Commentary on the Mass Readings: Fri, Mar 27

0:00Friday, March 27. The first reading from Jeremiah, chapter 20, verses 10-13. I hear the whisperings of many, terror on every side, denounce, let us denounce him. All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine. He will be trapped, then we can prevail and take our vengeance on him. But the Lord is with me like a mighty champion. My persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph. In their failure they will be put to utter shame, to lasting, unforgettable confusion. O Lord of hosts, you who test the just, who probe mind and heart, let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause. Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, for He has rescued the life of the poor, from the power of the wicked. He.

1:00Commentary. Jeremiah says, they are seeking an opportunity to ruin me, as the Pharisees did our savior. Let me witness the vengeance you take on them. This prayer proceeded not from hatred or ill will, but zeal of justice. He expresses in a human manner a future punishment. God having shown that His prayer should be heard, He gives thanks, and thus shows that what He is going to say precedes not from impatience. The Gospel from John chapter 10 verses 31 through 42. The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus. Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works for my father, for which of these are you trying to stone me? The Jews answered him, we are not stoning you for a good work, but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God. Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law, I said you are gods. If it calls them gods to whom the Word of God came, and Scripture cannot be set aside,

2:02can you say that the one whom the father is consecrated and sent into the world, blasphemes because I said I am the Son of God? If I do not perform my father's works, do not believe me. But if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the father is in me and I am in the Father. And they tried again to arrest him, but he escaped from their power. He went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained. Many came to him and said, John performs no sign, but everything John said about this man was true. And many there began to believe in him. Hayda Commentary. They took up stones because said they, being a man, they'll make us thyself God. The Jews, says St. Augustine, understood well enough what the Aryans will not understand. That from Christ's words it followed that he was one in the same God with the eternal Father. The Jews in opposition to our Savior's doctrine took up stones to destroy him in order

3:05that he might preach no more to them. So heretics at the present day exercised the odium of their impiety against the same Lord by perverting his holy doctrines, and as much as in them lies, pulling him in his servants down from the glorious seats of heavenly bliss. So says St. Augustine. I said you are gods. This is addressed to princes established to govern the people of God. They are the image of God on earth by the authority they exercise and which they receive from him. Christ stops the mouths of the Jews by an argument which they could not answer that sometimes they were called gods who acted by God's authority. But then he immediately declares that it is not in this sense only that he is God, first because he has been sanctified by the Father, which St. Augustine and others understand of that infinite sanctification which he has necessarily by always proceeding from the Father. Others expounded of a greater sanctity and fullness of grace above all other saints given to him even as he was man. Secondly, he adds at the same time and confirms what he had often told them that he was the

4:06Son of God sent into the world, that his work showed that he was in the Father and the Father in him. By this they saw that he was far from recalling or contradicting what he had said before. And therefore they sought to apprehend him and put him to death for blasphemy. He escaped out of their hands, perhaps making himself invisible or hindering them by his divine power.