Daily Bible Readings Wednesday February 11 2009 Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

February 11 2009 Wednesday Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Saint of the Day – Our Lady of Lourdes

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/021109.shtml

Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17
Douay-Rheims Challoner

In the day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth: And every plant of the field before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb of the ground before it grew: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth; and there was not a man to till the earth. But a spring rose out of the earth, watering all the surface of the earth.

And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it. And he commanded him, saying:

Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

Responsorial Psalm 103:1-2a, 27-28, 29bc-30
DR Challoner Text Only

Bless the Lord, O my soul:
O Lord my God, thou art exceedingly great.
Thou hast put on praise and beauty:
And art clothed with light as with a garment.
Who stretchest out the heaven like a pavilion:
All expect of thee that thou give them food in season.
What thou givest to them they shall gather up:
when thou openest thy hand,
they shall all be filled with good.
But if thou turnest away thy face,
they shall be troubled:
thou shalt take away their breath,
and they shall fail, and shall return to their dust.
Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created:
and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint Mark 7:14-23
Haydock New Testament

And calling again the multitude unto him, he said to them:

Hear ye me all, and understand. There is nothing from without a man entering into him, that can defile him: but the things which come from a man, those are they that defile a man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

And when he was come into the house from the multitude, his disciples asked him the parable. And he saith to them:

Are you also so unwise? Understand you not that whatsoever things from without entereth into a man, it cannot defile him: Because it entereth not into his heart, but goeth into the belly, and goeth out into the privy, purging all meats?

And he said that

The things which come out from a man, they defile a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders. Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile a man.

