Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading - Queenship of BVM
2023-08-22
THE WAY OF DIVINE LOVE
From a mystical dialogue between the Virgin Mary and Sr. Josefa Menéndez 3
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Our Lady appeared in all her beauty… “Daughter,” she replied…”do not be afraid, for <the devil> can only do one thing, that is, give you opportunities of increasing your merit. Do you not know that I am watching over you and that Jesus will never abandon you?”… A thrill of joy transfused the face of Our Lady, as she recalled the beatitude of the eternal present she now possessed, and stooping to her child’s lowliness, she related to her something of the earthly pilgrimage which led her from the shadow of its sorrows to the effulgence of never-ending bliss… She said… ‘during the whole of my life in this world my soul was transpierced by a sword of grief.’
I asked her… if the presence of the Child Jesus, so small and so lovely, had not been the best of consolations? “Listen, child,'” Our Lady went on. “From childhood I knew of divine things and the hopes centred in the coming of the Messiah. So when the Angel declared the mystery of the Incarnation to me, and I found myself chosen as the Mother of the Redeemer of mankind, though my heart adhered to the divine will with entire submission, it was drowned in a sea of bitterness and woe. For I knew all that this tender and heavenly Child was destined to endure, and Simeon’s prophecy only confirmed the anguish of my mother’s heart.
Can you, then, imagine how I felt while contemplating My Son’s charms, His heavenly countenance, His hands, and feet which I knew were to be so cruelly ill- treated? I kissed those little hands, and felt my lips already stained with the Precious Blood that one day would gush from their wounds. I kissed His feet, and already saw them nailed to the Cross. And as I carefully tended His hair, I pictured it all clotted with Blood and entangled in the cruel thorns. And when at Nazareth, He first ventured on a few steps, hastening with outstretched arms to meet me, my tears fell as I pictured them extended on the Cross on which He was to die.

“When He reached boyhood, He was so divinely beautiful that none could contemplate Him unmoved. . . yet in my heart, the heart of a mother, the sword was turned at the thought of the tortures that were to be inflicted on Him, of which I felt beforehand the savage recoil. Then He left me for three years during His apostolic life, and there followed the terrible hours of His Passion and Death. What a martyrdom! When after three days I saw Him in the glory of His risen life the trial changed, for I knew that He could suffer no more. but O! how sad it was to part from Him! My sole relief then lay in consoling Him, by repairing for the sins of men. And my long exile began…
“I was about to enter my seventy-third year, when my soul passed like a flash from earth to heaven. At the end of three days the Angels fetched my body and brought it in triumph and jubilation to reunite it to my soul. What adoration! What admiration! What sweetness, when at long last my eyes beheld in glory His Majesty surrounded by the angelic choirs… my Son… my God! And how, daughter, can I express the amazement of my lowliness when I was crowned with such gifts and overwhelmed with jubilations and rejoicings? . . . Sorrow had indeed passed away, never to return. For all eternity, glory, sweetness, and love were mine.’ Our Lady spoke with enthusiasm… yet all her words still mirrored sweetest humility.
There was silence for a short time, for Our Lady seemed absorbed by the recollection of that marvellous entry into heaven. Then once more turning to Josefa, and looking lovingly upon her, she said: “All things pass away, daughter, and bliss is everlasting. Suffer and love. My Son will soon crown your efforts and labours. Do not fear, He and I both love you!

3 Sister Josefa Menéndez. The Way of Divine Love. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1950. 407-410.

Vigils Reading - St Rose of Lima
2023-08-23
HER GARDEN-CELL
From the life of St Rose of Lima 4
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Rose had always loved solitude: it was a natural and supernatural attraction to her; and even in her childish days she had persuaded her favourite brother Ferdinand… to help her in building a sort of little arbour in the garden where she could go and hide when she wanted to pray unseen… This little hermitage, as she called it, was built only of light branches, with interwoven palm-leaves, and leant against the garden wall… probably a mere boy’s construction, though used by the Saint for many years as her oratory…
But when the days of more serious usefulness in the household came… the childish resort had to be deserted… It proved, however, to have been only a forestalling… When the great question of her following the call of God to a single life, and giving up the world, was settled… the thought of her old hermitage revived in her, and she began to conceive a strong wish for a refuge of the same kind more suited to her present years and circumstances…
She told her mother how earnestly she desired leave and opportunity to be more alone, and begged to be allowed to build a regular little cell for herself at the bottom of the garden, where she might spend her days with her prayers… Marie de Flores at first flatly refused to listen to such a request, and to allow her daughter to bury herself alive, as she expressed it. Rose, however, did not despair; but… had recourse to Our Lady… in her favourite Rosary Chapel; and this time she was bold enough to beg Our Lord to give her some special sign…

She obtained it in a wonderful way: for a favourite coral Rosary of hers, which she had begged the sacristan of the Chapel to hang round the Madonna’s neck, and which he had placed there with great trouble, the statue being so high up that he had to climb a ladder to reach it, was found, after being there two days, miraculously moved from the Mother’s neck and placed on the hand of her Divine Infant. This of course showed the holy girl at once that her wish was pleasing to God… and accordingly she went and asked her confessor… to go and intercede for her with her mother. This time Marie de Flores gave in at once; and Rose began the construction of her cell the very next morning… It was finished in a day or two, was made of wood, and was five feet long and four wide; it had one little window… When <her confessor> saw the cell he remarked on its smallness with some wonder. “It is large enough”, said Rose, “for the Beloved of my soul and me”.
Within these narrow walls, then, till within about three years of her death, we must picture Rose of St. Mary as leading the chief part of her daily life… Rose left her cell… for three objects only: to go to church, to help sick friends or relations, and to visit or find out poor and miserable women, whom she made it one of her duties and pleasures to nurse or relieve.
When, at sunrise, she crossed the garden to get to her hermitage, she would call upon all Nature to glorify the Maker of all things with her. Then might the trees be seen bowing over her path, shaking off the dewdrops, and rustling their leaves so as to send forth harmonious sounds. Then would the flowers sway gracefully on their stalks, half opening their petals to give out their sweetest fragrance, and so in their own way celebrate the praises of God… A friend, taken by Rose one day across the garden with her at dawn . . . was witness of this extraordinary sight, and of what was to her still more astonishing, the quiet way in which her companion took it. The Saint saw her bewilderment, but simply said, “Do you think, Sister, that anyone can honour the Maker of the world enough?

4 Capes, F. M. St. Rose of Lima: The Flower of the New World. London: R. & T. Washbourne, LTD, 1913. 101-105, 115-116.

Vigils Reading - St Bartholomew
2023-08-24
THE WEAKNESS OF GOD IS STRONGER THAN MEN
From a homily by St John Chrysostom 5
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It was clear through unlearned men that the cross was persuasive, in fact, it persuaded the whole world. Their discourse was not of unimportant matters but of God and true religion, of the Gospel way of life and future judgment, yet it turned plain, uneducated men into philosophers. How the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and his weakness stronger than men!
In what way is it stronger? It made its way throughout the world and overcame all men; countless men sought to eradicate the very name of the Crucified, but that name flourished and grew ever mightier. Its enemies lost out and perished; the living who waged war on a dead man proved helpless. Therefore, when a Greek tells me I am dead, he shows only that he is foolish indeed, for I, whom he thinks a fool, turn out to be wiser than those reputed wise. So too, in calling me weak, he but shows that he is weaker still. For the good deeds which tax-collectors and fishermen were able to accomplish by God’s grace, the philosophers, the rulers, the countless multitudes cannot even imagine.
Paul had this in mind when he said: The weakness of God is stronger than men. That the preaching of these men was indeed divine is brought home to us in the same way. For how otherwise could twelve uneducated men, who lived on lakes and rivers and wastelands, get the idea for such an immense enterprise? How could men who per- haps had never been in a city or a public square think of setting out to do battle with the whole world? That they were fearful, timid men, the evangelist makes clear; he did not reject the fact or try to hide their

weaknesses. Indeed he turned these into a proof of the truth. What did he say of them? That when Christ was arrested, the others fled, despite all the miracles they had seen, while he who was leader of the others denied him!
How then account for the fact that these men who in Christ’s lifetime did not stand up to the attacks by the Jews, set forth to do battle with the whole world once Christ was dead — if, as you claim, Christ did not rise and speak to them and rouse their courage? Did they perhaps say to themselves: “What is this? He could not save him- self but he will protect us? He did not help himself when he was alive, but now that he is dead he will extend a helping hand to us? In his lifetime he brought no nation under his banner, but by uttering his name we will win over the whole world?” Would it not be wholly irrational even to think such thoughts, much less to act upon them?
It is evident, then, that if they had not seen him risen and had proof of his power, they would not have risked so much

5 (Hom.4. 3.4: PG 61, 34-36). Found in – The Liturgy of the Hours: Vol. 4 – Ordinary Time Weeks 18-34. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1975. 1344-1346.

