Daily Bible Readings Monday April 13 2009 Octave of Easter

April 13 2009 Monday in the Octave of Easter
Saint of the Day – St. Martin I

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/041309.shtml

Acts 2:14, 22-33
Haydock New Testament

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spoke to them:

Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known to you, and with your ears receive my words.

Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus, of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles and wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as you also know; This same being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have crucified and put to death by the hands of wicked men: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the sorrows of hell, as it was impossible that he should be held by it. For David saith concerning him;

I foresaw the Lord always before my face: because he is at my right hand, that I may not be moved: For this my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath rejoiced: moreover, my flesh also shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thy holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life: thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.

Ye men, brethren, let me freely speak to you of the patriarch, David, that he died, and was buried: and his sepulchre is with us to this present day. Whereas, therefore, he was a prophet, and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath, that of the fruit of his loins on should sit upon his throne, Foreseeing he spoke of the resurrection of Christ, for neither was he left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up again, whereof we are all witnesses. Being exalted, therefore, by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath poured forth this which you see and hear.

Responsorial Psalm 15:1-2a and 5, 7-11 (Ps 16 NAB)
DR Challoner Text Only

Preserve me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in thee.
I have said to the Lord, thou art my God
The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup:
it is thou that wilt restore my inheritance to me.
I will bless the Lord, who hath given me understanding:
moreover, my reins also have corrected me even till night.
I set the Lord always in my sight:
for he is at my right hand, that I be not moved.
Therefore my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath rejoiced:
moreover, my flesh also shall rest in hope.
Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;
nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption.
Thou hast made known to me the ways of life,
thou shalt fill me with joy with thy countenance:
at thy right hand are delights even to the end.

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint Matthew 28:8-15
Haydock New Testament

And they went out quickly from the sepulchre, with fear and great joy, running to tell his disciples. And behold Jesus met them, saying:

All hail.

But they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them:

Be not afraid. Go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, there they shall see me.

Now when they were departed, behold some of the guards came into the city, and told the chief priests all the things that had been done. And they being assembled together with the ancients, having taken counsel, they gave a great sum of money to the soldiers; Saying:

Say you, that his disciples came by night, and stole him away when we were asleep. And if the governor shall hear of this, we will persuade him, and secure you.

So they, taking the money, did as they were taught. And this word was spread abroad among the Jews even unto this day.

Haydock Commentary Acts 2:14, 22-33
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site

