Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading
2024-02-29
BE CONVERTED TO GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux5
◊◊◊
“Be converted to Me with all your heart,” says the Lord Almighty, “in
fasting, and in weeping and in mourning. And rend your hearts and not your
garments, and turn to the Lord your God.” What does it mean, dearest brethren,
that the Lord here commands us to turn to Him? For He is everywhere, He fills
all things and at the same time contains all things… This, my brethren, is a
secret of divine wisdom, a secret which is communicated only to the friends of
God. It is a “mystery of the kingdom of God” which is revealed privately to the
disciples. “Unless you be converted,” said the Lord, “and become like little
children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven”. Now I see clearly where
He wants us to turn. We must turn to that little Child in order to learn from
Him, because He is “meek and humble of heart”.
But let us now see how we should turn to this little One, to this Master of
meekness and humility. “Be converted to Me,” He says, “with all your heart.”
My brethren, had His words been simply “Be converted to Me”, without any
addition, we might have replied: “That we have already done; give us now
another precept.” As a matter of fact, however, He admonishes us here of a
purely spiritual conversion which cannot be accomplished in a single day; and
would to God we were able to complete it in the whole course of the life we live
in the body! An external turning to God, unaccompanied by a conversion of the
heart and spirit is worth nothing. It is only a formal, not a true conversion,
“having the appearance indeed of godliness but lacking the power of it”.
Unhappy the monk who, devoting all his attention to outward
observances, remains ignorant of his interior, for “thinking himself to be
something, whereas he is nothing, he deceives himself”. For as he looks only to
the outward appearance, when that is found to be in order he judges everything
secure, unaware of that secret worm that is consuming his being. The tonsure
still remains, the religious habit is not yet put off, the regular fasts are observed
as before, the divine praises are chanted at the appointed hours. Nevertheless
the Lord says of such a one, “His heart is far from Me”…
Therefore, let your love be converted to God, so that henceforth you shall
love nothing besides Him, or at least nothing except for His sake. Let your fear,
too, be converted to the Lord, because every fear is perverse other than fear of
Him or on account of Him. To Him let your joy also as well as your sadness be
converted. This will happen when you no longer grieve or rejoice over anything
except according to God…
Let us therefore rend our hearts, in order that thus we may be able to keep
our garments whole. Our garments are our virtues. One can understand this
rending of heart in two senses: compunction rends the evil heart, while
compassion rends the strong heart. Both rendings are undoubtedly profitable;
for the poison of sin must not remain concealed in the heart and the depths of
compassion should not be closed to a needy neighbor, so that we ourselves may
obtain mercy from our Lord Jesus Christ.

5 St. Bernard’s Sermons for the Seasons & Principal Festivals. Bernard of Clairvaux. vol. II. The Carroll Press.
Westminster, MD. 1950. p. 76.11

Vigils Reading
2024-03-01
FORGIVE US, AS WE FORGIVE
From a sermon by Caesarius of Arles6
◊◊◊
If any one of us is in conflict with another, let us end the quarrel lest we
ourselves end badly. Do not consider this unimportant, my beloved. Let us call
to mind that our life here is mortal and frail, that it is endangered by many and
great temptations, and this makes us pray that we may not be overcome. And
so, we realize that even the just are not without some sins. But there is one
remedy which enables us to keep alive. For God, our Master, told us to say in
our prayers: “Forgive us the wrong we have done as we forgive those who wrong
us.” We have made a contract with God and taken a resolution that the wrong
must be forgiven. This makes us ask with complete confidence to be forgiven
provided we too forgive.
If, on the contrary, we do not forgive, how can we in good conscience hope
that our sins will be forgiven? Let us not deceive ourselves: God deceived no
one. It is human to be angry, but I wish it were impossible. It is human to
become angry but let us not water the small plant born of anger with various
suspicions. Let us not permit it to develop into a tree of hatred. It happens also
frequently that a father is angry with his son, but he does not hate the son. He
is angry because he wishes to correct the son. If this is his purpose, his anger is
animated by love.
We read in Scripture: “Why look at the speck in your brother’s eye when
you miss the plank in your own?” You find fault with another person for being
angry, and you keep hatred in yourself. Anger in comparison with hatred is only
a speck, but if the speck is fostered, it becomes a plank. If, on the contrary, you
pluck out the speck and cast it away, it will amount to nothing.
Our Master says in another place: “Anyone who hates his brother is a
murderer.” Those who hate their brother, walk around, go out, come in, march
on, are not burdened by any chains and are not shut up in any prison, but they
are bound by their guilt. Do not think of them as not being imprisoned. Their
heart is in prison. When you hear: “He who hates his brother is in darkness all
the while,” lest you might despise that darkness, the evangelist adds: “Anyone
who hates his brother is a murderer.”
You hate your brothers and sisters and walk safely around and refuse to
be reconciled with them, and God has given you time and opportunity. Yet you
are a murderer and are still alive. If you felt God’s wrath you would be suddenly
snatched away with your hatred toward others. God spares you; spare others
likewise; make up and seek reconciliation with them. But suppose you want
reconciliation and another does not want it. That is enough for you; you have
something to grieve for, you have freed yourself. If you want agreement and the
other refuses, say confidently: “Forgive us the wrong we have done as we forgive
those who wrong us.”

6 Fraternal Harmony (Morin Sermon 185) 1-2: PLS IV, 446-447. (CR VI p 215)13

Vigils Reading
2024-03-02
THE SEASON OF PURIFICATION
By Pope St Leo the Great7
◊◊◊
This sacred season is dedicated to the purification of the soul, let us
therefore be careful to fulfill the Apostolic command that we cleanse ourselves
from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit, so that restraining the conflict
that exists between the one and the other substance, the soul, which in the
Providence of God is meant to be the ruler of the body, may regain the dignity
of its rightful authority, so that, giving offence to no one, we may not incur the
contumely of evil mongers. With just contempt shall we be tormented by those
who have no faith, and from our wickedness evil tongues will draw weapons to
wound religion, if the way of life of those who fast be not in accord with what is
needed in true self-denial. For the sum total of our fasting does not consist in
merely abstaining from food. In vain do we deny our body food if we do not
withhold our heart from iniquity, and restrain our lips that they speak no evil.
We must then so moderate our rightful use of food that our other desires
may be subject to the same rule. For this is also a time for gentleness and
patience, a time of peace and serenity, in which having put away all stains of evil
doing we strive after steadfastness in what is good. Now is the time when
generous Christian souls forgive offences, pay no heed to insults, and wipe out
the memory of past injuries. Now let the Christian soul exercise itself in the
amour of justice, on the right hand and on the left, so that amid honor and
dishonor, evil report and good, the praise of all will not make proud the virtue
that is well rooted, the conscience that has peace, nor dishonor cast it down.
The moderation of those who worship God is not melancholy, but blameless.
Therefore, you Dearly Beloved, the holy offspring of the Catholic Mother,
Whom the Spirit of God has taught in the School of Truth, use your freedom of
action with right reason, knowing that it is good to abstain, even from what is
lawful; and when you must practice self-denial, so abstain from food as merely
putting aside its use, not as condemning its nature. And so you will not allow
yourselves in any way to be infected by the error of those who are completely
defiled by their own observance of it; serving the creature rather than the
Creator; and dedicating their own stupid observance to the lights of heaven.

