Vigils Reading
2023-06-27
THE SECRET OF THE PSALTER
From the writing of Dietrich Bonhoeffer3 ◊◊◊
The Psalter occupies a unique place in the Holy Scriptures. It is God’s Word and, with a few exceptions, the prayer of men as well. How are we to understand this? How can God’s Word be at the same time prayer to God?…
A psalm that we cannot utter as a prayer, that makes us falter and horrifies us, is a hint to us that here Someone else is praying, not we; that the One who is here protesting his innocence, who is invoking God’s judgment, who has come to such infinite depths of suffering, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. He it is who is praying here, and not only here but in the whole Psalter…
The Man Jesus Christ, to whom no affliction, no ill, no suffering is alien and who yet was the wholly innocent and righteous one, is praying in the Psalter through the mouth of his Church… He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time…
The Psalter is the vicarious prayer of Christ for his Church… This prayer belongs, not to the individual member, but to the whole Body of Christ. Only in the whole Christ does the whole Psalter become a reality, a whole which the individual can never fully comprehend and call his own. That is why the prayer of the psalms belongs in a peculiar way to the fellowship. Even if a verse or a psalm is not one’s own prayer, it is nevertheless the prayer of another member of the fellowship; so it is quite certainly the prayer of the true Man Jesus Christ and his Body on earth…

In so far as Christ is in us, the Christ who took all the vengeance of God upon himself, who met God’s vengeance in our stead, who thus – stricken by the wrath of God… could forgive his enemies, who himself suffered the wrath that his enemies might go free – we, too… can pray these psalms, through Jesus Christ, from the heart of Jesus Christ… In so far as “Christ’s blood and righteousness” has become “our beauty, our glorious dress,” we can… pray the psalms of innocence as Christ’s prayer for us and gift to us. These psalms, too, belong to us through him.
And how shall we pray those psalms of unspeakable misery and suffering, the meaning of which we have hardly begun to sense even remotely? We can and we should pray the psalms of suffering, the psalms of the passion, not in order to generate in ourselves what our hearts do not know of their own experience, not to make our own laments, but because all this suffering was real and actual in Jesus Christ, because the Man Jesus Christ suffered sickness, pain, shame, and death, because in his suffering and death all flesh suffered and died. What happened to us on the Cross of Christ, the death of our old man, and what actually does happen and should happen to us ever since our baptism in the dying of our flesh, this is what gives us the right to pray these prayers. Through the Cross of Christ these psalms have been bestowed upon his Body on earth as prayers that issue from his heart… The Body of Christ is praying, and as an individual one acknowledges that his prayer is only a minute fragment of the whole prayer of the Church. He learns to pray the prayer of the Body of Christ. And that lifts him above his personal concerns and allows him to pray selflessly…
In all our praying there remains only the prayer of Jesus Christ; this alone has the promise of fulfillment..

3 Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Life Together. Trans. John W. Doberstein. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1954. 44-50.

Vigils Reading - St Ireneaus
2023-06-28
PERFECT KNOWLEDGE CANNOT BE ATTAINED IN THE PRESENT LIFE
From the writing of St Irenaeus of Lyons4 ◊◊◊
Just as the Apostle said, when all other things have been destroyed, these will continue, namely: faith, hope, and love. For faith in our teacher continues firm, assuring us that there is only one who is truly God and that we should really love God always, since he alone is Father; and that consequently we should hope to receive something more and to learn from God that he is good and possesses unlimited riches, an eternal kingdom, and infinite knowledge. Thus, through the many voices of the <Scriptures> there will be heard among us one harmonious melody that hymns praises to God who made all things. If, for example, anyone should ask us what God did before he created the world, we reply that the answer to this is in God’s keeping. The Scriptures do teach us that this world was made complete by God when it began in time; but no Scripture reveals what God did before this. So the answer to this is in God’s keeping…
Since, however, God is all Mind and all Word, what he thinks he speaks, and what he speaks he thinks… For his thought is his Word, and his Word is his Mind; and the Mind that contains all things is the Father himself… The Lord, God’s very Son, admitted that the Father alone knows the very day of judgment and the hour. He said clearly: But about that day and hour no one knows… nor the Son, but only the Father. So if the Son was not ashamed to refer the knowledge of that day to the Father, but told the truth, neither should we be ashamed to leave to God the more important questions we encounter. Really, no one is above the teacher.
If, then, anyone asks the reason why the Father, who has all things in common with the Son, was manifested by the Lord as the only one who knew the hour and the day, he will find no more fitting, proper, or safe answer in the present life than this, namely, that we might learn through the Lord, who alone is the truthful teacher, that the Father is above all things. Truly, he said: The Father is greater than I. Thus, Our Lord proclaimed that the Father excels in regard to knowledge, so that we too, as long as we live in the form of this world, might leave perfect knowledge and such questions to God; and that we should not, while investigating the depths of the Father, fall into so great a danger as to question whether there is another god above the God

4 St. Irenaeus of Lyons. Against the Heresies – Book 2. Trans. Dominic J. Unger, OFM CAP. New York: The Newman Press, 2012. 87-93.

Vigils Reading - SS Peter & Paul
2023-06-29
WHEN PRAYER BECOMES WONDER
From the letters of John of Dalyatha5 ◊◊◊
Understand, my brother, Our Lord said to Simon, chief of the Apostles: I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, that you may close and open to all whom you wish. And not only to Simon did he give this power, but also to all lovers of the Truth. Now prayer consists in knocking at the door of the Giver; but the one who has entered the Kingdom and has taken possession of its treasures, how can he knock at the door?… He enjoys the good things within and he is amazed and marvels at the beauty of the Good One. But it would be absurd to say that he is actually praying, for he is utterly inebriated with the beauty of the most glorious Bridegroom… How can such a one prostrate at the door to beg like a wayfarer, while in his hands are the keys of the treasury, to take from and to give; to live and to give life?
But you will say: Why did Simon go up on the roof to pray, and why does the great Paul say: Pray always? These Apostles, my brothers, use such things with us which, insofar as they are known to us, are ones which are suitable for us… It is the Spirit Himself who prays for us, says St. Paul. This then is the working of the Spirit and not the stirrings of prayer. As he said: God has shone forth in our hearts, and his Spirit searches His depths and reveals to us His mysteries. We may have wanted to make this prayer ourselves, but the Spirit of Jesus would not permit it because we have the mind of Christ to see the mysteries of the house of the Father.

So then they have gone into the place of wonder. They have gained power in the world of visions; the Spirit has united them to the wondrous beauty; they no longer get weary in prayer; they no longer weep at the door; no longer do they cry from afar: “Show us your beauty!” They no longer ask like beggars: “Share with us your riches!” They give because they have received; they share because they have grown rich; they give rest because they are given rest in the harbor of life; they rejoice and they give joy because they are drunk with the love of the Beautiful One. Streams of living waters flow from within him who believes in me… These waters give life to others and give drink to the thirsty…
But perhaps you will say: “You speak of wonder but I do not know the power of this wonder.” I offer as witness the word of a brother worthy of belief who says: “When the grace of my God is pleased with me and draws my intellect to astonishment at the vision of Him, my intellect remains all the day without stirrings in the place of wonder and when it goes out from there, it prays and earnestly entreats that the light of the concealed One, which is hidden within him, may shine out in the world full of wonder.” From this time forward, it is no longer a place of words in which the pen is able to flow with ink; here a limit is set: silence. Only the mind is able to pass over and to see this resting-place of all the mysteries. The mind has power to go in and to marvel at the wonderful beauty which is above all and hidden within all.
Thus every prayer which is not transformed now and then into wonder at the mysteries, has not yet arrived at perfection… To these things you will say: “Do not speak of things of which you are not capable; do not say what you have not experienced.” Truly, I incline my head in shame, I am silent and I take refuge in mercy. Help me by prayer

5 John of Dalyatha. The Letters of John of Dalyatha. Trans. Mary T. Hansbury. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2006. 54-62.

