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Word of the day

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Date19/04/2018

Reading of the day

ACTS 8:26-40

The angel of the Lord spoke to Philip,
“Get up and head south on the road
that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the desert route.”
So he got up and set out.
Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch,
a court official of the Candace,
that is, the queen of the Ethiopians,
in charge of her entire treasury,
who had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was returning home.
Seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah.
The Spirit said to Philip,
“Go and join up with that chariot.”
Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said,
“Do you understand what you are reading?”
He replied,
“How can I, unless someone instructs me?”
So he invited Philip to get in and sit with him.
This was the Scripture passage he was reading:

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who will tell of his posterity?
For his life is taken from the earth.

Then the eunuch said to Philip in reply,
“I beg you, about whom is the prophet saying this?
About himself, or about someone else?”
Then Philip opened his mouth and, beginning with this Scripture passage,
he proclaimed Jesus to him.
As they traveled along the road
they came to some water,
and the eunuch said, “Look, there is water.
What is to prevent my being baptized?”
Then he ordered the chariot to stop,
and Philip and the eunuch both went down into the water,
and he baptized him.
When they came out of the water,
the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away,
and the eunuch saw him no more,
but continued on his way rejoicing.
Philip came to Azotus, and went about proclaiming the good news
to all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

Gospel of the day

JN 6:44-51

Jesus said to the crowds:
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,
and I will raise him on the last day.
It is written in the prophets:

They shall all be taught by God.

Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
Not that anyone has seen the Father
except the one who is from God;
he has seen the Father.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my Flesh for the life of the world."

Words of the Holy Father

He, Philip, he obeys, he’s docile and accepts the calling from the Lord. Certainly he left behind many things that he ought to have done(…). And this makes us see that without this docility or meekness before the voice of God nobody can evangelize, nobody can announce Jesus Christ: at the very most he will be announcing himself. It’s God who calls us, it’s God who starts Philip on that road. And Philip goes forth: He’s docile. For the second element, we note how Philip uses dialogue in order to announce the gospel. (…) And this is so important. ‘But father, we waste so much time because every person has his or her own story, they come with their own ideas…’ And, time is wasted. (…) Dialogue. Spend time with that person because that person is who God wants you to evangelize, it’s more important to give him or her the news about Jesus. But according to who he or she is, not how it should be: how he or she is right now. (…) Let’s think about these three moments of evangelization: the docility to evangelize: to do what God is requesting, secondly, a dialogue with the people – but during this dialogue, you begin from where these people come from – and thirdly, trusting in grace: (…) May the Lord help us to understand this. (Santa Marta, 8 May 2014)