Thursday, October 17 : Saint Gregory the Great

Well it is said, “Who changeth the lip of the truthful, and taketh away the instruction of the aged.” (Job 12:20); may nevertheless may be understood more plainly of the Jews, who before the Lord’s Incarnation were ‘truthful,’ in that they believed that He was to come, and proclaimed the same; but when He appeared in the flesh, they denied that it was He. Therefore ‘the lip of the truthful was changed,’ in that Him, of Whom they had told that He was about to come, they denied when present; ‘and the instruction of the aged was taken away,’ in that they never followed in believing the things, which they remembered their fathers to have foretold. Whence too at the coming of Elijah it is promised, that he shall ‘turn the hearts of the children to their fathers;’ that ‘the instruction of the aged,’ which is now ‘taken away’ from the heart of the Jews, upon the Lord taking compassion on them, may then be brought back, when the children begin to understand that concerning the Lord, which their fathers foretold. But if by ‘the aged’ we understand likewise those same Jews, who, by the persuasions of unbelief, set themselves to oppose the word of ‘Truth,’ then ‘the instruction of the aged was taken away,’ when the Church consisting of the Gentiles, being indeed young, received it, as she saith by the Psalmist, I understand more than the ancients. [Ps. 119, 100] And because she kept this same in practising it, in what way she came to understand more than the ancients, she makes plain, whereas she adds directly, Because I keep thy precepts. For whereas she aimed to fulfil in practising that thing which she learnt, it was vouchsafed her to understand what she might teach.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team