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2023-08-25
TO A MONK ENTERING THE ARENA OF COMBAT
From the letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast 5
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Rejoice in the Lord, beloved child, whom the grace of my Jesus has enlightened and delivered from the world; who has flown to the wilderness and dwelt in a monastery with a holy synodia, and now glorifies and thanks God with all his soul. Divine grace, my child, is like bait which enters the soul and without coercion attracts a person toward higher and superior things. It knows how to catch us rational fish and to pull us out of the sea of the world. But then what? Once God takes the monastic aspirant out of the world and brings him to the wilderness, He doesn’t immediately show him his passions and the temptations, until he becomes a monk and Christ binds him with His fear. Then the trial, the struggle, and the fight begin.
If a novice exerts himself from the beginning and lights his torch of asceticism with his struggles before it is too late, it will not go out when grace withdraws and temptations come. Otherwise, when grace does withdraw, he will return to his previous state. Then, corresponding to the passions he had in the world, temptations will arise and will revive his former habits which used to enslave him because he used to cater to them.
First of all, my child, know that there are great differences from man to man and monk to monk… For from the beginning of creation He separated men into three classes: He gave five talents to one, two to another, and one to the other. The first one has the highest gifts: he has greater mental capacity and is called “taught by God,” because he receives teachings from God without a teacher, just like St. Anthony the Great, St. Onouphrios, St. Mary of Egypt, Cyril Phileotes, Luke of Steirion, and thousands of others in the old days who became perfect without a guide. The second

type of person has to be taught what is good in order to do it. And the third one, even if he hears, even if he learns, he hides it in the ground: he doesn’t do anything.
So that is why there is such a big difference among the people and monks that you see. And that is why first and foremost you must “know thyself.” That is, know who you really are in truth, and not what you imagine you are. With this knowledge you become the wisest man. With this kind of awareness, you reach humility and receive grace from the Lord. However, if you don’t obtain self-knowledge, but consider only your toil, know that you will always remain far from the path. The prophet does not say, “Behold, O Lord, my toil,” but says, “Behold my humility and my toil.” Toil is for the body, and humility is for the soul. Moreover, the two together, toil and humility, are for the whole man.
Who has conquered the devil? He who knows his own weaknesses, passions, and shortcomings. Whoever is afraid of knowing himself remains far from knowledge, and he doesn’t love anything else except seeing faults in others and judging them. He doesn’t see gifts in other people, but only shortcomings. And he doesn’t see his own shortcomings, but only his gifts. This is truly the sickness that plagues us men… we fail to recognize one another’s gifts. One person may lack many things, but many people together have everything. What one person lacks, another person has. If we acknowledged this, we would have a great deal of humility, because God, Who adorned men in many ways and showed inequality in all of his creations, is honored and glorified; not as the unbelievers say, who toil trying to bring equality by overturning the divine creation. God made all things in wisdom.
Therefore, my child, now that it is still the beginning, see to it that you know yourself well, so that you set humility as a firm foundation. See to it that you learn obedience and acquire the prayer

5 Elder Joseph the Hesychast. Monastic Wisdom – The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast. Florence, AZ: St. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, 1998. 47-51.

Vigils Reading
2023-08-26
WE OUGHT TO LIVE AS HE LIVED
From a homily by Isaac of Stella 6
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Those born of God are pronounced divine in the words, “Gods you are, I myself have declared it.” Man is born of man, yet mortal man may, through what belongs essentially to his nature, shun the devil and his works lest he be there forever, and go over wholly to God, with whom alone “it shall be well with him.” In other words, man must shun the devil and what is the devil’s; man must return to himself and be content with his limitations; man’s destiny is to ascend to God and grow divinely rich.
The devil’s children are, indeed, all of them blind. “Their malice has so darkened their minds” that even when prosperous they regard themselves as paupers. They simply cannot see how readily their bodily needs are satisfied. They are deaf also, deaf to God’s voice, even when it promises that “those who fear him never go wanting.” They are deaf and therefore they keep toiling for what is useless! It is for you, dear friends, to keep your eyes on your heaven-sent Teacher. He not only became man for man’s salvation, he became man for man’s instruction. He would strip man of the devil’s livery and clothe him with divineness.
We ought to live as he lived, he whose birth, whose life, whose death were those of one truly poor. The worth of our confidence, after all, depends on whether our life in this world is like his, on whether we behave as he behaved and so make good our claim to be dwelling in him. The spirit of Fear made him so lowly that, though he was God, he subjected himself to men. “He lived in subjection to them,” the text says. He was so meek, owing to the spirit of Piety, as to be undisturbed amid the wrongs he suffered. He had good reason to refer most specially to these two virtues of his in the words, “Learn from me; I am meek and humble of heart.” Thanks to the spirit of knowledge he was so compassionate and largehearted that “when he caught sight of the city,” the city that would have none of him, “he wept over it.” His enemies were unable to disturb his meekness, but for a friend of his he lovingly distressed himself, he sighed deeply and wept over him.

The spirit of Fortitude gave him such love for justice that for its sake, though it cost him his life, he spoke out, he made no exceptions, he pronounced woe after woe on Scribe and Pharisee, and on Lawyer as well. Full of the mercy that comes the spirit of Counsel, he did not spare himself, “but gave his life as a ransom for the lives of many,” gave proof of love than which there is no greater. The spirit of Understanding bestowed on him a heart so clean that his holy soul, more clearly than any other creature, perceived him to whom it was joined, God. Such peace is his, through the spirit of Wisdom, that in his person all are established in peace with God. He is the only begotten Son by his very nature; his spiritual union with God makes him “the first-born among many brethren.”
Let this man, my brethren, be “your one teacher, Christ,” this man who is, for your sake, “a scroll written on the inside of the page and on the outside.” Read of this man by reading him, learn from him by learning him. Copy from this pattern the pattern both on the inside and on the outside of yourselves, in your interior and in your behavior. Your lives should teach others to live as he lived. That is why we are told, “Glorify and carry God about in your bodies.” May he himself make us this very gift

6 Isaac of Stella. Sermons on the Christian Year: Volume One. Trans. Hugh McCaffery. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979. 69-71.

Skema
2023-08-27
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
21st Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
August 27 – September 2, 2023

Sun
27
Mon
28
Tue
29
Wed
30
Thu
31
Fri
1
Sat
2

Office
21st Sunday
St Augustine
Martyrdom of St John Baptist
SS Warren & Amodeus
Weekday
Weekday
Memorial of BVM

Vigils
Josh 10:28-43
Josh 11:1-23
2 Cor 4:7-5:8
Josh 22:1-20
Josh 22:21-34
Josh 23:1-16
Josh 24:1-15

Lauds
Hos 14:2-10
Joel 1:1-8
Wis 3:1-9
Joel 1:9-12
Joel 1:13-20
Joel 2:1-6
Joel 2:7-11

Mass
121
425
634
427
428
429
430

1st
Isa 22:19-23
1 Thess 1:1-5, 8b-10
Jerm 1:17-19
1 Thess 2:9-13
1 Thess 3:7-13
1 Thess 4:1-8
1 Thess 4:9-11

2nd
Rom 11:33-36

Gospel
Matt 16:13-20
Matt 23:13-22
Mark 6:17-29
Matt 23:27-32
Matt 24:42-51
Matt 25:1-13
Matt 25:14-30

Vespers
Philem 12-25
Jas 1:1-11
Acts 13:16-26
Jas 1:12-18
Jas 1:19-27
Jas 2:1-13
Jas 2:14-17

Vigils Reading - 21st Sun ORD
2023-08-27
THE PILLAR OF THE CHURCHES
From a commentary attributed to St John Chrysostom 1
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Peter was to be entrusted with the keys of the Church, or rather, he was entrusted with the keys of heaven; to him would be committed the whole people of God. The Lord told him: Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you lose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Now Peter was inclined to be severe, so if he had been impeccable what forbearance would he have shown toward those he instructed? His falling into sin was thus a providential grace to teach him from experience to deal kindly with others.
Just think who it was whom God permitted to fall into sin – Peter himself, the head of the apostles, the firm foundation, the unbreakable rock, the most important member of the Church, the safe harbor, the strong tower; Peter who had said to Christ, Even if I have to die with you I will never deny you; Peter, who by divine revelation had confessed the truth: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
The gospel relates that on the night that Christ was betrayed Peter went indoors and was standing by the fire warming himself when a girl accosted him: You too were with that man yesterday, she said. But Peter answered: I do not know the man. Just now you said: Even if I have to die with you, and now you deny him and say: I do not know the man. Oh Peter, is this what you promised? You were not tortured or scourged; at the words of a mere slip of a girl you took refuge in denial!
Again the girl said to him: You too were with that man yesterday. Again he answered: I have no idea what man you mean.

Who was it that spoke to you, causing you to make this denial? Not some important person but… a doorkeeper, an outcast, a slave, someone of no account whatever. She spoke to you and you answered with a denial. What a strange thing – a girl, a prostitute, accosted Peter himself and disturbed his faith! Peter, the pillar, the rampart, could not bear the threat of a girl! She had but to speak and the pillar swayed, the rampart itself was shaken!
A third time she repeated: You too were with that man yesterday, but a third time he denied it. Finally Jesus looked at him, reminding him of his previous assertion. Peter understood, repented of his sin, and began to weep. Mercifully, however, Jesus forgave him his sin, because he knew that Peter, being a man, was subject to human frailty.
Now, as I said before, the reason God’s plan permitted Peter to sin was because he was to be entrusted with the whole people of God, and sinlessness added to his severity might have made him unforgiving toward his brothers and sisters. He fell into sin so that remembering his own fault and the Lord’s forgiveness, he might also forgive others out of love for them. This was God’s providential dispensation. He to whom the Church was to be entrusted, he, the pillar of the churches, the harbor of faith, was allowed to sin; Peter, the teacher of the world, was permitted to sin, so that having been forgiven himself he would be merciful to others

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press – NY 1999 – pg 118-119.

Vigils Reading - St Augustine
2023-08-28
PICK IT UP, READ IT
From the “Confessions” of St Augustine 2 ◊◊◊
I flung myself down under a fig tree… and gave free course to my tears. The streams of my eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to thee. And, not indeed in these words, but to this effect, I cried to thee: “And thou, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord? Wilt thou be angry forever? Oh, remember not against us our former iniquities.” For I felt that I was still enthralled by them. I sent up these sorrowful cries: “How long, how long? Tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not this very hour make an end to my uncleanness?”
I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when suddenly I heard the voice of a boy or a girl I know not which—coming from the neighboring house, chanting over and over again, “Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it.” Immediately I ceased weeping and began most earnestly to think whether it was usual for children in some kind of game to sing such a song, but I could not remember ever having heard the like. So, damming the torrent of my tears, I got to my feet, for I could not but think that this was a divine command to open the Bible and read the first passage I should light upon. For I had heard how Anthony, accidentally coming into church while the gospel was being read, received the admonition as if what was read had been addressed to him: “Go and sell what you have and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.” By such an oracle he was forthwith converted to thee. So I quickly returned to the bench where Alypius was sitting, for there I had put down the apostle’s book when I had left there. I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.” I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.

