July 9, 2009 Gospel

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


Thursday, 09 July 2009
Thursday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time

Today the Church celebrates : Sts. Agostino Zhao Rong (+ 1815) and Companions, Martyrs in China


Book of Genesis 44:18-21.23-29.45:1-5.

Judah then stepped up to him and said: "I beg you, my lord, let your servant speak earnestly to my lord, and do not become angry with your servant, for you are the equal of Pharaoh. My lord asked your servants, 'Have you a father, or another brother?' So we said to my lord, 'We have an aged father, and a young brother, the child of his old age. This one's full brother is dead, and since he is the only one by that mother who is left, his father dotes on him.' Then you told your servants, 'Bring him down to me that my eyes may look on him.' But you told your servants, 'Unless your youngest brother comes back with you, you shall not come into my presence again.' When we returned to your servant our father, we reported to him the words of my lord. "Later, our father told us to come back and buy some food for the family. So we reminded him, 'We cannot go down there; only if our youngest brother is with us can we go, for we may not see the man if our youngest brother is not with us.' Then your servant our father said to us, 'As you know, my wife bore me two sons. One of them, however, disappeared, and I had to conclude that he must have been torn to pieces by wild beasts; I have not seen him since. If you now take this one away from me too, and some disaster befalls him, you will send my white head down to the nether world in grief.' Joseph could no longer control himself in the presence of all his attendants, so he cried out, "Have everyone withdraw from me!" Thus no one else was about when he made himself known to his brothers. But his sobs were so loud that the Egyptians heard him, and so the news reached Pharaoh's palace. "I am Joseph," he said to his brothers. "Is my father still in good health?" But his brothers could give him no answer, so dumbfounded were they at him. "Come closer to me," he told his brothers. When they had done so, he said: "I am your brother Joseph, whom you once sold into Egypt. But now do not be distressed, and do not reproach yourselves for having sold me here. It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.

Psalms 105(104):16-17.18-19.20-21.

Then he called down a famine on the land, destroyed the grain that sustained them.
He had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, sold as a slave.
They shackled his feet with chains; collared his neck in iron,
Till his prediction came to pass, and the word of the LORD proved him true.
The king sent and released him; the ruler of peoples set him free.
He made him lord over his palace, ruler over all his possessions,


Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 10:7-15.

As you go, make this proclamation: 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. As you enter a house, wish it peace. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you. Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words--go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.


Commentary of the day :


"If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it"


«On entering any house, first say, 'Peace to this house,'» (Lk 10:5) so that the Lord himself might enter and remain there, like with Mary... This greeting is the mystery of faith, which shines forth in the world. Through it, enmity is stifled, war is stopped, and men acknowledge one another. The effect of that greeting was hidden by a veil, in spite of the fact that the mystery of the resurrection is prefigured... when the light rises and dawn chases away the night. From the moment when Christ sent his disciples, men began to give and to receive this greeting, a source of healing and of blessing...

This greeting with its hidden power... is amply sufficient for all men. That is why Our Lord sent it together with his disciples as a forerunner, so that it might bring about peace and that, carried by the voice of the apostles, whom he sent, it might prepare the way before them. It was sown into all the houses...; it entered into all who heard it, so as to separate and to put aside its children, whom it recognized. It remained in them, but it denounced those who were foreign to it, for they did not welcome it.

This greeting of peace did not dry up; it began in the apostles and then sprang up in their brothers, revealing the Lord's inexhaustible treasures... Present in those who greeted in this way and in those who welcomed the greeting, this announcement of peace was neither diminished nor divided. It announced that the Father is near and in everyone; it revealed that the Son's mission is entirely with everyone, even if its goal is to be with his Father. It will not cease to proclaim that the images are now fulfilled and that the truth will finally chase away all shadows.