60. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who can hear it?
61. When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said to them, Does this offend you.
62. What and if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
63. It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life.
64. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were For believed not, and who should betray him.
65. And he said, Therefore said I to you, that no man can come to me, except it were given that him of my Father.
66. From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
67. Then said Jesus to the twelve, Will you also go away?
68. Then Simon Peter answered him. Lord, to whom shall we go? you have the words of eternal life.
69. And we believe and are sure that you are that Christ, the Son of the living God.
AUG. Such is our Lord's discourse. The people did not perceive that it had a deep meaning or, that grace went along with it: but receiving the matter in their own way, and taking His words in a human sense, understood Him as if He spoke of cutting of the flesh of the Word into pieces, for distribution to those who believed on Him: Many therefore, not of His enemies, but even of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying, who can bear it?
CHRYS. i.e. difficult to receive, too much for their weakness. They thought He spoke above Himself, and more loftily than He had a right to do; and so said they, Who can bear it? which was answering in fact for themselves, that they could not.
AUG. And if His disciples thought that saying hard what would His enemies think? Yet it was necessary to declare a thing, which would be unintelligible to men. God's mysteries should draw men's attention, not enmity.
THEOPHYL. When you hear, however, of His disciples murmuring, understand not those really such, but rather some who, as far as their air and behavior went, seemed to be receiving instruction from Him. For among His disciples were some of the people, who were called such, because they stayed some time with His disciples.
AUG. They spoke, however, so as not to be heard by Him. But He, who knew what was in them, heard within Himself: When Jesus knew within Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said to them, Does this of offend you?
ALCUIN. i.e. that I said, you should eat My flesh, and drink My blood.
CHRYS. The revelation however of these hidden things was a mark of His Divinity: hence the meaning of what follows; And if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before; supply, What will you say? He said the same to Nathanael, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, believe you? You shall see greater things than these. He does not add difficulty to difficulty, but to convince them by the number and greatness of His doctrines. For if He had merely said that He came down from heaven, without adding any thing further, he would have offended His hearers more; but by saying that His flesh is the life of the world, and that as He was sent by the living Father, so He lives by the Father; and at last by adding that He came down from heaven, He removed all doubt. Nor does He mean to scandalize His disciples, but rather to remove their scandal. For so long as they thought Him the Son of Joseph, they could not receive His doctrines; but if they once believed that He had come down from heaven and would ascend thither, they would be much more willing and able to admit them.
AUG. Or, these words are an answer to their mistake. They supposed that He was going to distribute His body in bits: whereas He tells them now, that He should ascend to heaven whole and entire: What and if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before? You will then see that He does not distribute His body in the way you think. Again; Christ became the Son of man, of the Virgin Mary here upon earth, and took flesh upon Him: He says then, What and, if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before? to let us know that Christ, God and man, is one person, not two; and the object of one faith, not a quaternity, but a Trinity. He was the Son of man in heaven, as He was Son of God upon earth; the Son of God upon earth by assumption of the flesh, the Son of man in heaven, by the unity of the person.
THEOPHYL. Do not suppose from this that the body of Christ came down from heaven, as the heretics Marcion and Apollinarius say; but only that the Son of God and the Son of man are one and the same.
CHRYS. He tries to remove their difficulties in another way, as follows, It is the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing: that is to say, You ought to understand My words in a spiritual sense: he who understands them carnally is profited nothing. To interpret carnally is to take a proposition in its bare literal meaning, and allow no other. But we should not judge of mysteries in this way; but examine them with the inward eye; i.e. understand them spiritually. It was carnal to doubt how our Lord could give His flesh to eat. What then? Is it not real flesh? Yes, verily. In saying then that the flesh profits nothing, He does not speak of His own flesh, but that of the carnal hearer of His word
AUG. Or thus, the flesh profits nothing. They had under stood by His flesh, as it were, of a carcass, that was to be cut up, and sold in the shambles, not of a body animated by the spirit. Join the spirit to the flesh, and it profits much: for if the flesh profited not, the Word would not have become flesh, and dwelt among us. The Spirit has done much for our salvation, by means of the flesh.
