Daily Bible Readings Thursday July 24 2008 16th Week of Ordinary Time

July 24 2008 Thursday 16^th Week of Ordinary Time
Saint of the Day – Blessed Louise of Savoy

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 for your own personal study. Readings vary depending on your local calendar.

Official Readings of the Liturgy at – http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/072408.shtml – Note. The Official Liturgical readings may not match the current NAB you may have.

Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13
DR Challoner

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: I have remembered thee, pitying thy youth, and the love of thy espousals, when thou followedst me in the desert, in a land that is not sown. Israel is holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his increase: all they that devour him offend: evils shall come upon them, saith the Lord.

And I brought you into the land of Carmel, to eat the fruit thereof, and the best things thereof: and when ye entered in, you defiled my land and made my inheritance an abomination. The priests did not say: Where is the Lord? and they that held the law knew me not, and the pastors transgressed against me: and the prophets prophesied in Baal, and followed idols.

Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and ye gates thereof, be very desolate, saith the Lord. For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Responsorial Psalm 35:6-7ab, 8-11
DR Challoner Text Only

O Lord, thy mercy is in heaven,
and thy truth reacheth even to the clouds.
Thy justice is as the mountains of God,
thy judgments are a great deep.
O how hast thou multiplied thy mercy, O God!
But the children of men shall put their trust
under the cover of thy wings.
They shall be inebriated with the plenty of thy house;
and thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure.
For with thee is the fountain of life;
and in thy light we shall see light.
Extend thy mercy to them that know thee,
and thy justice to them that are right in heart.

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint Matthew 13:10-17
Haydock New Testament

And his disciples came and said to him:

Why speakest thou to them in parables?

He answered and said to them:

Because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: but to them it is not given. For he that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall abound, but he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath. Therefore do I speak to them in parables: because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled in them, who saith:

By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand: and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive. For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. For, amen I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them: and to hear the things that you hear, and have not heard them.

Haydock Commentary Jeremias 2: 1-3, 7-8, 12-13
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site

• Ver. 2. Espousals. He speaks ironically. Theod. — Yet the Israelites at first shewed greater proofs of love than they did afterwards. It is true they often prevaricated, in the wilderness. Ex. xxxii. 1. Amos v. 25. Ps. lxxvii. &c. C. — The Lord declares his gratuitous love, and then upbraids his people. H. — He had caused them to multiply in Egypt, and gratuitously made choice of them. W.
• Ver. 3. Increase; most desirable. Osee ix. 10. God punished those who attempted to injure his people: yet they abandoned his service.
• Ver. 7. Carmel. That is, a fruitful, plentiful land. Ch. W. — All Palestine is thus designated. M.
• Ver. 8. Priests were silent, or abandoned themselves. — Pastors; “princes.” Chal. Manasses, Amon, &c. — In Baal, promoting his worship. H. — The land was full of false prophets, and none stood up for the Lord.
• Ver. 12. Gates; angels, or the temple.
• Ver. 13. Water. The idols and nations, to which they have had recourse, injure them. C. — The Jews did just the reverse to what God commanded. W.

