LESSON
(Isai. L. 5-10.) In those days, Isaias said: The Lord God hath opened
my ear, and I do not resist: I have not gone back. I have given my
body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have
not turned away my face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me.
The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded: therefore
have I set my face as a most hard rock, and I know that I shall not
be confounded. He is near that justifieth me, who will contend with
me? Let us stand together, who is my adversary? Let him come near to
me. Behold the, Lord God is my helper: who is he that shall condemn
me? Lo they shall all be destroyed as a garment, the moth shall eat
them up. Who is there among you that feareth the Lord, that heareth
the voice of his servant? Let him that hath walked in darkness, and
bath no light, hope in the name of the Lord, and lean upon his God.
EXPLANATION
All the holy Fathers agree that Isaias here prophesies of Christ, who
in accordance with His Father's will, gave Himself up without
uttering one word of complaint to the most, ignominious sufferings
for us, and strengthened by divine assistance, patiently submitted to
all the blows, torments, and insults of His enemies. But they did not
escape just punishment, for their guilty consciences devoured them
interiorly, as a moth consumes a garment, and the memory of them
disappeared from the earth. Let us put our trust in God, if, with
Christ, we are surrounded by sufferings and distress, finding no
help, for He will be our Redeemer and our Helper.
GOSPEL
(John XII. 1-9.) Now Jesus, six days before the Pasch, came to
Bethania, where Lazarus had been dead, whom Jesus raised to life. And
they made him a supper there: and Martha served, but Lazarus was one
of them that were at table with him. Mary therefore took a pound of
ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of
Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with
the odor of the ointment. Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot,
he that was about to betray him said: Why was not this ointment sold
for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? Now he said this, not
because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and having
the purse, carried the things that were put therein.
Jesus
therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day
of my burial, for the poor you have always with you: but me you have
not always. A great multitude therefore of the Jews knew that he was
there: and they came not for Jesus's sake only, but that they might
see Lazarus, whom he, had raised from the dead.
INSTRUCTION
We should also, like Mary Magdalen, anoint the Saviour by diligently
performing good works, and thus become, as the holy Apostle says, a
good odor unto Christ. (II Cor. II. 15.) The conduct of the traitor
Judas should serve us as a warning not to be carried away by
attachment to temporal riches, to avarice, and by it to greater
crimes. Judas did not become a great sinner at once, he loved money
and so grew cold to the love of God; seduced by avarice, he became a
miser, a traitor to his Master and a suicide. Strive, therefore, to
suppress your evil inclinations at the moment of their commencement,
that they may not bring you into sin, and render you miserable like
Judas.
– Goffine's
Devout Instruction
