BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey - ECPv6.16.2//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20250309T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20251102T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20260308T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20261101T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20270314T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20271107T060000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260519
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260520
DTSTAMP:20260520T160106
CREATED:20260517T183010Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260517T183010Z
UID:14935-1779148800-1779235199@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Easter Weekday
DESCRIPTION:A reading from\nST AUGUSTINE 3\n◊◊◊\nThe Lord said\, I tell you the truth: it is for your own good that I am going away\, because unless I go the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go I will send him to you. \nIn other words\, it is to your advantage that I should be taken from you as I am now\, in the condition of a servant. Now indeed I dwell among you as the Word made flesh; but I do not want you to go on loving me with a merely natural affection\, content with baby’s milk and lacking any ambition to leave the nursery. It is for your own good that I am going away\, because unless I do the Advocate will not come to you. So far I have given you nothing but children’s food. Unless I wean you\, you will never have any appetite for solid meat. As long as you cling to my bodily presence in a purely natural way you will remain incapable of receiving the Holy Spirit. \nA question arises\, however: when the Lord said that he had to go before the Advocate could come to the disciples\, and that if he went he would send him to them\, did he mean that it was impossible for him to send the Holy Spirit while he was still on earth? Surely no one would make such an assertion. He had never left the dwelling-place of the Spirit; nor had he come from the Father in such a way as no longer to be with the Father. Besides\, how could it have been impossible for Christ to send the Holy Spirit while he was yet on earth\, when we know he had received the abiding presence of the Spirit at his Baptism? In fact\, we know that he and the Holy Spirit were inseparable. \nWhat this Gospel passage means is that the disciples could not receive the Holy Spirit as long as they only knew Christ according to the flesh. Hence the assertion made by the Apostle Paul after he himself had received the Holy Spirit: Even if we used to think of Christ according to the flesh\, we do so no longer. When we know the incarnate Word spiritually\, our knowledge even of his flesh becomes more than merely according to the flesh. This\, without any doubt\, is the lesson their good Master wanted to give the disciples when he told them he was going away for their own good\, otherwise the Advocate would not come to them. \nThe withdrawal of Christ’s bodily presence from his disciples meant not only that the Holy Spirit would come to them\, but that the Father and the Son would also dwell with them in a spiritual manner. Christ’s departure did not mean that the Holy Spirit would simply take his place. It meant rather that together with Christ the Spirit would make his home in the hearts of the disciples. If this were not so\, what would become of our Lord’s promise to be with his disciples always\, to the end of time? \nAnd what of that other saying of his\, The Father and I will come to him and make our home with him? The fact is that our Lord promised to send the Holy Spirit in such a way that he himself would always remain with his disciples. And when through the coming of the Spirit their purely natural and human affections had become spiritualised\, then they would be capable of the indwelling of Father\, Son\, and Holy Spirit. \n3\nSt Augustine\, Commentary on John’s Gospel\, 94.4-5 (PL 35:1869-1870);Word in Season III\, 1st ed.\nMonday of the Sixth Week in Eastertide Year II.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/easter-weekday-13/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260520
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260521
DTSTAMP:20260520T160106
CREATED:20260517T183621Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260517T185456Z
UID:14937-1779235200-1779321599@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Easter Weekday
DESCRIPTION:A reading from\nST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 4\n◊◊◊\nChrist’s going to the Father is at once a source of sorrow because it involves his absence\, and of joy because it involves his presence. And out of the doctrine of his Resurrection and Ascension spring those Christian paradoxes\, often spoken of in Scripture\, that we are sorrowing yet always rejoicing; as having nothing yet possessing all things. \nThis\, indeed\, is our state at present; we have lost Christ and we have found him; we see him not\, yet we discern him. We embrace his feet\, yet he says\, Touch me not. How is this? It is thus: we have lost the sensible and conscious perception of him; we cannot look on him\, hear him\, converse with him\, follow him from place to place; but we enjoy the spiritual\, immaterial\, inward\, mental\, real sight and possession of him; a possession more real and more present than that which the Apostles had in the days of his flesh\, because it is spiritual\, because it is invisible. When he says that he should go away\, and come again and abide forever\, he is speaking not merely of his omnipresent\, divine nature\, but of his human nature. As being Christ he says that he\, the incarnate mediator\, shall be with his Church forever. \nBut again\, you may be led to explain his declaration thus: ‘He has come again\, but in his Spirit; that is\, his Spirit has come instead of him; and when it is said that he is with us\, this only means that his Spirit is with us.’ \nNo one\, doubtless\, can deny this most gracious and consolatory truth\, that the Holy Spirit has come; but why has he come? To supply Christ’s absence\nor to accomplish his presence? Surely to make him present. Let us not suppose that God the Holy Spirit comes in such sense that God the Son remains away. No; he has not so come that Christ does not come\, but rather he comes that Christ may come in his coming. Through the Holy Spirit we have communion with Father and Son. In Christ we are built together\, says St Paul\, for a dwelling place of God through the Spirit. You are the temple of God\, the Spirit of God dwells in you. \nThus the Holy Spirit does not take the place of Christ in the soul\, but secures that place for Christ. St Paul insists much on this presence of Christ in those who have his Spirit. Do you not know\, he says\, that your bodies are the members of Christ? By one Spirit we are all baptized one body… you are the body of Christ\, and each one of you is a part of it? \nThe Holy Spirit\, then\, vouchsafes to come to us\, that by his coming Christ may come to us\, not carnally or visibly\, but may enter into us. And thus he is both present and absent\, absent in that he has left the earth\, present in that he has not left the faithful soul; or\, as he says himself: The world sees me no more\, but you see me. \n4\nJohn Henry Newman\, Parochial and Plain Sermons\, VI\, 121-127; Word in Season III\, 2nd ed.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/easter-weekday-14/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260521
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260522
DTSTAMP:20260520T160106
CREATED:20260517T184055Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260517T184055Z
UID:14939-1779321600-1779407999@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Easter Weekday
DESCRIPTION:A reading from\nST CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA 5\n◊◊◊\nAs the reason for his departure\, our Lord mentioned his desire to open the way for our ascent to the heavenly places and to prepare a safe passage for us by making smooth the road that had previously been impassable. For heaven was then completely inaccessible to us – human foot had never trodden that pure and holy country of the angels. It was Christ who first prepared the way for our ascent there. By offering himself to God the Father as the first-fruits of all who are dead and buried\, he gave us a way of entry into heaven and was himself the first man the inhabitants of heaven ever saw. \nThe angels in heaven\, knowing nothing of the sacred and profound mystery of the incarnation\, were astonished at his coming and almost thrown into confusion by an event so strange and unheard of. Who is this coming from Edom? they asked; that is\, from the earth. But the Spirit did not leave the heavenly throng ignorant of the wonderful wisdom of God the Father. Commanding them to open the gates of heaven in honor of the king and master of the universe\, he cried out: Lift up your gates\, you princes\, and be lifted up\, you everlasting doors\, that the king of glory may come in. \nAnd so our Lord Jesus Christ has opened up for us a new and living way\, as Paul says\, not by entering a sanctuary made with hands\, but by entering heaven itself to appear before God on our behalf. For Christ has not ascended in order to make his own appearance before God the Father. \nHe was\, is\, and ever will be in the Father and in the sight of him from whom he receives his being\, for he is his Father’s unfailing joy. But now the Word\, who had never before been clothed in human nature\, has ascended as a man to show himself in a strange and unfamiliar fashion. And he has done this on our account and in our name\, so that being like us\, though with his power as the Son\, and hearing the command\, Sit at my right hand\, as a member of our race\, he might transmit to all of us the glory of being children of God. \nAs man then he appeared before the Father on our behalf\, to enable us whom original sin had excluded from his presence to see the Father’s face once more. As the Son he took his seat to enable us as sons through him to be called children of God. So Paul\, who claims to speak for Christ\, teaching that the whole human race has a share in the events of Christ’s life\, says that God has raised us up with him and enthroned us with him in heaven. To Christ as the Son by nature belongs the prerogative of sitting at the Father’s side; this honor can rightly and truly be ascribed to him alone. \nYet because his having become man means that he sits there as one who is in all respects like ourselves\, as well as being as we believe God from God\, in some mysterious way he passes this honor on to us. \n5\nSt Cyril of Alexandria\, Commentary on St John’s Gospel\, 9 (PG 74:182-183);Word in Season III\, 2nd ed.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/easter-weekday-15/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260522
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260523
DTSTAMP:20260520T160106
CREATED:20260517T184712Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260517T184712Z
UID:14941-1779408000-1779494399@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Easter Weekday
DESCRIPTION:A reading from\nST LEO THE GREAT 6\n◊◊◊\nAfter the blessed and glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ\, when the divine power in three days raised the true Temple of God…on this very day\, dearly beloved\, the number of the forty holy days is completed. While the Lord draws out the time of his bodily presence\, our faith in his Resurrection is being strengthened by the necessary signs. The Death of Christ had greatly disturbed the hearts of the disciples. When the holy women\, as the Gospel story has told us\, proclaimed that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb\, the sepulcher was empty\, and that angels were witnesses of the living Lord\, their words seemed to the Apostles and other disciples as pure nonsense. \nThe Spirit of Truth would by no means have permitted this wavering in human weakness to enter the hearts of his preachers\, if their trembling anxiety and questioning delay were not to have established the foundations of our faith. Consequently\, it was our doubts\, our danger\, that was being considered in the Apostles. We\, in the guise of the Apostles\, were being instructed against the slanders of the wicked and the proofs of