Daily Bible Readings Thursday April 30 2009 Third Week of Easter

April 30 2009 Thursday Third Week of Easter
Saint of the Day – St. Pius V

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/043009.shtml

Acts 8:26-40
Haydock New Testament

Now an Angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying:

Arise, and go towards the south to the way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza; this is desert.

And rising up, he went. And behold a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch, of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge over all her treasures, had come to Jerusalem to adore: And he was returning, sitting in his chariot, and reading Isaias, the prophet. And the Spirit said to Philip:

Go near, and join thyself to that chariot.

And Philip running thither, heard him reading the prophet, Isaias, and he said:

Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest?

He said:

How can I, unless some one shew me?

And he desired Philip to come up, and sit with him. And the place of the Scripture, which he was reading, was this: As a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb without a voice before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth. In humility his judgment was taken away. Who shall declare his generation, for his life shall be taken away from the earth? And the eunuch answering Philip, said:

I beseech thee, of whom doth the prophet speak this? of himself, or of some other?

Then Philip, opening his mouth, and beginning at that Scripture, preached to him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came to a certain water: and the eunuch saith;

See, here is water, what hindereth me from being baptized?

And Philip said:

If thou believest with thy whole heart, thou mayest.

And he answering, said:

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they both went down into the water, Philip, and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more. And he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found in Azotus, and passing through, he preached the gospel to all the cities, till he came to Cæsarea.

Responsorial Psalm 65:8-9, 16-17, 20 (Ps 66 NAB)
DR Challoner Text Only

O bless our God, ye Gentiles: and make the voice of his praise to be heard.
Who hath set my soul to live: and hath not suffered my feet to be moved:
Come and hear, all ye that fear God,
and I will tell you what great things he hath done for my soul.
I cried to him with my mouth: and I extolled him with my tongue.
Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint John 6:44-51
Haydock New Testament

Jesus said:

No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught of God.

Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me. Not that nay man hath seen the Father, but he, who is of God, he hath seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say unto you: He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life.

I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and they died. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven: that if any one eat of it, he may not die. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven.

Haydock Commentary 8:26-40
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site

• Ver. 26. This is desert. In construction, whether we regard the Latin or Greek, to be desert, may either agree to the way leading to Gaza, or the city itself, which formerly had been almost destroyed. Wi. — To the site of old Gaza, which was then a desert; above which was built the new Gaza, nearer the sea. V. — Beza frequently makes very free with S. Luke, and in his annotations, an. 1556, says the text is wrong; it cannot be so.
• Ver. 27. An eunuch. It is likely a proselyte converted to the Jewish religion. He shews his zeal and devotion, says S. Chrys. not only by coming to Jerusalem, but by reading the prophets in his chariot. Wi.
• Ver. 31. How can I, unless some one shew me,[3] or be a guide to me, as in the Greek. Let every one, and especially the unlearned, take good notice of these words, not to wrest the Scriptures to his own perdition. To follow his own private judgment, or his private spirit, is to make choice of a blind and incompetent guide, as to the sense of the Scriptures, and the mysteries of faith. See the preface to the gospel of S. John. Wi. — It appears this eunuch was not one of those, who are now so commonly seen, who think the Scripture is every where plain, and the sense open to every body. Such would do much better to acknowledge, that they stand in need of a guide. Grotius, hic. — S. Jerom, in his letter to Paulinus, printed at the head of the Latin Bibles, shews the necessity of an interpreter. The apostles themselves could not understand the Scriptures till Christ gave them the knowledge; tunc aperuit illis sensum ut intelligerent scripturas. Lu. xxiv. 45.
• Ver. 32-33. As a sheep, or a lamb, &c. The eunuch, by divine Providence, was now reading the 53d chap. of Isaias, which is of Christ, and his sufferings. — In humility his judgment was taken away. The sense seems to be, that Christ having humbled himself, so as to undergo an unjust judgment, or condemnation to die on the cross, hath been again raised from the dead, and delivered from that judgment by his glorious resurrection and ascension. Wi.
• Ver. 36. Here is water. This shews, that baptism is to be given with water. Wi.
• Ver. 37. If thou believest, &c. The Scripture many times mentions one disposition, when others no less necessary are supposed, as here a sorrow for sins, a firm hope, love of God, &c. Wi. — Faith is thus seen to be a necessary predisposition in the adult, for the reception of baptism. They must answer for themselves; but infants are baptized in the faith of the Church. Their sponsors, who receive them from the font, answer for them. D. Diony. Carthus. — And as the defilement was not personal, but that of others, so are they purified by the faith of others.
• Ver. 38. We are not to suppose that in the administration of the sacraments in the primitive Church, nothing more was done than what we read, totidem litteris, in the Scripture. S. Augustin answers this, when he says: “insomuch that he saith, Philip baptized him, he would have it understood, that all things were done, which though in the Scripture, for brevity sake, they are not mentioned, yet by order of tradition we know were to be done.”

Haydock Commentary John 6:44-51

• Ver. 44. Draw him. Not by compulsion, nor by laying the free-will under any necessity, but by the strong and sweet motions of his heavenly grace. Ch. — We are drawn to the Father by some secret pleasure, delight, or love, which brings us to the Father. “Believe and you come to the Father,” says S. Austin, “Love, and you are drawn. The Jews could not believe, because they would not.” God, by his power, could have overcome their hardness of heart; but he was not bound to do it; neither had they any right to expect this favour, after the many miracles which they had seen. Calmet.
• Ver. 45. Every one, therefore, that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned of him who I am, cometh to me by faith and obedience. As to others, when the Scripture says they are taught by God, this is to be understood of an interior spiritual instruction, which takes place in the soul, and does not fall under the senses; but not less real on that account, because it is the heart, which hears the voice of this invisible teacher.
• Ver. 47. Thus Jesus Christ concludes the first part of his discourse: “Amen, amen, he that believeth in me, hath everlasting life;” which shews that faith is a necessary predisposition to the heavenly bread.
• Ver. 48. Because the multitude still insisted in begging for their corporal nourishment and remembering the food that was given to their fathers, Christ, to shew that all were figures of the present spiritual food, answered, that he was the bread of life. Theophylact. — Here Jesus Christ proceeds to the second part of his discourse, in which he fully explains what that bread of life is, which he is about to bestow upon mankind in the mystery of the holy Eucharist. He declares then, in the first place, that he is the bread of eternal life, and mentions its several properties; and secondly, he applies to his own person, and to his own flesh, the idea of this bread, such as he has defined it.
• Ver. 51. Christ now no longer calls the belief in him, or the preaching of the gospel, the bread that he will give them; but he declares that it is his own flesh, and that flesh which shall be given for the life of the world. Calmet. — This bread Christ then gave, when he gave the mystery of his body and blood to his disciples. Ven. Bede.