Catholic lectionary for 2 November 2021

New American Standard Bible (en)

New American Standard Bible (en)

Job, Chapter 19, verses 1, 23-27

¹ Job Feels Insulted, ⁷ Everything Is against Him, ²³ Job Says, “My Redeemer Lives”

¹ Then Job^aresponded,

...

²³

“Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴

“That with an iron stylus and lead
They were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵

“As for me, I know that my^fRedeemer lives,
And^gat the last He will take His stand on the^hearth.

²⁶

“Even after my skinⁱis destroyed,
Yet from my flesh I shall see God;

²⁷

Whom I^jmyself shall behold,
And whom my eyes will see and not another.
My^kheart faints^lwithin me!

23

Isa 30:8 Jer 36:2

25

Job 16:19 Psa 78:35 Pro 23:11 Isa 43:14 Jer 50:34

26

Psa 17:15 Mat 5:8 Co1 13:12 Jo1 3:2

27

Read more:Job, Chapter 19

Romans, Chapter 5, verses 5-11

¹ Results of Justification

⁵ and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

5

Psa 119:116 Rom 9:33 Heb 6:18 Act 2:33 Act 10:45 Gal 4:6 Tit 3:6

⁶ For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will hardly die for a righteous man;^dthough perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Much more then, having now been justified^eby His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved^fby His life. ¹¹ And not only this,^gbut we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Read more:Romans, Chapter 5

John, Chapter 6, verses 37-40

²⁶ Words to the People

³⁷ All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. ³⁹ This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰ For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

Read more:John, Chapter 6

Topics:

End of the World

NOTES

Today's reading helps us better understand what is usually called Jesus' "messianic secret." In speaking of it, people mean the fact that Jesus Himself, until the last days of His earthly ministry, almost never spoke directly about His messiahship, at least not openly. The evangelist's account takes us back to...

Today's reading helps us better understand what is usually called Jesus' "messianic secret." In speaking of it, people mean the fact that Jesus Himself, until the last days of His earthly ministry, almost never spoke directly about His messiahship, at least not openly. The evangelist's account takes us back to the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves (vv. 1-14). And the reaction to it, as we can see, was an attempt to proclaim Jesus "king," to make Him the leader of a new messianic movement (v. 15). This is no surprise: according to the commonly accepted ideas of that time, the Messiah was to become king, restore an independent Jewish state, and introduce in it laws corresponding to the Torah. But Jesus, of course, was not going to become the leader of any religious-political movement.

But Jesus had another, more important reason to conceal His messiahship. He Himself speaks of it directly to those who went looking for Him in Galilee: most of the people seeking a meeting with Him did so not because they thirsted for the Kingdom, but because they wanted, in time of need, always to be able to receive free bread (v. 26). Jesus, however, speaks with them about eternal life and about the main thing without which one cannot partake of it: trust in the One whom God sent into the world to give people the Kingdom (vv. 27-29).

But they do not understand Him. They ask Him: where are the proofs that Your words are true (v. 30)? And at once they give an example of what proofs would convince them: manna from heaven, as in the days of Moses in the wilderness (v. 31). Jesus again tells them that the Kingdom is greater than any miracle, and that the bread of the Kingdom is more important than manna (vv. 32-33). And again they do not understand Him.

His listeners cannot grasp that with the Savior's coming into the world a new era has begun, and that what happened to them on the shore of Lake Gennesaret was not a miracle in the sense in which manna was a miracle. Simply by being with Jesus, they found themselves in the Kingdom and lived for a while according to its laws, but, as we can see, they did not understand fully what had happened to them. That is why they ask Jesus for bread and expect to receive it just as their fathers once received manna from God (v. 34). And Jesus again and again tries to explain to them that the point is not bread, but the Kingdom and that fullness of God's life which is given there to everyone, so that no manna will be needed there anymore.

A miracle is the Kingdom's invasion of our world, the manifestation of its laws where completely different rules usually operate. But now the Kingdom is entering the world, transforming it, and the times of miracles are passing. The time of the Kingdom is beginning - open to everyone who seeks it and wants to enter.

The apostle Paul's words are addressed to all who, having believed in Christ and begun a new life, have discovered in themselves their former inclination to sin and fall into despondency. Paul assures us that...

Perhaps many of us, since youth, have been given, say through literature classes, a "romantic" understanding of the relation of good and evil in the world: evil is numerous, ugly, and clearly in the majority, while good is lonely, understood by no one, and suffers. And so...

FAQ

What should be understood by the form of resurrection, described both in the Gospel (Christ's words that on the Day of Judgment He will resurrect those who live according to His word) and in the Apocalypse (the description of the judgment of the dead)? What will be the form, including the physical one, of the life of a resurrected person? When the risen Christ appeared before the disciples, in order to dispel their fear, He asked them for food and ate with them. Furthermore, knowing of Thomas's unbelief, He Himself asked him to touch the wounds from the crucifixion. Does it follow from this that the resurrected will also have a material form? Is this so, and what then will the spiritual component be?

Yes, you are right, the resurrected will also have a material component, and the body, judging by the wounds on the Body of the Risen Christ, will be the very same. In this lies the radical difference between the Christian faith and spiritualism, which considers that after the death of the flesh only the soul will live, as well as the belief in the reincarnation of souls...

Yes, you are right, the resurrected will also have a material component, and the body, judging by the wounds on the Body of the Risen Christ, will be the very same. In this lies the radical difference between the Christian faith and spiritualism, which considers that after the death of the flesh only the soul will live, as well as the belief in the reincarnation of souls. The ancient Apostles' Creed states that we believe in "the resurrection of the body", and our current Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed states that we "look for the resurrection of the dead" also in the flesh. This is fundamentally important, because Christianity considers a human being to be a creature consisting of an immaterial soul and a material body. The flesh alone, just like the soul alone, is remarkable, but it is not a human being. God desires specifically human beings, and it is precisely them that He came to save.

At the same time, the flesh of the Risen Christ differed from our flesh; in particular, it was not subject to the laws of this world. The Apostle Paul, speaking of the end of the world, says: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed" ( 15:51-53). On this basis, Christians believe that in the resurrection of the dead our flesh will become as it was intended by God prior to the Fall, and they call it transfigured. This resurrection of us in our own, yet transfigured flesh, in its union with our own soul, accomplished by God, will become the beginning of the general transfiguration of creation.

The spiritual component, therefore, will not disappear either, and the resurrected person will be a human being, not a soul with little wings from ancient pagan myths. What will this spiritual component be? This will apparently be determined by our life here. If you were dead to sin and alive to God, and already here became a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, then your transfigured life has already begun here, and at the general resurrection it will unfold in all its fullness. But if you were dead to God and alive to sin…

${currentDateString}