AUG. For the flesh does not cleanse of itself, but by the Word who assumed it: which Word, being the principle of life in all things, having taken up soul and body, cleanses the souls and bodies of those that believe. It is the spirit, it, then, that quickens: the flesh profits nothing; i.e. the flesh as they understood it. I do not, He seems to say, give My body to be eaten in this sense. He ought not to think of the flesh carnally: The words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life.
CHRYS. i.e. are spiritual, have nothing carnal in them, produce no effects of the natural sort; not being under the dominion of that law of necessity, and order of nature established on earth.
AUG. If then you understand them spiritually, they are life and spirit to you: if carnally, even then they are life and spirit, but not to you. Our Lord declares that in eating His body, and drinking His blood, we dwell in Him, and He in us. But what has the power to affect this, except love? The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given to us.
CHRYS. Having spoken of His words being taken carnally, He adds, But there are some of you that believe not. Some, He says, not including His disciples in the number. This insight shows His high nature.
AUG. He says not, There are some among you who understand not; but gives the reason why they do not understand. The Prophet said, Except you believe, you shall not understand. For how can he who opposes be quickened? An adversary, though he avert not his face, yet closes his mind to the ray of light which should penetrate him. But let men believe, and open their eyes, and they will be enlightened.
CHRYS. To let you know that it was before these words, and not after, that the people murmured and were offended, the Evangelist adds, For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him.
THEOPHYL. The Evangelist wishes to show us, that He knew all things before the foundation of the world: which was a proof of His divinity.
AUG. And after distinguishing those who believed from those who did not believe, our Lord gives the reason of the unbelief of the latter, And He said, Therefore said I to you, that no man can come to Me, except it were given him of My Father.
CHRYS. As if He said, Men's unbelief does not disturb or astonish Me: I know to whom the Father has given to come to Me. He mentions the Father, to show first that He had no eye to His own glory; secondly, that God was His Father, and not Joseph.
AUG. So then (our) faith is given to us: and no small gift it is. Wherefore rejoice if you believe; but be not lifted up, for what have you which you did not receive? And that this grace is given to some, and not to others, no one can doubt, without going against the plainest declarations of Scripture. As for the question, why it is not given to all, this cannot disquiet the believer, who knows that in consequence of the sin of one man, all are justly liable to condemnation; and that no blame could attach to God, even if none were pardoned; it being of His great mercy only that so many are. And why He pardons one rather than another, rests with Him, whose judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out.
And from that time many of the disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.
CHRYS. He does not say, withdrew, but went back, i.e. from being good hearers, from the belief which they once had.
AUG. Being cut off from the body, their life was gone. They were no longer in the body; they were created among the unbelieving. There went back not a few, but many after Satan, not after Christ; as the Apostle says of some women, For some had already turned aside after Satan. Our Lord says to Peter, Get you behind Me. He does not tell Peter to go after Satan.
CHRYS. But it may be asked, what reason was there for speaking words to them which did not edify, but might rather have injured them? It was very useful and necessary; for this reason, they had been just now urgent in petitioning for bodily food, and reminding Him of that which had been given to their fathers. So He reminds them here of spiritual food; to show that all those miracles were typical. They ought not then to have been offended, but should have inquired of Him further. The scandal was owing to their fatuity, not to the difficulty of the truths declared by our Lord.
AUG. And perhaps this took place for our consolation; since it sometimes happens that a man says what is true, and what He says is not understood, and they which hear are offended and go. Then the man is sorry he spoke what was true; for he says to himself; I ought not to have spoken it; and yet our Lord was in the same case. He spoke the truth, and destroyed many. But He is not disturbed at it, because He knew from the beginning which would believe. We, if this happens to us, are disturbed. Let us desire consolation then from our Lord's example; and withal use caution in our speech.
BEDE. Our Lord knew well the intentions of the other disciples which stayed, as to staying or going; but yet He put the question to them, in order to prove their faith, and hold it up to imitation: Then said Jesus to the twelve, Will you also go away?
CHRYS. This was the right way to retain them. Had He praised them, they would naturally, as men do, have thought that they were conferring a favor upon Christ, by not leaving Him: by showing, as He did, that He did not need their company, He made them hold the more closely by Him. He does not say, however, Go away, as this would have been to cast them off; but asks whether they wished to go away; thus preventing their staying with Him from any feeling of shame or necessity: for to stay from necessity would be the same as going away. Peter, who loved his brethren, replies for the whole number, Lord, to whom shall we go?
