Monday of Passion Week
GOSPEL FOR
MONDAY OF PASSION WEEK: John Ch. VII
At that time:
The rulers and Pharisees sent ministers to apprehend Jesus. Jesus therefore
said to them: Yet a little while I am with you: and then I go to him that sent
me. You shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither you cannot
come. The Jews, therefore, said among themselves: Whither will he go, that we
shall not find him? Will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach
the Gentiles? What is this saying that he hath said: You shall seek me, and
shall not find me; and where I am, you cannot come? And on the last and great
day of the festival, Jesus stood and cried, saying: If any man thirst, let him
come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, “Out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Now this he said of the
Spirit which they should receive who believed in him.
Dom
Gueranger Meditation on the Gospel from The
Liturgical Year
The enemies
of Jesus sought to stone him to death, as we were told in yesterday's Gospel;
to-day they are bent on making him a prisoner, and send soldiers to seize him.
This time, Jesus does not hide himself; but how awful are the words he speaks: “Go
to Him that sent me: you shall seek me, and shall not find me!” The sinner,
then, who has long abused the grace of God, may have his ingratitude and con
tempt punished in this just, but terrific way, — that he shall not be able to
find the Jesus he has despised: he shall seek, and shall not find. Antiochus,
when humbled under the hand of God, prayed, yet obtained not mercy. After the
Death and Resurrection of Jesus, whilst the Church was casting her roots in the
world, the Jews, who had crucified the Just One, were seeking the Messias in
each of the many impostors, who were then rising up in Judea, and fomenting
rebellions, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Surrounded
on all sides by the Roman legions, with their temple and palaces a prey to
flames, they sent up their cries to heaven, and besought the God of their
fathers to send, as he had promised, the Deliverer! It never occurred to them,
that this Deliverer had shown himself to their fathers, to many even of themselves;
that they had put him to death, and that the Apostles had already carried his
name to the ends of the earth. They went on looking for him, even to the very
day when the deicide city fell, burying beneath its ruins them that the sword
had spared. Had they been asked, what it was they were awaiting, they would
have replied, that they were expecting their Messias! He had come, and gone.
You shall seek me, and shall not find me!
Let them,
too, think of these terrible words of Jesus, who intend to neglect the graces
offered them during this Easter. Let us pray, let us make intercession for
them, lest they fall into that it is too late to find aught save an inexorable
Justice. But, what consoling thoughts are suggested by the concluding words of
our Gospel!
Faithful
souls, and you that have repented! Listen to what your Jesus says, for it is to
you that he speaks: If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. Remember
the prayer of the Samaritan woman: Give me, 0 Lord, to drink of this water! This
water is divine grace: come, and drink your fill at the fountains of your
Saviour, as the Prophet Isaias bids you. This water gives purity to the soul
that is defiled, strength to them that are weak, and love to them that have no
fervour. Nay, our Saviour assures us, that he who believes in Him, shall
himself become as a fountain of living water, for the Holy Ghost will come upon
him, and this soul shall pour out upon others of the fullness that she herself
has received. With what joy must not the Catechumen have listened to these
words, which promised him that his thirst should soon be quenched at the holy Font!
Jesus has made himself everything to the world he has come to save: Light to
guide us, Bread to nourish us, a Vine to gladden our hearts with its fruit,
and, lastly, a Fountain of Living Water to quench our thirst.
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