7 Sermons of the Great Fathers. “Lent the Season of Purification” by Pope Leo the Great. Henry Regenery Co., 1958,
pp. 29-31.15

Skema
2024-03-03
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
3rd Week of Lent

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
March 3 – 9, 2024

Sun
3
Mon
4
Tue
5
Wed
6
Thu
7
Fri
8
Sat
9

Office
3rd Sunday of Lent
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday

Vigils
Deut 12:1-14
Deut 12:29-13:19
Deut 14:22-15:11
Deut 16:1-17
Deut 16:18-17:13
Deut 18:1-22
Deut 19:1-21

Lauds
Exod 10:7-11
Exod 10:21-29
Exod 11:4-10
Exod 12:21-28
Exod 12:29-36
Exod 13:11-16
Exod 13:17-22

Mass
29
236
238
239
240
241
242

1st
Exod 20:1-17
Exod 17:1-7
Dan 3:25, 34-43
Deut 4:1, 5-9
Jer 7:23-28
Hos 14:2-10
Hos 6:1-6

2nd
1 Cor 1:22-25

Gospel
John 2:13-25
John 4:5-42
Matt 18:21-35
Matt 5:17-19
Luke 11:14-23
Mark 12:28b-34
Luke 18:9-14

Vespers
Heb 9:15-22
Heb 9:23-28
Heb 10:1-10
Heb 10:11-18
Heb 10:19-25
Heb 10:26-31
Heb 10:32-39

Vigils Reading - 3rd Sun Lent
2024-03-03
THE TEMPLE OF GOD,
THIS BODY OF CHRIST
From a commentary by St Augustine1
◊◊◊
God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple all you who believe in Christ
and whose belief makes you love him. Real belief in Christ means love of Christ:
it is not the belief of the demons who believed without loving and therefore
despite their belief said: “What do you want with us, Son of God?” No, let our
belief be full of love for him…so that instead of saying: What do you want with
us, we may rather say: We belong to you, you have redeemed us. All who believe
in this way are like the living stones which go to build God’s temple, and like the
rot-proof timber used in the framework of the ark which the floodwaters could
not submerge. It is in this temple, that is, in ourselves, that prayer is addressed
to God and heard by Him.
But to pray in God’s temple we must pray in the peace of the Church, in
the unity of the body of Christ, which is made up of many believers throughout
the world. When we pray in this temple our prayers are heard, because whoever
prays in the peace of the Church prays in spirit and in truth.
Our Lord’s driving out of the temple people who were seeking their own
ends, who came to the temple to buy and sell, is symbolic. For if that temple was
a symbol it obviously follows that the body of Christ, the true temple of which
the other was an image, has within it some who are buyers and sellers, or in
other words, people who are seeking their own interests and not those of Jesus
Christ.
But the temple was not destroyed by the people who wanted to turn the
house of God into a den of thieves, and neither will those who live evil lives in
the Catholic Church and do all they can to convert God’s house into a robber’s
den succeed in destroying the temple. The time will come when they will be
driven out by a whip made of their own sins.
The temple of God, this body of Christ, this assembly of believers, has but
one voice, and sings the psalms as though it were but one person. If we wish, it
is our voice; if we wish, we may listen to the singer with our ears and ourselves
sing in our hearts. But if we choose not to do so, it will mean that we are like
buyers and sellers, preoccupied with our own interests.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – NY – 1994 – pg 14.3

Vigils Reading
2024-03-04
YOUR VERDICT ON OTHERS,
WILL BE THE VERDICT PASSED ON YOU
From a homily of St Asterius of Amasea2
◊◊◊
If you desire to resemble God, for you have been created in God’s own
image, imitate your model. You, Christians, whose very name calls to mind love,
imitate Christ’s love. Consider and wonder at the wealth of Christ’s love for us.
When he was about to show himself to us in our own nature, he sent John to
preach repentance by word and example. Before John he sent all the prophets.
They too were to teach people to amend their lives. Then he came himself and
with his own voice cried out: Come to me, all you who labour and are
overburdened, and I will give you rest. And how did he receive those who
listened to his call and followed him? He readily forgave them their sins,
instantly relieving them of all their cause for grief. The Word has sanctified
them and the Spirit has confirmed them. Their old self was buried in the waters
of baptism and a new self born; their youth was renewed by grace. And the
result? Enemies of God became his friends, strangers to him became his
children, idolaters became worshipers of the true God.
You, therefore, who are harsh and unable to show gentleness, learn
goodness from your Creator. Do not act as bitter judges and severe arbiters
toward those who are your companions in service, as you wait for the coming of
One who will reveal the secret recesses of the heart and, as the Almighty Lord,
will assign to each person their proper place in the life beyond.
Do not pass severe judgements that you may avoid being judged with the
same severity, being pierced yourselves by the words of your own mouth as by
sharp-pointed teeth. For it is against this kind of fault that the words of the
gospel seem indeed to warn us where it is said: If you want to avoid judgement,
stop passing judgement, your verdict on others will be the verdict passed on
you.
Christ does not thereby mean that he wants to banish discernment and
wisdom. What he condemns is a condemnation that is too severe. So, lighten as
much as possible the weight of your measurement of others, if you want your
own actions not to be considered excessively heavy when our lives are weighed
at the divine judgement… Do not refuse to act mercifully that you yourselves
may not be sent away unpardoned at the time when you will need forgiveness.

2 Homily 13: PG 40, 355-359C-D. [CR VI 221] [cf. also WS II 176].5

Vigils Reading
2024-03-05
EVERYWHERE MERCY PRECEDES
From a sermon of Blessed Guerric of Igny3
◊◊◊
O happy the humility of those who repent; O blessed the hope of those
who confess. How mighty you are with the Almighty; how easily you conquer
the unconquerable; how quickly you turn the dreadful judge into a devoted
father. We have heard to our great edification of the prodigal son’s sorrowful
journey, tearful repentance and glorious reception. He was so gravely guilty and
had not yet confessed but only planned to; had not yet made satisfaction but
only bent his mind to it. Yet by merely intending to humble himself he
immediately obtained a pardon, which others seek for so long a time with such
great desire, beg for with such tears, strive for with such diligence. The thief on
the cross was absolved by a simple confession, the prodigal by only the will to
confess…
Scripture says, “I will confess my transgression to the Lord; and you did
forgive the guilt of my sin.” Everywhere mercy precedes. It had preceded the
will to confess by inspiring it; it preceded also the words of confession by
forgiving what was to be confessed. “When he was still far off,” we read, “his
father saw him and was moved with compassion, and running to meet him fell
upon his neck and kissed him.” These words seem to suggest that the father was
even more anxious to pardon his son than the son was to be pardoned. He
hastened to absolve the guilty one from what was tormenting his conscience, as
if the merciful father suffered more in his compassion for his miserable son than
the son did in his own miseries. We do not mean to attribute human feelings to
the unchangeable nature of God; we intend rather that our affection should be
softened and moved to love that supreme goodness by learning from
comparison with human feelings that he loves us more than we love him…
See how where sin abounded grace abounds still more. The guilty one
could scarcely hope for pardon; the judge, or rather not now the judge but the
advocate, heaps us grace. “Quick,” he says, “bring forth the best robe and clothe
him in it, put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet; fetch the fatted calf and
kill it, let us eat and make merry, for this son of mine who had died has come
back to life.
”
… What a wealth of graciousness and sweetness, what an
abundance of most blessed joy, what torrents of most holy delight do they not
contain?…
If such is the grace accorded to the repentant what will be the glory of
those who reign? If such are the consolations of the wretched, what will be the
joys of the blessed? And since he gives us so much in advance while we are still
on the way, what treasures is he not keeping stored up for us when we arrive in
our fatherland? Indeed, what has not entered into the heart of man: that we
should be like him and that God should be all in all.

