Catholic Caucus: Daily Mass Readings, 01-24-17, M, St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor/Church

Reading 1 Heb 10:1-10

Brothers and sisters:
Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come,
and not the very image of them, it can never make perfect
those who come to worship by the same sacrifices
that they offer continually each year.
Otherwise, would not the sacrifices have ceased to be offered,
since the worshipers, once cleansed, would no longer
have had any consciousness of sins?
But in those sacrifices there is only a yearly remembrance of sins,
for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats
take away sins.
For this reason, when he came into the world, he said:

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no delight.
Then I said, As is written of me in the scroll,
Behold, I come to do your will, O God.

First he says, Sacrifices and offerings,
burnt offerings and sin offerings,
you neither desired nor delighted in.
These are offered according to the law.
Then he says, Behold, I come to do your will.
He takes away the first to establish the second.
By this "will," we have been consecrated
through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 40:2 and 4ab, 7-8a, 10, 11

R. (8a and 9a) Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me.
And he put a new song into my mouth,
a hymn to our God.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not;
then said I, "Behold I come."
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
I announced your justice in the vast assembly;
I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.
Your justice I kept not hid within my heart;
your faithfulness and your salvation I have spoken of;
I have made no secret of your kindness and your truth
in the vast assembly.
R. Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.

Alleluia Mt 11:25

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth;
you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Mk 3:31-35

The mother of Jesus and his brothers arrived at the house.
Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him.
A crowd seated around him told him,
"Your mother and your brothers and your sisters
are outside asking for you."
But he said to them in reply,
"Who are my mother and my brothers?"
And looking around at those seated in the circle he said,
"Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother."

From: Hebrews 10:1-10

The Sacrifices of the Old Covenant Could Not Take Away Sins

[1] For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the
true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are contin-
ually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would
they not have ceased to be offered? If the worshippers had once been cleansed,
they would no longer have any consciousness of sin. [3] But in these sacrifices
there is a reminder of sin year after year. [4] For it is impossible that the blood of
bulls and goats should take away sins.

Christ’s Offering of Himself Has Infinite Value

[5] Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and
offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; [6] in burnt
offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. [7] Then I said, ‘Lo, I have
come to do thy will, O God,’ as it is written of me in the roll of the book.” [8] When
he said above, “Thou has neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offe-
rings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law),
[9] then he added, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will.” He abolishes the first in order
to establish the second. [10] And by that will we have been sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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Commentary:

1. The sacred writer once more compares the Old Testament sacrifices with the
sacrifice of Christ (cf. 7:27; 9:9-10, 12-13), examining them now from the point of
view of their efficacy.

The Law is “a shadow”, that is, something without substance. The term used to
be employed by artists to describe the first sketch on a canvas, a bare outline be-
fore the application of color. Thus, the Old Law in relation to the New Testament
is like a first sketch as compared with the finished painting. However, because it
speaks of the New Testament as “the true form of these realities”, it allows us to
see the New Covenant as not yet giving possession of these “good things to
come”, but as being a kind of anticipation of them, a reflection of them. Yet it is
a true, a faithful, reflection, insofar as the New Law already has the power to for-
give sins and to link men with God through charity. “The New Law”, St Thomas
says, “represents the good things to come more clearly than does the Old. Firstly,
because in the words of the New Testament express mention is made of the good
things to come and the promise, whereas in the Old reference is made only to ma-
terial good things. Secondly, because the New Testament draws its strength from
charity, which is the fullness of the Law. And this charity, even if it be imperfect, is
similar to Christ’s charity by virtue of the faith to which it is joined. That is why the
new law is called the ‘law of love’. And that is also why it is called the ‘true form’,
because it has imprinted on it the image of the good things to come” (”Commen-
tary on Heb, ad loc.”).

Moreover, an image, to some degree at least, coincides with the reality it reflects:
Christ himself, for example, is the image of God. Therefore, “in Christ one already
possesses, in a permanent way, these good things of heaven—both the present
ones and the future ones” (”Chrysostom, Hom. on Heb, ad loc.”).

