Day: August 16, 2009

Sunday Bible Readings August 16 2009 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

August 16 2009 Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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/081609.shtml

Proverbs 9:1-6
Douay-Rheims Challoner

Wisdom hath built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars.
She hath slain her victims, mingled her wine, and set forth her table.
She hath sent her maids to invite to the tower, and to the walls of the city:
Whosoever is a little one, let him come to me. And to the unwise she said:
Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.
Forsake childishness, and live, and walk by the ways of prudence.

Responsorial Psalm 33:2-7 (Ps 34 NAB)
DR Challoner Text Only

For David, when he changed his countenance before Achimelech,
who dismissed him, and he went his way.

I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall be always in my mouth.
In the Lord shall my soul be praised: let the meek hear and rejoice.
O magnify the Lord with me; and let us extol his name together.
I sought the Lord, and he heard me; and he delivered me from all my troubles.
Come ye to him and be enlightened: and your faces shall not be confounded.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him: and saved him out of all his troubles.

Ephesians 5:15-20
Haydock New Testament

See, therefore, brethren, how you walk circumspectly: not as unwise, But as wise: redeeming the time, for the days are evil. Wherefore become not unwise, but understanding what is the will of God. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is luxury, but be ye filled with the Holy Spirit, Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing, and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father.

I don't know the source of this icon, but it's very good and fits the topic.
I don't know the source of this icon, but it's very good and fits the topic.

The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Saint John 6:51-58
Haydock New Testament

Jesus said:

I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread which I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world.

The Jews, therefore, disputed among themselves, saying:

How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Then Jesus said to them:

Amen, amen, I say to you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh, is meat indeed: and my blood, is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.

Haydock Commentary Proverbs 9:1-6
Notes Copied From Haydock Commentary Site

  • Ver. 1. House. The sacred humanity, (S. Ignat. S. Aug. de Civ. Dei. xvii. 20.) or the Church. S. Greg. Mor. xxxiii. 15. — Here we may receive all instruction, the seven sacraments, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Pleasure had mentioned here attractions: now those of true wisdom are set before us. C. — God sent his pastors at all times, to invite people to embrace the latter. They are all included in the number seven, both before and under the law, as well as in the gospel, where S. Paul styles SS. Peter, James, and John, pillars. Gal. ii. This is the literal sense, on which the mystical is grounded, and both are intended by the Holy Ghost, intimating that the uncreated wisdom took flesh of the blessed Virgin, prepared the table of bread and wine, as Priest according to the order of Melchisedec, and chose the weak of this world to confound the strong, as S. Aug. explain this passage. Sup. and q. 51. W.
  • Ver. 2. Victims. Moses ordered the blood to be poured out at the door of the tabernacle, and a part given to the priests, after which the rest might be taken away. The like was probably done at Jerusalem. Lev. xvii. 4. These victims are contrasted with those of pleasure. c. vii. 14. — Mingled. It was not customary for any but barbarians and the gods to take pure wine. Some mixed two, others three, five, or even twenty parts of water. But the scholiast of Aristophanes says, the best method was to have three parts water, and two of wine. Mercury complains that his wine was half water. Arist. Plut. v. Sun. i. — The Fathers often apply this text to the feast of Jesus Christ in the blessed Eucharist. C. — S. Cyprian (ep. iii.) citeth the whole passage of Christ’s sacrifice in the forms of bread and wine. W.
  • Ver. 3. Maids. Sept. “servant men,” the pastors of the church, inviting all to piety in so public a manner, that none can plead ignorance. S. Greg. C. — To invite. Prot. “she crieth upon the highest places of the city.” H. — Christ enjoins his apostles to preach on the roofs. Matt. x. 37.
  • Ver. 4. One. Simple, but not inconstant, like children. 1 Cor. xiv. 20. Pleasure addresses the same, (c. vii. 7.) but for their destruction. C.

