April 23 2009 Thursday Second Week of Easter
Saint of the Day – St. George
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/042309.shtml
Acts 5:27-33
Haydock New Testament
And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, Saying;
Commanding, we commanded you, that you should not teach in this name: and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and you have a mind to bring the blood of this man upon us.
But Peter answering, and the apostles, said:
We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus, whom you put to death, hanging him upon a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand, to be Prince and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are witnesses of these things, and the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to all that obey him.
When they had heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they though to put them to death.
Responsorial Psalm 33:2 and 9, 17-20 (Ps 34 NAB)
DR Challoner Text Only
I will bless the Lord at all times,
his praise shall be always in my mouth.
O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet:
blessed is the man that hopeth in him.
But the countenance of the Lord is against them that do evil things:
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
The just cried, and the Lord heard them:
and delivered them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart:
and he will save the humble of spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the just;
but out of them all will the Lord deliver them.
The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint John 3:31-36
Haydock New Testament
John The Baptist spoke and said:
He that cometh from above, is above all. He that is of the earth, of the earth he is, and of the earth he speaketh. He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth; and no man receiveth his testimony. He that hath received his testimony, hath attested by his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent, speaketh the words of God: for God doth not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loveth the Son: and he hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth in the Son hath life everlasting: but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Haydock Commentary Acts 5:27-33
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site
- Ver. 28. Commanding, we commanded you. That is, charged you severely. — You have a mind to bring the blood of this man upon us. You will make us pass for guilty of the murder of the Messias. Wi.
- Ver. 29. Peter answered boldly, We ought to obey God, rather than men. And withal adds, that God had raised from death Jesus, the Prince and Saviour of mankind, by whose merits all might find repentance, and forgiveness of their sins; that they were witness of his resurrection, &c. Wi.
- Ver. 33. They were cut to the heart;[5] exasperated to fury and madness, and were for killing them. Wi.
Haydock Commentary John 3:31-36
- Ver. 31. He that cometh from above, meaning Christ. He that is of the earth, meaning himself, is from the earth,[2] is earthly, is but a frail and infirm man; and so speaketh as from the earth: this seems rather the sense, than that he speaketh of, or concerning the earth. See the Greek text. Wi.
- Ver. 32. Waht he hath seen and heard. The meaning is not by his senses, but what he knows for certain, having the same knowledge as his eternal Father. See c. v., v. 19. And no one; i.e. but few now receive his testimony. Wi.
- Ver. 33. He that hath received his testimony. These following words to the end of the chapter, seem to be the words of S. John the Baptist, rather than of the evangelist. The sense is, whosoever hath believed, and received the doctrine of Christ, hath attested as it were under his hand and seal, that God is true, and hath executed his promise concerning the Messias. Wi.
- Ver. 34. Doth not give the Spirit by measure. Christ, even as man, has a plenitude of graces. See c. i. v. 14. And all things, all creatures, both in heaven and earth, are given into his hands, and made subject to him, as man. See 1 Cor. xv. 26. Wi.
- Ver. 35. The Father loveth the Son. The Father loveth John, loveth Paul, yet he hat not given all things into their hands. The Father loveth the Son, not as a lord does his servants, not as an adopted Son, but as his only begotten Son; therefore hath he given all things into his hands, that as the Father is, so may the Son be. S. Austin.
- Ver. 36. The divinity of the Son is in this chapter proved as clearly as in John, ep. 1, v. 7. “There are three who give testimony in heaven; the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.” Which verse is entirely omitted by Luther in his version; for which omission he is severly reproved by keckerman. But while Catholics and Protestants deduce from this and many other places in Scripture, the divinity of Jesus Christ, as an indubitable and irrefragable consequence, how may learned Arians, Socinians, and Unitarians read the saem texts, and deduce quite contrary consequences? How clearly does this preove that the Bible only cannot prove the exclusive rule of faith. With reason does the Cambridge divinity professor, Dr. Herbert Marsh, ask in his late publication on this subject, p. 18, “Are all Protestants alike in their religion? Have we not got Protestants of the Church of England, Protestants of the Church of Scotland, Protestants who hold the profession of Augsburgh? Have we not both Arminian and Calvinistic Protestants? Are not the Moravians, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Quakers, and even the Jumpers, the Dunkers, the Swedenborgians, all Protestants? Since, then Protestantism assumes so many different forms, men speak quite indefinitely, if they speak of it without explaining the particular kind wich they mean. When I hear of a Swedish or a Danish Protestant, I know that it means a person whose religion is the Bible only, as expounded by the Synod of Dort. In like manner a Protestant of the Church of England, is a person whose religion is the Bible only; but the Bible as expounded by its Liturgy and Articles. How, therefore, can we know, if we give the Bible only, what sort of Protestantism well be deduced from it?” — Idem ibidem, p. 21, adds, “Protestants of every description, however various adn even opposite in their opinions, claim severally for themselves the honour of deducing from the Bible irrefragable and indubitable consequences. The doctrine of conditional salvation is an indubitable consequence to the Arminian. The doctrine of absolute decree, an indubitable consequence to the Calvinist. The doctrines of the trinity, the atonement and the sacraments, which the Church of England considers as indubitable consequences of the Bible, would not be so, if the Unitarians and Quakers were right in the consequences which they draw from the Bible. But the consequences which they deduce appear indubitable to them.” This the professor properly styles protestantism in the abstract, or generalized, and nearly allied to apostacy from Christianity: a system, p. 16, “by which many a pilgrim has lost his way between the portal of the temple and the altar — disdaining the gate belonging only to the priests, and approaching at once the portals of the the temple, they have ventured without a clue, to explore the inmost recesses; and have been bewildered in their way, till at length they have wandered to the devious passage, where Christianity itself becomes lost from the view.” See his Inquiry into the consequences of neglecting to give the Prayer-Book with the Bible.
