysterious way in which Jesus appeared on earth... 
So the rest of the story, which consists of the whole mystical life of Jesus in the souls of saints, remains a matter of our faith... The Holy Spirit no longer writes gospels, except in our hearts; saintly souls are the pages, suffering and action the ink. The Holy Spirit is writing a living gospel with the pen of action, which we will only be able to read on the day of glory when, fresh from the presses of life, it will be published. 
O what a beautiful story! What a beautiful book the Holy Spirit is now writing! It is in the press, not a day passes when the type is not being set, the ink not applied, the pages not being printed. But we remain in the night of faith, the paper is darker than the ink..., it is in the language of another world which we cannot understand; it is a gospel we will only be able to read in heaven.
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