Daily Gospel for Wednesday, 10 June 2015

Daily Gospel for Wednesday, 10 June 2015
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68
Wednesday of the Tenth week in Ordinary Time
Saints of the day:

SAINT MARGARET OF SCOTLAND
Queen
(+ 1093)

St. Margaret's name signifies "pearl"; "a fitting name," says Theodoric, her confessor and her first biographer, "for one such as she." Her soul was like a precious pearl. A life spent amidst the luxury of a royal court never dimmed its luster, or stole it away from Him who had bought it with His blood. She was the granddaughter of an English king; and in 1070 she became the bride of Malcolm, and reigned as Queen of Scotland till her death in 1093.

How did she become a Saint in a position where sanctity is so difficult? First, she burned with zeal for the house of God. She built churches and monasteries; she busied herself in making vestments; she could not rest till she saw the laws of God and His Church observed throughout her realm. Next, amidst a thousand cares, she found time to converse with God-ordering her piety with such sweetness and discretion that she won her husband to sanctity like her own. He used to rise with her at night for prayer; he loved to kiss the holy books she used, and sometimes he would steal them away, and bring them back to his wife covered with jewels.

Lastly, with virtues so great, she wept constantly over her sins, and begged her confessor to correct her faults. St. Margaret did not neglect her duties in the world because she was not of it. Never was there a better mother. She spared no pains in the education of her eight children, and their sanctity was the fruit of her prudence and her zeal. Never was there a better queen. She was the most trusted counselor of her husband, and she labored for the material improvement of the country.   

But, in the midst of the world's pleasures, she sighed for the better country, and accepteddeath as a release. On her death-bed she received the news that her husband and her eldest son were slain in battle. She thanked God, who had sent this last affliction as a penance for her sins. After receiving Holy Viaticum, she was repeating the prayer from the Missal, "O Lord Jesus Christ, Who by Thy death didst give life to the world, deliver me." At the words "deliver me," says her biographer, she took her departure to Christ, the Author of true liberty.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Saint Getulius & Companions

Feastday: June 10

Death: 120

Martyr with Amantius, Caerealis, and Primitivus. He was the husband of St. Symphorosa. An officer in the Roman army, he resigned when he became a Christian and returned to his estates near Tivoli, Italy. There he converted Caerealis, an imperial legate sent to arrest him. With his brother Amantius and with Caerealis and Primitivus, Getulius was tortured and martyred at Tivoli. 

Saint Ithamar

Feastday: June 10

Death: 656

First Anglo Saxon bishop in Britian. The Venerable bede wrote that Ithamar was born in Kent and was noted for his learning. Ithamar succeeded St. Paulinus as bishop of Rochester in 644.

Wednesday of the Tenth week in Ordinary Time
The Second Letter to the  Corinthians 3:4 Such is the confidence we have through the Messiah toward God. 5 It is not that we are competent in ourselves to count anything as having come from us; on the contrary, our competence is from God. 6 He has even made us competent to be workers serving a New Covenant, the essence of which is not a written text but the Spirit. For the written text brings death, but the Spirit gives life.
7 Now if that which worked death, by means of a written text engraved on stone tablets, came with glory — such glory that the people of Isra’el could not stand to look at Moshe’s face because of its brightness, even though that brightness was already fading away — 8 won’t the working of the Spirit be accompanied by even greater glory? 9 For if there was glory in what worked to declare people guilty, how much more must the glory abound in what works to declare people innocent! 10 In fact, by comparison with this greater glory, what was made glorious before has no glory now. 11 For if there was glory in what faded away, how much more glory must there be in what lasts.
Psalm 99:5 Exalt Adonai our God!
Prostrate yourselves at his footstool (he is holy).
6 Moshe and Aharon among his cohanim
and Sh’mu’el among those who call on his name
called on Adonai, and he answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the column of cloud;
they kept his instructions and the law that he gave them.
8 Adonai our God, you answered them.
To them you were a forgiving God,
although you took vengeance on their wrongdoings.
9 Exalt Adonai our God,
bow down toward his holy mountain,
for Adonai our God is holy!

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint Matthew 5:17 “Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah — not until everything that must happen has happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Wednesday of the Tenth week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the day:
Saint John Chrysostom (c.345-407), priest at Antioch then Bishop of Constantinople, Doctor of the Church 
Homilies on St. Matthew, 16 
“I have come, not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.” Do you want to know how Jesus, far from abolishing the law and the prophets, comes rather to confirm and to complete them? Where the prophets are concerned, this happens first of all when he confirms through his works what they had announced. This is where the expression comes from, constantly repeated in St. Matthew: “That the word of the prophet might be fulfilled”… 

Where the law is concerned, Jesus fulfilled it in three ways. First of all, by not omitting any of its legal requirements. He told John the Baptist: “We must do this if we would fulfill all of God’s demands,” (Mt 3:15). To the Jews he said: “Can any of you convict me of sin?” (Jn 8:46)… In the second place, he fulfills it because he wanted to submit himself to it for our salvation. Oh marvel! By submitting to it, he communicated to us, too, the grace of fulfilling it! St. Paul teaches us this when he says: “Christ is the end of the law. Through him, justice comes to everyone who believes,” (Rom 10:4). He also says that the Savior condemned sin in the flesh “so that the just demands of the law might be fulfilled in us who live not according to the flesh,” (Rom 8:4.) He also says: “Are we then abolishing the law by means of faith? Not at all! On the contrary, we are confirming the law,” (Rom 3:31). 
For the law aimed at making a person righteous, but it didn’t have the strength do so so; then Christ came, he who is the end of the law, and he showed us the way which leads to righteousness, that is to say faith. Thus he fulfilled the law’s intention. The letter of the law could not justify the sinner; faith in Jesus Christ will justify him. That is why he can say: “I have not come to abolish the law.” 
Now, if we look more closely, we can perceive a third way of fulfilling the law. What is this? It consists in the very precepts, which Christ had to give; far from overturning those of Moses, they are their just consequence and their natural complement.

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