10

Vigils Reading
2023-06-30
ON HESITATION IN PRAYER
From “The Commendation of Faith” by Baldwin of Forde6 ◊◊◊
The fact that the righteous are sometimes ignorant of what it is proper to ask for is clearly shown by what Paul says to the Romans: “The Spirit helps our infirmity, for we do not know what it is proper to pray for. But the Spirit itself asks for us with ineffable groanings”… The righteous do not know what it is proper to pray for, for when they ask to be relieved from need or tribulation or to have temptation removed, they do not realize [what positive] fruits will come from need or tribulation, or the result of temptation. They do not know what is more useful for them for salvation: whether to have or to lack the things they desire.
Nevertheless, since they have two wills – one which is weak and the other powerful; one according to the flesh which lusts against the spirit and the other according to the spirit which lusts against the flesh – a particular form of prayer has been instituted in which they say to God: ‘Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you [will]. This powerful will, which is according to the spirit, and by which we wish to put the will of God before the will which is according to the flesh, is what the Holy Spirit urges and brings about,… inflames our hearts in the fervour of holy desire, and makes us ask for those things that please him and which are beneficial for us…
When we ask from God wisdom, charity, humility, patience, peace of mind – things we should certainly ask for – then even though we know what we seek, we still do not know whether what we seek is the right thing for us to have or for him to give… In such a confusion of uncertainty and ignorance, when the righteous do not know… for what they ought properly to ask, when they have only the certainty of their own weakness and do not have full confidence in their own righteousness, then, even though they trust resolutely in the mercy of God, they still tremble because of their frailty and they hesitate, nor do they hope without fear, just as they do not tremble without hope. But if they so fear, how is it that they do not despair? If they so hope, how is it that they do not relax through such a great [sense of] security? When they pray, they are placed between hope and fear: how, then, do they ask in faith without hesitation? [The answer is that] they do not hesitate in that faith which, in all things and through all things, they do not doubt to be true…

Someone who doubts focusses a great deal of attention either on the power of God or on his will. The man who brought his son to Jesus seemed to doubt [God’s] power when, according to Mark, he says: ‘If you can do anything, help us and have mercy on us.’ Jesus said to him: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible for the one who believes. He said: ‘Lord, I do believe: help my unbelief.”… The leper doubted his will but not his power, when, according to Matthew, he said to Jesus: ‘Lord, if you will, you can make me clean’, and at once he heard: ‘I will; be clean.’ Note that he who doubted only his will received the assurance of his will with the grace of a cure. But he who doubted his power and said ‘If you can’, straightaway heard this said to him: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible for the one who believes.’ In this way it is shown that the grace of the mercy he sought depended on his faith in the omnipotence of the one whom he had doubted could do anything in his particular case

6 Baldwin of Forde. The Commendation of Faith. CF 65. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland and David N. Bell. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2000. 64-70.

Vigils Reading - Memorial B.V.M.
2023-07-01
PARADISO
An excerpt of “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri7 ◊◊◊
I lifted up my eyes; and… I saw more than a thousand Angels making festival, each one distinct in effulgence and in ministry. I saw there, smiling to their sports and to their songs, a beauty which was gladness in the eyes of all the other saints. And had I equal wealth in speech as in conception, yet would I not dare to attempt the least of her delightfulness. Bernard, when he saw my eyes fixed and intent on the object of his own burning glow, turned his own with such affection to her, that he made mine more ardent in their gazing. With his love fixed on his Delight, that contemplator freely assumed the office of a teacher… And he began this holy prayer:
“Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, humble and exalted more than any creature, fixed goal of the eternal counsel, thou art she who didst so enoble human nature that its Maker did not disdain to become its creature. In thy womb was rekindled the Love under whose warmth this flower in the eternal peace has thus unfolded. Here thou art for us the noonday torch of charity, and below among mortals thou art the living fount of hope. Lady, thou art so great and so availest, that whoso would have grace and has not recourse to thee, his desire seeks to fly without wings. Thy loving-kindness not only succors him who asks, but oftentimes freely foreruns the asking.
In thee is mercy, in thee pity, in thee munificence, in thee is found whatever of goodness is in any creature. Now this man, who from the lowest pit of the universe even to here has seen one by one the spiritual lives, implores thee of thy grace for power such that he may be able with his eyes to rise still higher toward the last salvation. And I, who never for my own vision burned more than I do for his, proffer to thee all my prayers, and pray that they be not scant, that with thy prayers thou wouldst dispel for him every cloud of his mortality, so that the Supreme Pleasure may be disclosed to him…

The eyes beloved and reverenced by God, fixed upon him who prayed, showed us how greatly devout prayers do please her; then they were turned to the Eternal Light, wherein we may not believe that any creature’s eye finds its way so clear. And I, who was drawing near to the end of all desires, raised to its utmost, even as I ought, the ardor of my longing. Bernard was signing to me with a smile to look upward, but I was already of myself such as he wished; for my sight, becoming pure, was entering more and more through the beam of the lofty Light which in Itself is true…
Within the profound and shining subsistence of the lofty Light appeared to me three circles of three colors and one magnitude; and one seemed reflected by the other, as rainbow by rainbow, and the third seemed fire, breathed forth equally from the one and the other… O Light Eternal, who alone abidest in Thyself, alone knowest Thyself, and, known to Thyself and knowing, lovest and smilest on Thyself! That circling which, thus begotten, appeared in Thee as reflected light, when my eyes had dwelt on it for a time, seemed to me depicted with our image within itself and in its own color, wherefore my sight was entirely set upon it. As is the geometer who wholly applies himself to measure the circle, and finds not, in pondering, the principle of which he is in need, such was I at that new sight. I wished to see how the image conformed to the circle and how it has its place therein; but my own wings were not sufficient for that, save that my mind was smitten by a flash wherein its wish came to it. Here power failed the lofty phantasy; but already my desire and my will were revolved, like a wheel that is evenly moved, by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars

7 Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: Paradiso. Trans. Charles S. Singleton. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975. 355-381.

Skema
2023-07-02
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
13th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
July 2 – 8, 2023

Sun
2
Mon
3
Tue
4
Wed
5
Thu
6
Fri
7
Sat
8

Office
13th Sunday
St Thomas
Weekday
Weekday
Weekday
Weekday
Memorial of BVM

Vigils
Gen 24:50-67
Acts 5:12-32
Gen 25:1-18
Gen 25:19-34
Gen 26:1-22
Gen 26:23-35
Gen 27:1-29

Lauds
Prov 12:25-28
Isa 43:8-13
Prov 13:1-6
Prov 13:7-12
Prov 13:13-18
Prov 13:20-25
Prov 14:29-34

Mass
97
593
378
379
380
381
382

1st
2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a
Eph 2:19-22
Gen 19:15-29
Gen 21:5, 8-20a
Gen 22:1b-19
Gen 23:1-4, 19; 24:1-8, 62-67
Gen 27:1-5, 15-29

2nd
Rom 6:3-4, 8-11

Gospel
Matt 10:37-42
John 20:24-29
Matt 8:23-27
Matt 8:28-34
Matt 9:1-8
Matt 9:9-13
Matt 9:14-17

Vespers
Col 2:16-23
1 Pet 1:3-9
Col 3:1-11
Col 3:12-17
Col 3:18-4:1
Col 4:2-9
Col 4:10-18

Vigils Reading - 13th Sunday ORD
2023-07-02
TAKE UP YOUR CROSS
From a commentary by St Hilary of Poitiers1 ◊◊◊
Thanks Christ commanded the apostles to leave everything in the world that they held most dear, adding: Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. For those who belong to Christ have crucified their lower nature with its sinful passions and desires. No one is worthy of him who refuses to take up his cross, that is to say, to share the Lord’s passion, death, burial, and resurrection, and to follow him by living out the mystery of faith in the newly received grace of the Spirit.
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. This means that thanks to the power of the word and the renunciation of past sins, temporal gains are death to the soul, and temporal losses salvation. Apostles must therefore take death into their new life and nail their sins to the Lord’s cross. They must confront their persecutors with contempt for things present, holding fast to their freedom by a glorious confession of faith, and shunning any gain that would harm their souls. They should know that no power over their souls has been given to anyone, and that by suffering loss in this short life they will achieve immortality.
Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Christ gives us all a love for his teaching and a disposition to treat our teachers with courtesy. Earlier he had shown the danger facing those who refused to receive the apostles by requiring these to shake the dust off their feet as a testimony against them; now he commends those who do receive the apostles, assuring them of a greater recompense than they might have expected for their hospitality, and he teaches that since he still acts as mediator, when we receive him God enters us through him because he comes from God. Thus whoever receives the apostles receives Christ, and whoever receives Christ receives God the Father, since what is received in the apostles is nothing else than what is received in Christ; nor is there anything in Christ but what is in God. Through this disposition of graces to receive the apostles is to receive God, because Christ is in them and God is in Christ

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 102-103.

Vigils Reading -St Thomas
2023-07-03
MY FAITH SEE YOU, LORD
From the writing of Bishop of Nikolai Velimirovich2 ◊◊◊
My faith sees You, Lord. It is the light and the farseeing vision of my eyes. It is the sensing of Your omnipresence. It pulls my knees to the ground and lifts my arms toward heaven. My faith is my soul’s contact with You. It prompts my heart to dance and my throat to sing. When a swallow draws near, the baby swallows become excited in the nest. For even in the distance they sense the coming of their mother. My faith is my excitement, for You are coming… If my friend is thinking of me while writing a letter in a distant city, I also dismiss other thoughts and think of my friend. My faith is my thinking about You, which prompts You, all-encompassing Lord, to think of me. When a lion is separated from his lioness, the lion’s eyes are distraught with longing for the lioness. My faith is my longing for You, when You are far from me, my Beauty.
When there is no sun, the most terrifying storms lash the sea. My faith is the calming of the storm within my soul, for Your light pours into me and pacifies me. My eyes said to me: “We do not see Him.” But I pacified them with the words: “The truth is, that you were not created to see Him but to see what is His.” My ears said to me: “We do not hear Him.” But I brought them to their senses with the words: “The truth is, that you were not created to hear Him but to hear what is His.” Nothing of all that is created can see or hear Him but only what is His. What is created sees and hears what is created. Only what is begotten of Him can see Him. And only what is begotten of Him can hear Him. A painting cannot see the painter, but the son of a painter can see the painter. A bell cannot hear a bell-caster, but the daughter of a bell-caster can hear her father.

