Skema - 5th Wk of Easter
2024-04-28
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
5th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
April 28 – May 4, 2024

Sun
28
Mon
29
Tue
30
Wed
1
Thu
2
Fri
3
Sat
4

Office
5th Sunday of Easter
St Catherine of Siena
Easter Weekday
St Joseph the Worker
St Athanasius
SS Philip & James
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Acts 16:16-40
Acts 17:1-18
Acts 17:19-34
Acts 18:1-28
Acts 19:1-20
1 Cor 12:1-13
Acts 20:1-16

Lauds
Eph 2:1-10
Eph 2:19-22
Eph 3:7-13
Eph 4:1-6
Eph 4:25-32
Prov 4:10-19
Eph 6:10-17

Mass
53
285
286
287, 559
288
561
290

1st
Acts 9:26-31
Acts 14:5-18
Acts 14:19-28
Acts 15:1-6
Acts 15:7-21
1 Cor 15:1-8
Acts 16:1-10

2nd
1 John 3:18-24

Gospel
John 15:1-8
John 14:21-26
John 14:27-31a
Matt 13:54-58
John 15:9-11
John 14:6-14
John 15:18-21

Vespers
Eph 2:11-18
Eph 3:1-6
Eph 3:14-21
Eph 4:17-24
Eph 5:1-5
2 Cor 4:1-6
Col 1:1-8

Vigils Reading - 5th Sunday of Easter
2024-04-28
WITHOUT GOD, NOTHING CAN BE DONE
From a commentary by St Augustine1
◊◊◊
The passage from the gospel in which the Lord calls himself the vine and
his disciples the branches affirms in its own way that, as mediator between God
and the human race, the man Christ Jesus is head of the Church and we are his
members. It is beyond dispute that a vine and its branches are of one and the
same stock. Since Christ, therefore, possessed a divine nature not shared by
ourselves, he became man precisely in order that in his own person there might
be a vine of human stock whose branches we could become.
Dwell in me, said Jesus, and I will dwell in you. His disciples, however,
do not dwell in Christ in the same way as Christ dwells in them. In either case,
the benefit is theirs, not his. If branches are attached to a vine, it is not to confer
any advantage on the vine; it is rather that the branches themselves may draw
their sustenance from the vine. The vine is attached to the branches to provide
them with their vital nourishment, not to receive anything from them. In the
same way Christ’s presence in his disciples and their presence in him both profit
the disciples rather than Christ. If a branch is cut off, another can grow from the
life-giving root; but once severed from the root, no branch can remain alive.
The incarnate Truth goes on to say: I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever dwells in me and I in him yields fruit in plenty, because without me
you can do nothing. These words are to be weighed and pondered continually.
Someone hearing Jesus say, he yields fruit in plenty, might perhaps think that
a branch can bear at least a certain amount of fruit on its own. Our Lord’s words,
however, were not: You can do little without me, but: you can do nothing. Little
fruit or plenty, there can be neither without him, because without him nothing
can be done. Even if a branch does produce a little fruit, the vinedresser prunes
it away so that it may produce more. But if the branch does not remain attached
to the vine and draw its life from the root, it can bear no fruit at all.
Now, although Christ could not be the vine if he were not human, he could
not offer such a grace to his branches if he were not at the same time divine.
Since without this grace it is impossible to have life and consequently death is
the result of one’s free choice, he said: Whoever does not dwell in me will be
thrown away like a branch and will wither, to be gathered in and cast on the
fire to burn. And so the shame incurred by those branches that refuse to dwell
in the vine is in direct proportion to the glory they will have if they do remain in
him.
If you dwell in me, said Jesus, and my words dwell in you, you will ask
for whatever you desire and it will be yours. Can a person dwelling in Christ
desire anything out of harmony with Christ? The very fact that people dwell in
their Savior must mean that they have no desire that is opposed to their
salvation. And yet we do indeed desire one thing insofar as we are in Christ, and
another insofar as we are still in this world. Because of our sojourn here below,
a thought sometimes steals into our ignorant minds to ask for something which
cannot be good for us. But this may not be, if we are dwelling in Christ. He does
what we ask only if it is for our good. To dwell in him, therefore, is to have his
words dwelling in us; whatever we desire we shall then ask for, and it will be
given us.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1999 – pg 56.3

Vigils Reading - St Catherine of Siena
2024-04-29
THE TRUE WORKERS
From “The Dialogues” of St Catherine of Siena2
◊◊◊
Do you know what course I follow, once my servants have completely
given themselves to the teaching of the Gentle loving Word? I prune them, so
that they will bear much fruit – cultivated fruit, not wild. Just as the gardener
prunes the branch that is joined to the vine so that it yield more and better wine,
but cuts off and throws into the fire the branch that is barren, so do I the true
gardener act. When my servants remain united to me I prune them with great
suffering so that they will bear more and better fruit, and virtue will be proved
in them. But those who bear no fruit are cut off and thrown into the fire.
These are the true workers. They till their souls well, uprooting every
selfish love, cultivating the soil of their love in me. They feed and tend the
growth of the seed of grace that they have received in holy baptism. And as they
till their own vineyards, so they till their neighbor’s as well, for they cannot do
the one without the other. You already know that every evil as well as every good
is done by means of your neighbors.
You, then, are my workers. You have come from me, the supreme eternal
gardener, and I have engrafted you onto the vine by making myself one with
you. Keep in mind that each of you has your own vineyard. But everyone is
joined to your neighbor’s vineyards without any dividing lines. They are so
joined together, in fact, that you cannot do good or evil for yourself without
doing the same for your neighbors.
All of you together make up one common vineyard, the whole Christian
assembly, and you are all united in the vineyard of the mystic body of holy
Church from which you draw your life. In this vineyard is planted the vine,
which is my only-begotten Son, into whom you must be engrafted. Unless you
are engrafted into him you are rebels against holy Church, like members that
are cut off from the body and rot.
It is true that while you have time you can get yourselves out of the stench
of sin through true repentance and recourse to my ministers. They are the
workers who have the keys to the wine cellar, that is, the blood poured forth
from this vine. (And this blood is so perfect in itself that it cannot be deprived
of its benefits through any fault in the minister.)
It is charity that binds you to true humility – the humility that is found in
knowing yourself and me. See, then, that it is as workers that I have sent you
all. And now I am calling you again, because the world is failing fast. The thorns
have so multiplied and choked the seed so badly that it will produce no fruit of
grace at all. I want you, therefore, to be true workers. With deep concern help
to till the souls in the mystic body of holy Church. I am calling you to do this
because I want to be merciful to the world as you have so earnestly begged me.

2 Catherine of Siena – The Dialogue – The Classics of Western Spirituality – Paulist Press – New York – 1980 – pg
24.5

Vigils Reading
2024-04-30
THE MIRACULOUS SPREAD
OF THE GOSPEL MESSAGE
A reading from “Against the Pagans” by St John Chrysostom3
◊◊◊
It was…marvelous that these few ignorant, poor, undistinguished,
unlettered, worthless men of foreign tongue were entrusted with setting straight
the whole world. They were commissioned to lead the world to live a far more
difficult life and they did not accomplish this mission at a time of peace but
while countless wars were being stirred up against them from every side. And
this was the case in every nation and every city.
Did I say every nation and every city? In every home a war was fanned to
flame against them. For when their teaching entered a home, many a time it
split a son from his father, a bride from her mother-in-law, a brother from his
brother, a servant from his master, a subject from his ruler, a man from his wife,
a woman from her husband, and a father from his children. For everybody did
not all at once accept the faith. Their teaching was harassed by hatred every day
that passed; it stirred up one war after the other and brought death to more
people than you could count; it had people avoiding one another as if they were
common enemies and foes.
For everybody drove the apostles out. Emperors avoided them, as did
lesser rulers, common people, free and slave; whole peoples, entire cities
shunned them. Not only did they drive out the apostles but, what is worse, they
drove out those who were but newly fixed in their faith, those whom the apostles
had instructed. It was one and the same war which was waged against the
apostles and their disciples, because people saw that their teaching was opposed
to the edicts of their emperors and their ancestral ways and customs.
Even though the apostles told so harsh a story, they still won people over
to believe. This is how they built up the Church. How did they do it and by what
means? They did it through the power of Him who had commanded them to do
it. He made ready the way; he made all the hard things easy. If it were not the
power of God which accomplished this, the Church would not have had a
preface, much less a beginning.
How could all this be done? It was God who said: “Let there be heaven,”
and showed forth his work; it was God who said: “Let the earth be founded,”
and he produced its substance; it was God who said: “Let the sun shine,” and he
showed forth the star; it was God who caused all things to be. And it was the
same God who planted the Church. And that word: “I will build my Church” is
what produced all this. For this is the power of the words of God. They create
works which are wondrous beyond our expectation. God said: “Let the earth
produce the grassy plant,” and suddenly everything was a garden, everything
became a meadow; the earth heard God’s command and plumed itself with
plants beyond number. In the same way God later said: “I will build my
Church,” and this was done with the greatest of ease.

