Israel set out with all that was his. When he arrived at Beer-sheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. There God, speaking to Israel in a vision by night, called, "Jacob! Jacob!" "Here I am," he answered. Then he said: "I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you a great nation. Not only will I go down to Egypt with you; I will also bring you back here, after Joseph has closed your eyes." So Jacob departed from Beer-sheba, and the sons of Israel put their father and their wives and children on the wagons that Pharaoh had sent for his transport. They took with them their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in the land of Canaan. Thus Jacob and all his descendants migrated to Egypt. His sons and his grandsons, his daughters and his granddaughters--all his descendants--he took with him to Egypt. Israel had sent Judah ahead to Joseph, so that he might meet him in Goshen. On his arrival in the region of Goshen, Joseph hitched the horses to his chariot and rode to meet his father Israel in Goshen. As soon as he saw him, he flung himself on his neck and wept a long time in his arms. And Israel said to Joseph, "At last I can die, now that I have seen for myself that Joseph is still alive."

Trust in the LORD and do good, that you may dwell in the land and be fed in security. Take delight in the LORD, and he will grant you your heart's requests. The LORD watches over the lives of the wholehearted; their inheritance lasts forever. They are not put to shame in an evil time; in days of famine they have plenty. Turn from evil and do good, that you may abide forever; For the LORD loves what is right, and forsakes not his faithful ones. The salvation of the just is from the LORD; He is their refuge in time of distress. The LORD helps them and delivers them; He delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him.

Jesus said to his Apostles: “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of men, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved." When they persecute you in one town, flee to another. Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes."

Saint Benedict knew how to interpret the signs of the time during his period in a clear-sighted and certain way when he wrote his rule, in which the union of prayer and work became, for those who accepted it, the principle of their aspiration towards eternity. “Ora et labora, pray and work.”… In reading the signs of the time, Benedict saw that it was necessary to implement the radical program of evangelical holiness… in an ordinary way, in the things that make up the daily life of every person. It was necessary to make “the heroic” normal, daily, and to make what was normal and daily life heroic. In that way, the father of monks, the legislator of monastic life in the West also became the pioneer of a new civilization. Everywhere, where human work conditioned the development of culture, of economy, of social life, he added the Benedictine program of evangelization, which united work to prayer and prayer to work… In our time, Saint Benedict is the patron of Europe. This is not only because of his particular merits as regards this continent, its history and civilization. It is also because of his person’s new timeliness as regards contemporary Europe. It is possible to detach work from prayer and to make it the only component of human existence. Our present-day period carries within it this tendency… One has the impression that the economy occupies first place, before a moral sense, that what is material has first place before what is spiritual. On the one hand, the almost exclusive orientation towards consumerism in material goods takes away the deepest meaning from human life. On the other hand, in many cases, work has become a force that alienates human beings … and almost in spite of himself, the person detaches himself from prayer, thus removing the transcendent dimension from human life… It is not possible to live for the future without understanding that the meaning of life is greater than what is just material and passing, that the meaning of life goes beyond this world. If society and the people of our continent have lost interest in that meaning, they must find it again… If my predecessor Paul VI named Benedict of Nursia as patron of Europe, it was because this saint can help the Church and the nations of Europe with this.

Judah approached Joseph and said: “I beg you, my lord, let your servant speak earnestly to my lord, and do not become angry with your servant, for you are the equal of Pharaoh. My lord asked your servants, 'Have you a father, or another brother?' So we said to my lord, 'We have an aged father, and a young brother, the child of his old age. This one's full brother is dead, and since he is the only one by that mother who is left, his father dotes on him.' Then you told your servants, 'Bring him down to me that my eyes may look on him.' But you told your servants, 'Unless your youngest brother comes back with you, you shall not come into my presence again.' When we returned to your servant our father, we reported to him the words of my lord. "Later, our father told us to come back and buy some food for the family. So we reminded him, 'We cannot go down there; only if our youngest brother is with us can we go, for we may not see the man if our youngest brother is not with us.' Then your servant our father said to us, 'As you know, my wife bore me two sons. One of them, however, disappeared, and I had to conclude that he must have been torn to pieces by wild beasts; I have not seen him since. If you now take this one away from me too, and some disaster befalls him, you will send my white head down to the nether world in grief.' Joseph could no longer control himself in the presence of all his attendants, so he cried out, "Have everyone withdraw from me!" Thus no one else was about when he made himself known to his brothers. But his sobs were so loud that the Egyptians heard him, and so the news reached Pharaoh's palace. "I am Joseph," he said to his brothers. "Is my father still in good health?" But his brothers could give him no answer, so dumbfounded were they at him. "Come closer to me," he told his brothers. When they had done so, he said: "I am your brother Joseph, whom you once sold into Egypt. But now do not be distressed, and do not reproach yourselves for having sold me here. It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you."

