Rev. Fr.
Leonard Goffine's
The Church's Year
MONDAY
AFTER PALM SUNDAY
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 hath 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.
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