The eye cannot see Him because it was not created for the purpose of seeing Him. The ear cannot hear Him, because it was not created for the purpose of hearing Him. But vision can see Him, and hearing can hear Him. My faith sees You, Lord, just as what is begotten sees its begetter. My faith hears You, Lord, just as what is begotten hears its begetter. The God within me sees and hears the God in You. And God is not created but begotten. My faith is like diving into the abyss of my soul and swimming out with You. My faith is my only genuine knowledge. Everything else is like the children collecting motley pebbles by the lake.
My faith is the only genuine interest of my life. Truly everything else is a comedy of the senses. When I say: “Give me more faith”–I am thinking: “Give my me more of Yourself, O my Father and God.

2 Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich. Prayers by the Lake. Trans. Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Todor Mika, S.T.M. and Very Rev. Dr. Stevan Scott. Grayslake, IL: The Serbian Orthodox Metropolitante of New Gracanica, 1999. 56-59.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-04
WHY ARE THEY AFRAID?
A Sermon by Isaac of Stella3 ◊◊◊
“A great storm arose on the sea.” The wind that was against them is the hot north wind from which comes all evil. Well knowing its fury, the soul banishes it by saying, “North wind, be off; wind of the south, blow through this garden of mine, and set its fragrance astir.” There can be no doubt that the contrary wind is the devil, is Satan who stirs up the depths of the sea, namely, the children of this world, and attempts by instigating frequent storms of opposition to shipwreck the Church. In his power he disturbs even the mountains because of the bitter trials that overtake them. Where now, I ask, is the Power of him whom they have followed on to the boat, the power that made them boast in their confidence: “Not for us to be afraid, though earth should tremble about us, and the hills be carried away into the depth of the sea?”
By now the waters, the mountainous waves of the deep, rage and roar, and those mountains of his Church or mountains of the little ship, are in a proper panic over the force and fury of the elements. Why have they lost their bearings? Why are they afraid? Their strong Saviour is asleep. Where Christ their Strength sleeps their fear holds sway, for then the sea’s fury rises and a man forgets his faith in Christ.
While Christ’s power is inoperative it is a good thing that fear should dominate; it will in due time force the frightened and their slight and sleepy faith to seek safety with him with whom they should have kept their strength, and far from being afraid could have claimed: “God is our refuge and strong hold amid the bitter trials that overtake us.” Instead, they have to beg Christ to wake up and save them because if he sleeps on they will drown. The best thing the disciples could have done would have been to keep their Master from sleeping; they did the next best thing and woke him from sleep. In place of courage and glowing faith they had but fear and a confession of need. Love keeps Christ awake; necessity wakes him from sleep. What a good thing it is, nonetheless, to have to make a virtue of necessity!

For seeking counsel and help is indeed virtuous, though not as virtuous as having the courage that prevents fear. So, brothers, whenever persecution rages against us, let us, after the holy Apostle’s example, have recourse to Christ. Let us enliven our faith in Christ and awake the memory of his Passion, that sleeping of his that this sleeping in the boat fittingly refers to. By ourselves we become either weak and fearful or indulge in foolhardy fortitude; in Christ we find the very pattern of patience and he endows us with… virtuous endurance teaching us true constancy. Separated from him we are forever failures; joined to him we are fit for anything; as the blessed Apostle says, “Nothing is beyond my powers, thanks to the strength he gives me.”
How true it is that the Lord’s eyelids appraise us! When he closes his eyes the sea rages, everything becomes savagely difficult. May we not be broken! He opens his eyes, all is calm, it is all smooth sailing. May we not become proud! For when all is quiet, all is safe, may we not become lazy. In foul weather we must hope for fair and in fair weather we must beware of foul. Changes are always going on and one thing follows another. The truly wise man will be more anxious in prosperity than in adversity, and in neither will such a person grow lazy and surrender to slumber; not for such to either despair or become complacent. So, brothers, with fear and hope for escort, let us keep ever alive in us faith in our Lord Jesus Christ

3 Isaac of Stella. Sermons on the Christian Year: Volume One. CF 11. Trans. Hugh McCaffery. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979. 110-111.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-05
BE FIRM, STAND FIRM, ACT BOLDY
A letter from Henry Suso to a spiritual daughter4 ◊◊◊
Dear daughter, why do you give in to yourself? Why do you so turn your back on the well-intentioned instruction of your spiritual father that you begin again to surrender yourself to things from which I had just barely weaned you, things that weakened you in soul, body and honor. Do you now think you can go and do whatever you feel like? Do you now stand so firmly that you can allow yourself anything? Alas, why don’t you think back on what God has forgiven you, how you just barely got to where you are, and that you are not yet anything at all?… Don’t you see the devil has wrapped a silk thread around your neck and would like to lead you off after him?…
“Be brave…” When a respected knight first leads a squire into the tournament ring, he says to him encouragingly, “Now, noble hero, show what you are capable of today. Be bold and defend yourself keenly. Don’t lose heart… It is better to die with honor than to live in dishonor. Once the first contest has been gotten through, it gets easier.”… This is what you need… that you stand firm and do not follow the evil counsels of the devil. You are now in the worst situation possible. If you can pass over this narrow stretch, you shall quickly pass over into the beautiful and spacious meadow of a peaceful spiritual life. Would to God that I might stand in your place and fight, taking for you the fierce blows that your besieged heart is now receiving. But this would be a shame because then you would not receive the green palm branch that you, along with other special knights of God, shall wear in your eternal glory if you conquer. For every arrow shot at you there shall be a ruby in your crown.

And so, my child, be firm, stand firm, act boldly. What you suffer is short. What you look forward to is eternal. Act as though you can neither see nor hear until you have won the first contest of your spiritual beginning. After big storms there follow bright days… Do not give in out of indulgence to the sucking vipers of your heart… If you do not want them to return tomorrow, tear their heads off. Do it quickly and thoroughly. If you only take them by the tail, they will stick to you all the more and will bite you so much the worse. Say to them that have so clearly robbed your heart of peace with their guile: “I make no peace with you!” Flee to God. Let the silly fools call after you as much as they want. Never look back! Then you will have quickly conquered all your enemies and will easily be freed from your heavy shackles…
Certainly it is not enough for you to bite daintily into the clover. You must attack your rebellious body, curb your sharpened tongue, recollect your distracted mind, so that your heart is not like a public house, a common wine cellar, a tavern, where anyone can come in and where everyone can do as he pleases. Drive them out, drive out this low company or you can certainly never receive our gentle Lord. Remember that he has bidden you to be his bride. And so see to it that you don’t become a barmaid

4 Henry Suso. The Exemplar, with Two German Sermons. Trans. Frank Tobin. New York: Paulist Press, 1989. 342-345.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-06
THE SUSTAINER OF LIFE
From the writing of Howard Thurman5 ◊◊◊
It is of enormous reassurance to us, our Father, that Thou art the sustainer and the holder of life, that despite all of our own limitations and finitudes, despite all our weaknesses and failures, despite all of the soarings of our minds and imaginations and our spirits, always we come back to the deeply-lying assurance that Thou art the sustainer of life, the holder of all creation, and the guarantor of all our values. This is of such overwhelming reassurance to us that we celebrate in simple words of praise this almighty grace.
We offer on our part not merely the good deeds of which we are aware at times, not merely the concerns for our fellows which sometimes lead us to simple deeds or glorious acts of self-sacrifice, but we offer Thee the things that we might become – all of the possibilities of our lives, the potentials not yet realized. We offer to Thee our failures also; those times when something breaks down and we do not know what… all that we might have been at a particular time and were not; all of the sense of conscience that disturbs and whips and tortures because we have not been in quality and in kind what we knew at the time we could have been in quality and kind. And beyond all of these expressions of ourselves, our Father, we offer to Thee ourselves. This is what we want to do, and sometimes we are able to do it – just to say to Thee, Father, here am I. My life as it is at its depth I give to Thee. And I want Thee to hold it so that it is no longer my life to do with in accordance with my whims, my impulses, my desires, or even my needs, but to take my life and to hold it until it takes on Thy character, Thy mind, Thy purposes. If Thou wilt do this and if Thou wilt help me to do this, then I can be in myself what is truest and surest in me. And this, O God, is all, all, all

5 Thurman, Howard. Essential Writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006. 135-136.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-07
WHEN A PERSON’S MIND IS TOUCHED BY GOD
From the mystical discourse between God and St Hildegard of Bingen6 ◊◊◊
…I admonish and exhort humanity, and grant it pearls of goodness; when a person’s mind is touched by me, I am his beginning. That is to say, when a person understands my admonition with his sense of hearing, and his senses consent to my touching his mind, I initiate good in him. And it is needful that he begin thus, with me helping him. Then a struggle follows: Will my gift attain its end or not? How? Understand thus. When I admonish a person, so that he begins to lament and weep for his sins, then if his will consents to my admonition – for he will feel the change in his mind, and according to his mind’s desire he will raise his eyes to see and his ears to hear and his mouth to speak and his hands to touch and his feet to walk – his mind will raise itself to conquer his senses, so that they will learn things their habits could not teach them…
There are many people who, feeling my presence and understanding that my admonition has touched their minds, fly from me by the evil ways of the sins they conceive, which they have swallowed by their choice, consent and deeds. And therefore they are to God as nothing, with no being at all, since they choose not to know what they can do when I touch them… They flee from the Grace of God; for they do not want to see or hear or think of what they should do when goodness admonishes them. They flee the good admonition like a worm burrowing into the earth. The worm hides itself from all the beauty of the world; and so do the wicked, flying from the commands of God and wrapping themselves in ordure, pollution and death, and hiding in it, afraid to come out of the stench of evil into the light. Such as these do not belong to me, for I do not choose to be apportioned here and there amid the mire. How? I choose to be with those who understand me and repent in purity; and then I join myself to human corruption in order to purge it…