3 St. John Chrysostom, Apologist. Catholic University of America Press, 1983, pp. 242-243.7

Vigils Reading - St Joseph the Worker
2024-05-01
ST JOSEPH THE WORKER
A reflection by Pope Francis4
◊◊◊
St Joseph concretely expressed his fatherhood by making an offering of
himself in love, placed at the service of the Messiah who was growing to
maturity in his home. And because of his role at the crossroads between the Old
and New Testament, St Joseph has always been venerated as a father of the
Christian people. In him, Jesus saw the tender love of God, the one that helps
us accept our weakness, because it is through and despite our fears, our frailties,
and our weakness that most divine designs are realized. Only tender love will
save us from the snares of the accuser, and it is by encountering God’s mercy in
the Sacrament of Reconciliation that we experience His truth and tenderness,
because we know that God’s truth does not condemn us, but instead welcomes,
embraces, sustains and forgives us.
Joseph is also a father in obedience to God with his “fiat”. He protects
Mary and Jesus and teaches his son to do the Will of the Father… At the same
time, Joseph is an accepting Father because he accepted Mary unconditionally
– an important gesture even today in our world where psychological, verbal and
physical violence towards women is so evident. But the Bridegroom of Mary is
also the one who, trusting in the Lord, accepts in his life even the events that he
does not understand, setting aside his own ideas and reconciling himself with
his own history.
Joseph’s spiritual path is not one that explains but accepts – which does
not mean that he is “resigned”. Instead he is courageously and firmly proactive.
Because with the Holy Spirit’s Gift of fortitude, and full of hope, he is able to
accept life as it is, with all its contradictions, frustrations and disappointments.
In practice, through St Joseph, it is as if God were to repeat to us: “Do not be
afraid” because faith gives meaning to every event, however happy or sad, and
makes us aware that God can make flowers spring up from stony ground.
Joseph did not look for shortcuts but confronted reality with open eyes and
accepted personal responsibility for it. For this reason, he encourages us to
accept and welcome others as they are, without exception and to show special
concern for the weak… Consequently every poor, needy, suffering or dying
person, every stranger, every prisoner, every infirm person is “the child” whom
Joseph continues to protect. From St Joseph, we must learn to love the Church
and the poor.
As a carpenter who earned an honest living to provide for his family, St.
Joseph also teaches us the value, the dignity and the joy of what it means to eat
bread that is the fruit of one’s own labor. This aspect of Joseph’s character
provides the opportunity to appeal in favor of work… There is a renewed need
to appreciate the importance of dignified work, of which St. Joseph is an
exemplary patron. Work is a means of participating in the work of salvation, an
opportunity to hasten the coming of the Kingdom, to develop our talents and
abilities, and to put them at the service of society and fraternal communion.
Those who work are cooperating with God Himself, and in some way become
creators of the world around us.

4 Osservatore Romano – December 8, 2021.9

Vigils Reading - St Athanasius
2024-05-02
AS BRIGHTNESS FROM LIGHT
From the Expositio Fidei by St Athanasius5
◊◊◊
We believe in one Unbegotten God, Father Almighty, maker of all things
both visible and invisible, that has His being from Himself. And in one Only-
begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and
eternally; word not pronounced… nor an effluence of the Perfect, nor a dividing
of the impassible Essence, nor an issue; but absolutely perfect Son, living and
powerful, the true Image of the Father, equal in honour and glory. For this, he
says, ‘is the will of the Father, that as they honour the Father, so they may
honour the Son also’: very God of very God… For all things which the Father
rules and sways, the Son rules and sways likewise: wholly from the Whole, being
like the Father as the Lord says, ‘he that has seen Me has seen the Father’.
But He was begotten ineffably and incomprehensibly, for ‘who shall
declare his generation?’… no one can. Who, when at the consummation of the
ages, He had descended from the bosom of the Father, took from the undefiled
Virgin Mary our humanity… delivered of His own will to suffer for us, as the
Lord said: ‘No man takes My life from Me. I have power to lay it down, and have
power to take it again’… He was crucified and died for us, and rose from the
dead, and was taken up into the heavens, having been created as the beginning
of ways for us, when on earth He showed us light from out of darkness, salvation
from error, life from the dead, an entrance to paradise, from which Adam was
cast out, and into which he again entered by means of the thief, as the Lord said,
‘This day shall you be with Me in paradise’…
We believe, likewise, also in the Holy Spirit that searches all things, even
the deep things of God… But the Holy Spirit, being that which proceeds from
the Father, is ever in the hands of the Father Who sends and of the Son Who
conveys Him, by Whose means He filled all things. The Father, possessing His
existence from Himself, begot the Son… and did not create Him, as a river from
a well and as a branch from a root, and as brightness from a light, things which
nature knows to be indivisible; through whom to the Father be glory and power
and greatness before all ages, and unto all the ages of the ages.

5 Translated by Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol.
4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing
Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
<http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2821.htm>.11

Vigils Reading - SS Philip & James
2024-05-03
THE APOSTOLIC WITNESS
By Jean Frisque6
◊◊◊
They were still talking about all this when he himself stood among them
and said to them, “Peace be with you!”
The preeminent witnesses to the resurrection of Christ were the apostles.
From the time of Jesus’ baptism to his death, they accompanied him in his
public ministry. His death on the cross at the first threw them into a panic, but
soon afterwards it clarified everything for them, once it had been placed in its
Scriptural context, through the aid of the resurrected Christ himself.
But was the testimony of the apostles limited to this single well-founded
assertion: He whom you crucified has risen from the dead through the power of
God? In reality, there was much more: the apostles did not only offer an
eyewitness account of an event but the testimony of their faith. Only their faith
enabled them to discover why the death on the cross was the key-event of
salvation-history and in what way it led to the life of the resurrection. And theirs
was not simply any faith, but faith in the paschal experience itself, the faith
which had perceived that in Jesus Christ all people were called to share in the
divine filiation and to contribute on their own behalf to the construction of the
Kingdom.
Nor was this all. The witness which the apostles rendered to the
resurrection of Christ was above all an authorized witness. The apostles had
received from the resurrected Christ himself their power to testify validly to
him. They had received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the resurrected Christ. Thus
the very life of the resurrected Christ was given to the apostolic group, and the
Church which they would construct in his name would be animated by this same
life. The Church was to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the life which
circulated in her would testify until the end of time to the resurrection of her
Head!
Thus we can see why the apostolic witness rendered to the resurrected
Christ was inseparable from the life which animated the first Christian
community. This witness was necessarily communal. The preaching in which
this witness took shape was absolutely inseparable from the grace of
communion given to the primitive community and its efforts to be entirely
faithful to the law of universal charity.
Today’s Christians are not wrong, therefore, when they insist upon the
importance of the testimony of their life. But the life to which they must witness
in order to testify to the resurrected Christ is the life of Christ himself. This life
is displayed here on earth by the way of total obedience unto death for the love
of all people, for such an obedience leads us constantly from death to life. Such
a sign can only be displayed by the Church herself.

