About Today
Friday 4 April 2025
Friday of the 4th week of Lent (optional commemoration of Saint Isidore, Bishop, Doctor)
Christ the Lord was tempted and suffered for us. Come, let us adore him.Or: O that today you would listen to his voice: harden not your hearts.
Year: C(I). Psalm week: 4. Liturgical Colour: Violet.
St Isidore of Seville (560 - 636)
He was born in Seville in about 560 and after his father’s death he was educated by his brother Leander, Archbishop of Seville. He was instrumental in converting the Visigothic kings from the Arian heresy; he was made Archbishop of Seville after his brother’s death; and he took a prominent part in councils at Toledo and Seville. The Council of Toledo, in particular, laid great emphasis on learning, with all bishops in the kingdom commanded to establish seminaries and to encourage the teaching of Greek and Hebrew, law and medicine. He promoted the study of Aristotle, long before the Arabs discovered him and centuries before 13th-century Christian philosophers discovered him through the Arabs.
He embarked on the project of writing an encyclopaedia of universal knowledge but did not live to complete it. See the articles in the Catholic Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia.
Other saints: St Benedict 'The Black' (1526 - 1589)
Kenya, Southern Africa
Benedict was born in 1526, the son of Christopher and Diana, an Ethiopian couple who were kept as slaves in Sicily. When Benedict reached the age of 18, he was set free and after a while he joined a hermit called Jerome. His reputation for holiness was spread throughout the area and people flocked to him all the time. Eventually he moved to a Franciscan monastery where he spent the rest of his life serving his brothers as a cook. Even though he was a lay brother and without education, he was chosen to be their Superior and, at the end of his term of 6 years, he went back to the kitchen. People kept on visiting him seeking his advice and the help of his prayers. He died on 4 April, 1589. Humility, spirit of service, wisdom and powerful intercession were the special gifts bestowed on Benedict “The Black”. See the articles in the Catholic Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia.
Gospel John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30 So they were seeking to arrest him
At that time: Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him.
Now the Jew’s Feast of Booths was at hand. After his brothers and sisters had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.
Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, ‘Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.’ So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the Temple, ‘You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.’ So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.
Reflection on the painting
We often associate the word ‘arrest’ with criminal activity. To arrest someone is to seize them by legal authority and take them into custody, usually followed by interrogation regarding a situation in which they are suspected of being involved. As part of the criminal justice system, an arrest requires 'just cause'.
n today’s Gospel, we read that while some of the Jews wanted to arrest Jesus to remove Him from the scene, no clear or 'just cause' had yet been established for such an action. It is an unsettling passage, as John the Evangelist foreshadows what is soon to unfold: ‘His hour had not yet come.’ That small word—‘yet’—carries immense weight in this final sentence of our Gospel reading. It signals the inevitability of what is to come, yet also the divine timing that governs all things.
Our featured painting, by German genre painter Christian Ludwig Bokelmann, depicts a policeman making an arrest on a flight of stairs. Interestingly, we do not see the accused. We see only the public spectacle of the arrest and the reaction of those witnessing it. The bystanders display a range of emotions: shock, disappointment, and disbelief etched into their faces. The scene is set on an autumn day, the bare trees having just shed their last leaves. In the foreground, fresh milk churns and newly cut cauliflowers stand abandoned, likely left behind only moments earlier by the accused after a day’s work.
The painting vividly captures the public humiliation that an arrest can bring. This, too, was precisely what some of the Jewish authorities sought for Jesus: not only to remove Jesus but to publicly disgrace Him. And soon, they would succeed…
An Arrest,Painted by Christian Ludwig Bokelmann (1844-1894),Painted in 1881,Oil on canvas
Friday of the 4th week of Lent (optional commemoration of Saint Isidore, Bishop, Doctor)
Christ the Lord was tempted and suffered for us. Come, let us adore him.Or: O that today you would listen to his voice: harden not your hearts.
Year: C(I). Psalm week: 4. Liturgical Colour: Violet.
St Isidore of Seville (560 - 636)
He was born in Seville in about 560 and after his father’s death he was educated by his brother Leander, Archbishop of Seville. He was instrumental in converting the Visigothic kings from the Arian heresy; he was made Archbishop of Seville after his brother’s death; and he took a prominent part in councils at Toledo and Seville. The Council of Toledo, in particular, laid great emphasis on learning, with all bishops in the kingdom commanded to establish seminaries and to encourage the teaching of Greek and Hebrew, law and medicine. He promoted the study of Aristotle, long before the Arabs discovered him and centuries before 13th-century Christian philosophers discovered him through the Arabs.
He embarked on the project of writing an encyclopaedia of universal knowledge but did not live to complete it. See the articles in the Catholic Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia.
Other saints: St Benedict 'The Black' (1526 - 1589)
Kenya, Southern Africa
Benedict was born in 1526, the son of Christopher and Diana, an Ethiopian couple who were kept as slaves in Sicily. When Benedict reached the age of 18, he was set free and after a while he joined a hermit called Jerome. His reputation for holiness was spread throughout the area and people flocked to him all the time. Eventually he moved to a Franciscan monastery where he spent the rest of his life serving his brothers as a cook. Even though he was a lay brother and without education, he was chosen to be their Superior and, at the end of his term of 6 years, he went back to the kitchen. People kept on visiting him seeking his advice and the help of his prayers. He died on 4 April, 1589. Humility, spirit of service, wisdom and powerful intercession were the special gifts bestowed on Benedict “The Black”. See the articles in the Catholic Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia.
Gospel John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30 So they were seeking to arrest him
At that time: Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him.
Now the Jew’s Feast of Booths was at hand. After his brothers and sisters had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.
Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, ‘Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.’ So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the Temple, ‘You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.’ So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.
Reflection on the painting
We often associate the word ‘arrest’ with criminal activity. To arrest someone is to seize them by legal authority and take them into custody, usually followed by interrogation regarding a situation in which they are suspected of being involved. As part of the criminal justice system, an arrest requires 'just cause'.
n today’s Gospel, we read that while some of the Jews wanted to arrest Jesus to remove Him from the scene, no clear or 'just cause' had yet been established for such an action. It is an unsettling passage, as John the Evangelist foreshadows what is soon to unfold: ‘His hour had not yet come.’ That small word—‘yet’—carries immense weight in this final sentence of our Gospel reading. It signals the inevitability of what is to come, yet also the divine timing that governs all things.
Our featured painting, by German genre painter Christian Ludwig Bokelmann, depicts a policeman making an arrest on a flight of stairs. Interestingly, we do not see the accused. We see only the public spectacle of the arrest and the reaction of those witnessing it. The bystanders display a range of emotions: shock, disappointment, and disbelief etched into their faces. The scene is set on an autumn day, the bare trees having just shed their last leaves. In the foreground, fresh milk churns and newly cut cauliflowers stand abandoned, likely left behind only moments earlier by the accused after a day’s work.
The painting vividly captures the public humiliation that an arrest can bring. This, too, was precisely what some of the Jewish authorities sought for Jesus: not only to remove Jesus but to publicly disgrace Him. And soon, they would succeed…
An Arrest,Painted by Christian Ludwig Bokelmann (1844-1894),Painted in 1881,Oil on canvas
