Vigils Reading – 13th Sunday
A reading from
ST HILARY OF POITIERS
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Christ commanded the apostles to leave everything in the world
that they held most dear, adding: Whoever does not take up his cross and
follow me is not worthy of me. For those who belong to Christ have crucified
their lower nature with its sinful passions and desires. No one is worthy of him
who refuses to take up his cross, that is to say, to share the Lord’s passion, death,
burial, and resurrection, and to follow him by living out the mystery of faith in
the newly received grace of the Spirit.
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake
will find it. This means that thanks to the power of the word and the
renunciation of past sins, temporal gains are death to the soul, and temporal
losses are salvation. Apostles must therefore take death into their new life and nail
their sins to the Lord’s cross. They must confront their persecutors with
contempt for things present, holding fast to their freedom by a glorious
confession of faith, and shunning any gain that would harm their souls. They
should know that no power over their souls has been given to anyone, and that
by suffering loss in this short life they will achieve immortality.
Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the
one who sent me. Christ gives us all a love for his teaching and a disposition to
treat our teachers with courtesy. Earlier he had shown the danger facing those
who refused to receive the apostles by requiring these to shake the dust off their
feet as a testimony against them; now he commends those who do receive the
apostles, assuring them of a greater recompense than they might have expected
for their hospitality, and he teaches that since he still acts as mediator, when we
receive him God enters us through him because he comes from God.
Thus whoever receives the apostles receives Christ, and whoever receives
Christ receives God the Father, since what is received in the apostles is nothing
else than what is received in Christ; nor is there anything in Christ but what is in
God. Through this disposition of graces to receive the apostles is to receive God,
because Christ is in them and God is in Christ.