6 London, 1965, vol. 3, pp 77-78.13

Vigils Reading
2024-05-04
THE EXPERIENCE OF FAITH
By Hans Urs von Balthasar7
◊◊◊
The analogy between the pre-Easter and the post Easter testimony
(comparable to the analogy between testimony in the Old and the New
Testament) signifies the decisive step forward: the leaving behind of the old,
which had served as basis, in order to become established in the new. Paul is
the eyewitness of this step forward, since he not only had to defend his
eyewitness arduously in itself, but his eyewitness in this matter against the
privileges of the original Apostles. Whoever disregards the element of analogy
in the Apostles’ witness, will hold unswervingly to the testimony of the other
Apostles and will with them consider Paul’s credentials as an eyewitness to be
secondary, if not altogether doubtful. But his legitimacy stands under the
protection of Scriptural inspiration and thus remains unassailable.
This is of the highest theological interest. Paul’s witness to the
Resurrection dispenses with the ‘analogy’ between witness to Christ’s earthly
existence and witness to the Resurrection; he is a witness only to Jesus’
Resurrection. For Paul, the identity of the risen Christ with the Jesus who
suffered and died lies in the vitality exhibited by the Kyrios. Because he is the
new man, he was also the old. If this holds for Paul and if it is to this that he
witnesses, the same does not necessarily apply to the others. For Paul there is
no other legitimation than that of his own turning from the Old to the New
Covenant and to the new man, his conversio morum, the fact that in all things
he shows himself to be a servant of God, the fact that his existence has been so
transformed that it has become an incontestable mirroring of the image of
Christ. Paul proves himself to be one who has seen essentially by letting himself
be seen and by being, in fact, seen. He gives himself wholly over to seeing,
hearing, and touching: by the grace of God, in him a Christian has been formed
who is not a ghost, but who has flesh and bones. Paul cuts right through the
analogy that runs across the testimony of Peter and others, and this cannot be
his work, since he himself is the work of the grace of the Risen One.
Paul straddles the boundary between the apostolic and the ecclesial era.
He fights for his inclusion in the apostolic era, and the Lord himself gives the
warrant for this inclusion; and yet his experience of Christ bears essential
features of the ecclesial era, namely, that of private revelation and its
confirmation by personal sanctity. He shares this transitional character with
the whole period of the Acts of the Apostles: this is the period of archetypal
Church history. This is certainly so, on the one hand, because this is the span
of time in which Christ’s original eyewitnesses lived. And yet Paul falls outside
these limits, while still dominating in a central way the events in the Acts of the
Apostles. For, on the other hand, this period of history is more than just the
timespan in which the original eyewitnesses lived; it is the privileged space in
which the Holy Spirit became visible, audible, and palpable: it is the expansion
of the explosion that occurred on Pentecost.

7 The Glory of the Lord. Vol. I Seeing the Form. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Ignatius Press, 1982, pp. 347-348.15

Skema
2024-05-05
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
6th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
May 5 – 11, 2024

Sun
5
Mon
6
Tue
7
Wed
8
Thu
9
Fri
10
Sat
11

Office
6th Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Bl Christian de Cherge
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Holy Abbots of Cluny

Vigils
Acts 20:17-38
Acts 21:1-26
Acts 21:27-39
Acts 21:40-22:21
Acts 22:22-23:11
Acts 23:12-35
Acts 24:1-27

Lauds
Col 1:9-14
Col 1:24-29
Col 2:9-15
Col 3:12-17
1 Jn 1:5-10
1 Jn 2:7-11
1 Jn 2:18-23

Mass
56
291
292
293
294
295
296

1st
Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Acts 16:11-15
Acts 16:22-34
Acts 17:15, 22-18:1
Acts 18:1-8
Acts 18:9-18
Acts 18:23-28

2nd
1 John 4:7-10

Gospel
John 15:9-17
John 15:26-16:4a
John 16:5-11
John 16:12-15
John 16:16-20
John 16:20-23
John 16:23b-28

Vespers
Col 1:15-23
Col 2:1-8
Col 3:12-17
1 Jn 1:1-4
1 Jn 2:1-6
1 Jn 2:12-17
Col 3:1-11

Vigils Reading -6th Sunday of Easter
2024-05-05
A GREATER LOVE
By St Thomas More1
◊◊◊
Let us deeply consider the love of our Savior Christ who so loved his own
unto the end that for their sakes he willingly suffered that painful end, and
therein declared the highest degree of love that can be. For, as he himself says:
A greater love no one has than to give his life for his friends. This is indeed the
greatest love that ever anyone had. But yet had our Savior a greater love, for he
gave his life for both friend and foe.
But what a difference is there now, between this faithful love of his and
other kinds of false and fickle love found in this wretched world. The flatterer
pretends to love you because he dines well with you. But now if adversity so
diminishes your possessions that you find your table not laid, then – farewell,
adieu – your brother flatterer is gone and gets himself to some other table. And
he might even turn into your enemy and cruelly speak evil of you.
Who can in adversity be sure of many of his many friends when our Savior
himself was, at his capture, left alone and forsaken by his? When you go forth,
who will go with you? If you were a king would not all your realm send you on
your way alone and then forget you? Will not your own family let you depart a
naked, feeble soul, you know not whither?
Let us all in time, then, learn to love as we should, God above all things,
and all other things for him. And whatsoever love be not referred to that end,
namely, to the good pleasure of God, is a very vain and unfaithful love. And
whatsoever love we bear to any creature whereby we love God the less, that love
is a loathsome love and hinders us from heaven. Love no child of yours so
tenderly but that you could be content to sacrifice it to God, as Abraham was
ready with Isaac, if God so commanded you. And since God will not do so, offer
your child in another way to God’s service. For whatever we love that makes us
break God’s commandment, we love better than God, and that is a love deadly
and damnable. Now, since our Lord has so loved us, for our salvation, let us
diligently call for his grace that in return for his great love we be found not
ungrateful.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1999 – pg 58.3

Vigils Reading
2024-05-06
THE RESURRECTION OF ALL FLESH
From “The Eternal Year” by Fr Karl Rahner2
◊◊◊
We children of the earth may love the earth; we must love her, even when
she terrifies us and makes us tremble with her misery and her destiny of death.
For ever since Christ, through his death and resurrection, penetrated the earth
for all time, her misery has become provisional and a mere test of our faith in
her innermost mystery, which is the risen One himself. Our experience does not
tell us that he is the mysterious meaning of her misery; by no means! It is our
faith that tells us this. The faith that offers blessed consolation to all that we
experience in life, the faith that can love the earth because she is, or is in the
process of becoming, the “body” of the risen One.
We do not need to leave her, for the life of God dwells in her. When we
want both the God of infinity (how can we help wanting him?) and the familiar
earth, as it is and as it shall become, when we want both for our eternally free
homeland, there is one path to both! For in the resurrection of the Lord, God
has shown that he has accepted the earth for all time… The flesh is the hinge of
salvation.
The hereafter to every exigency of sin and death is not somewhere in the
life hereafter; it has come down to us and lives in the innermost reality of our
flesh. The most sublime religiosity of seclusion from the world would not fetch
the God of our life and the salvation of this earth from the distance of his
eternity; and it would not even reach him in his world. But he himself has come
to us. And he has transformed what we are and what we still want to consider
as the gloomy, earthly dwelling place of our “spiritual nature”: he has
transformed the flesh. Ever since that event, mother earth bears nothing but
transformed children. For his resurrection is the beginning of the resurrection
of all flesh.
One thing, of course, is necessary for this event – which we can never undo
– to become the blessedness of our existence: he must burst forth from the grave
of our hearts. He must rise from the core of our being, where he is as power and
promise. He is there, and yet something remains to be done. He is there, yet it
is still Holy Saturday, and it will continue to be Holy Saturday until the last day,
until that day that will be the cosmic Easter. And this rising takes place beneath
the freedom of our faith. It is taking place as an event of living faith that draws
us into the colossal eruption of all earthly reality into its own glorification, the
splendid transfiguration that has already begun with the resurrection of Christ.

2 The Eternal Year, Helicon Press: Baltimore MD 1964. pp.93-95.5

Vigils Reading
2024-05-07
THE SECRET OF THE LORD
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman3
◊◊◊
Our Lord expressly promises all Christians a certain gracious
manifestation of himself, which it is natural, at first sight, to suppose a sensible
one: and many persons understand it to be such, as if it were not more blessed
to believe than to see. Our Lord says; “He that has my commandments and
keeps them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me, shall be loved of my
Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.” When Jude asked
him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the
world?” Our Lord answered, “If one loves me, he will keep my words; and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with
him.
” In accordance with this promise, St Paul says, “The Spirit itself bears
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”; and St John, “He that
believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself.”
Now, that this great gift, whatever it be, is of a nature to impart
illumination, sanctity, and peace, to the soul to which it comes, far from
disputing, I would earnestly maintain. And, in this indirect way, doubtless, it is
in a certain sense apprehended and perceived; perceived in its effects, with a
consciousness that those effects cannot come of themselves, but imply a gift
from which they come, and a presence of which they are, as it were, the shadow,
a voice of which they are the echo.
But there are persons who desire the inward manifestation of Christ to be
much more sensible than this. They will not be contented without some sensible
sign and direct evidence that God loves them; some assurance, in which faith
has no part, that God has chosen them; and which may answer to their
anticipations of what Scripture calls “the secret of the Lord,
” and “the hidden
manna” which Christ invites us to partake. Some, for instance, hold that their
conscience would have no peace, unless they recollected the time when they
were converted from darkness to light, from a state of wrath to the kingdom of
God. Others consider that, in order to possess the seal of election, they must be
able to discern in themselves certain feelings or frames of mind, a renunciation
of their own merit, and an apprehension of gospel salvation; as if it were not
enough to renounce ourselves and follow Christ, without the lively
consciousness that we are doing so; and that in this lies “the secret of the Lord.
”
Others go further; and think that without a distinct inward assurance of his
salvation, one is not in a saving state.
This is what men and women often conceive; not considering that
whatever be the manifestation promised to Christians by our Lord, it is not
likely to be more sensible and more intelligible than the great sign of his own
Resurrection. Yet even that, like the miracle wrought upon Jonah, was in secret,
and they who believed without seeing it were more blessed than those who saw.