Closing the book… I began — now with a tranquil countenance — to tell it all to Alypius. And he in turn disclosed to me what had been going on in himself, of which I knew nothing. He asked to see what I had read. I showed him, and he looked on even further than I had read. I had not known what followed. But indeed it was this, “Him that is weak in the faith, receive.” This he applied to himself, and told me so. By these words of warning he was strengthened, and by exercising his good resolution and purpose–all very much in keeping with his character, in which, in these respects, he was always far different from and better than I — he joined me in full commitment without any restless hesitation.
Then we went in to my mother, and told her what happened, to her great joy. We explained to her how it had occurred — and she leaped for joy triumphant; and she blessed thee, who art “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.” For she saw that thou hadst granted her far more than she had ever asked for in all her pitiful and doleful lamentations. For thou didst so convert me to thee that I sought neither a wife nor any other of this world’s hopes, but set my feet on that rule of faith which so many years before thou hadst showed her in her dream about me. And so thou didst turn her grief into gladness more plentiful than she had ventured to desire, and dearer and purer than the desire she used to cherish of having grandchildren of my flesh

2 St Augustine. Confessions. Trans. Albert C. Outler. 1955. 108-109. Accessed Online: Aug, 2023.

Vigils Reading - Martyrdom of St John the Baptist
2023-08-29
ON THE DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
From the writing of Fr Jean Danielou 3
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John’s death appears as the supreme expression of sin. It revealed the sin of the world. Herodias’ action in obtaining the head of John the Baptist was a clear manifestation of the human desire to be self-sufficient and to set oneself up apart from God. It was a victory for the inhabitants of the earth who, as Revelation says, rejoiced over the death of the prophets, “because they had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth”. It was an expression of a triumphant world, a world which had done away with God. No longer could anything disturb its pretension that it was giving itself its own law. In that respect John’s death set a pattern: in a decisive moment of history, it summed up the whole world of sin.
John’s death was also the expression of the supreme condemnation of the world. His blood “fell upon this generation”, together with all the innocent blood that has been shed. Thus did it call for the supreme condemnation. It was the judgment on the world, bringing down on it the cup of wrath spoken of by Revelation. It showed forth the mystery of iniquity; it revealed clearly that mankind is the slave of sin. Just as John the Baptist marked the last stage in the preparation for the parousia in the long line of the prophets, so his death marked the last stage in the preparation for the parousia in the order of the mystery of sin…
But John’s death also marked the end of this history of condemnation for, after John’s blood, another blood was going to be shed. It would not fall as a condemnation upon those who shed it, but it would be poured out as redemption for many. John’s death prefigured the death of Jesus. Jesus wished to say first of all that his death resembled John’s: “I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of man will suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.’ The rejection and death of John the Baptist prefigured the rejection and death of Jesus. This latter death was really the high point of evil. Jesus fulfilled completely the figure of the servant of Yahweh rejected by the sinful world.

But John only prefigured Jesus, for with Jesus the shedding of blood takes on a different meaning. Blood was not shed for condemnation but for redemption. The unresolved conflict between prophets and sinners came to an end with the prophet who took the sins of the world upon himself. John had pointed out Jesus as that lamb. He knew that he himself still belonged to the world of denunciation of sin, not that of liberation from sin. The Spirit had been given to the prophets; blood had been poured out by sinners. The Spirit had been poured out as a blessing, but blood had been poured out as a curse. John’s blood was the last to belong to this order. Henceforth the blood which would gush forth from the side of Jesus would be spirit and life

3 THE WORK OF JOHN THE BAPTIST, by Jean Danielou S.J. (Helicon 1966) pp. 137-38.

Vigils Reading - SS Warren and Amadeus
2023-08-30
ST AMADEUS OF LAUSANNE4 ◊◊◊
Amadeus’ religious formation began, in fact, well before the days of his youth. He was only a few years past the days of his babyhood when his father, Lord Amadeus d’Hauterives of the ancient and noble house of Clermont, turned apostle of monastic life and, sometime around 1119, brought to the newly founded Cistercian abbey of Bonnevaux, near Vienne, not only himself but his ten-year old boy, Amadeus junior, and seventeen knight-companions as well. Whatever else the senior Amadeus had given up in coming to the poor, struggling community of Bonnevaux, he had not given up the idea that his son should receive a solid education. At Bonnevaux the lad did begin receiving an education, but hardly of the sort deemed suitable by his concerned father. The philosophy of education held by the saintly Abbot John… was that ‘the anointing of the Paraclete could teach the lad more in a second than the teachings of an apostate grammarian like Priscian in a stretch of many years. The force of the argument was lost on Amadeus senior. In a moment of depression he apostatized; and one day, probably in the year 1122, he took his son and rode off with him to the great abbey of Cluny, with its tradition of enlightened humanism.
The account of Amadeus senior’s brief, unhappy life as a monk of Cluny, his anguished repentance, and his return to Bonnevaux, belongs to another story. But if Bonnevaux could not provide Amadeus junior with a suitable education, neither could Cluny; for almost immediately the lad was sent for further studies to the court of his kinsman, Conrad of Hohenstaufen, the future Emperor Conrad. The three years Amadeus spent in Germany could hardly have sufficed to complete the education of the adolescent, but we nevertheless find him in 1125, shortly after

having fulfilled the minimum age-requirement for acceptance as a Cistercian novice, knocking at the gate of Clairvaux…
For fourteen years young Amadeus had the joy of living under the tutelage of Saint Bernard himself; and it was in this setting of Clairvaux, with all its contagious enthusiasm, devotio iocunda, and seriousness of purpose, that the stripling Amadeus grew to full manhood. The attainments of the mature Amadeus must have impressed even Saint Bernard, who, in 1139, deemed him ready to become abbot of the Savoyard abbey of Hautecombe. This monastery had been founded much earlier in the century, but had become affiliated with the Cistercian Order only in 1135. Amadeus’ abbacy coincided with the change of location of the original abbey and the construction of the monastic buildings; and it was also under Amadeus that the consolidation of the Cistercian ideals in the recently affiliated community took place.
The young abbot’s gifts as administrator and spiritual father were considerable enough to draw attention to him well outside the immediate sphere of the Cistercian family. For when the deplorable Guy de Maligny finally resigned his episcopal dignity in 1144, it was the thirty-four-year-old Abbot Amadeus of Hautecombe whom the clergy and faithful of Lausanne chose to succeed Bishop Guy. Accepting the burden of the episcopal office only at the insistence of Pope Lucius II, Bishop Amadeus remained very much Amadeus the monk. At no time during the troubled fourteen years of his episcopacy did the faithful of Lausanne find reason to regret their choice of pastor; and when Amadeus died on 27 August 1159, those who were with him were well aware that they were attending the deathbed of a saint. The liturgical memorial of Saint Amadeus of Lausanne is celebrated to this day, and is assigned in the Cistercian calendar of saints to August 30

4 Amadeus of Lausanne. Eight Homilies on the Praises of Blessed Mary. CF 18B. Trans. by Grace Perigo. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979. ix-x.

Vigils Reading
2023-08-31
THE JOY OF THE ONE WHO LIVES FOR GOD ALONE
From the letters of Saint Rafael Arnaiz5
◊◊◊
God alone. How difficult it is to understand and live these words, but once you do, even if just for a moment… there is nothing in the world that can trouble your soul… A great peace fills the hearts of those who live for God alone, and only those who desire God alone find peace…
He gives what the world and its creatures cannot. Our misery, forgetfulness, and ingratitude are covered with His infinite Mercy. The consolation that people so often deny us when we are in pain can be found in His cross, alone with Him on Calvary. The only Truth can be found in His Gospel, the words of eternal life. And as if that weren’t enough, everything else can be found in His Mother Mary…
Blessed are those who mourn, Jesus said on earth, by the water’s edge, and a crowd made up of the sick, the lame, the poor, and sinners followed Him. . . I believe that after turning toward Jesus, their faces, once tear stained from all their weeping, were transformed with joyful laughter, blessing their afflictions and miseries, which united them to Jesus. And Jesus looked at them with the tenderness that won over the world, and let Himself be loved by the poor, the afflicted, the sick, and sinners. And Jesus healed them, and Jesus consoled them, and Jesus forgave them…
What a great joy it is to realize you are beloved of God! To be counted among His friends, to follow Him step by step in Jerusalem with your eyes fixed on His divine countenance, blessing our own misery for having inspired Jesus to attract our gaze, so that He might reach our hearts, heal us, forgive us… and love us enough to die for us on a cross… That is true joy, the joy of the one who lives for God alone, who trusts in God alone, who hopes in God alone. And it is not a raucous joy; it is the serene joy of a soul who might still live on this earth, but expects nothing from this world. It is the joy of one who lives for Christ and dreams of Mary…

