Saints + Scripture — Friday, 3 August

The Long Road Back, Part I of II | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Friday, 3 August the festival of Saint Aspren, Bishop (floruit second century, of Naples): Saint-link & Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Wayback Machine.

'Twas also the festival of Saint Dalmatius of Constantinople, Abbot (died 440), who opposed the Nestorian Heresy: Saint-link & Wikipedia-link; Wikipedia-link Heresy.

'Twas also the festival of Saint Waltheof of Melrose, Priest & Abbot, O.Cist. (circa 1095-1160), monk at Rievaulx Abbey, later abbot of Melrose Abbey: Saint-link & Wikipedia-link; Wikipedia-link Rievaulx, Wikipedia-link Abbot, & Wikipedia-link Melrose.

'Twas also the festival of Blessed Augustin Kažotić, Bishop & Martyr, O.P. (circa 1260-1323, A.K.A. Augustine Gazotich), martyred by a Saracen of Lucera; who attended the Council of Vienne (1311-1312): Martyr-link & Wikipedia-link; Wikipedia-link Council.

Scripture of That Day
Mass Readings—Friday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
The Book of Jeremiah, chapter twenty-six, verses one thru nine;
Psalm Sixty-nine, verses five; eight, nine, & ten; & fourteen;
The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter thirteen, verses fifty-four thru fifty-eight.

Commentary: Reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):

Friends, today in Matthew’s account of the rejection of Jesus at Nazareth, Christ refers to himself as a prophet.

In the Old Testament tradition, the prophet is a religious visionary and truth-teller. The great Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said that the prophet is someone who feels the feelings of God and then speaks out of that experience. He stubbornly reads the world through the lens of the word of God and speaks the divine truth. And this mission implies opposition, confrontation, and critique, since the keepers of worldly order are frequently looking through other lenses and listening to other words.

But Jesus is much more than one more prophet in a long line of prophets, one more speaker of the divine truth, one more reader of the divine word. Jesus is the Word made flesh; he is the Divine Truth in person.

Video reflection by Yvonne Dilling: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Papal Quote o' That Day

"Evangelizing is in fact the grace & vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize."
—Pope Bl. Paul VI (1897-1978, feast day: 26 September)

Little Flower Quote o' That Day

"I long for no other treasure but love, for it alone can make us pleasing to God."
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)

Saint Quote o' That Day

"In the light of faith, each one of you can look at others as if they were an icon, a portrait—at least a potential one—of Christ."
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, feast day: 22 October)