3 Parochial and Plain Sermons, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987, pp. 1244-1245.7

Vigils Reading - Bl. Christian de Cherge
2024-05-08
CHRISTIAN DE CHERGÉ
MONK, MARTYR, AND MYSTIC
By Dom Bernardo Olivera
◊◊◊
In its early stages, monastic life was interpreted in various ways. Not a
few understood monasticism as an authentic martyrdom. The martyr, the monk
and the mystic are people who have oriented their lives toward mystery and
entered deeply therein. They long for one thing only: to enter into communion
with their Lord in death in order to be joined with him in the Resurrection.
Christian de Chergé was born on January 18, 1937 at Colmar into a
distinguished family of eight children. His father was a military man, as would
be his older brother later on. During his childhood he spent three years in
Algeria during the Second World War. From the time of his childhood he always
remained impressed by the Muslim’s way of approaching God.
On October 6, 1956, at the age of nineteen he entered the seminary of the
Carmelites in Paris. His studies were interrupted in 1959 when he had to report
for military service. Set on becoming an officer, he took the required courses
and in July of the following year he was made second lieutenant. That same
month, at the time of the war of independence, he arrived in Algeria at the age
of twenty-three.
An event occurred during this time that left its mark on him for the rest
of his life. He had made friends with an Algerian who worked as a warden under
the French authorities, a position that made him susceptible to the violence of
the National Liberation Army. Mohamed tried to be faithful at one and the same
time to his Christian friend, to his Islamic faith, and to his own people. It so
happened one day that they were involved in a scuffle in the street. Mohamed9
protected his friend and tried to pacify his aggressors. The following day, he was
found dead. This painful episode was never to be forgotten. Christian came back
to it in later years, writing: “I know at least one beloved brother, a convinced
Muslim, who gave his life for love of another, in a concrete way, by spilling his
own blood. Indeed, since then, in my hope for communion of all the elect in
Christ, I can fix my eyes on this friend who lived, even in his death, the one
commandment.”
For Christian de Chergé all of this was a foundational experience and the
seed of a vocation. In the blood of his friend, assassinated for not having wanted
to bargain with hatred, Christian said in 1982: “I knew my calling to follow
Christ would end up living itself out sooner or later in the same country where
I had been given the pledge of the greater love, “shed for you and for many”. On
March 21, 1964, he was ordained a priest and shortly thereafter was sent to
Algeria and to the monastic life. On September 14, 1976, he made his perpetual
vows. In it he expressed his desire to “live in Prayer in the service of the Church
of Algeria, listening to the Muslim soul, God willing, until the final gift of my
death.”
Christian was elected Titular Prior of Atlas monastery in 1984. He was
already deeply involved in the interreligious dialogue. On May 21, 1996, united
with his six brothers of the community, he sealed with his blood the witness of
his life.

Vigils Reading
2024-05-09
WE ARE ALL WITNESSES
By Fr Paul Evodokimov4
◊◊◊
There are no half measures, no intermediary formulas. We are in the
presence of the fundamental evidence of Jesus risen from the dead. A God who
does not present his charter as lover of <humanity>, a God who is not love
crucified in order to radiate “life, death of death“, as St. Augustine says, is not
really God. In following St. Paul’s thought to its conclusion, we could say that
all religion exists only by the resurrection and mystically leans on this event. If
Christ is risen, this is of interest for all… If the Christian testimony to the risen
Lord is suppressed, no religion will survive on the level of the modern world,
for outside the Gospel every religious message stops halfway.
The Gospel’s transcendent end is God become a risen <Human being>.
This fact does not concern just a few witnesses only; the risen Christ in
becoming the contemporary of all <humanity> means that every <one> is
contemporary with the eternal Christ. This makes all the events of history
essentially Christological. Christ is risen as head of the human body, and now
all religions and all <individuals> can and ought to seek their life in him. This
testimony alone determines the ecumenical mission of the Church in the midst
of all religions and in the great meeting between East and West. History places
the Christian faith in the risen Christ as the crossing point of all ideologies that
now reformulate the only important question — that asked by Pilate –– ” What
is truth?” It obliges faith to say its yes, going if need be as far as the confession
of martyrdom, that unique answer that resounds universally. Christ is in agony,
and eternity is impatient to hear this answer.
The apostolic kerygma announces the event of Easter, the intervention of
God raising up Jesus; this alone gives a definitive meaning to the existence of
<humankind> in history. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s “Amen” to his
promise, an “Amen” full of the Holy Spirit who manifests it. “Amen” comes from
the Hebrew heemin and it means an unshakable base of operations. Those who
proclaim it—the apostles and martyrs—claim the right to proclaim the event
before the magistrates of the earthly city.
Likewise the Apologies of Justin, Athenagoras, and Aristides present to
emperors the same decisive message and warn them of the imminent judgment.
Their kerygma is of interest to all <humanity>. It is preached in the presence of
angels and concerns all of creation: the kingdom of God has already arrived; we
are contemporaries of the one who sits at the right hand of the Father. Here is
the lamb immolated and risen and here is his kingdom. He is here and it is the
fullness of time. All religions are ways by which <we> seek God. They are
numerous. However, the Christian revelation is unique for it is God who finds
<humanity>. The preaching of St. Paul is of capital importance for the theology
of religion. In deciphering the monument to the unknown God and in giving it
the name Jesus Christ, the apostle integrated with Christ the religious
aspiration of all times and gave it value in Christ.

4 Paul Evdokimov, The Struggle with God, New Jersey: Glen Rock, 1966, pp.66-68.11

Vigils Reading
2024-05-10
WE SCARCELY KNOW OURSELVES
From the writing of Servant of God Dorothy Day5
◊◊◊
Much as we want to, we do not really know ourselves. Do we really want
to see ourselves as God sees us, or even as our fellow human beings see us? Could
we bear it, weak as we are?… We do not want to be given that clear inward vision
which discloses to us our most secret faults. In the Psalms there is that prayer
“Deliver me from my secret sins.”… They were what I read most when I was in jail…
I read with a sense of coming back to something that I had lost. There was an
echoing in my heart. And how can anyone who has known human sorrow and
human joy fail to respond to these words?
Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. Let thy ears
be attentive to the voice of my supplication. If thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities: Lord
who shall stand it. For with thee there is merciful forgiveness…
All through those weary first days in jail when I was in solitary confinement,
the only thoughts that brought comfort to my soul were those lines in the Psalms
that expressed the terror and misery of <one> suddenly stricken and abandoned.
Solitude and hunger and weariness of spirit – these sharpened my perceptions so
that I suffered not only my own sorrow but the sorrows of those about me. I was
no longer myself. I was <humankind>… The sorrows of the world encompassed
me. I was like one gone down into the pit. Hope had forsaken me… And yet if it
were not the Holy Spirit that comforted me, how could I have been comforted, how
could I have endured, how could I have lived in hope?…
“What glorious hope!” Mauriac writes. “There are all those who will
discover that their neighbor is Jesus himself, although they belong to the mass of
those who do not know Christ or who have forgotten Him… Even some of those
who think they hate Him have consecrated their lives to Him; for Jesus is disguised
and masked in the midst of <humanity>, hidden among the poor, among the sick,
among prisoners, among strangers. Many who serve Him officially have never
known who He was, and many who do not even know His name will hear on the
last day the words that open to them the gates of joy. ‘Those children were I, and
I those working men. I wept on the hospital bed. I was that murderer in his cell
whom you consoled.’”
But always the glimpses of God came most when I was alone. Objectors
cannot say that it was fear of loneliness and solitude and pain that made me turn
to Him. It was in those few years when I was alone and most happy that I found
Him. I found Him at last through joy and thanksgiving, not through sorrow. Yet
how can I say that either? Better let it be said that I found Him through His poor,
and in a moment of joy I turned to Him… If Christ established His Church on earth
with Peter as its rock, that faulty one who denied Him three times, who fled from
Him when he was in trouble, then I, too, wanted a share in that tender
compassionate love that is so great…
The experiences that I have had are more or less universal. Suffering,
sadness, repentance, love, we all have known these. They are easiest to bear when
one remembers their universality, when we remember that we are all members or
potential members of the Mystical Body of Christ. A conversion is a lonely
experience. We do not know what is going on in the depths of the heart and soul
of another. We scarcely know ourselves.