If the path proves difficult, or arduous, or long, it won’t matter, Jesus goes before us… We’ll press on, day or night, drunk with joy, utterly mad with it, not listening to the world… “God alone…” our heart will bellow… And that is how we shall keep our silence as we walk around in this world… Oh, we can indeed weep and suffer, but not because of our own crosses and sorrows, which are very small indeed, but rather… over how ungrateful we are toward Jesus, and how often we forget Mary… Mary. It wasn’t enough for God to give us His Son on a cross; He gave us Mary, too. How is it possible, brother, that we aren’t better than this?…
Neither the body, our soul’s prison, nor the world with all its creatures can damage the soul that hopes in God, no matter how harshly they chafe against it. We can conquer and disregard the body, and instead of fearing contact with creatures, love them, even searching them out in order to teach them the science that Christ taught us… love…
Let nothing trouble you, for He gives so much to the souls of His friends, only to have us shrug off the treasure that is Christ’s gentle yoke at every vain disturbance that life provides… God alone. Let us not grow tired of repeating it. If we were to take the intensity of the effort we put into earthly matters and put it into love for God instead… things would be different… With silence, prayer, and a whole lot of inner madness, we can wait well for what is to come… and it will all come

5 Saint Rafael Arnaiz. The Collected Works. Trans. Catherine Addington. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2022. 566-573

Vigils Reading
2023-09-01
THE GATE OF ENTRY TO THE CASTLE
From “The Interior Castle” by St Teresa of Avila6 ◊◊◊
Consider our soul to be like a castle made entirely out of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in heaven there are many dwelling places. For in reflecting upon it carefully, Sisters, we realize that the soul of the just person is nothing else but a paradise where the Lord says He finds His delight. So then, what do you think that abode will be like where a King so powerful, so wise, so pure, so full of all good things takes His delight? I don’t find anything comparable to the magnificent beauty of a soul and its marvelous capacity. Indeed, our intellects, however keen, can hardly comprehend it, just as they cannot comprehend God; but He Himself says that He created us in His own image and likeness…
It is a shame and unfortunate that through our own fault we don’t understand ourselves or know who we are. Wouldn’t it show great ignorance… if someone when asked who he was didn’t know, and didn’t know his father or mother or from what country he came? Well now, if this would be so extremely stupid, we are incomparably more so when we do not strive to know who we are, but limit ourselves to considering only roughly these bodies. Because we have heard and because faith tells us so, we know we have souls. But we seldom consider the precious things that can be found in this soul, or who dwells within it, or its high value. Consequently, little effort is made to preserve its beauty…
For if this castle is the soul, clearly one doesn’t have to enter it since it is within oneself. How foolish it would seem were we to tell someone to enter a room he is already in. But you must understand that there is a great difference in the ways one may be inside the castle. For there are many souls who are in the outer courtyard — which is where the guards stay — and don’t care at all about entering the castle, nor do they know what lies within that most precious place, nor who is within, nor even how many rooms it has…

Insofar as I can understand, the gate of entry to this castle is prayer and reflection. I don’t mean to refer to mental more than vocal prayer, for since vocal prayer is prayer it must be accompanied by reflection. A prayer in which a person is not aware of whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and of whom, I do not call prayer however much the lips may move… Anyone who has the habit of speaking before God’s majesty as though he were speaking to a slave, without being careful to see how he is speaking, but saying whatever comes to his head and whatever he has learned from saying at other times, in my opinion is not praying. Please God, may no Christian pray in this way…
Well now, we are not speaking to these crippled souls, for if the Lord Himself doesn’t come to order them to get up — as He did the man who waited at the side of the pool for thirty years — they are quite unfortunate and in serious danger. But we are speaking to other souls that, in the end, enter the castle. For even though they are very involved in the world, they have good desires and sometimes, though only once in a while, they entrust themselves to our Lord and reflect on who they are, although in a rather hurried fashion… Sometimes they do put all these things aside, and the self-knowledge and awareness that they are not proceeding correctly in order to get to the door is important.
Finally, they enter the first, lower rooms… They have done quite a bit just by having entered..

6 St Teresa of Avila. The Interior Castle. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. New York: Paulist Press, 1979. 35-39

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2023-09-02
WHY DID SHE NOT ASCEND WITH HIM IN HIS ASCENSION?
From the writing of St Amadeus of Lausanne7
◊◊◊
As I reflect and often ponder over in my mind the assumption of the Mother of God, a certain question comes to my mind, worthy of examination, profitable when answered, which will obviously be pleasant when it is shared. The question is why, when the Lord ascended into heaven, did his mother who embraced him with such affection not follow him at once? Since she was weighed down with no cloud of sin, soiled with no spot on her life, glowed more than a fire because of her charity, was brighter than the light by reason of her chastity, even outdistanced the denizens of heaven through the uniqueness of the virgin birth, it seemed strange that she was not carried at once to heaven with her Son.
Doubtless Enoch walked with God in purity of heart and was seen no more, for God took him. Elijah also, burning with the great fire of charity, is said to have been carried away by a chariot of fire and horses of fire. But she who surpassed Enoch in purity of heart and was greater than Elijah through the privilege of her love, why was she not straightway carried into heaven along with him whom she bore? For she was full of grace and blessed among women. She alone was found worthy to conceive true God from true God… She suffered with him in his death… She lived again in the Spirit in his resurrection… Why did she not ascend with him in his ascension?… Why was her holy desire, hotter than fire, held back?
Because that delay was no small comfort for Christ’s disciples. That delay did not detract from the mother and it brought to the world the medicines of salvation. For the Lord Jesus willed that on his return to his Father his disciples should enjoy maternal comfort and teaching. Though indeed they had been taught by the Spirit, yet they could be taught by her who put forth to the world the sun of righteousness and brought for us from a virgin meadow, from an unspotted womb, the fount of wisdom. In short, with wondrous goodness provision was made for the primitive Church which no longer saw God present in the flesh, that it might see his mother and be refreshed by the lovely sight…

For what is there so lovely, so seemly and delightful, as to behold the mother of the Creator and Redeemer of the world? If the sepulchre of that same Redeemer, which still exists today, is so delightful in our sight, if the stone on which rested the holy stock of Jesse is sought out by such a great concourse that it calls forth the affections and thoughts of all men and attracts everything by a kind of religious charm, what joy was it to see the Mother of God as long as the divine pity allowed her to stay with us on earth in our common life?…
For as soon as she was seen glowing with the fire of holy love, she sweetly inflamed the hearts of those near her, brought faith to the hearts, urged them to modesty, made what was honorable lovely, drawing them to righteousness. She breathed the flower of virginity, sowed the untilled field of chastity, portraying before their eyes the picture of humility and showing them the mark of truthfulness. Around her was an unfailing brightness and in her face a glowing fire. A swift-flowing river of fire went forth from her to set on fire her foes, to warm her friends, to help her neighbors, to burn up her enemies. It is said by those who understand the nature of living things that the poisonous snake by the mere sight of it and by its deadly breath kills whatever is near it. In the same way she, hotly inflamed by its nearness with the heat of the divine fire and sprinkled with the blazing flames of the Word, breathed forth the scent of the grace of the resurrection upon those who were far off and those who were near

7 Amadeus of Lausanne. Eight Homilies on the Praises of Blessed Mary. CF 18B. Trans. by Grace Perigo. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979. 59-61.

Skema - 22nd Week Ordinary Time
2023-09-03
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
22nd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
September 3 – 9, 2023

Sun
3
Mon
4
Tue
5
Wed
6
Thu
7
Fri
8
Sat
9

Office
22nd Sunday
Weekday Labor Day
St Teresa of Calcutta
Weekday
Office for the Dead
Nativity of the BVM
St Peter Claver

Vigils
Josh 24:16-33
Ruth 1:1-22
Ruth 2:1-23
Ruth 3:1-18
Ruth 4:1-22
Gen 3:8-20
1 Sam 1:1-19

Lauds
Joel 2:12-17
Joel 2:18-19, 23-27
Joel 3:1-5
Joel 4:1-3, 11-16
Joel 4:17-21
Zech 8:1-8
Amos 1:1-5

Mass
124
431, 559
432
433
434
636
436

1st
Jer 20:7-9
1 Thess 4:13-18
1 Thess 5:1-6, 9-11
Col 1:1-8
Col 1:9-14
Micah 5:1-4a
Col 1:21-23

2nd
Rom 12:1-2

Gospel
Matt 16:21-27
Matt 13:54-58
Luke 4:31-37
Luke 4:38-44
Luke 5:1-11
Matt 1:18-23
Luke 6:1-5

Vespers
Jas 2:18-26
Jas 3:1-5a
Jas 3:5b-12
Jas 3:13-18
Jas 4:1-4
Rom 8:28-39
Jas 4:5-12

Vigils Reading
2023-09-03
TO TAKE UP ONE’S CROSS
From a commentary by St Augustine 1
◊◊◊
Our Lord’s command seems hard and heavy, that anyone who wishes to follow him must renounce himself. But no command is hard and heavy when it comes from one who helps to carry it out. That other saying of his is true: My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Whatever is hard in his commands is made easy by love.
We know what great things love can accomplish, even though it is often base and sensual. We know what hardships people have endured, what intolerable indignities they have borne to attain the object of their love. What we love indicates what sort of people we are, and therefore making a decision about this should be our one concern in choosing a way of life. Why be surprised if people who set their hearts on Christ and want to follow him renounce themselves out of love? If we lose ourselves through self-love we must surely find ourselves through self-renunciation.
Who would not wish to follow Christ to supreme happiness, perfect peace, and lasting security? We shall do well to follow him there, but we need to know the way. The Lord Jesus had not yet risen from the dead when he gave this invitation. His passion was still before him; he had still to endure the cross, to face outrages, reproaches, scourging; to be pierced by thorns, wounded, insulted, taunted and put to death. The road seems rough, you draw back, you do not want to follow Christ. Follow him just the same. The road we made for ourselves is rough, but Christ has leveled it by passing over it himself.
Who does not desire to be exalted? Everyone enjoys a high position. But self-abasement is the step that leads to it. Why take strides that are too big for you – do you want to fall instead of going up? Begin with this step and you will find yourself climbing. The two disciples who said: Lord, command that one of us shall sit at your right hand in your kingdom and the other at your left had no wish to think about this step of self-abasement. They wanted to reach the top without noticing the step that led there. The Lord showed them the step, however, by his reply: Can you drink the cup that I am to drink? You who aim at the highest exaltation, can you drink the cup of humiliation? He did not simply give the general command: Let him renounce himself and follow me but added: Let him take up his cross and follow me.
What does it mean to take up one’s cross? It means bearing whatever is unpleasant – that is following me. Once you begin to follow me by conforming your life to my commandments, you will find many to contradict you, forbid you, or dissuade you, and some of these will be people who call themselves followers of Christ. Therefore if you meet with threats, flattery, or opposition, let this be your cross; pick it up and carry it – do not collapse under it. These words of our Lord are like an exhortation to endure martyrdom. If you are persecuted you ought, surely, to make light of any suffering for the sake of Christ.
1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press – NY 1999 – pg 120-121.