Haydock Commentary Ephesians 5:15-20

Nothing

Haydock Commentary John 6:51-58

  • 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.
  • Ver. 52. The bread which I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world.[2] In most Greek copies we read, is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world. Christ here promised what he afterwards instituted, and gave at his last supper. He promiseth to give his body and blood to be eaten; the same body (though the manner be different) which he would give on the cross for the redemption of the world. The Jews of Capharnaum were presently scandalized. How (said they) can this man give us his flesh to eat? But notwithstanding their murmuring, and the offence which his words had given, even to many of his disciples, he was so far from revoking, or expounding what he had said of any figurative or metaphorical sense, that he confirmed the same truth in the clearest and strongest terms. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat, &c. And again, (v. 56.) For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. I cannot omit taking notice of what S. Chrysostom and S. Cyril, in their commentaries on this place, have left us on these words, How can this man do this? These words which call in question the almighty and incomprehensible power of God, which hinder them, says S. Chrysostom, from believing all other mysteries and miracles: they might as well have said: How could he with five loaves feed five thousand men? This question, How can he do this? Is a question of infidels and unbelievers. S. Cyril says that How, or, How can he do this? cannot, without folly, be applied to God. 2dly, he calls it a question of blasphemy. 3dly, a Jewish word, for which these Capharnaites deserved the severest punishments. 4thly, He confutes them by the saying of the prophet Isaias, (lv. 9.) that God’s thoughts and ways are as much above those of men, as the heavens are above the earth. But if these Capharnaites, who knew not who Jesus was, were justly blamed for their incredulous, foolish, blasphemous, Jewish saying, how can he give us his flesh to eat? much more blameable are those Christians, who, against the words of the Scripture, against the unanimous consent and authority of all Christian Churches in all parts of the world, refuse to believe his real presence, and have nothing to say, but with the obstinate Capharnaites, how can this be done? Their answers are the same, or no better, when they tell us that the real presence contradicts their senses, their reason, that they know it to be false. We may also observe, with divers interpreters, that if Christians are not to believe that Jesus Christ is one and the same God with the eternal Father, and that he is truly and really present in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, it will be hard to deny but that Christ himself led men into these errors, which is blasphemy. For it is evident, and past all dispute, that the Jews murmured, complained, and understood that Christ several times made himself God, and equal to the Father of all. 2ndly, When in this chapter, he told them he would give them his flesh to eat, &c. they were shocked to the highest degree: they cried out, this could not be, that these words and this speech was hard and harsh, and on this very account many that had been his disciples till that time, withdrew themselves from him, and left him and his doctrine. Was it not then at least high time to set his complaining hearers right, to prevent the blasphemous and idolatrous opinions of the following ages, nay even of all Christian Churches, by telling his disciples at least, that he was only a nominal God, in a metaphorical and improper sense; that he spoke only of his body being present in a figurative and metaphorical sense in the holy Eucharist? If we are deceived, who was it that deceived us but Christ himself, who so often repeated the same points of our belief? His apostles must be esteemed no less guilty in affirming the very same, both as to Christ’s divinity, and his real presence in the holy sacrament, as hereafter will appear. Wi. — Compare the words here spoken with those he delivered at his last supper, and you will see that what he promises here was then fulfilled: “this is my body given for you.” Hence, the holy Fathers have always explained this chapter of S. John, as spoken of the blessed sacrament. See the concluding reflections, below.
  • Ver. 53. Because the Jews said it was impossible to give them his flesh to eat, Christ answers them by telling them, that so far from being impossible, it is very necessary that they should eat it. “Unless you eat,” &c. S. Chrys. — It is not the flesh of merely a man, but it is the flesh of a God, able to make man divine, inebriating him, as it were, with the divinity. Theophy. See Maldonatus.
  • Ver. 54. Unless you eat . . . and drink, &c. To receive both the body and blood of Christ, is a divine precept, insinuated in this text; which the faithful fulfil, though they receive but in one kind; because in one kind they receive both the body and blood, which cannot be separated from each other. Hence life eternal is here promised to the worthy receiving, though but in one kind: (ver. 52.) If any man eat of this bread he shall life for ever: and the bread which I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world: (ver. 58.) He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me: (ver. 59.) He that eateth this bread shall live for ever. Ch.
  • Ver. 55. Jesus Christ, to confirm the notion his disciples had formed of a real eating of his body, and to remove all metaphorical interpretation of his words, immediately adds, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. . . . For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed;” which could not be so, if, as sectarists pretend, what he gives us in the blessed sacrament is noting but a bit of bread; and if a figure, certainly not so striking as the manna.
  • Ver. 58. As the living Father hath sent me, his only, his true Son, to become man; and I live by the Father, proceeding always from him; so he that eateth me, first by faith only, by believing in me; and secondly, he that eateth my body and blood, truly made meat and drink, though after a spiritual manner, (not in that visible, bloody manner as the Capharnaites fancied to themselves) shall live by me, and live for ever, happy in the kingdom of my glory. Wi.