“Woe to you! You build the memorials of the prophets whom your ancestors killed.” (Luke 11:47.)
Saint Ambrose of Milan offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel proclamation:
“It is also a good argument against the vainest superstition of the Jews, who by building the tombs of the prophets condemned the actions of their ancestors. Then, by imitating their ancestors’ actions, they turned the judgment back on themselves. By building the tombs of the prophets, they accused those who had killed them of their crime. By the imitation of similar acts, they declared themselves heirs of their ancestors’ iniquity. Not the building but the imitation is an offense. Those who by crucifying the Son of God added a crime worse than their ancestors’ wrongdoing cannot be absolved of their hereditary wickedness. He fittingly added elsewhere, “Fill up then the measure of your fathers,” because there is no worse sin that they can commit than the assault on God. Wisdom sends the apostles and the prophets to them. Who is Wisdom if not Christ?” (Exposition on the Gospel of Luke, 7.)
Collect
May Your grace, O Lord, we pray,
at all times go before us and follow after
and make us always determined
to carry out good works.
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.
at all times go before us and follow after
and make us always determined
to carry out good works.
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