5 Day, Dorothy. By Little and By Little – The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day. Ed.
Robert Ellsberg. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983. 4-7, 9.13

Vigils Reading - Holy Abbots of Cluny
2024-05-11
FROM A LETTER OF
ST BERNARD TO POPE EUGENIUS,
On behalf of Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny6
◊◊◊
It would be silly for me to write you on behalf of the Lord Abbot of Cluny,
to act as if I wanted to befriend a man whom the entire world befriends. But
although he does not need me to write on his behalf, I am nevertheless doing so
in order to satisfy my affection for him, for this purpose alone and no other.
Although I cannot accompany him in body I shall be with him in spirit on his
pilgrimage to Rome. Nothing can separate us, not the height of the Alps, nor the
cold of the snows, nor the long distance of the journey. And I am present to him
now, stretching out my hand to him in this letter. He cannot go anywhere
without me because I am so much in his debt for the favor of his friendship. But
his favor itself acquits me of the debt, for what was a duty has become a
pleasure.
Honor this man as an honorable member of Christ’s body. He is a vessel
fit for all honorable employment, a vessel full of grace and truth, full of all
manner of good things. Send him back with joy to rejoice the hearts of many by
his return. Show him great favor, so that when he returns we may all receive of
his fullness. He should, of course, find no difficulty in obtaining from you
anything he asks for in the name of the Lord Jesus. For, if you do not know it,
he it is that holds out his hands to the poor of our Order; he it is that freely and
frequently, as far as he may without offending his own people, supports our
brethren from the possessions of his monastery.
But let me explain why I say “in the name of the Lord Jesus.
” It is because
I fear and suspect he may ask to be released from the rule of his monastery; and
no one who knows him would consider this a petition made in the name of
Jesus. I am very much mistaken if he is not more self-effacing than usual, if he
has not become more perfect since he last saw you, although it is well known
that almost from the first instant of assuming office he reformed his Order in
many ways, in the matter, for instance, of fasting, silence, and costly and curious
clothing.

6 Letter 349, The Letters of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, edited by Bruno Scott James, Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953,
pp. 427-428.15

Skema: 7th Week of Easter
2024-05-12
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
7th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
May 12 – 18, 2024

Sun
12
Mon
13
Tue
14
Wed
15
Thu
16
Fri
17
Sat
18

Office
Ascension of the Lord
Our Lady of Fatima
St Matthias
St Pachomius
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Eph 4:1-24
Acts 25:1-27
Phil 3:13-4:1
Acts 27:1-20
Acts 27:21-44
Acts 28: 1-14
Acts 28:15-31

Lauds
Dan 7:9-14
1 Jn 2:24-27
1 Jn 2:18-25
1 Jn 3:19-24
1 Jn 4:7-12
1 Jn 5:1-5
1 Jn 5:13-21

Mass
58
297
564
299
300
301
302

1st
Acts 1:1-11
Acts 19:1-8
Acts 1:15-17, 20-26
Acts 20:28-38
Acts 22:30; 23:6-11
Acts 25:13b-21
Acts 28:16-20, 30-31

2nd
Eph 4:1-13

Gospel
Mark 16:15-20
John 16:29-33
John 15:9-17
John 17:11b-19
John 17:20-26
John 21:15-19
John 21:20-25

Vespers
Eph 1:15-23
1 Jn 2:28-3:3
1 Cor 4:1-7
1 Jn 4:1-6
1 Jn 4:13-21
1 Jn 5:6-12
Rom 8:9:17

Resurrection of the Lord
2024-05-12
HIS ASCENSION INTO HEAVEN
By St Leo the Great 1
◊◊◊
The sacred work of our salvation was of such great value in the sight of
the Creator of the universe that he counted it worth the shedding of his own
blood. From the day of his birth until his passion and death this work was
carried out in conditions of self-abasement; and although he showed many
signs of his divinity even when he bore the form of a slave, yet strictly speaking,
the events of that time were concerned with proving the reality of the humanity
he had assumed. But he was innocent of any sin, and so when death launched
its attack upon him he burst its bonds and robbed it of its power. After his
passion weakness was turned into strength, mortality into eternal life, and
disgrace into glory. Of all this Lord Jesus Christ gave ample proof in the sight of
many, until at last he entered heaven in triumph. bearing with him the trophy
of his victory over death.
And so while at Easter it was the Lord’s resurrection which was the cause
of our joy, our present rejoicing is on account of his ascension into heaven. With
all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human
nature was carried up in Christ above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks
of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the
Father. It is upon this ordered structure of divine acts that we have been firmly
established, so that the grace of God may show itself still more marvelous when,
in spite of the withdrawal from our sight of everything that is rightly felt to
command our reverence, faith does not fail, hope is not shaken, charity does not
grow cold.
For such is the power of great minds, such is the light of truly believing
souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye;
they fix their desires on what is beyond sight. Such fidelity could never be borne
in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith if our salvation lay only in
what is visible. That is why Christ said to the man who seemed doubtful about
his resurrection unless he could see and touch the marks of his passion in his
very flesh: you believe because you see me; blessed are those who have not seen
and yet believe.
It was in order that we might be capable of such blessedness that on the
fortieth day after his resurrection, after he had made careful provision for
everything concerning the preaching of the gospel and the mysteries of the new
covenant, our Lord Jesus Christ was taken up to heaven before the eyes of his
disciples, and so his bodily presence among them came to an end. From that
time onward he was to remain at the Father’s right hand until the completion
of the period ordained by God for the Church’s children to increase and
multiply, after which, in the same body with which he ascended, he will come
again to judge the living and the dead.
And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments.
Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine
whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high.
1
Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1999 = pg 60.

Our Lady of Fatima
2024-05-13
OUR SWEET MOTHER
By St John Paul II on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima 2
◊◊◊
Since the time when Jesus, dying on the cross, said to John: “Behold your
Mother”, since the time when “the disciple took her into his home”, the mystery
of Mary’s spiritual motherhood had its fulfillment in history with an amplitude
without boundaries. Motherhood means concern for her son’s life. Now, if Mary
is the mother of all people, her concern for human life is universal in scope…
The spiritual motherhood of Mary is therefore participation in the power of the
Holy Spirit, the One who “gives life.” It is with the humble service of the one
who says of herself: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord”. In the light of the
mystery of Mary’s spiritual motherhood, let us understand the extraordinary
message, which began to resonate in the world by Fatima since May 13, 1917
and lasted for five months until October 13 of the same year. If the Church has
embraced the message of Fatima it is mainly because it contains a truth and a
call, which in their essential content is the truth and the call of the Gospel itself.
“Repent and believe in the Gospel”, these are the first words of the
Messiah addressed to humanity. The message of Fatima is in its core a call to
conversion and penance… The call to repentance is maternal and at the same
time, strong and determined. The love that “rejoices in the truth”, knows how
to be outspoken and determined… Can the Mother, who with all the power of
her love, which fosters in the Holy Spirit and desires the salvation of every
person, keep quiet about what undermines the very foundations of this
salvation? No, she cannot!
The Immaculate Heart of Mary, opened by the word: “Woman, behold
your son”, meets spiritually with the Heart of the Son opened by the soldier’s
lance. Mary’s Heart was opened by the same love for mortals and for the world,
with which Christ has loved humanity and the world, offering Himself on the
Cross for them. To consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of the Mother
means returning beneath the Cross of her Son. More it means consecrating this
world to the pierced Heart of the Savior, bringing the very source of his
redemption. Redemption is always greater than the sin of man and the “sin of
the world.”… The Heart of the Mother is aware of this, as no one else in the
whole universe, visible and invisible…
The Mother of Christ calls us and invites us to join the Church of the living
God in the consecration of the world, this reliance by which the world,
humanity, nations, all people are offered to the Eternal Father with the power
of Christ’s redemption. They are offered in the pierced Heart of the Redeemer
on the Cross… The appeal of the Lady of Fatima is so deeply rooted in the Gospel
and in the whole of tradition that the Church feels committed by this message.
Yes, we can truly say: “Blessed are you, daughter, in front of the Most High God
above all women on earth!”… Yes, here and throughout the Church, in the heart
of every man and in the whole world you are blessed Mary, our sweet Mother!
2 A Discourse of Pope John Paul II at Fatima.

