July 14, 2009 Gospel

DAILY GOSPEL
«Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.» John 6,68


Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Tuesday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time

Today the Church celebrates : St. Francis Solano, Priest (1549-1610)

Book of Exodus 2:1-15.

Now a certain man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, who conceived and bore a son. Seeing that he was a goodly child, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took a papyrus basket, daubed it with bitumen and pitch, and putting the child in it, placed it among the reeds on the river bank. His sister stationed herself at a distance to find out what would happen to him. Pharaoh's daughter came down to the river to bathe, while her maids walked along the river bank. Noticing the basket among the reeds, she sent her handmaid to fetch it. On opening it, she looked, and lo, there was a baby boy, crying! She was moved with pity for him and said, "It is one of the Hebrews' children." Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" "Yes, do so," she answered. So the maiden went and called the child's own mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will repay you." The woman therefore took the child and nursed it. When the child grew, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, who adopted him as her son and called him Moses; for she said, "I drew him out of the water." On one occasion, after Moses had grown up, when he visited his kinsmen and witnessed their forced labor, he saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his own kinsmen. Looking about and seeing no one, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out again, and now two Hebrews were fighting! So he asked the culprit, "Why are you striking your fellow Hebrew?" But he replied, "Who has appointed you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses became afraid and thought, "The affair must certainly be known." Pharaoh, too, heard of the affair and sought to put him to death. But Moses fled from him and stayed in the land of Midian. As he was seated there by a well,

Psalms 69:3.14.30-31.33-34.

I have sunk into the mire of the deep, where there is no foothold. I have gone down to the watery depths; the flood overwhelms me.
But I pray to you, LORD, for the time of your favor. God, in your great kindness answer me with your constant help.
But I am afflicted and in pain; let your saving help protect me, God,
That I may praise God's name in song and glorify it with thanksgiving.
"See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, take heart!
For the LORD hears the poor, does not spurn those in bondage.


Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 11:20-24.

Then he began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum: 'Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.' For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."


Commentary of the day :

"Christ calls us all to conversion"


Christ, who always practiced in his life what he preached, before beginning his ministry spent forty days and forty nights in prayer and fasting, and began his public mission with the joyful message: "The kingdom of God is at hand." To this he added the command: "Repent and believe in the Gospel."(Mk 1,15) These words constitute, in a way, a compendium of the whole Christian life. The kingdom of God announced by Christ can be entered only by a "change of heart" ("metanoia") that is to say through an intimate and total change and renewal of the entire man... The invitation of the Son to "metanoia" becomes all the more inescapable inasmuch as he not only preaches it but himself offers an example. Christ, in fact, is the supreme model for those doing penance. He willed to suffer punishment for sins which were not his but those of others.

In the presence of Christ man is illumined with a new light and consequently recognizes the holiness of God and the gravity of sin. Through the word of Christ a message is transmitted to him that invites him to conversion and grants forgiveness of sins. These gifts he fully attains in baptism. This sacrament, in fact, configures him to the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord, and places the whole future of the life of the baptized under the seal of this mystery. Therefore, following the Master, every Christian must renounce himself, take up his own cross and participate in the sufferings of Christ. Thus transformed into the image of Christ's death, he is made capable of meditating on the glory of the resurrection. Furthermore, following the Master, he can no longer live for himself, but must live for him who loves him and gave himself for him.(Gal 2,20) He will also have to live for his brethren, completing "in his flesh that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ...for the benefit of his body, which is the church"(Col 1,24).