Daily Mass - Monday of the fifth week of Easter

Mass was offered this morning for the repose of the soul of Lilly Yore (+), may she be forever blest. 

The story we have for the first reading is rather comical: the apostles Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas have arrived for the first time in the Greek (pagan) cities of south central Asia Minor, the province that was called Lycaonía. Geography lesson! In the Google Map above, we are centred on Iconium (which the Turks call Konya). Not far to the north-west is located Antioch-in-Pisidia. South-west on the coast is Anatolia (Turkish Antalya), where the Apostles first landed and nearby the ancient city of Perge, which stands in ruin now. Lystra and Derbe were nearer Iconium, although there are few traces of them today. Far to the south-east, near Mersin, is Tarsus, where Paul himself was from.

As usual, Paul and Barnabas began their work in the Jewish synagogues in each city. In Iconium, they found the usual fierce opposition on the part of the orthodox Jews to the Christian message. When this happened, Paul would turn at once to address the Gospel to non-Jews, making many converts. Lystra and Derbe were briefly a refuge, until the Jews from Iconium came to stir up trouble. But in the pagan atmosphere of Lystra, Paul (who was rather short, but probably more voluble) became a vision to the people there of the Greek god Hermes, the messenger god of Greek mythology. The bigger and quieter Barnabas became a vision of Zeus to them. We are then treated to the horror of the two apostles, when they realise that they are about to be worshipped. 

"The apostles tore their garments when they heard of it; and both Barnabas and Paul ran out among the multitude, crying aloud, 'Sirs, why are you doing all this? We too are mortal men like yourselves; the whole burden of our preaching is that you must turn away from follies like this to the worship of the living God, who made sky and earth and sea and all that is in them. In the ages that are past, he has allowed Gentile folk everywhere to follow their own devices; yet even so he has not left us without some proof of what he is; it is his bounty that grants us rain from heaven, and the seasons which give birth to our crops, so that we have nourishment and comfort to our heart’s desire.'" - Acts of the Apostles, 14: 13-16

Even that could barely stop the people, because the two had just demonstrated divine power and performed an extraordinary miracle, healing a man crippled from birth. In a rather clever move, the Fathers who put together the lectionary for us give us Psalm 113 today, with the famous lines:

"Not to us, Lord, not to us the glory; let thy name alone be honoured; thine the merciful, thine the faithful; why must the heathen say, Their God deserts them? Our God is a God that dwells in heaven; all that his will designs, he executes. The heathen have silver idols and golden, gods which the hands of men have fashioned." - Psalm 113: 9-12

That's practically the substance of Paul's and Barnabas' protest. Anyway, here's something from a film, from Henry V. What the soldiers are singing over and over is from that first line: 'Not to us, Lord, not to us the glory; let thy name alone be honoured.'