Catholic Caucus: Daily Mass Readings 16-December-2023

Matthew
	English: Douay-Rheims	Latin: Vulgata Clementina	Greek NT: Byzantine/Majority Text (2000)
10.	And his disciples asked him, saying: Why then do the scribes say that Elias must come first?	Et interrogaverunt eum discipuli, dicentes : Quid ergo scribæ dicunt, quod Eliam oporteat primum venire ?	και επηρωτησαν αυτον οι μαθηται αυτου λεγοντες τι ουν οι γραμματεις λεγουσιν οτι ηλιαν δει ελθειν πρωτον
11.	But he answering, said to them: Elias indeed shall come, and restore all things.	At ille respondens, ait eis : Elias quidem venturus est, et restituet omnia.	ο δε ιησους αποκριθεις ειπεν αυτοις ηλιας μεν ερχεται πρωτον και αποκαταστησει παντα
12.	But I say to you, that Elias is already come, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they had a mind. So also the Son of man shall suffer from them.	Dico autem vobis, quia Elias jam venit, et non cognoverunt eum, sed fecerunt in eo quæcumque voluerunt. Sic et Filius hominis passurus est ab eis.	λεγω δε υμιν οτι ηλιας ηδη ηλθεν και ουκ επεγνωσαν αυτον αλλα εποιησαν εν αυτω οσα ηθελησαν ουτως και ο υιος του ανθρωπου μελλει πασχειν υπ αυτων
13.	Then the disciples understood, that he had spoken to them of John the Baptist.	Tunc intellexerunt discipuli, quia de Joanne Baptista dixisset eis.	τοτε συνηκαν οι μαθηται οτι περι ιωαννου του βαπτιστου ειπεν αυτοις

Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aguinas

Matthew CHAP. 17

17:10–13

10. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the Scribes that Elias must first come?

11. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.

12. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.

13. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

JEROME. It was a tradition of the Pharisees following the Prophet Malachi, that Elias should come before the coming of the Saviour, and bring back the heart of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, and restore all things to their ancient state. The disciples then consider that this transformation which they had seen in the mount was His coming in glory, and therefore it is said, And his disciples asked him, saying, How then say the Scribes that Elias must first come? As though they had said, If you have already come in glory, how is it that your forerunner appears not yet? And this they say chiefly because they see that Elias is departed again.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lvii.) The disciples knew not of the coming of Elias out of the Scriptures; but the Scribes made it known to them; and this report was current among the ignorant multitude, as was that concerning Christ. Yet the Scribes did not explain the coming of Christ and of Elias, as they ought to have done. For the Scriptures speak of two comings of Christ; that which has taken place, and that which is yet to be. But the Scribes, blinding the people, spake to them only of His second coming, and said, If this be the Christ, then should Elias have come before Him. Christ thus resolves the difficulty, He answered and said, Elias truly shall come, and restore all things; but I say unto you, that Elias has already come. Think not that here is a contradiction in His speech, if He first say that Elias shall come, and then that he is come. For when He says that Elias shall come and restore all things, He speaks of Elias himself in his own proper person, who indeed shall restore all things, in that he shall correct the unbelief of the Jews, who shall then be to be found; and that is the turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, that is, the hearts of the Jews to the Apostles.

AUGUSTINE. (Quæst. Ev. i. 21.) Or; He shall restore all things, that is those whom the persecution of Antichrist shall have overthrown; as He Himself should restore by His death those whom He ought.

CHRYSOSTOM. But if there shall so much good arise out of the presence of Elias, why did He not send him at that time? We shall say, Because they then held Christ to be Elias, and yet believed not on Him. But they shall hereafter believe Elias, because when he shall come after so great expectation announcing Jesus, they will more readily receive what shall be taught by Him. But when He says that Elias is come already, He calls John the Baptist Elias from the resemblance of their ministry; for as Elias shall be the forerunner of His second coming, so was John the forerunner of His first. And He calls John Elias, to shew that His first coming was agreeable to the Old Testament, and to prophecy.

JEROME. He then who at the Saviour’s second coming should come in the truth of His body, come now in John in power and spirit. It follows, And they knew him not, but did unto him whatsoever they would, that is, despised and beheaded him.

HILARY. As he announced the Lord’s coming, so he was also to foreshew His passion by the example of his own suffering and wrong? whence it follows, So also shall the Son of Man suffer of them.

