Vigils Reading
2023-03-09
A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart5
From a sermon by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Toughmindedness without tenderheartedness is cold and detached, leaving one’s life in a perpetual winter devoid of the warmth of spring and the gentle heat of summer. What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of toughmindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hardheartedness?
The hardhearted person never truly loves. He engages in a crass utilitarianism which values other people mainly according to their usefulness to him. He never experiences the beauty of friendship, because he is too cold to feel affection for another and is too self-centered to share another’s joy and sorrow. He is an isolated island. No outpouring of love links him with the mainland of humanity. The hardhearted person lacks the capacity for genuine compassion. He is unmoved by the pains and afflictions of his brothers. He passes unfortunate men every day, but never really sees them. He gives dollars to a worthwhile charity, but he gives not of his spirit…
Jesus frequently illustrated the characteristics of the hardhearted. The rich fool was condemned, not because he was not toughminded, but rather because he was not tenderhearted. Life for him was a mirror in which he saw only himself, and not a window through which he saw other selves. Dives went to hell, not because he was wealthy, but because he was not tenderhearted enough to see Lazarus and because he made no attempt to bridge the gulf between himself and his brother. Jesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent and the tenderness of the dove. To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike qualities without serpentlike qualities is to be sentimental, anemic, and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses…

The greatness of our God lies in the fact that he is both toughminded and tenderhearted. He has qualities both of austerity and of gentleness. The Bible, always clear in stressing both attributes of God, expresses his toughmindedness in his justice and wrath and his tenderheartedness in his love and grace. God has two outstretched arms. One is strong enough to surround us with justice, and one is gentle enough to embrace us with grace. On the one hand, God is a God of justice who punished Israel for her wayward deeds, and on the other hand, he is a forgiving father whose heart was filled with unutterable joy when the prodigal returned home.
I am thankful that we worship a God who is both toughminded and tenderhearted… At times we need to know that the Lord is a God of justice.
When slumbering giants of injustice emerge in the earth, we need to know that there is a God of power who can cut them down like the grass and leave them withering like the green herb. When our most tireless efforts fail to stop the surging sweep of oppression, we need to know that in this universe is a God whose matchless strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man. But there is also times when we need to know that God possesses love and mercy. When we are staggered by the chilly winds of adversity and battered by the raging storms of disappointment and when through our folly and sin we stray into some destructive far country and are frustrated because of a strange feeling of homesickness, we need to know that there is Someone who loves us, cares for us, understands us, and will give us another chance. When days grow dark and nights grow dreary, we can be thankful that our God combines in his nature a creative synthesis of love and justice which will lead us through life’s dark valleys and into sunlit pathways of hope and fulfillment

5 Martin Luther King Jr. Strength to Love. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. 5-9.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-10
An Excerpt from the Sermons of Conversion6
by St Bernard of Clairvaux
ON THEIR HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, LEST YOU DASH YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE… What great instruction, warning, and encouragement there is for us, brothers, in these words of Scripture. What other psalm so wonderfully encourages the weak-willed, warns the careless, and instructs the ignorant? This is why divine providence desires his faithful have the verses of this psalm constantly on their lips especially during the Lenten season. And from their very usurpation by the devil, opportunity was snatched to make that thoroughly wicked and unwilling servant serve the sons. What could be more vexing for him or happier for us than that even his evil should work for our good?
HE HAS GIVEN HIS ANGELS CHARGE OF YOU TO GUARD YOU IN ALL YOUR WAYS… How this word ought in you to produce respect to promote devotion and to provide confidence! Respect because of the presence of angels, devotion because of their friendliness, and confidence because of their guardianship. Walk cautiously; his angels are everywhere, as he has charged them, in all your ways. In every little nook or cranny, respect your angel… Your faith, if you refer to it, proves that the angels are never absent from you… What should we fear? Let us simply follow them, stay close to them, and we shall dwell in the protection of the God of heaven… Each time you feel some great temptation pushing you and strong tribulation pressing, call on your guardian, your guide, him who is your helper in tribulation and opportunity…
Is someone grievously disturbed either by some physical infirmity or by some worldly tribulation or by lukewarmness of spirit and the listlessness of mental fatigue? Already, he would be beginning to be tempted beyond what he can bear, already he would be stubbing his toe and stumbling over a stone, if someone did not come to help. But what is this stone? I understand it to be the stone of offence and rock of stumbling which bruises anyone who falls over it, but crushes anyone upon whom it falls; it is the cornerstone, chosen and precious; it is the Lord Christ. To murmur against him is to dash our foot against this stone, stumbling from weakness of spirit and the storm. There is a need for angelic work, for angelic comfort, for angelic hands, when someone is already fainting, already close to stumbling over the stone. And someone who murmurs and blasphemes does stumble against the stone, bruising himself, not the stone he furiously runs into.

I think that men are sometimes borne up by angels as if by two hands, so that almost unconsciously they pass over the temptations and dangers which terrify them most. And afterwards they are not a little astonished at how easily they got over what at first seemed so difficult. Do you want to know what I understand these two hands to be? A double indication of the brevity of tribulation here below and the eternity of reward later on, or rather, painting and imprinting it on the heart so that if feels by some intimate disposition how this ‘slight momentary affliction is preparing for us a far surpassing and eternal weight of glory’. Who could not believe that such good thoughts are produced in us by the good angels, when it is certain, or the contrary, that wicked innuendoes come from bad angels? Be familiar with the angels, brothers, visit with them often by careful meditation and devout prayer, for they are always near to comfort and protect you

6 St Bernard of Clairvaux. Sermons on Conversion. Trans. Marie-Bernard Saïd, OSB. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1981. 214-222.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-11
The Mass7
From “The Meaning of the Monastic Life” by Louis Bouyer
The whole of religion and at the same time the whole history of humanity is summed up in the Parable of the prodigal son… who becomes aware that he has gone astray and is brough to ruin by his own fault… The more this awareness deepens, the more the desire of returning to the Father wells up in it… Ayearning and a painful desire: with what obstacles will not the return journey be strewn! And at the end, what sort of a welcome awaits the prodigal?…
We see him then heavy-hearted and yet trembling with hope, trudging once more along the steep and rocky path, which had seemed so easy to him as he descended it… But he has hardly taken more than a few steps when he finds the Father running along the road, his arms flung wide open, having set out to meet him… And the son can scarcely lisp the first words of the expression of sorrow… before…the Father had given his orders… Let him be clad in costly apparel, let a ring be placed on his finger, let the fat cattle be killed for him, and let the house be filled with lights and music…
The reconciliation is thus effected. But it is the one who has been sinned against who bears all the cost of it. It is the Father who surmounts the accumulated obstacles of which the son was afraid. It is the Father who will pay the ineluctable reparation which, to the son, appeared as impossible as he knew it to be essential. He despaired of ever finding the place he had abandoned of his own initiative, again. But the Father’s limitless generosity was reserving an even better place for him.

…The Mass is the return to the Father in Christ, who has come to us on behalf of the Father – who has come to us and returns to him, this time bearing us in himself through the death of obedience…
The monk is the one who lives only for this return to the Father. That is why the monk’s life is a crucifixion; for, between God and sinful man, there is no other way than the one God himself has opened: the way of the Cross. But this crucifixion of the monk would be vain, would be merely sterile suicide, if it were not accomplished through a participation in Christ’s own Cross. Such a participation can be accomplished through the Mass, and that is why the monk’s Suscipe will only receive its significance when it is so to speak enfolded in the offertory of the Mass, as his charter of profession is in the altar cloth.
Thus the Mass must daily bring before us primarily the mystery of the divine Word who is seeking and calling us… the mystery of the same divine Word who elicits from us the only response truly effective… who crushes us to create us anew: therein lies the whole meaning of the eucharistic immolation at the centre of the Mass of the faithful. And both are there given to us in Christ: the appeal which touches us, the response which moves us and carries us over all obstacles to the very heart of the Father. For the Mass, finally, under all its aspects, is only the perpetual fulfillment of the apostle’s words: ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’

7 Bouyer, Louis. The Meaning of the Monastic Life. Trans. Kathleen Pond. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1950. 190-192.