AUG. As if he said, You cast us from You: give us another to whom we shall go, if we leave You.
CHRYS. A speech of the greatest love: proving that Christ was more precious to them than father or mother. And that it might not seem to be said, from thinking that there was no one whose guidance they could look to, he adds, You have the words of eternal life: which showed that he remembered his Master's words, I will raise Him up, and, has eternal life. The Jews said, Is not this the Son of Joseph? how differently Peter: We believe and are sure, that you art that Christ, the son of the living God.
AUG. For we believed, in order to know. Had we wished first to know, and then to; believe, we could never have been able to believe. This we believe, and know, that You are the Christ the Son of God; i.e. that You are eternal life, and that in Your flesh and blood you give what You are Yourself.
Catena Aurea John 6
Catholic Culture
Collect: Father of mercy, who gave us in Saint Damien a shining witness of love for the poorest and most abandoned, grant that, by his intercession, as faithful witnesses of the heart of your Son Jesus, we too may be servants of the most needy and rejected. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
o Haupia
o Potato-Mac Salad
o Slow Cooker Kalua Pig
o Marian Hymn: Bring Flowers of the Fairest
o Marian Hymn: Stella Matutina
o May, the Month of Mary
o Blessing of Sprouting Seed, Rogation Days
o Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven)
o May Pilgrimages
o Prayer for the Feast of Bl. Damien Joseph de Veuster
o Apostolic Letter Proclaiming St. John of Avila a Doctor of the Church | Pope Benedict XVI
o Proximity to People Suffering from Infectious Illness | Pope Benedict XVI
o Saint John of Avila and the Reform of the Priesthood | Sr. Joan Gormley
o The Eminent Doctrine of St. John of Avila: A Most Dynamic Priesthood | Brother John Paoletti MIC
o True and False Martyrdom | Fr. Peter Joseph
· Easter: May 10th
· Optional Memorial of St. Damien de Veuster, priest; St. John of Avila (some places)
Old Calendar: St. Antoninus, bishop and confessor; Sts. Gordian and Epimachus, martyrs
Father Damien, formally Joseph de Veuster, ss.cc. and St. Damien of Molokai (January 3, 1840 - April 15, 1889), was a missionary of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who is revered primarily by Hawaii residents and Christians for having dedicated his life in service to the lepers of Molokai in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Father Damien is the spiritual patron of lepers, outcasts, and those with HIV/AIDS, and of the State of Hawaii.
St. John of Avila, recently declared a Doctor of the Church. He was the Apostle of Andalusia and the spiritual advisor of St. Teresa, St. Francis Borgia, St. John of the Cross, St. Peter of Alcantara, and others. He was born on January 6, 1499, at Almodovar del Campo, Spain. After studying law at the University of Salamanca, he left the university to be a hermit. He then went to Alcala, where he was ordained. John drew great crowds with his fiery denunciations of evil and his many sermons. A brief imprisonment by the Inquisition inSeville made him even more popular. His missionary efforts were centered on Andalusia, and his letters and other writings have become Spanish classics. John was canonized in 1970.
According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII, the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is also the feast of St. Antoninus, Bishop of Florence, and a member of the Dominican Order. In the exercise of his pastoral charge he showed great charity. He died in 1459. It is also the commemoration of Sts. Gordian and Epimachus. Gordian, a Roman judge, was converted by a holy priest whom Julian, the Apostate, would have liked him to condemn. He was martyred around 360 and was buried in the crypt where already laid the remains of the martyr St. Epimachus (250), brought from Alexandria.
St. Damien of Molokai
Joseph De Veuster, the future Father Damien, was born at Tremelo in Belgium, January 3rd, 1840. His was a large family and his father was a farmer-merchant. When his oldest brother entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts (called 'Picpus' after the street in Paris where its Generalate was located), his father planned that Joseph should take charge of the family business. Joseph, however, decided to become a religious. At the beginning of 1859 he entered the novitiate at Louvain, in the same house as his brother. There he took the name of Damien.
In 1863, his brother who was to leave for the mission in the Hawaiian Islands, became ill. Since preparations for the voyage had already been made, Damien obtained permission from the Superior General to take his brother's place. He arrived in Honolulu on March 19th, 1864, where he was ordained to the priesthood the following May 21st. He immediately devoted himself, body and soul, to the difficult service of a "country missionary" on the island of Hawaii, the largest in the Hawaiian group.
