Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading
2023-05-24
WHAT TRUE FAITH IS
From the writing of Johann Arndt4
◊◊◊
He who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God. Faith is a deep assent and unhesitating trust in God’s grace promised in Christ and in the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. It is ignited by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit…
By this deep trust and heartfelt assent, man gives his heart completely and utterly to God, rests in God alone… becomes one spirit with God, receives from him new power, new life, new consolation… This is the new birth that comes from faith in Christ… a certain true assurance of things on which man hopes and a conviction concerning things man does not see. The consolation of living faith becomes powerful in the heart; it convinces the heart, in that one finds in one’s soul heavenly goodness, namely, rest and peace in God, so certain and true that one might then die with a happy heart…
Through this power of God we are once again drawn into God, inclined toward God, transplanted and set in God, taken out of Adam and as a cursed vine placed in Christ the blessed and living vine. Thus, in Christ we possess all his goods and are made righteous in him… Just as once through Adam’s fall, through the deception and treachery of the Devil, the seed of the serpent was sowed in man – that is, the evil, satanic pattern of life out of which an evil, poisonous fruit grew – so by God’s word and the Holy Spirit faith was sowed in man as a seed of God in which all divine virtues, qualities, and characteristics, in a hidden manner, were contained and grew out to a beautiful and new image of God, to a beautiful and new tree on which the fruits are love, patience, humility, meekness, peace, chastity, righteousness, the new man, and the whole kingdom of God. The true sanctifying faith renews the whole man, purifies the heart, unites with God, makes the heart free from earthly things, hungers and thirsts after righteousness, works love, gives peace, joy, patience, consolation in all suffering, conquers the world, makes children heirs of God and of all heavenly eternal good and co-heirs of Christ…

If we fall in weakness and stumble, God’s grace does not fall away if we arise again through true repentance. Christ remains always Christ and the Sanctifier. He may be grasped with weak or with strong faith. Weak faith belongs as much to Christ as strong. Whether a man is weak or strong of faith, he is Christ’s own just the same. The grace that is promised is common to all Christians and is eternal. On this, faith must rest, whether it be weak or strong. In his time, God will allow you to come to refreshing, joyous consolation, whether he bring it to your heart in a short time or in a longer period

4 Johann Arndt. True Christianity. Trans. Peter Erb. New York: Paulist Press, 1979. 45-48.

Vigils Reading - St Bede the Venerable
2023-05-25
AND YOU TOO WILL BEAR WITNESS
A homily from St Bede the Venerable5 ◊◊◊
We find from many places in the holy gospel that before the coming of the Holy Spirit, the disciples were less capable of understanding the hidden mysteries of the divine sublimity, and were less brave in tolerating the adversities brought on by human depravity. When the Spirit came upon them with an increase of divine insight, there was given them the constancy [needed] to overcome human persecution as well. Hence it is said to them now, in the Lord’s promise, ‘When the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me; and you too will bear witness’…
The Spirit, upon his coming, bore witness concerning the Lord. Breathing into the hearts of the disciples, he revealed to them by his bright light everything about which mortals were to have knowledge concerning [the Lord], namely, that he was equal and of the same substance with the Father before the ages; that he became of the same substance as we at the end of the ages; that he was born of a virgin and lived in the world without sin; that he went forth from the world when he wished and by the kind of death that he wished; that by rising from the dead he truly destroyed death and raised up the true flesh in which he had suffered, and at his ascension took it up into heaven, and established it at the right hand of his Fathers’ glory; that all the writings of the prophets bear witness to him; that the confession of his name was to be extended even to the end of the earth, and that the rest of the mysteries of his faith were unlocked for his disciples by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Nor was whatever they correctly discerned conceded to them alone by the gift of the Spirit, but also to all who believe in the Lord through their word.

‘He’, Jesus says, ‘will bear witness concerning me, and you will bear witness’. Once they had put aside their initial fear, they ministered outwardly by telling others what they had received inwardly by the Spirit’s teaching. The Spirit himself both illumined their hearts by knowledge of the truth, and by the preeminence of his power roused them to teach what they knew. Hence in Isaiah the Spirit is rightly called ‘of strength and knowledge’. He is indeed the Spirit ofknowledge, since it is by his help that we rightly acknowledge what we must do and even think; he is also the Spirit of strength, since it is by his help that we receive [the strength] to carry out what we know well that we should do, lest we be driven away by some adversity from the good deeds we have begun…
He who warned them ahead of time that the hour of persecution would come is the one who, a little later, pledged his help to his faithful in the persecution, saying, ‘You will have distress in the world; but have confidence; I have overcome the world’. He elsewhere promised the crown of life to those who are sincerely engaged in strife, saying, ‘Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’

5 Bede the Venerable. Homilies on the Gospels: Book Two – Lent to the Dedication of the Church. Trans. Lawrence T. Martin and David Hurst, OSB. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1991. 149-151.