CHRYSOSTOM. He takes the opportunity from the passion of John to refer to His own passion, thus giving them much comfort.

JEROME. It is enquired how, seeing that Herod and Herodias were they that killed John, it can be said that Jesus also was crucified by them, when we read that He was put to death by the Scribes and Pharisees? It must be answered briefly, that the party of the Pharisees consented to the death of John, and that in the Lord’s crucifixion Herod united his approval, when having mocked and set Him at nought, he sent Him back to Pilate, that he should crucify Him.

RABANUS. From the mention of His own passion which the Lord had often foretold to them, and from that of His forerunner, which they beheld already accomplished, the disciples perceived that John was set forth to them under the name of Elias; whence it follows; Then understood the disciples that he spake to them of John the Baptist.

ORIGEN. That He says of John, Elias is already come, is not to be understood of the soul of Elias, that we fall not into the doctrine of metempsychosis, which is foreign to the truth of Church doctrine, but, as the Angel had foretold, he came in the spirit and power of Elias.

Catena Aurea Matthew 17

St. Adelaide

St. Adelaide was an empress of the Holy Roman Empire. She was born in the year 931 in Upper Burgundy—what is now present-day Switzerland—to the king of Burgundy, Rudolf II. Adelaide’s first marriage was a strategic political alliance to the son of Lothair II of Italy, her father’s rival. Adelaide and her first husband had one daughter, Emma, born in 948 when Adelaide was only seventeen.

Her husband’s rival, Berengar II, in a devious political move, poisoned Adelaide’s husband and attempted to force Adelaide to marry his son, Adalbert. Adelaide definitively refused and fled Italy. Berengar’s men pursued her and imprisoned her in a fortress at Lake Como for four months.

In the Middle Ages, young queens were important political assets. If they had any interest in playing the political games of their time, they had to quickly become skilled navigators of the political dynamics of the many entangled kingdoms of Europe. If a queen had any interest in becoming a formidable political player, not a pawn, it was sometimes necessary for her to master the art of escaping from a castle fortress.

Adelaide proved adept in this respect and escaped from captivity into the countryside of Italy’s northern lakes. Adelaide was rescued from the marshes by allies and taken to a secure fortress. From there, she petitioned Otto I, the Frankish King, for his aid and protection.

A plea for help may not seem like the most romantic marriage proposal, but it ended up working to Adelaide’s advantage. Otto and Adelaide were married in 951. Ten years later, Pope John XII crowned Otto I Holy Roman Emperor and, breaking with the previous tradition, also crowned Adelaide concurrently as Empress of the Holy Roman Empire.

For a time, Adelaide lived in Rome while Otto managed the empire from other strategic locations. Around 972, Adelaide and Otto returned to Italy, where Otto died in May 973. Thus began Adelaide’s long streak of outliving her successors and relations. Adelaide’s son, Otto II, began to rule as emperor upon the death of his father before he himself died in 983. Upon Otto II’s death, Adelaide’s grandson, Otto III, began to rule with his mother, Empress Theophanu as regent. When Theophanu died in 990, Adelaide took her daughter-in-law’s place as regent. In 995, Otto III came of legal age to rule, and Adelaide finally retired to a convent she had helped to found, in the Alsace region between France and Germany.

Adelaide had long been involved in ecclesial reforms that were centered around Cluny and worked for the conversion of Eastern Europe. She was a powerful religious as well as political ruler, and she is responsible in many ways for embedding Christianity in the culture of Central Europe.

Adelaide died on December 16, 999, just short of the millennial year. Her adventurous life was fictionalized and memorialized in operas by Handel and Rossini. Adelaide is the patron saint of, unsurprisingly, brides and empresses. She is also the patron saint of women and men who have experienced hardship in relationships or in marriages, which is a tender acknowledgment of the difficulties and pains a mother must have experienced in raising a family in the rough-and-tumble political atmosphere of medieval Europe. She is the patron saint of abuse victims, second marriages, step-parents, and widows. Some of her relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame's campus.

St. Adelaide, holy empress and brave mother—pray for us!

faith.nd.edu

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The prophet Elijah will come again

Elijah has come already and they did not recognise him

Christian Art

Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aguinas

Matthew CHAP. 17

St. Adelaide