St. Matthias
2024-05-14
OUR VERY GLORY IS OUR WARNING
By St John Henry Newman on the feast of St Matthias 3
◊◊◊
This is the only Saint’s day which is to be celebrated with mingled feelings
of joy and pain. It records the fall as well as the election of an Apostle. St.
Matthias was chosen in place of the traitor Judas. In the history of the latter we
have the warning recorded in very deed, which our Lord in the text gives us in
word, “Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” And
doubtless many were the warnings such as this, addressed by our Lord to the
wretched man who in the end betrayed him.
The reflection which rises in the mind on a consideration of the election
of St. Matthias, is this: how easily God may affect His purposes without us, and
put others in our place, if we are disobedient to Him. It often happens that those
who have long been in His favor grow secure and presuming. They think their
salvation certain, and their service necessary to Him who has graciously
accepted it. Now, this feeling of self-importance is repressed all through the
Scriptures, and especially by the events we commemorate today.
What solemn overpowering thoughts must have crowded on St. Matthias,
when he received the greetings of the eleven Apostles, and took his seat among
them as their brother! His very election was a witness against himself if he did
not fulfill it. And such surely will ours be in our degree. We take the place of
others who have gone before, as Matthias did; we are “baptized for the dead,”
filling up the ranks of soldiers, some of whom, indeed, have fought a good fight,
but many of whom in every age have made void their calling. Many are called,
few are chosen. The monuments of sin and unbelief are set up around us. The
casting away of the Jews was the reconciling of the Gentiles. The fall of one
nation is the conversion of another. The Church loses old branches and gains
new. God works according to His own inscrutable pleasure…
Thus the Christian of every age is but the successor of the lost and of the
dead. How long we of this country shall be put in trust with Gospel, we know
not; but while we have the privilege, assuredly we do but stand in the place of
Christians who have either utterly fallen away, or are so corrupted as scarcely
to let their light shine before others. We are at present witnesses of the Truth;
and our very glory is our warning. By the superstitions, the profanities, the
indifference, the unbelief of the world called “Christian”, we are called upon to
be lowly-minded while we preach aloud, and to tremble while we rejoice. Let us
then, as a Church and as individuals, one and all, look to Him who alone can
keep us from falling. Let us with single heart look up to Christ our Saviour, and
put ourselves into His hands, from whom all our strength and wisdom is
derived.
3 Parochial and Plain Sermons, San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987, pp. 300-301, 304-305.

St. Pachomius
2024-05-15
OUR RIGHTEOUS FATHER PACHOMIUS
From “The Life of Pachomius” 4
◊◊◊
Theodore began to tell the brothers of the life of our father Pachomius
from his childhood on and of all the labors he underwent from the beginning
when he established the holy Koinonia. He told them of the temptations of
demons and how he snatched away from them the souls which the Lord gave
him and of the revelations which the Lord disclosed to him. And he told them
everything he had heard from that saint’s mouth as well as those things he had
seen with his own eyes.
He spoke to them as follows:
‘Listen to me, my brothers, and understand well the things I am telling
you. For the man whom we are exalting is truly the father of us all after God.
God established a covenant with him to save a great many souls by means of
him. And us also the Lord has saved through his holy prayers. For he — I am
speaking of our righteous father Pachomius–is also one of the holy people of
God and one who did his will always and everywhere. I am fearful that we may
forget his labors and actually be unmindful of who it was who made this
multitude one spirit and one body. It was accomplished by means of him and
of our other holy fathers who aided him in the establishment of this holy
institution. We believe that the blessing of our father will remain with us and
with those who come after us before God forever. Now then, let us not be
negligent and forget his laws and his commandments, which he gave us while
he was still with us in the body.’
‘Pachomius pursued in its entirety the way of life of the prophets and the
way of service in which, according to the Gospel, our Lord walked. He was
without blame before all, as you yourselves bear witness. You are also not
unaware how he used to teach us frequently with tears, as Paul said in the book
of the Acts of those whom he was teaching. You know how he used to gather us
together daily and speak to us about the holy commandments so that we might
observe each of the commandments in the holy Scriptures of Christ, and how
he used first to put them into practice before giving them to us. It is through
our contact with such a righteous man that we have learned the will of God even
in such details as the manner of stretching our hands upward to the Lord and
how one should pray to God. It is he who taught it to us. Is it not right for us to
bless him next after the Lord who created us? Indeed, did God not say to
Abraham, who had done his will, I will bless him who blesses you and I will
curse him who curses you? Now then, my brothers, let us all say, “Blessed be
God and our righteous father Pachomius who through the labors of his
prayers has become for us a guide to eternal life”‘.
4 Pachomian Koinonia, Vol One, Trans., Armand Veilleux, Kalamazoo, 1980; pp 237-8.

Easter Weekday
2024-05-16
THE LIGHT OF THE LORD’S MERCIES
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux 5
◊◊◊
All of you know what is good, the way on which to proceed, and how you
ought to proceed along it. But you do not have a single will. For in all the
exercises of this way and this life, some not only walk but also run, or rather fly;
so that to them their vigils seem brief, their foods sweet, their clothing soft, and
their labors not only bearable but even appealing. Others, however, are not like
this. Instead with withered hearts and rebellious dispositions, scarcely are they
dragged to these exercises, scarcely are they compelled by fear of hell. Wretched
and woebegone, they share in our tribulation but not in our consolation. Is the
hand of the Lord shortened so that he cannot give to everyone when he opens
his hand and fills every living creature with his blessing? What then is the
reason?
Clearly it is this, that they do not see Christ when he is taken up from
them; in other words, they do not ponder how he left them orphans, that they
are pilgrims and strangers on earth, that as long as they are still held in the
frightful prison of the body, they cannot be with Christ. Further, if people of this
type have remained under a burden for a long time, they are overwhelmed and
sink down, or else they are in a sort of hell, so that they never breathe fully in
the light of the Lord’s mercies and in the Spirit’s freedom which alone makes
our yoke easy and our burden light.
The source of such a pernicious lukewarmness is that their inclination,
that is, their will, has not yet been purified. Gravely diverted and allured by their
own craving, they do not choose the good as they know it. They are fond of little
earthly consolations for their flesh, whether in word, or in sign, or in deed, or in
anything else. If they sometimes take a break from these things, they do not
wholly break with them. Hence their inclinations are rarely directed toward
God, and their compunction is not constant, but intermittent. Now a soul
subject to these distractions cannot be satisfied with the Lord’s visitations. The
more it is emptied of the distractions, the more fully will it be satisfied by the
visitations. If it is greatly emptied, it will be greatly satisfied; if it is barely
emptied, it will be barely satisfied. Surely if you examine further, one can never
be mixed with the other for all eternity. When the oil did not meet with an empty
vessel, it had to stop flowing. New wine is put only in new wineskins so that both
may be preserved. So too spirit and flesh, fire and lukewarmness, do not abide
in the same domicile, especially since lukewarmness is wont to provoke the Lord
himself to vomit.
5 Sermons for the Summer Season – Bernard of Clairvaux – CF53 – Cistercian Publications – pg 39 – Kalamazoo, MI –
1991.

Easter Weekday
2024-05-17
THE MYSTERIES OF GLORY
By Fr Jean Danielou 6
◊◊◊
The Apostles’ Creed contains a noteworthy passage in which,
grammatically speaking, we move from the past to the future: “He ascended
into the heavens, to be seated at the right hand of God. He will come again to
judge the living and the dead.” Thus the mysteries of Christ are not completed
with the ascension. There is still another mystery to come, that of the Parousia.
Between these two there is a mystery which is, in the present, that of the session
at the right hand. So there is a mystery of Christ with which we are
contemporary that corresponds to that moment of sacred history, which
belongs to us, which constitutes the present activity of the Word.
Here we find, in the mysteries of glory, the order which we ascertained in
the mysteries of darkness. Through the ascension the humanity of Christ was
exalted above every creature and was introduced by the Word into the
inaccessible sanctuary of the Trinity. But the humanity of Christ tends to attract
everything else to it. “If only I am lifted up from the earth, I will attract all
peoples to myself.” Christ has only entered the heavenly sanctuary as a
forerunner. The presence of his humanity in the sphere of the Trinity is the
guarantee of the possibility that is henceforth ours to attain. The impassible gulf
is henceforth overcome; the impossible has become possible. In a suitable
image, the epistle to the Hebrews shows the humanity of Christ as cast like an
anchor, not into the depths of the sea, but into the far places of heaven, laying
the foundation of our hope that we shall in our turn attain to the anchorage
beyond the veil.
Thus there is, henceforth, in the heart of each person an ascensional
power that lifts it up and draws it towards the Father, that “gravity” of love of
which Augustine spoke, and which counteracts the “gravity” of the flesh. This
is the meaning of the era of the Church, in which Christ, having entered into the
glory of the Father, seeks to lift up humanity as a whole. By this means the
movement is completed which began at the Incarnation, when the Word of God
came to seek for mankind, but in order to lead it back to the Father. This is why
we are told, “he has mounted up on high; he has captured his spoil; he has
brought gifts. And he who so went down is no other than he who has gone up,
high above all the heavens to fill creation with his presence.” And truly this
humanity is a mighty weight to raise. Its gravity resists grace. That is the whole
drama of the present period in sacred history. But the power of the Word is
greater than our resistance.
6
Jean Danielou, Christ and Us, New York: Sheed and Ward, pp. 155-159.

