Pope's Intentions
Universal: Care for the suffering That, rejecting the culture of indifference, we may care for our neighbors who suffer, especially the sick and the poor.
Evangelization: Openness to mission That Mary’s intercession may help Christians in secularized cultures be ready to proclaim Jesus.
Saturday of the Fourth week of Easter
Commentary of the day
Saint Bernard (1091-1153), Cistercian monk and doctor of the Church
Homily on the Aqueduct, 10-11
“If you know me, then you will also know my Father”
The one who said: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” also said: “I came from God and now I am here.” (Jn 8:42)… The Word became flesh and henceforth dwells among us (Jn 1:14). He definitely dwells in our hearts through faith, he dwells in our memory, he dwells in our thoughts, and he goes all the way down even into our imagination. For what idea could the human person have of God before, except maybe that of an idol which his own heart had made? That is because God was incomprehensible and inaccessible, invisible and utterly elusive to all thought. But now God wanted us to be able to understand him, he wanted us to be able to see him, he wanted us to be able to grasp him in thought.
You ask how? Without doubt by lying in a manger, by resting on the Virgin’s bosom, by preaching on the mountain, by spending the night in prayer; no less by being nailed to the cross, by becoming pallid in death, free among the dead and ruling over hell; finally by rising on the third day, by showing the apostles the marks of the nails, the signs of his triumph, and to finish, by returning before their eyes to the secrets of heaven.
Among all those events, is there even one which would not give rise to a true, fervent, holy thought in us? Whichever one I think of from among them, I think of God, and in all of that, he is my God. To meditate on these events is wisdom itself… In the heights, Mary drew in abundance from this same sweetness in order to pour it out again on us.