3 Guerric of Igny – Liturgical Sermons – vol. 1 – CF #8 – Cistercian Publications – Spencer, MA – 1970.7

Vigils Reading
2024-03-06
THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW ROAD
From a sermon of St Caesarius of Arles4
◊◊◊
I beseech you, beloved, with God’s help let us celebrate these days,
salutary for bodies and healing for the soul, in so holy and spiritual a manner
that the observance of a holy Lent may lead to progress for us and not judgment.
For if we lead a careless life, involving ourselves in too many occupations,
refusing to observe chastity, not applying ourselves to fasting and vigils and
prayers, neither reading Sacred Scripture ourselves nor willingly listen to others
reading it, the very remedies are changed into wounds for us. As a result of this
we shall have judgment, where we could have had a remedy…
For this reason, dearest brethren, “Have no love for the world, nor the
things the world affords,” because “the world with its seductions is passing
away”. What, then, remains in a man except what each one has stored up in the
treasury of his conscience for the salvation of his soul by reading or prayer or
the performance of good works? For miserable pleasure, still more wretched
lust and dissipation, through a passing sweetness prepare eternal bitterness;
but abstinence, vigils, prayer and fasting lead to the delights of paradise through
the briefest hardships. The Truth does not lie when He says in the Gospel:
“Straight and narrow is the road that leads to eternal life, and how few there are
that find it!” Not for long is there rejoicing on the broad way, and not for long is
there labor on the straight and narrow road. After brief sadness those who travel
the latter receive eternal life, while those who travel the former, after short joy,
suffer endless punishment.
For this reason, dearest brethren, by fasting, reading and prayer in these
forty days we ought to store up for our souls provisions, as it were, for the whole
year. Although through the mercy of God you frequently and devoutly hear the
divine lessons throughout the entire year, still during these days we ought to
rest from the winds and the sea of this world by taking refuge, as it were, in the
haven of Lent, and in the quiet of silence to receive the divine lessons in the
receptacle of our heart. Devoting ourselves to God out of love for eternal life,
during these days let us with all solicitude strive to repair and compose in the
little ship of our soul whatever throughout the year has been broken or
destroyed or damaged or ruined by many storms, that is, by the waves of sins.
And since it is necessary for us to endure the storms and tempests of this world
while we are still in this frail body, as often as the enemy wills to lead us astray
by means of the roughest storms or to deceive us by the most voluptuous
pleasures, with God’s help may <the enemy> always find us prepared against
him.
If…you both willingly heed and strive faithfully to fulfill…the truths which
we are suggesting for the salvation of all by presuming on your obedience, you
will celebrate Easter with joy and happily come to eternal life. May He Himself
deign to grant this, who together with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and
reigns for ever and ever.

4 St Caesarius of Arles, Sermons, vol.3, The Fathers of the Church, vol. 66, Catholic University of America Press,
Washington DC, 1973, pg. 41.9

Vigils Reading
2024-03-07
THE BEATING HEART OF THE UNIVERSE
From a homily by Pope Benedict XVI5
◊◊◊
It is not God’s presence that alienates man, but His absence: without the
true God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, illusory hopes become an invitation
to escape from reality. Speaking with God, dwelling in His presence, letting
oneself be illuminated and purified by His Word introduces us, instead, into the
heart of reality, into the very motor of becoming cosmic; it introduces us, so to
speak, to the beating heart of the universe.
In a harmonious connection with prayer, fasting and almsgiving can also
be considered occasions for learning and practicing Christian hope.
The…ancient writers liked to emphasize that these three dimensions of Gospel
life are inseparable, reciprocally enrich each other and bear more fruit the more
they collaborate with each other. Lent as a whole, thanks to the joint action of
prayer, fasting and almsgiving, forms Christians to be men and women of hope
after the example of the Saints…
“The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship
to suffering and the sufferer. This holds true both for the individual and for
society. Easter, to which Lent is oriented, is the mystery which gives meaning
to human suffering, based on the superabundant compassion of God, brought
about in Jesus Christ. The Lenten journey therefore, since it is wholly steeped
in the Easter light, makes us relive what happened in Christ’s divine and human
heart while he was going up to Jerusalem for the last time to offer himself in
expiation.
Suffering and death fell like darkness as he gradually came nearer to the
Cross, but the flame of love shone brighter. Indeed Christ’s suffering was
penetrated by the light of love. It was the Father’s love that permitted the son to
confidently face his last “baptism”, which he himself defines as the apex of his
mission.
Jesus received that baptism of sorrow and love for us, for all of humanity.
He has suffered for truth and justice, bringing the gospel of suffering to human
history, which is the other aspect of the Gospel of love. God cannot suffer, but
He can and wants to be compassionate. Through Christ’s passion he can bring
his <consolation> to every human suffering, “the consolation of God’s
compassionate love – and so the star of hope rises.”
As for prayer, so for suffering: the history of the Church is very rich in
witnesses who spent themselves for others without reserve, at the cost of harsh
suffering. The greater the hope that enlivens us, the greater is the ability within
us to suffer for the love of truth and good, joyfully offering up the minor and
major daily hardships and inserting them into Christ’s great compassion.

5 L’Osservatore Romano – February 13, 2008 – pg 6.11

Vigils Reading
2024-03-08
HE BORE THE PUNISHMENT
WHICH BRINGS US PEACE
From a sermon by St Cyril of Alexandria6
◊◊◊
In the account of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac, the Bible portrays
the mystery of our Savior in all its aspects. Because I want you to have a clear
understanding of this deep mystery of our religion, I must show you the
connection between the events that typified the truth itself, and explain how
each part of the story should be interpreted.
The holy Abraham took his son and hastened to the place that God had
shown him. The fact that the boy was brought to be sacrificed by his father is
meant to teach us by way of type or sign that the Lord Jesus Christ was not
raised upon the cross by any human power, nor by the wickedness of those who
laid snares for him, but by the will of the Father, whose providential plan
permitted him to suffer death for the whole world. The Savior himself said as
much when he answered Pilate: you would have no power over me if it had not
been given you from above. At another time, speaking to his Father in heaven,
he said: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. But your will, not mine,
be done.
Abraham laid the wood for the sacrifice on his son’s shoulders. In the
same way, the Jews laid the wood of the cross on the Savior’s shoulders and they
did this with the consent, one might almost say the cooperation of the Father;
for it is not possible to compel the divine power. The prophet Isaiah bears
reliable witness to this when he says: He bore the punishment which brings us
peace, and by his wounds we are healed. We had all strayed like sheep,
everyone had gone his own way and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.
When the patriarch eventually arrived at the appointed place, he put all
his skill into building a good altar. This too we are meant to interpret in a
spiritual way and so to understand that what appears to the human eye as a
cross and a gibbet is in fact in the eyes of the Father of the whole universe a vast
and towering altar raised up for the salvation of the world, and blackened by the
smoke of a pure and most holy sacrifice.
By his words, I bared my back to the scourge, and let myself be struck on
the face, Isaiah foretold the blows that his enemies would shamelessly inflict on
the Savior’s body, and their spitting upon it… Our Lord Jesus Christ,
disregarding the shame, humbled himself in obedience to the Father, even to
the extent of dying for our salvation. He died to give us life through the Holy
Spirit and to raise us up with himself, to open the gates of heaven to us and to
lead us in, thus restoring to the Father the human race whose sin had long ago
made it fly from his presence.
Therefore, beloved, let this great work of our Savior be acclaimed by every
voice, let his praise be on every tongue. Let the sweet sound of that ancient song
be heard again: God has gone up with shouts of jubilation, the Lord has
ascended with a fanfare of trumpets. He completed the work of our salvation
and then ascended, indeed he not only ascended but he also led captivity
captive and gave gifts to mortals.

