1962 Missal - Commentary on the Mass Readings: Fri, Mar 6

3 Friday March 6

The lesson from Genesis chapter 37 verses 6 through 22.

In those days, Joseph said to his brothers,

Listen to this dream which I had.

We were binding sheaves in the field.

My sheaf rose up and remained standing, while your sheaves gathered round and bowed down

to my sheaf.

His brothers answered, Are you to be our king?

Are you to rule over us?

And because of his dreams and words, they hated him the more.

He had another dream which he also told to his brothers.

I had another dream, he said, The sun, the moon, and eleven stars were worshiping me.

When he told that to his father and his brothers, his father approved him.

What is this dream that you have had, he said?

Can it be that I and your mother and your brothers will come to bow to the ground before

you?

So his brothers envied him, while his father pondered the matter.

When his brothers had gone to pasture their father's flocks at Sikam, Israel said to Joseph,

Your brothers are pastoring the flocks at Sikam, get ready, I will send you to them.

Joseph answered, I am ready.

Go then, said Israel, and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and

bring back a report to me.

So he sent him from the valley of Hebron and he came to Sikam.

A man found Joseph wandering about in the fields and asked him, What are you looking

for?

I am looking for my brothers, he answered, Tell me please where they are pastoring.

The man said, They have moved on from here because I heard them say, Let us go to Dothane.

So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothane.

They saw him in the distance and before he drew near them, they plotted to kill him.

They said to one another, Here comes that dreamer, Let us therefore kill him and throw him

into a cistern.

We can say that a wild beast of our him, Let us see then what becomes of his dreams.

But when Ruben heard of it, he tried to rescue him from them, saying, We must not kill him.

Then he continued, Do not shed blood, Throw him into the cistern there in the desert, but

do not lay a hand on him.

His purpose was to rescue him from them and restore him to his father.

Joseph probably knew not what his dreams portended as the prophets were sometimes ignorant

of the real purport of their visions, but it admirably foreshowed the famine which would

bring his brethren to adore him in Egypt.

The second dream confirmed the truth of the former, Joseph relates it with simplicity

not suspecting the ill will of his brethren, but his father easily perceives what effect

the narration would have and desires him to be more cautious.

He even points out the apparent incoherence of the dream, as Rachel, who seemed intended

by the moon, was already dead, unless his dream happened before that event.

St. Augustine observes this was never literally verified in Joseph, but it was in Jesus Christ,

whom he prefigured.

Jacob pondered this with himself, not doubting but it was prophetical, thus acted the

Blessed Virgin Mary.

Jacob was afraid of letting him remain with his brothers and retained him mostly at home

for company and to protect him from danger.

Here comes the dreamer, or the Lord of dreams, or visionary Lord, or one who fains dreams,

so the juice set of our Savior, this seducer.

The brothers resolved to tell a lie and easily believed that Joseph had been as bad as themselves

in telling one first.

If they had believed the dreams were from God, they would hardly have supposed that they

could prevent them from having their effect.

The Gospel from Matthew chapter 21 verses 33 through 46.

At that time Jesus spoke this parable to the multitude of the Jews in the chief priest.

There was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard, and put a hedge about it, and

dug a wine vat in it, and built a tower.

Then he let it out to vine dressers and went to broad.

But when the fruit season drew near, he sent his servants to the vine dressers to receive

his fruits, and the vine dressers seized his servants and beat one, killed another.

And stoned another.

Again he sent another party of servants more numerous than the first, and they did the

same to these.

Finally he sent his son to them, saying, they will respect my son.

But the vine dressers on seeing the son set among themselves, this is the heir, calm,

let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance.

So they seized him, cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine dressers?

They said to him, he will utterly destroy those evil men, and will let out the vineyard

to other vine dressers, who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.

Jesus said to them, did you never read the scriptures?

The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

By the Lord this has been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes.

Therefore I say to you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and will be

given to a people yielding its fruits.

And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces.

But upon whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.

And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they knew that he was

speaking about them.

And though they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the people because they regarded

him as a prophet.

Haydha Commentary

The master is God, the vineyard, the Jews, the husbandmen, the Jewish priests.

The servants, God's prophets, sent from time to time.

The son, called his only and most dear son, is our Savior Jesus Christ, whom they persecuted

to death.

By this parable our Savior teaches the Jews that the prophets of God had wonderfully watched

over them from the beginning, that nothing had been omitted to promote their salvation,

and that notwithstanding his prophets had been put to most cruel deaths, still the Almighty

was not turned away from them, but had at length sent down his only son, who should suffer

at their hands the inexpressible ignomines and tortures of his cross and passion.

They will reverence my son, this is not said as if God were ignorant what the Jews would

do to his only begotten son, since in this very place he declares that they would condemn

him to death, but to show what they ought to have done and what he had a right to expect

from them.

It appears from this text that the princes of the Jews knew Jesus to be the Messiah and

that it was only through envy and malice they were so blinded as not to acknowledge him

for the Son of God.

And therefore the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 2 8, if they had known they would not have

crucified the Lord of glory, this it is probable must be understood of the common people, since

we can hardly believe that the princes of the people were ignorant of it, as Christ

had so repeatedly inculcated this truth, that he even says himself they had no excuse,

and were only actuated by hatred against him and his father.

It appears from John chapter 11 that one of the motives why the Jews killed our Savior

was, less if they let him live, all men should believe, and the Romans should come and

destroy their nation, but the very means they took to secure their kingdom to themselves,

hastened their downfall, and eventually caused their ruin.

Since in punishment of their crucifying Jesus Christ, their city and state were completely

ruined under the Roman Emperor's Titus and Vespasian, the stone which the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone.

By these words from Psalm 117, which the Jews themselves expounded of their Messiah,

Christ showed them that although they who should have been the architects had rejected him,

yet he should be the chief cornerstone to unite the Jews and the Gentiles,

converted into one Christian church, militant on earth, and triumphant in heaven.

St. Augustine remarks that this parable was addressed not only to the opponents of Christ's

authority, but likewise to the people. The kingdom of God shall be taken from you.

By this dreadful conclusion he tells them in plain terms that they shall be forsaken and punished

for their blindness and obstinacy. They understood that he spoke of them.

This parable, though immediately addressed to the Jews, contains an admirable instruction

for Christians. For what the Jews have suffered for their wickedness and ingratitude,

has also been the fate of many Christian kingdoms, and the mournful lot of many once flourishing

happy churches whose candlesticks are removed and light extinct. The same conduct God

observes with regard to particular persons in punishment of their repeatedly abusing his graces.

He at last withdraws them and leaves the culprit to himself and to the miserable consequences

of this merited privation of grace.