Daily Bible Readings Saturday July 4 2009 13th Week in Ordinary Time

July 4 2009 Saturday Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Saint of the Day – St. Elizabeth of Portugal

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/070409.shtml

Genesis 27:1-5, 15-29
Douay-Rheims Challoner

Now Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, and he could not see: and he called Esau, his elder son, and said to him:

My son?

And he answered:

Here I am.

And his father said to him,

Thou seest that I am old, and know not the day of my death. Take thy arms, thy quiver, and bow, and go abroad; and when thou hast taken something by hunting, Make me a savoury meat thereof, as thou knowest I like, and bring it that I may eat: and my soul may bless thee, before I die.

And when Rebecca had heard this, and he was gone into the field to fulfil his father’s commandment, And she put on him very good garments of Esau, which she had at home with her: And the little skins of the kids she put about his hands, and covered the bare of his neck. And she gave him the savoury meat, and delivered him bread that she had baked. Which when he had carried in, he said:

Jacob Deceives Isaac

My father?

But he answered:

I hear. Who art thou, my son?

And Jacob said:

I am Esau, thy firstborn: I have done as thou didst command me: arise, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me.

And Isaac said to his son:

How couldst thou find it so quickly, my son?

He answered:

It was the will of God, that what I sought came quickly in my way:

And Isaac said:

Come hither, that I may feel thee, my son, and may prove whether thou be my son Esau, or no.

He came near to his father, and when he had felt him, Isaac said:

The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob; but the hands, are the hands of Esau.

And he knew him not, because his hairy hands made him like to the elder. Then blessing him, He said:

Art thou my son Esau?

He answered:

I am.

Then he said:

Bring me the meats of thy hunting, my son, that my soul may bless thee.

And when they were brought, and he had eaten, he offered him wine also, which after he had drunk, He said to him:

Come near me, and give me a kiss, my son.

He came near, and kissed him. And immediately as he smelled the fragrant smell of his garments, blessing him, he said:

Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a plentiful field, which the Lord hath blessed. God give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, abundance of corn and wine. And let peoples serve thee, and tribes worship thee: be thou lord of thy brethren, and let thy mother’s children bow down before thee. Cursed be he that curseth thee: and let him that blesseth thee be filled with blessings.

Responsorial Psalm 134:1b-6 (Ps 135 NAB)
DR Challoner Text Only

Alleluia. Praise ye the name of the Lord:
O you his servants, praise the Lord:
You that stand in the house of the Lord,
in the courts of the house of our God.
Praise ye the Lord, for the Lord is good:
sing ye to his name, for it is sweet.
For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself:
Israel for his own possession.
For I have known that the Lord is great,
and our God is above all gods.
Whatsoever the Lord pleased he hath done,
in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in all the deeps.

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint Matthew 9:14-17
Haydock New Testament

Then came to him the disciples of John, saying,

Why do we, and the Pharisees fast often, but thy disciples do not fast?

And Jesus said to them:

Can the children of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast. And no one putteth a piece of raw cloth to an old garment: for it taketh away what was whole from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do they put new wine into old bottles: otherwise the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles are lost. But new wine they put itno new bottles: and both are preserved.

Haydock Commentary Genesis 27:1-5, 15-29
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site

