APRIL 13, 2016 : WEDNESDAY OF THE THIRD WEEK OF EASTER

Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter
Lectionary: 275

Reading 1ACTS 8:1B-8

There broke out a severe persecution of the Church in Jerusalem,
and all were scattered
throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria,
except the Apostles.
Devout men buried Stephen and made a loud lament over him.
Saul, meanwhile, was trying to destroy the Church;
entering house after house and dragging out men and women,
he handed them over for imprisonment.

Now those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.
Thus Philip went down to the city of Samaria
and proclaimed the Christ to them.
With one accord, the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip
when they heard it and saw the signs he was doing.
For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice,
came out of many possessed people,
and many paralyzed and crippled people were cured.
There was great joy in that city.

Responsorial PsalmPS 66:1-3A, 4-5, 6-7A

R. (1) Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Shout joyfully to God, all the earth,
sing praise to the glory of his name;
proclaim his glorious praise.
Say to God, “How tremendous are your deeds!”
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
or:
R. Alleluia.
“Let all on earth worship and sing praise to you,
sing praise to your name!”
Come and see the works of God,
his tremendous deeds among the children of Adam.
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has changed the sea into dry land;
through the river they passed on foot;
therefore let us rejoice in him.
He rules by his might forever.
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
or:
R. Alleluia.

AlleluiaSEE JN 6:40

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Everyone who believes in the Son has eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day, says the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

GospelJN 6:35-40

Jesus said to the crowds,
“I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
But I told you that although you have seen me,
you do not believe.
Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,
and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,
because I came down from heaven not to do my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.
And this is the will of the one who sent me,
that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,
but that I should raise it on the last day.
For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him
may have eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day.”

www.usccb.org

Meditation: "I will raise you up at the last day"

Why did Jesus call himself the bread of life? The Jews understood that God promised them manna from heaven to sustain them on their journey to the promised land. Bread is the very staple of life. We could not live without food for very long. Bread sustains us. But what is life? Jesus clearly meant something more than mere physical existence. The life Jesus refers to is connected with God, the author of life. Real life is a relationship with the living God, a relationship of trust, love, obedience, peace, and joy. This is what Jesus makes possible for us - a loving relationship with God who created us for love with him. Apart from Jesus no one can enter that kind of life and relationship. Are you satisfied with mere physical existence or do you hunger for the abundant life which Jesus offers?

Jesus makes three claims here. First he offers himself as spiritual food which produces the very life of God within us. Second, he promises unbroken friendship and freedom from the fear of being forsaken or cut off from God. Third, he offers us the hope of sharing in his resurrection. Jesus rose physically never to die again. Those who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior will be bodily raised up to immortal life with Jesus when he comes again on the last day. Do you know the joy and hope of the resurrection?

"Lord Jesus Christ, your death brought life and hope where there was once only despair and defeat. Give me the unshakable hope of everlasting life, the inexpressible joy of knowing your unfailing love, and the unwavering faith and obedience in doing the will of our Father in heaven."

Daily Quote from the early church fathers: Possessing the Scriptures, by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"When you understand anything in the Scriptures, it is love that is manifesting itself to you. When you fail to understand, it is love that is hiding itself from you. Those, therefore, who possess charity possess both what is manifest in the divine words and what is hidden in them." (excerpt from Sermon 350,2)

www.dailyscripture.net

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, JOHN 6:35-40
Easter Weekday
(Acts 8:1b-8; Psalm 66)

KEY VERSE: "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life" (v 40).
TO KNOW: Jesus revealed God's word to the people, yet some refused to believe in him. They failed to comprehend the meaning of the miraculous sign of the bread that Jesus gave them in the wilderness (v 30-31). They did not understand that Jesus was the fullness of God's revelation and the source of eternal salvation. Jesus was the life-giving "bread" sent by God who would satisfy the people's hunger and thirst forever. Jesus did not reject anyone who came to him in faith. He was careful not to lose a single fragment of the miraculous loaves. So too, none of the souls God entrusted to him would perish. They would share eternal life with him.
TO LOVE: Do I take time to be nourished by God's word?
TO SERVE: Risen Lord, feed me with your sacred word so that I can live eternally with you.

