Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

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.

Tuesday of Holy Week
2024-03-26
THE GREAT DISCOVERY
By Fr Louis Bouyer 3
◊◊◊
The discovery of grace, the discovery of love which loves us without
looking for any return, which loves us although we are sinners, which loves us
in our sin, but which alone will lead us, by obscure ways known to God alone,
from sin to sanctity, that is, in the last analysis, the great discovery. Then it is
that God reveals Himself to us as One who speaks to us, as One whose Word for
the second time draws us out of nothingness to being, as One whom we have
not so much to seek as to discover seeking us. It is He, the Shepherd who left
the ninety-nine sheep in safety to seek and save that which was lost. It is He, the
Father of the prodigal who goes along the road to welcome his son when he has
scarcely started out to meet his father, and takes him in his arms.
“To seek God”, to seek Him as a person, as the Person par excellence, and
not only as the “Thou” to whom all our love should be addressed, but as the “I”
who has first approached us, whose word of love, addressed to the primeval
chaos, drew us forth from it in the first place, and, spoken to us in our sin, draws
us forth from it again: to be a monk is nothing else than this. To be a monk,
then, is simply to be an integral Christian. And regarded in this light, the
Christian is simply the person restored by the Word of the Gospel to the
vocation which the creative Word destined for each: to respond to the Word of
Agape by the word of faith, in order eventually to meet God face to face.
Commenting on Canticle of Canticles, Origen tells us that the Church, under the
old dispensation, only heard the Bridegroom’s voice, whereas in the new, she is
offered the sight of his countenance. And he adds that the development of the
Christian life is made up solely of this transition. The monk is the one who does
not limit him or herself to accepting it in some measure passively, by yielding
to grace slothfully and reluctantly. The monk is one who responds with the
whole heart to the call which comes from the very heart of God.
Monks are of the number of the violent who will not allow the divine
Kingdom to fall upon them as it were unawares, but who take it by storm in
advance. For that the monks have staked their all, they have burned their boats.
To the one who believes that life consists in what is possessed, the monk seems
to be consenting to, even to be deliberately seeking, a fatal renunciation. To the
one who knows that being is of greater value than having, and that being which
is of value is not that which passes but that which endures, the monk will seem
to be the only true humanist. For the human person is born only as subject to
the divine Word and will only be fully that person the day when, freed from the
nothingness which holds one prisoner, fully surrendered to the Word which
calls, the person will at last come to discover the Face which promised us being
in promising us His own image.
3 The Life of Our Lord. Daniel-Rops. Hawthorn Books Inc. NY, 1965, p. 140.

Wednesday of Holy Week
2024-03-27
LIFT YOUR HEART TO GOD
From the writing of Franҫois Fénelon 4
◊◊◊
The whole Christian life is only one long and continual aspiration of our heart towards that eternal righteousness for which we long here on earth. Our whole happiness is to be always thirsting for this. Now, this thirst is a prayer: long unceasingly for this righteousness, and you will never cease to pray. Do not imagine that you have to utter a long string of words and to have a great struggle before beseeching God. To pray is to ask that God’s will may be done, is to form some good resolution, to lift the heart to God, to long for the good things God promises, to groan at the sight of our misery.
This prayer needs neither knowledge, method, nor reasoning; we do not have to bother our head; it only needs a moment of time and a good impulse of the heart. We can pray without any precise thought; we only need to return to our heart for a moment; and this moment can be spent doing something else at the same time; God’s condescension to our feebleness is so great that God lets us share this need of the moment between God and creatures. Yes, in this moment go on with your work: it is enough if you offer to God the most ordinary things that you are occupied in doing.
This is the constant prayer which St. Paul postulates. It is a prayer that many good people imagine to be , but it is easy to practise for anyone who knows that the best prayer of all is that of acting with purity of intention, of frequently renewing the desire to do everything in God and for God.
Is there anything tiresome or burdensome in this law of prayer, when it reduces everything to the habit of acting freely in an ordinary way in order to attain your salvation and please your sovereign Lord?
Is it asking too much of ourselves to want to make us ask God often for the things we cannot obtain by ourselves? Is there anything better than never to depart from the state of living our life in dependence on God and of knowing our own feebleness at every moment and our need for God’s help?…It is for this that the Holy Spirit, who makes saints, is praying in the saints and for them “with sighs too deep for words”; it is for this that, possessing as we do the first fruits of the Spirit, we long for the plenitude of this Spirit and groan as we await the perfect fulfillment of the divine adoption.
4 Entretien sur la Prière, première partie. Oeuvres de Fénelon, tome XVII, A. Lebel, Paris 1823, p.323-325. [Orval, Fiche U3]..

