EVANGELIO DEL DÍA

sábado, 3 de abril de 2010

«You have brightened this night with the radiance of the risen Christ»

DAILY GOSPEL: 03/04/2010
«Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.» John 6,68


Holy Saturday - Easter Vigil, solemnity

Book of Exodus 14:15-31.15:1.
The LORD said to Moses, «Why are you crying out to me?  Tell the Israelites to go forward.
And you, lift up your staff and, with hand outstretched over the sea, split the sea in two, that the Israelites may pass through it on dry land.
But I will make the Egyptians so obstinate that they will go in after them. Then I will receive glory through Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots and charioteers.
The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I receive glory through Pharaoh and his chariots and charioteers."
The angel of God, who had been leading Israel's camp, now moved and went around behind them. The column of cloud also, leaving the front, took up its place behind them,
so that it came between the camp of the Egyptians and that of Israel. But the cloud now became dark, and thus the night passed without the rival camps coming any closer together all night long.
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD swept the sea with a strong east wind throughout the night and so turned it into dry land. When the water was thus divided,
the Israelites marched into the midst of the sea on dry land, with the water like a wall to their right and to their left.
The Egyptians followed in pursuit; all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and charioteers went after them right into the midst of the sea.
In the night watch just before dawn the LORD cast through the column of the fiery cloud upon the Egyptian force a glance that threw it into a panic;
and he so clogged their chariot wheels that they could hardly drive. With that the Egyptians sounded the retreat before Israel, because the LORD was fighting for them against the Egyptians.
Then the LORD told Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may flow back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and their charioteers."
So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea flowed back to its normal depth. The Egyptians were fleeing head on toward the sea, when the LORD hurled them into its midst.
As the water flowed back, it covered the chariots and the charioteers of Pharaoh's whole army which had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not a single one of them escaped.
But the Israelites had marched on dry land through the midst of the sea, with the water like a wall to their right and to their left.
Thus the LORD saved Israel on that day from the power of the Egyptians. When Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the seashore
and beheld the great power that the LORD had shown against the Egyptians, they feared the LORD and believed in him and in his servant Moses.
Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD: I will sing to the LORD, for he is gloriously triumphant; horse and chariot he has cast into the sea.

Book of Exodus 15:2-6.17-18.
My strength and my courage is the LORD, and he has been my savior. He is my God, I praise him; the God of my father, I extol him.
The LORD is a warrior, LORD is his name!
Pharaoh's chariots and army he hurled into the sea; the elite of his officers were submerged in the Red Sea.
The flood waters covered them, they sank into the depths like a stone.
Your right hand, O LORD, magnificent in power, your right hand, O LORD, has shattered the enemy.
And you brought them in and planted them on the mountain of your inheritance-- the place where you made your seat, O LORD, the sanctuary, O LORD, which your hands established.
The LORD shall reign forever and ever.

Letter to the Romans 6:3-11.
Brothers and sisters:  Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus  were baptized into his death?
We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.
For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.
We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.
For a dead person has been absolved from sin.
If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.
We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him.
As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God.
Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as (being) dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 24:1-12.
At daybreak on the first day of the week  the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus  took the spices they had prepared  and went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;
but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.
They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, "Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee,
that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day."
And they remembered his words.
Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others.
The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles,
but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.
Lc 24,1-12
Commentary of the day 
A homily of the 5th century attributed to Eusebius the Gallican
Homily 12 A ; CCL 101, 145
«You have brightened this night with the radiance of the risen Christ» (Collect)
«Let the heavens be glad and earth exult» (Ps 96[95],11). More brightly than the rays of the sun this day has shone forth for us from the brilliance of the tomb. Let the underworld cry out, for from this day on it has an offspring; let it rejoice because this is the day of its visitation; let it be glad because, after endless ages, it has seen a light unknown before and at last, in the darkness of its deepest night, has breathed again! O radiant light, now seen breaking from the heights of the whitening sky..., you have clothed with sudden brightness «those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death» (Lk 1,79). For at Christ's descent at once the everlasting night of hell shone out with light and the cries of the afflicted were silenced; the chains of those condemned broke off and fell; the malicious spirits were seized with stupor as though struck by a thunderbolt...

       No sooner does Christ come down than the grim doorkeepers, blind in the silence of their night, crouching in fear, whisper among themselves: «Who is this mighty one, shining with whiteness? Never has our hell received such as he; never has the world cast such a one into our maw... Had he been guilty, he would not possess such temerity; had some crime blackened him, he could never have dispersed our darkness with his shining. Yet if he is God, what is he doing in the tomb? If he is man, how does he have the courage? If he is God, what has he come here for? If he is man, how can he set prisoners free?... Oh cross, that undoes all our pleasures and give birth to our misfortune! A tree enriched us and a tree has ruined us. This mighty power, so feared by the people, has perished!»

                    

Saturday, 03 April 2010

St. Richard, Bishop (1197-1253)



SAINT RICHARD OF CHICHESTER
Bishop
(1197-1253)
        Richard was born, 1197, in the little town of Wyche, eight miles from Worcester, England. He and his elder brother were left orphans when young, and Richard gave up the studies which he loved, to farm his brother's impoverished estate. His brother, in gratitude for Richard's successful care, proposed to make over to him all his lands; but he refused both the estate and the offer of a brilliant marriage, to study for the priesthood at Oxford.
        In 1235 he was appointed, for his learning and piety, chancellor of that University, and afterwards, by St. Edmund of Canterbury, chancellor of his diocese. He stood by that Saint in his long contest with the king, and accompanied him into exile.
        After St. Edmund's death Richard returned to England to toil as a simple curate, but was soon elected Bishop of Chichester in preference to the worthless nominee of Henry III. The king in revenge refused to recognize the election, and seized the revenues of the see. Thus Richard found himself fighting the same 1 battle in which St. Edmund had died. He went to Lyons, was there consecrated by Innocent IV. in 1245, and returning to England, in spite of his poverty and the king's hostility, exercised fully his episcopal rights, and thoroughly reformed his see.
        After two years his revenues were restored. Young and old loved St. Richard. He gave all he had, and worked miracles, to feed the poor and heal the sick; but when the rights or purity of the Church were concerned he was inexorable.
        A priest of noble blood polluted his office by sin; Richard deprived him of his benefice, and refused the king's petition in his favor. On the other hand, when a knight violently put a priest in prison, Richard compelled the knight to walk round the priest's church with the same log of wood on his neck to which he had chained the priest; and when the burgesses of Lewes tore a criminal from the church and hanged him, Richard made them dig up the body from its unconsecrated grave, and bear it back to the sanctuary they had violated.
        Richard died in 1253, while preaching, at the Pope's command, a crusade against the Saracens.


Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

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