Daily Bible Readings Thursday January 22 2009 Second Week in Ordinary Time

January 22 2009 Thursday Second Week in Ordinary Time
Saint of the Day – St. Vincent

About the sources used. The readings on this site are from the Haydock Bible according to the daily Lectionary readings for the American Roman Catholic Church. The Haydock Bible contains traditional Catholic commentary and is free from copyright. Due to verse numbering differences and pastoral deletions in the actual Lectionary, these readings may at times vary from the actual readings.

Official Readings of the Liturgy at – http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/012209.shtml

Hebrews 7:25—8:6
Haydock New Testament

Whereby he is able also to save for ever them that approach to God by himself: always living to make intercession for us. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens: Who needeth not daily as the priests, to offer sacrifices first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, by offering up himself. For the law maketh men priests, who have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which is after the law, the Son who is perfected for evermore.

NOW of the things spoken, the sum is: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens; A minister of the holies, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord hath pitched, and not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is necessary that he also should have something to offer: If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest: since there would be others who should offer gifts according to the law, Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. As it was answered to Moses, when he was to finish the tabernacles: See (saith he) that thou make all things according to the pattern which was shewn thee on the mount. But now he hath obtained a better ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better testament, which is established on better promises.

Responsorial Psalm 39:7-10, 17 (Ps 40 NAB)
DR Challoner Text Only

Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire;
but thou hast pierced ears for me.
Burnt offering and sin offering thou didst not require:
Then said I, Behold I come.
In the head of the book it is written of me
That I should do thy will:
O my God, I have desired it,
and thy law in the midst of my heart.
I have declared thy justice in a great church,
lo, I will not restrain my lips:
O Lord, thou knowest it.
Let all that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee:
and let such as love thy salvation say always:
The Lord be magnified.

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint Mark 3:7-12
Haydock New Testament

But Jesus retired with his disciples to the sea; and a great multitude followed him from Galilee and Judea, And from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and from beyond the Jordan: and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, hearing the things which he did, came to him. And he spoke to his disciples that a small ship should wait on him, because of the multitude, lest they should throng him: For he healed many, so that they pressed upon him to touch him, as many as had evils. And the unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him; and they cried, saying:

Thou art the Son of God.

And he strictly charged them that they should not make him known.

Haydock Commentary Hebrews 7:25—8:6
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site