Holy Thursday
2024-03-28
THE BRIDGE BETWEEN THE COVENANT
AND THE EUCHARIST
By St Edith Stein 5
◊◊◊
We know from the Gospel narratives that Christ prayed as a Jew who
believed in and was faithful to the Law. When he was a child with his parents,
and later with his disciples, he used to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the
appointed times to take part in the festivals that were celebrated in the temple.
He sang joyfully with the pilgrims, “I was glad when they said unto me: We
will go into the house of the Lord”. He recited the ancient prayers of blessing,
which are still said today, for bread, wine, and the fruits of the earth, as the
accounts of the Last Supper bear witness. This was wholly consecrated to the
fulfillment of one of the holiest religious obligations: the solemn Passover meal
which commemorated the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Perhaps it is here
that we are given the deepest insight into the prayer of Christ, as it were the key
which gives access to the prayer of the Church.
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke
it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my
body.” And he took a cup, when he had given thanks he gave it to
them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the
covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of
sins”.
The blessing and giving of the bread and wine have become part of the
rite of the Passover meal. But at the Last Supper this blessing and giving takes
on a wholly new meaning. For this is the birth of the Church. Doubtless it was
only at Pentecost that the Church was born a spiritual and visible community.
But here, at the Supper, took place that grafting of the shoot in the vine branch
which made the outpouring of the Spirit possible. The ancient prayers of
blessing became creative words of life on Christ’s lips. The fruits of the earth
became his flesh and blood, filled with his life. The visible creation into which
he was inserted by his incarnation is now bound to him in a new and mysterious
way. The foods that are indispensable for the growth of the human organism
are transformed in their nature, and those partaking of them with faith are
themselves transformed too; incorporated into Christ in a living union, they are
filled with his divine life. The quickening power of the Word is fused with the
sacrifice. The Word becomes flesh to give us that Life which is his own. He
offered himself, and has thus offered the creation which he ransomed by this
offering, as a sacrifice of praise to the Creator. The passover of the ancient
covenant has become the passover of the new covenant, at the Lord’s Last
Supper, at the Sacrifice of the Cross, and, between the Resurrection and the
Ascension, at the joyful agape where the disciples recognized their Lord in the
breaking of the bread; and, in the Sacrifice of the Mass, at Holy Communion.
5
“Liturgy & Eucharist”, reprinted in “Lectures chrétiennes pour notre temps”: 8 1971, #2, E4. Abbaye d’Orval,
Belgium.

Good Friday
2024-03-29
TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE
A commentary by St John Chrysostom 6
◊◊◊
Today the cross has opened Paradise which had been closed to us for
thousands of years. For today God has brought a robber there. Thus he effects
two marvels: he opens Paradise, and he brings in a thief. Today God has given
us our ancient fatherland, today he has brought us to the paternal city, today he
has opened his house to the whole of humanity. ‘Today,’ he said, ‘you will be
with me in Paradise’.
What did you say, Lord? You are crucified, nailed there, and you
promise Paradise?
Yes, so that you may learn how great is my power on the cross.
It is indeed a cruel sight. And to deflect your attention from this aspect
of the cross and make you realize the power of the Crucified, Jesus works this
miracle from the cross, the miracle which more than any other bears witness to
his power. For it was not when raising the dead, commanding the wind and the
waves, expelling demons, but when crucified, fixed with nails, covered with
insults, spittle, mockery and abuse, that he had power to change the evil state
of the thief; and in this you can see two aspects of his power. He shook the
whole of creation, he split the rocks, and he drew the soul of the thief, which
was harder than rock; for the thief believed in him and Jesus said in return,
‘Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Doubtless the cherubim guarded
paradise, but he was master of the cherubim. A flaming sword twirled at the
entrance, but he had all power over fire and sword, over life and death.
Truly, no king ever allowed a thief or any other subject to sit with him
while he made an entrance into a town. But Christ has done this: when he
entered into his fatherland he brought a thief with him. In doing this he did not
slight Paradise, did not dishonor it by the thief’s presence there; on the contrary,
he honored Paradise, because it is glorious for Paradise to have a master who
can make a thief worthy of the joys to be found there. Likewise when he brings
publicans and prostitutes into the kingdom of heaven he is not insulting the
kingdom but honoring it, for he shows that the master of the kingdom of heaven
is strong enough to make prostitutes and publicans worthy enough to receive
such an honor and such a gift.
6
“Today you will be with me in Paradise”, St John Chrysostom, from Christian Readings for Today, #2, F 2, Abbaye
d’Orval, Belgium.

Holy Saturday
2024-03-30
GOD’S SURPASSING LOVE
A homily by St Augustine 7
◊◊◊
Today, my dearest friends, there is every reason for heaven to rejoice and earth to be glad. It is a day on which more light shines forth from the tomb than rays from the sun. When our Lord and Savior was born as one of us he brought light into the world; so also today, being dead in the body, he has illumined the underworld with the powerful presence of his divinity as well as of his human soul. Today at the Lord’s visitation there is leaping and dancing in the nether regions over the fulfillment of the prophecy: The people that sat in darkness(that is to say the whole human race enveloped in the gloom of Sheol) has seen a great light. He who created Adam has this day sought him out in the underworld, and by his own power has set him free.
Wonderful beyond words is the loving kindness of our God! Death had indeed invaded Paradise, but life has now conquered the abyss, and by assuming our mortality the Son of God has trodden underfoot the law that all must die. Thus he has made good the prophet’s assertion: O death, I will be your death! Those whom you have caused to die through sin I will gather up from that place of eternal ruin, and by dying myself I will deliver them from everlasting death.
Look now at the author of our undoing! With what snares he is entangled and fettered! As he deceived us, so he is himself deceived; in the very act of killing he is destroyed.
When the Lord’s body was laid in the tomb, he himself descended into the lowest and most hidden abode of the infernal regions. There, where he was presumed to be held captive, he bound death fast, and so broke the chains of all who had died. And from that place whence none had ever returned before, not even alone, he carried off an immense with which he penetrated the heavens.
See what tremendous things God’s surpassing love has accomplished for our healing and restoration! For our sake he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, having taken upon himself the evils of this present life in order to bestow upon us the good things of eternity.
7 Sermo Mai 146: PLS 2, 1242-1243( CL I p 168-169).