• Ver. 1. Old: 137 years, when falling sickly and blind, at least for a time, he wished to bless Esau, who was 77 years old.  T.
• Ver. 4. That, &c.  He does not mean, that the meat would induce him to give his blessing.  Neither can we suppose, that he intended to pervert the order of God, in making the younger son subject to the elder, if he was informed by Rebecca, of that disposition of providence.  C. — But of this he seems to have been ignorant, v. 29. 35.  W.
• Ver. 15. Very good. Heb. desirable, kept among perfumes, v. 27.  Such, the Hebrews say, were used by the first-born, when they offered sacrifice.  S. Jerom, q. Heb.
• Ver. 19. I am Esau, thy first-born. S. Augustine, (L. Contra Mendacium, c. x..) treating at large upon this place, excuseth Jacob from a lie, because this whole passage was mysterious, as relating to the preference which was afterwards to be given to the Gentiles before the carnal Jews, which Jacob by prophetic light might understand.  So far is certain, that the first birth-right, both by divine election, and by Esau’s free cession, belonged to Jacob: so that if there were any lie in the case, it could be no more than an officious and venial one.  Ch. — Ignorance might also excuse them from any sin; as many good and learned men have thought an officious lie to be lawful.  S. Chrys. hom. 52.  Origen.  Bonfrere.  And even if we allow that they did wrong; the Scripture relates, but does not sanction what they did, Let him that thinks himself to stand, take heed lest he fall. 1 Cor. x. 12. C. — As our Saviour says of S. John, He is Elias, Matt. xi, so, Jacob says, I am Esau, not in person , but in right of the first-born.  W.
• Ver. 22. Of Esau. Thus, too often our voice contradicts our hands or actions!  H.
• Ver. 27. Plentiful. A word retained by the Sam. and Sept. though lost in the Hebrew copies.  Grotius. — Hath blessed with abundance of fruit and odoriferous herbs; such as had probably been shut up in the drawers with Esau’s robes.  M.
• Ver. 28. Wine. “By which Christ gathers together the multitude, in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.”  S. Aug.
• Ver. 29. Worship thee, with civil respect, (H.) as the Idumeans, Philistines and Moabites did, with respect to David, Solomon, and the Machabees, acknowledging their dominion, though reluctantly. — With blessing. Thus Rebecca had not given her son a vain assurance.  Isaac prays that God may ever by his protector, and avenge his cause.  H.

Haydock Commentary Matthew 9:14-17

• Ver. 14. Then came. When the Pharisees in the prior question had been discomfited.  By S. Mark, (xi. 18,) we learn that the Pharisees joined with the disciples of the Baptist, and thus is reconciled what we read in S. Luke v. 33, who only mentions the Pharisees.  V. — Why do we, and the Pharisees fast. It is not without reason that the disciples of S. John should ask this question, fasting being always esteemed a great virtue, witness Moses and Elias; the fasts which Samuel made the people observe in Masphat, the tears, prayers, and fasting of Ezechias, of Judith, of Achab, of the Niniites, of Anna, the wife of Eleana, of Daniel, of David, after he had fallen into the sin of adultery.  Aaron, and the other priests, also fasted before they entered into the temple.  Witness also the fasts of Anna, the prophetess, of S. John the Baptist, of Christ himself, of Cornelius the centurion, &c. &c. &c.  St. Jerom. — This haughty interrogation of S. John’s disciples was highly blameable, not only for uniting with the Pharisees, whom they knew their master so much condemned, but also for calumniating him, who, they knew was foretold by John’s own testimony.  S. Jerom. — S. Austin is likewise of opinion, that John’s disciples were not the only persons that said this, since S. Mark rather indicates that it was spoken by others.  S. Thos. Aquin.
• Ver 15. Can the children of the bridegroom.[1]  This, by a Hebraism, signifies the friends or companions of the bridegroom, as a lover of peace, is called a child of peace: he that deserves death, the son of death, &c.  Wi. — the disciples had not yet ascended to the higher degrees of perfection, they had not yet been renewed in spirit; therefore they required to be treated with lenity; for had the higher and more sublime mysteries been delivered to them without previous preparation, they would never, not even in the natural course of things, have been able to comprehend them.  I have many things to say to you, said our Saviour, but you cannot bear them now.  S. John xvi.  Thus did he condescend to their weakness.  S. Chrys. hom. xxxi.
• Ver. 16. A piece of raw cloth.[2]  By the Greek is signified new-woven cloth, that has not yet passed the hands of the fuller.  Wi. — And  no one putteth, &c.  Christ, by these similitudes, justifies the manner of life which he taught his disciples, which at first was adapted to their understandings; lest, if in the beginning, he had required them to fast contrary to what they had been accustomed, they might have been frightened at the austerity of his institute, and deserted him.  He compares, therefore, his disciples to an old garment, and to old bottles; and an austere mode of life to new clothes and new wine.  And he argues, that if we do not put new cloth to an old garment, because it tears the garment the more, nor put new wine into old bottles, because by its fermentation it would easily break them, so in like manner his disciples, who had been accustomed to a less rigid mode of life, were not at once to be initiated into an austere discipline, lest the should sink under the difficulty, and relinquish the pursuit of a more perfect life.  M.
• Ver. 17. New wine into old bottles.[3]  These vessels were made of skins, or were leather bottles, in which wine used to be carried and kept.  Wi. — They were made of goat-skins prepared and sewed together, as is common in Spain and other southern countries to this day.  A. — they were to wait till they were renewed by the Holy Ghost, before they could enter with advantage on the hard ways of penance.  V.