Vigils Reading
2023-09-04
ON WORK AND PRAYER
From “The Divine Milieu” by Fr. Teilhard de Chardin2
◊◊◊
Our work appears to us, in the main, as a way of earning our daily bread. But its essential virtue is of a higher order: through it we complete in ourselves the subject of the divine union; and through it again we augment in some sense, in relation to ourselves, the divine end of that union, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence whatever our human function may be, whether artist or workingman or scholar, we can, if we are Christians, speed towards the object of our work as though towards an outlet open on the supreme fulfillment of our beings.
We ought to accustom ourselves to this basic truth till we are steeped in it, until it becomes as familiar to us as the perception of relief or the reading of words. God, in all that is most living and incarnate in Him, is not withdrawn from us beyond the tangible sphere; He is waiting for us at every moment in our action, in our work of the moment. He is in some sort at the tip of my pen, my spade, my brush, my needle – of my heart and of my thought. By pressing the stroke, the line, or the stitch, on which I am engaged, to its ultimate natural finish, I shall arrive at the ultimate aim towards which my innermost will tends.
I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that nine out of ten practicing Christians feel that work is always at the level of a ‘spiritual encumbrance.’ In spite of the practice of right intentions, and the day offered every morning to God, the general run of the faithful dimly feel that time spent at the office or the studio, in the fields or in the factory, is time diverted from prayer and adoration.
On the contrary, try, with God’s help, to perceive the connection even physical and natural which binds your labor with the building of the Kingdom of Heaven; try to realize that heaven itself smiles upon you and, through your works, draws you to itself; then, as you leave church for the noisy streets, you will remain with only one feeling, that of continuing to immerse yourself in God. If your work is dull or exhausting, take refuge in the inexhaustible and becalming interest of progressing in the divine life. If your work enthralls you, then allow the spiritual impulse which matter communicates to you to enter into your taste for God whom you know better and desire more under the veil of His works. Never, at any time, “whether eating or drinking,” consent to do anything without first of all realizing its significance and constructive value in Christ Jesus, and pursuing it with all your might. This is not simply a commonplace precept for salvation: it is the very path to sanctity for each man according to his state and calling. For what is sanctity in a creature if not to cleave to God with the maximum of his strength? And what does that maximum cleaving to God mean if not the fulfillment — in the world organized around Christ — of the exact function, be it lowly or eminent, to which that creature is destined both by natural endowment and by supernatural gift?… Right from the hands that knead the dough, to those that consecrate it, the great and universal Host should be prepared and handled in a spirit of adoration.
May the time come when men, having been awakened to a sense of the close bond linking all the movements of this world in the unique work of the Incarnation, shall be unable to give themselves to a single one of their tasks without illuminating it with the clear vision that their work – however elementary it may be – is received and made use of by a Center of the universe.
2 The Divine Milieu, New York, 1960, pp. 32ff.

Vigils Reading - St Teresa of Calcutta
2023-09-05
GENEROSITY
From the book “In My Own Words” by St Mother Teresa3
◊◊◊
Without a spirit of sacrifice, without a life of prayer, without an intimate attitude of penance, we would not be capable of carrying our work. We feed ourselves, not to please our senses, but to show our Lord that we want to work for him and with him, to live a life of sacrifice and reparation…
One night, a man came to our house to tell me that a Hindu family, a family of eight children, had not eaten anything for days. They had nothing to eat. I took enough rice for a meal and went to their house. I could see the hungry faces, the children with their bulging eyes. The sight could not have been more dramatic! The mother took the rice from my hands, divided it in half and went out. When she came back a little later, I asked her: “Where did you go? What did you do?” She answered, “They also are hungry.” “They” were the people next door, a Muslim family with the same number of children to feed and who did not have any food either. That mother was aware of the situation. She had the courage and the love to share her meager portion of rice with others. In spite of her circumstances, I think she felt very happy to share with her neighbors the little I had taken her. In order not to take away her happiness, I did not take her anymore rice that night. I took her some more the following day.
“What is a Christian?” someone asked a Hindu man. He responded, “The Christian is someone who gives.” I ask you one thing: do not tire of giving, but do not give your leftovers. Give until it hurts, until you feel the pain. Open your hearts to the love God instills in them. God loves you tenderly. What he gives you is not to be kept under lock and key, but to be shared. The more you save, the less you will be able to give. The less you have, the more you will know how to share. Let us ask God, when it comes time to ask him for something, to help us to be generous.
It was late in the day (around ten at night) when the doorbell rang. I opened the door and found a man shivering from the cold. “Mother Teresa, I heard that you just received an important prize. When I heard this I decided to offer you something too. Here you have it: this is what I collected today.” It was little, but in his case it was everything. I was moved more than by the Nobel prize.
One day a young couple came to our house and asked for me. They gave me a large amount of money. I asked them, “Where did you get so much money?” They answered, “We got married two days ago. Before we got married we had decided not to celebrate the wedding, not to buy wedding clothes, not to have a reception or a honeymoon. We wanted to give you the money I saved.” I know what such a decision meant, especially for a Hindu family. That is why I asked them, “But how did you think of such a thing?” “We love each other so much,” they answered, “that we wanted to share the joy of our love with those you serve.”
To share: what a beautiful thing! We should learn how to give. If we worry too much about ourselves, we won’t have time for others.
3 In My Own Words – The Words of Mother Teresa. Compiled by Jose Luis Gonzales-Balado. Accessed Online: Aug. 28, 2023.

Vigils Reading
2023-09-06
THE WOUND OF LOVE
From the writings of St Gertrud the Great4
◊◊◊
I had laid a certain person under an obligation to slip these words on my behalf into her daily prayer before the crucifix. She was to say, ‘By your heart that was wounded through and through, most loving Lord, pierce her heart with… your love, so much so that it may be unable to possess anything that is of this earth, but may be possessed by the unique power of your divinity’. It was these prayers, I believe, that spurred you into action…
Out of the overflowing generosity of your goodness and by the permission of your mercy I was coming to receive the sacrament of your most holy body and blood, when you infused me with an earnest longing which compelled me to break out and say, ‘Lord, I admit that, as far as my merits go, I am not worthy to receive the least of your gifts. But by the merits and earnest longing of all those around I beseech your loving-kindness to pierce my heart with the arrow of your love’. Soon I became aware that the force of these words had reached your divine Heart, as much because of an inflow of inner grace as because of the manifestation of an unmistakable sign on an image of your crucifixion.
For when I had received the life-giving sacrament, and had returned to my place in choir, it seemed to me as if something like a ray of the sun came out from the right-hand side of the crucified Christ painted on the page, that is, from the wound in the side. It had a sharp point like an arrow and, astonishingly, it stretched forward and, lingering thus for a while, it gently elicited my love. But my longing was not thus satisfied until the following Wednesday when, after mass, the faithful honor the generous gift of your incarnation and annunciation, which all must adore. I too, although less worthily, was concentrating on this devotion. Suddenly you were there unexpectedly, opening a wound in my heart with these words: ‘May all your emotions come together in this place; that is may the sum total of your delight, hope, joy, sorrow, fear and your other emotions be fixed firmly in my love’.
I immediately remembered that I had sometimes heard that wounds should be washed, anointed and bound up. At that time you had not yet taught me, once and for all, how to do this. But after a while you revealed it more fully to me, by means of someone who to your praise… has attuned her inner ear much more reliably and more sensitively than I have… to catch the continual flow of your loving whispers. Her advice to me was that, while worshiping with constant devotion the love of your Heart hanging on the cross, I should draw water of devotion, to wash away every offense… so that I might direct all my thoughts, words, and deeds, given strength by love, toward you, and in this way cling inseparably to you.
I offer you mourning for my far too numerous offenses against your divinely noble goodness, which I have assaulted so variously, in thought, word and deed; but especially in that I made such faithless, careless and disrespectful use of the gifts of yours. For if you had handed over to me, unworthy as I am, a hempen thread in memory of yourself, I should rightly have treated it with more conscientious respect!… Therefore, Giver of gifts… give the reader of these words… pity for you, in that your passion for souls has for so long confined a jewel… to the muddy bilge-water of my heart! While offering prayer and thanksgiving, may [the reader] extol your mercy… In this way some reparation may be made to you for my deficiency.
4 St Gertrud the Great of Helfta. The Herald of God’s Loving-Kindness: Books 1& 2. CF 35. Trans. Alexandra Barratt. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1991. 112-115.
9