At that time, the Hawaiian Government decided on a very harsh measure aimed at stopping the spread of "leprosy," the deportation to the neighboring island of Molokai, of all those infected by what was thought to be an incurable disease. The entire mission was concerned about the abandoned "lepers" and the Bishop, Louis Maigret ss.cc., spoke to the priests about the problem. He did not want to send anyone "in the name of obedience," because he knew that such an order meant certain death. Four Brothers volunteered, they would take turns visiting and assisting the "lepers" in their distress. Damien was the first to leave on May 10th, 1873. At his own request and that of the lepers, he remained definitively on Molokai.
He brought hope to this hell of despair. He became a source of consolation and encouragement for the lepers, their pastor, the doctor of their souls and of their bodies, without any distinction of race or religion. He gave a voice to the voiceless, he built a community where the joy of being together and openness to the love of God gave people new reasons for living.
After Father Damien contracted the disease in 1885, he was able to identify completely with them: "We lepers." Father Damien was, above all, a witness of the love of God for His people. He got his strength from the Eucharist: "lt is at the foot of the altar that we find the strength we need in our isolation..." It is there that he found for himself and for others the support and the encouragement, the consolation and the hope, he could, with a deep faith, communicate to the lepers. All that made him "the happiest missionary in the world," a servant of God, and a servant of humanity.
Having contracted "leprosy" himself, Fr. Damien died on April 15th, 1889, having served sixteen years among the lepers. His mortal remains were transferred in 1936 to Belgium where he was interred in the crypt of the church of the Congregation of Sacred Hearts at Louvain. His fame spread to the entire world. In 1938 the process for his beatification was introduced at Malines (Belgium): Pope Paul VI signed the Decree on the "heroicity of his virtues" on July 7th 1977. He was canonized on October 11th, 2009.
In Father Damien, the Church proposes an example to all those who find sense for their life in the Gospel and who wish to bring the Good News to the poor of our time.
Excerpted from SSCC Website
Patron: Lepers.
Things to Do:
- Be adventurous and prepare a Hawaiian luau in honor of Bl. Damien.
St. John of Avila
Saint John of Ávila was born in Almodóvar del Campo of a wealthy and pious family of Jewish converso descent. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the University of Salamanca to study law but returned after a year to his father's home, where he spent the next three years in the practice of austere piety. His sanctity impressed a Franciscan journeying through Almodóvar, on whose advice he took up the study of philosophy and theology at Alcalá de Henares, where he was fortunate to have as his teacher the famous Dominican Domingo de Soto. While he was a student his parents died and after his ordination he celebrated his first Mass in the church where they were buried, sold the family property and gave the proceeds to the poor.
He saw in the severing of natural ties a vocation to foreign missionary work and prepared to go to Mexico. In 1527, while he was in Seville looking for a favorable opportunity to set out for his new field of labor, his unusually great devotion in celebrating Mass attracted the attention of Hernando de Contreras, a priest of Seville, who mentioned him to the archbishop and Inquisitor General, Don Alonso Manrique de Lara. The archbishop saw in the young missionary a powerful instrument to stir up the faith in Andalusia, and after considerable persuasion Juan was induced to abandon his journey to America.
His first sermon was preached on 22 July 1529, and immediately established his reputation. During his nine years of missionary work in Andalusia, crowds packed the churches at all his sermons. However, his strong pleas for reform and the denunciation of the behavior of the high society brought him before the inquisitor at Seville. He was charged with exaggerating the dangers of wealth and with closing the gates of heaven to the rich. The charges were quickly refuted and he was declared innocent in 1533. By special invitation of the court he was appointed to preach the sermon on the next great feast in the church of San Salvador, in Seville. Like other Spanish mystics of the period, including La Beata de Piedrahita, he was suspected several times during his career of belonging to the Alumbrados, deemed a heretical sect.
John of Avila is also remembered as a reformer of clerical life in Spain. He founded several colleges where his disciples dedicated themselves to the teaching of youths. Among the disciples attracted by his preaching and saintly reputation were Saint Teresa of Ávila, Saint John of God, Saint Francis Borgia and the Venerable Louis of Granada. Of special importance was the University of Baeza established in 1538 by a papal bull of Pope Paul III Its first rector was Saint John of Ávila and became a model for seminaries and for the schools of the Jesuits.