Skema
2024-03-31
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
Easter Octave

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
March 31 – April 1, 2024

Sun
31
Mon
1
Tue
2
Wed
3
Thu
4
Fri
5
Sat
6

Office
Easter Sunday
Easter Monday
Easter Tuesday
Easter Wednesday
Easter Thursday
Easter Friday
Easter Saturday

Vigils
* Easter Vigil
Acts 1:1-26
Acts 2:1-21
Acts 2:22-41
Acts 2:42-3:11
Acts 3:12-26;4:1-4
Acts 4:5-31

Lauds
Acts 13:28-33
1 Cor 15:1-11
1 Cor 15:12-19
1 Cor 15:20-28
1 Cor 15:35-41
1 Cor 15:42-49
1 Cor 15:50-58

Mass
42
261
262
263
264
265
266

1st
Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Acts 2:14, 22-33
Acts 2:36-41
Acts 3:1-10
Acts 3:11-26
Acts 4:1-12
Acts 4:13-21

2nd
Col 3:1-4

Gospel
John 20:1-9
Matt 28:8-15
John 20:11-18
Luke 24:13-35
Luke 24:35-48
John 21:1-14
Mark 16:9-15

Vespers
Rev 1:12-18
Rev 1:1-8
Rev 1:9-11
Rev 2:1-7
Rev 2:8-11
Rev 2:12-17
Rev 2:18-29

Easter Vigil Readings* 1st) Gen 1:1-2:2 2nd) Gen 22:1-18 3rd) Exod 14:15-15:1 4th) Isa 54:5-14 5th) Isa 55:1-11 6th) Bar 3:9-15,32-4:4 7th) Ezek 36:16-17a,18-28 Epistle) Rom 6:3-11 Gospel) B: Mk 16:1-8

Easter Sunday
2024-03-31
A NEW DIMENSION OF BEING
From a homily by Pope Benedict XVI1
◊◊◊
“You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not
here.” With these words, God’s messenger, robed in light, spoke to the women
who were looking for the body of Jesus in the tomb. But the evangelist says the
same thing to us: Jesus is not a character of the past. He lives and He walks
before us as one who is alive; he calls us to follow him, the Living One, and in
this way to discover for ourselves the path of life. At Easter we rejoice because
Christ did not remain in the tomb, his body did not see corruption; he belongs
to the world of the living, not to the world of the dead; we rejoice because he is
the Alpha and also the Omega, as we proclaim in the Rite of the Paschal candle;
he lives not only yesterday, but today and for eternity.
But somehow the Resurrection is situated so far beyond our horizon, so
far outside all our experience that, returning to ourselves, we find ourselves
continuing the argument of the disciples: Of what exactly does this “rising”
consist? What does it mean for us, for the whole world, and the whole of history?
A theologian once said that the miracle of a corpse returning to life would be
ultimately irrelevant precisely because it would not concern us. In fact if it were
simply that someone was once brought back to life, and no more than that, in
what way would that concern us? But the point is that Christ’s Resurrection is
something more, something different. If we may borrow the language of
evolution, it is the greatest “mutation”, absolutely the most crucial leap into a
totally new dimension that there has ever been in the long history of life and its
development: a leap into a completely new order which does concern us, and
concerns the whole of history.
The crucial point is that this man Jesus was not alone, he was not an “I”
closed in upon itself. He was one single reality with the living God, so closely
united with him as to form one Person with him. He found himself, so to speak,
in an embrace with him who is life itself, an embrace not just on the emotional
level, but one which included and permeated his being. His own life was not just
his own, it was an existential and essential communion with God, a “being taken
up” into God, and hence, it could not in reality be taken away from him.
Out of love, he could allow himself to be killed, but precisely by doing so
he broke the definitiveness of death, because in him the definitiveness of life
was present. He was one single reality with indestructible life, in such a way that
it burst forth anew through death… His death was an act of love, of self-giving.
At the Last Supper he anticipated death and transformed it into self-giving. His
existential communion with God was concretely an existential communion with
God’s love, and this love is the real power against death, it is stronger than
death.
The Resurrection was like an explosion of light, an explosion of love which
dissolved the hitherto indissoluble <interpenetration> of “dying and
becoming”. It ushered in a new dimension of being. A new dimension of life in
which, in a transformed way, matter too was integrated and through which a
new world emerges.