Skema
2023-03-12
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
3rd Week of Lent

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (II)
March 12 – 18, 2023

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

Office
3rd Sunday of Lent
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday/ St Patrick
Lenten Weekday

Vigils
Exod 13:1-16
Exod 13:17-14:9
Exod 14:10-31
Exod 15:1-21
Exod 15:22-16:15
Exod 16:16-35
Exod 17:1-16

Lauds
Deut 8:1-6
Deut 8:7-14
Deut 9:1-6
Deut 9:7-13
Deut 9:15-21
Deut 9:22-29
Deut 10:12-22

Mass
28
237
238
239
240
241
242

1st
Exod 17:3-7
2 Kgs 5:1-15a
Dan 3:25, 34-43
Deut 4:1, 5-9
Jer 7:23-28
Hos 14:2-10
Hos 6:1-6

2nd
Rom 5:1-2, 5-8

Gospel
John 4:5-42
Luke 4:24-30
Matt 18:21-35
Matt 5:17-19
Luke 11:14-23
Mark 12:28b-34
Luke 18:9-14

Vespers
Heb 9:15-22
Heb 9:23-28
Heb 10:1-10
Heb 10:11-18
Heb 10:19-25
Heb 10:26-31
Heb 10:32-39

Vigils Reading - 3rd Sun Lent
2023-03-12
What it Means to be “in Christ Jesus”1
by Fr. Raymond
What is in your mind as you set out for Mass?… If Christ was forced, as it were, to say to the woman at Jacob’s well with whom He had had but a few words: “If you understood God’s gift and knew who he is that speaks to you…” what can He not say to us who should understand and who should know that in Mass he not only speaks to us, but gives us God’s Only Word – Himself?
What would your existence be like had Christ at His Last Supper decreed that only once in your lifetime could a priest do what He had done there in the Cenacle? Or to make it more concrete, suppose that on that same momentous night, this same Jesus Christ had decided that Mass should be offered only once every fifty years, and then only at Gethsemani, Kentucky. How would you spend your years, your days, all your hours? Would not this monastery become the focal point of your universe? Would not your days, weeks, months, all your years be spent preparing for that one morning when you could come here and meet your God in an intimacy that baffles description?…
Faced with such a supposition, we are forced to admit that we do not appreciate God and His goodness. We do not realize that Mass is not only alive with God but is meant to set us alive with the same life. Why is it that we have not come to this appreciation and realization? The answer is simple: we do not reflect sufficiently; we do not probe; we are too easily satisfied with what lies on the surface. Let us be honest: We have not understood this “gift of God.”…
…Just think again on that supposition about Mass being offered once in your lifetime, and then only here at Gethsemani. Would not your life have a center, you a very definite goal, and every passing hour a very specific meaning?

You would be awaiting that one definite moment when you could meet your loving God in person, not only to pay Him homage as His creature, but to love Him and be loved by Him as His child. More than likely Mass would then be for you what Mass was meant to be when Christ said: “Do this as my memorial”. It would be agape – a “love feast”.
…Realize that in Mass you meet God not as your Maker, certainly not as your Judge, in one sense not even as your Redeemer, but only as your Lover. For this is He who said: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love…“Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the child of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee in my hands”? Yes, in those hands which hold Calvary’s nail prints… Here is He who repeats by His love-radiating presence what He once put into words in the parables of Solomon: “My child, give me thy heart”. You meet Him as that One who said, and still says: “O come to me all you who are weary and overburdened, and I will refresh you”. That is the God you are to meet, and that is the guise in which you are to see Him. He who once “loved you to death” is waiting in every Mass to love you to life

1 Rev. M. Raymond, O.C.S.O. This Is Love. Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1964. 13-20.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-13
Our Struggle in Search of Truth2
from “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander” by Thomas Merton
Life is, or should be, nothing but a struggle to seek truth: yet what we seek is really the truth that we already possess. Truth is mine in the reality of life as it is given to me to live: yet to take life thoughtlessly, passively as it comes, is to renounce the struggle and purification which are necessary. One cannot simply open his eyes and see. The work of understanding involves not only dialectic, but a long labor of acceptance, obedience, liberty, and love. The temptation of monastic life is to evade this austere responsibility by falling back into passive indifference, thinly veiled resentment disguised as obedience and abandonment. Since in fact one need not positively accept what happens, one can be merely resigned and negative. Others make all the important decisions: but the most important decision always falls to me, and if I am in the habit of never deciding, I will evade it. The root decision to accept my own life and to obey its demands may challenge my understanding of those demands, my honesty in their regard. The worst temptation, and that to which many monks succumb early in their lives, and by which they remain defeated, is simply to give up asking and seeking. To leave everything to the superiors in this life and to God in the next–a hope which may in fact be nothing but a veiled despair, a refusal to live. And it is not Christian to despair of the present, merely putting off hope into the future. There is also a very essential hope that belongs in the present, and is based on the nearness of the hidden God, and of His Spirit, in the present. What future can make sense without this present hope?
Evil and falsity are unavoidable: but one does not bow down to them passively and without response. Resignation is not enough. God demands of us a creative consent, in our deepest and most hidden self, the self we do not experience, though it is always there. This creative consent is the obedience of my whole being to the will of God, here and now. The inner “word” of consent is the coincidence, in the Spirit, the identity of my own obedience and will with the obedience and will of Christ. Such is the depth of our Sonship and of the life of grace.

Gradually, by accepting our place in the world and our tasks as they are, we come to be liberated from the limitations of the world and of a restricted, halfhearted milieu: yet one is content with one’s moment of history and one’s obscure task in it. One must be detached from systems and collective plans, without rancor toward them, but with insight and compassion. To be truly Catholic is not merely to be correct according to an abstractly universal standard of truth, but also and above all to be able to enter into the problems and the joys of all, to understand all, to be all things to all persons. This cannot be done if we do not first completely and honestly accept ourselves, our own problems, our own defeats, with the creative consent and responsibility that unite us to God’s will and thus to the dynamism of history in its very source

2 Merton, Thomas. Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. Doubleday & Co, 1966. 166-167.

Vigils Readings
2023-03-14
Forgive us, as We Forgive3
from a sermon by Caesarius of Arles
If any one of us is in conflict with another, let us end the quarrel lest we ourselves end badly. Do not consider this unimportant, my beloved. Let us call to mind that our life here is mortal and frail, that it is endangered by many and great temptations, and this makes us pray that we may not be overcome. And so, we realize that even the just are not without some sins. But there is one remedy which enables us to keep alive. For God, our Master, told us to say in our prayers: “Forgive us the wrong we have done as we forgive those who wrong us.” We have made a contract with God and taken a resolution that the wrong must be forgiven. This makes us ask with complete confidence to be forgiven provided we too forgive.
If, on the contrary, we do not forgive, how can we in good conscience hope that our sins will be forgiven? Let us not deceive ourselves: God deceived no one. It is human to be angry, but I wish it were impossible. It is human to become angry but let us not water the small plant born of anger with various suspicions. Let us not permit it to develop into a tree of hatred. It happens also frequently that a father is angry with his son, but he does not hate the son. He is angry because he wishes to correct the son. If this is his purpose, his anger is animated by love.
We read in Scripture: “Why look at the speck in your brother’s eye when you miss the plank in your own?” You find fault with another person for being angry, and you keep hatred in yourself. Anger in comparison with hatred is only a speck, but if the speck is fostered, it becomes a plank. If, on the contrary, you pluck out the speck and cast it away, it will amount to nothing.

Our Master says in another place: “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer.” Those who hate their brother, walk around, go out, come in, march on, are not burdened by any chains and are not shut up in any prison, but they are bound by their guilt. Do not think of them as not being imprisoned. Their heart is in prison…
You hate your brothers and sisters and walk safely around and refuse to be reconciled with them, and God has given you time and opportunity. Yet you are a murderer and are still alive. If you felt God’s wrath you would be suddenly snatched away with your hatred toward others. God spares you; spare others likewise; make up and seek reconciliation with them. But suppose you want reconciliation and another does not want it. That is enough for you; you have something to grieve for, you have freed yourself. If you want agreement and the other refuses, say confidently: “Forgive us the wrong we have done as we forgive those who wrong us.

