The Daily Gospel for Friday, 25 September 2015

The Daily Gospel for Friday, 25 September 2015
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."[John 6:68]
Friday of the Twenty-fifth week in Ordinary Time
Saints of the day:
St. Finbarr, Bishop (6th century)  

SAINT FINBARR
Bishop
(6th century)

St. Finbarr who lived in the sixth century, was a native of Connaught, and instituted a monastery or school at Lough Eire, to which such numbers of disciples flocked, as changed, as it were, a desert into a large city. This was the origin of the city of Cork, which was built chiefly upon stakes, in marshy little islands formed by the river Lea.
The right name of our Saint, under which he was baptized, was Lochan; the surname Finbarr, or Barr the White, was afterward given him. He was Bishop of Cork seventeen years, and died in the midst of his friends at Cloyne, fifteen miles from Cork.
His body was buried in his own cathedral at Cork, and his relics, some years after, were put in a silver shrine, and kept there, this great church bearing his name to this day.
St. Finbarr's cave or hermitage was shown in a monastery which seems to have been begun by our Saint, and stood to the west of Cork.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Blessed Herman the Cripple

Feastday: September 25

Birth: 1013
Death: 1054

---

Herman was born a cripple in Altshausen, Swabia. He was so terribly deformed he was almost helpless. He was placed in Reichenau Abbey in Lake Constance Switzerland, in 1020 when he was seven and spent all his life there. He was professed at twenty, became known to scholars all over Europe for his keen mind, wrote the hymns Salve Regina and Alma Redemptoris mater to Our Lady, poetry, a universal chronicle, and a mathematical treatise. He died at Reichenau on September 21 and is sometimes called Herman Contractus.

Friday of the Twenty-fifth week in Ordinary Time
The Bood of Haggai 2:1 On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, this word of Adonai came through Hagai the prophet: 2 “Speak now to Z’rubavel the son of Sh’alti’el, governor of Y’hudah, and to Y’hoshua the son of Y’hotzadak, the cohen hagadol, and to the rest of the people; say this to them: 3 ‘“Who among you is left that saw this house in its former glory? And how does it look to you now? It seems like nothing to you, doesn’t it? 4 Nevertheless, Z’rubavel, take courage now,” says Adonai; “and take courage, Y’hoshua the son of Y’hotzadak, the cohen hagadol; and take courage, all you people of the land,” says Adonai; “and get to work! For I am with you,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot. 5 “This is in keeping with the word that I promised in a covenant with you when you came out of Egypt, and my Spirit remains with you, so don’t be afraid!” 6 For this is what Adonai-Tzva’ot says: “It won’t be long before one more time I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land; 7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasures of all the nations will flow in; and I will fill this house with glory,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot. 8 “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot. 9 “The glory of this new house will surpass that of the old,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot, “and in this place I will grant shalom,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.’”
Psalm 43:1 Judge me, God, and plead my cause
against a faithless nation.
Rescue me from those who deceive
and from those who are unjust.
2 For you are the God of my strength;
why have you thrust me aside?
Why must I go about mourning,
under pressure by the enemy?
3 Send out your light and your truth;
let them be my guide;
let them lead me to your holy mountain,
to the places where you live.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and delight;
I will praise you on the lyre,
God, my God.
The Holy Gospel of Yeshua the Messiah according to Saint Luke 9:18 Once when Yeshua was praying in private, his talmidim were with him; and he asked them, “Who are the crowds saying I am?” 19 They answered, “Yochanan the Immerser; but others say Eliyahu, and others that some prophet of long ago has risen.” 20 “But you,” he said to them, “who do you say I am?” Kefa answered, “The Mashiach of God!” 21 However, he, warning them, ordered them to tell this to no one, 22 adding, “The Son of Man has to endure much suffering and be rejected by the elders, the head cohanim and the Torah-teachers; and he has to be put to death; but on the third day, he has to be raised to life.”
Friday of the Twenty-fifth week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the day:
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger [Benedict XVI, pope from 2005 to 2013]
Der Gott Jesu Christi, chapter 2,4

“The Son of Man must suffer…, be rejected… and killed, and rise from the dead.” Being human means to go towards death; being human means to have to die… Living in this world means dying. “He became man.” (Creed) So that means that Christ also went towards death. The contradiction that is part and parcel of human death reached its extreme acuteness in Jesus, because for him who is in total communion with the Father, the absolute isolation of death is utter absurdity. On the other hand, for him death also is a necessity; for the fact that he was with the Father was at the source of the lack of understanding, with which human beings saw him; it was at the source of his solitude in the midst of the crowds. His condemnation was the ultimate act of non-understanding, of the rejection of the person who was not understood into a zone of silence.
At the same time, we can see something of the interior dimension of his death. For the human person, dying is always at one and the same time a biological event and a spiritual one. In Jesus, the destruction of the bodily means of communication ruptured his dialogue with the Father. So what was broken in the death of Jesus Christ was more important than in any other human death; there, what was torn away was the dialogue that is the entire world’s true axis.
But just as this dialogue made him lonely and was the basis for his death’s monstrosity, so the resurrection is already fundamentally present in Christ. Through it, our human condition is brought into the Trinitarian exchange of eternal love. It can never disappear again; beyond the threshold of death, it rises again and creates its fullness anew. Thus, only the resurrection reveals the ultimate, decisive nature of that article of our faith: “He became man”… Christ is fully human; he remains so forever. Through him, the human condition has entered into God’s very being. That is the fruit of his death.
____________________________