Fwd: The Daily Gospel

Wednesday, 09 September 2009
Wednesday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

St. Peter Claver,Priest (1580-1654)



Commentary of the day
Isaac of Stella : "Blessed are you who weep now"

Reading

Coloss. 3:1-11.
If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is
seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.

Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality,
impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry.
Because of these the wrath of God is coming (upon the disobedient).
By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way.
But now you must put them all away: anger, fury, malice, slander, and
obscene language out of your mouths.
Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its
practices
and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the
image of its creator.
Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.


Lk 6:20-26.
And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: "Blessed are you who are
poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed
are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult
you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great
in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who
laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the
false prophets in this way.


Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB



Commentary of the day

Isaac of Stella (?-c.1171), Cistercian monk
Sermon 2 for All Saints, 13-20

"Blessed are you who weep now"

"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Mt 5:5). By
this saying the Lord wants us to understand that the path of joy lies in
tears. It is through desolation one goes to consolation; in losing one's
life that one finds it; in forsaking it that one possesses it; in hating it
that one loves it; in despising it that one keeps it (cf. Mt 16,24f.). If
you would know and have the mastery over yourself, enter within yourself
and do not seek yourself without... Return to yourself, you sinner, return
to where you are, to your heart ... Will not the one who returns to himself
discover himself to be far away, like the prodigal son, in a region of
unlikeness, in a foreign land, where he sits and weeps at the memory of his
father and his native country? (Lk 15,17) ...

"Adam, where are you? "(Genesis 3,9) Perhaps still in the shadows, so as
not to see yourself, you are sewing leaves together in a vain desire to
cover your shame, looking at what is around you and what belongs to you ..
Look inside, look at yourself ... Return within yourself, you sinner,
return to your soul. See and weep for this soul subject to vanity and
restlessness who cannot set himself free from his captivity ... It is
clear, my brethren, that we live outside ourselves, we are forgetful of
ourselves whenever we fritter our lives away in empty pursuits or
distractions decked out with trifles. That is why Wisdom is more concerned
to invite us to the house of repentance than the house of feasting, that is
to say to call back into himself the man outside himself, saying: "Blessed
are they that mourn" and in another passage: "Woe to you who laugh now."

My brethren, let us groan in the presence of the Lord whose goodness moves
him to forgive; let us turn to him "with fasting, weeping and mourning "
(Joel 2,12) so that one day his ... consolation may delight our souls.
Blessed indeed are those who weep now, not because they are weeping but
because they shall be comforted. Weeping is the way, blessedness the
consolation.





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                                                JOB. 1: 21