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2023-09-07
THE CROSS
From “Gravity and Grace” by Simone Weil5
◊◊◊
Christ healing the sick, raising the dead… that is the humble, human, almost low part of his mission. The supernatural part is the sweat of blood, the unsatisfied longing for human consolation, the supplication that he might be spared, the sense of being abandoned by God. The abandonment at the supreme moment of the crucifixion, what an abyss of love on both sides! ‘My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?’ There we have the real proof that Christianity is something divine… The cross…
The tree of life was a wooden beam. Something which does not give fruit, but only vertical movement. “The Son of Man must be lifted up and he will draw all men unto himself.’… Leaves and fruit are a waste of energy if our only wish is to rise. Adam and Eve sought for divinity in…fruit. But it is prepared for us on dead wood… where a corpse is hanging. We must look for the secret of our kinship with God in our mortality.
God wears himself out through the infinite thickness of time and space in order to reach the soul and to captivate it. If it allows a pure and utter consent (though brief as a lightning flash) to be torn from it, then God conquers that soul. And when it has become entirely his he abandons it. He leaves it completely alone and it has in its turn, but gropingly, to cross the infinite thickness of time and space in search of him whom it loves. It is thus that the soul, starting from the opposite end, makes the same journey that God made towards it. And that is the cross… We are what is furthest from God, situated at the extreme limit from which it is not absolutely impossible to come back to him…
In order that we should realize the distance between ourselves and God it was necessary that God should be a crucified slave. For we do not realize distance except in the downward direction. It is much easier to imagine ourselves in the place of God the Creator than in the place of Christ crucified…
Of the links between God and man, love is the greatest. It is as great as the distance to be crossed. So that the love may be as great as possible, the distance is as great as possible. That is why evil can extend to the extreme limit beyond which the very possibility of good disappears. Evil is permitted to touch this limit… How could that which is good love that which is evil without suffering? And that which is evil suffers too in loving that which is good. The mutual love of God and man is suffering…
For if he had made the best of all possible worlds, it would mean that he could not do very much. God crosses through the thickness of the world to come to us…
Suffering is at the same time quite external with regard to innocence and quite essential to it. Blood on snow. Innocence and evil… An innocent being who suffers sheds the light of salvation upon evil. Such a one is the visible image of the innocent God. That is why a God who loves man and a man who loves God have to suffer…
5 Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963. 79-83.

Vigils Reading - Nativity of the BVM
2023-09-08
MARY’S BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD
From a homily by Ogier of Locedio6
◊◊◊
This most holy Virgin Mary was of royal lineage: Joachim was her father, and Anne her mother. She is that mighty woman presaged by the Lord when, at the time of Eve’s undoing, he told the serpent, ‘You shall lie in wait for her heel, and she shall trample your head.’ She is that mighty Virgin who trampled the head of the dragon by her power… Through her the Lord delivered our first parents, Adam and Eve, from everlasting death… She is that valiant woman, endowed with strength and choicest virtue, of whom Solomon spoke: Who shall find a valiant woman? Hers is a prize far beyond all bounds. Indeed, her prize was none other than the Son of God the Father, who from far beyond all bounds… marvelously and ineffably entered the enclosure of the virginal womb…
How greatly God’s angels rejoiced when thus the restoration of humankind was secured! The whole world leapt for joy, heaven thundered with praise, the earth danced for delight, her song of joy soon joined by the skies above and the seas below… so the whole universe took on its pristine glory as that most blessed daughter was told: Virgin Mother of God, your birth is news of joy to all the world! If therefore all the orders of angels rejoice in the birth of Mary the Mother of God, let all orders of monks rejoice therein as well. If heaven and earth rejoice, then all Christ’s consecrated virgins also. Let everyone rejoice… with great joy, for the birth of Mary the sacred Virgin spells joy for the whole of heaven and earth.
Thus Mary, the morning star that drives away all darkness, came forth from her mother’s womb beautiful as the moon, sought-out as the sun, dreadful as a well-armed camp, the glorious light that came forth from the darkness, within whose womb Light itself would shine. From Jesse’s root there came the Virgin who would bear the flower. It is she who says, I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys’. Before that fragrant flower all other flowers lose the sweetness of their scent… By means of Anna and Joachim God created that remedy whereby humankind would be freed from everlasting death. Through… blessed Mary, the Lord gives light to the blind, heals the sick, raises the dead, frees us from sin, justifies us through grace, and crowns us with his glory.
Let therefore all the just rejoice at the birth of her through whom they have been justified. Let the blessed rejoice who through her have been made blessed… Let them approach the blessed child, the sublime Queen on high. Let them embrace her, let them cradle her in the arms of perfect love. Let them bear her in their hearts, her praises ever on their tongues, so as to possess her with their love. For this is no woman to be slighted, this is no ordinary mother: this is blessed Mary, wholly sweet and lovable…
She is the sweetness of myrrh, the absence of all bitterness. She who was never to dwell in the bitterness of sin is rightly named Mary. She never sinned nor ever wished to sin, in thought or word or deed. Wholly beautiful, there was no blemish in her; only thus could she become the Mother of the Lord…
6 Ogier of Locedio. In Praise of God’s Holy Mother. Trans. D. Martin Jenni. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2006. 34-40.
13

Vigils Reading - St Peter Claver
2023-09-09
ST PETER CLAVER
THE SLAVE OF THE NEGROES
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints
◊◊◊
He was born in Catalonia, about 1581, and as he showed fine qualities of mind and spirit was destined for the Church and sent to study at the University of Barcelona. Here he graduated with distinction [and entered] the Society of Jesus. He left Spain forever in April 1610, and was ordained priest at Cartagena, in what is now the republic of Colombia. By the time of his ordination the slave trade had been established in the Americas for nearly a hundred years, and the port of Cartagena was one of its principal centers, being conveniently situated as a clearing house…
At this time the leader of the work among the Negroes was Father Alfonso de Sandoval, a great Jesuit missionary who spent forty years in the service of the slaves, and after working under him Peter Claver declared himself “the slave of the Negroes forever”. Although by nature shy and without self-confidence he threw himself into the work with method and organization. He enlisted bands of assistants, and as soon as a slave-ship entered the port he went to wait on its living freight. The slaves were disembarked and shut up in the yards. Into these yards or sheds St. Peter Claver plunged, with medicines and food, bread, brandy, lemons, tobacco to distribute among the Negroes, some of whom were too frightened, others too ill, to accept them. “We must speak to them with our hands, before we try to speak to them with our lips”, Claver would say. When he came upon any who were dying he baptized them, and then sought out all babies born on the voyage that he might baptize them. He had a band of seven interpreters, one of whom spoke four Negro dialects, and with their help he taught the slaves and prepared them for baptism, not only in groups but individually. He made use of pictures, showing our Lord suffering on the cross; above all he tried to instill in them… some idea that as redeemed human beings they had dignity and worth, even if as slaves…
It is estimated that in forty years St. Peter Claver instructed and baptized over 300,000 slaves. When there was time and opportunity he took the same trouble to teach them how properly to use the sacrament of penance, and in one year is said to have heard the confessions of more than five thousand. Many of the stories both of the heroism and of the miraculous powers of St. Peter Claver concern his nursing of sick and diseased Negroes, in circumstances often that no one else, black or white, could face.
In 1650… sickness attacked his emaciated and weakened body, and he was recalled to the Jesuit residence at Cartagena. But here a virulent epidemic had begun to show itself, and one of the first to be attacked among the Jesuits was the debilitated missionary, so that his death seemed at hand. After receiving the last sacraments he recovered, but he was a broken man. For the rest of his life pain hardly left him, and a trembling in his limbs made it impossible for him to celebrate Mass. He…would sometimes hear confessions. Otherwise he remained in his cell, not only inactive but even forgotten and neglected.
On September 6, 1654 he was taken very ill and became comatose. The rumor of his approaching end spread round the city, everyone suddenly remembered the saint again, and numbers came to kiss his hands before it was too late; his cell was stripped of everything that could be carried off as a relic. St. Peter Claver never fully recovered consciousness, and died two days later on the birthday of our Lady. The civil authorities who had looked askance at his solicitude for mere Negro slaves, and the clergy, who had called his zeal indiscreet and his energy wasted, now vied with one another to honor his memory…
He was canonized in 1888 and was declared by Pope Leo XIII patron of all missionary enterprises among Negroes.

Skema
2023-09-10
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
23rd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
September 10 – 16, 2023

Sun
10
Mon
11
Tue
12
Wed
13
Thu
14
Fri
15
Sat
16

Office
23rd Sunday
Weekday
Weekday
St John Chrysostom
Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Our Lady of Sorrows
SS Cornelius & Cyprian

Vigils
1 Sam 1:20-2:11
1 Sam 2:12-36
1 Sam 3:1-21
1 Sam 4:1-22
Isa 52:13-53:12
2 Macc 7:20-41
1 Sam 5:1-12

Lauds
Amos 1:6-10
Amos 1:11-15
Amos 2:1-5
Amos 2:6-16
Isa 45:21-25
Baruch 4:9b-20
Amos 3:1-8

Mass
127
437
438
439
638
639
442

1st
Ezek 33:7-9
Col 1:24-2:3
Col 2:6-15
Col 3:1-11
Num 21:4b-9
Heb 5:7-9
1 Tim 1:15-17

2nd
Rom 13:8-10

Gospel
Matt 18:15-20
Luke 6:6-11
Luke 6:12-19
Luke 6:20-26
John 3:13-17
John 19:25-27
Luke 6:43-49

Vespers
Jas 4:13-17
Jas 5:1-6
Jas 5:7-12
Jas 5:13-20
1 Cor 1:18-25
1 Pet 4:12-16
1 Pet 1:1-7