• Ver. 25. Make intercession. Christ, as man, continually maketh intercession for us, by representing his passion to his Father. Ch.
• Ver. 27. Jesus Christ offered himself but once in a bloody manner on the cross; but, besides this bloody offering, he still continues to offer himself in an unbloody manner. This he does both in heaven and upon earth; in heaven, by presenting his sacred humanity continually to his Father; and on earth, by daily offering himself, under the appearance of bread and wine, on our altars. Hence this eucharistic sacrifice is both a commemoration and continuation of the sacrifice of the cross. To understand this, it must be observed, that the essence of a sacrifice includes several actions, the principal of which are the immolation of the victim, and the oblation of the victim when immolated. Now the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, ended only as to the bloody immolation; the same victim is still immolated mystically, by the separate consecration of the bread and wine, and continues as the oblation. Jesus Christ, in quality of the eternal high priest, has carried his victim, i.e. his body, into heaven, and there offers it continually to his Father. He continues also his sacrifice here on earth, by the ministry of his priests: who to the end of time will offer to God the same immolated victim, present on our altars under the appearance of bread and wine — a sacrifice infinitely perfect, since a God is the priest, and a God the victim. The chief-priest who offers it is a God-man; the victim offered is a Man-God: a God the victim, offered by a God the priest! Behold a sacrifice truly worthy of God — a sacrifice capable of atoning not only for our sins, but for the sins of ten thousand worlds. What confidence then ought Christians to have in such a sacrifice! How solicitous ought they to be to assist daily at these awful, or, to use S. Chrysostom’s expression, these tremendous mysteries! Let us now examine the sentiments of learned Protestant divines: “It is certain,” says Dr. Grabe, “that Irenæus and all the Fathers, either contemporary with the apostles, or their immediate successors, whose writings are still extant, considered the blessed Eucharist to be the sacrifice of the new law, and offered bread and wine on the altar, as sacred oblations to God the Father; and that this was not the private opinion of any particular Church or teacher, but the public doctrine and practice of the universal Church, which she received from the apostles, and they from Christ, is expressly shewn by Irenæus, and before him by Justin Martyr and Clement of Rome.” Nota in Irenæum. p. 323. — “The elements being really changed from ordinary bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, mystically present, as in a sacrament, and that by virtue of the consecration, not by the faith of him that receives, I am to admit and maintain whatsoever appears duly consonant with this truth, viz. that the elements so consecrated are truly the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, inasmuch as the body and blood of Christ are contained in them. . . . And the sacrifice of the cross being necessarily propitiatory, and impetratory both, it cannot be denied that the sacrament of the Eucharist, inasmuch as it is the same sacrifice with that upon the cross, is also both propitiatory and impetratory.” Thorndike Epil. p. 44 and 46. — “The holy Fathers frequently say, that in the Eucharist is offered and sacrificed the very body of Christ, as is evident in almost innumerable places.” Bp. Forbes’ de Euch. l. iii. c. 2. sect. 10. — “The sacrifice of the supper is not only propitiatory, and may be offered up for the remission of our daily sins, but likewise is impetratory, and my be rightly offered for the obtaining all blessings. Although the Scripture does not plainly and in express words teach this, yet the holy Fathers with universal consent have thus understood the Scripture, as has been demonstrated by many; and ll the ancient liturgies prescribe, that in time of the oblation, prayers be offered for peace, &c. as is evident to all.” Id. Sect. 12. — “The Church, commemorating the sacrifice of Christ with the usual rites and words, in this also sacrificeth and offereth that which is her own, given to her by Christ; that she placeth before the eyes of God; by that she beseecheth God; and it is the same sacrifice that Christ offered; the same one, true, and singular sacrifice, as S. Austin calls it; a sacrifice of memory according to Eusebius; a spiritual sacrifice, according to others. After that the faithful offer themselves according to the example of Christ, &c. In all this what is there new, what deformed, what hurtful? But minds once distracted, distract all things into a depraved meaning, and then are glad to find a hint for it in any of the schools.” Grotius of Christian sacrifice. — To these we may add the authority of Ed. Burke, in his speech to the electors of Bristol: “The mass is church service in the Latin tongue, not exactly like our liturgy, but very near, and contains no offence whatever against the laws of good morals.” p. 29.
• Ver. 1. Of the things spoken[1] the sum is. This word, sum, many expound, as if S. Paul said: I will sum up, and give you an abridgment or recapitulation of what I have said. But S. Chrys. and others, by the Greek would rather understand the chief, or greatest thing of all, when he adds, that Christ is our high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens. Wi.
• Ver. 2. A minister of the holies. Lit. of the holy places, and of the true tabernacle: he adds true, to signify that though he speaks with an allusion to the sanctuary, and the priests of the former law, yet that Christ hath now entered into the true holy of holies; that is, into heaven, of which the Jewish sanctuary was only a type or figure. — Which the Lord hath pitched, and not man; i.e. all the parts of the Jewish sanctuary was the work of men’s hands; but heaven, the habitation prepared for the saints, is the work of God. Wi. — The Old Testament was a figure of the New; but the tabernacle of Moses and the temple of Solomon, where in particular an image and figure of the Christian Church. v. 5. The Church triumphant in heaven is the true sanctuary; the Church militant on earth is the true tabernacle; and Jesus Christ is the sovereign priest of both the one and the other, and exercises his priesthood both in heaven and upon earth.
• Ver. 3. For every high priest, &c. That is, as all priests are ordained to offer up to God some gifts and sacrifices; so Christ, a priest for ever, has now in heaven something to offer to his eternal Father; to wit, the infinite merits and satisfactions of his death and passion. This he doth in heaven, and also by the ministry of his priests on earth, who offer the same in his name. Wi. — This is the daily sacrifice of Christians, foretold plainly by Malachy, c. i. 10. 11. This is also clearly mentioned in S. Justin Martyr, Dia. cum Tryphone. Tert. co. M. l. iii. c. 21. Iren. l. iv. c. 32. Cyp. l. i. adv. Jud. Eus. l. i. Dem. Evan. Chrys. in Ps. xcv. Aug. l. xviii. de civ. Dei. c. 35, &c. &c. For authorities see annotations on chap. x. of this epistle. The apostate Courayer, who pretending to remain a Catholic, ended by becoming a Socinian or Unitarian, taught that persons were at liberty to deny the real presence, and admit with Catholics a commemorative or representative sacrifice, but a true and real offering of a victim, really present, and actually offered to God by the priest. “By his last sentiments, (published by Dr. Bell) it appears, says the New Gen. Biogr. Dict. edited by Chalmers, an. 1814, vol. lxxx. art. Courayer, that although he professed to die a member of the Roman Catholic Church, he could not well be accounted a member of that, or of any other established Church. In rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, he became nearly, if not quite, a Socinian, or modern Unitarian; he denied also the inspiration of the holy Scriptures, as to matters of fact; and as to baptism, seems to wish to confine it to adults. In 1811 a more full exposure of his sentiments was published by Dr. Bell, in a posthumous work of Courayer, on the Divinity of Jesus Christ, 8vo. a publication we have little hesitation in saying ought never to have appeared. It could not be wanting to illustrate the wavering, unsettled character of the author. The creed of innovators is never fixed; and when once they cast off the authority of the Church, they are carried about, like children, with every wind of doctrine.”
• Ver. 4. If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest. He speaks of a priest according to the custom of the Jews, where none were priests but of the tribe of Levi, and Jesus Christ was of the tribe of Juda: and if the law of Moses was to continue, there would not be wanting priests to offer sacrifices according to their worship, though such priests were only employed about things that were types[2] and shadows of heavenly things in the new law after Christ’s coming, and of the sacrifices by which he offered himself on the cross. And this God doubtless revealed to Moses, when he said to him: take heed “thou make all things according to the pattern which was shewn thee on the mount.” Wi. — Earth, &c. That is, if he were not of a higher condition than the Levitical order of earthly priests, and had not another kind of sacrifice to offer, he should be excluded by them from the priesthood, and its functions, which by the law were appropriated to their tribe. Ch.
• Ver. 5. Who serve unto, &c. The priesthood of the law and its functions were a kind of an example, and shadow of what is done by Christ in his Church militant and triumphant, of which the tabernacle was a pattern. Ch.
• Ver. 6. But now Christ, the Messias, being come, hath ordained a more excellent ministry and priesthood, being the great Mediator betwixt God and man of a better and more excellent testament, accompanied with greater graces and blessings, and established with better and more ample promises, not of temporal blessings, as the former, but of eternal happiness. Wi.