3Fraternal Harmony (Morin Sermon 185) 1-2: PLS IV, 446-447. (CR VI p 215)

Vigils Reading
2023-03-15
The Role of the Prophet4
From the writings of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
The certainty of being inspired by God, of speaking in His name, of having been sent by Him to the people, is the basic and central fact of the prophet’s consciousness. Other people regard experience as the source of certainty; what singles out the prophet in the world of man is that to him the source of his experience is the source of his certainty. To his mind, the validity and distinction of his message lie in the origin, not only in the moment of his experience…
In a variety of ways, in utterance and in action, the prophets stressed their staggering claim. It was such certainty of being inspired that enabled the prophet to proclaim again and again: “Thus says the Lord”; “Hear the word of the Lord”… There is no doubt that the prophets were conscious of their own sincerity; that their tongues were not confuted by their consciences. “What I heard from the Lord of hosts, … I announce to you,” said Isaiah. And Jeremiah insisted “That which came out of my lips was before Thy face”.
The prophet does not speak of a resolution or a purpose, framed by himself, to devote himself to his vocation, but describes a decisive moment in which he received a call. He thinks of himself as “a messenger of God”, sent by Him to His people. Moreover, he does not speak on the strength of a single experience or sporadic inspirations. His entire existence is dedicated to his mission… When “Jeremiah’s harsh word of judgment against the Temple of Jerusalem provoked the priests… that they wanted to kill him,” Jeremiah had nothing to say in his defense before the royal officials except: “…the Lord has sentme to you, to say all these words in your ears”…

To the consciousness of the prophet, the prophetic act is more than an experience; it is an objective event… It is not a discovery, a coming upon something permanently given by the mind of the prophet…a timeless idea… justice, a law, but something dynamic, an act of giving; not an eternal word, but a word spoken, a word expressed, springing from a Presence, a word in time, a pathos overflowing in words. His experience is a perception of an act that happens rather than a perception of a situation that abides…
Thus, to the prophetic consciousness, inspiration is …experienced as a divine act which takes place not within but beyond, as an event which happens in one’s view rather than in one’s heart. The prophet does not merely feel it; he faces it

4 Heschel, Abraham J. The Prophets. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. 426-433.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-16
If You are to Stand and Not Fall5
A Reading from “The Cloud of Unknowing”
Should any thought arise… asking what you are seeking, and what you are wanting, answer that it is God you want: ‘Him I covet, him I seek, and nothing but him.’ Should the thought ask, ‘What is this God?’ answer that it is the God who made you and redeemed you, and who has, through his grace, called you tohis love. ‘And’, tell <the thought>… ‘Get down’, and proceed to trample on him out of love for God; yes, even when such thoughts seem to be holy, and calculated to help you find God…
Make up your mind, therefore, to put down all such reflections, holy and attractive though they be… Be quite sure that you will never have the unclouded vision of God here in this life. But you may have the awareness of him, if he is willing by his grace to give it you. So lift up your love… or, more accurately let God draw your love up… and strive by his grace to forget all else.
But if you allow houseroom to this thing that you naturally like or grouse about, and make no attempt to rebuke it, ultimately it will take root in your inmost being, in your will, and with the consent of your will… If it is a thing that grieves or has grieved you, then you rage and want revenge – and that is Wrath. Or you will despise and loathe it, and think spitefully and harshly of it – and that is Envy. Or you will get weary and bored with being good in spirit and body – and that is Sloth. And if it is a pleasant thing, present or past, you experience a passing delight when you think about it, whatever it may be. So that you dwell on it, and in the end fix your heart and will on it, and turn to it for nourishment…

Now, if this thought that you deliberately conjure up, or harbour, and dwell lovingly upon, is natural worth or knowledge, charm or station, favour or beauty – then it is Pride. If it is a matter of worldly good, riches, or possessions, ownership or lordship, then it is Avarice. If it is a matter of choice food and drink, or any other delight of the palate, then it is Gluttony. If it is love or pleasure, or flirting, fawning, and flattering, for another or for yourself – then it is Lust…
So if you are to stand and not fall, never give up your firm intention: beat away at this cloud…between you and God with that sharp dart of longing love. Hate to think about anything less than God, and let nothing whatever distract you from this purpose. It is only thus that you can destroy the ground and root of sin.
Were you to fast beyond all measure, or watch at great length, or rise at the crack of dawn, or sleep on boards and wear chains… this would not help you at all. The urge of sin would still be with you… However much you might weep in sorrow for your sins, or for the sufferings of Christ, or however much you might think of the delights of heaven… compared with this blind outreaching of love… there is very little indeed that it can do without love. This, in itself, is the ‘best part’ that Mary chose… For if this love is there in truth, so too will all other virtues truly, perfectly, and knowingly, be included in it

5 The Cloud of Unknowing. Trans. Clifton Wolters. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1973. 60-69.

Vigils Reading - St Patrick
2023-03-17
Words of God to Humanity,
that They Should Obey the Divine Precepts6
From the Fourth Vision of St Hildegard of Bingen
…O My dearest children, open your eyes and ears and obey My precepts! Why do you despise your Father, Who has delivered you from death? The choirs of angels sing, “You are just, O Lord!”, because God’s justice has no flaw in it; for God delivered Man not by power but by mercy, when He sent His Son into the world to redeem him…
But you, when you consider good and evil, are standing, as it were, where two roads branch off. If you despise the darkness of evil and want to see Him Whose creature you are, and Whom you acknowledged in holy baptism where the old sin of Adam was nullified in you; and if you say, “ I want to fly from the Devil and his works and follow the true God and His precepts”; then think how you have been taught to turn away from evil and do good, and how the Heavenly Father did not spare His Only-Begotten but sent Him for your deliverance; and pray to God to help you. And He, hearing you, will say, “These eyes are pleasing to me!” And if you then cast off weariness and run courageously in God’s commands, He will always hear the cry of your prayers…
But if you have fallen into sin, quickly rise by confession and pure penitence, before death lays claim to you. For your Father wants you to cry out, weep and ask for help so as not to remain in the squalor of sin. For if you have been wounded, you seek a physician lest you die. Does not God often send peopletroubles, so that they will more intently invoke Him? But you, O human, say “I cannot do good works!” I say you can. And you say “How?” And I say, “By thought and action.” And you answer, “I lack decision.” And I answer, “Learn to fight against yourself!” And you say, “I cannot fight against myself unless God helps me.” Hear then how you can fight against yourself. When evil rises up in you and you do not know how to get rid of it, then, touched by My grace, which reaches you in the paths of your inner vision, at once cry out, pray, confess and weep so that God will help you, and remove evil from you, and grant you strength in good. For this good is yours by the knowledge that lets you understand God by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit…

So let the faithful person recognize his pain and seek a physician before he falls dead. If he considers his pain and seeks a physician, the latter when found will show him the bitter medicine that can save him; that is, the bitter words by which he must be tested to see whether his penitence comes from the root of his heart or only from his unstable breath. And when he has tested this, he will give him the wine of penitence, with which to wash away the pus from his wounds, and the oil of mercy, with which to anoint the wounds to heal them. Then he will enjoin him to be careful of his health, saying, “See that you keep taking this medicine carefully and regularly, and do not tire of it, for your wounds are serious.” There are many who accept penance for their sins only with difficulty; but, though with much effort, they nonetheless carry it out for fear of death. But I give them My hand, and change their bitterness into sweetness… But he who neglects repentance for his sins, saying it is hard for him to chastise his body, will be wretched, for he does not want to look at himself, or seek a physician, or have his wounds healed, but hides the dreadful wound in himself and covers over death with false appearance to conceal it…
Therefore, O ye faithful, run in God’s precepts lest the damnation of death seize upon you

6 Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias. Trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop. New York: Paulist Press, 1990. 125-128.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-18
On the Lord’s Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee7
A Homily by St Gregory Palamas
…Not only can virtue remain unshaken by the various wicked devices prepared by the enemy, but it can also lift up and restore those fallen into the depths of evil, and easily lead them to God by repentance and humility.
Here is an example and a clear proof. The publican… dwells in the depths of sin. All he has in common with those who live virtuously is one short utterance, but he finds relief, is lifted up and rises above every evil… If the Pharisee is condemned by his speech, it is because… he thinks himself somebody, although he is not really righteous, and utters many arrogant words which provoke God’s anger with their every syllable.
Why does humility lead up to the heights of righteousness, whereas self- conceit leads down to the depths of sin? Because anybody who thinks he is something great, even before God, is rightly abandoned by God, as one who thinks that he does not need His help. Anybody who despises himself, on the other hand, and relies on mercy from above, wins God’s sympathy, help and grace. As it says, “The Lord resisteth the proud: but he giveth grace unto the lowly”…
The Pharisee and the publican went up into the Temple, both with the aim of praying. But the Pharisee brought himself down after going up, defeating his aim by the way he prayed… One made the ascent broken and contrite, for he had learned from the psalmist and prophet that “a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise”. The Pharisee, by contrast, goes up bloated with pretensions to justify himself in the presence of God, although all our righteousness is like a filthy rag before Him. He had not heard the saying, “Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord”…

By contrast, the publican “standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner”. See the utter abasement of his thoughts and feelings, and, at the same time, contrition of heart mingled with this publican’s prayer. When he went upinto the Temple to pray for the remission of his sins, he brought with him good advocates before God: unashamed faith, uncondemned self-reproach, contrition of heart that is not despised and humility that exalts… Although still far from God, without the boldness toward Him that comes from good works, it hopes to draw near to him because it has already renounced evil and is intent on good… For he believed Him who said, “Turn ye unto me, and I will turn unto you.”
What happened then? “This man”, says the Lord, “went down to his house justified rather than the other, for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted”. As the devil is conceit itself and pride is his own particular evil, it defeats and swallows up any human virtue with which it is mixed. Whereas, humility is the virtue of the good angels, and defeats any human evil that comes upon fallen mankind. Humility is the chariot by which we ascend to God, like those clouds which are to carry up to God those who would dwell for endless ages with Him, as foretold by the apostle: “We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord”. Humility is the same as such a cloud. It is formed by repentance, releases streams of tears; brings out the worthy from among the unworthy and leads them up to unite them with God, justified by His free gift for the gratitude of their free disposition

7 St Gregory Palamas. The Homilies. Trans. Christopher Veniamin. Essex, England: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009. 6-12.