Optional Memorial of Saint Martin I, pope and martyr

Martin became Pope on July 5, 649 when there was great turmoil in the Church over the Monothelite heresy. Pope Martin convened a council of 105 bishops which condemned the heresy. The Emperor Constans responded by sending General Olympius to take the Pope in bonds to Constantinople. Olympius did not dare to touch the Pope himself, so he sent one of his men into the church with a sword to kill Martin. As the soldier entered the church, he was instantly blinded. The Emperor then sent General Theodore to do the job, under the pretense that Martin was in league with the godless Saracens and did not reverence the Mother of God. When he read the charges to the Pope, Martin refuted them as preposterous. Nevertheless, Theodore bound him and took him to Constantinople. He was imprisoned there and ill-treated. Two years later, in 655, Martin died. 
NOTE: The Monothelite heresy is the view that Jesus Christ has two natures but only one will. This is contrary to the Christology that Jesus Christ has two wills (human and divine) corresponding to his two natures. Formulated in 638, the heresey enjoyed considerable popularity, even garnering patriarchal support, before being rejected and denounced as heretical in 681 at the Third Council of Constantinople.

www.togetherwithgodsword.com

Wednesday 13 April 2016

Wed 13th. (St Martin).
 Acts 8:1-8. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy—Ps 65(66):1-7. John 6:35-40.


Readings

No one who comes to me will ever hunger.

I have come to do the will of the one who sent me. Jesus reveals his divine origin. Just as he’d promised the Samaritan woman – anyone who drinks the water I shall give will never be thirsty again – now he promises those who come to him and who believe in him, will never go hungry. This is a radical message and many who heard it would leave and no longer follow him. He asks us today to have faith in him, to be transformed, and to be prepared to live a life of faith. It’s not easy. There are so many things in this world drawing us away from Jesus.

But if we can look to Jesus for meaning and purpose, he has promised us he will not reject us. He wants us to come to him and to be raised up on the last day.

www.pray.com.au

MINUTE MEDITATIONS 

Destroy Fear

On a grander scale, poverty, simplicity, and humility free us to love because they destroy fear, the single greatest impediment to love. And when we learn to love with something like the love God has for creation, we arrive at the end for which we are made. We grow into our Godlikeness. We live fully and richly.

— from Perfect Joy 

April 13
St. Martin I
(d. 655)

When Martin I became pope in 649, Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine empire and the patriarch of Constantinople was the most influential Church leader in the eastern Christian world. The struggles that existed within the Church at that time were magnified by the close cooperation of emperor and patriarch.

A teaching, strongly supported in the East, held that Christ had no human will. Twice emperors had officially favored this position, Heraclius by publishing a formula of faith and Constans II by silencing the issue of one or two wills in Christ.

Shortly after assuming the office of the papacy (which he did without first being confirmed by the emperor), Martin held a council at the Lateran in which the imperial documents were censured, and in which the patriarch of Constantinople and two of his predecessors were condemned. Constans II, in response, tried first to turn bishops and people against the pope.

Failing in this and in an attempt to kill the pope, the emperor sent troops to Rome to seize Martin and to bring him back to Constantinople. Already in poor health, Martin offered no resistance, returned with the exarch Calliopas and was then submitted to various imprisonments, tortures and hardships. Although condemned to death and with some of the torture imposed already carried out, Martin was saved from execution by the pleas of a repentant Paul, patriarch of Constantinople, who was himself gravely ill.

Martin died shortly thereafter, tortures and cruel treatment having taken their toll. He is the last of the early popes to be venerated as a martyr.

Comment:

The real significance of the word martyr comes not from the dying but from the witnessing, which the word means in its derivation. People who are willing to give up everything, their most precious possessions, their very lives, put a supreme value on the cause or belief for which they sacrifice. Martyrdom, dying for the faith, is an incidental extreme to which some have had to go to manifest their belief in Christ. A living faith, a life that exemplifies Christ's teaching throughout, and that in spite of difficulties, is required of all Christians. Martin might have cut corners as a way of easing his lot, to  make some accommodations with the civil rulers.

Quote:

The breviary of the Orthodox Church pays tribute to Martin: “Glorious definer of the Orthodox Faith...sacred chief of divine dogmas, unstained by error...true reprover of heresy...foundation of bishops, pillar of the Orthodox faith, teacher of religion.... Thou didst adorn the divine see of Peter, and since from this divine Rock, thou didst immovably defend the Church, so now thou art glorified with him.”

www.americancatholic.org

LECTIO DIVINA: JOHN 6,35-40

Lectio Divina: 

 Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Easter Time

1) OPENING PRAYER

God, our Father,
you are our faithful God,
even in days of trial for the Church
and for each of us personally;
you stay by our side, even if we are not aware of your presence.
Give us an unlimited trust in you
and make us ever more aware 
that your Son Jesus is the meaning of our lives
and that he nourishes us with himself,
today and every day, for ever.

2) GOSPEL READING - JOHN 6,35-40

Jesus answered them: I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever thirst. But, as I have told you, you can see me and still you do not believe. Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me; I will certainly not reject anyone who comes to me, because I have come from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me. Now the will of him who sent me is that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me, but that I should raise it up on the last day. It is my Father's will that whoever sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and that I should raise that person up on the last day.