Vigils Reading
2023-05-26
CONCERNING THE TRIPLE LOVE OF GOD
A sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux6 ◊◊◊
Love not the world nor the things which are in the world. For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father…Whoever therefore will be a friend of this world becomes an enemy of God… Blessed Gregory explains that love itself is knowledge. Love therefore is triple, love that excludes that triple worldly passion that is not from the Father. And besides, three times, I believe, Peter was asked by Christ, Do you love me, do you love me, do you love me? Perhaps this love about which the Law teaches is also triple: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole strength. That is, you shall love sweetly or affectionately, you shall love prudently, you shall love bravely…
Did he not make himself somehow foolish, he who has delivered his soul unto death and has borne the sins of many…? Was he not drunk with the wine of charity and unmindful of himself, against the advice of Peter, who said, “Take care for yourself”?… What is more, we have said that this mystery certainly reaches to the heart’s affectionate love… Therefore this love counteracts concupiscence of the flesh. For how could carnal sweetness compare to the genuine sweetness of Christ’s passion?
However, this sweetness can be deceptive if it lacks prudence. And besides, poison in the honey can be avoided only with difficulty. In that case, prudence must be present, by which we can diligently investigate interior mysteries, so that we may be ready always to satisfy everyone who asks for a

reason… Indeed this earnest soul cannot be curious about worldly matters, saying with the prophet, O how have I loved your Law, O Lord! It is my meditation all the day.
The third way is so that each of us loves bravely: to the extent that we cannot be deceived, so also we cannot be compelled; thus we are prepared to suffer all things for the sake of justice. For everyone knows that the King of heaven did not seek earthly rule and honors, but rejected them instead…
And so it was that Peter was questioned about these three types of love, for earlier he had been found wanting… Though he loved Christ sweetly, as it were, he said, Far be it from you, for he loved foolishly. So he also deserved to hear, Get behind me, Satan, because you understand not the things that are of God… But on the night in which the Lord was to be handed over, both sweetly and wisely was Peter loving when he said, Lord, I am ready to go with you both into prison and to death. But he was not loving bravely, because “He that is fallen low did never firmly stand.” The power from on high had not yet come, which, once accepted, Peter did not refuse, but using his liberated voice, he said, You be the judge whether we ought to obey God rather than human beings.
Is it not fitting that Peter, who was put in charge of feeding the flock, was asked to give an account of his love? For one who is intoxicated and burning with the wine of charity should lead others, unmindful of himself, so that he seeks not things that are his own but rather things that are Jesus Christ’s. And note that when Peter was asked if he loved more than these others, he only answered that he loved. He was upset, for he dared not assert what he had rashly said before. And perhaps for that reason he was deeply grieved, for he had said before, Even if all shall be scandalized in you, yet not I

6 St Bernard of Clairvaux. Monastic Sermons. CF 68. Trans. Daniel Griggs. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2016. 166-170.

Vigils Reading - St Augustine of Canterbury
2023-05-27
ST. AUGUSTINE, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
From the writings of Alban Butler7 ◊◊◊
When Pope St. Gregory the Great decided that the time had come for the evangelization of Anglo-Saxon England, he chose as missionaries some thirty or more monks from his monastery of St. Andrew… As their leader he gave them their own prior, Augustine. The party set out from Rome in the year 596; but no sooner had they arrived in Provence than they were assailed with warnings about the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and the dangers of the Channel. Greatly discouraged, they persuaded Augustine to return to Rome and obtain leave to abandon the enterprise. St. Gregory, however, had received definite assurance that the English were well disposed towards the Christian faith; he therefore sent Augustine back to his brethren with words of encouragement which gave them heart to proceed on their way.
They landed in the Isle of Thanet in the territory of Ethelbert, king of Kent, who was baptized at Pentecost 597. Almost immediately afterwards St. Augustine paid a visit to France, where he was consecrated bishop of the English by St. Virgilius, metropolitan of Arles. At Christmas of that same year, many of Ethelbert’s subjects were baptized, as St. Gregory joyfully related in a letter to Eulogius, the patriarch of Alexandria. Augustine sent two of his monks, Laurence and Peter, to Rome to give a full report of his mission, to ask for more helpers and obtain advice on various points. They came back bringing the pallium for Augustine and accompanied by a fresh band of missionaries, amongst whom were St. Mellitus, St. Justus and St. Paulinus.