I will polish and refine them without ceasing, that they may rightly and fitly be placed in the heavenly Jerusalem… I often withdraw from them, so that it seems to them that they are without help; this I do that their outer person may not be puffed up with pride. Then they weep aloud and lament, thinking I am offended with them; but it is thus I scrutinize their faith.
And I still hold them with a strong hand, taking away their pride and forcing them to be ignorant of what they are in their secret good deeds; for thus I will to produce in them the fruits of grief and sorrow. And sometimes I let the Devil try to seduce them with the fiery arrows of impurity and burning fornication, which wound their frail bodies; this I permit that they may be imbued with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and so become great messengers, glorious in virtue. They are tested like gold in the furnace, tried by mockery and provocation and set at naught… But as sheep scattered by the wolf do not die, so these people do not perish in soul but live more fully, purified by their troubles…
So now, my dearest children, sweeter in fragrance to me than spices, hear me admonishing you. While you have time to do good and evil, worship your God with true devotion. Again, O my dearest children, who are rising like the dawn, and who must burn in charity like the sun; run and make haste, dearest ones, in the way of truth, which is the light of the world, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who redeemed you in the last days by His blood so that when you die you may joyfully attain to Him

6 Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias. Trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop. New York: Paulist Press, 1990. 428-433.

Vigils Reading - Memorial of B.V.M.
2023-07-08
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE HER?
From “Revelations of Divine Love” by Julian of Norwich7 ◊◊◊
He showed his sacred heart quite riven in two… And with this our good Lord said most blessedly, ‘Look how much I loved you’; as if he had said, ‘My darling, look and see your Lord, your God, who is your maker and your eternal joy. See what pleasure and delight I take in your salvation, and for my love rejoice with me now.’… Look and see that I loved you so much before I died for you that I was willing to die for you; and now I have died for you, and willingly suffered as much as I can for you. And now all my bitter torment and painful hardship has changed into endless joy and bliss for me and for you. How could it now be that you could make any request that pleased me that I would not very gladly grant you? For my pleasure is your holiness and your endless joy and bliss with me.’…
And with the same expression of mirth and joy our good Lord looked down to his right and brought to my mind the place where our Lady was standing during the time of his Passion; and he said, ‘Would you like to see her?’ And with these sweet words it was as if he had said, ‘I know very well that you long to see my blessed Mother, for after myself she is the most supreme joy that I could reveal to you, and that which most delights and honours me; and it is she that my blessed creatures most long to see.’
And because of the supreme, marvellous, singular love that he feels for this sweet Virgin, his blessed Mother, our Lady Saint Mary, he showed her very joyful, and that is what these sweet words mean, as if he said, ‘Do you want to see how I love her, so that you can rejoice with me in the love that I have for her and she for me?’ And also, to explain these sweet words more clearly, our Lord God is speaking to all mankind who will be saved as though to one person, as if he said, ‘Would you like to see in her how you are loved? For love of you I made her so high, so noble and so excellent; and this makes me glad, and I want it to gladden you.’ For after himself, she is the most blessed sight. But concerning this I am not taught to long to see her bodily presence while I am here on earth, but the virtues of her blessed soul: her truth, her wisdom, her love, so that through these I may learn to know myself and reverently fear my God. And when our good Lord had shown this and said these words, ‘Would you like to see her?’, I answered and said, ‘Yes, my good Lord, thank you. Yes, my good Lord, if it is your will.’

I prayed for this repeatedly and I thought I would see her bodily presence, but I did not do so. And with these words Jesus showed me a spiritual vision of her; just as I had seen her low and humble before, he now showed her to me high, noble and glorious, and more pleasing to him than any other creature. And he wants it to be known that all those who rejoice in him should rejoice in her and in the joy that he has in her and she in him. And to make it clearer he gave this example: if a man loves someone uniquely, more than all other creatures, he wants to make all creatures love and rejoice in that person he loves so much. And these words that Jesus said, ‘Would you like to see her?’, seemed to me the most pleasing words about her that he could have given me with the spiritual vision of her; for our Lord gave me no special revelation except of our Lady Saint Mary, and he showed her three times: the first when she conceived, the second in her sorrow under the cross, the third as she is now, in delight, honour and joy

7 Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. Trans. Elizabeth Spearing. London: Penguin Books, 1998. 76-78.

Skema
2023-07-09
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
14th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
July 9 – 15, 2023

Sun
9
Mon
10
Tue
11
Wed
12
Thu
13
Fri
14
Sat
15

Office
14th Sunday
Weekday
St Benedict
Weekday
Office for the Dead
St Kateri Tekakwitha
St Bonaventure

Vigils
Gen 27:30-46
Gen 28:1-22
Exod 34:27-35; 35:20-29
Gen 29:1-30
Gen 29:31-30:24
Gen 30:25-43
Gen 31:1-24

Lauds
Prov 15:1-5
Prov 15:13-17
Sir 2:1-9
Prov 15:18-23
Prov 15:29-33
Prov 16:1-6
Prov 16:16-20

Mass
100
383
597, 477, 810
385
386
387
388

1st
Zech 9:9-10
Gen 28:10-22a
Prov 2:1-9
Gen 41:55-57; 42:5-7a, 17-24a
Gen 44:18-21, 23b-29; 45:1-5
Gen 46:1-7, 28-30
Gen 49:29-32; 50:15-26a

2nd
Rom 8:9, 11-13

Eph 4:1-6

Gospel
Matt 11:25-30
Matt 9:18-26
Luke 22:24-27
Matt 10:1-7
Matt 10:7-15
Matt 10:16-23
Matt 10:24-33

Vespers
1 Thess 1:1-10
Gal 5:22-6:2
Col 3:12-17
1 Thess 2:1-8
1 Thess 2:9-12
1 Thess 2:13-16
1 Thess 2:17-3:5Skem

Vigils Reading - 14th Sun ORD
2023-07-09
GENTLE AND HUMBLE OF HEART
A commentary attributed to St John Chrysostom1 ◊◊◊
Our Master is always the same, gentle and benevolent. In his constant concern for our salvation, he says explicitly in the gospel: Come, learn of me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.
What great condescension on the part of the Creator! And yet the creature feels no shame! Come, learn from me. The Master came to console his fallen servants. This is how Christ treats us. He shows pity when a sinner deserves punishment. When the race that angers him deserves to be annihilated, he addresses the guilty ones in the kindly words: Come, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.
God is humble, and we are proud! The judge is gentle; the criminal arrogant! The potter speaks in lowered voice; the clay discourses in tones of a king! Come, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Our master carries a whip not to wound , but to heal us. Reflect upon his indescribable kindness. Who could fail to love a master who never strikes his servants? Who would not marvel at a judge who beseeches a condemned criminal? Surely the self-abasement of these words must astound you.
I am the Creator and I love my work. I am the sculptor and I care for what I have made. If I thought of my dignity, I should not rescue fallen humankind. If I failed to treat its incurable sickness with fitting remedies, it would never recover its strength. If I did not console it, it would die. If I did nothing but threaten it, it would perish. This is why I apply the salve of kindness to it where it lies. Compassionately I bend down very low in order to raise it up. No one standing erect can lift a fallen man without putting a hand down to him.

Come learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. I do not make a show of words; I have left you the proof of my deeds. You can see that I am gentle and humble of heart from what I have become. Consider my nature, reflect upon my dignity, and marvel at the condescension I have shown you. Think of where I came from, and of where I am as I speak to you. Heaven is my throne, yet I talk to you standing on the earth! I am glorified on high, but because I am long-suffering I am not angry with you, for I am gentle and humble in heart

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press – NY – 1999 – pg 104

Vigils Reading
2023-07-10
RELIGION IN A FREE SOCIETY
By Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel2 ◊◊◊
Little does contemporary religion ask of man. It is ready to offer comfort; it has no courage to challenge. It is ready to offer edification; it has no courage to break the idols, to shatter callousness. The trouble is that religion has become… institution, dogma, ritual. It is no longer an event. Its acceptance involves neither risk nor strain. There is no substitute for faith, no alternative for revelation, no surrogate for commitment. We define self-reliance and call it faith, shrewdness and call it wisdom, anthropology and call it ethics, literature and call it Bible, inner security and call it religion, conscience and call it God. However, nothing counterfeit can endure forever…
It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless. The primary task of religious thinking is to rediscover the questions to which religion is an answer, to develop a degree of sensitivity to the ultimate questions which its ideas and acts are trying to answer…

The most serious obstacle which modern men encounter in entering discussion about the ideas of the Bible, is the absence from man’s consciousness of the problems to which the Bible refers. The Bible is an answer to the question, What does God require of man? But to modern man, this question is suppressed by another one, namely, What does man demand of God? Modern man continues to ponder: What will I get out of life? What escapes his attention is the fundamental, yet often forgotten question, What will life get out of me?
Absorbed in the struggle for the emancipation of the individual we have concentrated our attention upon the idea of human rights and overlooked the importance of human obligations… Oblivious to the fact of his receiving infinitely more than he is able to return, man began to consider his self as the only end… We can ill afford to set up needs, an unknown, variable, vacillating, and eventually degrading factor, as a universal standard, as a supreme, abiding rule or pattern for living. This, indeed, is the purpose of our religious traditions: to keep alive the higher Yes as well as the power of man to say, “Here I am”; to teach our minds to understand the true demand and to teach our conscience to be present… It is an answer to the question: Who needs man? It is an awareness of being needed, of man being a need of God.
It is an inherent weakness of religion not to take offense at the segregation of God, to forget that the true sanctuary has no walls. Religion has suffered from the tendency to become an end in itself, to seclude the holy, to become parochial, self-indulgent, self-seeking; as if the task were not to ennoble human nature but to enhance the power and beauty of its institutions or to enlarge the body of doctrines. It has often done more to canonize prejudices that to wrestle for truth; to petrify the sacred than to sanctify the secular. Yet the task of religion is to challenge the stabilization of – values. Religion is not for religion’s sake but for God’s sake

2 Excerpted and quoted from The Insecurity of Freedom (New York: Schocken Books, 1959, 1960, 1963, 1964,1966), pp.1-23. Accessed online, July 5, 2023.