3) REFLECTION

• John 6, 35-36: I am the bread of life. The people enthusiastic with the perspective of having bread from heaven of which Jesus speaks and which gives life forever (Jn 6, 33), ask: “Lord, give us always that bread!” (Jn 6, 34). They thought that Jesus was speaking about some particular kind of bread. This is why, the people, interested in getting this bread, ask: “Give us always of this bread!” This petition of the people reminds us of the conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan woman. Jesus had said that she could have had within her a spring of living water, welling up to eternal life, and she in an interested way asks: “Lord, give me of that water!” (Jn 4, 15). The Samaritan woman is not aware that Jesus is not speaking about material water. Just as the people were not aware that Jesus was not speaking of material bread. Because of this, Jesus responds very clearly: “I am the bread of life! No one who comes to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever thirst”. To eat the bread of heaven is the same as believing in Jesus. And to believe that he has come from heaven as a revelation of the Father. It is to accept the way which he has taught. But the people, in spite, of having seen Jesus, do not believe in him. Jesus is aware of the lack of faith and says: “You have seen me and you do not believe”.

• John 6, 37-40: To do the will of him who sent me. After the conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus had said to his disciples: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me!” (Jn 4, 34). Here, in the conversation with the people on the bread from heaven, Jesus touches on the same theme: “I have come from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me; but that I should raise it up on the last day”. This is the food which people should look for: to do the will of the Heavenly Father. And this is the bread which nourishes the person in life and gives him/her life. Eternal life begins here, a life which is stronger than death! If we were really ready to do the will of the Father, we would have no difficulty to recognize the Father present in Jesus.

• John 6, 41-43: The Jews complained. Tomorrow’s Gospel begins with verse 44 (John 6, 44-51) and skips verses 41 to 43. In verse 41, begins the conversation with the Jews, who criticize Jesus. Here we will give a brief explanation of the meaning of the word Jews in the Gospel of John in order to avoid that a superficial reading of it, may nourish in us Christians, the sentiment of anti-Semitism. First of all, it is well to remember that Jesus was a Jew and continues to be a Jew (Jn 4, 9). His disciples were Jews. The first Christian communities were all Jewish who accepted Jesus as the Messiah. It was only later, little by little, that in the communities of the Beloved Disciple, Greeks and Christians began to be accepted on the same level of the Jews. They were more open communities. But this openness was not accepted by all. Some Christians who came from the group of the Pharisees wanted to keep the “separation” between Jews and Pagans (Acts 15, 5). The situation was critical after the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70. The Pharisees became the dominating religious current in Judaism and began to define the religious directives or norms for the whole People of God: to suppress worship in the Greek language; to adopt solely the Biblical text in Hebrew; to define or determine the list of sacred books, and eliminate the books which existed only in the Greek translation of the Bible: Tobias, Judith, Esther, Baruch, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and the two Books of the Maccabees: to segregate or separate the foreigners; not eat any food, suspected to be impure or which had been offered to the idols. All these norms assumed by the Pharisees had some repercussion on the communities of the Jews which accepted Jesus as Messiah. These communities had already journeyed very much. The openness for the Pagans was now irreversible. The Greek Bible had already been used for a long time. Thus, slowly, a reciprocal separation grew between Christianity and Judaism. In the years 85-90 the Jewish authorities began to discriminate those who continued to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah (Mt 5, 11-12; 24, 9-13). Those who continued to remain in the faith in Jesus were expelled from the Synagogue (Jn 9, 34). Many Christian communities feared this expulsion (Jn 9, 22) because it meant to lose the support of a strong and traditional institution such as the Synagogue. Those who were expelled lost the legal privileges that the Jews had conquered and gained throughout the centuries in the Empire. The expelled persons lost even the possibility of being buried decently. It was an enormous risk. This situation of conflict at the end of the first century had repercussion in the description of the conflict of Jesus with the Pharisees. When the Gospel of John speaks of the Jews he is not speaking of the Jewish people as such, but he is thinking much more of those few Pharisee authorities which were expelling the Christians from the Synagogues in the years 85-90, the time when the Gospel was written. We cannot allow this affirmation about the Jews to make anti-Semitism grow among Christians.

4) PERSONAL QUESTIONS

• Anti-Semitism: look well within yourself and try to uproot any remain of anti-Semitism.

• To eat the bread of heaven means to believe in Jesus. How does all this help me to live the Eucharist better?

5) CONCLUDING PRAYER

Acclaim God, all the earth,
sing psalms to the glory of his name,
glorify him with your praises,
say to God, 'How awesome you are! (Ps 66,1-3)

www.ocarm.org