Vigils Reading - 24th Sunday
2024-09-15
FOLLOWING CHRIST
From a commentary by Caesarius of Arles1
◊◊◊
When the Lord tells us in the gospel that anyone who wants to be his
follower must renounce himself, the injunction seems harsh; we think he is
imposing a burden on us. But an order is no burden when it is given by one who
helps in carrying it out.
To what place are we to follow Christ if not where he has already gone?
We know that he has risen and ascended into heaven: there, then, we must
follow him. There is no cause for despair – by ourselves we can do nothing, but
we have Christ’s promise. Heaven was beyond our reach before our Head
ascended there, but now, if we are his members, why should we despair of
arriving there ourselves? Is there any reason? True, many fears and afflictions
confront us in this world, but if we follow Christ, we shall reach a place of perfect
happiness, perfect peace, and everlasting freedom from fear.
Yet let me warn anyone bent on following Christ to listen to Saint Paul:
One who claims to abide in Christ ought to walk as he walked. Then be humble
as he was humble, do not scorn his lowliness if you want to reach his exaltation.
Human sin made the road rough but Christ’s resurrection leveled it; by passing
over it himself he transformed the narrowest of tracks into a royal highway.
Two feet are needed to run along this highway; they are humility and
charity. Everyone wants to get to the top – well, the first step to take is humility.
Why take strides that are too big for you – do you want to fall instead of going
up? Begin with the first step, humility, and you will already be climbing.3
As well as telling us to renounce ourselves, our Lord and Savior said that
we must take up the cross and follow him. What does it mean to take up one’s
cross? Bearing every annoyance patiently. That is following Christ. When
someone begins to follow his way of life and his commandments, that person
will meet resistance on every side. He or she will be opposed, mocked, even
persecuted, and this not only by unbelievers, but also by people who to all
appearances belong to the body of Christ, though they are really excluded from
it by their wickedness people who, being Christians in name only, never stop
persecuting true Christians.
If you want to follow Christ, then take up his cross without delay. Endure
injuries, do not be overcome by them. If we would fulfill the Lord’s command:
If anyone wants to be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me; we
must strive with God’s help to do as the Apostle says: As long as we have food
and clothing, let this content us. Otherwise, if we seek more material goods than
we need and desire to become rich, we may fall prey to temptation. The devil
may trick us into wanting the many useless and harmful things that plunge
people into ruin and destruction. May we be free from this temptation through
the protection of our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy
Spirit for ever and ever.

Vigils Reading - SS Cornelius & Cyprian
2024-09-16
A LETTER FROM ST CYPRIAN
TO ST CORNELIUS
◊◊◊
My very dear brother, we have heard of the glorious witness given by your
courageous faith. On learning of the honor you had won by your witness, we
were filled with such joy that we felt ourselves sharers and companions in your
praiseworthy achievements. After all, we have the same Church, the same mind.
The same unbroken harmony. Why then should a priest not take pride in the
praise given to a fellow priest as though it were given to him? What brotherhood
fails to rejoice in the happiness of its brothers wherever they are?
Words cannot express how great was the exaltation and delight here when
we heard of your good fortune and brave deeds: how you stood out as a leader
of your brothers in their declaration of faith, while the leader’s confession was
enhanced as they declared their faith. You led the way to glory, but you gained
many companions in that glory; being foremost in your readiness to bear
witness on behalf of all, you prevailed on your people to become a single
witness. We cannot decide which we ought to praise, your own ready and
unshaken faith or the love of your brothers who would not leave you. While the
courage of the bishop who thus led the way has been demonstrated, at the same
time the unity of the brotherhood who followed has been manifested. Since you
have one heart and one voice, it is the Roman Church as a whole that has thus
borne witness.
Dearest brother, bright and shining is the faith which the blessed Apostle
praised in your community. He foresaw in the spirit the praise your courage
deserves and the strength that could not be broke; he was heralding the future
when he testified to your achievements; his praise of the fathers was a challenge5
to the sons. Your unity, your strength have become shining examples of these
virtues to the rest of the brethren.
Divine providence has now prepared us. God’s merciful design has
warned us that the day of our own struggle, our own contest, is at hand. By that
shared love which binds us closely together, we are doing all we can to exhort
our congregation, to give ourselves unceasingly to fastings, vigils and prayers in
common. These are the heavenly weapons which give us strength to stand firm
and endure; they are the spiritual defenses, the God-given armaments that
protect us.
Let us then remember one another, united in mind and heart. Let us pray
without ceasing, you for us, we for you; by the love we share we shall thus relieve
the strain of these great trial

Vigils Reading - St Hildegard of Bingen
2024-09-17
ST HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints1
◊◊◊
Hildegard of Bingen would have been remarkable in any century. In her
own century her achievements and her influence, particularly as a woman, were
extraordinary. She was born at Bermersheim…in the summer of 1098. Apart
from the fact that her father, Hildebert of Bermersheim, was a nobleman and
possibly in the service of the bishop of Speyer, little is known of her family
background. When she was only eight years old, she was sent to be educated by
a recluse, Blessed Jutta, who was living at Disbodenberg in an anchorhold. Over
the years girls came to join her and Jutta gave them the Rule of St Benedict.
Hildegard was a delicate child, but…her inner life was far from ordinary.
From the age of three she experienced visions or revelations that in the early
stages caused her pain and embarrassment. The revelations continued into her
adult life, and she experienced chronic ill health.
In 1136 Jutta died, and Hildegard became abbess in her place. Her
revelations and visions were still causing her anxiety. Her writings were
submitted to the archbishop of Mainz. The archbishop and his theologians
concluded that her visions were “from God”. Over the years with the help of a
young monk named Volmar and others she produced her principal work, “Know
the Ways of the Lord”.
In 1147 the archbishop of Mainz passed Hildegard’s work to the pope,
Blessed Eugenius III. With the advice of his close advisors, including St Bernard
of Clairvaux, the pope told her to live with her sisters faithfully observing the
Rule.
Hildegard and eighteen nuns moved to the Rupertsberg sometime
between 1147 and 1150. She found time to research and write on subjects that
fascinated her – a book on natural history, another on medicine. There was also
her voluminous correspondence, a substantial part of which has survived.
People from all walks of life came to consult her, but at the same time there were
others who denounced her as fraudulent, mad or worse.
Heidegard continued to the end of her life to stand her ground against
what she saw as the wrong use of authority. When over eighty she was frail
physically but continued to write, advise, instruct her nuns and encourage all
who came to her for help, until she died peacefully at St Rupert’s on September
17th, 1179. Miracles, which had also been recorded during her life, were
immediately reported at her tomb. In 1324 Pope John XXII gave permission for
public veneration, and she appears in local martyrologies from the fifteenth
century. Her relics, which were taken to Eibingen during the Thirty Years War,
were recognized in 1489 and again in 1498. Although she has never been
formally canonized, she is named as a saint in the Roman Martyrology, and
several German dioceses commemorate her on this day.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-18
THE CHURCH AND ITS MINISTERS
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux1
◊◊◊
“Our bed is covered with flowers; the beams of our houses are of cedar,
the paneling of cypress.” She is singing her marriage-song, describing in
beautiful language the marriage bed and bridal suite. She invites the
bridegroom to repose: for the better thing is to remain at ease and be with
Christ; but necessity drives one forth to help those who are to be saved. So now
when she feels that the opportunity presents itself, she announces that the
bridal suite has been furnished, and pointing to the bed with her finger she
invited…the Beloved to rest there. Like the disciples on the way to Emmaus she
cannot contain the ardor in her heart, but entices him to be the guest of her soul,
compels him to spend the night with her. With Peter she says: “Lord it is good
for us to be here.”
Let us now seek the spiritual content of these words. And indeed, in the
Church the ‘bed’ where one reposes is, in my opinion, the cloisters and
monasteries, where one lives undisturbed by the cares of the world and the
anxieties of life. This bed is seen to be adorned with flowers when the conduct
and life of the brothers brightly reflect the examples and rules of the Fathers, as
if strewn with sweet smelling flowers. By ‘houses’ understand the ordinary
communities of Christians. Those who enjoy high office, the Christian leaders
of both orders, strongly bind them together with laws justly imposed, as beams
bind the walls, lest living by their own law and will, they should fall apart from
each other like tilting walls and tottering fences, and thus the whole building
fall to the ground and be destroyed. The paneling however, which is firmly
attached to the beams, and impressively adds to the beauty of the house, seems
to me to designate the courteous and disciplined behavior of a well-trained
clergy, who carry out their duties correctly. For how shall the clerical orders9
stand and fulfill their duties unless they are sustained, as by beams, by the
beneficence and munificence of those who govern and protect by their power?
Since the beams are described as cedar and the paneling as cypress, these
timbers must possess natural properties that liken them to the aforesaid orders.
The cedar, an incorruptible and fragrant wood of great height, sufficiently
indicates the qualities of the men who ought to be selected for the role of beams.
Hence it is necessary that those who are appointed over others should be strong
and reliable, tenacious in hope, their mind directed to supernatural truths,
radiating everywhere the good odor of their faith and conduct. With the Apostle
they can say: We are the incense offered by Christ to God in every place. The
cypress too, a wood that is equally incorruptible and fragrant, shows that every
cleric ought to be of unblemished life and faith, that he may be seen as an
ornamental paneling for the beauty of the house. For it is written: “Holiness
befits your house, O Lord, for evermore,” which expresses both the beauty of
virtue and the constancy of unfailing grace. It is necessary therefore that the
man who is chosen for the adornment and beauty of the house should have an
excellent moral character, and though living always within, nevertheless be well
thought of by those outside.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-19
PREPARING A THRONE
FOR THE MOST HIGH
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny1
◊◊◊
[Christ the Lord] is to be not merely invited but drawn into the guest
chamber of our heart by the violence of our prayers and the vehemence of our
fervor. [But] sometimes he makes as though he would go farther on; he does so
for no other reason than that he may prove the zeal of your love.
But what does it mean, you say, that Jesus makes as though he would go
further? What else than what Ecclesiastes tells us of himself: “I have said, I will
be wise, and [wisdom] departed farther from me.” The Spouse speaks more
explicitly when, giving voice to our daily complaint, she says: “I rose up to open
to my beloved, but he had turned aside and was gone. I sought him, and found
him not, I called, and he did not answer me,” just as he did not answer the
Canaanite woman either. You too are wont to call on the Spirit of wisdom, you
are accustomed to seek the Spirit of grace in prayer. If it seems that he draws
farther away from you, do not despair but be more importunate in your pleading
until you hear him answer you: “Great is your faith, be it done to you as you
will.”
But when you invite Jesus take care that you do not invite the God of
majesty into an unclean and unworthy dwelling where a wrangling [spouse] or
clouds of smoke or a dripping roof would not allow even yourself to dwell in
peace. For his place is in peace and nowhere else. Right and justice are the
pillars of his throne. “Now they seek me,” he says, “from day to day, and desire
to know my ways as a nation that has done justice and has not forsaken the will
of their God.” “Right,” he says, “and justice are the pillars of his throne.” Do not
plead that it is a lavish dwelling you have to prepare for so great and so powerful11
a guest and that it is beyond the limits of your poverty. You have the means at
hand. I speak in human terms because of the infirmity of your flesh, or rather
because of the narrowness of your mind. Make a perfect confession of your past
life, have a good will in respect to all else (for there is peace to men of good will),
and in this way you will have prepared with right and justice a throne for the
Most High.