Vigils Reading - St Benedict
2023-07-11
BENEDICT’S DISCIPLES ARE FOREWARNED OF HIS DEATH
From “The Dialogues” of St Gregory the Great3 ◊◊◊
In the year that was to be his last, the man of God foretold the day of his holy death to a number of his disciples… Some others, however, who were stationed elsewhere he only informed of the special sign they would receive at the time of his death. Six days before he died he gave orders for his tomb to be opened. Almost immediately he was seized with a violent fever that rapidly wasted his remaining strength. Each day his condition grew worse until finally, on the sixth day, he had his disciples carry him into the chapel, where he received the Body and Blood of our Lord to gain strength for his approaching end. Then, supporting his weakened body on the arms of his brethren, he stood with his hands raised to heaven and as he prayed breathed his last.
That day two monks, one of them at the monastery, the other some distance away, received the very same revelation. They both saw a magnificent road covered with rich carpeting and glittering with thousands of lights. From his monastery it stretched eastward in a straight line until it reached up into heaven. And there in the brightness stood a man of majestic appearance, who asked them, ‘Do you know who passed this way?’ ‘No,’ they replied. “This,’ he told them, ‘is the road taken by blessed Benedict, the Lord’s beloved, when he went to heaven.’
Thus, while the brethren who were with Benedict witnessed his death, those who were absent knew about it through the sign he had promised them. His body was laid to rest in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, which he had built to replace the altar of Apollo…

This holy man still works numerous miracles for people who turn to him with faith and confidence. The incident I am going to relate happened only recently. A woman who had completely lost her mind was roaming day and night over hills and valleys, through forests and fields, resting only when she was utterly exhausted. One day, in the course of her aimless wanderings, she strayed into the saint’s cave and rested there without the least idea of where she was. The next morning she woke up entirely cured and left the cave without even a trace of her former affliction. After that she remained free from it for the rest of her life…
There is no doubt… that the holy… can perform countless miracles where their bodies rest… In places where their bodies do not actually lie buried, however, there is danger that those whose faith is weak may doubt their presence and their power to answer prayers. Consequently, it is in these places that they must perform still greater miracles. But one whose faith in God is strong earns all the more merit by his faith, for he realizes that the <saints> are present to hear his prayers even though their bodies happen to be buried elsewhere.
It was precisely to increase the faith of His disciples that the eternal Truth told them, ‘If I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.’… As long as the disciples could see our Lord in His human flesh they would want to keep on seeing Him with their bodily eyes. With good reason, therefore, did He tell them, ‘If I do not go, the Advocate will not come.’ What He really meant was, ‘I cannot teach you spiritual love unless I remove my body from your sight; as long as you continue to see me with your bodily eyes you will never learn to love me spiritually.

3 St Gregory the Great. Dialogues. Trans. Odo John Zimmerman, O.S.B. New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1959. 107-110.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-12
HEAL THE SICK; CAST OUT THE DEMONS
An address by Paul Tillich to his graduating seminarians4 ◊◊◊
People often ask, in passionate despair, why the divine order of things includes sickness, if sickness is one of the things to be healed by divine order. This very natural question, which, for many of us, is the stumbling block of our faith, points to the riddle of evil in the world of God… the mystery of evil. But… evil in the divine order is not only mystery; it is also revelation. It reveals the greatness and danger of life. He who can become sick is greater than he who cannot… He alone who is free is able to surrender to the demonic forces that turn his freedom into bondage. The gift of freedom implies the danger of servitude; and the abundance of life implies the danger of sickness…
When Jesus asks the disciples to heal and to cast out demons, he does not distinguish between bodily and mental or spiritual diseases. But every page of the gospels demonstrates that he means all of them, and many stories show that he sees their interrelationship, their unity. We see this unity today more clearly than many generations just behind us… Illness is a consequence of the estrangement of man’s spirit from the divine Spirit… No sickness can be healed nor any demon cast out without the reunion of the human spirit with the divine Spirit… the healing and demon-conquering power implied in the message of the Christ, the message of forgiveness and of a new reality…
Can you represent the Christian message?… Should you ask me–can we heal without being healed ourselves? —I would answer–you can! For neither the disciples nor you could ever say we are healed, so let us heal others. He who would believe this of himself is least fit to heal others; for he would be separating himself from them. Show them whom you counsel that their predicament is also your predicament.

And should you ask me–can we cast out demons without being liberated from demonic power ourselves? –I would answer–you can! Unless you are aware of the demonic possibility in yourselves, you cannot recognize the demon in others, and cannot do battle against it by knowing its name and thus depriving it of its power. And there will be no period in your life, so long as it remains creative and has healing power, in which demons will not split your souls and produce doubts about your faith, your vocation, your whole being. If they fail to succeed, they may accomplish something else–self-assurance and pride with respect to your power to heal and to cast out demons. Against this pride Jesus warns–“Do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” And “written in heaven” means written in spite of what is written against you in the records of your life…
There is no greater vocation on earth than to be called to heal and to cast out demons. Be joyous in this vocation! Do not be depressed by its burden, nor even by the burden of having to deal with those who do not want to be healed. Rejoice in your calling. In spite of your own sickness, in spite of the demons working within you and your churches, you have a glimpse of what can heal ultimately, of him in Whom God made manifest His power over demons and disease, of him who represents the healing power that is in the world, and sustains the world and lifts it up to God. Rejoice that you are his messengers..

4 Tillich, Paul. The Eternal Now. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1963. 58-65.

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2023-07-13
MAY THE VISION OF YOUR BEAUTY BE MY DEATH
From the Spiritual Canticles of St John of the Cross5 ◊◊◊
The soul is right in daring to say: “may the vision of Your beauty be my death”, since she knows that at the instant she sees this beauty she will be carried away by it, and absorbed in this very beauty, and transformed in this same beauty, and made beautiful like this beauty itself, and enriched and provided for like this very beauty.
David declares, consequently, that the death of the saints is precious in the sight of the Lord. This would not be true if they did not participate in His very grandeurs, for in the sight of God nothing is precious but what God in Himself is.
Accordingly, the soul does not fear death when she loves, rather she desires it. Yet sinners are always fearful of death. They foresee that death will take everything away and bring them all evils. As David says, the death of sinners is very evil. And hence, as the Wise Man says, the remembrance of it is bitter. Since sinners love the life of this world intensely and have little love for that of the other, they have an immense fear of death.
The soul that loves God lives more in the next life than in this, for the soul lives where it loves more than where it gives life, and thus has but little esteem for this temporal life. She says then, “may the vision of Your beauty be my death. For the sickness of love is not cured except by your presence and image.”

The reason love sickness has no other remedy than the presence and the image of the Beloved is that, since this sickness differs from others, its medicine also differs. In other sicknesses, following sound philosophy, contraries are cured by contraries, but love is incurable except by what is in accord with love. The reason for this is that love of God is the soul’s health, and the soul does not have full health until loves is complete. Sickness is nothing but a want of health, and when the soul has not even a single degree of love, she is dead. but when she possesses some degrees of love of God, no matter how few, she is then alive, yet very weak and infirm because of her little love. In the measure that love increases she will be healthier, and when love is perfect she will have full health.
The soul does well to call imperfect love “sickness.” For just as the sick is too weak for work, so is the soul, feeble in love, too weak to practice heroic virtue. It is also noteworthy that the soul who feels the sickness of love, a lack of love, shows that she has some love, because she is aware of what she lacks through what she has. The soul who does not feel this sickness shows that she either has no love or is perfect in love

5 Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. ICS Publications, 1979, pp. 452-453.