1 L’Osservatore Romano English edition – April 19, 2006 – pg 5.3

Easter Monday
2024-04-01
THE LORD’S RESURRECTION
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux2
◊◊◊
This wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, and no sign will be
given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. Do you ask for the sign of his
coming down? I will not give you that, but the sign of his resurrection instead.
There you were, saying, “Let him come down from the cross and we will believe
in him”, and here he is, having done greater things than this, much greater
things. Is it not greater to leave a sealed tomb than to come down from the
cross?
But perhaps you ask how I know that he came forth from a closed tomb.
Yesterday you heard that as the holy women were coming to the tomb an
earthquake occurred, an angel came down from heaven and rolled back the
stone about which they were complaining and sat upon it, saying that he whom
they sought was not there but had already risen. Obviously then, the great
stone… had not yet been rolled back when the Savior came forth. Certainly this
was a greater miracle than if he had come down from the cross. He did a much
more marvelous thing when he rose from the dead.
True, other resurrections had taken place earlier, but they were
preambles to this one, and they were surpassed by this one in two respects.
First, they rose to die again, but Christ being raised now dies no more. Hence
Christ is the first fruits of those who arise, because he was the first to rise after
dying… Christ died once for all and rose once for all.
The Lord’s resurrection surpasses all the others in another way. Some had
been restored to life by others, but none before Christ had been able to restore
themselves to life. Elisha, who had restored the dead to life, has long lain dead
and has not risen. Christ alone has been able to restore himself to life, he who
alone was first among the dead. What will he be able to do, he who is living
eternally and saying to the Father, “I have risen, and I am still with you”, he
who alone with respect to all the dead was so powerful?
It was absolutely fitting for him to rise on the third day because of the text
“after two days he will revive us, and on the third day he will raise us up”.
Thus should it happen to us as to our Head before us. The first day he was on
the cross, the second in the tomb, and on the third day he was glorified by the
triumph of the resurrection. So we also, if we are his members and if we choose
to follow our Head, on the first day – that is, while we are in this mortal flesh –
we will persevere on the cross of our penitence, concerning which he himself
said, “if any want to come after me, let them take up their cross and follow
me”. We will not come down, as Christ did not come down.
Righteous men took him down when he was already dead; may the holy
angels take us down! Thus with the day successfully finished, the second, which
is after death, we will spend in the tomb, sleeping in peace and resting from all
labor. “Henceforth now, says the Spirit, they may rest from their labors”.
On the third day we will rise again to be forever in glory and eternal life.

2 Bernard of Clairvaux – Sermons for Lent and Easter – Cistercian Fathersd Series #52 –Liturgical Press –
Collegeville, MN – 2013 – pg 153.5

Easter Tuesday
2024-04-02
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny3
◊◊◊
Let us go to see Jesus journeying to the mountain of the heavenly Galilee,
where he awaits us. On the way our love will increase, and on our arrival at least,
it will be perfected. On the way, the road, at first hard and difficult, will grow
easier and the strength of the weak will increase. The flesh of Christ is our food
for the journey, his Spirit our means of conveyance. He Himself is the food; he
himself is the chariot and charioteer of Israel. When you arrive, all the goods,
not of Egypt but of heaven, will be yours. There, in the best place in the
kingdom, at the bidding of your Joseph you will take your rest. He who first sent
angels, women and apostles as witnesses and messengers of his resurrection,
now cries from heaven: “Behold, I whom you have mourned as dead these three
days did indeed die for you, but see, I live. And all power in heaven and earth
is given unto me.”
…
“I am the resurrection and the life”, Jesus said. He indeed is the first
resurrection; he is also the second resurrection. For rising from the dead as the
first fruits of those who sleep Christ both brings about for us the first
resurrection by the mystery of his own resurrection and by the example of that
same resurrection will bring about for us the second. The first is that of souls,
when he raises them together with himself to newness of life; the second will be
that of bodies, when he forms this humbled body of ours anew, molding it into
the image of his glorified body. Christ does well then to proclaim himself the
resurrection and the life since it is through him and into him that we rise in
order to live according to him and with him; now according to him in holiness
and justice, afterwards with him in happiness and glory.
Now the first resurrection of our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the cause
and the proof of the second resurrection which will be that of his whole body.
So also for each of us the first resurrection of the soul, by which it comes to life
again from the death of sin, is the proof and the cause of its second resurrection,
by which the body will be freed not only from the corruption of death but also
from every tendency to corruption and death. That the one is proof of the other
St Paul shows clearly in the words: “If the Spirit of Christ who raised Jesus from
the dead dwells in you, he will also give life to your perishable bodies on
account of his Spirit who dwells in you”.

3 Guerric of Igny – Liturgical Sermons – vol. II – Cistercain Publications – CF32 – Cistercian Publications – Spencer,
MA – 1971.7

Easter Wednesday
2024-04-03
CROSS AND RESURRECTION
An excerpt from “On Prayer” by Hans Urs von Balthasar4
◊◊◊
Heaven…in which we can already participate, informs our life on earth
and gives it its meaning; and, in like manner, the resurrection determines our
relation to the cross, setting up a second and final “soteriological” tension. We
are Christians, because the Lord has risen; if he had not, our faith would be vain.
Christ suffered for the sake of glorification and took on himself the cross, the
confession of the cross, that he might obtain absolution from the Father. We
are not at first entitled to go with Christ on the way he walked; otherwise there
would be no qualitative difference between him and us; he would only be…first
among equals, and we could be literally called co-redeemers. But “God
commends his charity towards us because when as yet we were
sinners…Christ died for us…”
“When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his
Son“. If we walk with the Son, it is because we are carried along by the grace of
the redemption accomplished by him. The sentence that decided our destiny in
principle was pronounced on Christ as representing all sinners. In him we were
crucified and condemned to death; in him justified and accepted as children of
God. In him, without any action on our part, God’s wrath against us has
changed into solicitous love. so then we have to bring to full reality in our
temporal life on earth what is already true in Christ and through him in heaven
with the Father.
In the New Testament what we have to do follows from what we are. We
are justified, and must act accordingly. We are dead, buried and risen with
Christ, and have to live our lives in view of this. We are no longer to live to sin;
we are henceforth to look on the “old self”, who is dead as dead in fact, daily
oppose his resistance to the sentence of death, make him die daily.
One might say that in order to exalt the resurrection St. Paul upsets the
equilibrium between the old and the new… the old and the new Adam, cross and
resurrection, fear and hope. From now on the first member of each pair of
antitheses is comprised within the second; the cross, in the Christian life, is
borne in the strength of the resurrection already accomplished. “In all things
we suffer tribulations but are not distressed. We are straitened, but not
destitute. We suffer persecution, but are not forsaken. We are cast down, but
we perish not. Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies…