Vigils Reading - St Andrew Kim & Companions
2024-09-20
THE KOREAN MARTYRS
A reading from Butler’s Lives of the Saints1
◊◊◊
Christianity came late to Korea, for it was the policy of that country’s
rulers to keep it isolated from foreign influence. Not until the late eighteenth
century, more than two hundred years after Francis Xavier had reached Japan,
did the Church begin very slowly to take root. The earliest missionaries were
lay people who had been converted outside their country. Pietro Yi was baptized
at Pechino in 1784: he was the first Korean to be received into the church, but
he was also the first to apostatize, when persecution broke out in 1791.
Through the last years of the eighteenth-century persecution was
sporadic and localized, but in 1801 it was extended to the whole of the country.
One Chinese priest, who had succeeded in entering Korea, offered himself for
martyrdom in the hope that his death would bring the sufferings of his fellow
Christians to an end. He was beheaded on May 31, 1801, and the persecution
went on.
Yet these early martyrs were not among those canonized by Pope John
Paul II in the cathedral of Seoul, where the relics of so many of them lie… Of
the many thousand – perhaps more than 8,000 not counting those who died of
cold or starvation as they fled the tortures of the persecutors – 103 were chosen
by name as representatives of the rest. They were selected from those who died
in the persecutions which began in 1839 and lasted until 1846, and those which
lasted from 1861 to the beginning of 1866.
By the time of the renewed persecution – brought about both in 1839 and
1861 by the return to power of the conservative faction of the Korean ruling class
– there was a small number of missionaries in the country, two French priests13
and a bishop, all three died by beheading on September 21, 1839. On September
16, 1846 there died Andrew Kim, the first and at that time only, Korean-born-
priest. Two more bishops, and a number of other French missionaries died in
the later persecution.
These were the clergy, but by far the greatest number of those named as
saints by the pope near the spot where so many of them had died by beheading
or strangulation, were ordinary lay people. Some of them were of high rank,
but most were ordinary men and women, often linked by family ties as well as
by the bonds of faith, mothers and their children, wives and their husbands. For
several their crime was that they had worked as catechist in spreading the faith
which, until 1881, was referred to in official documents as “the perverse
doctrine”.
The persecution…lasted until 1866. Religious liberty was conceded in
1886, and today the Church flourishes. Though the 103 whose sanctity was
formally recognized were canonized together, they had been beatified in two
groups: those of the earlier persecution by Pius XI in July 1925, those of the
later one by Paul VI in October 1968.

Vigils Reading - St Matthew
2024-09-21
ST MATTHEW,
APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST
From “The Saints” by John Coulson1
◊◊◊
Few people love the tax collector… Much more was this so in the Palestine
of the first century, when it was in his interests to bully and harry and falsify.
But even the mild and honest tax collector was not acceptable to official
Judaism: he did business with the gentile and handled his money; he was legally
impure, socially outcast. A Jewish Rabbi would be bold indeed to invite him to
join his inner circle of disciples: it would be a gesture of defiance to the
established prejudice. And so, the formula ‘publicans and sinners’ slipped even
into the phrase book of the evangelist and, quaintly enough, into the Gospel of
Matthew the publican. This term ‘publican’…does not accurately describe
Matthew’s profession but flatters it. The Pharisees might despise it, but the
trade was a profitable one and much sought after: whether it be pursued
honestly or dishonestly would depend on the character of the officer.
“And Jesus passed further on, he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at
work in the customs-house and said to him, “Follow me”; and he rose and
followed him. That this was a call to the apostolate there is no doubt – its terms
too closely match those of the call of Simon and Andrew to be otherwise. Yet
‘Levi’ does not appear in any list of the Twelve. Now the vocation of the tax
collector is reported in the first Gospel too, but there he is called ‘Matthew’, thus
identifying him with the Matthew who appears in all the apostolic lists. The
widely accepted and most natural explanation is that Matthew and Levi are one
person with two Semitic names. It may be that our Lord himself gave him the
name Matthew (Mattai, ‘gift of God’, in Aramaic) as he gave Kepha to Simon.15
This Matthew then got up from his registers… The change destroyed all
Matthew’s worldly prospects: Simon and Andrew might return to their fish, but
Matthew had thrown over a coveted business and could never recover it. He
left it gladly…and completely. It was not he but Judas who kept the accounts
for the apostolic group…
When the need for a written gospel record began to be felt, upon which of
the Apostles would the choice fall? Upon one who used the pen, no doubt. Poor
Matthew was back where he started, but this time with an eager will and high
purpose. In Palestine, sometime between the years 40 and 50, this ex-civil
servant produced not the lively and artless Gospel of St. Mark but the orderly,
almost ledger like, treatise, which we know as ‘The Gospel according to St.
Matthew.’
And so, Matthew’s old trade entered a new service; the accountant
became an evangelist. It is not surprising that he alone records his Master’s
words; “Every scholar whose learning is of the kingdom of heaven…knows how
to bring both new and old things out of his treasure house. For there is no poor
tool of ours that God’s service will not perfect and dignify.
It is commonly but not unanimously affirmed he died a martyr’s death;
but we know for certain that he lived a martyr’s life – and that is enough. And
for us he will always be the man who knew what money was and what it was
not.

