Daily Bible Readings Wednesday March 4 2009 First Week of Lent

March 4 2009 Wednesday First Week of Lent
Saint of the Day – St. Casimir

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/030409.shtml

Jonah 3:1-10
Douay-Rheims Challoner

And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying:

Arise, and go to Ninive, the great city: and preach in it the preaching that I bid thee.

And Jonah arose, and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord: now Ninive was a great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city one day’s journey: and he cried and said:

Yet forty days and Ninive shall be destroyed.

And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. And the word came to the king of Ninive: and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed in sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in Ninive, from the mouth of the king and of his princes, saying:

Let neither men nor beasts, oxen, nor sheep taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water. And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn, and forgive: and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we shall not perish?

And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he would do to them, and he did it not.

Responsorial Psalm 50:3-4, 12-13, 18-19 (Ps 51 NAB)
DR Challoner Text Only

Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy.
And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity.
Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels.
Cast me not away from thy face; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it:
with burnt offerings thou wilt not be delighted.
A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit:
a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint Luke 11:29-32
Haydock New Testament

And when the people were gathered together, he began to say:

This generation is a wicked generation: they ask a sign, and a sign shall not be given them, but the sign of Jonah, the prophet. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninivites, so shall the Son of man also be to this generation. The Queen of the South shall rise in judgment with the men of this generation, and shall condemn them: because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold more than Solomon here. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they did penance at the preaching of Jonah; and behold more than Jonah here.

Haydock Commentary Jonas 3:1-10
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site

• Ver. 2. Bid thee before, or when thou shalt be there. C. — He seems to have retired to Jerusalem. M.
• Ver. 3. Journey. By the computation of some ancient historians, Ninive was about fifty miles round: so that to go through all the chief streets and public places, was three days’ journey. Ch. — Diodorus (iii. 1.) says Ninive was 150 stadia or furlongs in length. It must have been therefore 480 round; and as each furlong contains 125 paces of 5 ft. each, the compass would be “60 Italian miles, (about 50 Eng.)” which would employ a person three days to go through the principal streets. W. — Ninive “was much larger that Babylon.” Strabo xvi. — Heb. “a great city of God,” &c. denoting its stupendous size.
• Ver. 4. Journey. He records what he said the first day, though he seems to have preached many (Theod.) even during forty days, after which time (H.) he expected the city would fall, and therefore retired out of the walls. C. iv. — Forty. Sept. three. S. Justin, (dial.) “three, or forty-three.” Theodoret thinks that the mistake was made by some ancient transcriber, and has since prevailed in all the copies of the Sept. All the rest have forty. S. Aug. (de civ. Dei. xviii. 44.) believes the Sept. placed three for a mysterious reason. Origen (hom. xvi. Num.) suggests that the prophet determined the number, and hence God did not execute the threat. C. — This and many other menaces are conditional. If men repent, God will change his sentence. S. Chrys. S. Greg. Mor. xvi. 18. W.
• Ver. 5. God. They were convinced that he had wrought such wonders in the person of Jonas, with a desire of their welfare, particularly as he allowed them some delay. Accordingly they did penance for about forty days, and their conversion was so sincere, that Christ proposes it to his disciples. Mat. xii. 41. C. — Thus “the city was overturned in its perverse manners.” S. Aug. de civ. Dei. xxi. 24. and Ps. l. — They were at an end, and the city was renovated. H.
• Ver. 6. King Sardanapalus, (Salien, A. 3216) or rather his father, Phul, whom Strabo calls Anacyndaraxes, (C.) and who died in the year 3237, (Usher) four years after he had invaded Palestine. 4 K. xv. 19.
• Ver. 7. Princes. Their consent was requisite, to form an irrevocable edict. Dan. vi. 8. — Men. Even infants, according to the Fathers. Joel ii. 16. S. Basil adds also, the young of cattle. This was done to excite rational beings to repentance. Theod. — We do not find that cattle were deprived of food on such occasions among the Jews. But Virgil specifies that this was the case at the death of Cæsar, (Ecl. v.) as it was in droughts among some nations of America. Horn ii. 13. C. — When people are greatly moved by repentance, they exceed in austerity; but if this be not indiscreet, God accepts of their good intention. W.
• Ver. 10. Mercy. Heb. “repented,” as some copies of the Sept. read, while others have, “was comforted.” H. — God suspended the stroke. But as the people soon relapsed, Sardanapalus burnt himself to death, and the city was taken, (S. Jer.) thirty-seven years after Jeroboam. A. 3257. Usher. — Yet this was only a prelude to its future ruin, foretold by Tobias, (xiv. 5. in Gr.) and effected by Nabopolassar and Astyages. C. A. 3378. Usher. — The vestiges did not appear in the days of Lucian, (Charon. C.) soon after Christ. H.

Haydock Commentary Luke 11:29-32

• Ver. 29. But the sign of Jonas. Instead of a prodigy in the heavens or in the air, I will give you one in the bosom of the earth, more wonderful than that of the prophet Jonas, who came out alive from the belly of the fish, which had swallowed him. Thus I will return alive from the bosom of the earth three days after my death. Calmet. — He gave them a sign, not from heaven, for they were unworthy to behold it, but from the deep; the sign of his incarnation, not of his divinity; of his passion, not of his glory. V. Bede.
• Ver. 31. Queen of the South shall condemn this generation, not by exercising the power of judgment against them, but by having performed an action which, when put in competition with theirs, will be found superior to them. V. Bede.