Skema
2023-03-19
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
4th Week of Lent

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
March 19 – 25, 2023

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

Office
4th Sunday of Lent
St Joseph
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Annunciation of the Lord

Vigils
Exod 18:1-27
Hosea 11:1-11
Exod 19:16-25
Exod 20:1-21
Exod 22:20-23:9
Exod 24:1-18
1 Chron 17:1-15

Lauds
Deut 11:1-7
Zech 10:6-12
Deut 11:13-17
Deut 11:18-25
Deut 11:26-32
Deut 26:16-19
Ezek 43:27-44:4

Mass
31
543
245
246
247
248
545

1st
1 Sam 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a
2 Sam 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16
Ezek 47:1-9, 12
Isa 49:8-15
Exod 32:7-14
Wis 2:1a, 12-22
Isa 7:10-14; 8:10

2nd
Eph 5:8-14
Rom 4:13, 16-18, 22

Heb 10:4-10

Gospel
John 9:1-41
Matt 1:16, 18-21, 24a
John 5:1-3a, 5-16
John 5:17-30
John 5:31-47
John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30
Luke 1:26-38

Vespers
Heb 11:1-7
Eph 3:14-21
Heb 11:17-22
Heb 11:23-31
Heb 11:32-40
Heb 2:5-10
Heb 12:7-13

Vigils Reading - 4th Sun Lent
2023-03-19
Come to Siloam1
A commentary by St Ambrose
You have heard that story in the gospel where we are told that the Lord Jesus, as he was passing by, caught sight of a man who had been blind from birth. Since the Lord did not overlook him, neither ought we to overlook this story of a man whom the Lord considered worthy of his attention. In particular we should notice the fact that he had been blind from birth. This is an important point.
There is, indeed, a kind of blindness, usually brought on by serious illness, which obscures one’s vision, but which can be cured, given time; and there is another sort of blindness, caused by cataract, that can be remedied by a surgeon: he can remove the cause and so the blindness is dispelled. Draw your own conclusion: this man, who was actually born blind, was not cured by surgical skill, but by the power of God.
When nature is defective the Creator, who is the author of nature, has the power to restore it. This is why Jesus also said, As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world, meaning: all who are blind are able to see, so long as I am the light they are looking for. Come, then, and receive the light, so that you may be able to see.
What is he trying to tell us, he who brought human beings back to life, who restored them to health by a word of command, who said to a corpse, Come out! And Lazarus came out from the tomb; who said to a paralytic, Arise and pick up your stretcher, and the sick man rose and picked up the very bed on which he used to be carried as a helpless cripple? Again, I ask you, what is he trying to convey to us by spitting on the ground, mixing his spittle with clay and putting it on the eyes of a blind man, saying: Go and wash yourself in the pool of Siloam (a name that means “sent”)? What is the meaning of the Lord’s action in this? Surely one of great significance, since the person whom Jesus touches receives more than just his sight.

In one instant we see both the power of his divinity and the strength of his holiness. As the divine light, he touched this man and enlightened him; as priest, by an action symbolizing baptism he wrought in him his work of redemption. The only reason for his mixing clay with the spittle and smearing it on the eyes of the blind man was to remind you that he who restored the man to health by anointing his eyes with clay is the very one who fashioned the first man out of clay, and that this clay that is our flesh can receive the light of eternal life through the sacrament of baptism.
You, too, should come to Siloam, that is, to him who was sent by the Father (as he says in the gospel, My teaching is not my own, it comes from him who sent me). Let Christ wash you and you will then see. Come and be baptized, it is time; come quickly, and you too will be able to say, I went and washed; you will be able to say, I was blind and now I can see, and as the blind man said when his eyes began to receive the light, The night is almost over and the day is at hand.

Vigils Reading - St Joseph
2023-03-20
St. Joseph’s Intercession2
From the writings of St Teresa of Avila
Finding myself so crippled while still young, and earthly doctors having failed to cure me, I turned to heavenly physicians for help…
I took the glorious St. Joseph for my advocate and protector, and commended myself earnestly to him; and it was clearly he who both healed me of this sickness and delivered me from great dangers that threatened my good name and the salvation of my soul. His aid has brought me more good than I could ever hope for from him. I do not remember once having asked anything of him that was not granted. I am full of wonder at the great graces God has bestowed on me, and the perils to body and soul from which he has freed me, at the intercession of this blessed saint. God seems to have given other saints power to help us in particular circumstances, but I know from experience that this glorious St. Joseph helps in each and every need. Our Lord would have us understand that, since on earth He was subject to this man who was called His father, whom as His guardian He had to obey, so now in Heaven He still does all that Joseph asks. Others, who have turned to Joseph on my advice, have had the like experience; and today there are many people who honor him and keep on finding out the truth of what I say…
I wish I could persuade everybody to be devoted to this glorious saint, for long experience has taught me what blessings he can obtain from God for us. Of all the people I have known with a true devotion and particular veneration for St. Joseph, not one has failed to advance in virtue; he helps those who turn to him to make real progress. For several years now, I believe, I have always made some request to him on his feast day, and it has always been granted; and when my request is not quite what it ought to be, he puts it right for my greater benefit.

…All I ask, for the love of God, is that anyone who does not believe me will put what I say to the test, and he will then learn for himself how advantageous it is to commend oneself to this glorious patriarch Joseph and to have a special devotion for him…
I do not know how anyone can think of the Queen of angels, at the time when she was undergoing so much with the Child Jesus, without giving thanks to St. Joseph for looking after them in the way he did. If anyone has not got a guide to teach him how to pray, let him take this glorious saint as his master and he will not go astray..

2 Taken from: Rondet, Henri, S.J. Saint Joseph. Trans. and Ed. Donald Attwater. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1956. 75-77.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-21
From the Letters of Armand-Jean de Rancé3
I see, my very dear Monsieur, that your ills are not at an end, and that God is not yet content with what you have suffered up till now; but I see that your patience is renewed and that neither your faith nor your constancy have been shaken by the length of your sufferings. You see them too clearly in their true light, and you know too well that the sovereign master is using in your case the right he has over all creatures for you… <to> accept all its moves with profound submission. Most men, that is, those whose conduct follows natural inclinations, grow weary and forget to suffer as their sufferings progress; but those who live by faith learn this knowledge of the saints by suffering, and the feeling given them by God increases proportionately to their afflictions.
You will agree, my very dear Monsieur, that we have cause to say, whatever the state in which we find ourselves, <I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us>, that everything we endure on earth is unrelated to the goods and advantages we hope for. God’s eternity will console us for everything, and the faith which teaches us that affliction and pain are the means whereby we open its doors to ourselves should make all our ills, however great they may be, tolerable. Our souls must be purified in the fire of tribulations to become worthy of the happiness God prepares for us, and our bodies will only be clothed in immortality after they have been reduced to dust and ashes… His goodness will make up for everything, and your trust in him will be the great remedy for bodily as for spiritual ills…
God alone contains those goods which are proper to us, he is himself our true riches… and if we belong to Christ as much as we should, and I am sure you do, each of us should say to him from the depths of his heart, <My kingdom does not belong to this world>, all the more as we have his word and he himself has promised to his elect, who are his disciples, to give them his kingdom