Vigils Reading - 23rd Sun ORD
2023-09-10
IF YOUR BROTHER SINS AGAINST YOU
From a commentary by St Jerome
◊◊◊
If our brother sins against us and injures us for any reason, we have the power, or rather the obligation, to forgive. For we are commanded to forgive debts for our debtors. But if anyone sins against God, it no longer depends on our choice. For the Holy Scripture says: “If a man sins against a man, the priest will pray for him; but if he sins against God, who will pray for him?” In contrast with this, we are mild about an injury to God, but annoyed to the point of hatred about insults to ourselves! Now our brother ought to be corrected privately. Otherwise, he may all at once lose his shame and modesty and continue in sin. And if he in fact listens, we have gained his soul, and by the salvation of another we have achieved salvation for ourselves as well.
On the other hand, if he is unwilling to listen, a brother should be summoned. And if he does not listen to that one, even a third brother should be summoned. This is done either out of zeal for correcting him or for the purpose of meeting together with witnesses. Next, if he is unwilling to listen to them, then the matter must be told to many. In this way they formally renounce the one who could not be saved by shame, in the hope that he might be saved by their reproaches. Now when it is said: “Let him be to you as a pagan and a tax collector,” it is shown that the one who has the name of believer but who does the works of unbelievers is more accursed than those who are openly Gentiles. For they are called “tax collectors” as a figure of speech referring to those who pursue worldly gain and collect taxes by means of business, fraud, theft, crimes, and perjury…

Now the secret response or unspoken thought of this brother who despises [the Church] could be: Well, if you despise me, I also will despise you. If you condemn me, you too will be condemned by my sentence of judgment. Because of this possibility, Jesus gave authority to the apostles to ensure that those who are condemned by such measures may know that the human verdict is corroborated by a divine verdict, and whatever is bound on earth is equally bound in heaven…
Therefore, a reward is even promised that we might hasten toward peace more solicitously, since he says that he will be in the midst of the two or three. This accords with that [famous] example of the tyrant who made prisoners of two men who were friends. One of them left his friend as a hostage in his place and went back to see his mother. By keeping the one man in prison while releasing the other, the tyrant wanted to test them. When the friend returned on the appointed day, the tyrant so admired the fidelity of both men that he begged them to enroll himself as the third partner in their friendship. We can also interpret this spiritually, that where the spirit, soul, and body agree and do not have a war of diverse wills between them, as the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, concerning any matter that they ask, they will procure it from the Father

1 St Jerome. The Fathers of the Church: St Jerome – Commentary on Matthew. Vol. 117. Trans. Thomas P. Scheck. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008. 211- 212.

Vigils Reading
2023-09-11
THE RISE OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER
From the “Exordium Magnum” of Conrad of Eberbach2 ◊◊◊
By the generous grace of God, the number of persons in the church at Cîteaux increased and the mother who had hitherto mourned in sadness because she was barren began to rejoice in many children. That vine of the Lord of hosts began to send out shoots far and wide…
In those days the abbeys which that church founded in various dioceses grew by the great and potent blessing of the Lord so much that within eight years, from the time of the foundation of La Ferté which was the first daughter house of Cîteaux… twelve monasteries had been founded and built by those who were originally sent out from Cîteaux and by others who were raised up by them. It was a pleasant enough sight, and in this activity they stood out as imitators of the most blessed Father Benedict, whose life and statutes they desired with all their hearts to emulate, for it is written of that father that he built twelve monasteries which handed down the precepts of his Rule to be observed. So in the renewal of this way of life according to that Rule they established twelve monasteries which passed on the cup of salvation to the whole world, like the twelve apostles of Christ, drunk with the grace of the Holy Spirit.
In fact, before the Cistercian abbeys began to flourish, the most reverend father Stephen, inspired by the Holy Spirit and in council with his brothers, set out to write down a decree which was called the Charter of Charity. In it we are taught how the communities of our Order, dispersed throughout various parts of the world and divided by various languages, have been bound by the cord of marvelous charity and the manifestation of mutual respect and have become one church, one way of life, even one body in Christ. He decided to call this decree the Charter of Charity because by its statutes all monetary exactions were rejected and only what belongs to charity and the salvation of souls was maintained in all things human and divine. Among those things which the blessed man and his brothers had with marvelous foresight decreed for the preservation of peace and charity and to keep the discipline of the holy Order from censure, this was especially found worthy of acceptance: that all the abbots of the Order were to meet once a year at Cîteaux and hold a General Chapter at which they should discuss very carefully the whole ordering of their life and the unbroken peace which was very deliberately to be kept among themselves.

To this end, their mode of life was quite often examined and consolidated by the authority of the Holy Scriptures so that it could not easily grow tepid but would be able to thrive over the space of many years. It is for this reason that from then until now the reverend fathers of the Cistercian Order visit their motherhouse once a year to hold a General Chapter, and by the anointing of the Holy Spirit they formulate statutes, a full description of which is contained in the Book of Determinations. So, from diverse elements they confected an antidote for the health of souls and endeavored to discern what was necessary throughout the whole brotherhood of our congregation

2 Conrad of Eberbach. The Great Beginning of Cîteaux: A Narrative of the Beginning of the Cistercian Order. CF 72. Trans. Benedicta Ward, SLG, and Paul Savage. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2012. 109-111.

Vigils Reading
2023-09-12
THE SOUL’S ENCOUNTER WITH GOD
From the writings of Blessed Madeleine Delbrêl3
◊◊◊
We do not need to find silence; we already have it. The day we lack silence is the day we have not learned how to keep it. All the noises around us cause much less disturbance than we ourselves do. The real noise is the echo things make within us… Silence is the place where the Word of God dwells; if we limit ourselves to repeating this word, then we can speak without ceasing to be silent… We make our souls into so many caves of silence wherein the word of God can dwell and resound…
Encountering him in all places is what creates our solitude. For us, being truly alone means sharing in God’s solitude. God is so great that nothing can find room anywhere else but within him. For us, the whole world is like a face-to-face meeting with the one whom we cannot escape… We encounter his imprint on the earth. We encounter his Providence in the laws of science. We encounter Christ in all these “little ones who are his own”… We encounter Christ rejected, in the sin that wears a thousand faces. How could we possibly have the heart to mock these people or to hate them, this multitude of sinners with whom we rub shoulders? The solitude of God in fraternal charity; it is Christ serving Christ, Christ in the one who is serving and Christ in the one who is being served…
We know that only obedience can root us in his death… The tiny circumstances of life are faithful… they do not leave us alone for a moment; and the “yeses” we have to say to them follow continuously, one after the other. When we surrender to them without resistance we find ourselves wonderfully liberated from ourselves. We float in Providence like a cork on the ocean waters…

When we live with others, obedience also means we set aside our own tastes and leave things in the place others have put them. In this way, life becomes an epic film in slow motion. It does not make our head spin. It does not take our breath away. Little by little, thread by thread, it eats away at the old man’s frame, which cannot be mended and must be made new from the ground up. When we thus become accustomed to giving up our will to so many tiny things, we will no longer find it hard… And our hope is that death, too, will be easy. It will not be a big ordeal, but rather the outcome of small ordinary sufferings, to which we have given our assent as they passed, one after the other…
We believe that doing little things with God and as God does is as much a way of loving him as doing great deeds for him. Besides, we’re not very well in- formed about the greatness of our acts. There are nevertheless two things we know for sure: first, whatever we do can’t help but be small; and second, whatever God does is great. And so we go about our activities with a sense of great peace. We know that all our work consists in not shifting about under grace; in not choosing what we would do; and that it is God who acts through us… Each docile act makes us receive God totally and give God totally, in a great freedom of spirit.
And thus life becomes a celebration. Each tiny act is an extraordinary event, in which heaven is given to us, in which we are able to give heaven to others. It makes no difference what we do, whether we take in hand a broom or a pen. Whether we speak or keep silent. Whether we are sewing or holding a meeting, caring for a sick person or tapping away at the typewriter. Whatever it is, it’s just the outer shell of an amazing inner reality: the soul’s encounter with God, renewed at each moment, in which, at each moment, the soul grows in grace and becomes ever more beautiful for her God

3 Blessed Madeleine Delbrêl. We, The Ordinary People Of The Streets. Accessed Online: Sep. 2023.

Vigils Reading - St John Chrysostom
2023-09-13
ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
From “Historical Sketches” by St John Henry Cardinal Newman4 ◊◊◊
Whence this devotion to St. John Chrysostom, which leads me to dwell upon the thought of him, and makes me kindle at his name, when so many other great Saints…command indeed my veneration, but exert no personal claim upon my heart? Many holy people have died in exile, many holy people have been successful preachers; and what more can we write upon St. Chrysostom’s monument than this, that he was eloquent and that he suffered persecution? He is not an Athanasius, expounding a sacred dogma with a luminousness which is almost an inspiration. Nor, except by the contrast, does he remind us of that Ambrose who kept his ground obstinately in an imperial city, and fortified himself against the heresy of a court by the living rampart of a devoted population. Nor is he Gregory or Basil, rich in the literature and philosophy of Greece, and embellishing the Church with the spoils of heathenism. Nor is he a Jerome, so dead to the world that he can imitate the point and wit of its writers without danger to himself or scandal to his brethren. He has not trampled upon heresy, nor smitten emperors, nor beautified the house or the service of God, nor knit together the portions of Christendom, nor founded a religious order, nor built up the framework of doctrine, nor expounded the science of the Saints; yet I love him, as I love David or St. Paul.
How am I to account for it? I consider St. Chrysostom’s charm to lie in his intimate sympathy and compassionateness for the whole world, not only in its strength, but in its weakness; in the lively regard with which he views everything that comes before him, taken in the concrete, whether as made after its own kind or as gifted with a nature higher than its own. It is the interest which he takes in all things, not so far as God has made them alike, but as he has made them different from each other. I speak of the discriminating affectionateness with which he accepts everyone for what is personal and unlike others….

