Saturday of the Thirty-third week in Ordinary Time

Book of Revelation

I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me:
Here are my two witnesses: These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.
If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain.
They have the power to close up the sky so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying. They also have power to turn water into blood and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish.
When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them.
Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, which has the symbolic names "Sodom" and "Egypt," where indeed their Lord was crucified.
Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, and they will not allow their corpses to be buried.
The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth.
But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them.
Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, "Come up here." So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on.

Psalms

Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war.
My mercy and my fortress,
my stronghold, my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I trust,
who subdues my people under me.
O God, I will sing a new song to you;
with a ten stringed lyre I will chant your praise,
You who give victory to kings,
and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus,
saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us, 'If someone's brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.'
Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless.
Then the second
and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless.
Finally the woman also died.
Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her."
Jesus said to them, "The children of this age marry and remarry;
but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.
They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.
That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called 'Lord' the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;
and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive."
Some of the scribes said in reply, "Teacher, you have answered well."
And they no longer dared to ask him anything.

St. Clement I(Pope and martyr († 100))

SAINT CLEMENT I POPE AND MARTYR( 100)Dear Brothers and Sisters, Let us devote our attention to the Apostolic Fathers, that is, to the first and second generations in the Church subsequent to the Apostles. Thus, we can see where the Church's journey begins in history.St. Clement, Bishop of Rome during the last years of the first century, was the Successor of Peter after Linus and Anacletus. The most important testimony concerning his life comes from St. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons until 202. He attests that Clement "had seen the blessed Apostles," "had been conversant with them," and "might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes" (Adversus Haer. 3, 3, 3).The authority and prestige of St. Clement were such that various writings were attributed to him, but the only one that is certainly his is the Letter to the Corinthians. Eusebius of Caesarea, the great "archivist" of Christian beginnings, presents it in these terms: "There is extant an Epistle of this Clement which is acknowledged to be genuine and is of considerable length and of remarkable merit. He wrote it in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth, when a sedition had arisen in the latter Church. We know that this Epistle also has been publicly used in a great many Churches both in former times and in our own" (Hist. Eccl. 3, 16).An almost canonical character was attributed to this Letter. At the beginning of this text - written in Greek - Clement expressed his regret that "the sudden and successive calamitous events which have happened to ourselves" had prevented him from intervening sooner (1, 1). These "calamitous events" can be identified with Domitian's persecution. Therefore, the Letter must have been written just after the Emperor's death and at the end of the persecution: immediately after the year 96.Clement's intervention was prompted by the serious problems besetting the Church in Corinth. The elders of the community had been deposed by some young contestants. The sorrowful event was recalled once again by St. Irenaeus who wrote: "In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren in Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful Letter to the Corinthians exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the Apostles" (Adv. Haer. 3, 3, 3).Thus, we could say that this Letter was a first exercise of the Roman primacy after St. Peter's death. Clement's Letter touches on topics that were dear to St. Paul, who had written two important Letters to the Corinthians, in particular the theological dialectic, perennially current, between the indicative of salvation and the imperative of moral commitment.First of all came the joyful proclamation of saving grace. The Lord forewarns us and gives us his forgiveness, gives us his love and the grace to be Christians: his brothers and sisters. It is a proclamation that fills our life with joy and gives certainty to our action. The Lord always forewarns us with his goodness and the Lord's goodness is always greater than all our sins. However, we must commit ourselves in a way that is consistent with the gift received and respond to the proclamation of salvation with a generous and courageous journey of conversion.The Letter's immediate circumstances provided the Bishop of Rome with ample room for an intervention on the Church's identity and mission. If there were abuses in Corinth, Clement observed, the reason should be sought in the weakening of charity and of the other indispensable Christian virtues. He therefore calls the faithful to humility and fraternal love, two truly constitutive virtues of being in the Church: "Seeing, therefore, that we are the portion of the Holy One," he warned, "let us do all those things which pertain to holiness" (30, 1)."The Lord (delegated) peculiar services (Baptism, Last Supper, etc.) to the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special ministries devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen" (40, 1-5). It can be noted that here, in this early first-century Letter, the Greek word "laikós" appears for the first time in Christian literature, meaning "a member of the laos"(that is, "of the People of God"). ... Each one (in the Church) ... exercises his ministry in accordance with the vocation he has received.The Father sent Jesus Christ, who in turn sent the Apostles. They then sent the first heads of communities and established that they would be succeeded by other worthy men. Everything, therefore, was made "in an orderly way, according to the will of God" (42). With these words, St. Clement underlined that the Church's structure was sacramental and not political. The action of God who comes to meet us in the liturgy precedes our decisions and our ideas. The Church is above all a gift of God and not something we ourselves created. Consequently, this sacramental structure not only guarantees the common order, but also this precedence of God's gift which we all need.Finally, the "great prayer" confers a cosmic breath to the previous reasoning. ... The prayer for rulers and governors acquires special importance. Subsequent to the New Testament texts, it is the oldest prayer extant for political institutions. Thus, in the period following their persecution, Christians, well aware that the persecutions would continue, never ceased to pray for the very authorities who had unjustly condemned them. The reason is primarily Christological: it is necessary to pray for one's persecutors as Jesus did on the Cross. But this prayer also contains a teaching that guides the attitude of Christians towards politics and the State down the centuries. In praying for the Authorities, Clement recognized the legitimacy of political institutions in the order established by God; ... and expressed his concern that the Authorities would be docile to God, "devoutly in peace and meekness exercising the power given them by [God]" (61, 2).Another sovereignty emerges whose origins and essence are not of this world but of "the heavens above": it is that of Truth, which also claims a right to be heard by the State. ... Let us make our own the invocations of the "great prayer" in which the Bishop of Rome made himself the voice of the entire world: "O Lord, make your face to shine upon us for good in peace, that we may be shielded by your mighty hand ... through the High Priest and Guardian of our souls, Jesus Christ, through whom be glory and majesty to you both now and from generation to generation, for evermore" (60-61).BENEDICT XVI General audience (March 7, 2007)

St. Columban(abbot († 615))

SAINT COLUMBAN Abbot( 615) St. Columban was born in Ireland during the seventh century. Early in life, he discerned a religious vocation. He nurtured his spirit by reading for leisure both spiritual and theological books. After being ordained, Columban went to France and founded several monasteries. He denounced the immoral practices of royal and clerical persons, and as a result was exiled. He then went to Italy and founded the monastery of Bobbio. St. Columban passed away in 615. He reformed clerical organizations and evangelized Europe like many other great Irish saints. The proof of his heroic virtues and the miracles proceeding from his intercession show that he attained the beatific vision: seeing God face to face forever.

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