3 The Letters of Armand-Jean de Rancé: Abbot and Reformer of la Trappe – Volume One. Presented by A.J. Krailsheimer. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1984. 278-279, 291.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-22
The Power of Virtue4
From the discourses and sayings of Dorotheos of Gaza
At the time when I was one of Abba Seridos’ disciples there came a disciple of a great old monk from the region of Ascalon about some business for his abbot. He had the command from his senior to return after vespers to his own cell. When the time came to leave, a violent thunderstorm arose, with rain heavy enough to cause flooding, and yet he wanted to leave as the senior had told him. We begged him to stay, seeing that it was impossible to get safely across the river. He would not be persuaded to stay with us. At last we said, ‘Let us go with him as far as the river. When he sees it, he will return of his own accord.’ So we went off with him, and when we reached the river he took off his cloak and bound it round his head, tied up his scapular and jumped into the raging waters of the river. We just stood there astonished and fearful that he would be drowned, but he kept afloat, and very soon he was seen on the other bank. He put on his cloak, threw us a profound bow from there, received ours in return, and went off at a run. But we stood in wonder, astonished at the power of virtue. We came near with fear, but he went through without danger because of his obedience.
Another Brother was sent by his abba on some necessary business to a correspondent in the country. When he saw himself solicited by the [man’s] daughter to a shameful act and himself in danger of falling, simply cried out, ‘O God of my Father, deliver me’, and straightway he was found on the road to<the> Skete, fleeing toward his spiritual father.
Notice the power of virtue, notice the efficacy of prayer… Mark well the humility and discretion of both… Each of them was counting on the prayers of his father. See how they yoked obedience to humility! Just as horses are yoked together in a chariot so that one does not outstep the other, so obedience needs to have humility yoked together with it. How can a man be worthy of this grace, unless… he treats himself harshly to cut off the desires of his own and to give himself, after God, to his [spiritual] father, without hesitation, doing everything with full confidence as though obeying God. Such a man is worthy to find mercy, such a man is worthy to find salvation.

The story is told of Blessed Basil that, making a visitation of his monasteries, he said to one of the Heads, ‘Have you any saints here?’ The Abba said, ‘Through your prayers, my Lord, we all desire to be saints.’ And again Blessed Basil said to him, ‘No! I mean have you got any saints here?’ And the Abba tumbled to it (for he, too, had spiritual insight). ‘Yes,” he <said>, and he sent for a certain brother. When he arrived, the Saint said to him, ‘ Wash my feet’ and he went and fetched what was necessary. And after his feet were washed, Basil said to the brother, ‘Wait till I wash your feet.’ And without a murmur heallowed himself to be washed by the holy man. After testing the brother in this way, he said, ‘When I enter the sanctuary, you come, too! And remind me to ordain you.’ Again without a murmur, the brother obeyed, and when he saw the holy Basil in the inner sanctuary he went up and reminded him, and Basil ordained him and took him with him, for who else but this blessed brother was suitable to be with this holy godbearing father?… Everyone who throws himself completely into obedience to the Fathers shall surely possess this state of freedom from care and peacefulness of soul

4 Dorotheos of Gaza. Discourses and Sayings. CS 33. Trans. Eric P. Wheeler. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, INC., 1977. 89-92.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-23
You, O Lord, are My Hope5
From the Sermons on Conversion by St Bernard of Clairvaux
Whatever must be done, whatever must be refused, whatever must be borne, whatever must be chosen, YOU, O LORD, ARE MY HOPE. This is the only reason for all the promises made to me, this is the whole reason for my expectation. Someone else may pretend to have merit, he may pride himself on having borne the burden and heat of day, he may say he has fasted twice a week, and finally he may boast that he is not like other men. But ‘for me it is good to cling to my God; to place my hope in the Lord my God’… If rewards are promised me, it is through you I hope to obtain them; if a host encamps against me, if the world fumes, if the evil one rages, if the flesh itself lusts against the spirit, I will hope in you.
Brothers, to savor this is to live by faith… The person who is inwardly persuaded by the Spirit… casts his burden upon the Lord, knowing that he will be cared for by him, as is in keeping with what the apostle Peter said, ‘Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. Why then, if we have savored all this, do we hesitate to throw away all our wretched, vain, useless, seductive hopes, and cling with fervor of our spirit, with all the devotion of our mind to this one so solid, so perfect, so blessed hope? If there is something impossible to him, if there is anything difficult, then look for someone else in whom to hope. But he can do all things by his word… You probably have no doubt about the ease with which he can do all this, but do you perhaps wonder whether it is his will? Surely the testimonies to this will are very creditable… He has said, ‘They will call to me in any tribulation whatever, and I will hear them’. Look at how many tribulations there are. According to the number of them, his consolations are going to cheer your soul, as long as you do not turn aside to others, as long as you call out to him, as long as you hope in him and take your refuge in the Most High and not in any lowly or earthly thing. ‘Who ever hoped in him and was put to shame?’ It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for his word to be cancelled out.

A soul thirsting for God… does not want with Peter to make a shrine on the earthly mountain, nor wish with Mary to touch him on earth… for it has heard him say, ‘If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I’. It has heard him say, ‘Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father’… Atop all power and dominion, atop the angels and the archangels, even the cherubim and the seraphim… surely at the right hand of the Father, where the Father will no longer be greater than he, the soul goes, desiring to grasp the right hand of him who is co-equal with the Most High. This then, brothers, is eternal life, that we should know the Father, the true God, and him whom he has sent, Jesus Christ, true God and one with him, God over all and blessed for ever

5 Bernard of Clairvaux. Sermons on Conversion. CF 25. Trans. Marie-Bernard Saïd, OSB. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1981. 186-191.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-24
An Excerpt from the Meditations6
by William of Saint-Thierry
When I desire to stimulate, exercise, and accustom my heart for praying continually and effectively, I prefer to be instructed by no one in this schooling other than you, O Lord Jesus, Wisdom of God the Father. Consequently, I call to mind the ways of prayer that you used… sometimes praying alone, sometimes in the midst of a crowd, sometimes in exultation of spirit, once in a bloody sweat, and once exalted on the cross…
Because of habit itself, we are desensitized when seeing you crucified, thinking of you as dead and buried. What should pierce through further into the heart and more penetratingly is this: struck on the face with blows, scourged, mocked, spat upon, pierced by nails and the lance, crowned with thorns, given gall and vinegar to drink, you on your cross were thirsting for nothing but our salvation. The earth trembled when you were crucified; we laugh. Heaven with its lights was obscured; we burn to shine in the world. Rocks were rent; we harden our hearts… Unless repentance removes these sins, unless a bloody sweat expels them and the cross crucifies them, I do not find persons sinning willingly and knowingly to have a share in the prayer of the one sweating blood or hanging in sacrifice on the cross… For if you appear to have excluded all who sin knowingly, woe to the entire world, because you may appear to have embraced a very, very few persons…
But, Lord, transform your judgment into mercy, and condemn sin by sin. As you have justly condemned me for the so little love with which I love you then, now having received from your grace the fullness of your love, may I come before your Judgment and appear in your holy place, and before the eyes of your mercy, by the same reason by which that sinful woman appeared of whom you said, Many sins are forgiven her for she has loved much.

…Deign to let the fire of your perfect love set my heart on fire. Let its great ardor well up within me and boil away all poison of sin… May your cross crucify whatever has been collected through concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life, in the vast expanse of my negligence. May whatever has been singed and undermined by the flesh’s will and the mind’s consent be destroyed at the rebuke of your countenance…
I present my case before you and not before anyone else. I lie at the feet of your mercy. There I will lie, there I will lament until you make me hear your kind voice, the judgment of your mouth, the verdict of your justice and mine also, for you have given it to me: since she has loved much, many sins are forgiven her.
Lord, because the Father has handed over to you every judgement, today, come to me in advance with kindness. And judge me with this judgment. For because of the love of your love, I prefer to be justified and saved by this judgment than to be magnified and glorified in any other way. Lord, do not exclude me from the embrace of your redemption. For in everything I desire to share in your cross… And give to my heart a form of penitence pleasing to you. Furthermore, grant to me, Lord, a faith unadulterated and devoted, conscientious, strong, and unshaken, so that, giving grace for grace, you can also say to me, Go, for your faith has made you alive

6 William of Saint-Thierry. The Meditations with a Monastic Commentary. CF 91. Trans. Thomas X. Davis. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2022. 29-35.