Vigils Reading - St Kateri Tekakwitha
2023-07-14
KATERI TEKAKWITHA
The Mohawk Saint6 ◊◊◊

12

Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, just a few miles west of present-day Auriesville, New York. Her Mohawk name, Tekakwitha, means “she who bumps into things.” Kateri was the daughter of Mohawk Chief Kenneronkwa. Her mother, Tagaskouita, was an Algonquian woman who was

adopted and assimilated by the Mohawk before her marriage… When Kateri was about four years old, her parents and younger brother died in a smallpox outbreak. Kateri survived the illness, but she was left with facial scars, damaged eyesight, and poor health. Kateri was adopted by her aunt…
When Kateri was about 10 years old, her village was attacked by the French. Kateri and her family were forced to flee into the woods. To end the fighting, the Mohawk agreed to allow French Jesuit missionaries into their territory. The missionaries hoped to convert the Mohawk to Catholicism… Kateri’s older cousin had converted and moved away a few years prior, so her uncle forbade her from speaking to the missionaries who visited their village. But Kateri’s uncle could not keep her away from the missionaries for long…
In the spring of 1674, Kateri told a visiting priest that she wanted to learn more about his religion… Kateri was baptized in 1676, at which time she took the name

Kateri in honor of Saint Catherine. After enduring six months of ridicule and accusations of witchcraft from neighbors in her village, Kateri took the advice of her spiritual advisor and moved to the Jesuit settlement of Kahnawake… located just outside of Montreal… a safe haven and spiritual community for Native men and women who had converted to Catholicism… Maria-Thérèse was a young Native

convert about the same age as Kateri, and the two quickly became very close friends. They explored their new faith together, and pushed each other to new extremes in their devotion. Claude Chauchetière was a Jesuit priest who had only just arrived from France… He became Kateri’s closest spiritual advisor.
Kateri, Claude, and Maria-Thérèse pushed their community to new spiritual heights. Claude instructed the two young women in every aspect of their faith, and

Kateri and Maria-Thérèse lead their peers in the enthusiastic adoption of each new practice. They experimented with ritual fasting… self-mortification… and asceticism… all with the intention of bringing themselves closer to God. Kateri was always the most extreme adherent of their new practices, and sometimes Claude had to step in to stop her before she did herself irreversible harm. When the young women learned about nuns, Kateri declared her intention of founding a convent. Claude marveled at her willingness to completely abandon her former life, and held her up as a model for the entire conversion mission in New France.
The extreme punishments Kateri inflicted on herself did not help her already poor health, and within a few years, Kateri’s body had been pushed to its limits. On August 17, 1680, Kateri died with the entire community of Kahnawake collected around her. Everyone who witnessed her death later swore that within minutes her smallpox scars disappeared, and her skin became radiant. They interpreted this as a miracle and a sign that Kateri was a saint, and built a chapel in her honor. Kateri’s story spread, aided by a book of her life written and published by Claude, and pilgrims

began to arrive to pray at her burial site. Some reported miraculous healings, and Kateri’s community of followers grew…. She was officially canonized as the first Native American saint in 2012. Today Kateri’s legacy is divisive. Catholics laud her as a beacon of their religion’s power to transform lives, while members of the Mohawk community see her as a victim of the forces of colonization. Regardless of the interpretation of her story, her life demonstrates the way life changed for Native women after the arrival of European colonists

6 Life Story: Kateri Tekakwitha. Women & the American Story. https://wams.nyhistory.org/early- encounters/french-colonies/kateri-tekakwitha/. Accessed: July 7, 2023.

Vigils Reading - St Bonaventure
2023-07-15
WHEN THROUGH ECSTASY OUR AFFECTION PASSES OVER ENTIRELY INTO GOD
From the writings of St Bonaventure7 ◊◊◊
Christ is the way and the door; Christ is the ladder and the vehicle, like the Mercy Seat placed above the ark of God and the mystery hidden from eternity. Whoever turns his face fully to the Mercy Seat and with faith, hope and love, devotion, admiration, exultation, appreciation, praise and joy beholds him hanging upon the cross, such a one makes the Pasch, that is, the passover, with Christ. By the staff of the cross he passes over the Red Sea,” going from Egypt into the desert, where he will taste the hidden manna; and with Christ he rests in the tomb, as if dead to the outer world, but experiencing, as far as is possible in this wayfarer’s state, what was said on the cross to the thief who adhered to Christ; Today you shall be with me in paradise.
This was shown also to blessed Francis, when in ecstatic contemplation on the height of the mountain… there appeared to him a six-winged Seraph fastened to a cross… There he passed over into God in ecstatic contemplation and became an example of perfect contemplation as he had previously been of action, like another Jacob and Israel, so that through him, more by example than by
word, God might invite all truly spiritual men to this kind of passing over and spiritual ecstasy.
In this passing over, if it is to be perfect, all intellectual activities must be left behind and the height of our affection must be totally transferred and transformed into God. This, however, is mystical and most secret, which no one knows except him who receives it, no one receives except him who desires it, and no one desires except him who is inflamed in his very marrow by the fire of the Holy Spirit whom Christ sent into the world. And therefore the Apostle says

that this mystical wisdom is revealed by the Holy Spirit…
But if you wish to know how these things come about, ask grace not instruction, desire not understanding, the groaning of prayer not diligent reading, the Spouse not the teacher, God not man, darkness not clarity, not light but the fire that totally inflames and carries us into God by ecstatic unctions and burning affections. This fire is God, and his furnace is in Jerusalem; and Christ enkindles it in the heat of his burning passion, which only he truly perceives who says: My soul chooses hanging and my bones death.
Whoever loves this death can see God because it is true beyond doubt that man will not see me and live. Let us, then, die and enter into the darkness; let us impose silence upon our cares, our desires and our imaginings. With Christ crucified let us pass out of this world to the Father so that when the Father is shown to us, we may say with Philip: It is enough for us. Let us hear with
Paul: My grace is sufficient for you. Let us rejoice with David saying: My flesh and my heart have grown faint; You are the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever..

7 St Bonaventure. The Soul’s Journey into God – The Tree of Life – The Life of St. Francis. Trans. Ewert Cousins. New York: Paulist Press, 1978. 111-116.

Skema
2023-07-16
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
15th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
July 16 – 22, 2023

Sun
16
Mon
17
Tue
18
Wed
19
Thu
20
Fri
21
Sat
22

Office
15th Sunday
Weekday
St Camillus de Lellis
Weekday
Weekday
Office for Vocations
St Mary Magdalene

Vigils
Gen 31:25-54
Gen 32:1-22
Gen 32:23-33:20
Gen 34:1-31
Gen 35:1-29
Gen 37:1-20
Exodus 15:1-21

Lauds
Prov 16:21-25
Prov 17:1-5
Prov 17:22-28
Prov 19:17-22
Prov 20:3:7
Prov 20:17-22
Isa 30:18-21

Mass
103
389
390
391
392
393
603

1st
Isa 55:10-11
Exod 1:8-14, 22
Exod 2:1-15a
Exod 3:1-6, 9-12
Exod 3:13-20
Exod 11:10-12:14
Song 3:1-4b

2nd
Rom 8:18-23

Gospel
Matt 13:1-23
Matt 10:34-11:1
Matt 11:20-24
Matt 11:25-27
Matt 11:28-30
Matt 12:1-8
John 20:1-2, 11-18

Vespers
1 Thess 3:6-13
1 Thess 4:1-12
1 Thess 4:13-18
1 Thess 5:1-11
1 Thess 5:12-28
2 Thess 1:1-10
2 Thess 1:11-12

Vigils Reading - 15th Sun ORD
2023-07-16
BRING FORTH FRUIT BY PATIENCE
A commentary by St Gregory the Great1
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Dearly beloved, the reading from the holy gospel about the sower requires no explanation, but only a word of warning. In fact the explanation has been given by Truth himself, and it cannot be disputed by a frail human being. However, there is one point in our Lord’s exposition which you ought to weigh well. It is this. If I told you that the seed represented the word, the field the world, the birds the demons, and the thorns riches, you would perhaps be in two minds as to whether to believe me. Therefore the Lord himself deigned to explain what he had said, so that you would know that a hidden meaning is to be sought also in those passages which he did not wish to interpret himself.
Would anyone have believed me if I had said that thorns stood for riches? After all, thorns are piercing and riches pleasurable. And yet riches are thorns because thoughts of them pierce the mind and torture it. When finally they lure a person into sin, it is as though they were drawing blood from the wound they have inflicted.
According to another evangelist, the Lord spoke in this parable not simply of riches but of deceptive riches, and with good reason. Riches are deceptive because they cannot stay with us for long; they are deceptive because they are incapable of relieving our spiritual poverty. The only true riches are those that make us rich in virtue. Therefore, if you want to be rich, beloved, love true riches. If you aspire to the heights of real honor, strive to reach the kingdom of heaven. If you value rank and renown, hasten to be enrolled in the heavenly court of the angels.