Easter Weekday
2024-05-18
THE ASCENSION AND CHRISTIAN PRAYER
By Thomas Merton 7
◊◊◊
At the Ascension, in the sight of the disciples, “the nature of humankind
soared above the dignity of all the creatures of heaven” and “there was to be
no limit to the advancement of Christ’s humanity until, seated together with
the eternal Father, it might share enthroned the glory of Him whose nature it
shared in the son.” And of course, the Fathers never ceased to remind their
hearers that this same humanity of Christ which was enthroned with the Father
in the divine glory, was to return and judge the world. “He set a limit to His
bodily presence, and would remain at the right hand of the Father until He
should return in the same flesh in which He had ascended.” Monastic prayer is
eschatological and is centered on the expectation of the Parousia, the advent of
the “immortal and invisible King of ages” who is both “God alone” and the
Christ, our Redeemer and Liberator…
St Leo says that with Christ’s ascension into heaven we have recovered
possession of paradise, and not only that, “we have even penetrated, in Christ,
into the height of heaven,” we have been enthroned with Him because we are
“one Body” with Him. This is the reason why we should rejoice at His going to
the Father… He is not separated from us unless we choose to remain bound to
the earth by our passions. In contemplation we experience, at least obscurely,
something of this mystery of our union with Him now in heaven.
This has important implications for the life of prayer. The life of the monk,
being that of a Christian, is a way of living in heaven. While living bodily in exile
and in his earthly pilgrimage, the monk is already spiritually in paradise and in
heaven where he has ascended with Christ. That is to say, although he is not
physically present in heaven, he is free to come and go there as he pleases, in
spirit, in prayer, in faith, in thanksgiving, praise and love, because he already
“is” there mystically in Christ. “Let us therefore, exult with a worthy and
spiritual joy, happy before God in thanksgiving, and let us lift up the free eyes
of our heart to that height where Christ is.”…
Christ has made us His friends by making known to us “the joys of interior
charity and the festival of the heavenly country which He daily makes present
in our minds by the desire of love.” And St Gregory explains that this loving
knowledge of heavenly things is very real indeed, no mere fancy: “for when,
hearing of heavenly things, we love them, we already know the things we love,
for our love itself is a way of knowing.” It is by the charity of Christ in our
hearts that we “are in heaven” and know the things of heaven.
7
“The Humanity of Christ in Monastic Prayer”, Monastic Studies 2, 1964, 11-13.

Skema
2024-05-19
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
7th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
May 19 – 25, 2024

Sun
19
Mon
20
Tue
21
Wed
22
Thu
23
Fri
24
Sat
25

Office
Pentecost Sunday
Mary Mother of the Church
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Office for Vocations
Easter Weekday
St Bede the Venerable

Vigils
* Special Vigil
Josh 11:1-23
Josh 22:1-20
Josh 22:21-34
Josh 23:1-16
Josh 24:1-15
Josh 24:16-33

Lauds
Joel 3:1-5
Joel 1:1-8
Joel 1:9-12
Joel 1:13-20
Joel 2:1-6
Joel 2:7-11
Joel 2:12-17

Mass
63
BVM Lect pg 118-138
342
343
344
345
346

1st
Acts 2:1-11
Gen:3:9-15, 20
Jas 4:1-10
Jas 4:13-17
Jas 5:1-6
Jas 5:9-12
Jas 5:13-20

2nd
Gal 5:16-25
Psalm 87[86]: 1-2, 3+5, 6-7

Gospel
John 15:26-27; 16:12-15
John 19:25-34
Mark 9:30-37
Mark 9:38-40
Mark 9:41-50
Mark 10:1-12
Mark 10:13-16

Vespers
Rom 8:22-27
Gal 3:23-29
Gal 4:1-11
Gal 4:12-20
Gal 4:21-31
Gal 5:1-6
Rom 11:33-36

*1) Gen 11:1-9 2) Exod 19:3-8a, 16-20 3) Ezek 36:16-28 4) Acts 2:1-11 5) Rom 8:5-27

Vigils Reading - Pentecost Sunday
2024-05-19 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD
HAS FILLED THE WHOLE EARTH
A commentary by St Aelred of Rievaulx1
◊◊◊
Today’s holy solemnity puts new heart into us. For not only do we revere
its dignity, we also experience it as delightful. On this feast it is Love that we
specially honor, and among human beings there is no word pleasanter to the
ear, no thought more tenderly dwelt on, than love. The Love we celebrate is
nothing other than the goodness, kindness and charity of God, for God himself
is goodness, kindness and charity. His goodness is identical with his Spirit, with
God himself.
In his work of disposing of all things the Spirit of the Lord has filled the
whole world from the beginning, reaching from end to end of the earth in
strength and delicately disposing everything; but as sanctifier the Spirit of the
Lord has filled the whole world since Pentecost, for on this day the gracious
Spirit himself is sent by the Father and the Son on a new mission, in a new
mode, by a new manifestation of his mighty power, for the sanctification of
every creature. Before this day, the Spirit had not been given, for Jesus was not
yet glorified, but today he came forth from his heavenly throne to give himself
in all his abundant riches to the human race, so that the divine outpouring
might pervade the whole wide world and be manifested in a variety of spiritual
endowments.
It is surely right that this overflowing delight should come down to us
from heaven, since it was heaven that a few days earlier received from our fertile
earth a fruit of wonderful sweetness. When has our land ever yielded a fruit
more pleasant, sweeter, holier, or more delectable? Indeed, faithfulness has
sprung from the earth. A few days ago we sent Christ on ahead to the heavenly
kingdom, so that in all fairness we might have in return whatever heaven held
that should be sweet to our desire. The full sweetness of earth is Christ’s
humanity. The full sweetness of heaven Christ’s Spirit. Thus a more profitable
bargain was struck: Christ’s human nature ascended from us to heaven, and on
us today Christ’s Spirit has come down.
Now indeed, the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole earth, and all
creation recognizes his voice. Everywhere the Spirit is at work, everywhere he
speaks. To be sure, the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples before our Lord’s
ascension when he said, Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive anyone’s sins,
they are forgiven; if you declare them unforgiven, unforgiven they remain;
but before the day of Pentecost the Spirit’s voice was still in a sense unheard.
His power had not yet leaped forth, nor had the disciples truly come to know
him, for they were not yet confirmed by his might; they were still in the grip of
fear, cowering behind closed doors.
From this day onward, however, the voice of the Lord has resounded over
the waters; the God of majesty has thundered and the Lord makes his voice
echo over the flood. From now on the voice of the Lord speaks with strength,
the voice of the Lord in majesty, the voice of the Lord fells the cedars, the voice
of the Lord strikes the desert, stirring the wilderness of Kadesh, the voice of the
Lord strips the forest bare, and all will cry out, ‘Glory’!

1 Journey with the Father – Year B – New City Press – 1999 – pg 64.3

Vigils Reading - Mary Mother of the Church
2024-05-20
MARY’S EDUCATION AS MOTHER OF THE CHURCH
From the writing of Hans Urs von Balthasar2
◊◊◊
At first it was the Mother who introduced the Son into the Old Covenant
and thereby trained him for his messianic office. However, it was not she but
his own knowledge of the Father’s mission in the Holy Spirit that showed him
who he was and what he had to do. The relationship is thus reversed: from now
on it is the Son who educates the Mother for the greatness of his task, cultivating
in her the maturity she needs to stand under the Cross and, finally, to receive,
at prayer within the Church, the universal gift of the Holy Spirit.
From the very outset, this education reflects Simeon’s prophecy that a
sword would pierce the Mother’s soul. It is a pitiless process. All the episodes
handed down for us are more or less brusque rejections. It is not as though
Jesus had been disobedient for thirty years; we have an explicit affirmation to
the contrary. However, the merely physical relationship to which faith was so
intimately tied in the Old Testament is sovereignly, ruthlessly forced open.
Henceforth faith in Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, is the only thing that
counts…
The scene in which Jesus, teaching those gathered around him in a certain
house, refuses to receive the visit of his Mother, who is standing outside, seems
almost unbearable to us. “Here are my mother and my brethren! Whoever does
the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother”. Jesus means her more
than anyone, though he does not mention her by name. Yet who understands
his meaning? Did Mary herself understand it? We have to accompany Mary in
spirit as she makes her way home and try to imagine her state of mind. The
2 Hans Urs Von Balthasar and Pope Benedict XVI. Mary: The Church at the Source. Trans. Adrian
Walker. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005. 107-110.5
sword gnaws at her soul; she feels as if bereft of her inmost self, as if the point
of her life has been drained away. Her faith, which at the beginning received so
many sensible confirmations, is plunged into a dark night. It is as if the Son,
who sends her no news about what he is doing, has run away from her, yet she
cannot simply let him go away: she has to accompany him, full of dread, in her
night of faith…
The purpose of this constant training in the naked faith Mary will need
under the Cross is often insufficiently understood; people are astonished and
embarrassed by the way in which Jesus treats his Mother, whom he addresses
both in Cana and at the Cross only as “woman”. He himself is the first one to
wield the sword that must pierce her. But how else would she have become
ready to stand by the Cross, where not only her Son’s earthly failure, but also
his abandonment by the God who sends him is revealed. She must finally say
Yes to this, too, because she consented a priori to her child’s whole destiny. And
as if to fill her bitter chalice to the brim, the dying Son expressly abandons his
Mother, withdrawing from her and foisting on her another son: “Woman,
behold, your son”. This gesture is usually understood primarily as evidencing
Jesus’ concern about where his Mother will live after he is gone… This must not,
however, lead us to overlook a second motif: just as the Son is abandoned by
the Father, so, too, he abandons his Mother, so that the two of them may be
united in a common abandonment. Only thus does she become inwardly ready
to take on ecclesial motherhood toward all of Jesus’ new brothers and sisters.