Vigils Reading - Annunciation of the Lord
2023-03-25
On the Annunciation of Saint Mary7
A sermon by St Aelred of Rievaulx
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you… The sacred solemnity of this day ought to be taken up and venerated with the whole of devotion, all enthusiasm and reverence. For this annunciation is the beginning of our salvation. This is the first of all the Blessed Virgin’s feast days in dignity andimportance, rightly more excellent and more fruitful than a sacrament.
Let us celebrate the conception of her who was going to conceive God’s Son, because it has happened today. It is appropriate to celebrate the nativity of her from whom God’s Son was going to be born, because it was announced by the angel today. It is religious to venerate the conception of her who was going to conceive God’s Son, because it has happened today. Let us venerate her purification and the presentation of her son in the temple, because as it happens, they received their cause and origin from the sacrament of this holy annunciation. In the same way, if we attend other feast days of the Lord himself or of his saints, this holy solemnity is the beginning and origin of each one, if we consider it in the right way. For whatever was done today is divine and sacramental. Today the Blessed Virgin consented in order that she should be full of grace. From that fullness, honor and reverence have flowed to all the remaining feast days that the holy church celebrates. Today she conceived God and humankind, and would give birth with the integrity of her virginity unharmed.
This is the mystery hidden from the ages, promised by the prophets, hoped for by the patriarchs, rendered in the end, destined to be beneficial without end. Humans are ignorant of this mystery, wise people wonder, philosophers are astounded, angels venerate, stars speak, demons tremble, kings adore, Herod fears, children testify and proclaim by their death. This mystery transcends nature, goes beyond codes of law, empties every custom, surpasses all understanding… it demands from us only faith and reverence for God, rather than the investigation of human reason or assertion of arguments…

For just as in the first condition the work of the whole Trinity was expressed (where it says, Let us make humankind to our image and likeness), similarly by one and indivisible work of the whole Trinity, the fall of our mortality was repaired and our condition restored. For the Father has sent his Son into the flesh. The Son descended into a woman, the Holy Spirit came upon the virgin, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her…The former came down in divine power, the latter obeys in virgin sincerity. The angel announces lofty realities, the virgin responds in humble ways.
Rightly therefore this feast is raised up for a singular celebration, which enriched the world with a singular benefit of divine compassion. For whatever of grace, whatever of sweetness and of love for her son we reserve in our hearts, this lady experienced wholly today in her praises, so that we love and praise her as much as we can and however we can. But what weakness lacks in possibility, may our devotion supply to a loving purpose. And just as we need her constant influence, so may we venerate her by constant deference, the lady of the universe, the queen of heaven, who took away servitude, restored our freedom, and furnished salvation and life while she brought forth the Savior for us, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God over all the blessed forever

7 Aelred of Rievaulx. The Liturgical Sermons: The Reading-Cluny Collection, 2 of 2 – Sermons 134-182. Trans. Daniel Griggs. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2022. 169-173.

Skema 5th Week in Lent
2023-03-26
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
5th Week of Lent

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
March 26 – April 1, 2023

Sun
26
Mon
27
Tue
28
Wed
29
Thu
30
Fri
31
Sat
1

Office
5th Sunday of Lent
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday

Vigils
Exod 29:1-21
Exod 31:1-18
Exod 32:1-20
Exod 32:21-33:6
Exod 33:7-23
Exod 34:1-16, 27-35
Exod 40:1-38

Lauds
Deut 29:1-8
Deut 30:1-6
Deut 30:9-14
Deut 30:15-20
Deut 31:1-6
Deut 31:9-13
Deut 32:45-47

Mass
34
251
252
253
254
255
256

1st
Ezek 37:12-14
Dan 13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62
Num 21:4-9
Dan 3:14-20, 91-92, 95
Gen 17:3-9
Jer 20:10-13
Ezek 37:21-28

2nd
Rom 8:8-11

Gospel
John 11:1-45
John 8:1-11
John 8:21-30
John 8:31-42
John 8:51-59
John 10:31-42
John 11:45-56

Vespers
Heb 12:14-17
Heb 12:18-24
Heb 12:25-29
Heb 13:1-8
Heb 13:9-16
Heb 13:17-25
Gal 3:7-14

Reading: 5th Sunday of Lent
2023-03-26
The Resurrection and the Life 1
A Commentary by St Peter Chrysologus
On his return from the underworld, Lazarus comes forth from the tomb
like death confronting its conqueror, an image of the resurrection to come.
Before we can fathom the depths of meaning behind this miracle, we must
consider the way in which our Lord raised Lazarus to life. This action appears to
us as the greatest of all his signs; we see in it the supreme example of divine
power, the most marvelous of all his wonderful works.
Our Lord had raised up the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue;
but although he restored life to the dead girl, he left the law of death still in force.
He also raised the widow’s only son. He halted the bier, forestalled the young
man’s burial, arrested the onset of physical decay; but the life he restored had not
completely fallen into the power of death. The case of Lazarus was unique. His
death and resurrection to life had nothing in common with the other two. Death
had already exerted its full power over him, so that in him the sign of the
resurrection shone out in all its fullness…
His sisters sent a message to Jesus saying, Lord, the friend whom you
love is sick. By these words they appeal to his affection, they lay claim to his
friendship, they call on his love, urging their familiar relationship with him to
persuade him to relieve their distress. But for Christ it was more important to
conquer death than to cure disease. He showed his love for his friend not by
healing him but by calling him back from the grave. Instead of a remedy for his
illness, he offered him the glory of rising from the dead.
We are next told that when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, he
remained where he was for two days. You see how he gives full scope to death.
He grants free reign to the grave; he allows corruption to set in. He prohibits
neither putrefaction nor stench from taking their normal course; he allows the
realms of darkness to seize his friend, drag him down to the underworld, and take
possession of him. He acts like this so that human hope may perish entirely and
human despair reach its lowest depths. The deed he is about to accomplish may
then clearly be seen to be the work of God, not of man.
He waited for Lazarus to die, staying in the same place until he could tell
his disciples that he was dead; then he announced his intention of going to him.
Lazarus is dead, he said, and I am glad. Was this a sign of his love for his
friend? Not so. Christ was glad because their sorrow over the death of Lazarus
was soon to be changed into joy at his restoration to life. I am glad for your
sake, he said. Why for their sake? Because the death and raising of Lazarus were
a perfect prefiguration of the death and resurrection of the Lord himself. What
the Lord was soon to achieve in himself had already been achieved in his servant.
This explains why he said to them: I am glad for your sake not to have been
there, because now you will believe. It was necessary that Lazarus should die, so
that the faith of the disciples might also rise with him from the dead.
1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB.
New York: New City Press, 1992. 44-45.

Reading: Lenten Weekday
2023-03-27
Morality and Psychoanalysis 2
An excerpt from “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis
Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges
them by their moral choices… When a man who has been perverted from his
youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or
refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks
being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God’s eyes, be doing more than
you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.
…Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little
use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those
whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved
if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad
upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians
are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man’s choices make out of
his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on
what he has done with it. Most of the man’s psychological make-up is probably
due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central
man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material,
will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which
were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty
things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall
then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.
…People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which
God says, “If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the
other thing.”… I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you
are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a
little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all
your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central
thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a
creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or
else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellowcreatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is it is joy
and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror,
idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness…
One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands,
and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at. But
the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done
something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to
keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when
he does fall into it. Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist
in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if he
will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the outside, is not what
really matters…
When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the
evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own
badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a
thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right… Good people know about both good
and evil: bad people do not know about either.
2 Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966. 85-87.

Reading: Lenten Weekday
2023-03-28
On Despising the Things of This World and
On the Hope of Heavenly Things 3
A sermon by Alan of Lille
…The hope of earthly goods leads only to promises for the future; it
destroys our joys before they arrive. [Earthly hope] corrupts the mind by too
much anxiety, for fear trips up hope and mortgages the joys to come; it stretches
desire into infinity. O man, you depend on earthly things; you rely upon what is
uncertain; you lean upon a reed cane which is easily broken. Do not therefore
trust in that which is fragile and slippery; it quickly sinks away and destroys you.
Set your mind on the clouds of adversity rather than on the clear skies of
prosperity. If you set your hope on earthly prosperity… not only will you fail to
find there what you hope for, but you will discover instead the tinder of sin and of
ruin, a snare for your soul and the leavening of justice.
Rather direct your hope towards tribulations, which although they present
an external bitterness, yet – for those who stand firm – they bring forth in the
spirit the sweetness of the hope of heaven. Nor may he who has not been pricked
by the bitterness of tribulation enjoy the sweet fruit of patience. Tribulation is
the furnace which refines gold, the file which burnishes iron, the flail by which
the grain is separated from the chaff. In this warfare of tribulation, patience is
exercised, fortitude does battle, constancy is strengthened, hope is summoned
heavenwards…
O how happy is that heavenly hope, which fear does not overpower, in
which fear is not engendered by falsehood, where desire does not dream
reason invite us to believe and hope in this. What fear is able to weaken the
human mind, if heavenly hope pleads for it before God? What harm will the
thundering of tyrants, the precipices of fortune, the weaknesses of the body, the
groanings of poverty do to the man whose mind is fortified with heavenly hope?
This is the hope which governs the assemblies [of men], and directs their actions.
This it is which finds its height in charity, that we may direct our actions towards
God; this it is which expands its breadth in charity, that we may extend charity to
our enemy. This it is which stretches out its length in charity, that we may
persevere in charity to the very end of life.
Between this [hope] and fear, as between two millstones, the Christian
should be ground smooth and fine. Whence it is said in Deuteronomy: ‘You shall
not accept the upper or the lower millstone as a pledge’. The upper millstone is
hope, the lower, fear. The one must not be accepted without the other. Anyone
who hopes and does not fear is neglectful; anyone who fears and does not hope is
downcast.
3 Alan of Lille. The Art of Preaching. CF 23. Trans. Gillian R. Evans. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian
Publications, Inc., 1981. 58-61.

