Commentary on the Mass Readings: Tue, Mar 24

2.

Tuesday, March 24.

The first reading from Numbers 21 verses 4 through 9.

From Mount Hore, the children of Israel set out on the Red Sea Road to bypass the land

of Edom.

But with their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses.

Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert where there is no food or

water?

We are disgusted with this wretched food.

In punishment, the Lord sent among the people Seraph Serpents, which bit the people so that

many of them died.

Then the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned and complaining against the Lord

and you.

Pray the Lord to take the Serpents away from us.

So Moses prayed for the people, and the Lord said to Moses, make a Seraph and mount it

on a pole, and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live.

Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone

who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

8.

Commentary

One of the princes of Edom had refused them a passage upon which they went by Salmona

to Funan, where they probably murmured and were bitten by the Serpents.

They had before often directed their complaints against the two brothers.

Now Aaron being no more, they attacked God himself, who had always resented the injury

done to his ministers.

They call the manna wretched food, thus worldlings load the things of heaven for which they have

no relish.

In the blessed Eucharist, the substance of the bread is removed and the appearance is

only remain, so that to the worldly receiver it seems very empty and light, though in reality

it be super substantial, containing Christ himself who fills the worthy communicant with

grace and comfort and enables him to go forward on the road to heaven without fainting.

They are called Seraph or fiery serpents because they that were bitten by them were burnt with

a violent heat.

An order of angels is also known by this name, the Seraphim.

The Egyptians adored a serpent which they called Serapis, and they represented their God

Serapis with a serpent entwining a monstrous figure composed of a lion, a dog, and a wolf,

so says Macrobius.

Take a Seraph and fix it upon a standard in which form it would resemble one suspended

on a cross.

It was placed at the entrance of the temple, according to St. Justin Martyr.

Hasakaya afterwards destroyed it because it was treated with superstitious honors.

See 2 Kings 184.

Thus, the best things are often abused.

God commands this image to be erected while he forbids all images of idols.

By comparing different passages of Scripture, we may discern the true import of them.

Others may often prove very useful and instructive.

They serve the ignorant instead of books, but then the ignorant must be carefully instructed

not to treat them with improper respect as St. Gregory admonishes.

And is not the same caution requisite for those who read even the Word of God, lest they

rest it to their own destruction, as both the unlearned and the unstable frequently do?

See 2 Peter 3-16.

If everything must be rejected which is liable to abuse, what part of the creation will be spared?

The Bible, the sacraments, all creatures must be laid aside.

It is probable that Moses represented on the standard such a serpent as had been the instrument

of death.

This image was set up by God's express command.

And the Book of Wisdom, chapter 16, verse 5, assures us that the effect was entirely

to be attributed to him, the figure of a brazen serpent being rather calculated to increase

than to remove the danger.

Only those were healed who raised their hearts to God.

The brazen serpent was a figure of Christ crucified and of the efficacy of a lively faith in

him against the bites of the hellish serpent, Sossas St. Ambrose.

As the old serpent infected the whole human race, Jesus Christ gives life to those that

look at him with entire confidence.

So says the Adorate.

The brazen serpent was destitute of poison, though it resembled a most noxious animal.

So Jesus Christ assumed our nature yet without sin.

The Gospel from John, chapter 8, verses 21 through 30.

Jesus said to the Pharisees, I am going away and you will look for me, but you will die

in your sin, where I am going you cannot come.

So the Jew said he is not going to kill himself, is he?

Because he said where I am going you cannot come.

He said to them, you belong to what is below.

I belong to what is above.

You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world.

That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.

For if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

So they said to him, who are you?

Jesus said to them, what I told you from the beginning, I have much to say about you

in condemnation, but the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him, I tell

the world.

They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.

So Jesus said to them, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am

and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me.

The one who sent me is with me.

He has not left me alone because I always do what is pleasing to him.

Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.

Hey, dot commentary.

My am not of this world.

He speaks here of his divine person, as the words evidently show.

Who art though?

Jesus's response and the construction of the text is obscure, both in the Latin and

the Greek.

St. Augustine thinks it must be understood, believe me to be the beginning.

That they might know what they were to believe.

He made them this answer, as if he had said, believe me to be the beginning, the cause,

the author of all things, who have now become man and speak to you.

Other later interpreters are of opinion that the beginning signifies the same as at first,

or from the beginning.

The sense therefore would be, I am what I said and told you at first, and from the beginning.

That is, I am your Messiah, the true Son of God sent into the world.

The Pharisees indignant at the liberty with which Jesus spoke to them, demand of him in

a rage, who art thou to speak to us in this imperious manner, to say that we shall die

in our sins.

Jesus answered them that he was the beginning, author, creator, and ruler of all things.

This is the more orthodox and more becoming interpretation.

I am the light of the world, he that follow with me walketh not in darkness, but shall

have the light of life.

For Christ to hear from his father, and to see, is the same as to proceed from him, to

be of the same nature and substance.

Some of the more ignorant among the Jews understood not Christ when he clearly enough signify

that he was equal to God and of one in the same nature, but at other times they that heard

him perceived it very well, and so in this place they were for stoning him to death.

When you lift up the Son of Man, that is, have put me to the death of the cross, you that

is many of you shall know and believe in me as your Messiah.