Skema
2024-09-22
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
25th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
September 22 – 28, 2024

Sun
22
Mon
23
Tue
24
Wed
25
Thu
26
Fri
27
Sat
28

Office
25th Sunday
St Pius of Pietrelcina
Weekday
Office for the Dead
Weekday
St Vincent de Paul
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Tob 5:9-6:1
Tob 6:2-18
Tob 7:1-17
Tob 8:1-21
Tob 9:1-6
Tob 10:1-13
Tob 11:1-18

Lauds
Hos 2:18-25
Hos 3:1-5
Hos 4:1-6
Hos 4:7-12
Hos 4:13-19
Hos 5:1-7
Hos 5:8-15

Mass
134
449
450
451
452
453
454

1st
Wis 2:12, 17-20
Prov 3:27-34
Prov 21:1-6, 10-13
Prov 30:5-9
Eccl 1:2-11
Eccl 3:1-11
Eccl 11:9-12:8

2nd
Jas 3:16-4:3

Gospel
Mark 9:30-37
Luke 8:16-18
Luke 8:19-21
Luke 9:1-6
Luke 9:7-9
Luke 9:18-22
Luke 9:43b-45

Vespers
2 Pet 2:10b-16
2 Pet 2:17-22
2 Pet 3:1-7
2 Pet 3:8-13
2 Pet 3:14-18
1 John 1:1-4
1 John 1:5-10

Vigils Reading - 25th Sunday
2024-09-22
THE MOST ESTEEMED BY CHRIST
From a commentary by Theophylact of Ohrid1
◊◊◊
As he was teaching his disciples the Lord said to them: “The Son of man
will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will put him to death, but
after his death, on the third day, he will rise again.”
The Lord always alternated prophecies of his passion with the
performance of miracles, so that he should not be thought to have suffered
through lack of power. Therefore, after imparting the grievous news that men
would kill him, he added the joyful tidings that on the third day he would rise
again. This was to teach us that joy always follows sorrow, and that we should
not be uselessly distressed by painful events, but should rather have a hope that
better times will come.
He came to Capernaum, and after entering the house he questioned the
disciples: “What were you arguing about on the way?” Now the disciples still
saw things from a very human point of view, and they had been quarrelling
amongst themselves about which of them was the greatest and the most
esteemed by Christ. Yet the Lord did not restrain their desire for preeminent
honor, indeed he wishes us to aspire to the most exalted rank. He does not
however wish us to seize the first place, but rather to win the highest honor by
humility.
He stood a child among them because he wants us to become childlike. A
child has no desire for honor; it is not jealous, and does not remember injuries.
And he said: “If you become like that, you will receive great reward, and if,
moreover, for my sake you honor others who are like that, you will receive the3
kingdom of heaven, for you will be receiving me, and in receiving me you will
receive the one who sent me.
You see then what great things humility, together with simplicity and
guilelessness, can accomplish. It causes both the Son and the Father to dwell in
us, and with them of course comes the Holy Spirit.

Vigils Reading - St Pius of Pietrelcina
2024-09-23
ST PIO OF PIETRELCINA
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints1
◊◊◊
The most famous stigmatist since St Francis of Assisi was born into a
family of agricultural laborers in Pietrelcina, northeast of Naples, on May 25,
1887. In 1903 he received the capuchin habit, taking the name of Fra. Pio. Seven
years later he was ordained to the priesthood. Not long after this he began to
experience pains in his hands and feet, and on September 11, 1911 he confessed
to his spiritual director that he had had invisible stigmata for over a year. He
also suffered the pains of Christ’s crown of thorns and scourging.
On august 5, 1918 he underwent the further mystical experience of
“transverberation” (piercing with the lance), which left him with a wound in his
side that bled continually. A month later the stigmata in his hands and feet
became visible and remained so until the final day of his life. The Capuchins
made no attempt to conceal Padre Pio’s condition, which soon became known
all over Italy and was the main cause of both his celebrity and the controversy
that surrounded him. As people started flocking to his convent in their
thousands, the Vatican, cautious as ever when faced with “private” favors and
revelations, had him examined by a succession of doctors. The physical
manifestations were undeniable. But were they from God, the psychosomatic
effect of a disturbed personality, or even a fraudulent attempt on his part of that
of the convent to achieve notoriety?
Huge crowds attended his Masses, during which he went into ecstatic
states that could last for two hours or more. In July 1923 he received an order
to say Mass in private, but so real was the threat of a violent popular reaction
that it was rescinded the following day. Padre Pio himself made no comment on5
his condition other than that he was “a mystery to himself” but his gifts should
produce benefits for others.
His community was able to ensure that they were so used when money
offerings started coming in from his penitents and admirers. In January 1925,
he opened a twenty-bed hospital that was named after St. Francis and remained
in operation for thirteen years…
In 1940, with the particular support of Maria Pyle, a wealthy American
woman to whose mother he had ministered as she was dying in 1929, Padre Pio
was in a position to undertake a more ambitious hospital project. Medical and
administrative committees were set up, but the Second World War delayed
further implementation of the project until 1946, when a limited company was
formed to carry the work forward…
In 1959 Padre Pio’s own health deteriorated. Then in August he
recovered, apparently miraculously, when a statue of Our Lady of Fatima was
brought into the hospital for two days. He died on September 23, 1968, and
doctors who examined his body found his hands and feet unmarked and “fresh
as those of a child”. He was beatified and later canonized by Pope John Paul II.
In his address the Pope spoke not so much of Padre Pio’s extraordinary
experiences but of the long hours the friar would spend in the confessional and
of his extraordinary charity, which, he said, “was poured like balm on the
sufferings of his brothers and sisters.”

Vigils Reading
2024-09-24
BE READY TO MEET THE LORD
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny1
◊◊◊
By comparison with the evil of damnation, it is a good thing to be saved
by fire; without any doubt it is much better to be made perfect by the mere
cleansing of fear; and best of all not to be even disturbed by fear.
For that reason, be ready, O true Israel, to meet the Lord, so that you may
not only open to him when he comes and knocks, but may run to meet him,
eager and joyful, while he is still far off, and, confident about the day of
judgment, pray earnestly that his kingdom may come. If you want to be found
ready then, take the advice of Wisdom and prepare justice for yourself before
the judgment. May you be prepared to do every good work and no less prepared
to suffer every evil so that your lips may sing without any reproach from your
heart: “My heart is ready, Lord, my heart is ready, ready with your help to do
good, ready to suffer ill, and so ready for both that I will sing and give praise in
my glory that is, I will rejoice and glory whichever comes.”
And at once the just man rouses himself in this matter, saying: “Arise
psaltery and harp,” that is, my heart and my body, to rejoice in the living God.
The heart is meant on account of its spiritual activity, the body because of its
passions. For the heart relishing the things that are above is a psaltery giving
forth heavenly music; the body suffering things of earth is a lyre producing
worldly music. So it is that elsewhere David, offering his devoted service to God,
says: “I am ready to keep your commandments, and so ready that I am not
troubled when temptation breaks in on me and persecution rages. Let my rival
pursue me, my servant curse me, my own son seek my life, even so I am not
troubled about not keeping the commandments of evangelical perfection. I will
render good for evil to those who return evil for good; will be solicitous for the7
safety of those who persecute me, mourning their death; will bear with the
reproaches of my servant, not permitting my honor to be vindicated by a
friend.”… And because he was so prepared he went confidently to meet his Lord.
“Without iniquity,” he says, “have I run, and directed whatever was perverse in
me so far as I was able.”
Therefore, do rise up to meet me coming to meet you, for I cannot reach
your heights unless, stooping low to the work of your hands, you stretch out
your right hand. Rise up to meet me and see if there be in me the way of iniquity.
And if you do find it there unknown to me, remove it from me, and, having
compassion on me with regard to your law, lead me in the eternal way, which is
Christ. He is the way by which we journey, the eternity at the journey’s end; he
is the spotless way, the blessed dwelling place.