4 “Cross & Resurrection” from the book On Prayer. Hans Uns von Balthasar, Sheed and Ward 1961, pp. 233-234.9

Easter Thursday
2024-04-04
THE BEGINNING OF GLORY
By Fr Karl Rahner5
◊◊◊
If someone had already lit the fuse for a tremendous explosion, but was
still waiting for the explosion which will follow with dreadful certainty, they
certainly would not say that the lighting of the fuse was an event of the past.
The beginning of an event which is still in course of development but is moving
inexorably and irresistibly towards its culmination, is not past but is a kind of
present, and already contains its future; it is a movement which continues by
comprising past and present in a…real unity. These concepts must be clear if
we are to attempt to say something meaningful about our Lord’s resurrection.
Easter is not the celebration of a past event. The alleluia is not for what
was; Easter proclaims a beginning which has already decided the remotest
future. The resurrection means that the beginning of glory has already started.
And what began in that way is in process of fulfilment. Does it take long? It
lasts thousands of years because at least that short space of time is needed for
an incalculable plenitude of reality and history to force itself through the brief
death-agony of a gigantic transformation (which we call natural history and
world history) to its glorious fulfilment. Everything is in movement. Nothing
has an abiding place here.
We are gradually finding out, at least in outline, that nature has its own
orientated history, that nature is in movement, that it develops and unfolds in
time and by an incomprehensible self-transcendence behind which there stands
the creative power of God, attains every higher level of reality. We are gradually
realizing that human history has its purposeful course and is not merely the
eternal return of the identical… that the nations are summoned in a certain
sequence and have each their definite historical mission; that history in its
totality has its pattern and an irreversible direction.
But what is the goal of this whole movement in nature, history and spirit?
Is everything advancing towards a collapse, to meaninglessness and
nothingness? Are we only going to lose our way? Is what happens ultimately
only the demonstration of the emptiness and hollowness of all things, which are
unmasked in the course of the history of nature and the world? Are all the
comedies and tragedies of this history mere play-acting which can only
deludedly be taken seriously while they are still going on and are not yet played
out?
We Christians say that this whole history of nature and humankind has a
meaning, a blessed and transfigured, all-embracing meaning, no longer mixed
with meaninglessness and darkness, a meaning which is infinite reality and
unity comprising all possibilities and glory in one. And when we invoke the
absolute meaning in this way, we call it God. God as he is in himself is the goal
of all history. He himself is at hand. All the streams of change in us flow
towards him; they are not lost in the bottomless void of nothingness and
meaninglessness. But when we say this, when we declare infinity to be the
meaning of the finite, eternity the meaning of time and God himself (by grace)
to be the purport of his creature, we are not speaking simply of a distant, not
yet wholly realized ideal, which we hope vaguely may be realized one day but
which for the moment and for an incalculable time is still a distant future
existing only in thought. No, we say Easter, resurrection. That means, it has
already begun, the definitive future has already started.

5 Everyday Faith. Karl Rahner. Herder & Herder 1968, pp. 71-72.11

Easter Friday
2024-04-05
PRAISE THE LORD
From a sermon by St Augustine6
◊◊◊
Since it is the will of our Lord that we should see you during the time the
Alleluia is sung, we feel that we ought to say a word to you about the Alleluia. I
trust I shall not bore you by reminding you of something you already know, for
we delight in singing the alleluia every day. As you know, Alleluia in our
language means “praise the Lord.” By this word we encourage one another to
praise the Lord with one voice and one heart. Only that person can rightfully
praise Him who is free from all that could displease Him. During this time of
our earthly pilgrimage we sing the Alleluia for our solace on the journey. Now
the Alleluia is our pilgrim’s song on the way to the resting place of our true
country, where all our striving must be left behind and only the song of Alleluia
will endure.
What great happiness the virtue of hope engenders in us! But what will
the realization itself be like? We hunger and we thirst and it is necessary that
we have our fill. Yet now on the pilgrimage there is famine and only in the
heavenly home will there be plenty. When, then, are we to be satisfied? “I shall
be satisfied when your glory shall appear.” But now the glory of our God, the
glory of our Christ is hidden, and along with it our glory, too, lies concealed. But
“when Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with
him in glory.” Then the Alleluia will be a thing of reality; now it is simply a
matter of hope. Now it is hope that sings Alleluia, and love also, of course. Then
it will be love, too, that will sing Alleluia, however a love that will know
fulfillment, whereas now it is a love that remains unsatisfied.
What is the Alleluia, my brothers and sisters? I have already told you that
it is the praise of God. Now when you hear the word, you take delight in its very
sound, and in this delight you are already rendering homage. If now you love
the drop of dew, how much more will you love the rushing fountain itself? If
faith now prompts us to render praise, how much more will the vision of the
reality intensify our praise?
Since in the life to come we shall lack nothing, for that very reason we
shall be happy. We shall be fully satisfied – but with God. He will take the place
of all that we so ardently desired here on earth. Do you now have a craving for
food? God will be your food in the life to come. Do you now yearn for fleshly
caresses? “But it is good for me to adhere to my God.” Is your heart set on riches
here? How will it be possible for you to lack anything when you are going to
possess Him who is the Creator of everything? To strengthen your assurance,
let me quote the words of the apostle, who says of the future life: “That God may
be all in all.

