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Thứ Sáu, 18 tháng 11, 2016

NOVEMBER 19, 2016 : SATURDAY OF THE THIRTY-THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 502

Reading 1RV 11:4-12
I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me:
Here are my two witnesses:
These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands
that stand before the Lord of the earth.
If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths
and devours their enemies.
In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain.
They have the power to close up the sky
so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying.
They also have power to turn water into blood
and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish.

When they have finished their testimony,
the beast that comes up from the abyss
will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them.
Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city,
which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,”
where indeed their Lord was crucified.
Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation
will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days,
and they will not allow their corpses to be buried.
The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them
and be glad and exchange gifts
because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth.
But after the three and a half days,
a breath of life from God entered them.
When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them.
Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.”
So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on.
Responsorial PsalmPS 144:1, 2, 9-10
R. (1b) Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war. 
R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
My mercy and my fortress,
my stronghold, my deliverer,
My shield, in whom I trust,
who subdues my people under me.
R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
O God, I will sing a new song to you;
with a ten stringed lyre I will chant your praise,
You who give victory to kings,
and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.
R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
AlleluiaSEE 2 TM 1:10
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,
came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying,
“Teacher, Moses wrote for us,
If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child,
his brother must take the wife
and raise up descendants for his brother.
Now there were seven brothers;
the first married a woman but died childless.
Then the second and the third married her,
and likewise all the seven died childless. 
Finally the woman also died. 
Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?
For all seven had been married to her.”
Jesus said to them,
“The children of this age marry and remarry;
but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age
and to the resurrection of the dead
neither marry nor are given in marriage.
They can no longer die,
for they are like angels;
and they are the children of God
because they are the ones who will rise. 
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 is not God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive.” 
Some of the scribes said in reply,
“Teacher, you have answered well.”
And they no longer dared to ask him anything.


Meditation: "All live to him"
Is your life earth-bound or heaven-bound? The Sadducees had one big problem - they could not conceive of heaven beyond what they could see with their naked eyes! Aren't we often like them? We don't recognize spiritual realities because we try to make heaven into an earthly image. The Sadducees came to Jesus with a test question to make the resurrection look ridiculous. The Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in immortality, nor in angels or evil spirits. Their religion was literally grounded in an earthly image of heaven. 
The Scriptures give witness - we will rise again to immortal life
Jesus retorts by dealing with the fact of the resurrection. The scriptures give proof of it. In Exodus 3:6, when God manifests his presence to Moses in the burning bush, the Lord tells him that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He shows that the patriarchs who died hundreds of years previously were still alive in God. Jesus defeats their arguments by showing that God is a living God of a living people. God was the friend of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when they lived. That friendship could not cease with death. As Psalm 73:23-24 states: "I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory."  
The ultimate proof of the resurrection is the Lord Jesus and his victory over death when he rose from the tomb. Before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he exclaimed:  "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.  Do you believe this?" (John 11:25). Jesus asks us the same question. Do you believe in the resurrection and in the promise of eternal life with God?
Jesus came to restore Paradise and everlasting life for us
The Holy Spirit reveals to us the eternal truths of God's unending love and the life he desires to share with us for all eternity. Paul the Apostle, quoting from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 64:4; 65:17) states: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him," God has revealed to us through the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). The promise of paradise - heavenly bliss and unending life with an all-loving God - is beyond human reckoning. We have only begun to taste the first-fruits! Do you live now in the joy and hope of the life of the age to come?
"May the Lord Jesus put his hands on our eyes also, for then we too shall begin to look not at what is seen but at what is not seen. May he open the eyes that are concerned not with the present but with what is yet to come, may he unseal the heart's vision, that we may gaze on God in the Spirit, through the same Lord, Jesus Christ, whose glory and power will endure throughout the unending succession of ages." (Prayer of Origen, 185-254 AD)
Daily Quote from the early church fathersJesus cites Moses to affirm the resurrection, by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD)
"The Savior also demonstrated the great ignorance of the Sadducees by bringing forward their own leader Moses, who was clearly acquainted with the resurrection of the dead. He set God before us saying in the bush, 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob' (Exodus 3:6). Of whom is he God, if, according to their argument, these have ceased to live? He is the God of the living. They certainly will rise when his almighty right hand brings them and all that are on the earth there. For people not to believe that this will happen is worthy perhaps of the ignorance of the Sadducees, but it is altogether unworthy of those who love Christ. We believe in him who says, 'I am the resurrection and the life' (John 11:25). He will raise the dead suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, and at the last trumpet. It shall sound, the dead in Christ shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:52). For Christ our common Savior will transfer us into incorruption, glory and to an incorruptible life." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 136)


SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, LUKE 20:27-40
Weekday

(Revelation 11:4-12; Psalm 144)

KEY VERSE: "They are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise" (v 36).
TO KNOW: A group of Sadducees tried to entrap Jesus regarding the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Since the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, they proposed an absurd situation in which seven brothers married the same woman in succession leaving her childless at their deaths. Then they sarcastically asked Jesus whose wife she would be in the supposed resurrection. Jesus silenced his opponents by exposing their ignorance of the scriptures. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had all died but they were eternally alive in God (Ex 3:6), as were all who had faith. The Sadducees must forfeit their position as teachers since Jesus was the authentic interpreter of God's word. Their sect is believed to have become extinct sometime after the destruction of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. Our relationship with Christ should transcend all earthly ones.
TO LOVE: Can I explain my belief in the resurrection to those who question it?
TO SERVE: Lord Jesus, I pray that I and my loved ones will share eternal life with you one day.
OPTIONAL MEMORIAL OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Chapter V of the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, issued by the Holy See in December 2001, describes the Church's traditional dedication of Saturday to the Virgin Mary. "Saturdays stand out among those days dedicated to the Virgin Mary. These are designated as memorials of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (218). The chapter also describes the importance of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in Catholic devotional life, in the Liturgy, and reflections on popular devotions to Mary, her feast days, and the Rosary. 

Saturday 19 November 2016

Sat 19th. Apocalypse 11:4-12. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!—Ps 143(144):1-2, 9-10. Luke 20:27-40.
'Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die'
Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees did not believe in immortality. One wonders what they meant when they prayed in the psalmist's words, 'I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory' (Ps 73:23-24). Intent on making the idea of resurrection look ridiculous, they seek to discomfort Jesus with their questions; but he is more than a match for them. Before raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus exclaimed: 'I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?' (John 11:25). We answer that question with our lives. Christians live even now in the joy and the hope of 'what God has prepared for those who love him'.

ST. RAPHAEL KALINOWSKI

Saint Rapahel was born  in 1835 as Joseph, son of Andrew and Josepha Kalinowski in present day Lithuania. Saint Raphael felt a call to the priesthood early in his life, but decided to complete his education. He studied zoology, chemistry, agriculture, and apiculture at the Institute of Agronomy in Hory Horki, Russia, and at the Academy of Military Engineering in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Saint Raphael became a Lieutenant in the Russian Military Engineering Corps in 1857. During his post he was responsible for the planning and supervised construction of the railway between Kursk and Odessa. He was promoted to captain in 1862 and stationed in Brest-Litovsk. In Bret-Litovsk he started, taught, and covered all the costs of a Sunday school, accepting anyone interested.

In 1863 he supported the Polish insurrection. He resigned from the Russian army and became the rebellion's minister of war for the Vilna region. He only took the commission with the understanding that he would never hand out a death sentence nor execute a prisoner. He was soon arrested by Russian authorities, and in June of 1864 he was condemned to death for his part in the revolt. Fearing they would be creating a political martyr, they commuted his sentence to ten years of forced labour in the Siberian salt mines. Part of his sentence was spent in Irkutsk, where his relics have been moved to sanctify the new cathedral.

Upon his release in 1873, he was exiled from his home region in Lithuania. He moved to Paris, France, and worked there as a tutor for three years. In 1877 he finally answered the long-heard call to the religious life, and joined the Carmelite Order at Graz, Austria, taking the name Raphael. He studied theology in Hungary and then joined the Carmelite house in Czama, Poland. He was ordained on January 15, 1882.

