Epistle – Daniel ix. 15‒19
In those days Daniel prayed to the Lord, saying: “O Lord our God, who has brought forth your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and has made you a name as at this day; we have sinned, we have committed iniquity, O Lord, against all your justice. Let your wrath and indignation be turned away, I beseech you, from your city Jerusalem, and from your holy mountain. For, by reason of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people are a reproach to all that are round about us. Now, therefore, our God, hear the supplication of your servant, and his prayers, and show your face on your sanctuary which is desolate, for your own sake. Incline, my God, your ear and hear; open your eyes and see our desolation, and the city on which your name is called; for it is not for our justifications that we present our prayers before your face, but for the multitude of your tender mercies. Lord, hear; Lord, be appeased; listen, and do; delay not for your own sake, my God; because your name is invoked on your city and on your people, Lord our God.”
Thanks be to God.
Gospel – John viii. 21‒29
At that time Jesus said to the multitude of the Jews: “I go, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.” The Jews, therefore said: “Will He kill himself, because he said: ‘Where I go, you cannot come?’ And He said to them: “You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I say to you that you will die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am He, you will die in your sin.” They said therefore to Him: “Who are you?” Jesus said to them: “The beginning, who also speak to you. Many things I have to speak, and to judge of you. But He that sent me is true; and the things I have heard of Him, the same I speak in the world.” Now they understood not that He called God His Father. Jesus therefore said to them: “When you will have lifted up the Son of man, then will you know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself, but as the Father has taught me, these things I speak: and He that sent me is with me, and He has not left me alone: for I do always the things that please Him.”
Praise be to you, O Christ.
Saint Augustine of Hippo:
The Lord spoke to the Jews, saying: “I go My way”—for, to the Lord Christ, death was a departure to that place from where He had come, and from which He had never departed. “I go My way,” says He, “and you will seek Me"—not from love, but from hatred. Yes, after He had withdrawn Himself from the sight of men, two classes sought Him, even they that loved, and they that hated Him; the one because they longed for His presence, the other because they were fain to hunt Him down. In the Psalms the Lord Himself says by His Prophet: “Refuge failed me, and no man cared for my soul.” (Psalms cxli. 5) And again He says in another Psalm: “Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul." (Psalms xxxiv. 5)
Thus does He blame them that seek not, and condemn such as seek. Yes, it is a good thing to seek the soul of Christ, as the disciples sought it; and an evil thing to seek it, as the Jews sought it; the first sought it to possess, the second to destroy it. What then does He bid us know will be the reward of such as seek it evilly in a perverse heart. “You will seek Me, and”—lest you think that you will do well so to seek Me, I tell you that you will die in your sins.” To seek Christ with bad intent, is as much as to die in sin, for it is to hate Him through Whom alone we can be saved.
Whereas men whose hope is in God ought to return good even for evil, those men returned evil for good. The Lord therefore told them beforehand, and, because He knew it, He let them know their coming end, how that they should die in their sins. Then He said further: “Where I go, you cannot come.” This He said in another place (xiii. 33) to His disciples, but He never said to them: “You will die in your sins.” What said He? The same words as to the Jews: “Where I go, you cannot come.” Yet, to the disciples, these words only deferred, they cut not away hope—for they, though for a little while they could not come where He was to go, were yet in the end to go there. Not so they to whom He foretold and said: “You will die in your sins.”