Vigils Reading - Office of the Dead
2024-09-25
A THEOLOGY OF DEATH
By Karl Rahner1
◊◊◊
The ultimate act of freedom, in which we decide our own fate totally and
irrevocably, is the act in which we either willingly accept or definitively rebel
against our own utter impotence, in which we are utterly subject to the control
of a mystery which cannot be expressed – that mystery which we call God. In
death a human being is totally withdrawn from self. Every power, down to the
last vestige of a possibility, of autonomously controlling its own destiny is taken
away.
Thus the exercise of freedom taken as a whole is summed up at this point
on one single decision: whether we yield everything up or whether everything is
taken from us by force, whether we respond to this radical deprivation of all
power by uttering our assent in faith and hope to the nameless mystery which
we call God, or whether even at this point we seek to cling on to our own
autonomy, protest against this fall into helplessness, and, because of our
disbelief, suppose that we are falling into the abyss of nothingness when in
reality we are falling into the unfathomable depths of God.
On the basis of this it is possible for us to realize that death can be either
an act of faith or a mortal sin. In order rightly to understand this we must
consider (and perhaps it would have been clearer to make this point right from
the first) that the actual act of dying does not necessarily occur at that point in
time in the physical order at which doctors suppose it to take place, and at which
it is considered to take place in the popular estimation when we speak of the
final departure and of death as coming at the end of life. In reality we are dying
all our lives through right up to this, the final point in the process of dying…9
Now this death in life or living death, as it may be called, can become one
of two things: it can be made into an enduring act of faith in the fact that our
lives and destinies are being directed and controlled by another and that this
direction is right; the willing acceptance of our destiny, the ultimate act of self-
commitment to that destiny, a renunciation which we make in anticipation of
our final end because in the end we must renounce all things; also because we
believe that it is only by this poverty entailed in freely accepting our own destiny
that we can free ourselves for the hand of God in God’s unfathomable power
and grace to dispose of us as God wills.
Alternatively, this death in the midst of life can become an act of
desperately clinging on by main force to that which is destined to fall away from
us, a protest, whether silent or expressed, against this death in life, the despair
of one who is avid for life and who imagines that by sinning happiness is
obtained by force. The death that is accomplished in life, therefore, must be
really the act of that loving and therefore trustful faith which gives us courage
to allow ourselves to be taken up by another. Otherwise, it will become the
mortal sin which consists in the pride of seeking one’s own absolute autonomy,
anxiety (Angst) and despair all in one.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-26
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL CHARACTER
OF THE PILGRIM CHURCH
From the encyclical Lumen Gentium1
◊◊◊
The Church, to which we are called in Christ Jesus, and in which by the
grace of God we acquire holiness, will receive its perfection only in the glory of
heaven, when the time comes for the renewal of all things, and the whole
universe, as well as the human race, is completely united in Christ. For the
universe has an intimate connection with us, and through us it reaches its
destined end.
Lifted up from the earth, Christ has drawn all to himself; rising from the
dead, he has sent his life-giving Spirit upon his disciples; through the Spirit he
has established his Body, which is the Church, as the universal sacrament of
salvation. Sitting at the right hand of the Father, he is unceasingly at work in
the world to bring men and women to the Church, to join them more closely to
himself through her, and to give them a share in his glorious life by feeding them
on his own Body and Blood.
The promised restoration to which we look forward has already had its
beginning in Christ. It receives impetus from the sending of the Holy Spirit and
through him continues in the Church, where we also receive instruction, by
faith, in the significance of our earthly life. Meanwhile, in expectation of a good
future, we are bringing to completion the work in the world entrusted to us by
the Father, and are working out our salvation.
The end of the ages has already reached us, and the world is irrevocably
set on the renewal which is anticipated in a real way in this life. Already the
Church is marked on earth by a genuine, if imperfect, holiness. The Church is11
on pilgrimage until the coming of the new heavens and the new earth in which
righteousness dwells. In her sacraments and organization, which belong to this
life, she carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her
place among the creatures who groan in travail as they wait for the revealing of
the children of God.

Vigils Reading - St Vincent de Paul
2024-09-27
GOD LOVES THE POOR
From the writing of St Vincent de Paul1
◊◊◊
Even though the poor are often rough and unrefined, we must not judge
them from external appearances nor from the mental gifts they seem to have
received. On the contrary, if you consider the poor in the light of faith, then you
will observe that they are taking the place of the Son of God who chose to be
poor. Although in his passion he almost lost the appearance of a man and was
considered a fool by the Gentiles and a stumbling block by the Jews, he showed
that his mission was to preach to the poor… We also ought to have this same
spirit and imitate Christ’s actions, that is, we must take care of the poor, console
them, help them, support their cause.
Since Christ willed to be born poor, he chose for himself disciples who
were poor. He made himself the servant of the poor and shared their poverty.
He went so far as to say that he would consider every deed which either helps
or harms the poor as done for or against himself. Since God surely loves the
poor, he also loves those who love the poor. For when one person holds another
dear, he also includes in his affection anyone who loves or serves the one he
loves. That is why we hope that God will love us for the sake of the poor. So,
when we visit the poor and needy, we try to be understanding where they are
concerned. We sympathize with them so fully that we can echo Paul’s words: I
have become all things to all people. Therefore, we must try to be stirred by
our neighbor’s worries and distress. We must beg God to pour into our hearts
sentiments of pity and compassion and to fill them again and again with these
dispositions.13
It is our duty to prefer the service of the poor to everything else and to
offer such service as quickly as possible. If a needy person requires medicine or
other help during prayer time, do whatever has to be done with peace of mind.
Offer the deed to God as your prayer. Do not become upset or feel guilty because
you interrupted your prayer to serve the poor. God is not neglected if you leave
him for such service. One of God’s works is merely interrupted so that another
can be carried out. So, when you leave prayer to serve some poor person,
remember that this service is performed for God. Charity is certainly greater
than any rule. Moreover, all rules must lead to charity. Since she is a noble
mistress, we must do whatever she commands. With renewed devotion, then,
we must serve the poor, especially beggars and outcasts. They have been given
to us as our masters and patrons.

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2024-09-28
MARY AND THE MYSTERY OF
CHRISTIAN FREEDOM
From “The Handmaid of the Lord” by Adrienne von Speyr1
◊◊◊
From the moment Mary said Yes and gave her consent, her whole life has
the conscious and explicit form of assent, upon which everything depends. This
perfect assent is the giving of human freedom to God, final and so complete that
by virtue of the humble and confident gift of our freedom and our life, God owns
everything from then on and can therefore “whether gradually or all at once”
use, transform or reform all that we have deposited with him. The life of faith,
love and hope, the Christian life, is turned towards this form, so that everything
we have may be deposited without hesitation in the hands of Providence…
Mary’s assent was assent of that kind from the beginning.
Mary’s freedom, like all forms of freedom, is indivisible, as may be seen
from her word of assent. She bound herself to God by a single, completely free
act leading into perfect freedom. With that act Mary enters the Christian life for
the first time, and in its most perfect form. And since she gave her assent to all
that was to come, she gave her assent to Christianity and all it concealed, all that
was new, unexpected and beyond expectation. In doing so she gave Christian
assent its form, its perfect and essential form: complete self-surrender.
In a certain sense one might say that Mary’s assent is a vow of obedience,
of chastity and of poverty. Its single renunciation contains a threefold
renunciation. For by her one word of assent the Mother of God divested herself
of everything for God’s sake and for humanity’s sake. Her assent and her
obedience coincide; choosing assent she chose obedience as her form of life.
And by the same token renounced all claim to her body. Like everything else she
gave it to God, and could no longer dispose of it herself or give it to man. She15
could not have served God completely with her body had she not placed
everything unreservedly at her service. Her task demanded everything she
possessed, as the completeness of her assent required it.
As little as it is possible to do penance inwardly while living a life of ease,
so it is impossible to give up everything inwardly without giving up the outward
as well. There is a unity in the offer on God’s side and a unity in the answer on
the human side, and that unity constitutes assent.
Assent is essentially grace: a grace that, like all grace, comes from God,
working itself out in human nature and its mission, with the possibility of
returning to God as our answer, enveloped in the all-embracing mission of the
Son who received the power to come on earth as a human being, through the
assent of a human being. All Christian assent participates in the same essence,
and Mary’s assent is the pattern and definition, indeed the font and origin of
every subsequent Christian assent, because the mystical marriage, the eternal
bond between our human assent and God’s assent was made manifest, for the
first time, through her. The fruit of that union is the Savior of the world. Though
the Mother of God did not say Yes without the Son’s grace, the Son did not
become man without his Mother’s assent.