6 Selected Easter Sermons of Saint Augustine. Commentary by Philip T. Weller. B. Herder Book Co. St. Louis, MO.
1959. p. 127.13

Easter Saturday
2024-04-06
THE FRATERNAL CITY OF GOD
By Maertens & Frisque7
◊◊◊
Faith in the paschal mystery makes the world appear as an enormous
edifice under construction! All are called, in Jesus Christ, to take their part in
the building up of the fraternal city of God. This is a gigantic labour which
demands the co-operation of all peoples and all cultures. Christ planted once
and for all the seed of true salvation-history; this seed was his own life as
human, lived with perfect fidelity unto death on the cross, a life whose
significance is eternal because it was that of the Son. Beginning with this unique
seed, the process of growth must continue until the Body of Christ has attained
its perfect stature. This slow growth of the Kingdom here on earth – where the
Kingdom takes shape without manifesting itself as such – progressively
concerns humanity and the entire creation.
To the degree to which he takes part in the mission, the Christian will
necessarily experience those “tribulations” of which St. Paul often speaks. How
can they be avoided? The Kingdom is not constructed without a constant
passage from death to life, and this work of love inevitably provokes the fierce
resistance of the wisdom of this world. But, like St. Paul, the Christian “is
overjoyed amid all afflictions“, because he knows that through them the final
city is being built.
Christian hope is no longer the hope of Judaic person. For Israel, the
Kingdom was not a thing to be built; it would appear fully achieved, so to speak.
The Christian lives a hope in the dynamism of a task to be accomplished: the
mission. The accomplishment will not come until the gospel has been preached
to all the nations. But what does such a proclamation involve? It is a matter of
implanting the mystery of Christ in time and space so that the light of Easter
may effectively illumine the spiritual journey of all the peoples and cultures of
the earth. This is a very long enterprise, because no sector of human life
remains foreign to it. After twenty centuries, we are only beginning to measure
the very close connection that exists between the mission of the Church and the
history of humanity. St. Paul believed that the universal mission was a task he
could undertake himself – at least he thought so for a time! Today, we have not
finished discovering its whole amplitude.

7Guide for the Christian Assembly. T. Maertens & J. Frisque. Biblica, Belgium, 1965, pp. 119-120.15

Skema
2024-04-07
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
2nd Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
April 7 – 13, 2024

Sun
7
Mon
8
Tue
9
Wed
10
Thu
11
Fri
12
Sat
13

Office
2nd Sunday of Easter
Annunciation of the Lord
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
St Stanislaus
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Col 3:1-17
1 Chron 17:1-15
Acts 5:17-42
Acts 6:1-15
Acts 7:1-16
Acts 7:17-43
Acts 7:44-8:3

Lauds
Rev 3:1-6
Wis 9:1-12
Rev 4:6-11
Rev 5:6-10
Rev 6:1-4
Rev 6:9-11
Rev 7:1-8

Mass
44
545
268
269
270
271
272

1st
Acts 4:32-35
Isa 7:10-14; 8:10
Acts 4:32-37
Acts 5:17-26
Acts 5:27-33
Acts 5:34-42
Acts 6:1-7

2nd
1 John 5:1-6
Heb 10:4-10

Gospel
John 20:19-31
Luke 1:26-38
John 3:7b-15
John 3:16-21
John 3:31-36
John 6:1-15
John 6:16-21

Vespers
Rev 3:7-13
Heb 2:11-18
Rev 5:1-5
Rev 5:11-14
Rev 6:5-8
Rev 6:12-17
Rev 7:9-12

Vigils Reading - 2nd Sunday of Easter
2024-04-07
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN,
AND YET BELIEVE
From a commentary by St Cyril of Alexandria1
◊◊◊
Thomas’s profession of faith came swiftly when, eight days after he had
declared his unwillingness to believe, Christ showed him his side and the nail
marks in his hands and removed every possible doubt.
Our Lord Jesus Christ had miraculously entered the room when the doors
were closed. As this would have been impossible for an ordinary earthly body
he reassured Thomas, and through him, the other disciples, by letting him see
his side and the wounds in his flesh.
Only Thomas is reported to have said: Unless my hands touch the marks
of the nails and I see them, and unless I put my hand into his side, I will not
believe, yet to some extent all the disciples were guilty of disbelief. Doubt
remained in their minds even after they had told Thomas that they had seen the
Lord. St. Luke’s account says that while they were amazed, torn between joy
and disbelief, Christ said to them, “Have you anything to eat?” They gave him
a piece of broiled fish and part of a honeycomb, which he took and ate before
their eyes. This surely proves that it was not only in the mind of blessed Thomas
that disbelieving thoughts still lurked, but in the minds of the other disciples as
well. It was their very astonishment that made them slow to believe, but when
it became impossible to disbelieve what they could see with their own eyes,
blessed Thomas made his profession of faith: My Lord and My God.
Jesus said to him: ‘Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have
believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.” There was a
wonderful providence behind these words of the Savior, and they can be of very
great help to us. They show once again how much he cares for our souls, for he
is good and as Scripture says: He wants everyone to be saved and to come to
knowledge of the truth. Even so, this saying of his may surprise us.
As always, Christ had to be patient with Thomas when he said he would
not believe, and with the other disciples too when they thought they were seeing
a ghost. Because of his desire to convince the whole world, he most willingly
showed them the marks of the nails and the wound in his side, because he
wished those who needed such signs as a support for their faith to have no
possible reason to doubt, he even took food although he had no need for it.
But when anyone accepts what he has not seen, believing on the word of
his teacher, the faith by which he honors the one his teacher proclaims to him
is worthy of great praise. Blessed, therefore, is everyone who believes the
message of the holy apostles who, as Luke says, were eyewitnesses to Christ’s
actions and ministers of the word. If we desire eternal life and long for a
dwelling place in heaven, we must listen to them.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – NY -1994 – pg. 51.3