Reading: Lenten Weekday
2023-03-29
Father and Son 4
from the Paschal Homilies of St Cyril of Alexandria
In the account of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac, the Bible portrays
the mystery of our Savior in all its aspects. Because I want you to have a clear
understanding of this deep mystery of our religion, I must show you the
connection between the events that typified the truth itself, and explain how each
part of the story should be interpreted.
The holy Abraham took his son and hastened to the place that God had
shown him. The fact that the boy was brought to be sacrificed by his father is
meant to teach us by way of type or sign that the Lord Jesus Christ was not raised
upon the cross by any human power, nor by the wickedness of those who laid
snares for him, but by the will of the Father, whose providential plan permitted
him to suffer death for the whole world. The Savior himself said as much when
he answered Pilate: you would have no power over me if it had not been given
you from above. At another time, speaking to his Father in heaven, he said:
Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. But your will, not mine, be done.
Abraham laid the wood for the sacrifice on his son’s shoulders. In the
same way, the Jews laid the wood of the cross on the Savior’s shoulders and they
did this with the consent, one might almost say the cooperation of the Father; for
it is not possible to compel the divine power. The prophet Isaiah bears reliable
witness to this when he says: He bore the punishment which brings us peace,
and by his wounds we are healed. We had all strayed like sheep, everyone had
gone his own way and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.
When the patriarch eventually arrived at the appointed place, he put all his
skill into building a good altar. This too we are meant to interpret in a spiritual
way and so to understand that what appears to the human eye as a cross and a
gibbet is in fact in the eyes of the Father of the whole universe a vast and towering
altar raised up for the salvation of the world, and blackened by the smoke of a
pure and most holy sacrifice.
By his words, I bared my back to the scourge, and let myself be struck on
the face Isaiah foretold the blows that his enemies would shamelessly inflict on
the Savior’s body, and their spitting upon it… Our Lord Jesus Christ, disregarding
the shame, humbled himself in obedience to the Father, even to the extent of
dying for our salvation. He died to give us life through the Holy Spirit and to
raise us up with himself, to open the gates of heaven to us and to lead us in, thus
restoring to the Father the human race whose sin had long ago made it fly from
his presence.
Therefore, beloved, let this great work of our Savior be acclaimed by every
voice, let his praise be on every tongue. Let the sweet sound of that ancient song
be heard again: God has gone up with shouts of jubilation, the Lord has
ascended with a fanfare of trumpets. He completed the work of our salvation
and then ascended, indeed he not only ascended but he also led captivity captive
and gave gifts to mortals.
4 A Word in Season – vol. II – Exordium Books – 1982 – pg 147

Reading: Lenten Weekday
2023-03-30
The Origin of Death 5
From the writing of Fr. Alexander Schmemann
…Death as the liberation from the oppressiveness of the body; death as the
liberation from suffering; death as freedom from this changing, busy, evil world;
death as the beginning of eternity. Here, in fact, is the sum total of religious and
philosophical teaching before Christ and outside of Christianity… But Christ
weeps at the grave of his friend, and in so doing he reveals his own struggle with
death, his refusal to acknowledge it and to come to terms with it. Suddenly,
death ceases to be a normal and natural fact, it appears as something foreign, as
unnatural, as fearsome and perverted, and it is acknowledged as an enemy: “The
last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
In order to feel the whole depth and revolutionary force of this change we
must begin at the beginning, at the source of this new and unprecedented
approach to death. We find it as a brief statement in Holy Scripture: “God did
not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living”. This means
that in the world, in creation, there is a power that does not have its origin in
God, which he did not desire, which he did not create, which opposes him and is
independent of him…Death is the denial of God, and if death is natural, if it is the
ultimate truth about life and about the world, if it is the highest and immutable
law about all of creation, then there is no God, then this whole story about
creation, about joy, and about the light of life is a total lie.
Therefore, the most important and more profound question of the
Christian faith must be, How and from where did death arise, and why has it
become stronger than life? Why has it become so powerful that the world itself has become a kind of cosmic cemetery, a place where a collection of people
condemned to death live either in fear or terror, or in their efforts to forget about
death find themselves rushing around one great big burial plot?
To this question Christianity answers with equal force, brevity, and
conviction. Here is the text: “and through sin death has come into the world”. In
other words, for Christianity, death first of all is revealed as part of the moral
order, as a spiritual catastrophe. In some final and indescribable sense man
desired death, or perhaps one might say, he did not desire that life that was given
to him by God freely, with love and joy… Man did not desire this life with God
and for God. He desired life for himself, and in himself he found the purpose, the
goal, and the content of life. And in this free choice of himself, and not of God, in
his preference for himself over God, without realizing it, man became inextricably
a slave of the world, a slave of his own dependence on the world…
“God did not create death.” It is man who introduced death into the world,
freely desiring life only for himself and in himself, cutting himself off from the
source, the goal, and content of life – from God. And this is why death -as
disintegration, as separation, as temporality, transitoriness – has become the
supreme law of life, revealing the illusory nature of everything on earth.
In order to console himself, man created a dream of another world where
there is no death, and for that dream he forfeited this world, gave it up decidedly
to death. Only if we fully return to the Christian understanding about death, as
the root of man’s own perversion of the understanding of the very content of life,
can we hear once more, as new, the Christian proclamation about the destruction
of death in the resurrection.
5
Schmemann, Alexander. O Death Where is Thy Sting?. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003. 29-36.

Reading: Lenten Weekday
2023-03-31
Humility 6
From the Epistles of Elder Paisios of Mount Athos
Blessed are those who manage to imitate the humble earth, which, while it
is stepped on by everyone, lifts everyone with its love and nurtures them with
affection like a good mother, which has also provided the material for our flesh.
It accepts with joy anything we throw away, good fruits as well as dirty trash,
converts them quietly into vitamins and, with its fruits, offers them back
plentifully to both good and evil people, without discrimination.
The humble person, as is manifest, is the strongest in the world because he
is always triumphant, but also because he bears other people’s loads with an
untroubled conscience. Although he lives scorned and unjustly treated due to the
errors of others that he assumes out of love, internally he feels the greatest joy in
the world, for he has disregard for this vain world. Insults, injustices… are the
best lancets for those who are at fault, because old wounds are thus cleansed. For
those who are not at fault, however, they are like the executioner’s knives; people
who joyfully accept them for the love of Christ are considered martyrs.
Adults who do not accept insults and biting criticism, that they might be
healed or receive a reward (when not at fault), are more foolish than little
children who don’t want to even hear about the doctor, for fear of the injection
(not wanting to be pierced by the needle). Hence, they continually suffer from a
cough and fever… He who humbly prostrates himself and accepts blows from
other people, removes his own tumours, becomes beautified spiritually as an
angel, and thus fits through the narrow gate of Paradise.
…No one climbs to Heaven through worldly ascent, but through spiritual
descent. He who walks lowly always walks with surety and never falls. He who
does not seek counsel on his spiritual journey, confuses the routes, becomes
exhausted, and is delayed. If he does not humble himself and solicit counsel,
even if at a later stage, he will hardly reach his destination. Those who take
counsel, however, walk tirelessly, with surety, and are covered by the Grace of
God and are enlightened, inasmuch as they have been humbled… He who lacks
humility and good thoughts is full of doubts and questions. Since he will be
constantly perplexed, in the beginning he has need of an Elder with great
patience to constantly provide him with explanations until his mind and heart are
cleansed so he can see clearly.
As the humble and kind-hearted man has purity and internal as well as
external serenity, he also has spiritual depth, perceives profoundly the divine
meanings, and is greatly benefited, and his faith increases even more, for he lives
the mysteries of God. He who is proud, apart from being darkened, is always
unsettled inwardly as well outwardly. Due to the flightiness of his egotism, he
always stands on the surface of things and cannot proceed to the depths, where
the divine pearls are found, so as to be spiritually enriched.
6 Elder Paisios of Mount Athos. Epistles. Vasilika, Thessaloniki, Greece: Holy Monastery of the
Evangelist John the Theologian, 2002. 116-119.