Skema
2024-09-29
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
26th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
September 29 – October 5, 2024

Sun
29
Mon
30
Tue
1
Wed
2
Thu
3
Fri
4
Sat
5

Office
26th Sunday
St Jerome
St Therese of the Child Jesus
Holy Guardian Angels
Louisville Cathedral
St Francis
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Tob 12:1-22
Tob 13:1-18
Tob 14:1-7
Tob 14:8-15
2 Chron 7:1-16
Wis 1:1-15
Wis 1:16-2:11

Lauds
Hos 6:1-6
Hos 6:7-7:2
Hos 7:3-10
Hos 7:11-16
Ezek 43:1-7a
Hos 8:1-7
Hos 8:8-14

Mass
137
455
456
457
701.1, 706.2
459
460

1st
Num 11:25-29
Job 1:6-22
Job 3:1-3, 11-17, 20-23
Job 9:1-12, 14-16
1 Kings 8:22-23, 27-30
Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5
Job 42:1-3, 5-6, 12-17

2nd
Jas 5:1-6

Gospel
Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
Luke 9:46-50
Luke 9:51-56
Luke 9:57-62
Luke 19:1-10
Luke 10:13-16
Luke 10:17-24

Vespers
1 John 2:1-6
1 John 2:7-11
1 John 2:12-17
1 John 2:18-23
Acts 7:44-50
1 John 2:24-27
1 John 2:28-3:3

Vigils Reading - 26th Sunday
2024-09-29
THE WORD OF GOD IS LIKE
A TWO-EDGED SWORD
From a commentary by Symeon the New Theologian1
◊◊◊
Do you tremble when you hear God saying to you day after day
throughout the whole of divine Scripture: “Let no evil word come from your
mouth. Indeed, I tell you that you will have to answer for a single careless
word, and you will receive a reward for a cup of water”?
Do not deceive yourselves. God loves us, and he is merciful and
compassionate. I myself testify and acknowledge that it is his compassion that
makes me confident of being saved. Nevertheless, you must understand that
this will be of no avail to those who refuse to repent and to keep God’s
commandments in every detail and with great fear. On the contrary, God will
punish them more severely than people who are unbelievers and unbaptized.
Do not deceive yourselves, let there be no sin that seems small in your
eyes, and that you treat lightly, as though it did no great harm to your souls.
Right-minded servants make no distinction between a small sin and a great one;
if they offend by so much as a glance, a thought, or a word, they feel as if they
have fallen away from the love of God, and I believe this is true. In fact, whoever
has the slightest thought contrary to the divine will, and does not immediately
repent and repel the assault of such a thought, but welcomes it and consents to
it – that person is counted guilty of sin, and this is so even if he is unaware that
his thought is sinful.
Consequently, we need to be extremely vigilant and zealous, and to give
much time to searching the divine Scriptures. The Savior’s command, “Search
the Scriptures” shows how profitable they are for us. Search them, and hold fast
to what they say with great exactitude and faith. Then, when the divine
Scriptures have given you an accurate knowledge of God’s will, you will be able
to distinguish without error between good and evil, and will not listen to every
spirit, or be carried away by harmful thoughts.
You may be certain that nothing is so conducive to our salvation as
following the divine commandments of the Savior. Nevertheless, we shall have
to shed many tears, and shall need great fear, great patience, and constant
prayer before the import of even a word of the Master can be revealed to us.
Only then shall we perceive the great mystery hidden in short sayings, and be
ready to die for the smallest detail of the commandments of God. For the word
of God is like a two-edged sword, cutting off and separating the soul from all
bodily desire and sensation. More than that, it is like a blazing fire, because it
stirs up zeal in our souls, and makes us disregard all the sorrows of life, consider
every trial we encounter a joy, and desire and embrace death, so fearful to
others, as life and the means of attaining life.

Vigils Reading - St Jerome
2024-09-30
ON THE LOVE OF SCRIPTURE
A letter from St Jerome to Paulinus1
◊◊◊
You see how, carried away by my love of the scriptures, I have exceeded
the limits of a letter yet have not fully accomplished my object. We have heard
only what it is that we ought to know and to desire, so that we too may be able
to say with the psalmist: “My soul breaks out with the fervent desire it always
has had for your judgments”. But the saying of Socrates about himself— “I only
know this: that I know nothing”—is fulfilled in our case also.
The New Testament I will briefly deal with. Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John are the Lord’s team of four, the true cherubim or store of knowledge. [Like
the description in the prophet Ezekiel,] with them the whole body is full of eyes,
they glitter as sparks, they run and return like lightning, their feet are straight
feet, and lifted up, their backs also are winged, ready to fly in all directions. They
hold together each by each and are interwoven one with another: like wheels
within wheels, they roll along and go wherever the breath of the Holy Spirit
wafts them. The apostle Paul writes to seven churches… He instructs Timothy
and Titus; he interceded with Philemon for his runaway slave. Of him I think it
better to say nothing than to write inadequately.
The Acts of the Apostles seem to relate a mere unvarnished narrative,
descriptive of the infancy of the newly born church; but when once we realize
that their author is Luke the physician whose praise is in the gospel, we shall
see that all his works are medicine for the sick soul. The apostles James, Peter,
John and Jude have published seven epistles at once spiritual and to the point,
short and long, short that is in words but lengthy in substance so that there are
few indeed who do not find themselves in the dark when they read them. The5
apocalypse of John has as many mysteries as words. In saying this I have said
less than the book deserves. All praise of it is inadequate; manifold meanings
lie hid in its every word.
I beg of you, my dear brother, to live among these books, to meditate upon
them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else. Does not such a life seem to
you a foretaste of heaven here on earth? Let not the simplicity of the scripture
or the poorness of its vocabulary offend you: for these are due either to the faults
of translators or else to deliberate purpose: for in this way it is better fitted for
the instruction of an unlettered congregation as the educated person can take
one meaning and the uneducated another from one and the same sentence. I
am not so dull or so forward as to profess that I myself know it, or that I can
pluck upon the earth the fruit which has its root in heaven, but I confess that I
should like to do so. I put myself before the man who sits idle and, while I lay
no claim to be a master, I readily pledge myself to be a fellow-student… Let us
learn upon earth that knowledge which will continue with us in heaven.

Vigils Reading - St Therese of the Child Jesus
2024-10-01
THE MISSION OF ST THÉRÈSE
By Hans Urs von Balthasar1
◊◊◊
There can be no doubt that Thérèse of Lisieux was directly entrusted by
God with a mission to the Church. Thérèse’s mission, at the very first glance,
displays the marks of a clearly defined, and quite exceptional character. This is
much less due to the personal drama of the little saint than to the sacred form
into which the trickling grains of petty anecdotes are compressed, into a hard,
unbreakable block, by a firm invisible hand. It is contrary to all expectation that
the simple, modest story of this little girl should eventually culminate, as it
irrefutably does, in the enunciation of theological truths.
Originally, she herself never dreamt that she might be chosen to bear
some fundamental message to the Church. She only became aware of it
gradually; in fact, it did not occur to her until her task was almost completed,
after she had already lived out her teaching and was writing the last chapters of
her book. Suddenly, as she saw it all laid out before her, she recognized its
strangeness, that in her obedience she had unwillingly conceived something
beyond her own personality. And now that she saw it, she also understood it,
and seized it with a kind of violence…
At that moment she realized she was to be set on a pedestal, and that every
bit of her life, even its smallest details, would be used as a pattern for many of
the “little ones”. She regards the publication of her manuscript as “an important
work”; she knows “that all the world will love me”, and that her writings “will
do a great deal of good”. During her last months, as if making her last will and
testament, she repeats constantly: “One must tell souls.” Exactly the same
expressions recur in reference to the mission she is soon to begin in heaven: “I
feel that my mission will soon begin to teach souls to love God as I love Him, to
give them my little way…” Similarly, she recognizes the function within the
Church of her mission. She not only foresees the proclamation of her own
sanctity but she also, as it were, foresaw the canonization of her doctrine.
So, her life only contains exemplary value for the Church insofar as the
Holy Spirit has possessed her and used her in order to demonstrate something
for the sake of the Church, opening up new vistas onto the Gospels. That, and
that alone, should be the motive for the Church’s interest in Thérèse. That, and
that alone, should engage the attention of those who feel themselves put off my
many features of her cult, or even of her character, or who experience
indefinable objections to them. In fact, there are few other cases in which it is
so prudent to distinguish between the mission of a saint and its essentials.
In the case of Thérèse of Lisieux the dramatic tension between her
mission and her person needs specially to be borne in mind, and to be
appreciated primarily in theological terms; the essence of sanctity has to be
grasped as truly evangelical, as belonging to the Church, as a mission and not
simply as an individual ascetical, mystical manifestation. Moreover, it is not
just because of contemporary “needs” but because of the depth of revealed truth
that portraits of the saints must in future be remodeled, so that the saints can
again live amongst us, and in us, as the best protectors and inspirers of the
community of the saints, which is the Church.

