Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Judges, Chapter 8, Verse 19-20
19“They were my brothers, my mother’s sons,” he said. “As the
LORD lives, if you had spared their lives, I would not kill you.” 20Then he said to his firstborn, Jether, “Go, kill them.” But the
boy did not draw his sword, for he was afraid,
for he was still a boy.
Remember mercy
is not just something I feel, even something, I always think about. It is something
I do.
Then
Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the
sword will perish by the sword. (Mt. 26:52)
·
Gideon's
army continues to pursue the fleeing Midianites, led by their kings Zebah and
Zalmunna.
·
They
pass through the towns of Succoth and Penuel, and both refuse to give food to
Gideon's army. This is rude, and Gideon promises he'll make them pay when he's
done with Zebah and Zalmunna.
·
His
army defeats Midian and captures Z&Z.
·
On
their way back, Gideon captures a young man from Succoth, who identifies the
elders and princes of the city that were so inhospitable before.
·
Gideon
beats them with thorns and briars. That'll teach them!
·
He
also returns to Penuel and breaks down their tower and kills the men of the
city. Seriously—don't mess with Gideon.
·
While
interrogating Z&Z, Gideon finds out that they killed his brethren in Tabor.
Their life expectancy suddenly plummets dramatically.
·
Gideon
tells his oldest son, Jether, to kill these fools. Jether is still just a boy,
though, and he doesn't want to.
·
Z&Z
say, "You know what, Gid? Why don't you do the honors? You're
stronger anyway" (see KJV 8:21).
·
So
he does, and he takes the ornaments from their camels' necks because, hey, free camel jewelry.
·
Israel
asks Gideon to be their king, and his sons after him, because he's delivered
them from Midian.
·
Gideon
refuses, and tells them that the Lord will be their king.
Jether was still a
boy when asked by his father to continue the cycle of violence. Sometimes
children are wiser than parents. Children instinctively know that being fair
starts with understanding your own shortcomings and listening to that small
voice of conscience.
Saturday of the Fifth
Week of Lent[2]
Prayer. MAY Thy right hand defend Thy
suppliant people, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and worthily instruct them, being
purified in Thy sight, that by present consolation it may profit for future
good things.
EPISTLE. Jer. xviii.
18-23.
In
those days the impious Jews said: Come, and let us invent devices against
Jeremias: for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the
wise, nor the word from the prophet: come, and let us strike him with the
tongue, and let us give no heed to all his words. Give heed to me, O Lord, and
hear the voice of my adversaries. Shall evil be rendered for good, be cause
they have digged a pit for my soul?
Remember
that I have stood in Thy sight, to speak good for them, and to turn away Thy
indignation from them. Therefore, deliver up their children to famine, and
bring them into the hands of the sword: let their wives be bereaved of
children, and widows: and let the husbands be slain by death: let their young
men be stabbed with the sword in battle. Let a cry be heard out of their houses:
for Thou shalt bring the robber upon them suddenly: because they have digged a
pit to take me, and have hid snares for my feet. But Thou, O Lord, knowest all
their counsel against me unto death: forgive not their iniquity, and let not
their sin be blotted out from Thy sight: let them be overthrown before Thy eyes;
in the time of Thy wrath do Thou destroy them, O Lord our God.
GOSPEL. John xii.
10-36.
At that time a
great multitude, that was come to the festival-day, when they had heard that
Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm-trees and went forth to.
meet Him, and cried: Hosanna, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the
Lord, the King of Israel. And Jesus found a young ass, and sat upon it, as it is
written; Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold thy King cometh sitting on an ass s
colt. These things His disciples did not know at the first: but when Jesus was
glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that
they had done these things to Him. The multitude therefore gave testimony,
which was with Him when He called Lazarus out of the grave, and raised him from
the dead. For which reason also the people came to meet Him: because they heard
that He had done this miracle The Pharisees therefore said among themselves: Do
you see that we prevail nothing? behold, the whole world is gone after Him, Now
there were certain gentiles among them who came up to adore on the
festival-day. These therefore came to Philip, who was of Bethsaida of Galilee,
and desired him, saying: Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth
Andrew. Again, Andrew and Philip told Jesus. But Jesus answered them, saying:
The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to
you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth
alone. But if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life
shall lose it: and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life
eternal. If any man minister to Me, let him follow Me: and where I am, there
also shall My minister be. If any man minister to Me, him will My Father honor.
Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say?
Father save Me
from this hour. But for this cause I came unto this hour. Father glorify Thy
name. A voice therefore came from heaven: I have both glorified it and will
glorify it again. The multitude therefore that stood and heard said that it
thundered. Others said, an angel spoke to Him. Jesus answered, and said: This
voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of the world:
now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw all things to Myself. (Now this He said, signifying what
death He should die.) The multitude answered Him: We have heard out of the law,
that Christ abideth forever: and how sayest Thou: The Son of man must be lifted
up? Who is this Son of man?
Jesus therefore
said to them: Yet a little while the light is among you. Walk whilst you have
the light, that the darkness overtake you not. And he that walketh in darkness
knoweth not whither he goeth. Whilst you have the light, believe in the light,
that you may be the children of light. These things Jesus spoke, and He went
away, and hid Himself from them.
The Mass was the center of life for the disciples of
Jesus, and so it has ever been. The first Christians were Jews, living in a
Jewish culture, steeped in Jewish forms of worship. The liturgy of the new
covenant had been foreshadowed in the rituals of the old. The Mass is
explicitly connected with the Passover meal. There are also parallels between
the thank-offering or todah and the
Mass.
A
todah sacrifice would be
offered by someone whose life had been delivered from great peril, such as
disease or the sword. The redeemed person would show his gratitude to God by
gathering his closest friends and family for a todah sacrificial meal. The lamb would be sacrificed in the
Temple and the bread for the meal would be consecrated the moment the lamb was
sacrificed. The bread and meat, along with wine, would constitute the elements
of the sacred todah meal,
which would be accompanied by prayers and songs of thanksgiving, such as Psalm
116.[4]
The Talmud records the ancient rabbis’ teaching that,
when the Messiah has come, “All sacrifices will cease except the todah.” In fact,
Greek scriptures rendered the word todah
as eucharistia, the word from which
we get “Eucharist.”
Thomas Jefferson (d. 1826) was
– besides being a founding father of the United States and president – one of
the most learned figures of his age. His education, through Episcopalian and
Huguenot schoolmasters and then at William and Mary included a comprehensive
classical approach in the Enlightenment tradition and fostered in him an
appreciation for mathematics, philosophy, architecture, botany, science, music,
and law. Philosophically, he was a dedicated Deist, meaning that he rejected
the need for revelation and repudiated all forms of established or
institutional religion beyond the obvious limits of reason. As such, he
declared himself a Christian – chafing against charges that he was an atheist
or infidel – but he had little patience with dogmas, finding especially
unacceptable the teachings of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, he did not
oppose organized religion, insisting that all religions be treated with
toleration within the pluralistic society established by the Constitution. The
best source for appreciating Jefferson’s self-identification with Christianity
(again from the standpoint of the Deists) was his work The Life and Morals of
Jesus of Nazareth, Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin,
French, and English, compiled a few years before his death. Called also the
Jefferson Bible, it contains no personal writings by Jefferson, save for the
Table of Contents. Rather, it is a collection of nearly 1,000 verses from the
Gospels (Matthew and Luke chiefly), offering Jesus’ comprehensive moral
philosophy, as Jefferson saw it. He thus omitted all references to the divinity
of Jesus, the primacy of Peter, the Eucharist, comments by the evangelists, and
miracles; in effect, Jefferson drained the Gospels of any form of mystery. The
selection reveals Jefferson’s belief in God, the Commandments, practicing the
virtues, and an afterlife in which the just are rewarded and the evil punished.