He is especially revered by the Jesuits. Their development in Spain is attributed to his friendship and support to the Society of Jesus.
St. John of Avila was declared Venerable by Pope Clement XIII on February 8, 1759 and beatified by Pope Leo XIII on November 15, 1893. On May 31, 1970 he was canonized by Pope Paul VI. Pope Benedict XVI named him a Doctor of the Church on October 7, 2012, the Feast of the Holy Rosary.
Excerpted from Patron Saints
Patron: of Andalusia, Spain, Spanish secular clergy
Things to Do:
St. Antoninus
He wanted to join the Dominicans, but he was so small he scarcely reached above the tabletop in the office of Blessed John Dominici, the Dominican prior of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. To put him off, the prior told him to go home and memorize the Decrees of Gratian, a compilation of Church law. Within a year, the boy had returned, had committed the decrees to memory, and was given the habit of a Dominican.
St. Antoninus was one of the first novices at Fiesole, which Blessed John had built, and among his fellow novices was the future artist Fra Angelico. After his ordination to the priesthood, Antoninus was made prior at Rome, Gaeta, Siena, Fiesole, and finally at Florence where he founded the famous Convento di San Marco, where Fra Angelico did some of his most memorable work.
He was summoned by Pope Eugene IV to take part in the Council of Florence in 1438, and as prior of San Marco, welcomed many of the prelates and scholars to Florence for the sessions of the council that took place there. It was at this time also that the great library of San Marco was opened to the public.
In 1446, much against his will, he was appointed archbishop of Florence but continued to live as a simple Dominican friar. Then, he became a veritable dynamo of activity: he rebuilt churches, visited parishes, preached incessantly, and brought about peace between political factions and religious orders. He was in Rome at the deathbed of Pope Eugene IV and was consulted by succeeding pontiffs in the reform of the papal curia. He was a superb theologian, his writings on moral theology and economics are considered pioneer works in the changing society of his times.
Shortly before the death of Antoninus, a plague hit Florence, decimating the city, with many of his friars dying, and the people starving from famine. He sold everything to help the hungry and destitute. When a violent earthquake hit Florence, he helped to rebuild the city, housing some of the victims in his own home. He died on May 2, 1459, and Pope Pius II himself came to attend his funeral. The people of Florence, who loved Antoninus, placed his statue in the Uffizi Palace, the city's hall of fame.
Excerpted from The One Year Book of Saints by Rev. Clifford Stevens
Patron: Those with a fever.
Symbols: Lily; pair of scales in which he weighs false merchandise against God's word; scales; wearing bishop's mitre, holding the cross, and giving the sign of blessing in absolution.
Things to Do:
- Read a detailed life of St. Antoninus and see why he is a model for those in the workplace and marketplace.
- St. Antoninus was noted for his love of people: people of all kinds, from those in high places to the poorest of the city. To help the poor, he organized the Poor Men of St. Martin, who exist to this day. What have you done for the poor lately?
- Learn about the St. Antoninus Institute for Catholic Education in Business and see if you would be interested in joining.
Sts. Gordian and Epimachus
During the reign of Julian the Apostate, Januarius, a priest, was brought before the judge, Gordian, that he might be condemned; but Gordian, after being instructed in the Christian faith by this same priest, was baptized by him at Rome, together with his wife and fifty three other members of his house. Whereupon the Prefect, having sent Januarius into exile, ordered his deputy Clementianus to imprison Gordian. The deputy, after some time, had Gordian led in chains before his tribunal, and sought to induce him to deny the faith. Failing in the attempt, the deputy ordered him to be first scourged with whips laden with plummets of lead, and then beheaded. His body was exposed before the temple of Apollo, that it might be devoured by dogs; but during the night the Christians took it, and buried it on the Latin Way, in the same crypt wherein had previously been laid the relics of the holy martyr Epimachus, brought from Alexandria, in which city he had endured a long imprisonment for the Christian faith, and was finally crowned with martyrdom by being burned to death.
Excerpted from The Liturgical Year, Abbot Gueranger O.S.B.