Haydock Commentary Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site

• Ver. 4. Day. Not that all things were made in one day: but God formed in succession; first, heaven and earth, then the ornaments of both. Every plant, &c. which on the first day did not spring up, (as water covered the surface of the earth,) on the 3d, by the command of God, without having any man to plant, or rain to water them, pushed forth luxuriantly, and manifested the power of the Creator. H. — Thus Christ founded his Church by his own power, and still gives her increase; but requires of his ministers to co-operate with him, as a gardener must now take care of the plants which originally grew without man’s aid. D. — By observing that all natural means were here wanting for the production of plants, God asserts his sole right to the work, and confounds the Egyptian system, which attributed plants, &c. to the general warmth of the earth alone. C.
• Ver. 7. Breath of life or a soul, created out of nothing, and infused into the body to give it life. H.
• Ver. 8. Of pleasure, Heb. Eden, which may be either the name of a country, as C. iv. 16. or it may signify pleasure, in which sense Symmachus and S. Jerom have taken it. — From the beginning, or on the 3d day, when all plants were created, Heb. mikedem, may also mean towards the east, as the Sept. have understood it, though the other ancient interpreters agree with S. Jerom. Paradise lay probably to the east of Palestine, or of that country where Moses wrote. The precise situation cannot be ascertained. Calmet places it in Armenia, others near Babylon, &c. Some assert that this beautiful garden is still in being, the residence of Henoch and Elias. But God will not permit the curiosity of man to be gratified by the discovery of it. C. iii. 24. How great might be its extent we do not know. If the sources of the Ganges, Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates, be not now changed, and if these be the rivers which sprung from the fountains of Paradise, (both which are points undecided) the garden must have comprised a great part of the world, H., as the Ganges rises in Judea, and the Nile about the middle of Africa. T.
• Ver. 9. The tree of life. So called, because it had that quality, that by eating of the fruit of it, man would have been preserved in a constant state of health, vigour, and strength, and would not have died at all. The tree of knowledge. To which the deceitful serpent falsely attributed the power of imparting a superior kind of knowledge beyond that which God was pleased to give. Ch. — Of what species these two wonderful trees were, the learned are not agreed. The tree of knowledge, could not communicate any wisdom to man; but, by eating of its forbidden fruit, Adam dearly purchased the knowledge of evil, to which he was before a stranger. Some say it was the fig-tree, others an apple-tree. Cant. viii. 5. But it probably agreed with no species of trees with which we are acquainted, nor was there perhaps any of the same kind in paradise. T.
• Ver. 15. To dress it. Behold God would not endure idleness even in Paradise. H.
• Ver. 17. The death of the soul, and become obnoxious to that of the body; thou shalt become a mortal and lose all the privileges of innocence. Though Adam lived 930 years after this, he was dying daily; he carried along with him the seeds of death, as we do, from our very conception. He had leave to eat of any fruit in this delicious garden, one only excepted, and this one prohibition makes him more eager to taste of that tree than of all the rest. So we struggle constantly to attain what is forbidden, and covet what is denied, cupimusque negata. God laid this easy command upon Adam, to give him an opportunity of shewing his ready obedience, and to assert his own absolute dominion over him. Eve was already formed, and was apprised of this positive command, (C. iii. 3.) and therefore, transgressing, is justly punished with her husband. True obedience does not inquire why a thing is commanded, but submits without demur. Would a parent be satisfied with his child, if he should refuse to obey, because he could not discern the propriety of the restraint? If he should forbid him to touch some delicious fruits which he had reserved for strangers, and the child were to eat them, excusing himself very impertinently and blasphemously, with those much abused words of our Saviour, It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles a man, &c. would not even a Protestant parent be enraged and seize the rod, though he could not but see that he was thus condemning his own conduct, in disregarding, on the very same plea, the fasts and days of abstinence, prescribed by the Church and by God’s authority? All meats are good, as that fruit most certainly was which Adam was forbidden to eat; though some have foolishly surmised that it was poisonous; but, the crime of disobedience draws on punishment. H. — Even when the sin is remitted, as it was to Adam, the penalty is not of course released, as some have pretended. This also clearly appears in baptized infants, who suffer the penalties due to original sin, as much as those who have not been admitted to the laver of regeneration. S. Aug. W. T. &c. — If on this occasion, Eve had alone transgressed, as she was not the head, her sin would have hurt only herself. But with Adam, the representative of all his posterity, God made a sort of compact, (Ose. vi. 7.) giving him to understand, that if he continued faithful, his children should be born in the state of innocence like himself, happy and immortal, to be translated in due time to a happier Paradise, &c. but if he should refuse to obey, his sin should be communicated to all his race, who should be, by nature, children of wrath. — S. Aug. C. D. xvi. 27. Bede in Luc. 11. &c. — H. C.

Haydock Commentary Mark 7:14-23

• Ver. 17. Asked him the parable. Asked him to explain its meaning.

