July 17, 2009 Gospel

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


Friday, 17 July 2009
Friday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time

Today the Church celebrates : St. Alexius, Confessor (+404)

Book of Exodus 11:10.12:1-14.

Thus, although Moses and Aaron performed these various wonders in Pharaoh's presence, the LORD made Pharaoh obstinate, and he would not let the Israelites leave his land. The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, "This month shall stand at the head of your calendar; you shall reckon it the first month of the year. Tell the whole community of Israel: On the tenth of this month every one of your families must procure for itself a lamb, one apiece for each household. If a family is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join the nearest household in procuring one and shall share in the lamb in proportion to the number of persons who partake of it. The lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish. You may take it from either the sheep or the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, and then, with the whole assembly of Israel present, it shall be slaughtered during the evening twilight. They shall take some of its blood and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel of every house in which they partake of the lamb. That same night they shall eat its roasted flesh with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. It shall not be eaten raw or boiled, but roasted whole, with its head and shanks and inner organs. None of it must be kept beyond the next morning; whatever is left over in the morning shall be burned up. "This is how you are to eat it: with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand, you shall eat like those who are in flight. It is the Passover of the LORD. For on this same night I will go through Egypt, striking down every first--born of the land, both man and beast, and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt-I, the LORD! But the blood will mark the houses where you are. Seeing the blood, I will pass over you; thus, when I strike the land of Egypt, no destructive blow will come upon you. "This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual institution.

Psalms 116(115):12-13.15-16.17-18.

How can I repay the LORD for all the good done for me?
I will raise the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD.
Too costly in the eyes of the LORD is the death of his faithful.
LORD, I am your servant, your servant, the child of your maidservant; you have loosed my bonds.
I will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people,


Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 12:1-8.

At that time Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath." He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry, how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions but only the priests could lawfully eat? Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath and are innocent? I say to you, something greater than the temple is here. If you knew what this meant, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned these innocent men. For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath."


Commentary of the day :


"The Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath"



The Sabbath was instituted as a holy day; all the saints and just must observe the Sabbath... Let us see, then, in what the Sabbath observance consists for christians: on the Sabbath day we should not carry out any work here below; we are to abstain from all earthly works, do nothing that pertains to this world and give ourselves to spiritual work, go to church, listen attentively to Scripture and to the explanations given to us about it, think of heavenly things, give our minds to hope of future life, keep the judgement to come before our eyes and meditate, not present, visible realities, but the future, invisible ones.

The Jews, too, have to observe all that. And among them blacksmiths, builders and every kind of manual laborer remain without doing anything on the Sabbath day. Yet on this day the lectors who proclaim Holy Scripture and the teachers who explain God's Law never cease in their duties without, however, profaning the Sabbath. My Lord himself acknowledges this: «Have you not heard,» he said to them, «that the priests in the Temple go without resting on the Sabbath without sin?» Thus it is the person who abstains from this world's works and frees himself for spiritual activities who offers the true Sabbath sacrifice and sanctifies the Sabbath day as a festival...

During the Sabbath, all remain in their own homes and do not go out. Now what is the home of the spiritual soul? That home is justice, truth, wisdom, holiness: all those things are Christ who is, himself, the soul's home. We should never go out of that home if we would keep the true Sabbath and celebrate that day of festival with sacrifice, according to the Lord's word: «Whoever remains in me, I remain in him» (cf. Jn 15,5).