Today, July 20
Feast of the Day
No feast of the day
Saint of the Day
Apollinaris lived in the first century and according to legend was chosen the first bishop of Ravenna by St Peter. He was also one of the first great martyrs. During the reigns of emperors Claudius and Vespasian, he was repeatedly exiled and tortured but continued to evangelize and work miracles until his martyrdom.
©2011 Living with Christ, Novalis - Bayard Press Canada Inc., http://www.livingwithchrist.ca/. Reprinted with permission.
Readings of the Day
Book of Micah 6,1-4.6-8.
Hear what the LORD says: Arise, present your plea before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice! Hear, O mountains, the plea of the LORD, pay attention, O foundations of the earth! For the LORD has a plea against his people, and he enters into trial with Israel. O my people, what have I done to you, or how have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, from the place of slavery I released you; And I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with holocausts, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Psalms 50(49),5-6.8-9.16bc-17.21.23.
"Gather my faithful ones before me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." And the heavens proclaim his justice; for God himself is the judge. "Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you, for your burnt offerings are before me always.” I take from your house no bullock, no goats out of your fold." "Why do you recite my statutes, and profess my covenant with your mouth, Though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?" "When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it? Or do you think that I am like yourself? I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes. He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me; and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 12,38-42.
Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." He said to them in reply, "An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here. At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and there is something greater than Solomon here."
Daily Reflection
You were conducted by the hand to the holy pool of sacred baptism, just as Christ was conveyed from the cross to the sepulchre close at hand [in this Church of the Holy Sepulchre]. Each person was asked if he believed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You made the confession that brings salvation, and submerged yourselves three times in the water and emerged: by this symbolic gesture you were secretly re-enacting the burial of Christ three days in the tomb. For just as our Savior spent three days and nights in the bosom of the earth, so you upon first emerging were representing Christ... You saw nothing when immersed as if it were night, but you emerged as if to the light of day. In one and the same action you died and were born; ,the water of salvation became both tomb and mother for you... What a strange and astonishing situation! We did not really die, we were not really buried, we did not really hang from a cross and rise again. Our imitation was symbolic, but our salvation a reality. Christ truly hung from a cross, was truly buried, and truly rose again. All this he did gratuitously for us, so that we might share his sufferings by imitating them, and gain salvation in actuality. What transcendent kindness! Christ endured nails in his innocent hands and feet, and suffered pain; and by letting me participate in the pain without anguish or sweat, he freely bestows salvation on me... We know well that not merely does baptism cleanse sins and bestow on us the gift of the Holy Spirit - it is also the sign of Christ's suffering. This is why, as we heard just now, Paul cried out: “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death”... So in order that we may realise that Christ endured all his sufferings for us and our salvation actually and not in make-believe, and that we share in his pains, Paul cried out the literal truth: “If we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection,” (Rom 6,3-5).