Deism:[6] The term used to certain
doctrines apparent in a tendency of thought and criticism that manifested
itself principally in England towards the latter end of the seventeenth
century. The doctrines and tendency of deism were,
however, by no means entirely confined to England, nor to the seventy years or
so during which most of the deistical productions were given to the world; for
a similar spirit of
criticism aimed at the nature and
content of traditional religious beliefs, and the substitution for them of a
rationalistic naturalism has
frequently appeared in the course of religious thought. Thus, there have been
French and German deists as well as English; while Pagan, Jewish, or Moslem
deists might be found as well as Christian.
Because of the individualistic
standpoint of independent criticism which they adopt, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to class together the representative writers who contributed to the
literature of English deism as
forming any one definite school, or to group together the positive teachings
contained in their writings as any one systematic expression of a concordant
philosophy. The deists were what nowadays would be called freethinkers, a name,
indeed, by which they were not infrequently known; and they can only be classed
together wholly in the main attitude that they adopted, viz. in agreeing to
cast off the trammels of authoritative religious teaching in favour of a free
and purely rationalistic speculation. Many of them were frankly materialistic
in their doctrines; while the French thinkers who subsequently built upon the
foundations laid by the English deists were almost exclusively so. Others
rested content with a criticism of ecclesiastical authority in teaching the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures , or
the fact of an external revelation of supernatural truth given
by God to man. In this last
point, while there is a considerable divergence of method and procedure
observable in the writings of the various deists, all, at least to a very large
extent, seem to concur. Deism, in its every manifestation was opposed to the
current and traditional teaching of revealed religion.
·
Saturday Before Palm Sunday: Jesus arrives in Bethany Six Days Before
Passover (Jn12:1)
·
Stays with Lazarus, Mary and Martha (His Judean Home)
·
Possibly the Supper and Anointing in Bethany At the Home of
Simon The Leper Where Jesus Is Anointed By Mary. (Mt 26:6-13; Mk 14:3-9; Jn
12:1-8)
Today the liturgy presents two noteworthy
characters who play dissimilar roles in the Lord's passion. One fills us with solace
and comfort; the other with uneasiness and wholesome fear. Their juxtaposition
produces a powerful effect by way of contrast. The two characters are Mary of
Bethany and Judas. Jesus is in the house of Lazarus, at dinner. Mary
approaches, anoints the feet of her Savior for His burial and dries them with
her hair. Judas resents her action and resolves upon his evil course. These two
persons typify man's relation to Christ. He gives His Body to two types of
individuals: to Magdalenes to be anointed, to Judases to be kissed; to good
persons who repay Him with love and service, to foes who crucify Him. How
movingly this is expressed in the Lesson: "I gave My body to those who
beat Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked them. I did not turn away My face
from those who cursed and spit upon Me." The same must hold true of His
mystical Body. Down through the ages Christ is enduring an endless round of
suffering, giving His body to other Marys for anointing and to other Judases to
be kissed, beaten, and mistreated. Augustine explains how we can anoint
Christ's body:
Anoint Jesus' feet
by a life pleasing to God. Follow in His footsteps; if you have an abundance,
give it to the poor. In this way you can wipe the feet of the Lord.
The poor are, as it were, the feet of the
mystical Christ. By aiding them we can comfort our Lord in His mystical life,
where He receives Judas' kisses on all sides-the sins of Christians. The Gospel
account may be understood in a very personal way. In everyone's heart, in my
own too, there dwell two souls: a Judas-soul and a Mary-soul. The former is the
cause of Jesus' suffering, it is always ready to apostatize, always ready to
give the traitor's kiss. Are you full master over this Judas-soul within you?
Your Magdalen-soul is a source of comfort
to Christ in His sufferings. May the holy season of Lent, which with God's help
we are about to bring to a successful conclusion, bring victory over the
Judas-soul and strengthen the Magdalen-soul within our breasts.
Daily Devotions
[1]
http://www.shmoop.com/book-of-judges/chapter-8-summary.html
[2]
Goffine’s Devout Instructions, 1896
[3] Hahn, Scott, Signs of Life; 40 Catholic
Customs and their biblical roots. Chap. 4. The Mass.
[5]http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage.asp?number=370234
[7]https://www.catholicconvert.com/wp-content/uploads/Timeline-of-Holy-Week.pdf
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