6 A Word in Season – vol. II – Exordium Books – 1982 – pg 147.13

Vigils Reading
2024-03-09
HE CAME TO CALL SINNERS
From a letter by St Maximus the Confessor7
◊◊◊
God’s will is to save us and nothing pleases him more than our coming
back to him with true repentance. The heralds of truth and ministers of divine
grace have told us this from the beginning, repeating it in every age. Indeed
God’s desire for our salvation is the primary and preeminent sign of his infinite
goodness, and it was precisely in order to show that there is nothing closer to
God’s heart that the divine Word of God the Father, with untold condescension,
lived among us in the flesh, and that he did, suffered, and said all that was
necessary to reconcile us to God the Father when we were at enmity with him,
and to restore us to the life of blessedness from which we have been exiled. He
healed our physical infirmities by miracles; he freed us from our sins, many and
grievous as they were, by suffering and dying, taking them upon himself as if he
were answerable for them, sinless though he was. He also taught us in many
different ways that we should wish to imitate him by our own kindness and
genuine love for one another.
Thus he proclaimed that he had come to call sinners to repentance, not
the righteous, and that it was not the healthy who required a doctor, but the
sick. He declared that he had come to look for the sheep that was lost and that
it was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel that he had been sent. Speaking
more obscurely in the parable of the silver coin, he tells us that the purpose of
his coming was to reclaim the royal image, which had been coated with the filth
of sin. You can be sure that there is joy in heaven, he said, over one sinner who
repents.
To the same lesson he revived the man who, having fallen into the hands
of brigands, had been left stripped and half-dead from his wounds; he poured
wine and oil on the wounds, bandaged them, placed the man on his own mule,
and brought him to an inn, where he left sufficient money to have him cared for,
and promised to repay any further expense on his return.
Again, he told of how the father, who is goodness itself, was moved with
pity for his profligate son who returned and made amends by repentance; how
he embraced him, dressed him once more in the fine garments that befitted his
own dignity, and did not reproach him for any of his sins.
Then there was the time when one of the hundred sheep in God’s flock
went astray. When he found it wandering in the mountains and hills he did not
exhaust it by driving it back to the fold, but placed it on his own shoulders, and
so in his compassion restored it safely to the flock.
His teaching was the same when he cried out: “Come to me, all you that
toil and are heavy of heart.” “Accept my yoke,” he said, by which he meant his
commands, or rather the whole way of life that he taught us in the Gospel. He
then speaks of a burden, but that is only because repentance seems difficult. In
fact, however, “my yoke is easy,” he assures us, “and my burden is light.”
Then again he instructs us in divine justice and goodness, telling us to be
like our heavenly Father, holy, perfect and merciful. Forgive, he says, and you
will be forgiven. Treat other people as you would wish them to treat you.

7 A Word in Season – Monastic Lectionary – vol. II – Lent – Exordium Books – 1982 – pg. 14.15

Skema
2024-03-10
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
4th Week of Lent

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
March 10 – 16, 2024

Sun
10
Mon
11
Tue
12
Wed
13
Thu
14
Fri
15
Sat
16

Office
4th Sunday of Lent
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday

Vigils
Deut 21:1-9, 22-23
Deut 24:10-22
Deut 26:1-15
Deut 26:16-27:10
Deut 27:11-26
Deut 28:1-19
Deut 28:58-69

Lauds
Exod 14:10-14
Exod 14:19-22
Exod 14-26-31
Exod 15:19-21
Exod 16:1-3
Exod 16:9-15
Exod 19:1-8

Mass
32
243
245
246
247
248
249

1st
2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23
Mic 7:7-9
Ezek 47:1-9, 12
Isa 49:8-15
Exod 32:7-14
Wis 2:1a, 12-22
Jer 11:18-20

2nd
Eph 2:4-10

Gospel
John 3:14-21
John 9:1-41
John 5:1-3a, 5-16
John 5:17-30
John 5:31-47
John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30
John 7:40-53

Vespers
Heb 11:1-7
Heb 11:8-16
Heb 11:17-22
Heb 11:23-31
Heb 11:32-40
Heb 12:1-6
Heb 12:7-13

Vigils Reading - 4th Sunday of Lent
2024-03-10
THE CROSS OF OUR LORD
From a commentary by St John Chrysostom1
◊◊◊
Although we praise our common Lord for all kinds of reasons, we praise
and glorify him above all for the cross. It fills us with awe to see him dying like
one accursed. It is this death for people like ourselves that Paul constantly
regards as the sign of Christ’s love for us. He passes over everything else that
Christ did for our advantage and consolation and dwells incessantly on the
cross. The proof of God’s love for us, he says, is that Christ died for us while we
were still sinners. Then in the following sentence he gives us the highest ground
for hope: If, when we were alienated from God, we were reconciled to him by
the death of his Son, how much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be
saved by his life! It is this above all that made Paul so proud, so happy, so full
of joy and exultation, when he wrote to the Galatians: God forbid that I should
glory in anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. What wonder, indeed,
if Paul rejoices and glories in the cross, when the Lord himself spoke of his
passion as his glory. Father, he prayed, the hour has come: glorify your Son.
The disciple who wrote those also told us that the Holy Spirit had not yet
come to them because Jesus was not yet glorified, calling the cross glory. And
when he wanted to show God’s love, did he do so by referring to signs, wonders,
or miracles of any sort? By no means: he pointed to the cross, saying: God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son, that all who believe in him might
not perish but have eternal life. And Paul writes: Since he did not spare his own
Son, but gave him up for us all, how can he fail to lavish every other gift upon
us? And in his exhortation to humility he uses the same example, saying: You
should have the same dispositions as you find in Christ Jesus. Although his
nature was divine, he did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied
himself to assume the condition of a slave. Bearing the human likeness,
sharing the human lot, he humbled himself and was obedient even to the point
of dying – dying on a cross!
Returning to the subject of love, Paul again urges his hearers to love one
another, even as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us as a fragrant
offering and sacrifice to God. And Christ himself showed how the cross was his
chief preoccupation, and how much he longed to suffer. In his ignorance, Peter,
first of the Twelve, foundation of the Church, leader of the Apostles, protested:
God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you! Listen to what Christ called
him: Get behind me, Satan. You are an obstacle in my way, proving by the
strength of his reprimand his great eagerness to suffer on the cross.

1 Journey with the Fathers -Year B – New City Press – NY – 1993 – pg 36.3

Vigils Reading
2024-03-11
THINK OF YOURSELF IN HUMILITY
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny2
◊◊◊
Now you, blessed sinner, although not blessed because a sinner but
because repentant of sin, what encouragement was yours in your father’s
embrace and his kiss, when he restored his love to you of whom he had almost
despaired, when he made your heart clean again and overwhelmed you with the
joy of your salvation.
“And how,” he says, “shall speech explain what the mind cannot contain?”
Unspeakable are the groans and inexplicable the affections to which the spirit
gives birth as if impregnated by the incomprehensible. The human heart is too
narrow for them and therefore it is torn and pours itself out. The ardor, which
it conceives but cannot contain, it breathes forth and spreads abroad in what
ways it can, by tears, groans, sighs. These things are better known to people who
have tasted them often and abundantly.
Now also, I say, when you have been released after those embraces and
kisses, when you think over what has passed between you and him, when you
consider what your cause was and how it was judged by him, bearing in mind
on the one hand the abundance of your offence, on the other hand the
superabundance of his grace, to what, I ask, does your thought give birth in you?
“Naught but this”, he says, “that an unutterable fire blazes out in my
meditation, on the one hand for sorrow and shame, on the other hand for joy
and love. I would not consider myself a man but a stone if I were so hard-hearted
as not to grieve or be ashamed, or so wicked and ungrateful as not to be wholly
liquefied for joy or love of that father.”
Keep then, O happy sinner, keep carefully and watchfully this spirit of
yours, this most fitting affection of humility and devotion by which you may
always think of yourself in humility and of the Lord in goodness. There is
nothing greater than it among the gifts of the Holy Spirit, nothing more precious
in the treasures of God, nothing more holy among all the charisms, nothing
more health giving in all the sacraments….