When the LORD called down a famine on the land and ruined the crop that sustained them, He sent a man before them, Joseph, sold as a slave. They had weighed him down with fetters, and he was bound with chains, Till his prediction came to pass and the word of the LORD proved him true. The king sent and released him, the ruler of the peoples set him free. He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his possessions.

Jesus said to his Apostles: “As you go, make this proclamation: 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give." Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. As you enter a house, wish it peace. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you." Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words--go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town."

One day while he was devoutly hearing a Mass of the Apostles, the Gospel was read in which Christ sends out his disciples to preach and gives them the Gospel form of life, that they may not keep “gold or silver or money in their belts, nor have a wallet for their journey, nor may they have two tunics, nor shoes, nor staff." Hearing, understanding and committing this to memory, this friend of apostolic poverty was then overwhelmed with an indescribable joy. "This is what I want," he said, "this is what I desire with all my heart!" Immediately, he took off the shoes from his feet. put down his staff, denounced his wallet and money, and, satisfied with one tunic, threw away his leather belt and put on a piece of rope for a belt. He directed all his heart's desire to carry out what he had heard and to conform in every way to the rule of right living given to the apostles. Through divine prompting the man of God began to become a model of evangelical perfection and to invite others to penance. His statements were... filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, they penetrated the marrow of the heart, so that they moved those hearing them in stunned amazement. In all his preaching, he announced peace by saying: "May/he Lordgiveyou peace." Thus he greeted the people at the beginning of his talk. As he later testified, he had learned this greeting by the Lord revealing it to him... Therefore, as the truth of the man of God's simple teaching and life became known to many, some men began to be moved to penance and, abandoning all things, joined him in habit and life.

When hunger came to be felt throughout the land of Egypt and the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, Pharaoh directed all the Egyptians to go to Joseph and do whatever he told them. When the famine had spread throughout the land, Joseph opened all the cities that had grain and rationed it to the Egyptians, since the famine had gripped the land of Egypt. In fact, all the world came to Joseph to obtain rations of grain, for famine had gripped the whole world. Thus, since there was famine in the land of Canaan also, the sons of Israel were among those who came to procure rations. It was Joseph, as governor of the country, who dispensed the rations to all the people. When Joseph's brothers came and knelt down before him with their faces to the ground, he recognized them as soon as he saw them. But he concealed his own identity from them and spoke sternly to them. "Where do you come from?" he asked them. They answered, "From the land of Canaan, to procure food." With that, he locked them up in the guardhouse for three days. On the third day Joseph said to them: "Do this, and you shall live; for I am a God-fearing man. If you have been honest, only one of your brothers need be confined in this prison, while the rest of you may go and take home provisions for your starving families. But you must come back to me with your youngest brother. Your words will thus be verified, and you will not die." To this they agreed. To one another, however, they said: "Alas, we are being punished because of our brother. We saw the anguish of his heart when he pleaded with us, yet we paid no heed; that is why this anguish has now come upon us." "Didn't I tell you," broke in Reuben, "not to do wrong to the boy? But you wouldn't listen! Now comes the reckoning for his blood." They did not know, of course, that Joseph understood what they said, since he spoke with them through an interpreter. But turning away from them, he wept.

Give thanks to the LORD on the harp; with the ten stringed lyre chant his praises. Sing to him a new song; pluck the strings skillfully, with shouts of gladness. The LORD brings to nought the plans of nations; He foils the designs of peoples. But the plan of the LORD stands forever; The design of his heart, through all generations. See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him, upon those who hope for his kindness, To deliver them from death and preserve them in spite of famine.

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, "Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"

The Lord founded the Church by calling together the Twelve, who were to represent the future People of God. Faithful to the Lord's mandate, after his Ascension…, the Twelve continued to involve others in the duties entrusted to them so that they might continue their ministry. The Risen Lord himself called Paul (cf. Gal 1: 1)… This is the way in which this ministry, known from the second generation as the episcopal ministry, episcope, was to be continued… In this way, succession in the role of Bishop is presented as the continuity of the Apostolic ministry, a guarantee of the permanence of the Apostolic Tradition, word and life, entrusted to us by the Lord. The link between the College of Bishops and the original community of the Apostles is understood above all in the line of historical continuity. As we have seen, first Matthias, then Paul, then Barnabas joined the Twelve, then others, until, in the second and third generations, the Bishop's ministry took shape… And in the continuity of the succession lies the guarantee of the permanence, in the Ecclesial Community, of the Apostolic College that Christ had gathered around him. This continuity, however, should also be understood in a spiritual sense, because Apostolic Succession in the ministry is considered a privileged place for the action and transmission of the Holy Spirit. We find these convictions clearly echoed in the following text, for example, by Irenaeus of Lyons: "It is within the power of all... in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the Apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to count those who were by the Apostles instituted Bishops in the Churches and... the succession of these men to our own times.... [The Apostles] were desirous that these men, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, should be very perfect and blameless in all things, delivering up their own place of government to these men."