Vigils Reading - Holy Guardian Angels
2024-10-02
HE HAS GIVEN HIS ANGELS
CHARGE OVER YOU
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux1
◊◊◊
O Lord, what is man that you have made yourself known to him, or why
do you incline your heart to him? And you do incline your heart to him; you
show him your care and concern. Finally, you send your only son and the grace
of your spirit, and promise him a vision of your countenance. And so, that
nothing in heaven should be wanting in your concern for us, you send those
blessed spirits to serve us, assigning them as our guardians and teachers.
“He has given his angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways.”
These words should fill you with respect, inspire devotion and instill
confidence; respect for the presence of angels, devotion because of their loving
service, and confidence because of their protection. And so, the angels are here;
they are at your side, they are with you, present on your behalf. They are here
to protect you and to serve you. But even if it is God who has given them this
charge, we must nevertheless be grateful to them for the great love with which
they obey and come to help us in our great need.
So let us be devoted and grateful to such great protectors; let us return
their love and honor them as much as we can and should. Yet all our love and
honor must go to him, for it is from him that they receive all that makes them
worthy of our love and respect.
We should then, my brothers, show our affection for the angels, for one
day they will be our coheirs just as here below they are our guardians and
trustees appointed and set over us by the Father. We are God’s children
although it does not seem so, because we are still but small children under
guardians and trustees, and for the present little better than slaves.
Even though we are children and have a long, a very long and dangerous
way to go, with such protectors what have we to fear? They who keep us in all
our ways cannot be overpowered or led astray, much less lead us astray. They
are loyal, prudent, powerful. Why then are we afraid? We have only to follow
them, stay close to them, and we shall dwell under the protection of God’s
heaven.

Vigils Reading - Louisville Cathedral
2024-10-03
ON THE DEDICATION OF A CHURCH
By St Bernard of Clairvaux1
◊◊◊
Today we celebrate another glorious feast: it is the feast of the Lord’s
house, of God’s temple, of the city of the eternal King, of Christ’s bride. Let us
ask ourselves what this house of God, this temple, this city, and this bride can
be. With awe and reverence I say: It is we ourselves. I say it is we ourselves, but
in the heart of God; it is we ourselves, but by his grace and not by any merits of
our own. We humans must beware of appropri-ating what belongs to God, of
taking the glory to ourselves; otherwise, if we exalt ourselves, he will humble us
and bring us down to our proper level. On the other hand, a humble
acknowledgment of our maladies will arouse his compassion. Indeed, this is
enough to make God feed us in our hunger like a well-to-do father. So, under
his protection we shall have bread in abundance and thus become his house in
which life-giving food is never lacking.
Bear in mind also that he describes his house as a house of prayer, and
that holiness befits this house; then the purity of self-restraint will accompany
the tears of repentance, and what is already God’s house will become his temple
as well. Be holy, says the Lord, because I am holy. And the Apostle says: Do you
not realize that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and the Holy
Spirit dwells in you?
But is even holiness enough? According to the Apostle, peace too is
necessary, for he says: Strive to be at peace with everyone, and to achieve the
holiness without which no one can see God. It is peace that makes brothers
dwell together in unity and builds for our king, the true king of peace, a new city
also called Jerusalem, which means “vision of peace.”
But how can so great a king become a bridegroom, and a city a bride? This
is possible to love alone, which is as strong as death, and can do anything. Can
it not easily lift her up, when it has already brought him down?
And so, if the abundance of our food shows us to be the house of a great
Father, if holiness shows us to be God’s temple, if the sharing of a common life
shows us to be the city of the great king, and if love shows us to be the bride of
the immortal bridegroom, then we can surely say without hesitation that today’s
feast is our feast. Nor should you be surprised that such a feast is celebrated
here on earth; it is, after all, being celebrated in heaven too! For if as Truth says,
so it must be true, there is joy in heaven and even among God’s angels over a
single sinner repenting, then the joy there today must be many times greater at
so many sinners repenting. Let us then share the rejoicing of the angels, let us
share the joy of God, and let us keep today’s feast with thanksgiving, for the fact
that it is our own should make us all the more willing to celebrate it.

Vigils Reading - St Francis
2024-10-04
THE HUMILITY OF ST FRANCIS
From “The Life of St Francis” by St Bonaventure1
◊◊◊
In order to render himself contemptible to others, he did not spare
himself the embarrassment of bringing up his own faults when he preached
before all the people. Once it happened that when he was weighed down with
sickness, he relaxed a little the rigor of his abstinence in order to recover his
health. When his strength of body returned, he was aroused to insult his own
body out of true self-contempt: “It is not right,” he said, “that the people should
believe I am abstaining while, in fact, I eat meat on the sly.”
Inflamed with the spirit of true humility, he called the people together in
the square of the town of Assisi and solemnly entered the principal church with
many of the friars whom he had brought with him. With a rope tied around his
neck and stripped to his underwear, he had himself dragged before the eyes of
all to the stone where criminals received their punishment. He climbed up upon
the stone and preached with much vigor and spirit although he was suffering
from a fever and the weather was bitter cold. He asserted to all his hearers that
he should not be honored as a spiritual man but rather he should be despised
by all as a carnal man and a glutton.
Therefore, those who had gathered there were amazed at so great a
spectacle. They were well aware of his austerity, and so their hearts were struck
with compunction; but they professed that his humility was easier to admire
than to imitate. Although this incident seemed to be more a portent like that of
the Prophet [Isaiah] than an example, nevertheless it was a lesson in true
humility instructing the follower of Christ that he should despise the fame of
transitory praise, suppress the arrogance of bloated bragging and reject the lies
of deceptive pretense.
He often did many things like this so that outwardly he might become like
a discarded utensil while inwardly possessing the spirit of holiness. He strove
to hide the gifts of his Lord in the secret recesses of his heart, not wanting them
to be exposed to praise, which could be an occasion of a fall. For often when he
was praised by the crowds, he would answer like this: “I could still have sons
and daughters; don’t praise me as if I were secure! No one should be praised
whose end is still uncertain.” This is what he would say to those who praised
him, and to himself he would say: “If the Most High had given so much to a
brigand, he would be more grateful than you, Francis.” He often used to tell the
friars: “No one should flatter himself for doing anything a sinner can also do. A
sinner,” he said, “can fast, pray, weep and mortify his flesh. This one thing he
cannot do: be faithful to his Lord. Therefore, we should glory in this: if we give
back to the Lord the glory that is his, if we serve him faithfully and ascribe to
him whatever he gives to us.”

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2024-10-05
MARY’S POETIC SENSIBILITY
By Émile Mersch1
◊◊◊
The Magnificat is Mary’s own song, and when she composed it, Jesus
was not even born. Yet he made his presence felt to John the Baptist, and more
so to her. In Mary’s song, his thoughts are uttered: the greatness of the humble,
the blessings promised to the lowly, the reversal of values effected by the Lord
in exalting the poor and rejecting the proud, the joy of those whom the world
ignores and who have the Lord with them; everything that the song proclaims
is the same as the teaching promulgated in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on
the Mount. The very prelude expresses the tone and accent characteristic of the
preaching of Jesus; the mother’s song foreshadows the hymn of thanksgiving
uttered by the Son in the presence of God who showers the lowly and humble
with favors. At that time Jesus answered and said: ‘I thank you, Father, Lord
of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and
prudent and have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so it has seemed
good in your sight’.
As we hear Christ in his mother, we also hear in her the entire Old
Testament, which is a prefigure of Christ. The Magnificat is almost wholly made
up of biblical quotations. The mother of the Savior, of the Desired One of Israel,
speaks as the daughter, or rather the queen, of the patriarchs and prophets. And
this double relation with her Son, who is everything for humanity, depicts her
so well that the Magnificat, echo of the Old Testament and prelude to the New
Testament, is a very personal, unified and spontaneous composition, as well as
a prayer that was to become familiar to the Christian people.
Mary must have possessed a flair for poetry, just as Jesus did. Jesus had
this gift of universal sympathy, this promptness of responding to a contact with15
anything, this facility and sincerity of wonder. We have but to recall, for
example, his reverential and moving words about the flowers of the fields. I tell
you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these. And if
God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the
oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?
‘God so clothes’: we can see our Lord bending over these humble marvels,
joyful and proud to be a man in the human universe of his Father’s creation. We
may well believe that Jesus wished to receive this very human gift from his
mother, just as he received his human nature from her. She must have
possessed it before him. The proofs that she did are, among others, the special
turn of poetry, delicacy and taste found in the first chapters of St. Luke, in which
her influence stands out so clearly… The abundance of poetic bits occurring in
these chapters, and only in them, all have to do with her. But the Magnificat
remains the clearest proof.