2 Guerric of Igny – Liturgical Sermons – vol. 1 – CF #8 _ Cistercian Publications – Spencer, MA – 1970 p 143.5

Vigils Reading
2024-03-12
GOD WILL HELP YOU
From the Fourth Vision of St Hildegard of Bingen3
◊◊◊
Dearest children, open your eyes and ears… The choirs of angels sing,
“You are just, O Lord!”, because God’s justice has no flaw in it; for God delivered
Man not by power but by mercy, when He sent His Son into the world to redeem
him… But you, when you consider good and evil, are standing, as it were, where
two roads branch off. If you despise the darkness of evil and want to see Him
Whose creature you are, and Whom you acknowledged in holy baptism where
the old sin of Adam was nullified in you; and if you say, “ I want to fly from the
Devil and his works and follow the true God and His precepts”; then think how
you have been taught to turn away from evil and do good, and how the Heavenly
Father did not spare His Only-Begotten but sent Him for your deliverance; and
pray to God to help you. And He, hearing you, will say, “These eyes are pleasing
to me!” And if you then cast off weariness and run courageously in God’s
commands, He will always hear the cry of your prayers…
But if you have fallen into sin, quickly rise by confession and pure
penitence, before death lays claim to you. For your Father wants you to cry out,
weep and ask for help so as not to remain in the squalor of sin. For if you have
been wounded, you seek a physician lest you die. Does not God often send
people troubles, so that they will more intently invoke Him? But you, O human,
say “I cannot do good works!” I say you can. And you say “How?” And I say,
“By thought and action.” And you answer, “I lack decision.” And I answer,
“Learn to fight against yourself!” And you say, “I cannot fight against myself
unless God helps me.” Hear then how you can fight against yourself. When evil
rises up in you and you do not know how to get rid of it, then, touched by…grace,
which reaches you in the paths of your inner vision, at once cry out, pray,
confess and weep so that God will help you, and remove evil from you, and grant
you strength in good. For this good is yours by the knowledge that lets you
understand God by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit… So let the faithful person
recognize his pain and seek a physician before he falls dead.

3 Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias. Trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop. New York: Paulist Press, 1990. 125-128.7

Vigils Reading
2024-03-13
LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER
From a sermon by St Leo the Great4
◊◊◊
In the gospel of John the Lord says: “In this will all people know that you
are my disciples, if you have love for one another”. In a letter of the same apostle
we read: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone
who loves is born of God and knows God; whoever does not love does not know
God, for God is Love”.
The faithful should enter into themselves and make a true judgment on
their attitudes of mind and heart. If they find some store of love’s fruit in their
hearts, they must not doubt God’s presence within them. If they would increase
their capacity to receive so great a guest, they should practice greater generosity
in doing good, with persevering charity.
Any time is the right time for works of charity, but these days of Lent
provide a special encouragement. Those who want to be present at the Lord’s
Passover in holiness of mind and body should seek above all to win this grace,
for charity contains all other virtues and covers a multitude of sins.
As we prepare to celebrate that greatest of all mysteries, by which the
blood of Jesus Christ did away with our sins, let us first of all make ready the
sacrificial offerings of works of mercy. In this way we shall give to those who
have sinned against us what God in his goodness has already given to us.
Let us extend to the poor and those afflicted in different ways a more
open-handed generosity, so that God may be thanked through many voices and
the relief of the needy supported by our fasting. No act of devotion on the part
of the faithful gives God more pleasure than that which is lavished on his poor.
Where he finds charity with its loving concern, there he recognizes the reflection
of his own fatherly care.
In these acts of giving do not fear a lack of means. A generous spirit is
itself great wealth. There can be no shortage of material for generosity where it
is Christ who feeds and Christ who is fed. In all this activity there is present the
hand of him who multiplies the bread by breaking it, and increases it by giving
it away.
The giver of alms should be free from anxiety and full of joy. His gain will
be the greatest when he keeps back least for himself. The holy Apostle Paul tells
us: “He who provides seed for the sower will also provide bread for eating; he
will provide you with more seed, and will increase the harvest of your
goodness”, in Christ Jesus our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and
the Holy spirit for ever and ever.

4 The Liturgy of the Hours – vol II – pg 295 – Catholic Book Publishing Co – 1976.9

Vigils Reading
2024-03-14
THE ROLE OF THE PROPHET
From the writing of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel5
◊◊◊
The certainty of being inspired by God, of speaking in His name, of having
been sent by Him to the people, is the basic and central fact of the prophet’s
consciousness. Other people regard experience as the source of certainty; what
singles out the prophet in the world of man is that to him the source of his
experience is the source of his certainty. To his mind, the validity and
distinction of his message lie in the origin, not only in the moment of his
experience…
In a variety of ways, in utterance and in action, the prophets stressed their
staggering claim. It was such certainty of being inspired that enabled the
prophet to proclaim again and again: “Thus says the Lord”; “Hear the word of
the Lord”… There is no doubt that the prophets were conscious of their own
sincerity; that their tongues were not confuted by their consciences. “What I
heard from the Lord of hosts, … I announce to you,” said Isaiah. And Jeremiah
insisted “That which came out of my lips was before Thy face”.
The prophet does not speak of a resolution or a purpose, framed by
himself, to devote himself to his vocation, but describes a decisive moment in
which he received a call. He thinks of himself as “a messenger of God”, sent by
Him to His people. Moreover, he does not speak on the strength of a single
experience or sporadic inspirations. His entire existence is dedicated to his
mission… When “Jeremiah’s harsh word of judgment against the Temple of
Jerusalem provoked the priests… that they wanted to kill him,” Jeremiah had
nothing to say in his defense before the royal officials except: “…the Lord has
sent me to you, to say all these words in your ears”…
To the consciousness of the prophet, the prophetic act is more than an
experience; it is an objective event… It is not a discovery, a coming upon
something permanently given by the mind of the prophet…a timeless idea…
justice, a law, but something dynamic, an act of giving; not an eternal word, but
a word spoken, a word expressed, springing from a Presence, a word in time, a
pathos overflowing in words. His experience is a perception of an act that
happens rather than a perception of a situation that abides…
Thus, to the prophetic consciousness, inspiration is…experienced as a
divine act which takes place not within but beyond, as an event which happens
in one’s view rather than in one’s heart. The prophet does not merely feel it; he
faces it.

5 Heschel, Abraham J. The Prophets. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. 426-433.11

Vigils Reading
2024-03-15
A CHURCH OF PENANCE AND PRAYER
From a sermon by St Oscar Romero6
◊◊◊
Not everyone… will have the honor of offering their blood physically or of
being killed for the faith. But God does ask all those who believe in him to have
the spirit of martyrdom. In other words, all of us should be ready to die for our
faith even if the Lord does not grant us this honor. If we are so disposed, then
when our time comes to give an accounting of our lives, we can say: “Lord, I was
willing to give my life for you. And I have given it, because giving one’s life is
not only being killed; it means living with the spirit of martyrdom and giving
through duty, through silence, through prayer”. Indeed, it is in the honest
fulfillment of duty and in the silence of daily life that we give our lives to God.
We give our lives as does the mother who with no fuss, with the simplicity of
motherly martyrdom, gives birth and gives her breast to her children and
lovingly cares for them. This is what it means to give one’s life… May we all
interpret for our lives what is now so necessary: surrendering our lives to
holiness and being faithful to our obligations…
It is wonderful to be Catholic at this time. Let us not be distressed but
happy. Let us feel joyful in our spirit of courage and in our commitment to
God… The less we place our trust in the things of earth, the greater will be God’s
protection… In God is our hope.
Penance was the word with which Christ began to preach the gospel, and
it is also the substance of the church’s preaching: “Do penance! Be converted!
Leave behind your evil ways!”… How I wish…that this Gospel word, spoken with
tenderness…would reach those places where so many criminals are hidden,
those dark corners of hell where so many calumnies are being plotted: “Be
converted. Do not plant seeds of hatred! Do not kill more of our sisters and
brothers! Do not spread more calumnies. Be converted, for these perverse
roads lead to hell, and the Virgin wants you in her heaven.
… May prayer never fail in our hearts and on our lips. May we lift up our
hearts to God, seeking favors, giving thanks, and asking for mercy. At this time
I have great confidence… because there are many souls deep in prayer. As long
as people are praying, I am not distressed. I tell the Lord in the intimacy of my
Mass, as all priests do, “Lord, look not on my sins, but on the faith of your
church”. The faith of your church, Lord, is the old woman praying her rosary.
The faith of our church is the sick man who feels useless but offers his suffering
to God. The faith of the church is the father worried about supporting his
family, honest and faithful to his home. The faith of the church is the religious
who becomes holy in her own vocation. It is the priest, the seminarian, the
child, and all those who live their vocation as church. The church is made up of
all of us, and insofar as we pray and become holy, we are the power of the world,
the force that descends from God, because the power of our prayer is derived
from God.
…Let us become a church of penance and prayer… that this Blood of
Christ “that is shed for you” may become truly a rain of peace, tranquility,
harmony and reconciliation….

