The Daily Gospel

«Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.» John 6,68 Tuesday, 13 May 2008 Tuesday of the Sixth week in Ordinary Time Today the Church celebrates : Our Lady of Fatima Jean-Pierre de Caussade : "Do you not yet understand or comprehend? " Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 8,14-21. They had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. He enjoined them, "Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." They concluded among themselves that it was because they had no bread. When he became aware of this he said to them, "Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear? And do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?" They answered him, "Twelve." When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many full baskets of fragments did you pick up? They answered (him), "Seven." He said to them, "Do you still not understand?" Commentary of the day : Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751), Jesuit Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence, II, 1 (trans. Algar Thorold) "Do you not yet understand or comprehend? " Could we pierce the veil, and were we vigilant and attentive, God would reveal himself continually to us and we should rejoice in his action in everything that happens to us. At every occurrence we should say: «Dominus est. It is the Lord!» (Jn 21,7) and in all circumstances we should find a gift from God. We should consider creatures as very feeble instruments in the hands of an almighty worker, and we should recognize without difficulty that nothing is lacking to us and that God's constant care leads him to give us each instant what is suited to us. If we had faith, we should welcome all creatures; we should, as it were, caress them and thank them interiorly for contributing so favourably to our perfection when applied by the hand of God. If we lived uninterruptedly by the life of faith, we should be in continual contact with God; we should speak with him face to face... Faith is the interpreter of God; without the illumination which it brings, nothing can be understood of the language in which creatures speak to us. That language is a cypher in which nothing is apparent but confusion; it is a thorn-bush from which no one could imagine God speaking. But faith makes us see, as in the case Moses, the fire of divine charity burning in the midst of the thorns; faith gives us the key to the cypher and enables us to discover in that confusion the marvels of heavenly wisdom. Faith gives a face as of heaven to the whole earth, and by it our hearts are ravished and transported to converse in heaven... Faith is the key of the treasury, the key of the abyss of divine wisdom.