Daily Bible Readings Thursday October 2 2008 Memorial of the Guardian Angels

October 2 2008 Thursday Memorial of the Guardian Angels
Saint of the Day – Feast of the Guardian Angels

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/100208.shtml

Job 19:21-27
Douay-Rheims Challoner

Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me. Why do you persecute me as God, and glut yourselves with my flesh? Who will grant me that my words may be written? who will grant me that they may be marked down in a book? With an iron pen and in a plate of lead, or else be graven with an instrument in flint stone?

For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth. And I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God. Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this my hope is laid up in my bosom.

Responsorial Psalm 26:7-9abc, 13-14 (Ps 27 NAB/Hebrew)
DR Challoner

Hear, O Lord, my voice,
with which I have cried to thee:
have mercy on me and hear me.
My heart hath said to thee:
My face hath sought thee:
thy face, O Lord, will I still seek.
Turn not away thy face from me;
decline not in thy wrath from thy servant.
Be thou my helper, forsake me not;
I believe to see the good things of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Expect the Lord, do manfully,
and let thy heart take courage,
and wait thou for the Lord.

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint Matthew 18:1-5, 10
Haydock New Testament

AT that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying:

Who, thinkest thou, is the greater in the kingdom of heaven?

And Jesus calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them, And said:

Amen I say unto you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven. And he that shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me.

Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.

Haydock Commentary Job 19:21-27
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site

• Ver. 22. Flesh? acting with the like inhumanity towards me. Am I not then sufficiently tormented in you opinion, that you insult over my distress? C.
• Ver. 24. In a. Heb. “lead, in the rock for ever.” Prot. Sept. have, “for ever,” after book, (v. 23) and subjoins, “with a writing instrument of iron and (or) lead, or be engraven on the rocks for a memorial.” Grabe insinuates that before there was only, “and on lead, or be engraven on the rocks.” H. — Instrument, (celte) means “a chisel,” (H.) like cœlum from cœlo: ” I engrave.” Pineda. — S. Jerom, (ad Pam.) and the late editor of his works, retain this word, as the older editions of S. Greg. did; (C.) though certè, “surely,” has been inserted instead, from several MSS. by the Benedictines. H. — Ancient MSS. and Latin Bibles have more generally the latter word. But the received editions are supported by many MSS. (C.) and the Sept. egglufhnai, expresses as much. Celtis est, glufeion. Amama. Casaub. in Athen. vii. 20. p. 556. — An inscription, in Dalmatia, has the same sense: Neque hic atramentum vel papyrus aut membrana ulla adhuc; sed malleolo et celte literatus silex. “Here as yet was neither ink, nor paper, nor any parchments; but a flint stone was lettered with a mallet and a chisel..” The former modes of writing were not, in effect, invented by the days of Job. C. — But it was long very usual to make use of lead. Pineda. — What he desired to have written in such durable characters, (H.) was the following sentence, in proof of his unshaken confidence in God, and as a refutation of his friends, who accused him of despair and blasphemy, (C.) as also the whole history of his conflict. His desire has been granted. T.
• Ver. 25. Redeemer may be understood of the Deity, without confining it to the second Person; (Isai. xli. 14. and lxix. 7. Piscator) though it may have a more peculiar reference to Christ: (Junius. H.) in whom he believed, as the Redeemer of all mankind. C. — Earth. Yea, ere long I shall be restored to health, (S. Chrys. Grot.) as an earnest and figure of the resurrection. Nothing is more common, in Scripture, than for the same prophecy to have a double accomplishment; one soon after it is made public, and another more sublime and remote. Job seemed to have no expectation of surviving his present misery, (v. 7, and C. vii. 7. and xxiv. 15.) unless God now revealed it to him, as a figure of his future resurrection, founded on the hope of our Saviour’s, which he expresses in much clearer terms. Heb. “I know that my Redeemer is living, and that he will raise himself one day upon the earth,” (C.) like a conqueror, (H.) or wrestler, having overthrown his antagonist: (Amama) or, “he will stand the last upon the earth, or dust,” (Piscator) ascending his throne, to judge all. Deodat. — Yet Luther translates, “and one day he will raise me up from the earth;” which is not conformable to the Heb. Others explain, “he…will place (26) this, my skin, after they (worms) shall have ruined it.” Pagnin. Mont. — But Amama suspects that the latter is not in earnest. Pineda defends the Vulg. and observes that yakum (H.) may signify, “will raise” himself, or “me;” the latter being at least a consequence of the former, if S. Jerom did not read it me in his copy. So S. Paul argues; If Christ be risen, we also shall rise again. Sept. “For I know that he is eternal, who will set me free,” (H.) by death, (C. or redemption; ekluein) “upon the earth.”
• Ver. 26. And I. Sept. “But he will raise up my body or skin, which has sustained these things. This now has been accomplished for me by the Lord; (27) which I know within myself, which my eyes have seen, and not another. For all things are accomplished in my bosom.” I am as fully convinced of this glorious event, (H.) as if it were past. C. — Heb. “and though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Prot. or in the margin, “After I shall awake, though this body be destroyed, yet out of,” &c. Various other interpretations are given. H. — But we had as well adhere to the Sept. Vulg. &c. D. — God. Sixtus V. and some other editions, add “Saviour.” C. — Job would see the Messias by the eyes of his prosperity. S. Aug. or Faustus, ser. 234. t. v. App. Sanctius. — He hoped also to see God face to face in glory (C.) though not by means of his corporeal eyes, (H.) and to be restored to favour, so that God would no longer turn his back on him. , C. xlii. 5. S. Gregory, when legate at Constantinople, convinced the patriarch Eutychius, by this text, that after the resurrection, our bodies will be palpable, and not aerial only. C. — It contains an express profession of Job’s faith, on this head. We shall rise the same in substance. W.
• Ver. 27. Myself. Heb. “for myself,” and for my comfort; not like the reprobate, who shall see their judge to their eternal confusion. Job insists so much on this point, that he shews he in not speaking merely of the divine favour being restored to him, in the re-establishment of his health and affairs, but that he raises his mind to something more solid and desirable, of which the former was only a faint representation. C. — “No one since Christ has spoken so plainly of the resurrection, as this man did before the coming of the Messias.” S. Jerom, ad Pam. — This. Heb. “though my reins be consumed within me;” (Prot. H.) or, “my reins (desires and tender affections) are completed in my bosom.” C.