6 Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. A Prophetic Bishop Speaks to His People: Vol. 1. Trans. Joseph
Owens, S.J. Miami, FL: Convivium Press, 2015. 110-114.13

Vigils Reading
2024-03-16
LABOR WHILE IT IS YET DAY
From a sermon by St Ambrose7
◊◊◊
Give thanks, brethren, to the Divine Mercy which has brought you safely
half-way through the season of Lent. For this favor they give praise to God,
thankfully and with devotion, who in these days have striven to live in the
manner in which they were instructed at the beginning of Lent: that is, those
who, coming with eagerness to the church, have sought with sighs and tears, in
daily fasting and alms, to obtain the forgiveness of their sins.
They, however, who have neglected this duty, that is to say, those who
have not fasted daily, or given alms, or those who were indifferent or unmoved
in prayer, they have no reason to rejoice, but cause rather for mourning. Yet let
them not mourn as if they had no hope; for He who could give back sight to the
man blind from birth can likewise change those who now are lukewarm and
indifferent into souls fervent and zealous in His service, if with their whole heart
they desire to be converted unto Him.
Labor therefore, beloved children in the Lord, labor while it is yet day; for
as Christ our Lord says, The night comes, when no man can work. Daytime is
this present life; night is death and the time that follows death. If after this life
there is no more freedom to work, as the Truth tells us, why then does every
person not labor while yet there is time…while he still lives in this world?
Be fearful, brethren, of this death. All those who now work evil are
without fear of this death, and because of this when they depart from this life
they shall encounter everlasting death. Labor while you yet live, and particularly
in these days; fasting from dainty fare, withholding yourselves at all times from
evil works. For those who abstain from food, but do not withhold themselves
from wickedness, are like the devil, who while he eats not, never ceases from
evildoing.

7 The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers – vol. 2 – Henry Regnery Co – Chicago – 1958 – pg
82.15

Skema: 5th Week of Lent
2024-03-17
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
5th Week of Lent

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
March 17 – 23, 2024

Sun
17
Mon
18
Tue
19
Wed
20
Thu
21
Fri
22
Sat
23

Office
5th Sunday of Lent
Lenten Weekday
St Joseph
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday

Vigils
Deut 29:1-20
Deut 30:1-14
Hosea 11:1-11
Deut 31:16-29
Deut 31:30-32:20
Deut 32:36-52
Deut 34:1-12

Lauds
Exod 19:16-19
Exod 20:1-7
Wis 10:9-12
Exod 20:18-21
Exod 24:12-18
Exod 32:7-14
Exod 32:30-35

Mass
35
250
543
253
254
255
256

1st
Jer 31:31-34
2 Kgs 4:18b-21, 32-37
2 Sam 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16
Dan 3:14-20, 91-92, 95
Gen 17:3-9
Jer 20:10-13
Ezek 37:21-28

2nd
Heb 5:7-9

Rom 4:13, 16-18, 22

Gospel
John 12:20-33
John 11:1-45
Matt 1:16, 18-21, 24a
John 8:31-42
John 8:51-59
John 10:31-42
John 11:45-56

Vespers
Heb 12:14-17
James 1:22-27
Eph 3:14-21
Heb 13:1-8
Heb 13:9-16
Heb 13:17-25
Gal 3:7-14

5th Sunday of Lent
2024-03-17
HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE
From a commentary by St Cyril of Alexandria 1
◊◊◊
As the first fruits of our renewed humanity, Christ escaped the curse of
the law precisely by becoming accursed for our sake. He overcame the forces of
corruption, by himself becoming once more, free among the dead. He trampled
death under foot and came to life again, and then he ascended to the Father as
an offering, the first fruits…of the human race. He ascended, as Scripture says,
not to a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the real one, but into
heaven itself, to appear in God’s presence on our behalf. He is the life-giving
bread that came down from heaven, and by offering himself to God the Father
as a fragrant sacrifice for our sake, he also delivers us from our sins and frees us
from the faults that we commit through ignorance.
We can understand this best if we think of him as symbolized by the calf
that used to be slain as a holocaust and by the goat that was sacrificed for our
sins committed through ignorance. For our sake, to blot out the sins of the
world, he laid down his life. Recognized then in bread as life and the giver of
life, in the calf as a holocaust offered by himself to God the Father as an
appeasing fragrance, in the goat as one who became sin for our sake and was
slain for our transgressions, Christ is also symbolized in another way by a sheaf
of grain…
The human race may be compared to spikes of wheat in a field, rising, as
it were, from the earth, awaiting their full growth and development, and then in
time being cut down by the reaper, which is death. The comparison is apt, since
Christ himself spoke of our race in this way when he said to his holy disciples:
Do you not say, “Four months and it will be harvest time?” Look at the fields I
tell you, they are already white and ready for harvesting. The reaper is
already receiving his wages and bringing in a crop for eternal life.
Now Christ became like one of us; he sprang from the holy Virgin like a
spike of wheat from the ground. Indeed, he spoke of himself as a grain of wheat
when he said: I tell you truly, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and
dies, it remains as it was, a single grain; but if it dies its yield is very great.
And so, like a sheaf of grain, the first fruits, as it were, of the earth, he offered
himself to the Father for our sake.
For we do not think of a spike of wheat, any more than we do of ourselves,
in isolation. We think of it rather as part of a sheaf, which is a single bundle
made up of many spikes. The spikes have to be gathered into a bundle before
they can be used, and this is the key to the mystery they represent, the mystery
of Christ who, though one, appears in the image of a sheaf to be made up of
many, as in fact he is. Spiritually, he contains in himself all believers. As we
have been raised up with him, writes Saint Paul, so we have also been
enthroned with him in heaven. He is a human being like ourselves, and this has
made us one body with him, the body being the bond that unites us. We can say,
therefore, that in him, we are all one, and indeed as he himself says to God, his
heavenly Father: It is my desire that as I and you are one, so they also may be
one in us.
1
Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – NY – 1993 – pg 38.

Lenten Weekday
2024-03-18
AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS
From a sermon by St Leo the Great 2
◊◊◊
Let us take refuge in the ever-present mercy of God, and so that we may
with becoming reverence celebrate the holy Pasch of the Lord, let all the faithful
seek to make holy their hearts. Let harshness give way to mildness, let wrath
grow gentle, forgive one another your offenses, and let him who seeks to be
forgiven be not himself a seeker of vengeance. For when we say Forgive us our
debts, as we also forgive our debtors, we bind ourselves in the most enduring
bonds unless we fulfill what we profess. And if the most sacred contract of this
prayer has not in every respect been fulfilled, let every person examine their
conscience, and gain the pardon of his own sins by forgiving those of others.
For when the Lord says: If you will forgive others their offences, your
heavenly Father will forgive you also your offenses, what He is here asking is
close to each one of us; for the sentence of the Judge will depend on the
clemency of the supplicant. For the Just and Merciful Receiver of the prayers of
men has laid it down that our own generosity is the measure of His fairness to
ourselves; so that He will not treat with strict justness those whom He finds not
eager for revenge. And generosity is becoming to kind and gentle souls. Nothing
is more fitting than that a person imitate his Maker, and that as best he can he
is a doer of the works of God. For when the hungry are fed, the naked clothed,
the sick assisted, are not the hands that minister but completing the help that
God gives, and is not the generosity of the giver also a gift from God?
He who has no need of a helper to perform His works of mercy, so orders
His own omnipotence that it by means of mortals that He comes to the aid of
mortals. And rightly do we give thanks to God for the ministers of that charity
whose works of mercy are seen in His servants. It was because of this the Lord
Himself said to His disciples: So let your light shine before others, that they
may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
2 The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers – vol. 2 – Henry Regnery Co – Chicago – 1958 – pg
127.

