Gospel for Saturday, 5th Week of Easter

Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Good Counsel (Can)
Old Calendar: Saints Cletus and Marcellinus, popes and martyrs

From: John 15:18-21

A Hostile World

(Jesus said to His disciples,) [18] "If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. [19] If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. [20] Remember the word that I said to you, `A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. [21] But all this they will do to you on My account, because they do not know Him who sent Me."
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Commentary:

18-19. Jesus states that there can be no compromise between Him and the world, the kingdom of sin: anyone who lives in sin abhors the light (cf. John 3:19-20). This is why Christ is persecuted, and why the Apostles will be in their turn. "The hostility of the perverse sounds like praise for our life", St. Gregory says, "because it shows that we have at least some rectitude if we are an annoyance to those who do not love God; no one can be pleasing to God and to God's enemies at the same time. He who seeks to please those who oppose God is no friend of God; and he who submits himself to the truth will fight against those who strive against truth" ("In Ezechielem Homiliae", 9).

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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Reprinted with permission from Four Courts Press and Scepter Publishers, the U.S. publisher.