Skema
2024-10-06
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
27th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
October 6 – 12, 2024

Sun
6
Mon
7
Tue
8
Wed
9
Thu
10
Fri
11
Sat
12

Office
27th Sunday
Our Lady of the Rosary
Weekday
Weekday
Office for Vocations
St John XXIII
Weekday

Vigils
Wis 2:12-24
Judith 15:8-16:2, 11-16
Wis 3:1-12
Wis 3:13-4:6
Wis 4:7-19
Wis 4:20-5:13
Wis 5:14-23

Lauds
Hos 9:1-9
Sir 39:12-22
Hos 9:10-17
Hos 10:1-8
Hos 10:9-15
Hos 11:1-7
Hos 11:8-11

Mass
140
461
462
463
464
465
466

1st
Gen 2:18-24
Gal 1:6-12
Gal 1:13-24
Gal 2:1-2, 7-14
Gal 3:1-5
Gal 3:7-14
Gal 3:22-29

2nd
Heb 2:9-11

Gospel
Mark 10:2-16
Luke 10:25-37
Luke 10:38-42
Luke 11:1-4
Luke 11:5-13
Luke 11:15-26
Luke 11:27-28

Vespers
1 John 3:4-10
Acts 1:12-14
1 John 3:11-18
1 John 3:19-24
1 John 4:1-6
1 John 4:7-12
1 John 4:13-21

Vigils Reading - 27th Sunday
2024-10-06
THEY ARE NO LONGER TWO
BUT ONE
From a commentary by Jacob of Serugh1
◊◊◊
In his mysterious plans the Father had destined a bride for his only Son
and presented her to him under the guise of prophetic images. Moses appeared
and with deft hand sketched a picture of bridegroom and bride but immediately
drew a veil over it. In his book he wrote that a man should leave a father and
mother so as to be joined to his wife, that the two might in very truth become
one. The prophet Moses spoke of man and woman in this way in order to foretell
Christ and his Church. With a prophet’s penetrating gaze he contemplated
Christ becoming one with the Church through the mystery of water. He saw
Christ even from the Virgin’s womb drawing the Church to himself, and the
Church in the water of baptism drawing Christ to herself. Bridegroom and bride
were thus wholly united in a mystical manner, which is why Moses wrote that
the two should become one.
With veiled face Moses contemplated Christ and the Church; the one he
called “man” and the other “woman” so as not to reveal the full splendor of the
reality. After the marriage celebration came Paul. He saw the veil covering their
splendor and lifted it, revealing Christ and his Church to the whole world, and
showing that it was they whom Moses had described in his prophetic vision. In
an outburst of inspired joy the apostle exclaimed: This is a great mystery! He
revealed the meaning of the veiled picture the prophet had called man and
woman, declaring: I know that it is Christ and his Church, who were two before
but have now become one.
Wives are not united to their husbands as closely as the Church is to the
Son of God. What husband but our Lord ever died for his wife, and what bride
ever chose a crucified man as her husband? Who ever gave his blood as a gift to
his wife except the one who died on the cross and sealed the marriage bond with
his wounds? Who was ever seen lying dead at his own wedding banquet with his
wife at his side seeking to console herself by embracing him? At what other
celebration, at what other feast is the bridegroom’s body distributed to the
guests in the form of bread?
Death separates wives from husbands, but in this case it is death that
unites the bride to her beloved. He died on the cross, bequeathed his body to his
glorious spouse, and now every day she receives and consumes it at his table.
She consumes it under the form of bread, and under the form of wine that she
drinks, so that the whole world may know that they are no longer two but one.

Vigils Reading - Our Lady of the Rosary
2024-10-07
THE ROSARY
OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
By Fr Romano Guardini2
◊◊◊
To linger in the domain of Mary is something divinely great. One does not
ask about the utility of truly noble things, because they have their meaning
within themselves. So it is of infinite meaning to draw a deep breath of this
purity, to be secure in the peace of this union with God.
With this we come back to what was said in the beginning. We need a
place of holy tranquility that is pervaded by the breath of God and where we
meet the great figures of the faith. This place is really the inaccessibility of God
himself which is opened to us only through Christ. All prayer begins when we
become silent, when we recollect our scattered thoughts and feel remorse at our
trespasses, when we direct our thoughts toward God. If we do all this, the place
is thrown open, not only as a domain of spiritual tranquility and mental
concentration, but as something that comes from God.
We are always in need of this place, especially when the convulsions of the
times make clear something that has always existed but which is sometimes
hidden by outward well-being and a prevailing “peace of mind”: namely, the
homelessness of our lives. In such times, a great courage is demanded from us:
not only a readiness to dispense with more and to accomplish more than usual,
but to persevere in a vacuum we do not otherwise notice. So, we require more
than ever this place of which we speak, not to creep into to hide, but as a place to
find the core of things, to become calm and confident once more. For this
reason the Rosary is so important in times like ours–assuming, of course, that
all slackness and exaggeration are done away with, and it is used in its clear and
original forcefulness. This is all the more important because the Rosary does
not require any special preparation. We do not need to generate thoughts of
which we are not capable at the moment or at any other time. We step into a
well-ordered world, meet familiar images and find roads that lead us to the
essential.
The Rosary has the character of a sojourn. Its essence is the sheltering
security of a quiet, holy world that envelops the person who is praying. This is
particularly evident when we compare it with the Stations of the Cross, which
have the character of a journey. We follow the Master from one “station” to
another, and feel at the end that we have reached our goal. The Rosary is not a
road, but a place, and it has no goal but a depth. To linger in it has great
compensations.

Vigils Reading
2024-10-08
OUR BOAST
IS THE CROSS OF CHRIST
From a letter by St Paulinus of Nola
◊◊◊
From the beginning of the world Christ suffers in all his own. He is “the
beginning and the end”, who is hidden in the law and revealed in the gospel, a
Lord ever “wonderful” and suffering and triumphant “in his saints”. In Abel he
was slain by his brother, in Noah he was ridiculed by his son, in Jacob he was
reduced to servitude, in Joseph he was sold, in Moses he was abandoned and
rejected, in the prophets he was stoned and torn asunder, in his apostles he was
persecuted on land and sea, and in his countless martyrs he was tortured and
assassinated.
He now also bears our weaknesses and our sicknesses, for he is himself
one like us, exposed on our behalf to all evils and capable of enduring the
weakness which without him we would be totally incapable of bearing. He it is
who bears the weight of the world for us and in us so that he might deliver us
from it; see how he achieves power in weakness! It is he who suffers the taunts
you endure; and it is he whom the world hates in you.
Let us give thanks to the Lord, because he “wins out when he is judged.”
According to this word of Scripture, he it is who triumphs in us when, taking the
condition of slavery, he obtains for his servants the grace of freedom.
Accomplishing the mysterious design of his goodness, he assumes this form of a
slave and consents to humble himself for us even to the death of the cross.
Through the lowliness which all could see he achieves our elevation to heaven,
which is interior and invisible.
Look at the height from which we first fell; understand it well. It is by the
design of God’s wisdom and goodness that we have been restored to life. In
Adam we fell through pride, and in Christ we are humbled so that we may efface
the ancient sin by the practice of the opposite virtue. We have offended the Lord
by pride; we now please him by our humility.
Therefore, let us rejoice and glory in him who made ours both his battle
and his victory when he said: “Take courage! I have overcome the world!”… He
who is unconquered will fight for us and conquer in us. The prince of darkness
shall be cast out, for if he is not expelled from the world where he is everywhere,
he is expelled from the human heart. When faith enters us we shut out the evil
one and provide a place for Christ, whose presence expels sin and spells exile for
the serpent who is dislodged..
Let the orators keep their eloquence, the philosophers their wisdom, the
rich their wealth, and kings their realms. Our glory, riches and kingdom is
Christ. Our wisdom lies in the foolishness of the gospel, our strength in the
weakness of the flesh, and our glory in the stumbling block of the cross.
“Through it the world has been crucified to me and I to the world, so that I may
live for God. And the life I live now is not my own; Christ is living in me.”