I speak of the kindly spirit and the genial temper with which he looks round at all things which this wonderful world contains; of the graphic fidelity with which he notes them down upon the tablets of his mind, and of the promptitude and propriety with which he calls them up as arguments or illustrations in the course of his teaching as the occasion requires. Possessed though he be by the fire of ardent charity, he has not lost one fibre, he does not miss one vibration of the complicated whole of human sentiment and affection; like the miraculous bush in the desert, which for all the flame that wrapt it round, was not thereby consumed.
That loving scrutiny, with which he follows the Apostles as they reveal themselves to us in their writings, he practices in various ways towards all people, living and dead, high and low, those whom he admires and those whom he weeps over. He writes as one who was ever looking out with sharp but kind eyes upon the world of humans and their history; and hence he has always something to produce about them, new or old, to the purpose of his argument, whether from books or from the experience of life. Head and heart were full to overflowing with a stream of mingled “wine and milk”, of rich vigorous thought and affectionate feeling. This is why his manner of writing is so rare and special; and why, when once a student enters into it, he will ever recognize him, wherever he meets with extracts from him… And therefore I have a devotion for him

4 Historical Sketches, II, pp. 284-287.

Vigils Reading - Exaltation of the Holy Cross
2023-09-14
GIVE ME TO DRINK
From “Story of a Soul” by St Thérèse of Lisieux5 ◊◊◊
One Sunday, looking at a picture of Our Lord on the Cross, I was struck by the blood flowing from one of the divine hands. I felt a great pang of sorrow when thinking this blood was falling to the ground without anyone’s hastening to gather it up. I was resolved to remain in spirit at the foot of the Cross and to receive the divine dew. I understood I was then to pour it out upon souls. The cry of Jesus on the Cross sounded continually in my heart: “I thirst!” These words ignited within me an unknown and very living fire. I wanted to give my Beloved to drink and I felt myself consumed with a thirst for souls. As yet, it was not the souls of priests that attracted me, but those of great sinners; I burned with the desire to snatch them from the eternal flames.
To awaken my zeal God showed me my desires were pleasing to Him. I heard talk of a great criminal just condemned to death for some horrible crimes; everything pointed to the fact that he would die impenitent. I wanted at all costs to prevent him from falling into hell, and to attain my purpose I employed every means imaginable. Feeling that of myself I could do nothing, I offered to God all the infinite merits of Our Lord, the treasures of the Church, and finally I begged Céline to have a Mass offered for my intentions… Far from laughing at me, she asked if she could help convert my sinner. I accepted gratefully, for I would have wished all creatures would unite with me to beg grace for the guilty man.
I felt in the depths of my heart certain that our desires would be granted, but to obtain courage to pray for sinners I told God I was sure He would pardon the poor, unfortunate Pranzini; that I’d believe this even if he went to his death without any signs of repentance or without having gone to confession. I was absolutely confident in the mercy of Jesus. But I was begging Him for a “sign” of repentance only for my own simple consolation.

My prayer was answered to the letter!… The day after his execution I found the newspaper “La Croix. “I opened it quickly and what did I see? Ah my tears betrayed my emotion and I was obliged to hide. Pranzini had not gone to confession. He had mounted the scaffold and was preparing to place his head in the formidable opening, when suddenly, seized by an inspiration, he turned, took hold of the crucifix the priest was holding out to him and kissed the sacred wounds three times! Then his soul went to receive the merciful sentence of Him who declares that in heaven there will be more joy over one sinner who does penance than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance!”
I had obtained the “sign” I requested, and this sign was a perfect replica of the grace Jesus had given me when He attracted me to pray for sinners. Wasn’t it before the wounds of Jesus, when seeing His divine blood flowing, that the thirst for souls had entered my heart? I wished to give them this immaculate blood to drink, this blood which was to purify them from their stains, and the lips of my “first child” were pressed to the sacred wounds!
What an unspeakably sweet response! After this unique grace my desire to save souls grows each day, and I seemed to hear Jesus say to me what he said to the Samaritan woman: “Give me to drink!” It was a true interchange of love: to souls I was giving the blood of Jesus, to Jesus I was offering these same souls refreshed by the divine dew. I slaked His thirst and the more I gave Him to drink, the more the thirst of my poor little soul increased, and it was this ardent thirst He was giving me as the most delightful drink of His love

5 Story of A Soul: The Autobiography of St Thérèse of Lisieux. Trans. John Clarke, O.C.D. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1996. 99-101.

Vigils Reading - Our Lady of Sorrows
2023-09-15
THAT MY TEARS OF LOVE MAY MINGLE WITH YOURS
A reflection attributed to Jacopo da Todi6
◊◊◊
The sorrowful mother was standing in tears beside the cross on which her Son was hanging. Her soul was full of grief and anguish and sorrow, for the sword of prophecy pierced it.
How sad now and how unhappy at the fate of her only Son was that mother, once called blessed; how the faithful mother grieved and lamented as she saw her glorious Son so shamefully treated.
Who is there who would not weep, were he to see Christ’s mother in such great suffering? Or who could help feeling sympathy with the mother, were he to think of her sorrowing with her Son?
Yet she actually saw Jesus in agony and broken by the scourging, and this because of the sins of her own people. She saw her dear Son all the time he was dying and abandoned until he yielded up his soul.
Come then, mother, from whom all love springs, make me understand the meaning of your sorrow that I may mourn with you. Make my heart burn with love of Christ, my God, that he may look on me with favor.

Holy mother, do this for me. Pierce my heart once and forever with the wounds of your crucified Son. Let me share with you the pain of your Son’s wounds, for he thought it right to bear such sufferings for me.
Grant that my tears of love may mingle with yours and that, as long as I live, I may feel the pains of my crucified Lord. To stand with you beside the cross and be your companion in grief is my own wish.
Virgin without equal among virgins, do not now turn down my request; grant that I may mourn with you. Grant that I carry about the dying state of Christ; grant that I be a sharer of his passion; grant that I relive his wounds. Grant that I be wounded with his wounds; grant that I drink to my soul’s content of the chalice of his cross and blood. Be a defense to me, virgin Mary, on the judgment day, and I will not burn and be consumed in the fires of hell.
When it is time, Lord Christ, for me to leave this world, give me through your mother’s prayers the palm of victory. When my body is dead, grant that my soul be given the glory of paradise

6 The Roman Missal, Lectionary for Mass (RSV-CE), Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1970, p. 1470.

Vigils Reading - SS Cornelius & Cyprian
2023-09-16
THE SAME UNBROKEN HARMONY
From a letter by St Cyprian, bishop and martyr7
◊◊◊
Cyprian sends greetings to his brother Cornelius. My very dear brother, we have heard of the glorious witness given by your courageous faith. On learning of the honor you had won by your witness, we were filled with such joy that we felt ourselves sharers and companions in your praiseworthy achievements. After all, we have the same Church, the same mind. The same unbroken harmony. Why then should a priest not take pride in the praise given to a fellow priest as though it were given to him? What brotherhood fails to rejoice in the happiness of its brothers wherever they are?
Words cannot express how great was the exaltation and delight here when we heard of your good fortune and brave deeds: how you stood out as a leader of your brothers in their declaration of faith, while the leader’s confession was enhanced as they declared their faith. You led the way to glory, but you gained many companions in that glory; being foremost in your readiness to bear witness on behalf of all, you prevailed on your people to become a single witness. We cannot decide which we ought to praise, your own ready and unshaken faith or the love of your brothers who would not leave you. While the courage of the bishop who thus led the way has been demonstrated, at the same time the unity of the brotherhood who followed has been manifested. Since you have one heart and one voice, it is the Roman Church as a whole that has thus borne witness.
Dearest brother, bright and shining is the faith which the blessed Apostle praised in your community. He foresaw in the spirit the praise your courage deserves and the strength that could not be broke; he was heralding the future when he testified to your achievements; his praise of the fathers was a challenge to the sons. Your unity, your strength have become shining examples of these virtues to the rest of the brethren.

Divine providence has now prepared us. God’s merciful design has warned us that the day of our own struggle, our own contest, is at hand. By that shared love which binds us closely together, we are doing all we can to exhort our congregation, to give ourselves unceasingly to fastings, vigils and prayers in common. These are the heavenly weapons which give us strength to stand firm and endure; they are the spiritual defenses, the God-given armaments that protect us.
Let us then remember one another, united in mind and heart. Let us pray without ceasing, you for us, we for you; by the love we share we shall thus relieve the strain of these great trials

7 The Liturgy of the Hours – vol. IV – Catholic Book Publishing Co – New York – 1975 – p 1406.

Skema
2023-09-17
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
24th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
September 17 – 23, 2023

Sun
17
Mon
18
Tue
19
Wed
20
Thu
21
Fri
22
Sat
23

Office
24th Sunday
Weekday
Weekday
St Andrew Kim & Companions
St Matthew
Weekday
St Pius of Pietrelcina

Vigils
1 Sam 6:1-7:1
1 Sam 7:2-17
1 Sam 8:1-22
1 Sam 9:1-24
Job 28:1-28
1 Sam 9:25-10:16
1 Sam 10:17-11:15

Lauds
Amos 3:9-12
Amos 3:13-15
Amos 4:1-5
Amos 4:6-10
Prov 3:1-6, 13-18
Amos 4:11-13
Amos 5:1-6, 8-9

Mass
130
443
444
445
643
447
448

1st
Sir 27:30—28:7
1 Tim 2:1-8
1 Tim 3:1-13
1 Tim 3:14-16
Eph 4:1-7, 11-13
1 Tim 6:2c-12
1 Tim 6:13-16

2nd
Rom 14:7-9

Gospel
Matt 18:21-35
Luke 7:1-10
Luke 7:11-17
Luke 7:31-35
Matt 9:9-13
Luke 8:1-3
Luke 8:4-15

Vespers
1 Pet 1:8-12
1 Pet 1:13-16
1 Pet 1:17-21
1 Pet 1:22-25
Rom 10:8-15
1 Pet 2:1-10
1 Pet 2:11-17