Gregory outlined for Augustine the course he should take to develop a hierarchy for the whole country, and both to him and to Mellitus gave very practical instructions on other points. Pagan temples were not to be destroyed, but were to be purified and consecrated for Christian worship. Local customs were as far as possible to be retained, days of dedication and feasts of martyrs being substituted for heathen festivals.
In Canterbury itself St. Augustine rebuilt an ancient church which, with an old wooden house, formed the nucleus for his metropolitan basilica and for the later monastery of Christ Church. These buildings stood on the site of the present cathedral begun by Lanfranc in 1070. Outside the walls of Canterbury he made a monastic foundation, which he dedicated in honour of St. Peter and St. Paul. After his death this abbey became known as St. Augustine’s, and was the burial place of the early archbishops.
Cut off from much communication with the outside world, the British church clung to certain usages at variance with those of the Roman tradition. St. Augustine invited the leading ecclesiastics to meet him at some place just on the confines of Wessex, still known in Bede’s day as Augustine’s Oak. There he urged them to comply with the practices of the rest of Western Christendom, and more especially to co-operate with him in evangelizing the Anglo-Saxons. Fidelity to their local traditions, however, made them unwilling. A second conference proved a said failure. Because St. Augustine failed to rise when they arrived, the British bishops decided that he was lacking in humility and would neither listen to him nor acknowledge him as their metropolitan.
The saint’s last years were spent in spreading and consolidating the faith throughout Ethelbert’s realm, and episcopal sees were established at London and Rochester. About seven years after his arrival in England, St. Augustine passed to his reward, on May 26, 605

7Butler’s Lives of Saints. Harper, 1991, pp. 158-159.

Skema
2023-05-28
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
8th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
May 28 – June 3, 2023

Sun
28
Mon
29
Tue
30
Wed
31
Thu
1
Fri
2
Sat
3

Office
Pentecost Sunday
Mary, Mother of the Church
Weekday
Visitation of the BVM
St Justin Martyr
Weekday
St Charles Lwanga & Companions

Vigils
* Special Vigil
Gen 1:1-1:19
Gen 1:20-2:3
Gal 3:15-29
Gen 2:4-25
Gen 3:1-24
Gen 4:1-26

Lauds
Joel 3:1-5
Prov 1:1-7
Prov 1:8-19
Zech 2:10-17
Prov 1:20-33
Prov 2:1-11
Prov 3:1-12

Mass
63
BVM Lect pg 118-138
348
572
350
351
352

1st
Acts 2:1-11
Acts 1:12-14
Sir 35:1-12
Zeph 3:14-18a
Sir 42:15-25
Sir 44:1, 9-13
Sir 51:12cd-20

2nd
1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13
Psalm 87[86]: 1-2, 3+5, 6-7

Gospel
John 20:19-23
John 19:25-34
Mark 10:28-31
Luke 1:39-56
Mark 10:46-52
Mark 11:11-26
Mark 11:27-33

Vespers
Gal 5:16-25
Gal 1:1-10
Gal 1:11-24
Rom 12:9-21
Gal 2:1-10
Gal 2:11-14
1 Cor 2:1-10

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

Vigils Reading - Pentecost Sunday
2023-05-28
RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT
From a commentary by St Augustine1 ◊◊◊
The happy day has dawned for us on which Holy Church makes her first radiant appearance to the eyes of faith and sets the hearts of believers on fire. It is the day on which we celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit by our Lord Jesus Christ, after he had risen from the dead and ascended into glory. In the gospel it is written: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water shall flow from his heart. The Evangelist explains these words by adding: Jesus said this about the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. Now the glorification of Jesus took place when he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, but all was not yet accomplished. The Holy Spirit still had to be given; the one who made the promise had to send him. This is precisely what occurred at Pentecost.
After being in the company of his disciples for the forty days following his resurrection, the Lord ascended into heaven, and on the fiftieth day – the day we are now celebrating – he sent the Holy Spirit. The account is given in Scripture: Suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and there appeared to them tongues like fire which separated and came to rest on each one of them. And they began to speak in other tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them power of utterance. That wind cleansed the disciples’ hearts, blowing away fleshly thoughts like so much chaff. The fire burnt up their unregenerate desires as if they were straw. The tongues in which they spoke as the Holy Spirit filled them were a foreshadowing of the Church’s preaching of the Gospel in the tongues of all nations.