Vigils Reading
2024-10-09
THE TRUE TEMPLE
AND CITY OF GOD
By St Hilary of Poitiers3
◊◊◊
God chose Zion for his abode and his dwelling place…But Zion was
ultimately destroyed. Where, then, is the everlasting throne of the Lord, where
his eternal resting place, where the temple on which he can reside? It is that
temple about which is written: “You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God
dwells in you.”
This is the house and this is the temple of God, filled with the knowledge
and power of God; made fit for God’s indwelling by holiness of heart – to which
the prophet bore witness: “Holy is your temple, wonderful in justice.” Our
holiness, justice, and purity constitute a temple for the Lord.
Hence, this temple must be built by God. [If it is] erected by human labor,
it will never last; [if] founded on worldly wisdom, it will never hold together; [if
it is only] kept by our foolish labors and care, it will never be preserved. It is not
to be erected on shifting sand but firmly founded on the prophets and the
apostles; with living stones must it take shape, solidified by the cornerstone.
With its materials securely linked together it must grow to perfect maturity, to
the stature of the body of Christ, and is to be adorned with the beauty and
splendor of spiritual gifts…
For a long time already, the Lord has been keeping watch over this city.
He guards Abraham on his pilgrimage, rescues Isaac from immolation, rewards
Jacob for his years of service, and makes a powerful figure of Joseph sold into
Egypt. He strengthens Moses in his conflict with Pharaoh, delegates Joshua to
wage wars, delivers Daniel from all dangers, and bestows the gift of wisdom on
Solomon.
The Lord is there among his Prophets; he snatches up Elijah, chooses
Elisha, gives food to Daniel, and refreshes the youths in the fiery furnace. He
informs Joseph by an angel of his virgin birth, reassures Mary, and sends John
before him.
He chooses apostles, and prays to his Father with the words: “Holy
Father, protect them; as long as I was with them, I guarded them in your name.”
Finally, after his passion, he promises that he himself will have an eternal care
for us: “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the world.”
Such is the never-ending protection of this blessed and holy city, which –
formed as it is of many come together into one and found in each of us – is
indeed the city of God.

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2024-10-10
THE ACTIVITY
OF ALL ACTIVITIES
From “The Golden Epistle” by William of St Thierry4
◊◊◊
In the first place then the newcomer to the desert must be taught to follow
the teaching of the Apostle Paul and offer up his body as a living sacrifice,
consecrated to God and worthy of his acceptance, the workshop due from him as
a rational creature. Therefore the body is to be treated strictly, so that it will not
rebel or grow wanton, yet in such a way that it will be able to serve, for it has
been given to the spirit to serve it. It is not to be regarded as the purpose of life
but as something without which we cannot live. For we cannot break off the
fellowship which we have with the body whenever we want, but we must wait
patiently for it to be broken up in a lawful way and in the meantime observe the
conventions of a valid partnership…
The new monk is then to be trained to follow the common observance and
so bring under control the inordinate desires of his flesh by continual penance
for his past life, and, in order to despise all else, to cultivate a contempt for
himself. He must at all times be fortified in advance against the temptations
which are more savage in their assault upon the solitary who is a novice. The
servant of God, who is serving God gratuitously, is unceasingly beset by vices
that try to make him accept the wages they offer him in the form of pleasures.
This comes at the devil’s suggestion, the flesh making its desires felt and the
world providing material for them. The Lord our God also tempts us, to see
whether we love him or not. Not that he does not know and wishes to find out. It
is in order that we ourselves may realize the truth more fully as a result of the
temptation.
But it is easy to overcome and meet with reason temptations which give
grounds for suspicion or at first sight are obviously evil. It is those which
insinuate themselves under the appearance of good that are more difficult to
recognize and more dangerous to entertain. Just as it is very difficult to observe
due measure in what is believed to be good and not every desire for something
good is safe.
The place, however, where all temptations and evil and useless thoughts
collect, is idleness. For the greatest evil which can befall the mind is unemployed
leisure. The servant of God should never be idle, although he is at leisure to
devote himself to God. A name which gives rise to such suspicion and suggests
such waste of time and such an absence of manliness must not be given to a
matter of such unquestionable value, of such holiness, of such seriousness. Is
leisure to devote one’s time to God idleness? Rather it is the activity of all
activities. Anyone who in his cell is not faithful and fervent in this activity is
indeed idle, whatever else he may do that is not done for the sake of this…
The aim of activity should not be merely to pass the day more or less
enjoyably or at least without becoming too weary of leisure but also that when
the day is over it always leaves something in the mind that will contribute to the
soul’s advancement and that some fresh treasure is added each day to the
heart’s store. A good monk should consider that he has lost a day of his life if
during the day he cannot remember having done any of the things for which a
man lives in solitude.

Vigils Reading - St John XXIII
2024-10-11
THE SPIRITUAL TESTAMENT
AND LAST WISHES
of St Pope John XXIII5
◊◊◊
On the point of presenting myself before the One and Triune Lord who
created me, redeemed me, chose me to be his priest and bishop, and covered me
with unending graces, I entrust my poor soul to His mercy; I humbly ask pardon
for my sins and deficiencies. I offer Him the little good, although petty and
imperfect, that with His aid I have succeeded in doing, for His glory, for the
service of Holy Church, for the edification of my brethren, begging Him finally
to receive me, like a good and kind Father, with His Saints into eternal
happiness.
I profess once again with all my heart my entire Christian and Catholic
faith, my adherence and subjection to the Holy Apostolic and Roman Church,
and my complete devotion and obedience to her August Head, the Supreme
Pontiff, whom it was my great honor to represent for long years in various
regions of the East and West, who at the end chose me to come to Venice as
Cardinal and Patriarch, and whom I have always followed with sincere
affection, aside from and above any dignity conferred upon me. The sense of my
own littleness and nothingness has always been my good companion, keeping
me humble and calm, and making me employ myself to the best of my ability in
a constant exercise of obedience and charity for souls and for the interests of the
Kingdom of Jesus, my Lord and my all. To Him be all glory; for me and for my
merit, His mercy.
I ask pardon of those whom I have unwittingly offended, of all to whom I
have not been a source of edification. I feel that I have nothing to forgive anyone,
for all who have known and dealt with me – including those who have offended
me, scorned me, held me in bad esteem (with good reason, for that matter), or
have been a source of affliction for me – I regard solely as brothers and
benefactors, to whom I am grateful and for whom I pray and always will pray.
Born poor, but of honorable and humble people, I am particularly happy
to die poor, having given away, in accord with the various demands and
circumstances of my simple and modest life, for the benefit of the poor and of
Holy Church that had nurtured me, all that came into my hands – which was
little enough as a matter of fact – during the years of my priesthood and
episcopacy. Outward appearances of ease and comfort often veiled hidden
thorns of distressing poverty and kept me from giving with all the largess I
would have liked. I thank God for this grace of poverty which I vowed in my
youth, poverty of spirit as a priest of the Sacred Heart, and real poverty…
As I face death, I recall each and every one – those who preceded me in
taking the final step, those who will survive me and who will follow me. May
they pray for me. I will repay them from Purgatory or from Paradise, where I
hope to be received. I repeat it once again, not because of my merits, but because
of the mercy of the Lord. At the moment for saying farewell, or better still,
arrivederci, I once more remind everyone of what counts most in life: blessed
Jesus Christ, His Holy Church, His Gospel; and in the Gospel, above all, the
Pater noster in the spirit and heart of Jesus and the Gospel, the truth and
goodness, the goodness meek and kind, active and patient, victorious and
unbowed.
