Night Office
First Reading
From the Letter of Paul to the Corinthians (1:18 -2:25)
Third Reading
Commentary on the Gospel Luke 6:12-16.
SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE
Gospel
From the gospel according to Luke (6:12-16)
Third Reading From a commentary on Luke by Saint Cyril of Alexandria (PC ri, 580-584)
Everything Christ did was for our benefit and the good of all who believe in him. He set his own actions before us as a kind of model of the spiritual life to make us into true worshipers. Let us therefore see in the way he acted an example of how we should pray to God.
By withdrawing alone to a mountain as though to a private room, Jesus showed us that we should pray privately, in a secret place where no one can see us, and he taught us to do the same when he said: When you pray, go into your private room. Without wanting to be noticed, we should lift up our hands to pray in purity of heart so that our minds may rise to the heights of divine contemplation, as though ascending to heaven and leaving behind every worldly preoccupation. We should not be fickle about this, or listless and faint-hearted, but eager, full of zeal, and intolerant of mediocrity. You have heard that Christ not only prayed, but spent the whole night in prayer.
Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed all night. In a way known only to himself, far beyond our understanding, he conversed with God, his heavenly Father, thus by his example showing us the way to salvation; for he taught how to pray properly, without going astray. Then he came down from the mountain and appointed the spiritual leaders of the whole world. You are the light of the world, he told them. And referring to this appointment of the holy apostles blessed David says, as though speaking to Christ: You will make them princes over all the earth; they will speak of your name from generation to generation. Certainly, as long as they lived they spoke of Christ's glory, proclaiming the mystery through town and countryside. But now that they have been called to their heavenly home, they speak to us of him just the same through the writings full of wisdom they composed about him.
The priests appointed under the mosaic law, Aaron and his family, were outwardly adorned with sacred vestments. The holy disciples, on the other hand, were distinguished by their spiritual gifts, and their appointment was as prophetic preachers of the gospel with orders to heal the sick, cast out devils, cleanse lepers, and raise the dead. Clothed with the power of Christ, they filled the whole world with wonder.