Vigils Reading - Annunciation of the Lord
2024-04-08
THIS KIND WORD
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny2
◊◊◊
It is indeed a kind word, a reliable word in which you can believe, this
gospel of our salvation which the angel sent by God announced to Mary on this
day. It is a joyful word which day utters unto day, the angel to the virgin,
concerning the incarnation of the Word. It promises a son to the Virgin, and at
the same time pardon to sinners, redemption to captives, release to the
imprisoned, life to those in the grave. In foretelling the Son’s kingdom and
announcing the glory of the righteous, it makes hell fearful and gives joy to
heaven. By the revelation of these mysteries and by the new joys it brings them,
it seems to have increased the perfection of the angels.
Is there an afflicted person who would not be cheered by this kind word,
or anyone whose lowliness it would not console? Remember your word to your
servant by which you gave me hope, sang David. It was this which consoled
me when I was brought low. He received only a promise, a word which did not
show any sign of coming true. The delay in the fulfillment of his desire
distressed him, but he took comfort by hoping firmly in the good faith of the
one who had made the promise. If David could sustain his spirit with just the
hope of the salvation which was being kept for us, with what joy and delight
ought we not to greet its realization?
Blessed are the mourners because they will be comforted, blessed those
whose hearts are afflicted by a holy grief because they shall be gladdened by a
kind word. Clearly the kind word which consoles is your all-powerful Word, O
Lord, which came today from the heavenly throne into the womb of a virgin.
There, too, he made a royal throne, and from there he consoles those who
mourn on earth even while he sits as king surrounded by the hosts of angels in
heaven.

2 A Word in Season – vol/ IV – Augustinian Press p 1991 – pg 52.5

Vigils Reading
2024-04-09
THE REDEMPTION OF OUR BODIES
From a sermon by Ronald Knox3
◊◊◊
I am content to think of my present body as merely the inadequate symbol
of that body which will be mine in eternity. A symbol, yes; but we must remind
ourselves again, it isn’t merely a kind of book token, entitling me to the
possession of a body in eternity; it is rather a kind of cloak-room ticket, entitling
me to the possession of my body in eternity. Our Lord’s Resurrection meant
an empty tomb; our Lord’s Ascension meant, presumably, the disappearance
from earth of a certain quantum of matter which had previously been part of
earth. If it is going to be possible to establish identity between that body of
yours which will lie in the cemetery, and that body of yours which will, we hope,
attain the enjoyment of heaven, aren’t we going to land ourselves in rather
difficult physical speculations to account for it? …What is certain is that the
thing, whatever it is, which expresses itself here and now in terms of a mass of
matter about six feet high, will persist, although it may be expressed in quite
different terms, in that order of creation, whatever it be, which will succeed
when the material creation itself has passed away.
The practical importance of that truth for us is, I take it, that as Christians
we are bound to think of our bodies as part of ourselves, as included not only in
the scheme of our creation but in the scheme of our redemption, as having…a
supernatural importance, and as demanding reverence in our treatment of
them. We look forward, as St Paul says, to the redemption of our bodies; they
are not encumbrances which we drag about with us, they are first-fruits of
eternity, entrusted to our keeping…
If you lean towards Eastern spiritualism, you will find yourself talking,
like the man in that poem of Lyall’s, about your body as if it were something
that didn’t matter; it “is a garment no more fitting, is a tent that I am quitting,
is a snare, from which at last, like a hawk, my soul hath passed“. If you lean
towards Western materialism, you will find yourself talking about your body as
if it were the only thing that mattered, like that poem of Housman’s, “The
Immortal Part”, which ends up: “And leave with endless night alone the
steadfast and enduring bone“. If you avoid both those excesses, you will find
yourself talking like Thomas a’ Kempis:
Ah, frail body, earth forsaking,
In what glory wilt thou rise,
Passing fair in thy remaking,
Strong and whole and swift and wise,
Free, and joy in freedom taking,
Framed for life that never dies!
Up, and stir thee, onward spur thee;
What, though toil be hard to bear,
If God’s grace shall count thee worthy
Those unguessed rewards to share?
Brief the pains that shall prefer thee
To eternal glory there

