“Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you, your burnt offerings are always before me.” (Psalm 50, 8)
In commenting on this verse from today’s Responsorial Psalm, Saint John Chrysostom writes:
“On this score the other inspired authors leveled their accusations, remember, that they had bypassed the more important element of virtue and were resting their hope of salvation in these things. Yet many are the words spoken about sacrifices, whereas the law about them was passed not because his wish was preeminently for such things but because he was showing considerateness for their limitations. God should be worshiped, after all, not with fumes and smells but with an impeccable lifestyle, not bodily but of the mind. The demons of the foreigners were not inclined this way, however; rather, they even looked for these things. A poet of the Greeks even seems to be suggesting as much in saying, “It is by the will of the gods, you see, we obtain this portion.” But our God is not like that: whereas those gods thirsted for human blood and in their desire to lead them into this bloodguiltiness constantly made such demands, our God by contrast wanted to remove them gradually even from the slaughter of brute beasts and so employed this considerateness in allowing sacrifices so as to abolish sacrifices. ” (Commentary on Psalm 50)
Collect
Grant us, O Lord, we pray,
that the course of our world
may be directed by Your peaceful rule
and that Your Church may rejoice,
untroubled in her devotion.
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. Amen.
that the course of our world
may be directed by Your peaceful rule
and that Your Church may rejoice,
untroubled in her devotion.
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. Amen.
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