• Ver. 14. But Peter standing up, &c. A wonderful change which the Holy Ghost, at his coming, in a moment wrought in the apostles, as we see in the person of S. Peter, who before, when questioned by a silly girl, denied his master, now he values not all the Sanhedrim of the Scribes, Pharisees, and magistrates; he boldly and publicly charges them with the murder of Jesus, their Lord, and their Christ. v. 36. Wi. — As the prince of the apostolic college, and head of the Church, under Jesus Christ, hence Peter speaks in the name of the other apostles also, gives an account of the miracle, and promulgates the evangelical law. M. — Newly replenished with all knowledge and fortitude, and full of the holy Spirit, he her maketh his first sermon. B.
• Ver. 22-23. Jesus, . . . a man, who suffered as man, though he was both God and man. — Delivered by the determinate decree, or counsel; to wit, by that eternal decree, that the Son of God should become man. He mentions this decree, and foreknowledge of God, to signify that Christ suffered not by chance, nor unwillingly, but what God, and he as God, had decreed. Wi. — By the determinate, &c. god delivered up his Son; and his Son delivered up himself, for the love of us, and for the sake of our salvation: and so Christ’s being delivered up was holy, and was God’s own determination. But they who betrayed and crucified him, did wickedly, following therein their own malice, and the instigation of the devil; not the will and determination of God, who was by no means the author of their wickedness; though he permitted it; because he could, and did draw out of it so great a good, viz. the salvation of man. Ch.
• Ver. 24. Having loosed the sorrows[2] of hell, &c. In the ordinary Greek copies, of death. As to the sense of this place, 1. It is certain Christ suffered the pains and pangs of a violent death. 2. That his soul suffered no pains after death, nor in any place called hell. 3. We believe, as in the Apostles’ Creed, that his blessed soul descended into hell, that is, to that place in the inferior parts of the earth, (Ephes. iv. 9.) which we commonly call Limbus Patrum, not to suffer, but to free the souls of the just from thence. — As it was impossible he should be held there, either by death, or hell, his soul being always united to the divine person: and his rising again being foretold in the Psalms, in the words here cited. Wi. — Having overcome the grievous pains of death, and all the power of hell. Ch. — Not that Jesus suffered any thing after his death; that was impossible. But these pains were loosed in his regard, because he was preserved from them, as the bird is preserved from the nets of the fowlers, which are broken before it is taken in them. S. Aug. ep. ad. Olimp. xcv. — Moreover he loosed others of those pains. Idem, l. xii, c. 13. de Gen. ad lit.
• Ver. 27. Thou wilt not leave[3] my soul in hell. This is also the Prot. translation; and the manner in which Beza translates it, is both very false and ridiculous, thou shalt not leave my carcass in the grave. For allowing that the Latin and Greek word, which is here translated hell, may signify sometimes, the grave; yet no excuse can be made for putting carcass, where the Greek, as well as Latin, signifies the soul. And for the doctrine of Christ’s descending into hell, even the learned Dr. Pearson on the Creed, observes with Catholics, that the article of the creed, wherein we say, he descended into hell, cannot be the same as to say, his body descended into the grave, because in the foregoing words we profess that he was dead and buried. Wi. — Beza plainly confesseth that he translateth the text thus: Thou shalt not leave my carcass in the grave, against the doctrine of purgatory, and Christ’s descending into hell, although he alloweth, that most of the ancient Fathers were in that error. Thus opposing himself to plain Scripture and to the ancient Fathers, perverting the former, and contemning the latter, to overthrow an article of the apostles’ creed. He descended into hell. New Test. in 1556.
• Ver. 31. Foreseeing he (David) spoke of the resurrection of Christ. S. Peter shews them that the prophetical words of the Psalm, agree not to David in person, he being dead, and his body having remained in the grave, without rising from the dead. Wi.
• Ver. 33. He hath poured forth this, which we see, and hear, by the effects, by the noise, as it were of thunder, by our speaking languages, &c. Wi. — It does not appear that the holy Spirit was visible to the multitude, whom S. Peter addressed. But they perceived sensible marks of his presence, in the great noise, which had called them together, and the divers tongues spoken by illiterate men, who had never studied. A.