Saint Raphael worked to restore the Discalced Carmelites to Poland, and for church unity. He founded a convent at Wadowice, Poland in 1889, and worked alongside Blessed Alphonsus Mary Marurek. He was a noted spiritural director for both Catholics and Orthodox. He was considered  an enthusiastic parish priest and spent countless hours with his parishioners in the confessional. Saint Raphael died in 1907 and was cannonized by Pope John Paul II in 1991.

Source: Catholic-forum.com

LECTIO DIVINA: LUKE 20,27-40
Lectio Divina: 
 Saturday, November 19, 2016
Ordinary Time


1) Opening prayer
Father of all that is good,
keep us faithful in serving you,
for to serve you is our lasting joy.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel reading - Luke 20,27-40
Some Sadducees -- those who argue that there is no resurrection -- approached Jesus and they put this question to him, 'Master, Moses prescribed for us, if a man's married brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers; the first, having married a wife, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally the woman herself died. Now, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?'
Jesus replied, 'The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God.
And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive.'
Some scribes then spoke up. They said, 'Well put, Master.' They did not dare to ask him any more questions.

3) Reflection
• The Gospel today gives us the discussion of the Sadducees with Jesus on faith in the resurrection.
• Luke 20, 27: The ideology of the Sadducees. The Gospel today begins with the following affirmation: “The Sadducees affirm that there is no resurrection”. The Sadducees were an elite type of great landowners or large estates and traders. They were conservative. They did not accept faith in the resurrection. At that time, this faith was beginning to be valued, appreciated by the Pharisees and by popular piety. This urged the people to resist against the dominion of the Romans and of the priests, of the elders and of the Sadducees; the Messianic Kingdom was already present in the situation of well being which they were living. They followed the so called “Theology of Retribution” which distorted reality. According to that Theology, God would pay with riches and well being those who observed the law of God and would punish with suffering and poverty those who do evil. Thus, one can understand why the Sadducees did not want any changes. They wanted religion to remain just as it was, immutable like God himself. And for this, to criticize and to ridicule faith in the resurrection, they told fictitious cases to indicate that faith in the resurrection would have led people to be absurd.
• Luke 20, 28-33: The fictitious case of the woman who married seven times. According to the law of the time, if the husband died without leaving any children, his brother had to marry the widow of the deceased man. And this was done in order to avoid that, in case someone died without any descendants, his property would go to another family (Dt 25, 5-6). The Sadducees invented the story of a woman who buried seven husbands, brothers among themselves, and then she herself also died without children. And they asked Jesus: “This woman, then, in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? because the seven of them had her as wife”. This was invented in order to show that faith in the resurrection creates absurd situations.
• Luke 20, 34-38: The response of Jesus which leaves no doubts. In the response of Jesus there emerges irritation of one who cannot bear pretence or deceit. Jesus cannot bear hypocrisy on the part of the elite which manipulates and ridicules faith in God to legitimize and defend its own interests. The response contains two parts: (a) you understand nothing of the resurrection: The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead, do not marry, because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection, they are children of God” (vv. 34-36). Jesus explains that the condition of persons after death will be totally diverse from the actual condition. After death there will be no marriages, but all will be like angels in heaven. The Sadducees imagined life in Heaven the same as life on earth; (b) you understand nothing about God: “For the dead will rise, Moses has also indicated this in regard to the bush, when he calls the Lord: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not God of the dead, but of the living, because all live in him”. The disciples are attentive and learn! Those who are on the side of the Sadducees find themselves on the opposite side of God!
• Luke 20, 39-40: The reaction of others before the response of Jesus. “Then some of the Scribes said: “Master you have spoken well. And they no longer dared to ask him any more questions”. Most probably these doctors of the law were Pharisees, because the Pharisees believed in the resurrection (cf. Ac 23, 6).

4) Personal questions
• Today, how do the groups which have power imitate the Sadducees and prepare traps in order to prevent changes in the world and in the Church?
• Do you believe in the resurrection? When you say that you believe in the resurrection, do you think about something of the past, of the present or of the future? Have you ever had an experience of resurrection in your life?

5) Concluding prayer
This I believe: I shall see the goodness of Yahweh,
in the land of the living.
Put your hope in Yahweh, be strong, let your heart be bold,
put your hope in Yahweh. (Ps 27,13-14)



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