3 University Sermons, Ronald Knox. Palm Publishers, 1963. p.299, 301-2.7

Vigils Reading
2024-04-10
THE DWELLING-PLACES
OF OUR FOREFATHERS
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman4
◊◊◊
The Churches which we inherit are not the purchase of wealth nor the
creation of genius, they are the fruits of martyrdom. They come of high deeds
and sufferings, as long before their very building as we are after it. Their
foundations are laid very deep, even in the preaching of Apostles, and the
confession of Saints, and the first victories of the Gospel in our land. All that is
so noble in their architecture, all that captivates the eye and makes its way to
the heart, is not a human imagination, but a divine gift, a moral result, a
spiritual work.
The Cross is ever planted in hazard and suffering, and is watered with
tears and blood. No where does it take root and bear fruit, except its preaching
be with self-denial. It is easy indeed, for the ruling powers to make a decree, and
set religion on high, and extend its range, and herald its name; but they cannot
plant it, they can but impose it. The Church alone can plant the Church. The
Church alone can found her sees, and enclose herself within walls. None but
saintly men, mortified men, preachers of righteousness, and confessors for the
truth, can create a home for the truth in any land. Thus the Temples of God are
withal the monuments of his Saints, and we call them by their names while we
consecrate them to his glory. Their simplicity, grandeur, solidity, elevation,
grace, and exuberance or ornament, do but bring to remembrance the patience
and purity, the courage, meekness, and great charity, the heavenly affections,
the activity in well-doing, the faith and resignation, of men and women who
themselves did but worship in mountains, and in deserts, and in caves and dens
of the earth.
They labored, but not in vain, for others entered into their labor; and, as
if by natural consequence, at length their word prospered after them, and made
itself a home, even these sacred palaces in which it has so long dwelt and which
are still vouchsafed to us, in token, as we trust, that they too are still with us
who spoke that word, and with them, his presence, who gave them grace to
speak it.
O happy they, who, in a sorrowful time, avail themselves of this bond of
communion with the Saints of old and with the Universal Church! O wise and
dutiful, who, when the world has robbed them of so much, set the more account
upon what remains! We have not lost all, while we have the dwelling-places of
our forefathers; while we can repair those which are broken down, and build
upon the old foundations, and propagate them upon new sites! Happy they, who
when they enter within their holy limits, enter in heart into the court of heaven!
And most unhappy, who, while they have eyes to admire, admire them only for
their beauty’s sake, and the skill they exhibit; who regard them as works of art,
not fruits of grace; bow down before their material forms, instead of
worshipping “in spirit and in truth;” count their stones, and measure their
spaces, but discern in them no tokens of the invisible, no canons of truth, no
lessons of wisdom, to guide them forward in the way heavenward
In heaven is the substance, of which here below we are vouchsafe the
image; the thither, if we be worthy, we shall at length attain. There is the holy
Jerusalem, whose light is like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper
stone, clear as crystal; and whose wall is great and high, with twelve gates, and
an Angel at each; whose glory is the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb is the
light.

4 Parochial & Plain Sermons, John H. Newman (Ignatius Press CA, 1987) pp. 1348-1349.9

Vigils Reading - St Stanislaus
2024-04-11
ST STANISLAUS
BISHOP AND MARTYR OF CRACOW, POLAND
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints5
◊◊◊
Stanislaus was born on July 26, 1030 in Poland. He came of noble parents
who had been childless for many years until this son was granted to them in
answer to prayer. They devoted him from birth to the service of God, and
encouraged the piety he showed from childhood. He was ordained a priest
by the Bishop of Cracow, who gave him a canonry in the cathedral and
subsequently appointed him his preacher and archdeacon. The eloquence of
the young priest and his saintly example brought about a great reformation
of morals among his penitents, clergy as well as laity. Upon the death of the
Bishop, Stanislaus was appointed Bishop by Pope Alexander II, and was
consecrated Bishop in 1072.
Poland at that time was ruled by Boleslaus, a prince whose finer qualities
were eclipsed by his unbridled lust and savage cruelty. Stanislaus alone
ventured to confront the tyrant and to remonstrate with him at the scandal
his conduct was causing. At first the king tried to vindicate his behavior, but
when pressed more closely he made some show of repentance. The good
effects of the admonition, however, soon wore off and Boleslaus relapsed
into his evil ways. There were acts of injustice which brought him into
conflict with the Bishop and at length he created an outrage which caused
general indignation.
A certain nobleman had a wife who was very beautiful. Boleslaus cast
lustful eyes upon this lady, and when she repelled his advances, he caused
her to be carried off by force and lodged in his palace. The Polish nobles
called upon the Archbishop of Gnesen and the court prelates to confront the
monarch. But fear of offending the king closed their lips. St. Stanislaus,
when appealed to, had no such hesitation. He went to Boleslaus and rebuked
him for his sin. He threatened the prince that if he persisted in his evil course
he would bring upon himself the censure of the Church.
Finding all remonstrance useless, Stanislaus launched against the king a
formal sentence of excommunication. The tyrant professed to disregard the
sentence, but when he entered the cathedral of Cracow he found that the
services were at once suspended by order of the Bishop. Furious with rage,
he pursued the Bishop to the little chapel of St. Michael outside the city,
where he was celebrating Mass, and ordered some of his guards to enter and
slay him. The men however returned saying they could not kill the saint as
he was surrounded by a heavenly light. Upbraiding them for cowardice, the
king himself entered the chapel and dispatched the Bishop with his own
hand. The guards then cut the body into pieces and scattered them abroad
to be devoured by the beasts of prey. However the sacred relics were rescued
three days later by the cathedral canons and privately buried at the door of
the chapel where Stanislaus had been slain.
It is not true that the action of Boleslaus led to an immediate uprising of
the people which drove him from Poland; but it certainly hastened his fall
from power. Pope Gregory VII laid the country under an interdict, and
nearly two centuries later, in 1253, St Stanislaus was canonized by Pope
Innocent IV.

5 Butler’s Lives of the Saints – Revised edition – edited by Michael Walsh – Harper – San
Francisco – 1991 – pg 109.12