Vigils Reading
2024-05-21
BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH
From the Document on Religious Freedom of the Second Vatican Council3
◊◊◊
When Christ completed on the cross the work of redemption whereby he
achieved salvation and true freedom for all, he brought his revelation to
completion. For he bore witness to the truth, but he refused to impose the truth
by force on those who spoke against it. Not by force of blows does his rule assert
its claims. It is established by witnessing to the truth and by hearing the truth,
and it extends its dominion by the love whereby Christ, lifted up on the cross,
draws everyone to himself.
Taught by the word and example of Christ, the apostles followed the same
way. From the very origins of the church the disciples of Christ strove to convert
others to faith in Christ as Lord; not, however, by the use of coercion or of
devices unworthy of the gospel, but by the power, above all, of the word of God.
Steadfastly they proclaimed to all the plan of God our Savior, “who wills that
all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” At the same time,
however, they showed respect for those of weaker stuff, even though they were
in error, and thus they made it plain that “each one of us is to render an account
to God,” and for that reason is bound to obey one’s conscience.
Like Christ himself, the apostles were unceasingly bent upon bearing
witness to the truth of God, and they showed the fullest measure of boldness in
“speaking the word with confidence” before the people and their rulers. With a
firm faith they held that the gospel is indeed the power of God unto salvation
for all who believe. Therefore they rejected all “carnal weapons”: they followed
the example of the gentleness and respectfulness of Christ and they preached
3 see Christian Readings, vol. IV, p.227.7
the word of God in the full confidence that there was resident in this world itself
a divine power able to destroy all the forces arrayed against God and bring all
people to faith in Christ and to his service. As the Master, so too the apostles
recognized legitimate civil authority. “For there is no power except from God,”
the Apostle teaches, and thereafter commands: “Let everyone be subject to
higher authorities…He who resists authority resists God’s ordinance.”
At the same time, however, they did not hesitate to speak out against
governing powers which set themselves in opposition to the holy will of God: “It
is necessary to obey God rather than men.” This is the way along which the
martyrs and other faithful have walked through all ages and over all the earth.

Vigils Reading
2024-05-22
THE AIM OF OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE
A conversation between St Seraphim of Sarov and his spiritual son4
◊◊◊
“The Lord has revealed to me,” began the great elder, “that in your
childhood you longed to know the aim of our Christian life… But no one has
given you a precise answer… Prayer, fasting, watching, and all other Christian
acts, however good they may be, do not alone constitute the aim of our Christian
life, although they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this aim. The
true aim of our Christian life, is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God…”
“How do you mean acquire?” I asked Father Seraphim…
“To acquire is the same as to gain,” he answered. “You understand what
acquiring money means. Acquiring God’s Spirit, it’s all the same… Acquire, my
son, the grace of the Holy Spirit by all the other virtues in Christ; trade in those
that are most profitable to you… Thus, if prayer and watching give you more of
God’s grace, pray and watch; if fasting gives much of God’s Spirit, fast; if
almsgiving gives more, give alms. In such manner decide about every virtue in
Christ…
When our Lord Jesus Christ had accomplished the whole work of
salvation, after His resurrection, He breathed on the Apostles to restore the
breath of life which had been lost by Adam, and gave them that same grace of
the Holy Spirit of God which had been Adam’s. On the day of Pentecost He
triumphantly sent down on them the Holy Spirit in the rushing of a mighty wind
like tongues of fire, which sat upon each one of them and entered in and filled
them with the strength of Divine flame-like grace; whose breath is laden with
4 The Spiritual Instructions of Saint Seraphim of Sarov. Ed. Franklin Jones. Los Angeles: The Dawn
Horse Press, 1973. 41-44, 46-48, 50.9
dew, and it creates joy in the souls partaking of its power and influence. And,
when this same fire-inspired grace of the Holy Spirit is given to all the faithful
in Christ in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, they seal it in the chief places
appointed by the Holy Church on our flesh, as the eternal vessel of this grace…
If we were never to sin after our baptism, we should remain forever holy,
spotless, exempt from all foulness of flesh and spirit, like the saints of God. But
the trouble is that, though we increase in stature, we do not increase in the grace
and mind of God, as our Lord Jesus Christ increased; but on the contrary,
growing dissipated bit by bit, we are deprived of the grace of God’s Holy Spirit
and become sinners of many degrees and many sins.
But, when a man, stirred by the Divine Wisdom which seeks our salvation,
is resolved for her sake to rise early before God and keep watch for the
attainment of his eternal salvation, then must he in obedience to her voice
hasten to repent truly of all his sins and to perfect the virtues that are their
contrary, and thus by virtuous acts done for Christ’s sake to acquire the Holy
Spirit, which works in us and sets up in us the kingdom of God.
Notwithstanding man’s repeated falls, notwithstanding the darkness around
the soul, the grace of the Holy Spirit… shines still in the heart with the Divine
immemorial light of the precious merits of Christ. When the sinner turns to the
way of repentance, this Christ-Light smooths out all trace of past sin and clothes
the former sinner once more in a robe of incorruption woven from the grace of
the Holy Spirit…

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2024-05-23
RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT
From a commentary by St Augustine5
◊◊◊
The happy day has dawned for us on which Holy Church makes her first
radiant appearance to the eyes of faith and sets the hearts of believers on fire. It
is the day on which we celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit by our Lord Jesus
Christ, after he had risen from the dead and ascended into glory. In the gospel it is
written: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me,
rivers of living water shall flow from his heart. The Evangelist explains these words
by adding: Jesus said this about the Spirit which those who believed in him were to
receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Now the glorification of Jesus took place when he rose from the dead and ascended
into heaven, but all was not yet accomplished. The Holy Spirit still had to be given;
the one who made the promise had to send him. This is precisely what occurred
at Pentecost.
After being in the company of his disciples for the forty days following his
resurrection, the Lord ascended into heaven, and on the fiftieth day – the day we
are now celebrating – he sent the Holy Spirit. The account is given in Scripture:
Suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and there
appeared to them tongues like fire which separated and came to rest on each one of
them. And they began to speak in other tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them power
of utterance. That wind cleansed the disciples’ hearts, blowing away fleshly
thoughts like so much chaff. The fire burnt up their unregenerate desires as if they
were straw. The tongues in which they spoke as the Holy Spirit filled them were a
5 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB.
New York: New City Press, 1992. 72-73.11
foreshadowing of the Church’s preaching of the Gospel in the tongues of all
nations.
After the flood, in pride and defiance of the Lord, an impious generation
erected a high tower and so brought about the division of the human race into
many language groups, each with its own peculiar speech which was unintelligible
to the rest of the world. At Pentecost, by contrast, the humble piety of believers
brought all these diverse languages into the unity of the Church. What discord had
scattered, love was to gather together. Like the limbs of a single body, the
separated members of the human race would be restored to unity by being joined
to Christ, their common head, and welded into the oneness of a holy body by the
fire of love. Anyone therefore who rejects the gift of peace and withdraws from
the fellowship of this unity cuts himself off from the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So then, my fellow members of Christ’s body, you are the fruits of unity and
the children of peace. Keep this day with joy, celebrate it in freedom of spirit, for
in you is fulfilled what was foreshadowed in those days when the Holy Spirit came.
At that time whoever received the Holy Spirit spoke in many languages, individual
though he was. Now in the same way unity itself speaks through all nations in
every tongue. If you yourselves are established in that unity you have the Holy
Spirit among you, and nothing can separate you from the Church of Christ which
speaks in the language of every nation of the world.
