The Daily Gospel for Friday, January 29, 2016

The Daily Gospel for Friday, January 29, 2016

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."[John 6:68]
Friday of the Third week in Ordinary Time
Saints of the day: St. Gildas the Wise, Abbot (6th century)

SAINT GILDAS THE WISE (or Gildas of Rhuys)
Abbot
(c. 500-570 or 581)

St. Gildas was a 6th-century British monk. He learned, from the instructions and examples of the most eminent servants of God, to copy in his own life whatever seemed most perfect.

His renowned learning and literary style earned him the designation Gildas Sapiens (Gildas the Wise).

He wrote eight canons of discipline, and a severe invective against the crimes of the Britons, called De Excidio Britanniae and he also wrote an invective against the British clergy, whom he accused of sloth of seldom sacrificing at the altar.

He fell asleep in the Lord in 570 or in 581

Friday of the Third week in Ordinary Time
The Second Book of Samuel 11:1 In the spring, at the time when kings go out to war, David sent out Yo’av, his servants who were with him and all Isra’el. They ravaged the people of ‘Amon and laid siege to Rabbah. But David stayed in Yerushalayim. 2 Once, after his afternoon nap, David got up from his bed and went strolling on the roof of the king’s palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, who was very beautiful. 3 David made inquiries about the woman and was told that she was Bat-Sheva the daughter of Eli‘am, the wife of Uriyah the Hitti. 4 David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he went to bed with her (for she had been purified from her uncleanness). Then she returned to her house. 5 The woman conceived; and she sent a message to David, “I am pregnant.”

6 David sent this order to Yo’av: “Send me Uriyah the Hitti.” Yo’av sent Uriyah to David. 7 When Uriyah had come to him, David asked him how Yo’av was doing, how the people were feeling and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriyah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” Uriyah left the king’s palace and was followed by a present of food from the king. 9 But Uriyah slept at the door of the king’s palace with all the servants of his lord and didn’t go down to his house. 10 When they told David, “Uriyah didn’t go down to his house,” David said to Uriyah, “Haven’t you just arrived from a journey? Why didn’t you go down to your house?”

13 David summoned him, ate and drank with him, and got him drunk. But in the evening he went out and lay on his bed with his lord’s servants and did not go down to his house.

14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Yo’av and sent it with Uriyah. 15 In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriyah on the front lines of the fiercest fighting; then pull back from him, so that he will be wounded and killed.” 16 So while Yo’av had the city under siege, he assigned Uriyah to the place where he knew the toughest defenders were. 17 The men of the city went out and fought Yo’av; a number of people fell, including some of David’s servants, with Uriyah the Hitti among the dead.

Psalm 51:3 (1) God, in your grace, have mercy on me;

in your great compassion, blot out my crimes.

4 (2) Wash me completely from my guilt,

and cleanse me from my sin.

5 (3) For I know my crimes,

my sin confronts me all the time.

6 (4) Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil from your perspective;

so that you are right in accusing me

and justified in passing sentence.

7 (5) True, I was born guilty,

was a sinner from the moment my mother conceived me.

10 (8) Let me hear the sound of joy and gladness,

so that the bones you crushed can rejoice.

11 (9) Turn away your face from my sins,

and blot out all my crimes.

The Holy Gospel of Yeshua the Messiah according to Saint Mark 4:26 And he said, “The Kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seed on the ground. 27 Nights he sleeps, days he’s awake; and meanwhile the seeds sprout and grow — how, he doesn’t know. 28 By itself the soil produces a crop — first the stalk, then the head, and finally the full grain in the head. 29 But as soon as the crop is ready, the man comes with his sickle, because it’s harvest-time.”

30 Yeshua also said, “With what can we compare the Kingdom of God? What illustration should we use to describe it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when planted, is the smallest of all the seeds in the field; 32 but after it has been planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all the plants, with such big branches that the birds flying about can build nests in its shade.”

33 With many parables like these he spoke the message to them, to the extent that they were capable of hearing it. 34 He did not say a thing to them without using a parable; when he was alone with his own talmidim he explained everything to them.

Friday of the Third week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the day:
Saint Gregory of Nyssa (c.335-395), monk and Bishop
Sermon on the deceased  “First the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear”

This present life is a path leading to the end of our hope in the same way that we see fruit on the shoots as they begin to emerge from flower and which, thanks to the flower, comes into existence as fruit even if the flower is not itself the fruit. Even so, the harvest born of sowing does not immediately appear with its ear but the blade first springs up and then, once the blade has died, the stem of corn rises up and in this way the fruit ripens at the head of the ear…
Our Creator has not destined us for an embryonic life; nature’s goal is not the life of the newborn. Neither does it envisage the successive ages that it puts on with time in the process of the growth that alters its form, nor the dissolution of the body following on from death. All these states are stages along the way on which we advance. The goal and end of the journey through these stages is the divine likeness…; the awaited end of life is blessedness. But today, all that concerns the body – death, old age, youth, childhood and the formation of the embryo – all these states like so many plants, stalks and ears, form a pathway, a succession and a potential that makes possible the hoped for maturity.

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