Catena Aurea Mark 7:14-23
From Catechetics Online

• Pseudo-Chrys., Vict. Ant. e Cat. in Marc.: The Jews regard and murmur about only the bodily purification of the law; our Lord wishes to bring in the contrary.
• Wherefore it is said, “And when He had called all the people unto Him, He said unto them, Hearken unto Me every one, and understand: there is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him, but the things which come out of a man, those are they which defile a man;” that is, which make him unclean.
• The things of Christ have relation to the inner man, but those which are of the law are visible and external, to which, as being bodily, the cross of Christ was shortly to put an end.
• Theophylact: But the intention of the Lord in saying this was to teach men, that the observing of meats, which the law commands, should not be taken in a carnal sense, and from this He began to unfold to them the intent of the law.
• Pseudo-Chrys., Vict. Ant. e Cat. in Marc.: Again He subjoins, “If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” For He had not clearly shewn them, what those things are which proceed out of a man, and defile a man; and on account of this saying, the Apostles thought that the foregoing discourse of the Lord implied some other deep thing.
• Wherefore there follows: “And when He was entered into the house from the people, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable;” they called it parable, because it was not clear.
• Theophylact: The Lord begins by chiding them, wherefore there follows, “Are ye so without understanding also?”
• Bede: For that man is a faulty hearer who considers what is obscure to be a clear speech, or what is clear to be obscurely spoken.
• Theophylact: Then the Lord shews them what was hidden, saying, “Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot make him common?”
• Bede: For the Jews, boasting themselves to be the portion of God, call common those meals which all men use, as shellfish, hares, and animals of that sort. Not even however what is offered to idols is unclean, in as far as it is food and God’s creature; it is the invocation of devils which makes it unclean; and He adds the cause of it, saying, “Because it entereth not into his heart.”
• The principal seat of the soul according to Plato is the brain, but according to Christ, it is in the heart.
• Gloss [ed. note: It is probable that most, if not all the Glosses which cannot be found, are from St. Thomas himself, and this one is especially like his language, as may be seen by referring to Summa, 2, 2, Q148, Art 1, and 1, Q119, Art 1, in both of which places also he quotes the passages in St. Matthew parallel to this part of St. Mark.] It says therefore into his heart, that is, into his mind, which is the principal part of his soul, on which his whole life depends; wherefore it is necessary, that according to the state of his heart a man should be called clean or unclean, and thus whatsoever does not reach the soul, cannot bring pollution to the man.
• Meats therefore, since they do not reach the soul, cannot in their own nature defile a man; but an inordinate use of meats, which proceeds from a want of order in the mind, makes men unclean.
• But that meats cannot reach the mind, He shews by that which He adds, saying, “But into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats.” This however He says, without referring to what remains from the food in the body, for that which is necessary for the nourishment and growth of the body remains. But that which is superfluous goes out, and thus as it were purges the nourishment, which remains.
• Augustine: For some things are joined to others in such a way as both to change and be changed, just as food, losing its former appearance, is both itself turned into our body, and we too are changed, and our strength is refreshed by it.
• [ed. note: The last words of this comment are not in St. Augustine, but in Bede, who took them originally from St. Jerome's Commentary on Matthew, from whence most of Bede's remarks on this passage are taken word for word. As the sentence marked Bede is not found in him, it probably belongs to the Gloss, and his name has been transferred from the former sentence.] Further, a most subtle liquid, after the food has been prepared and digested in our veins, and other arteries, by some hidden channels, called from a Greek word, pores, passes through us, and goes into the draught.
• Bede: Thus then it is not meat that makes men unclean, but wickedness, which works in us the passions which come from within. Wherefore it goes on: “And He said, That which cometh out of a man, that defileth a man.”
• Gloss.: The meaning of which He points out, when He subjoins, “for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts.”And thus it appears that evil thoughts belong to the mind, which is here called the heart, and according to which a man is called good or bad, clean or unclean.
• Bede: From this passage are condemned those men who suppose that thoughts are put into them by the devil, and do not arise from their own evil will. The devil may excite and help on evil thoughts, he cannot be their author.
• Gloss.: From evil thoughts, however, evil actions proceed to greater lengths, concerning which it is added, adulteries, that is, acts which consist in the violation of another man’s bed; fornications, which are unlawful connexions between persons, not bound by marriage; murders, by which hurt is inflicted on the person of one’s neighbour; thefts, by which his goods are taken from him; covetousness, by which things are unjustly kept; wickedness, which consists in calumniating others; deceit, in overreaching them; lasciviousness, to which belongs any corruption of mind or body.
• Theophylact: An evil eye, that is, hatred and flattery, for he who hates turns an evil and envious eye on him whom he hates, and a flatterer, looking askance at his neighbour’s goods, leads him into evil; blasphemies, that is, faults committed against God; pride, that is, contempt of God, when a man ascribes the good, which he does, not to God, but to his own virtue; foolishness, that is, an injury against one’s neighbour.
• Gloss. [ed. note: see Summa 2, 2, Q46, 1, and 1, 2, Q1, 1]: Or, foolishness consists in wrong thoughts concerning God; for it is opposed to wisdom, which is the knowledge of divine things. It goes on: “All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” For whatsoever is in the power of a man, is imputed to him as a fault, because all such things proceed from the interior will, by which man is master of his own actions.