St. Joseph
2024-03-19
EVERYTHING HE DID WAS DONE FOR GOD
From a sermon by Jacques Benigne Bossuet 3
◊◊◊
Among all the various vocations, I have noticed in Scripture two which
seem complete opposites: the first is that of the apostles; the second that of St.
Joseph. Jesus was revealed both to the apostles and to St Joseph, but for very
different reasons. He was revealed to the apostles so that they could proclaim
him to the whole world. He was revealed to Joseph so that he could remain
silent and conceal him. The apostles were lights to make Jesus Christ visible to
the whole world. Joseph was a veil to hide him, and under this veil of mystery
were hidden for us the virginity of Mary and the greatness of the Savior. So we
read in Scripture that when people wished to belittle him they would say: Is he
not Joseph’s son? For the apostles then, Jesus was a Word to be proclaimed.
Preach the message of this gospel. For Joseph, however, Jesus was an unspoken
word which was not to be revealed.
See what the result is. The holy apostles proclaimed the word so loudly
that their word was re-echoed in the heavens, and St. Paul dared to say that the
heavenly powers learned the counsels of the divine Wisdom through the
Church. On the other hand, when Joseph heard the marvels of Jesus Christ
spoke of, he listened, wondered, and kept silence.
What is the meaning of this difference? Is God at odds with Himself in
such contrasting vocations? No, you must not think so. All this diversity is
meant to teach God’s children the important truth that the whole of Christian
perfection lies simply in submission. He who glorified the apostles by conferring
on them the honorable duty of preaching, glorified Saint Joseph also by giving
him the humble duty of keeping silent. We should learn from this that true
Christian glory lies not in employments that win public acclaim, but in doing
God’s will.
If everyone cannot have the honor of preaching Jesus Christ, everyone
can have the honor of obeying him, and that is the glory of Saint Joseph, the
trustworthy honor of Christians. So do not ask me what Saint Joseph did in his
hidden life. I cannot possibly tell you. I can only reply the words of the Psalmist:
But what has the just man done? Usually the lives of sinners attract more
attention than those of good people because it is excitement and passion which
make a stir in the world. The sinners have drawn the bow, says David, they
have let fly at the righteous, destroyed, overthrown – he speaks only of worldly
people – for they have destroyed what you have made. He goes on. But what
has the just man done? He means that he has done nothing. Indeed he has done
nothing for people to see, because everything he did was done for God.
That is the way Saint Joseph lived. He saw Jesus Christ and remained
silent; he had experience of him but spoke no word. He did not share his glory
with others, but was satisfied with God alone. He fulfilled his vocation because,
just as the apostles were the ministers appointed to make Jesus Christ known,
so Joseph was his minister and companion in his hidden life.
3 A Word in Season – vol. IV – Augustinian Press – 1991 – pg.40.7

Lenten Weekday
2024-03-20
YOUR INNUMERABLE CHOICES
From an excerpt from “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis 4
◊◊◊
Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges
them by their moral choices… When a man who has been perverted from his
youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness,
or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps,
risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God’s eyes, be doing more
than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend…
Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little
use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those
whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved
if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad
upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians
are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man’s choices make out
of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but
on what he has done with it. Most of the man’s psychological make-up is
probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the
real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of
this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our
own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all
sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off
others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There
will be surprises…
People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God
says, “If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other
thing.”… I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are
turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a
little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all
your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central
thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a
creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself,
or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellowcreatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that it is joy
and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror,
idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness…
One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands,
and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at.
But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done
something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to
keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when
he does fall into it. Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that
twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed
if he will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the outside, is
not what really matters…
When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the
evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his
own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a
thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right… Good people know about both good
and evil: bad people do not know about either.
4 Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966. 85-87.

Lenten Weekday
2024-03-21
PRAYER, MERCY, AND FASTING
From a sermon by St Peter Chrysologus 5
◊◊◊
There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion
remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy.
Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and
fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.
Fasting is the soul of prayer; mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one
try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or
not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy;
if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not
close your ear to others you open God’s ear to yourself.
When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you
are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If
you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for
yourself what you deny to others, your asking is mockery.
Let this be the pattern for all peoples when they practice mercy: show
mercy to others in the same way, with the same generosity, with the same
promptness, as you want others to show mercy to you.
Therefore let prayer, mercy and fasting be one single plea to God on our
behalf, one speech in our defense, and a threefold-united prayer in our favor.
Let us use fasting to make up for what we have lost by despising others.
Let us offer our souls in sacrifice by means of fasting. There is nothing more
pleasing that we can offer, as the Psalmist said in prophecy: “A sacrifice to God
is a broken spirit; God does not despise a bruised and humbled heart”.
Offer your soul to God; make him an oblation of your fasting, so that your
soul may be a pure offering, a holy sacrifice, a living victim, remaining your own
and at the same time made over to God. Whoever fails to give this to God will
not be excused, for if you are to give him yourself you are never without the
means of giving.
To make these acceptable, mercy must be added. Fasting bears no fruit
unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is
to fasting as rain is to the earth. However much you may cultivate your heart,
clear the soil of your nature, root out vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the
springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit.
When you fast, if your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin; when you
fast, what you pour out in mercy overflows into your barn. Therefore do not lose
by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you give to yourself.
You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others.
5 The Liturgy of the Hours – vol. II – pg. 231 – Catholic Book Publishing Co – 1976.

Lenten Weekday
2024-03-22
THE POWER OF VIRTUE
From the discourses and sayings of Dorotheos of Gaza 6
◊◊◊
At the time when I was one of Abba Seridos’ disciples there came a disciple of a great old monk…about some business for his abbot. He had the command from his senior to return after vespers to his own cell. When the time came to leave, a violent thunderstorm arose, with rain heavy enough to cause flooding, and yet he wanted to leave as the senior had told him. We begged him to stay, seeing that it was impossible to get safely across the river. He would not be persuaded to stay with us. At last we said, ‘Let us go with him as far as the river. When he sees it, he will return of his own accord.’ So we went off with him, and when we reached the river he took off his cloak and bound it round his head, tied up his scapular and jumped into the raging waters of the river. We just stood there astonished and fearful that he would be drowned, but he kept afloat, and very soon he was seen on the other bank. He put on his cloak, threw us a profound bow from there, received ours in return, and went off at a run. But we stood in wonder, astonished at the power of virtue. We came near with fear, but he went through without danger because of his obedience.
Another Brother was sent by his abba on some necessary business to a correspondent in the country. When he saw himself solicited by the [man’s] daughter to a shameful act and himself in danger of falling, simply cried out, ‘O God of my Father, deliver me’, and straightway he was found on the road to Skete, fleeing toward his spiritual father.
Notice the power of virtue, notice the efficacy of prayer… Mark well the humility and discretion of both… Each of them was counting on the prayers of his father. See how they yoked obedience to humility! Just as horses are yoked together in a chariot so that one does not outstep the other, so obedience needs to have humility yoked together with it. How can a man be worthy of this grace, unless… he treats himself harshly to cut off the desires of his own and to give himself, after God, to his [spiritual] father, without hesitation, doing everything with full confidence as though obeying God. Such a man is worthy to find mercy, such a man is worthy to find salvation.
The story is told of Blessed Basil that, making a visitation of his monasteries, he said to one of the Heads, ‘Have you any saints here?’ The Abba said, ‘Through your prayers, my Lord, we all desire to be saints.’ And again Blessed Basil said to him, ‘No! I mean have you got any saints here?’ And the Abba tumbled to it (for he, too, had spiritual insight). ‘Yes,” he , and he sent for a certain brother. When he arrived, the Saint said to him, ‘ Wash my feet’ and he went and fetched what was necessary. And after his feet were washed, Basil said to the brother, ‘Wait till I wash your feet.’ And without a murmur he allowed himself to be washed by the holy man. After testing the brother in this way, he said, ‘When I enter the sanctuary, you come, too! And remind me to ordain you.’ Again without a murmur, the brother obeyed, and when he saw the holy Basil in the inner sanctuary he went up and reminded him, and Basil ordained him and took him with him, for who else but this blessed brother was suitable to be with this holy godbearing father?… Everyone who throws himself completely into obedience to the Fathers shall surely possess this state of freedom from care and peacefulness of soul.
6 Dorotheos of Gaza. Discourses and Sayings. CS 33. Trans. Eric P. Wheeler. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, INC., 1977. 89-92. 13

Lenten Weekday
2024-03-23
SUBMISSION TO GOD IN SUFFERING
From the writing of Dom Columba Marmion 7
◊◊◊
When we thus submit ourselves entirely to Christ Jesus, when we
abandon ourselves to Him, when our soul only responds, like His own, with a
perpetual Amen to all that He asks of us in the name of His Father… then Christ
Jesus establishes His peace in us: His peace, not that which the world promises,
but the true peace which can only come from Himself…
Doubtless, here below, peace is not always sensible; upon earth we are in
a condition of trial and, most often, peace is won by conflict… We may be
slighted, opposed, persecuted, be unjustly treated, our intentions and deeds
may be misunderstood; temptation may shake us, suffering may come suddenly
upon us; but there is an inner sanctuary which none can reach; here is the
sojourn of our peace, because in this innermost secret of the soul dwell
adoration, submission and abandonment to God. “I love my God,” said St.
Augustine, “no one takes Him from me: no one takes from me what I ought to
give Him, for that is enclosed within my heart…
Death cannot trouble the soul that has sought only God. Has it not
confided itself to the One Who says: “He that believeth in Me, although he be
dead, shall live”…
In one of her “Exercises,” St. Gertrude allows her assurance, which the
infinite merits of Jesus give her, to overflow. “Woe, woe unto me, if, when I
come before Thee, I had no advocate to plead my cause!… Come Thou with me
to judgment… there let us stand together. Judge me, for the right is Thine; but
remember Thou are also my Advocate. In order that I be fully acquitted, Thou
has but to recount what Thou didst become for love of me, the price wherewith
Thou hast purchased me…
For souls moved by such sentiments, death is but a transition; Christ
comes Himself to open to them the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem… There will
be no more darkness, trouble, tears, or sighs; but peace, infinite and perfect
peace. “Peace first becomes ours with the longing and seeking for the Creator;
it is in the full vision and eternal possession of Him that peace is made perfect.
7 Marmion, Dom Columba, O.S.B. Suffering with Christ: An anthology of the Writings of Dom Columba Cmarmion, O.S.B.
Compiled by Dom Raymund Thibaut, O.S.B. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1954. 220-221, 232-233.

Skema for Holy Week
2024-03-24
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
Holy Week

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
March 24 – 30, 2024

Sun
24
Mon
25
Tue
26
Wed
27
Thu
28
Fri
29
Sat
30

Office
Palm Sunday
Monday of Holy Week
Tuesday of Holy Week
Wednesday of Holy Week
Holy Thursday
Good Friday
Holy Saturday

Vigils
Zech 9:9-17
Lam 1:1-16
Lam 2:1-10
Lam 2:18-22
Lam 3:19-54
Lam 4:1-6
Lam 5:1-22

Lauds
Zeph 3:14-20
Lam 1:17-22
Lam 2:11-17
Lam 3:1-18
Lam 3:55-66
Wis 2:10-22
Isa 63:1-6

Mass
38
257
258
259
39
40

1st
Isa 50:4-7
Isa 42:1-7
Isa 49:1-6
Isa 50:4-9a
Exod 12:1-8, 11-14
Isa 52:13-53:12

2nd
Phil 2:6-11

1 Cor 11:23-26
Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Gospel
Mark 14:1-15:47
John 12:1-11
John 13:21-33, 36-38
Matt 26:14-25
John 13:1-15
John 18:1-19:42

Vespers
1 Tim 6:11-16
Rom 5:6-11
1 Cor 1:18-25
1 Pet 2:20-25

1 Pet 4:1-8

Palm Sunday
2024-03-24
PROCESSION AND PASSION
From a commentary by Blessed Guerric of Igny 1
◊◊◊
When Jesus entered Jerusalem like a triumphant conqueror, many were
astonished at the majesty of his bearing; but when a short while afterward he
entered upon his passion, his appearance was ignoble, an object of derision. If
today’s procession and passion are considered together, in the one Jesus
appears as sublime and glorious, in the other as lowly and suffering. The
procession makes us think of the honor reserved for a king, whereas the passion
shows us the punishment due to a thief.
In the one Jesus is surrounded by glory and honor, in the other he has
neither dignity nor beauty. In the one he is the joy of all and the glory of the
people, in the other the butt of men and the laughing stock of the people. In the
one he receives the acclamation: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he
who comes as the king of Israel; in the other there are shouts that he is guilty
of death and is reviled for having set himself up as king of Israel.
In the procession the people meet Jesus with palm branches, in his
passion they slap him in the face and strike his head with a rod. In the one they
extol him with praises, in the other they heap insults upon him. In the one they
compete to lay their clothes in his path, in the other he is stripped of his own
clothes. In the one he is welcomed to Jerusalem as a just king and savior, in the
other he is thrown out of the city as a criminal, condemned as an impostor. In
the one he is mounted on an ass and accorded every mark of honor; in the other
he hangs on the wood of the cross, torn by whips, pierced with wounds, and
abandoned by his own. If, then, we want to follow our leader without stumbling
through prosperity and through adversity, let us keep our eyes upon him,
honored in the procession, undergoing ignominy and suffering in the passion,
yet unshakably steadfast in all such changes of fortune.
Lord Jesus, you are the joy and the salvation of the whole world; whether
we see you seated on an ass or hanging on the cross, let each one of us bless and
praise you, so that when we see you reigning on high we may praise you for ever
and ever, for to you belong praise and honor throughout all ages.
1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – NY – 1993 – pg 40.

Monday of Holy Week
2024-03-25
WHEN ALL WAS TO BE PUT TO THE TEST
By Henri Daniel-Rops2
◊◊◊
The day which followed the astonishing Sunday of the triumphal entry
was not so striking, but was nonetheless full of significance. Jesus entered
Jerusalem every day, went up to the Temple, and spoke to audiences which
listened to him with enthusiasm, while the chief priests and scribes sought
means to destroying him. To Jesus, the slightest incident was an occasion for a
lesson, which often took the form of a warning.
So it was all through the Monday. What precisely was the meaning of the
curious episode, uncharacteristic of Christ’s normally merciful manner, in
which he condemned a fig tree on which he found no figs to wither? And who
is the bad son who pretends to be submissive to his father’s will, but in reality
disobeys him? Or the rebellious wine dressers who kill their master’s servants
in order to seize the harvest? What is the name of the stone rejected by the
builders which will be the cornerstone of the new building? And do we not know
these guests invited to the royal feast who refuse to attend? One is almost afraid
to understand at whom these gestures, these parables are aimed. At this
moment, Israel’s refusal seems to haunt Jesus’ mind and to fill it with anguish.
We are hardly surprised to find that the leaders of the community sent
emissaries to ask Jesus with what right he was behaving as he was. He avoided
the question by himself asking them an embarrassing one concerning what kind
of a man was John, and they could not give him any answer. But we can hardly
be surprised that their anger grew, and that they were on the point of laying
hands on him. Jesus cast a real challenge at his adversaries at this moment
when he knew that all was to be put to the test.
2 The Life of Our Lord. Daniel-Rops. Hawthorn Books Inc. NY, 1965, p. 140.