2-4. These verses repeat and complete what is said in v. 1 and in 9:12-13. “Tell
me, then, what is the point of having more victims and more sacrifices when a
single victim would suffice for atonement for sins [...]. Multiple sacrifices in effect
show that the Jews needed to atone for their sins because they had failed to find
forgiveness: it points to the inefficacy of the victims offered, rather than to their
power” (”Chrysostom, Hom. on Heb.”, 17). The ultimate reason for this inefficacy
is explained by a striking statement: “It is impossible that the blood of bulls and
goats should take away sins” (v. 4). There is here an echo of those proclamations
of the prophets which reminded the people that true purification comes not from
external actions but from conversion of heart (cf. Jer 2:22; 4:14; 11:15; Mic 6:7-8;
Ps 51:18-19; etc.).

And yet, is it not the case that the priests of the New Testament renew Jesus’s
sacrifice in the Mass everyday? St John Chrysostom answers: “Yes, that is true,
but not because we regard the original sacrifice, Christ’s sacrifice, as ineffective
or impotent. We priests repeat it to commemorate his death. We have but one
victim, Christ—not many victims [...]. There is but one and the same sacrifice [...],
one Christ whole and entire, here as elsewhere, the same everywhere the same
Christ on all the altars. Just as Jesus Christ, although offered in different places,
has only one body, so everywhere there is but one sacrifice [...]. What we do is
a commemoration of Christ’s offering, for at the Supper he said, ‘Do this in me-
mory of me.’ Therefore, we do not offer, as the high priest of the Law did, a new,
additional, victim: it is not one sacrifice more, but always the same one” (”Hom.
on Heb.”, 17).

The Mass “is the sacrifice of Christ, offered to the Father with the cooperation of
the Holy Spirit—an offering of infinite value, which perpetuates the work of the Re-
demption in us and surpasses the sacrifices of the Old Law. The holy Mass brings
us face to face with one of the central mysteries of our faith, because it is the gift
of the Blessed Trinity to the Church. It is because of this that we can consider the
Mass as the center and the source of a Christian’s spiritual life. It is the final end
of all the sacraments” (St. J. Escriva, “Christ Is Passing By”, 86-87).

5-10. This passage carries a quotation from Psalm 40:7-8, but one taken from the
Greek translation, the Septuagint, not from the Hebrew. Where the Hebrew says,
“thou hast opened my ears”, the Greek reads, “a body thou hast prepared for me”.
The difference is not substantial, because the Hebrew expression points to the
docility and obedience of the speaker, who is the Messiah himself. The Greek
translation gives the sentence a more general meaning: God has not only opened
the ears of the Messiah; he has given him life as a man (cf. Phil 2:7). The words
of this psalm “allow us as it were to sound the unfathomable depths of this self-
abasement of the Word, his humiliation of himself for love of men even to death
on the Cross [...]. Why this obedience, this self-abasement, this suffering? The
Creed gives us the answer: ‘for us men and for our salvation’ Jesus came down
from heaven so as to give man full entitlement to ascend (to heaven) and by be-
coming a son in the Son to regain the dignity he lost through sin [...]. Let us wel-
come Him. Let us say to him ‘Here I am; I have come to do your will”’ (John Paul
II, “General Audience”, 25 March 1981).