Haydock Commentary Matthew 18:1-5, 10

• Ver. 1. Who, thinkest thou? This altercation for superiority among the apostles, whilst they were upon their road to Judea, might have arisen from another cause besides the precedence given by Jesus Christ to Peter above, as S. Chrysostom (hom. lix. in Mat.) affirms. A report prevailed among the disciples, that Christ would soon die; and they wished to know who would be the first, when he was gone. Jans. — Or expecting that by his future resurrection he would enter into full possession of his temporal kingdom, they wished to learn which of them should be the greater in this new and glorious state. Calmet supposes that Peter was not with them, but that he had gone before with his Master to Capharnaum. C.
• Ver. 2. And Jesus calling . . . a little child. In S. Mark (ix. 32) we find that Jesus did this in the house, when they were arrived at Capharnaum.
• Ver. 3. You shall not enter, &c. i.e. you shall have no place in my kingdom of glory, in heaven, where none shall find admittance but they that are truly humble. Wi. — Our Lord in this and the next chapter teaches us, 1st, To sit down in the lowest place; 2nd, to bear patiently with our neighbor; 3rd, not to scandalize a weak brother; 4th, mildly to correct him when faulty; and 5thly, to forgive him when repentant.
• Ver. 4. Greater in the kingdom of heaven, because more conformable to me here on earth. Humble souls, who are little in their own eyes, are so dear and closely united to the Almighty, that Christ declares them to be the most acceptable, the first in merit, not highest in authority or dignity either in church or state, as some idle fanatics pretend. Jans. — The kingdom of heaven is not the reward of ambition, but the boon of simplicity and humility.
• Ver. 5. He that shall receive. To receive, in the style of the Scriptures, is to honour and favour, to be charitable, and kind to any one. Wi. — Who does not admire here the great goodness of God! Jesus, knowing that he was soon to leave the world, and that his disciples would no longer have it in their power to manifest their charity for him by their kind services, substitutes the poor in his place, declaring, that if they receive or honour them, they received Christ himself. Dion. Carth. — What greater proof can we wish for the merit of good works!!!
• Ver. 10. Their angels. The Jews also believed that men had their good angels, or angels appointed to be their guardians. See Gen. xlviii. 16. Wi. — Observe the dignity of the humble and little, whom the world despises. They have angels constantly pleading their cause in the divine presence. They are now weak and unable to defend themselves, but they have their advocates in heaven, accusing those who offer them any injury or scandal. It is evident from many parts of Scripture, that angels are appointed guardians of kingdoms, countries, cities, and even individuals, Exod. xxiii. Dan. x. Apoc. xii. & alibi. The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him, and he shall deliver them. Ps. xxxiii. S. Jerom does not hesitate to affirm that every man has an angel assigned him at his birth, which he confirms from C. xii, of Acts, where it is related that the girl thought she saw Peter’s angel. The thing is so plain, that Calvin, dares not deny it, and yet he will needs doubt of it. L. i. Inst, c. xiv. sect. 7.) Origen thinks that only the just have their guardian angels, and these only at their baptism. The opinion of S. Augustine is universal in the Catholic Church. “I esteem it, O my God, an inestimable benefit, that thou hast granted me an angel to guide me from the moment of my birth, to my death.” De dilig. Deo. Medit. c. xii. How much are we indebted to the Providence of God, for extending itself also to the wicked. They likewise have their angels, without whose assistance they would fall into many more grievous sins, and the evil spirits would have more power over them. Let us then with gratitude remember our dignity, and fear to commit any thing in their presence, which may make them grieve and withdraw from us their protection and assistance.