Reading: Lenten Weekday
2023-04-01
Submission to God in Suffering is a Source of Peace 7
From the writings of Dom Columba Marmion
When we thus submit ourselves entirely to Christ Jesus, when we abandon
ourselves to Him, when our soul only responds, like His own, with a perpetual
Amen to all that He asks of us in the name of His Father… then Christ Jesus
establishes His peace in us: His peace, not that which the world promises, but the
true peace which can only come from Himself…
Doubtless, here below, peace is not always sensible; upon earth we are in a
condition of trial and, most often, peace is won by conflict… We may be slighted,
opposed, persecuted, be unjustly treated, our intentions and deeds may be
misunderstood; temptation may shake us, suffering may come suddenly upon us;
but there is an inner sanctuary which none can reach; here is the sojourn of our
peace, because in this innermost secret of the soul dwell adoration, submission
and abandonment to God. “I love my God,” said St. Augustine, “no one takes
Him from me: no one takes from me what I ought to give Him, for that is
enclosed within my heart…
Death cannot trouble the soul that has sought only God. Has it not
confided itself to the One Who says: “He that believeth in Me, although he be
dead, shall live”…
In one of her “Exercises,” St. Gertrude allows her assurance, which the
infinite merits of Jesus give her, to overflow. “Woe, woe unto me, if, when I come
before Thee, I had no advocate to plead my cause!… Come Thou with me to
judgment… there let us stand together. Judge me, for the right is Thine; but
remember Thou are also my Advocate. In order that I be fully acquitted, Thou
has but to recount what Thou didst become for love of me, the price wherewith
Thou hast purchased me…
For souls moved by such sentiments, death is but a transition; Christ
comes Himself to open to them the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem… There will
be no more darkness, trouble, tears, or sighs; but peace, infinite and perfect
peace. “Peace first becomes ours with the longing and seeking for the Creator; it
is in the full vision and eternal possession of Him that peace is made perfect.”
7 Marmion, Dom Columba, O.S.B. Suffering with Christ: An anthology of the Writings of Dom Columba
Marmion, O.S.B. Compiled by Dom Raymund Thibaut, O.S.B. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman
Press, 1954. 220-221, 232-233.

Skema
2023-04-02
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
Holy Week

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

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

Office
Palm Sunday
Mon. of Holy Week
Tues. of Holy Week
Wed. of Holy Week
Holy Thursday
Good Friday
Holy Saturday

Vigils
Zech 9:9-17
Lam 1:1-16
Lam 2:1-10
Lam 2:18-22
Lam 3:19-54
Lam 4:1-6
Lam 5:1-22

Lauds
Zeph 3:14-20
Lam 1:17-22
Lam 2:11-17
Lam 3:1-18
Lam 3:55-66
Wis 2:10-22
Isa 63:1-6

Mass
38
257
258
259
39
40

1st
Isa 50:4-7
Isa 42:1-7
Isa 49:1-6
Isa 50:4-9a
Exod 12:1-8, 11-14
Isa 52:13-53:12

2nd
Phil 2:6-11

1 Cor 11:23-26
Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Gospel
Matt 26:14-27:66
John 12:1-11
John 13:21-33, 36-38
Matt 26:14-25
John 13:1-15
John 18:1-19:42

Vespers
1 Tim 6:11-16
Rom 5:6-11
1 Cor 1:18-25
1 Pet 2:20-25

1 Pet 4:1-8

Vigils Reading - Palm Sunday
2023-04-02
The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ1
A Commentary by St Augustine
Jesus’ hour had not yet come – not the hour when he would be forced to die, but the hour when he would choose to be put to death. He knew the appointed hour for him to die; he had pondered all the prophecies concerning himself and was waiting until everything had taken place that the prophets said would occur before his passion began.
…Among the other things that were foretold of Christ, it is written: They mingled gall with my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. How this came about we know from the gospel. First they gave Jesus gall; he took it, tasted it, and rejected it. Then, to fulfill the Scriptures as he hung on the cross, he said: I am thirsty. They took a sponge soaked in vinegar, tied it to a reed, and lifted it up to him where he hung. When he had taken it he said: It is finished. What did he mean by that? It is as though he said: “All the prophecies foretelling what would happen before my passion have been fulfilled. What then is left for me to do?” So, after saying It is finished, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Did the thieves crucified beside him choose when to die? They were imprisoned in the flesh with no power over its limitations. But it was when he himself chose to do so that the Lord took flesh in a virgin’s womb. He chose the moment of his coming among us and the duration of his life on earth. He also chose the hour when he would depart this earthly life. It was in his power to do all this; he was under no compulsion. So in waiting for the hour of his choice, not the hour decreed by fate, he made sure that everything that had to be fulfilled before he suffered was duly accomplished. How could Christ be subject to the decree of fate, when elsewhere he had said: I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again. No one can take it from me; I lay it down of my own accord, and I will take it up again? He showed that power when the Jewish authorities came in search of him. Who are you looking for? he asked them. Jesus of Nazareth, they answered, and he in turn replied: I am he. At these words they recoiled and fell to the ground.

Someone is sure to ask: If he had such power, why did he not demonstrate it when his enemies were taunting him and saying: If he is the son of God, let him come down from the cross? He was showing us how to endure; that was why he deferred the exercise of his power. If he were to come down because he was stung by their words, they would think he had succumbed to their mockery. He chose not to come down. He chose to stay where he was, refusing to die until the moment of his choice.
If Jesus had the power to rise from the tomb, could he have found it so very difficult to come down from the cross? We, then, for whom all these things were done, should understand that the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was then hidden, will be revealed at the Last Judgment…
Thus, unless he had been willing he would not have suffered, his blood would not have been shed; and if that blood had not been shed, the world would not have been redeemed. So let us pour out our thanks to him, both for the power of his divinity and for the compassion of his suffering humanity.

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 48-49.

Vigils Reading - Monday of Holy Week
2023-04-03
The Vice of Covetousness 2
From a homily on the Gospel of John by St John Chrysostom
Six days before the Passover, [Jesus] came to Bethany where Lazarus was; and he shared a meal with them, and Martha served… However, Mary was not serving at table, for she was His disciple. In this case once again she was more deeply spiritual than Martha. For she was not lending her services as if called on to do so, nor did she minister to all the guests in common, but she paid honor to Him alone, and she approached Him, not as man, but as God. Indeed, that is why she poured out the ointment and wiped it dry with her hair, because she did not have the kind of opinion of Him which most people had.
Yet Judas rebuked her, with a pretense of piety in what he said. Therefore, what did Christ say? ‘She has done a good turn for my burial.’… Once again He was admonishing the traitor by speaking of His burial. However the warning did not give [Judas] pause, nor did the words soften him, even though they wereenough to plunge him into grief… Nothing of this caused the bestial and crazed man to yield, even though [Jesus]… both washed his feet on the night of the betrayal and shared with him His table and hospitality…
A terrible vice is covetousness, a terrible vice. It disables both eyes and ears, and makes men fiercer than wild beasts, not permitting them to consider conscience, or friendship, or association, or the salvation of their own soul… This vice made Giezi a leper instead of a disciple and prophet; it destroyed Ananias and his followers; it made Judas a traitor… It has brought on innumerable wars, and filled the roads with bloodshed, and the cities with mourning and weeping… For, when men saw beautiful homes, and extensive fields… and silver vessels, and a great accumulation of garments, they made every effort to get better ones… Let us think about our ancestors. Is not their property still standing, preserving only their names: the bath of this one, the suburban house and dwelling of that one? On seeing them do we not at once groan, thinking of how much toil he expended, how many frauds he perpetrated. Yet he is nowhere in sight, but others enjoy the fruits of his toil, people whom he never intended to enjoy them – perhaps even his enemies – while he suffers the extreme penalty…

However, this is not the case in the everlasting mansions, in the dwellings of the next life… Let us, then, strive for that type of possessions. Let us prepare dwellings for ourselves there, that we may find rest in Christ Jesus our Lord..

2 Saint John Chrysostom. Commentary on Saint John The Apostle and Evangelist: Homilies 48-88. Trans. Sister Thomas Aquinas Goggin, S.C.H. New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc, 1960. 209-215.
