Thursday of the Thirty-fourth week in Ordinary Time
Book of Daniel 6:12-28.
So these men rushed in and found Daniel praying and pleading before his God.
Then they went to remind the king about the prohibition: “Did you not decree, O king, that no one is to address a petition to god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king; otherwise he shall be cast into a den of lions?” The king answered them, “The decree is absolute, irrevocable under the Mede and Persian law.”
To this they replied, “Daniel, the Jewish exile, has paid no attention to you, O king, or to the decree you issued; three times a day he offers his prayer.”
The king was deeply grieved at this news and he made up his mind to save Daniel; he worked till sunset to rescue him.
But these men insisted. “Keep in mind, O king,” they said, “that under the Mede and Persian law every royal prohibition or decree is irrevocable.”
So the king ordered Daniel to be brought and cast into the lions’ den. To Daniel he said, “May your God, whom you serve so constantly, save you.”
To forestall any tampering, the king sealed with his own ring and the rings of the lords the stone that had been brought to block the opening of the den.
Then the king returned to his palace for the night; he refused to eat and he dismissed the entertainers. Since sleep was impossible for him,
the king rose very early the next morning and hastened to the lions’ den.
As he drew near, he cried out to Daniel sorrowfully, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has the God whom you serve so constantly been able to save you from the lions?”
Daniel answered the king: “O king, live forever!
My God has sent his angel and closed the lions’ mouths so that they have not hurt me. For I have been found innocent before him; neither to you have I done any harm, O king!”
This gave the king great joy. At his order Daniel was removed from the den, unhurt because he trusted in his God.
The king then ordered the men who had accused Daniel, along with their children and their wives, to be cast into the lions’ den. Before they reached the bottom of the den, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.
Then King Darius wrote to the nations and peoples of every language, wherever they dwell on the earth: “All peace to you!
I decree that throughout my royal domain the God of Daniel is to be reverenced and feared: “For he is the living God, enduring forever; his kingdom shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be without end.
He is a deliverer and savior, working signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, and he delivered Daniel from the lions’ power.”

Book of Daniel 3:68.69.70.71.72.73.74.
Dew and rain, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Frost and chill, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Ice and snow, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Nights and days, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Light and darkness, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Let the earth bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 21:20-28.
When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its desolation is at hand.
Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains. Let those within the city escape from it, and let those in the countryside not enter the city,
for these days are the time of punishment when all the scriptures are fulfilled.
Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days, for a terrible calamity will come upon the earth and a wrathful judgment upon this people.
They will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken as captives to all the Gentiles; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves.
People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”
Commentary of the day : Saint John Chrysostom
« Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven.» (Mt 24,30)

Wednesday, 25 November 2009

Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth week in Ordinary Time

See commentary below or click here
Saint Gregory the Great : “By your perseverance you will secure your lives”

Book of Daniel 5:1-6.13-14.16-17.23-28.

King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his lords, with whom he drank. Under the influence of the wine, he ordered the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, to be brought in so that the king, his lords, his wives and his entertainers might drink from them. When the gold and silver vessels taken from the house of God in Jerusalem had been brought in, and while the king, his lords, his wives and his entertainers were drinking wine from them, they praised their gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. Suddenly, opposite the lampstand, the fingers of a human hand appeared, writing on the plaster of the wall in the king’s palace. When the king saw the wrist and hand that wrote, his face blanched; his thoughts terrified him, his hip joints shook, and his knees knocked. Then Daniel was brought into the presence of the king. The king asked him, “Are you the Daniel, the Jewish exile, whom my father, the king, brought from Judah? I have heard that the spirit of God is in you, that you possess brilliant knowledge and extraordinary wisdom. But I have heard that you can interpret dreams and solve difficulties; if you are able to read the writing and tell me what it means, you shall be clothed in purple, wear a gold collar about your neck, and be third in the government of the kingdom.” Daniel answered the king: “You may keep your gifts, or give your presents to someone else; but the writing I will read for you, O king, and tell you what it means. you have rebelled against the Lord of heaven. You had the vessels of his temple brought before you, so that you and your nobles, your wives and your entertainers, might drink wine from them; and you praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, that neither see nor hear nor have intelligence. But the God in whose hand is your life breath and the whole course of your life, you did not glorify. By him were the wrist and hand sent, and the writing set down. “This is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, TEKEL, and PERES. These words mean: MENE, God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it; TEKEL, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; PERES, your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

Dn 3:62.63.64.65.66.67.

Sun and moon, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Stars of heaven, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Every shower and dew, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you winds, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Fire and heat, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
[Cold and chill, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 21:12-19.

Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives.

Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB

Commentary of the day :

Saint Gregory the Great (c.540-604), Pope, Doctor of the Church
A commentary on the book of Job, 10, 47-48 ; PL 75, 946 (trans. breviary)

“By your perseverance you will secure your lives”

«He who is mocked by his neighbour, as I am, will call upon God and he will answer him» (Jb 12,4 Vg)… But sometimes the soul perseveres in good works with a constant heart, and yet is pushed hard by the scoffing of men; it does admirable deeds, and gets only abuse; and he who might have been encouraged to come out of himself by commendation, is repulsed by insults and returns back again into himself. He establishes himself the more firmly in God, as he finds no place else where he may rest in peace: for all his hope is fixed in his creator. Amidst ridicule and abuse, he implores only the interior witness. His soul in distress becomes God’s neighbor, in proportion as he is a stranger to the favor of man’s esteem. So he pours himself out in prayer and, hard-pressed from without, is refined with a more perfect purity to enter more deeply into all that is interior. Therefore, it is well said at this time, «He who is mocked by his neighbor as I am, will call upon God and he will answer him…» And while the soul of the good strengthens itself, with compunction, in prayer, it is united within itself in the hearing of the most High, in the very act that severs it from the approval of men outside itself…

«For the upright man’s simplicity is laughed to scorn» (Jb 12,4) It is the wisdom of this world to conceal one’s feelings with pretence, to veil the sense with words; to show things that are false as true, and to make out as fallacious what is true. But on the other hand it is the wisdom of the righteous, to pretend nothing in show, to discover the meaning by words; to love the truth as it is, to avoid falsehood; to set forth good deeds freely, to bear evil more gladly than to do it; to seek no revenge of a wrong, to count ill repute as a gain for the truth’s sake. But this simplicity of the righteous is laughed to scorn, because the goodness of purity is taken for folly by the wise men of this world. For doubtless everything that is done from innocence is counted foolish by them, and whatever truth sanctions in practice sounds weak to carnal wisdom.

Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth week in Ordinary Time

Today the Church celebrates : Ss Andrew Dung-Lac, priest, and his companions, martyrs (1745-1862)

See commentary below or click here
Saint Cyril of Alexandria : «When these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand » (Lk 21,28)

Book of Daniel 2:31-45.

“In your vision, O king, you saw a statue, very large and exceedingly bright, terrifying in appearance as it stood before you. The head of the statue was pure gold, its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs bronze, the legs iron, its feet partly iron and partly tile. While you looked at the statue, a stone which was hewn from a mountain without a hand being put to it, struck its iron and tile feet, breaking them in pieces. The iron, tile, bronze, silver, and gold all crumbled at once, fine as the chaff on the threshing floor in summer, and the wind blew them away without leaving a trace. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. “This was the dream; the interpretation we shall also give in the king’s presence. You, O king, are the king of kings; to you the God of heaven has given dominion and strength, power and glory; men, wild beasts, and birds of the air, wherever they may dwell, he has handed over to you, making you ruler over them all; you are the head of gold. Another kingdom shall take your place, inferior to yours, then a third kingdom, of bronze, which shall rule over the whole earth. There shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron; it shall break in pieces and subdue all these others, just as iron breaks in pieces and crushes everything else. The feet and toes you saw, partly of potter’s tile and partly of iron, mean that it shall be a divided kingdom, but yet have some of the hardness of iron. As you saw the iron mixed with clay tile, and the toes partly iron and partly tile, the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. The iron mixed with clay tile means that they shall seal their alliances by intermarriage, but they shall not stay united, any more than iron mixes with clay. In the lifetime of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed or delivered up to another people; rather, it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and put an end to them, and it shall stand forever. That is the meaning of the stone you saw hewn from the mountain without a hand being put to it, which broke in pieces the tile, iron, bronze, silver, and gold. The great God has revealed to the king what shall be in the future; this is exactly what you dreamed, and its meaning is sure.”

Dn 3:57.58.59.60.61.

Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.
Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.
You heavens, bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you hosts of the Lord, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 21:5-11.

While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, he said, All that you see here–the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down. Then they asked him, “Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?” He answered, “See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them! When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.

Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB

Commentary of the day :

Saint Cyril of Alexandria (380-444), Bishop, Doctor of the Church
On Isaiah, III, 1

«When these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand » (Lk 21,28)

«You have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the castle of the insolent is a city no more, nor ever to be rebuilt. Therefore a strong people will honor you» (Is 25,2-3). It pertains to Almighty God’s «faithful plan» (v.1) and blameless counsels that the «fortified cities» should be overthrown and «reduced to a heap of rubble», that they should be shaken «to their foundations» and without hope of being able to rise again. «It shall never be rebuilt,» the text says. In our opinion these overturned cities are not those we can perceive by our senses nor are they the people living in them. But, it seems to us, it is rather a question of each evil, hostile power and, above all, of Satan, here called a city and a «strong city»…

When Emmanuel appeared and shone upon the world, the impious troop of enemy powers was brought to ruin and Satan was overthrown «to his foundations». He has fallen and is weakened for evermore and can no longer expect to stand again nor raise up his head.

Hence the «poor and the city of the needy in distress will bless you» (LXX). Israel has been summoned to knowledge of God through the instructions of the Law; it has been filled by God with all good things. Yes, it has been saved and has acquired the land of promise as an inheritance. But the great multitude of other nations under heaven were deprived of these spiritual goods… When Christ appeared in person and, driving out the devil’s tyranny, led them to his God and Father, then they were enriched by the light of truth, by participation in the divine glory and by the nobility of an evangelical life. That is why they broke forth into hymns of thanksgiving to God our Father: «Yes, Lord, you have fulfilled your wonderful plans of old» (v.1) by recapitulating all things in Christ. You have «shone on those who sat in darkness» (Lk 1,79) by overturning the powers ruling the world (Eph 6,12) as one overturns the fortified cities. «Therefore a poor people will bless you, all the cities will honor you.»