earthly wisdom. Let us give thanks for necessary slowness of the Holy Fathers. They doubted so that we need not doubt. \nThese days\, dearly beloved\, between the Resurrection of the Lord and his Ascension provided the opportunity to confirm great mysteries\, to reveal great secrets. In these days the Holy Spirit was poured into all the Apostles by the breath of the Lord; and to blessed Peter above all the others\, after the keys of the kingdom\, the care of the Lord’s sheep is entrusted. Through all this time which\nwent by between the Resurrection of the Lord and his Ascension\, the providence of God took thought for this: that they should recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as truly risen\, who was truly born\, truly suffered\, and truly died. \nThe result was that not only were they not afflicted with sadness but were filled with great joy when the Lord went into the heights of heaven. Truly it was a great and indescribable source of rejoicing when\, in the sight of the heavenly multitudes\, the nature of our human race ascended over the dignity of all heavenly creatures\, to pass the angelic orders and to be raised beyond the heights of archangels. In its ascension it did not stop at any other height until this same nature was received at the seat of the eternal Father\, to be associated on the throne of the glory of that One to whose nature it was joined in the Son. \nSince the Ascension of Christ is our elevation\, and since\, where the glory of the Head has preceded its\, there hope for the body is also invited\, let us exult\, dearly beloved\, with worthy joy and be glad with a holy thanksgiving. \nToday we are established not only as possessors of Paradise\, but we have even penetrated the heights of the heavens in Christ\, prepared more fully for it through the indescribable grace of Christ which we had lost through the ill will of the devil. Those whom the violent enemy threw down from the happiness of our first dwelling\, the Son of God has placed\, incorporated within himself\, at the right hand of the Father\, the Son of God who lives and reigns with God the Father Almighty and with the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen. \n6\nSt Leo the Great\, Sermon 73; FoC 93 (1996) tr. Freeland & Conway.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/easter-weekday-16/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260523
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260524
DTSTAMP:20260520T160106
CREATED:20260517T185342Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260517T185342Z
UID:14943-1779494400-1779580799@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Easter Weekday
DESCRIPTION:A reading from\nST LEO THE GREAT 7\n◊◊◊\nThe faith of the infant Church was increased by the Lord’s Ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit; it was to remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment\, exile and hunger\, fire and ravening beasts\, and the most refined tortures ever devised by brutal persecutors. Even the blessed Apostles\, though they had been strengthened by so many miracles and instructed by so much teaching\, took fright at the cruel suffering of the Lord’s Passion and could not accept his Resurrection without hesitation. \nYet they made such progress through his Ascension that they now found joy in what had terrified them before. They were able to fix their minds on Christ’s divinity as he sat at the right hand of the Father\, since what was presented to their bodily eyes no longer hindered them from turning all their attention to the realization that he had not left his Father when he came down to earth\, nor abandoned his disciples when he ascended into heaven. \nThe truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more perfect and transcendent way once he had entered into his Father’s glory. He now began to be indescribably more present in his divinity to those from whom he was further removed in his humanity. A more mature faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality with the Father; it no longer needed contact with Christ’s tangible body\, in which as man he is inferior to the Father. \nFor while his glorified body retained the same nature\, the faith of those who believed in him was now summoned to heights where\, as the Father’s equal\, the only-begotten Son is reached not by physical handling but by spiritual discernment. This explains why our Lord said to the Church in the person of Mary Magdalene\, as she ran forward to cling to him: Do not touch me\, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. In other words\, I do not want you to come to me corporeally\, to recognize me by what your bodily senses tell you; I want you to wait for something higher. \nAnd when the eyes of his disciples\, rapt in wonder\, followed their ascending Lord to heaven\, there stood beside them two angels\, in garments of marvelously shining whiteness\, who said to them: Men of Galilee\, why are you standing looking up to heaven? This Jesus who has been taken from you will come again in the same way as you have seen him going up to heaven. By these words all the Church’s children have been taught to believe that Jesus Christ will come again visibly in the same flesh in which he ascended\, and that there can be no doubt concerning the subjection of all things to him who was served by angels from the moment of his birth. \nAs it was an angel who announced to the blessed Virgin that Christ would be conceived of the Holy Spirit\, so too it was the song of heavenly beings that told the shepherds of his virginal birth; and as the first attestations of his rising from the dead were delivered by messengers from on high\, so it was the task of angels to proclaim that he would come in the same flesh to judge the world. All these things were intended to make us realize what tremendous angelic powers are to accompany him when he comes to judge\, since such mighty spirits ministered to him even when he came to be judged himself. \n7\nSt Leo the Great\, Sermon 74\, 3-4 (CCL 138A:457-459); Word in Season III\, 1st ed.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/easter-weekday-17/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR