November 2013
Suffering Priests. That priests who experience difficulties may find comfort in their suffering, support in their doubts, and confirmation in their fidelity.
Latin American Churches. That as fruit of the continental mission, Latin American Churches may send missionaries to other Churches.
Saturday of the Thirty-third week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the day
Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130-c.208), Bishop, theologian and martyr
Against the heresies, IV, 5, 2
God of the living
Our Lord and Master, in the answer which He gave to the Sadducees who say that there is no resurrection and who therefore dishonor God and lower the credit of the law, both indicated a resurrection and revealed God. For he said: “You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called 'Lord' the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob", and he added: "He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." By these arguments he unquestionably made it clear that he who spoke to Moses out of the bush and declared himself to be the God of our fathers is the God of the living. For who is the God of the living except he who is God and above whom there is no other God? Whom also Daniel the prophet proclaimed in responding to Cyrus, king of the Persians...: “I do not worship idols made with hands, but the living God”... Again he said: “I will adore the Lord my God because he is the living God” (Dn 14,5.25).
He, then, who was adored by the prophets as the living God, he is the God of the living; and his Word is he who spoke to Moses in the bush and who also put the Sadducees to silence, who bestowed the gift of resurrection. He it was who, apart from the Law, revealed both these truths to those who are blind: that is, the resurrection and the true God. For if he is not the God of the dead, but of the living and yet was called the God of the fathers, who are asleep, then indubitably they live to God and have not perished since: “They are children of the resurrection.” But our Lord is himself the resurrection, as he himself declares: “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11,25). But the fathers are his children for it is said by the prophet: “The place of your fathers your sons shall have» (Ps 45[44],17).