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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20230217
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DTSTAMP:20260520T145445
CREATED:20230211T142648Z
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UID:10097-1676592000-1676678399@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:The Altar of the Poor\nAn excerpt from “The Wellspring of Worship” by Jean Corbon \nPoverty is a mystery. It is not to be gauged from outside\, in the person of others; it is known in silence by those whom it burdens. And even if we experience its wounds\, we are hardly able to give it a life-giving meaning\, because it is an absence. Poverty cannot be objectified. Only he who incarnates it can reveal its mystery to us by giving us a share in it. Jesus is the Poor Man. He is more than a model of poverty; he is in his person the mystery of poverty… \nWhen the Word espouses our flesh\, he becomes poor in our humanity: poor with the poverty native to man who is made in the image of God and poor with the poverty of sinners who lack the glory of God… \nIn the final analysis\, poverty does not exist; only poor persons exist. If we serve the poor impersonally\, we still connive with those who depersonalize them. The evil rich man of the parable is anonymous\, like the death that disfigures man; the poor man of the parable is a person with a name: Lazarus\, because when all is said and done this poor man is Jesus. He is Jesus not by a juridical pretense or by a pious shift of focus that unites us to Christ without real reference to the poor\, but because of the shattering realism of the Incarnation of the poor Son: in him God becomes poor\, so that henceforth the poor are God. “What you did to the least of these little ones…”: the final judgment on all of our human behavior is based on the identity of Jesus and this poor person. The suffering of each man is the suffering of Jesus\, who makes it his own. It is because of this mystical realism that each man is saved by Christ. Our death is no longer ours but his who died and rose for us… \n…In his kenosis the Son of God made his own the suffering of every poor person; conversely\, through love he suffers mysteriously in every man – for is there \n\n\n\n\n\n\nany man who is not poor… This is what Jesus means when he says\, “You have the poor with you always”\, just as “I am with you always; yes\, to the end of time.” Because Christ in his body really passed through death and destroyed it\, he can now incorporate into himself those who are still enslaved to death. The kingdom of God is in our midst because the body of Christ is still with us in this way. Love can spread abroad because the kenosis from which it streams forth is the death in which he was buried with us and for us. \nWhen Saint John Chrysostom was trying to help the faithful of Antioch understand the mysterious unity between the liturgy they were celebrating and the liturgy they were to live out after leaving the church\, he told them they were leaving the altar of the Eucharist only to go to the altar of the poor… We must now serve\, in the persons of the poor\, the same body of Christ that we served in the memorial of his Passion and Resurrection. At the celebration the altar was the sign of the tomb\, the nonplace of death\, and the origin of the new space of the Resurrection; in daily life the poor are the sign of the risen Christ from whom life-giving love can come. \nThe altar is also the symbol of the banquet table and the divine hospitality\, which all men are invited to share. In the Eucharist we receive everything by sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ; at the altar of the poor we must respond by sharing the Gift we have received and by giving ourselves… It is on the altar of the poor that the passion of God becomes the compassion of his Church for man \n\n\n6 Corbon\, Jean. The Wellspring of Worship. Trans. Matthew J. O’Connell. San Francisco: Ignatius Press\, 2005. 241-245. \n\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n 
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-51/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230217T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230217T170000
DTSTAMP:20260520T145445
CREATED:20230218T042923Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230218T042923Z
UID:10116-1676620800-1676653200@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Reading: Thursday After Ash Wednesday
DESCRIPTION:Jesus Christ Deserves Our Love in Return 5\nFrom the writings of St Alphonsus de Liguori \nA person will become perfectly holy by loving Jesus Christ\, our God\, our chief\ngood\, and our Savior. He himself says that anyone who loves him will be loved by\nthe eternal Father: “For the Father himself loves you\, because you have loved me”.\n“Some people\,” says St. Francis de Sales\, “think that perfection can be found by an\naustere life; others make it a matter of much prayer\, or of frequenting the\nsacraments\, or of acts of charity. They are all mistaken. Perfection consists in\nloving God with our whole heart… \n…He has loved us from the very beginning of eternity: “With age-old love I\nhave loved you”. God was the first to love you. Before you existed\, indeed\, even\nbefore the world itself existed\, God was already loving you. For as long as he has\nbeen God\, he has been loving you. \nWhen God saw how human beings were attracted by good things\, he set out\nto win them over by his gifts: “I drew them with human cords\, / with bands of love”.\nEvery gift of his was created for human beings. First\, he endowed the soul made in\nhis image with its powers of memory\, intellect\, and will\, and gave it a body with all\nits senses\, created heaven and earth and all that is in them… everything was an act\nof his love. All these created things were for the use of human beings\, so that they\nlove him in return for so many gifts. “The heavens and the earth and everything in\nthem\,” says St. Augustine\, “cry out to me that I must love you.” \n…There was once a holy hermit. On his walks through the countryside\, it\nseemed to him as if the wild flowers and plants along the way reminded him of his\ningratitude to God\, and he would strike them with his staff\, saying\, “Be silent\, be\nsilent! You call me ungrateful. You tell me that God has created you out of love for\nme\, yet I do not love him. I understand you now. Be silent! Be silent! Do not\nreproach me anymore.” \nGod was not content simply to give us a beautiful creation. In order to win us\ntotally\, the Eternal Father has gone so far as to give us his one and only Son: “For\nGod so loved the world that he gave his only Son”. Seeing us dead and deprived of\ngrace through sin\, in his overwhelming love for us\, he sent his Son to make\nsatisfaction for us\, and to restore to us the life which sin had destroyed… \nWhat is even more astonishing is that he could have saved us without dying\nand without suffering. Yet he chose a life of affliction and contempt\, and a bitter\nand ignominious death. He went so far as to die on the shameful scaffold of the\nCross: “He humbled himself\, / becoming obedient to death\, / even death on a\ncross”. If he could have redeemed us without suffering\, why then did he choose to\ndie\, and to die on a cross? It was for no other reason than to show his love for us… \nThat is why St. Paul\, the great lover of Jesus Christ\, could say “the love of\nChrist impels us”. He meant that it was not so much what Jesus Christ has suffered\nfor us as the love he has shown in suffering for us which obliges us\, and indeed\nforces us\, to love him. Commenting on this text\, St. Francis de Sales asks… \n“Why\, then\, do we not throw ourselves on Jesus crucified to die on the cross\nalong with him who was willed to die there for love of us? I will cling to him\, and\nwill never more abandon him. I will die with him\, and be consumed by the fire of\nhis love. Let the same fire consume the creature as consumes the creator. My Jesus\ngives himself totally to me\, and I give myself totally to him. I will live and die on his\nbreast… Savior of our souls\, grant that we might sing for ever “May Jesus live whom\nI love\, I love Jesus who lives for ever and ever. \n5 Alphonsus de Liguori. Selected Writings. New York: Paulist Press\, 1999. 112-115.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/reading-thursday-after-ash-wednesday/
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