Haydock Commentary Mark 3:7-12

• Ver. 8. What is to be understood by Idumea, see Rutter’s Evangelical Harmony. Vol. i. p. 286.
• Ver. 11-12. The unclean spirits being obliged by the Divine Power, not only to come and worship, but also to declare his majesty, exclaimed: Thou art the Son of God. How astonishing then is the blindness of the Arians, who even after his resurrection denied him to be the Son of God, whom the devils confessed as such when clothed with human nature. But it is certain that not only the devils, but the infirm that were healed, and the apostles themselves were forbidden, as well as the unclean spirits, to proclaim his divinity; lest the passion and death of Christ might be on that account deferred. Ven. Bede.

Catena Aurea Mark 3:7-12
From Catechetics Online

• Bede: It goes on, “But Jesus withdrew Himself with His disciples to the sea;” He fled from their treachery, because the hour of His passion had not yet come, and no place away from Jerusalem was proper for His Passion. By which also He gave an example to His disciples, when they suffer persecution in one city, to flee to another.
• Theophylact: At the same time again, He goes away, that by quitting the ungrateful He might do good to more, “for many followed Him, and He healed them.” For there follows, “And a great multitude from Galilee, &c.” Syrians and Sidonians, being foreigners, receive benefit from Christ; but His kindred the Jews persecute Him: thus there is no profit in relationship, if there be not a similarity in goodness.
• Bede: For the strangers followed Him, because they saw the works of His powers, and in order to hear the words of His teaching. But the Jews, induced solely by their opinion of His powers, in a vast multitude come to hear Him, and to beg for His aiding health. Wherefore there follows, “And He spake to His disciples, that they should wait, &c.”
• Theophylact: Consider then how He hid His glory, for He begs for a little ship, lest the crowd should hurt Him, so that entering into it, He might remain unharmed. It follows, “As many as had scourges, &c.” But he means by scourges, diseases, for God scourges us, as a father does His children.
• Bede: Both therefore fell down before the Lord, those who had the plagues of bodily diseases, and those who were vexed by unclean spirits. The sick did this simply with the intention of obtaining health, but the demoniacs, or rather the devils within them, because under the mastery of a fear of God they were compelled not only to fall down before Him but also to praise His majesty. Wherefore it goes on, “And they cried out, saying, Thou art the Son of God.” And here we must wonder at the blindness of the Arians, who, after the glory of His resurrection, deny the Son of God, Whom the devils confess to be the Son of God, though still clothed with human flesh. There follows, “And He straitly charged them, that they should not make Him known.” For God said to the sinner, “Why does thou preach my laws?” [Ps 50:16] A sinner is forbidden to preach the Lord, lest any one listening to his preaching should follow him in his error, for the devil is an evil master, who always mingles false things with true, that the semblance of truth may cover the witness of fraud. But not only devils, but persons healed by Christ, and even Apostles, are ordered to be silent concerning Him before the Passion, lest by the preaching of the majesty of His Divinity, the economy of His Passion should be retarded. But allegorically, in the Lord’s coming out of the synagogue, and then retiring to the sea, He prefigured the salvation of the Gentiles, to whom He deigned to come through their faith, having quitted the Jews on account of their perfidy. For the nations, driven about in divers by-paths of error, are fitly compared to the unstable sea. [ed. note: see Cyprian, Ep. 63, also Augustine, City of God, Book 20, 16] Again, a great crowd from various provinces followed Him, because He has received with kindness many nations, who came to Him through the preaching of the Apostles. But the ship waiting upon the Lord in the sea is the Church, collected from amongst the nations; and He goes into it lest the crowd should throng Him, because flying from the troubled minds of carnal persons, He delights to come to those who despise the glory of this world, and to dwell within them. Further, there is a difference between thronging the Lord, and touching Him; for they throng Him, when by carnal thoughts and deeds they trouble peace, in which truth dwells; but he touches Him, who by faith and love has received Him into his heart; wherefore those who touched Him are said to have been saved.
• Theophylact: Morally again, the Herodians, that is, persons who love the lusts of the flesh, wish to slay Christ. For the meaning of Herod is, ‘of skin’ [ed. note: pelliceus, see Hier. de Nom. Hebr.]. But those who quit their country, that is, a carnal mode of living, follow Christ, and their plagues are healed, that is, the sins which wound their conscience. But Jesus in us is our reason, which commands that our vessel, that is, our body, should serve Him, lest the troubles of worldly affairs should press upon our reason.