Store up in your minds the Lord’s words which you receive through your ears, for the word of the Lord is the nourishment of the mind. When his word is heard but not stored away in the memory, it is like food which has been eaten and then rejected by an upset stomach. A person’s life is despaired of if he cannot retain his food; so if you receive the food of holy exhortations, but fail to store in your memory those words of life which nurture righteousness, you have good reason to fear the danger of everlasting death.
Be careful, then, that the word you have received through your ears remains in your heart. Be careful that the seed does not fall along the path, for fear that the evil spirit may come and take it from your memory. Be careful that the seed is not received in stony ground, so that it produces a harvest of good works without the roots of perseverance. Many people are pleased with what they hear and resolve to undertake some good work, but as soon as difficulties begin to arise and hinder them they leave the work unfinished. The stony ground lacked the necessary moisture for the sprouting seed to yield the fruit of perseverance.
Good earth, on the other hand, brings forth fruit by patience. The reason for this is that nothing we do is good unless we also bear with equanimity the injuries done us by our neighbors. In fact, the more we progress, the more hardships we shall have to endure in this world; for when our love for this present world dies, its sufferings increase. This is why we see many people doing good works and at the same time struggling under a heavy burden of afflictions. They now shun earthly desires, and yet they are tormented by greater sufferings. But, as the Lord said, they bring forth fruit by patience, because, since they humbly endure misfortunes, they are welcomed when these are over into a place of rest in heaven

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press – NY – 1999 – pg 106-107

Vigils Reading
2023-07-17
THE AUTHOR OF ENVY
From the “Conferences” by John Cassian2
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Let us not look for peace outside ourselves and let us not count upon another’s patience to rescue us from our sins of impatience. For just as the kingdom of God is within us so too is it the case that ‘the enemies of a man are of his own household’. No one fights against me more than my own heart, which is surely close to me in my own household. If we are careful, however, we can suffer the minimum harm from the enemies within. When the enemies in our own household are not at war with us, then, in the tranquility of the spirit, the kingdom of God becomes a possession. To put the matter quite clearly to you, I cannot be harmed by the malice of any man if my own unquiet heart does not set me against myself. If I suffer harm it is not from the attack of an outsider but because of the snare of my own impatience…
One needs to know that the disease of envy is harder to cure than any other. I would say that someone stricken by its poison is almost beyond healing. This is the pestilence described figuratively by the prophet: ‘See, I will send you serpents against which there are no incantations and they will bite you’. The bites of envy are quite rightly compared by the prophet to the lethal poison of the basilisk. For it was because of this that the very first to perish and to fall was the one who is the source of everything deadly. He brought about his own downfall long before he poured the virus of death over man, of whom he was jealous. ‘Death came into the world because of the devil’s envy…

“The devil was first to be ruined by this scourge, and he kept at bay the cure of penance and the warmth of healing medicine. And in similar fashion those who have allowed themselves to be gnawed in the same poisonous way have barred all the efforts of the holy exorcist, for they are tormented not by the faults of the one they envy but rather by his good fortune…
“This is the reason why to escape one of the lethal bites of the basilisk, to keep everything alive in us, to have ourselves, so to speak, under the living sway of the Holy Spirit Himself, we must ceaselessly beg for the help of the God to whom nothing is impossible. As regards the poisonous bites of other snakes–and here I mean the sins and the vices of the flesh–human frailty, despite the speed with which it falls into them, is just as readily purged of them. The wounds that they cause leave their own evident marks on the flesh. And although the earthly body swells up most dangerously because of them, yet some very skilled declaimer of the divine words of Scripture can provide an antidote or saving cure of those words and the rampant poison will not bring everlasting death to the soul.
But like the poison spurted out by the snake, the bane of envy shuts out the very life of religion and of faith before the wound can ever be diagnosed in the body. For the fact is that a blasphemer rises up not against a man but against God. He launches his complaints against nothing other than the good fortune of his brother. He criticizes not so much the fault of a man as the judgment of God. Here surely is that ‘root of bitterness cropping up’, raising itself up on high to hurl spite against the One who bestows all that is good upon man… For God is certainly not the author of envy

2 John Cassian. Conferences. Trans. Colm Luibheid. New York: Paulist Press, 1985. 198-201.

Vigils Reading - St Camillus de Lellis
2023-07-18
ST CAMILLUS DE LELLIS
Patron of the sick and of nurses3
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Camillus de Lellis was born in 1550 at Bocchianico in the Abruzzi. When he was seventeen he went off with his father to fight with the Venetians against the Turks. But soon he contracted a painful and repulsive disease in his leg that was to afflict him for the rest of his life. In 1571 he was admitted to the San Giacomo hospital for incurables at Rome, as a patient and servant. After nine months he was dismissed, for his quarrelsomeness among other things. He returned to active service in the Turkish war. Though Camillus habitually referred to himself as a great sinner, his worst disorder was an addiction to gambling that continually reduced him to want and shame. In the autumn of 1574 he gambled away his savings, his arms, everything down to his shirt, which was stripped off his back in the streets of Naples.
The indigence to which he had reduced himself, and the memory of a vow he had made in a fit of remorse to join the Franciscans, caused him to accept work as a laborer in the new Capuchin buildings at Manfredonia, and there a moving exhortation which the guardian of the friars gave him one day, completed his conversion. He… fell on his knees, and with tears deplored his past life, and cried to Heaven for mercy. This happened on Candlemas day in 1575, the 25th of his age. From that time he never departed from his penitential course. He entered the novitiate of the Capuchins, but could not make profession because of the disease in his leg. He therefore returned to the hospital of San Giacomo and devoted himself to the service of the sick. The administrators of the hospital witnessed his charity and ability, and later appointed him superintendent of the hospital…

To make himself more useful in spiritually assisting the sick, he proceeded, with the approval of his confessor, St. Philip Neri, to receive Holy Orders… With two companions he laid the foundations of his congregation. They went every day to the hospital of the Holy Ghost, where they served the sick with such affection and diligence that it was obvious to all who saw them that they considered Christ Himself as lying sick or wounded in His members…
Camillus was afflicted by many illnesses himself: the disease in his leg for forty-six years, a rupture for thirty-eight years, two sores in the sole of his foot, which gave him great pain. Yet under these infirmities, he would not allow anyone to wait on him, but sent all his brethren to serve others. When he was not able to stand, he would creep out of his bed, even at night, and crawl from one patient to another to see if they wanted anything.
Camillus saw the foundation of fifteen houses of his brothers and eight hospitals… He expired on July 14, 1614, being sixty-four years old. St Camillus de Lellis was canonized in 1746, and was, with St. John of God, declared patron of the sick by Pope Leo XIII, and of nurses and nursing associations by Pope Pius XI

3 Butler’s Lives of Saints, vol. 3, pg. 134, P.J. Kennedy & Sons, New York, 1956.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-19
FOOLS ARE PLEASING TO GOD
From “The Praise of Folly” by Desiderius Erasmus4 ◊◊◊
Our Lord gave thanks that God had concealed the mystery of salvation from the wise, but had revealed it to babes, that is, to fools… It tends to the same effect when in the Gospels He often attacks the scribes and Pharisees and doctors of the law, whereas He faithfully defends the ignorant multitude. For what is “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees” except “Woe unto you that are wise?” But He seems to find most potent delight in little children, women, and fishermen. And even in the class of brute creatures, those which are farthest from a foxlike cunning were best pleasing to Christ. He preferred to ride upon a donkey, though had He chosen He could have mounted the back of a lion without danger. And the Holy Spirit descended in likeness of a dove, not of an eagle… Add to this that Christ calls those who are destined to eternal life by the name “sheep”– and there is no other creature more foolish, as is witnessed by the proverbial phrase… “sheepish temperament,” … commonly used as a taunt against dull-witted and foolish men. And yet Christ avows himself as shepherd of this flock and even delights in the name of Lamb, as when John pointed Him out, “Behold the Lamb of God!”…
What do all these things cry out to us if not this, that mortal men, even the pious, are fools? And that Christ, in order to relieve the folly of mankind, though Himself “the wisdom of the Father,” was willing in some manner to be made a fool when He took upon Himself the nature of a man and was found in fashion as a man? And likewise He was made “to be sin” that He might heal sinners. Nor did He wish to bring healing by any other means than by “the foolishness of the cross,”

and by weak and stupid apostles… Beyond this, He forbade them to be troubled about what they should say before magistrates and He charged that they should not inquire into times and seasons; in a word, they should not trust to their own wisdom but wholly depend upon Him… St. Bernard is following him, I suppose, when he interprets that mountain whereon Lucifer established his headquarters as “the Mount of Knowledge.”…
The Christian religion on the whole seems to have a kinship with some sort of folly, while it has no alliance whatever with wisdom. If you want proofs of this statement, observe first of all how children, old people, women, and fools find pleasure beyond other folk in holy and religious things, and to that end are ever nearest the altars, led no doubt solely by an impulse of nature. Then you will notice that the original founders of religion, admirably laying hold of pure simplicity, were the bitterest foes of literary learning. Lastly, no fools seem to act more foolishly than do the people whom zeal for Christian piety has got possession of; for they pour out their wealth, they overlook wrongs, allow themselves to be cheated, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shun pleasure, glut themselves with hunger, wakefulness, tears, toils, and reproaches; they disdain life and dearly prefer death; in short, they seem to have grown utterly numb to ordinary sensations, quite as if their souls lived elsewhere and not in their bodies. What is this, forsooth, but to be mad?
Yet we see men of this sort predict future events, we see them understand languages and discourse which they have not previously known, and in general manifest something partaking of the divine. No doubt this happens because as the soul is a little more free from the taint of the body, it begins to exert its own native powers… And this truly is the portion of Folly, that “good part” which “shall not be taken away” by the transformation of life, but will be perfected

4 Desiderius Erasmus. The Praise of Folly. Trans. Hoyt Hopewell Hudson. New York: The Modern Library, 1941. 115-116, 118-119, 124

Vigils Reading
2023-07-20
THE SWEET YOKE OF CHARITY
From “The Nature and Dignity of Love” by William of St Thierry5 ◊◊◊
What shall we say about charity? We have heard of it, but we have not known it, we have not seen it. The Apostle knew it. He outdid himself in praising, extolling it as the more excellent way, saying: ‘…If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and do not have charity, I become like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should recognize all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith so complete that I could remove mountains, and do not have charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned and do not have charity, it profits me nothing…’
This is the Lord’s sweet yoke and light burden. This burden bears and lightens the bearer. This light burden of the Gospel is sweet to those to whom the Lord himself says: ‘I will call you no longer servants but my friends.’ The person who had not formerly been able to bear the precepts of the law afterwards finds the precepts of the Gospel light by reason of cooperating grace. The person who could not at first fulfill: ‘You shall not kill,’ afterwards finds it easy to lay down his life for the brothers. And so on for the rest. If, when a heavy burden is placed on a mule and it refuses it as unbearable, a four-wheeled wagon is brought up — which is the Gospel traversing the entire world — the burden that the mule first balked at as too heavy it now carries doubled without effort. So, too, a little bird cannot lift itself up without feathers and wings; but add the weight of feathers and wings, and it soars without effort. So, too, hard, dry bread cannot go down by itself, but soaked in milk or another liquid, it becomes capable of being swallowed.

