Daily Bible Readings December 28 2007 Friday 4th Day of Christmas

December 28 2007 Thursday 4th Day of Christmas

Feast of the Holy Innocents

About the sources used. The readings on this site are not official for the Mass of Roman Rite of the Catholic Church in the USA, but are from sources free from copyright. They are here to present the comparable readings alongside traditional Catholic commentary as published in the Haydock Bible. Readings vary depending on your local calendar.

Official Readings of the Liturgy at – http://www.usccb.org/nab/122807.shtml – Note. The Official Liturgical readings may not match the current NAB you may have.

1 John 1:5—2:2
Haydock NT

5 And this is the declaration which we have heard from him, and declare unto you: That God is light, and in him there is no darkness. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he also is in the light, we have fellowship one with another; and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin: we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins: he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. 10 If we say that we have not sinned: we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Just: 2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

Psalm 123 LXX/Latin (124 Hebrew)
Douay-Rheims Challoner Text
A gradual canticle.

If it had not been that the Lord was with us, let Israel now say:
If it had not been that the Lord was with us, When men rose up against us,
Perhaps they had swallowed us up alive. When their fury was enkindled against us,
Perhaps the waters had swallowed us up.
Our soul hath passed through a torrent: perhaps our soul had passed through a water insupportable.
Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us to be a prey to their teeth.
Our soul hath been delivered as a sparrow out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken, and we are delivered.
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

The Gospel According to Saint Matthew 2:13-18
Haydock NT

13 And when they were departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, saying:

Arise, and take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt, and be there until I shall tell thee. For it will come to pass that Herod will seek the child to destroy him.

14 Who, rising up, took the child and his mother by night, and returned into Egypt: 15 And he was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying:

Out of Egypt have I called my son.

16 Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry, and sending, killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying:

18 A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning: Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

Haydock Commentary 1 John 1:5-2:2

• Ver. 5. God is light, &c. We cannot have this fellowship with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, if we walk in the darkness of sin: we must walk as the children of light. Wi.
• Ver. 8.  Not that we say or pretend we have no sin; thus truth would not be in us, and we should even make God a liar, who has declared all mankind guilty of sin. We were all born guilty of original sin; we have fallen, and still frequently fall into lesser sins and failings. We can only except from this number our Saviour Christ, who, even as man, never sinned, and his blessed Virgin Mother, by a special privilege, preserved from all kind of sin: and of whom S. Augustine says, “That for the honour of our Lord, when we speak of the holy Virgin Mary, he will have no mention at all made of any sin.” Wi.
• Ver. 1. That you may not sin, or not lose the grace of God by any considerable sin.—But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the Father, who being made man to redeem us from sin, is our great Advocate, our chief Mediator, and only Redeemer, by whose merits and grace we have been reconciled, after we had lost and forfeited the grace and favour of God by our offences. He is the only propitiation for the sins of the whole world; for, as S. Paul says, (Heb. x. 14) Christ, by one oblation on the cross, hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. All remission of sins, all sanctification, is derived from the merits and satisfaction of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ; not but that the Angels and saints in heaven, and virtuous persons upon earth, when they pray to God for us, may be called advocates, mediators, and intercessors (though not redeemers) in a different sense, and in an inferior manner, without any injury, but on the contrary with an honour done to Christ; because what they pray and ask for us, is only begged and hoped for through Christ, and by his merits. S. Aug. in his commentary on this epistle, on these very words, we have an advocate, &c. prevents and answers this very objection of the late pretended reformers: (tom. iii, part 2. p. 831. Nov. Edit.) “Some one will say: therefore the saints do not ask for us, therefore the bishops and governors of the Church do not ask for the people.” He denies that this follows, the saints being advocates in a different sense. Though God be our protector and defender from dangers, this does not hinder us from owning the Angels to be our defenders in an inferior manner under God, as the Church of England acknowledges in the common prayer book on the feast of S. Michael, and all Angels, which runs thus: “mercifully grant, that as thy holy Angels always do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen” Wi.—The calling and office of an advocate is in many things proper to Christ, and in every condition more singularly and excellently applying to him than to any Angel, saint, or living creature, thought hese also may be truly so called without any derogation from Christ. To him solely it belongs to procure us mercy before God, by the general ransom of his blood for our delivery; hence he is our only advocate of redemption, though others may be and are advocates of intercession. Hence Irenæus (l. iii. c. 33. et l. v. post med.) says: “the obedient Virgin Mary is made the advocate of the disobedient Eve.” Our Savior declares that Angels are deputed for the protection of infants; (Mat. xviii.) and frequent are the examples we find in the old Scripture, such as Gen. xlviii. 16. Tob. v. 27. and xii. 12. Dan. x. See also the common prayer book, in the collect of Michaelmas day.

 

Haydock Commentary Matthew 2:13-18

• Ver. 14. It is very probable that Joseph, with Jesus and his Mother, remained in some part of Egypt, where the Jews were settled, as at Alexandria. That many Jews dwelt in Egypt, particularly from the time of the prophet Jeremy, is evident from Josephus, and also from the first chapter of the second book of Machab.  Mention is also made of them in Act. ii. and Act. vi. under the name of Alexandrines.
• Ver. 15. Out of Egypt I have called my son. S. Jerome understands these words to be taken out of the prophet Osee, (C. xi. 2.) and granted they might be literally spoken fo the people of Israel: yet as their captivity in Egypt was a figure of the slavery  of sin, under which all mankind groaned, and as their delivery by Moses was a figure of a man’s redemption by our Saviour Christ, so these words in a mystical and spiritual sense applky to our Saviour, who in a more proper sense was the Son of God, than was the people of Israel.  Wi.—The application of this passage of the prophet to Christ, whereas in the simple letter it might appear otherwise, teaches us how to interpret the Old Testament; and that the principal sense is of Christ and his Church.  B.
• Ver. 16.  By this example, we learn how great credit we owe to the Church in canonizing saints, and celebrating their holydays: by whose only warrant, without any word of Scripture, these holy Innocents have been honoured as martyrs, and their holyday kept ever since the apostles’ time, although they died not voluntarily, nor all, perhaps, circumcised, and some even children of pagans. Aug. ep. 28. Orig. hom iii. in diversos.   B.
• Ver. 18. A voice was heard in Rama.   S. Jerome takes Rama,  not for the name of any city, but for a high place, as appears by his Latin translation. Jerem. xxxi. 15. But in all Greek copies here in S. Matthew, and in the Sept. in Jeremy, we find the word itself Rama, so that it must signify a particular city. Rachel, who was buried at Bethlehem, is represented weeping *as it were in the person of those desolate mothers) the murder, and loss of so many children: and Rama being a city not far from Bethlehem, in the tribe of Benjamin, built on a high place, it is said that the cries and lamentations of these children, and their mothers, reached even to Rama.  Cornel. a. Lapide on Jerem. xxxi. Thinks that these words were not only applied by the evangelist in a figurative sense, but that the prophet in the literal sense foretold these lamentations. Wi.