Tuesday, October 24 : Saint Ambrose

The cripple beside the pool of Bethesda was waiting for someone (to help him into the pool). For whom was he waiting if not for the Lord Jesus, born of a Virgin? When he came it was no longer only a matter of some mere prefiguration that was healing people, but Truth itself was healing them all. And so it was he whose descent was awaited, he of whom God the Father spoke to John the Baptist: “On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit” (Jn 1,33)… But why did the Spirit come down like a dove if not so that you might see and acknowledge that the dove that righteous Noah sent out from the ark was the image of that dove and might recognize in it a prefiguring of the sacrament of baptism…? Can you still waver when the Father is unquestionably proclaiming to you in the Gospel: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3,17); when the Son, over whom the Holy Spirit was manifested in the form of a dove, is proclaiming it too; when the Holy Spirit, who descended in the form of a dove, is also proclaiming it; when David proclaims: “The voice of the Lord is over the waters, the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over vast waters” (Ps 29[28],3)? Scripture also affirms that fire came down from heaven at Gideon’s prayers and again, that fire was sent to consecrate the sacrifice at the prayer of Elijah. (Jgs 6,21; 1Kgs 18,38). Don’t attend to a priest’s personal worth but to his office… Believe that our Lord Jesus is present when invoked at the prayer of the priest, he who said: “Where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18,20). How much more, then, does he deign to grant us his presence where the Church is, where the mysteries are celebrated. And so you have gone down to the baptistery. Remember what you have said: that you believe in the Father, you believe in the Son, you believe in the Holy Spirit… With similar words of commitment you asserted your belief in the Son as you believe in the Father, your belief in the Holy Spirit as you believe in the Son, with this sole difference: that you profess the need to believe in the cross of our only Lord Jesus.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team