The author of the letter, elaborating on the text of the psalm, asserts that the
Messiah’s sacrifice is greater than the sacrifices of the Old Law, unbloody as
well as bloody, sin-offerings as well as burnt offerings as they were called in the
liturgy (cf. Lev 5:6; 7:27). The sacrifice of Christ, who has “come into the world”,
has replaced both kinds of ancient sacrifice. It consisted in perfectly doing the
will of his Father (cf. Jn 4:34; 6:38; 8:29; 14:31), even though he was required to
give his life to the point of dying on Calvary (Mt 26:42; Jn 10:18; Heb 5:7-9). Christ
“came into the world” to offer himself up to suffering and death for the redemption
of the world. “He knew that all the sacrifices of goats and bulls offered to God in
ancient times were incapable of making satisfaction for the sins of men; he knew
that a divine person was needed to do that [...]. My Father (Jesus Christ said), all
the victims offered you up to this are not enough and never will be enough to sa-
tisfy your justice; you gave me a body capable of experiencing suffering, so that
you might be placated by the shedding of my blood, and men thereby saved;
‘”ecce venio”, here I am, ready’; I accept everything and in all things do I submit
to your will. The lower part of his human nature naturally felt repugnance and re-
acted against living and dying in so much pain and opprobium, but its rational
part, which was fully subject to the Father’s will, had the upper hand; it accepted
everything, and therefore Jesus Christ began to suffer, from that point onwards,
all the anguish and pain which he would undergo in the course of his life. That is
how our divine Redeemer acted from the very first moments of his coming into
the world. So, how should we behave towards Jesus when, come to the use of
reason, we begin to know the sacred mysteries of Redemption through the light
of faith?” (St. Alphonsus, “Advent Meditations”, II, 5).

The psalm speaks of “the roll of the book”: this may refer to a specific book or
else to the Old Testament in general (cf. Lk 24:27; Jn 5:39, 46, 47).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Mark 3:31-35

The True Kinsmen of Jesus

[31] And His (Jesus’) mother and His brethren came; and standing outside they
went to Him and called Him. [32] And a crowd was sitting about Him: and they
said to Him, “Your mother and Your brethren are outside, asking for You.” [33]
And He replied, “Who are My mother and My brethren?” [34] And looking around
on those who sat about Him, He said, “Here are My mother and My brethren!
[35] Whoever does the will of God is My brother, and sister, and mother.”

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

31-35. In Aramaic, the language used by the Jews, the word “brethren” is a broad
term indicating kinship: nephews, first cousins, and relatives in general are called
‘brethren’ (for further explanation cf. note on Mark 6:1-3). “Jesus did not say this
to disown His mother, but to show that she is worthy of honor not only account of
having given birth to Jesus, but also because she has all the virtues” (Theophylact,
“Enarratio In Evangelium Marci, in loc.”).

Therefore, the Church reminds us that the Blessed Virgin “in the course of her
Son’s preaching received the words whereby, in extolling a kingdom beyond the
concerns and ties of flesh and blood, He declared blessed those who heard and
kept the word of God as she was faithfully doing” (Vatican II, “Lumen Gentium”,
58).

Our Lord, then, is also telling us that if we follow Him we will share His life more
intimately than if we were a member of His family. St.Thomas explains this by
saying that Christ “had an eternal generation and a generation in time, and gave
preference to the former. Those who do the will of the Father reach Him by Hea-
venly generation [...]. Everyone who does the will of the Father, that is to say,
who obeys Him, is a brother or sister of Christ, because he is like Him who ful-
filled the will of His Father. But he who not only obeys but converts others, be-
gets Christ in them, and thus becomes like the Mother of Christ” (”Commentary
on St. Matthew”, 12, 49-50.)

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

31. There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent to him, calling him.
32. And the multitude sat about him, and they said to him, Behold, your mother and your brethren without seek for you.
33. And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren?
34. And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
35. For whoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

THEOPHYL. Because the relations of the Lord had come to seize upon Him, as if beside Himself, His mother, urged by the sympathy of her love, came to Him; wherefore it is said, And there came to him his mother, and, standing without, sent to him, calling him.

CHRYS. From this it is manifest that His brethren and His mother were not always with Him; but because He was beloved by them, they come from reverence and affection, waiting without. Wherefore it goes on, And the multitude sat about him, &c.

BEDE; The brothers of the Lord must not be thought to be the sons of the ever-virgin Mary, as Helvidius says, nor the sons of Joseph by a former marriage, as some think, but rather they must be understood to be His relations.