Consequently, love at first involves effort… For the hand of charity works more easily as the enlightened eye helps it. For we work with our hands first, then we rub our eye with our hand. For this reason it is said: ‘By your commandments I have understood.’ First one begins to understand his own works and to discern his own affections. Then one is so affected by virtues that, just as for God to be is to be good, so now for the righteous and holy soul to be is not to be other than holy and righteous and dutiful. Holy in herself, righteous towards everyone, and dutiful towards God… So it is the Apostle says: ‘Charity never fails.

5 William of St Thierry. The Nature and Dignity of Love. CF 30. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, Publications, Inc., 1981. 68-70.

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2023-07-21
DIRECT YOUR THOUGHTS UTTERLY TO GOD
From “The Form of Living” by Richard Rolle6
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Because you have abandoned the comforts and the pleasures of this world and devoted yourself to the solitary life for the love of God, in order to endure distress and hardship in this life and subsequently to come to [rest and joy in heaven], I believe most sincerely that the consolation of Jesus Christ, and the sweetness of his love, with the fire of the Holy Spirit who cleanses all sin, shall be in you and with you, leading you and instructing you how you are to meditate, how you are to pray, and what you are to do, so that after a few years you shall certainly have more delight in being yourself and speaking with your beloved and your spouse, Jesus Christ…
People suppose that we live in suffering and in a life of” privation, but we have more pleasure and more real delight in one day than they have in worldly things throughout their entire lives. They see our bodies, but they do not see our hearts, where all our comfort lies. If they could see the heart, many of them would abandon all they have in order to follow us. So be heartened and emboldened and do not fear any discomfort or hardship, rather fix your whole desire on Jesus, so that your life may be good and quiet… It is the special goodness of God that he should encourage miraculously those who have no encouragement from the world. If they give their hearts entirely to him and desire nothing, and look for nothing except himself, then he gives himself in sweetness and delight, in the ardor of love… No man can arrive at such revelation and grace on the first day, but through long labor and diligence in loving Jesus Christ…

Direct your thoughts utterly to God, as you have by your outward appearance directed your body. For I don’t want you to think that all those who bear the outward appearance of holiness are holy and not preoccupied by the world; nor that all who concern themselves with worldly affairs are sinful. But those alone are holy, whatever condition or rank they are in, who despise all worldly things, that is to say, who do not cherish the things of the world, but burn in the love of Jesus Christ, whose every desire is directed toward the joy of heaven, and who hate all sin, and never give up doing good, and feel in their heart a sweet savor of the love that never ends.
And all the same, they reckon themselves to be the most despicable of all men, and consider themselves the most contemptible, most insignificant and most abject. This is the lifestyle of the holy: follow it, and be holy… For those who follow Jesus Christ in voluntary poverty, and in humility, in love and in patience, give up exactly the same amount as those want to acquire who do not follow him. And consider how great and how good is the state of mind within you, with which you present your vows before him, because that is what he is looking for, and also whether you are offering your prayers with great yearning love, and strive eagerly, with great fervor, to see him, seeking no earthly consolation except for the taste of heaven, and take your delight in the contemplation of it.
I want you to be constantly climbing toward Jesus, and intensifying your love and your attendance on him… If you apply all your thoughts on how you may love your Jesus Christ more than you have been doing, then I venture to say that your worth is increasing and not diminishing

6 Richard Rolle. The English Writings. Trans. Rosamund S. Allen. New York: Paulist Press, 1988. 157-158, 160-161, 163

Vigils Reading - St Mary Magdalene
2023-07-22
KEEP WATCH FOR CHRIST
From the writings of Blessed Guerric of Igny7 ◊◊◊
Brethren, this is the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and rejoice in it. Let us exult in the hope it brings, that we may see and rejoice in its light. Abraham exulted that he might see the day of Christ and by this token he saw and rejoiced.
You too, if you keep watch daily at the doors of wisdom, steadfast at its threshold, if you stay awake through the night with Magdalen at the entrance of his tomb, if I am not mistaken you will experience with Mary how true are the words we read of the Wisdom which is Christ: “She is easily seen by those who love her and she is found by those who seek her. She anticipates those who desire her and shows herself to them first. He who, as soon as it is light, keeps watch for her will not have to toil, for he will find her seated at his doors.” So did Christ, Wisdom himself, promise in the words: “I love those who love me, and they who from early morning keep watch for me will find me.”
Mary found Jesus in the flesh. For this she was keeping watch. Over his tomb she had come to mount guard while it was still dark. You, who no longer ought to know Jesus according to the flesh but according to the spirit, will be able to find him spiritually if you seek him with a [similar] desire, if he finds you likewise vigilant in prayer. Say then to the Lord Jesus with the desire and the affection of Mary: “My soul has longed for you during the night, my spirit too, deep within me; from early morning I will keep watch for you”. Say with the voice and the mind of the Psalmist: “God, my God, for you as soon as it is light I keep watch, my soul is athirst for you”. And see if it is not your lot to sing with him: “We have been filled early in the morning with your mercy, we have exulted and been delighted.”

Keep watch then, brethren, intent in prayer; keep watch and carefully guard your actions; especially since the morning of that day which has no sunset has already shone upon us. For already eternal light has come back to us from the nether regions, more serene and more pleasing, and the morning has given its welcome to the newly restored Sun. Indeed it is time now for us to arise from sleep; the night has passed away, while the day has drawn near. Keep watch, I say, that the morning light may rise for you, that is Christ, whose coming forth has been made ready like the dawn, ready to renew often the mystery of the morning of his resurrection in those who keep watch for him. Then you will sing with jubilant heart: “God the Lord has shone upon us. This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it”. For then he will give you a glimpse of the light which he has hidden in his hands, telling his friend that it is his possession and he can attain to it

7 Third Sermon for Easter, Liturgical Sermons, vol 2 (CF 32), Spencer: MA: Cistercian Publications, 1971, pp. 93.

Vigils Reading - 16th Sun ORD
2023-07-23
WEEDS AMONG THE WHEAT
A commentary by St Gregory Palamas1
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Now as the Lord himself explains, the darnel is the offering of the evil one. They bear his mark because they behave the way he does; they are seeds of his sowing, and his children by adoption. Harvest time will be the end of the world, for although it began long since and continues now through death, only then will all things come to an end.
The reapers are the angels, for they are, and will be especially at that time, the servants of the King of heaven. As Scripture says: Just as the darnel is collected and burnt in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of Man, who is the son of the Father Most High, will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all evil doers and every cause of sin.
And so the Lord’s servants, the angels of God, seeing the darnel in the field, that is, the wicked and impious folk living among the good people, and that even within the Church, said to the Lord: Do you wish us to go and gather it up? In other words: “Shall we kill them, to remove them from the earth?” But the Lord’s reply was: No, for fear that in collecting the darnel you may also uproot the wheat.
How then would the wheat, the good people, be uprooted as well if the angels gathered up the darnel, cutting off the wicked by death to separate them from the just? The fact is that many godless sinners who live among people who are upright and devout repent in time and are converted, and learning new habits of piety and virtue they cease to be darnel and become wheat. And so some wheat would be uprooted in the gathering of the darnel if the angels snatched the wicked away before they repented. Moreover, many while living evil lives produce children of good disposition, or they may have other rightly disposed descendants. This is why he who sees everything before it comes into being would not permit the darnel to be uprooted until the appointed time. But he says: At harvest time I will say to the reapers: “First collect the darnel and bind it into bundles to be burnt, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Those therefore who wish to be saved from eternal punishment and to inherit the everlasting kingdom of God must be not darnel but wheat. They must avoid saying or doing anything evil or useless, and practice the opposite virtues, thus bringing forth the fruits of repentance. In this way they will become worthy of the heavenly granary; they will be called children of the Father Most High, and as heirs will enter his kingdom rejoicing, resplendent with divine glory. To this may we all attain through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ. To whom with his eternal Father and the most holy, good and life-giving Spirit belongs glory now and always and for endless ages. Amen

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press – NY – 1999 – pg 108-109