Haydock Commentary Matthew 13:10-17

• Ver. 10. And his disciples came. How great was the concern of the apostles for the welfare of their countrymen. They did not say to Jesus, Why speakest thou thus to us; but, why speakest thou to them in parables? S. Thos. Aquin.
• Ver. 11. To you it is given. The mysteries of the kingdom of God are not disclosed to the Scribes and Pharisees, who were unwilling to believe in him, (though it was the duty and occupation of the Scribes to expound the sacred oracles to others) but to those who adhered closely to Christ, and believed in him: let us therefore run in company with the apostles to Jesus Christ, that he may disclose to us the mysteries of his gospel. S. Thos. Aquin. — Can we then suppose, for a single moment, that the mere putting of a Bible into every man’s hand, will convert the world. The command given to the apostles and their successors in the ministry is, Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, &c. teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world. S. Mat. xxviii. 20. There is not a single word to them about writing. During 2,500 years, from Adam to Moses, were the patriarchal families and other servants of God in a state of ignorance, concerning either the positive instructions of the Almighty respecting the sabbath-day, the rites of sacrifice, or their moral duties? Yet there was no Scripture during all that period. For more than 400 years after Jesus Christ, the canon of Scripture, as now generally received by Protestants, remained unsettled. Had the apostles and evangelists done nothing more than publish their writings, and disseminate them to every pagan country, not a single nation, not a single pagan, would have abandoned their gods to believe in a crucified Jesus. — To them it is not given; i.e. to such as are unworthy, and by hardening their hearts, have made themselves unworthy. Wi.
• Ver. 12. But he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath. We read again, (Matt. xxv. 29.) That also which he seemth to have, shall be taken away; and in S. Luke, (C. viii. 18.) That also which he thinketh he hath. One passage helps to expound another: so that each of these texts, with a little reflection, will be found true; and such a truth, as ought to be a subject of fear and apprehension to all that are negligent and indolent in the service of God. For, as S. Augustine observes, they who have received graces and favours from God, and have not made good use and profited by them, they may be said not to have them, although they are not yet take from them. And why? but because they make no more use of them, than if they had them not. See the parables of the talents, Matt. xxv, and Luke xix. Wi. — He that hath, to him shall be given the knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God. But such as are incredulous, and resist my words, like the Pharisees and other Jews, so far from being enriched with the spiritual gifts in my kingdom, shall even be deprived of the benefits they now possess. Thus the Jews were deprived of their temple, priesthood, kingdom, and even the true worship of God. S. Jer. — They rejected Jesus Christ, the fountain and corner-stone of virtue; all therefore they had acquired, or possessed, shall be taken from them, and given to the apostles. Idem. — Whoever has a desire of complying with the divine precepts, that desire shall not only be increased, but all other virtues shall be added unto him; but if he be devoid of this desire, the virtues he already possesses, or seems to possess, shall be taken from him, not that God will deprive him of these without cause, but he will render himself unworthy of them. S. Chrys.
• Ver. 13. Because seeing they see not, &c. i.e. they see not as they might, and ought to do, by shutting their eyes against the lights given them. — Therefore do I speak to them in parables: because seeing they see not, &c. This passage, by which the prophet Isaias (vi. 9.) was ordered to foretell the obstinate blindness of the Jews, in refusing to receive and believe in their Messias, is cited six times in the New Testament; to wit, here in S. Matthew, also Mark iv. 14, Luke viii. 10, Jo. xii. 40, Acts xxviii. 26, and Rom. xi. 8. In all these places we must detest the false interpretation of those who, not without heresy and blasphemy, would have God to be the author and cause of sin. When it is said, (Isai. vi. 9.) blind the heart of this people, &c. the prophet is only commanded to foretell their blindness, of which, by their wilful obstinacy, they were the true cause. And when we read in S. Mark, that to those that are without, all things are done in parables, that seeing they may see, and not see, &c. the word that does not signify the cause, nor the end, but only the event, and the consequence of what would happen by the wilful blindness of the Jews, and by the just permission of God. S. Matthew here expounds to us the words of the prophet, by which it clearly appears that they were the cause of their own blindness; and that, by their obstinacy, they had made themselves unworthy of particular lights from God. For the heart of this people (v. 18.) is grown gross . . . and their eyes they have shut, &c. The Jews therefore shut their own eyes, hardened their own hearts, which God only permitted. See Rom. ix. 18. &c. Wi. — If this blindness were natural, then indeed I would have opened their eyes to see and understand, but since this blindness is voluntary, he says, that seeing they see not, and hearing, they hear not; i.e. they have seen me cast our devils, and they said, in Beelzebub he casteth out devils; they heard I drew all to God, and they say, this man cometh not from God. Since, therefore, they assert the very contrary to what they both see and hear, the gift of seeing and hearing me shall be taken away from them.
• Ver. 15. And should be converted. In this the prophet shews the atrocity of the Jewish wickedness, and the malice of their hearts, but that he may attach them to God, their Father, he immediately subjoins, lest being converted, I should heal them; and this he says, in order to manifest to them the goodness of God, if they would repent. S. Chrys. ex D. Tho. — There is some difference between the text of Isaias, given by S. Matthew, and the original. But we have elsewhere observed, that the evangelists attend more to the sense than the words. The Septuagint have translated this text in the same manner. The prophecy here mentioned regarded the Jews in the time of Isaias, according to the strict letter, but still more particularly the Jews in the time of Christ. V. — They were authors of their own blindness, sin, damnation, and not Jesus Christ, as Calvin teaches. See also Acts of the Apostles, xxviii. and Rom. i. and ix. 18. &c. God is not the author of evil. B.
• Ver. 16. But blessed are your eyes. As the eyes of such as see and will not believe are miserable, so, he says, blessed are your eyes; you see my miracles, you hear my heavenly doctrines, &c. Aquin. — Had we not read in a preceding part, that Christ exhorted his auditors to search after the knowledge of his words, we might perhaps have thought that Jesus here spoke of corporal eyes and ears; but the eyes here mentioned, seem to me to be those which can discern the mysteries of Christ. S. Jer. ex D. Thom. Aquin.
• Ver. 17. Amen, I say to you. S. Jerom remarks, that these words of our Saviour seem to contradict another part of Scripture, where it is said, Abraham desired to see my days; he saw them, and rejoiced. But S. Jerom answers his own objection thus: Abraham indeed saw my days, but only in a dark manner, in enigma, but not in reality, whilst you have your Lord with you; you speak to him, and interrogate him at pleasure. Aquin. — Christ declares his disciples more blessed than the ancient patriarchs and prophets. . . . They say him only by faith, but the disciples with their corporal eyes. S. Chrys.