PSEUD-CHRYS. But another Evangelist says, that His brethren did not believe on Him. With which this agrees, which says, that they sought Him, waiting without, and with this meaning the Lord does not mention them as relations. Wherefore it follows, And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother. or my brethren? But He does not here mention His mother and His brethren altogether with reproof, but to show that a man must honor his own soul above all earthly kindred; wherefore this is fitly said to those who called Him to speak with His mother and relations, as if it were a more useful task than the teaching of salvation.

BEDE; Being asked therefore by a message to go out, He declines, not as though He refused the dutiful service of His mother, but to show that He owes more to His Father's mysteries than to His mother's feelings. Nor does He rudely despise His brothers, but, preferring His spiritual work to fleshly relationship, He teaches us that religion is the bond of the heart rather than that of the body. Wherefore it goes on, And looking round about on them which sat about him, he said, Behold my mother and my brethren.

CHRYS. By this, the Lord shows that we should honor those who are relations by faith rather than those who are relations by blood. A man indeed is made the mother of Jesus by preaching Him; for He, as it were, brings forth the Lord, when he pours Him into the heart of his hearers.

PSEUDO-JEROME; But let us be assured that we are His brethren and This sisters, if we do the will of the Father; that we may be joint-heirs with Him, for He discerns us not by sex but by our deeds. Wherefore it goes on: Whoever shall do the will of God, &c.

THEOPHYL. The does not therefore say this, as denying His mother, but as showing that He is worthy of honor, not only because she bore Christ, but on account of her possessing every other virtue.

BEDE; But mystically, the mother and brother of Jesus means the synagogue, (from which according to the flesh He sprung,) and the Jewish people who, while the Savior is teaching within, come to Him, and are not able to enter, because they cannot understand spiritual things. But the crowd eagerly enter, because when the Jews delayed, the Gentiles flocked to Christ; but His kindred, who stand without wishing to see the Lord, are the Jews who obstinately remained without, guarding the letter, and would rather compel the Lord to go forth to them to teach carnal things, than consent to enter in to learn spiritual things of Him. If therefore not even His parents when standing without are acknowledged, how shall we be acknowledged, if we stand without? For the word is within and the light within.

Catena Aurea Mark 3

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Mark
	English: Douay-Rheims	Latin: Vulgata Clementina	Greek NT: Byzantine/Majority Text (2000)
	Mark 3
31.	And his mother and his bretheren came; and standing without, sent unto him, calling him.	Et veniunt mater ejus et fratres : et foris stantes miserunt ad eum vocantes eum,	ερχονται ουν οι αδελφοι και η μητηρ αυτου και εξω εστωτες απεστειλαν προς αυτον φωνουντες αυτον
32.	And the multitude sat about him; and they say to him: Behold thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.	et sedebat circa eum turba : et dicunt ei : Ecce mater tua et fratres tui foris quærunt te.	και εκαθητο οχλος περι αυτον ειπον δε αυτω ιδου η μητηρ σου και οι αδελφοι σου και αι αδελφαι σου εξω ζητουσιν σε
33.	And answering them, he said: Who is my mother and my brethren?	Et respondens eis, ait : Quæ est mater mea et fratres mei ?	και απεκριθη αυτοις λεγων τις εστιν η μητηρ μου η οι αδελφοι μου
34.	And looking round about on them who sat about him, he saith: Behold my mother and my brethren.	Et circumspiciens eos, qui in circuitu ejus sedebant, ait : Ecce mater mea et fratres mei.	και περιβλεψαμενος κυκλω τους περι αυτον καθημενους λεγει ιδε η μητηρ μου και οι αδελφοι μου
35.	For whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother, and my sister, and mother.	Qui enim fecerit voluntatem Dei, hic frater meus, et soror mea, et mater est.	ος γαρ αν ποιηση το θελημα του θεου ουτος αδελφος μου και αδελφη μου και μητηρ εστιν

January 24, 2017

Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Reading 1 Heb 10:1-10

Responsorial Psalm Ps 40:2 and 4ab, 7-8a, 10, 11

Alleluia Mt 11:25

Gospel Mk 3:31-35