Haydock Commentary Matthew 28:8-15

• Ver. 9. Jesus met them. According to S. Mark, Christ appeared first to Mary Magdalene; and the particulars are related by S. John. She at first did not know him, but took him for the gardener: then he called her by her name Mary, and she knew him: he said to her, touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; i.e. according to the common exposition, I have not ascended, nor am yet going to ascend; thou mayest see me again before I ascend: this is not the last time. — We also read here, (v. 9,) that he appeared to some of the other women, as they were returning to Jerusalem from the sepulchre, and that they laid hold on his feet, and adored him; nor is it said that he hindered them. Wi. — They were then returning to carry the news to the disciples, when they laid hold of his feet. To touch the feet, was in the Scripture a species of veneration; (see Exod. iv. 25. 4 Kings iv. 27.) as among the Greeks, the touching of the knees. Thus Homer’s Illiad, b. i.,
• Kai ra paroiq autoio Kaqezeto, Kai labe gounwn. v 500.
• And again, v. 512; wV hyato gounwn.
• Ver. 10. There they shall see me. Our Saviour, on the day of this resurrection, shewed himself alive five different times: 1. to Mary Magdalene; 2. to the women leaving the sepulchre; 3. to S. Peter; 4. to the two disciples going to Emmaus; 5. to the disciples assembled together, when the two returned from Emmaus. And after the day of his resurrection, before he ascended into heaven, he appeared other five times: 1. after eight days, when Thomas was present; 2. when the seven disciples were fishing on the sea of Tiberias; (S. John c. xxi.) 3. to the eleven on Mount Thabor; 4. in Jerusalem, on the day of his ascension; and 5. on the same day on Mount Olivet, when he was taken form them. Dion. Carth. — The seventh apparition of Jesus, which was by the sea or lake of Tiberias, S. John calls the third, which may mean in any numerous assembly of his disciples; the first being on the day of his resurrection, and the second the Sunday following. This may also be referred to the number of days. He first appeared to different persons on the very day of his resurrection; secondly, eight days afterwards, and then a third time. S. Aug. — The history of our Lord’s different apparitions in not very clear, and it is necessary to have recourse to the first chapter of the Acts, and to the 15th chapter of S. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. S. Austin says, (l. ii. de cons. Evang. c. xxv,) that there are ten apparitions of our Lord recorded in the four evangelists, which he specifies; but Maldonatus, on the 28th chap. of S. Mat. enumerates 13 different apparitions.
• Ver. 11. Some of the guards came into the city. It is probable they had retired a while to some place to consult what to say, and how to avoid being punished. The chief priests, after consulting upon the matter, ordered them to say, that when they were asleep, the disciples came and stole away Jesus’s body. This report was spread about everywhere. S. Augustin laughs at them for their blindness and folly, in bringing men in for witnesses of a fact, which they themselves own was done whilst they were asleep. Wi. — The poet, Sedulius, also is no less severe on these faithless guards:
• Mentita est vox vana sibi; tamen ista figuram
• Res habet egregiam, Judæis constat ademptum,
• Quem nos devoto portamus pectore Christum.
• Ver. 12. Gave a great sum of money. These princes of the Jewish nation still persisting in their malice, refused to turn to their Creator by hearty repentance, and wished to persuade the world that Jesus was not risen, sacrificing that money to falsehood, which was given for the use of the temple. For as they offered Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray his Master, so now they offer a great sum of money to suppress a truth so useful and so necessary for man. S. Jerom.
• Ver. 13. It hence appears, that the chief priests themselves were fully convinced of the fact; for otherwise, they would not have bribed the soldiers to dissemble, but would have accused the soldiers before the president of a neglect of duty. T. — How was it possible for the timid and weak disciples, who dared not shew themselves in public, to come in defiance of an armed multitude to steal away the body! If these men dared not even to come forward in defence of their Master when alive, is it probable that these same men after his death would steal away his body? And could they, even allowing the possibility of conceiving the design, have removed the stone, before the guards were stationed? For it was on Saturday the priests petitioned for a guard. Why did they not also take the clothes, which S. Peter saw lying in the sepulchre? Would not a delay in taking off the clothes, and the napkin that bound his head, have appeared dangerous? Would it not have exposed their lives, particularly as the body had been anointed, and some time would be requisite to remove the linen, which would adhere to the body? The means they take to make the miracle uncertain, render it utterly undeniable. For in protesting that the disciples stole it away, they confessed that the body was no longer in the sepulchre. The fear and doubts of the disciples, joined to the idle story of the soldiers, is an evident demonstration, that the account of the body being stolen away, is a gross calumny. S. Chrys. hom. xc. — But let us again see how beautifully Sedulius paints the same in verse.
• Fare improbe Custos,
• Responde scelerata cohors, si Christus, ut audes
• Dicere, concluso furtim prductus ab antro
• Sopitos latuit, cujus jacet intus amictus?
• Cujus ad exuvias sedet angelus? Anne beati
• Corporis ablator velocius esse putavit
• Solvere contectum, quam devectare ligatum?
• Cum mora sit furtis contraria. Cautiùs ergo
• Cum Domino potuere magis sua lintea tolli.