“Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” (Luke 10:16.)
Saint Cyril of Alexandria comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:
“Consider the great authority he gave the holy apostles, how he declared them praiseworthy, and how he decorated them with the highest honors…. “He that hears you,” he says, “hears me, and he that rejects you, rejects me; and he that rejects me, rejects him that sent me.” O what great honor! What incomparable dignities! O what a gift worthy of God! Although men, the children of earth, he clothes them with a godlike glory. He entrusts his words to them that they who resist anything or venture to reject them may be condemned. When they are rejected, he assures them that he suffers this. Then again, he shows that the guilt of this wickedness, as being committed against him, rises up to God the Father. See with the eyes of the mind how vast a height he raises the sin committed by men in rejecting the saints! What a wall he builds around them! How great security he contrives for them! He makes them such as must be feared and in every way plainly provides for their being uninjured.” (Commentary on Luke, Homily 63)
Collect
O God,
Who gave the Priest Saint Jerome
a living and tender love
for Sacred Scripture,
grant that Your people
may be ever more fruitfully nourished
by your Word
and find in it the fount of life.
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.
Who gave the Priest Saint Jerome
a living and tender love
for Sacred Scripture,
grant that Your people
may be ever more fruitfully nourished
by your Word
and find in it the fount of life.
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.
Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