After the flood, in pride and defiance of the Lord, an impious generation erected a high tower and so brought about the division of the human race into many language groups, each with its own peculiar speech which was unintelligible to the rest of the world. At Pentecost, by contrast, the humble piety of believers brought all these diverse languages into the unity of the Church. What discord had scattered, love was to gather together. Like the limbs of a single body, the separated members of the human race would be restored to unity by being joined to Christ, their common head, and welded into the oneness of a holy body by the fire of love. Anyone therefore who rejects the gift of peace and withdraws from the fellowship of this unity cuts himself off from the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So then, my fellow members of Christ’s body, you are the fruits of unity and the children of peace. Keep this day with joy, celebrate it in freedom of spirit, for in you is fulfilled what was foreshadowed in those days when the Holy Spirit came. At that time whoever received the Holy Spirit spoke in many languages, individual though he was. Now in the same way unity itself speaks through all nations in every tongue. If you yourselves are established in that unity you have the Holy Spirit among you, and nothing can separate you from the Church of Christ which speaks in the language of every nation of the world

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 72-73.

Vigils Reading - Mary, Mother of the Church
2023-05-29
MARY’S EDUCATION AS MOTHER OF THE CHURCH
From the writing of Hans Urs Von Balthasar2 ◊◊◊
At first it was the Mother who introduced the Son into the Old Covenant and thereby trained him for his messianic office. However, it was not she but his own knowledge of the Father’s mission in the Holy Spirit that showed him who he was and what he had to do. The relationship is thus reversed: from now on it is the Son who educates the Mother for the greatness of his task, cultivating in her the maturity she needs to stand under the Cross and, finally, to receive, at prayer within the Church, the universal gift of the Holy Spirit.
From the very outset, this education reflects Simeon’s prophecy that a sword would pierce the Mother’s soul. It is a pitiless process. All the episodes handed down for us are more or less brusque rejections. It is not as though Jesus had been disobedient for thirty years; we have an explicit affirmation to the contrary. However, the merely physical relationship to which faith was so intimately tied in the Old Testament is sovereignly, ruthlessly forced open. Henceforth faith in Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, is the only thing that counts…
The scene in which Jesus, teaching those gathered around him in a certain house, refuses to receive the visit of his Mother, who is standing outside, seems almost unbearable to us. “Here are my mother and my brethren! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother”. Jesus means her more than anyone, though he does not mention her by name. Yet who understands his meaning? Did Mary herself understand it? We have to accompany Mary in spirit as she makes her way home and try to imagine her state of mind. The sword gnaws

at her soul; she feels as if bereft of her inmost self, as if the point of her life has been drained away. Her faith, which at the beginning received so many sensible confirmations, is plunged into a dark night. It is as if the Son, who sends her no news about what he is doing, has run away from her, yet she cannot simply let him go away: she has to accompany him, full of dread, in her night of faith…
The purpose of this constant training in the naked faith Mary will need under the Cross is often insufficiently understood; people are astonished and embarrassed by the way in which Jesus treats his Mother, whom he addresses both in Cana and at the Cross only as “woman”. He himself is the first one to wield the sword that must pierce her. But how else would she have become ready to stand by the Cross, where not only her Son’s earthly failure, but also his abandonment by the God who sends him is revealed. She must finally say Yes to this, too, because she consented a priori to her child’s whole destiny. And as if to fill her bitter chalice to the brim, the dying Son expressly abandons his Mother, withdrawing from her and foisting on her another son: “Woman, behold, your son”. This gesture is usually understood primarily as evidencing Jesus’ concern about where his Mother will live after he is gone… This must not, however, lead us to overlook a second motif: just as the Son is abandoned by the Father, so, too, he abandons his Mother, so that the two of them may be united in a common abandonment. Only thus does she become inwardly ready to take on ecclesial motherhood toward all of Jesus’ new brothers and sisters

2 Hans Urs Von Balthasar and Pope Benedict XVI. Mary: The Church at the Source. Trans. Adrian Walker. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005. 107-110.

Vigils Reading
2023-05-30
CONCERNING THE AIM OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE
A conversation of St Seraphim of Sarov with Nicholas Motovilov3 ◊◊◊
“The Lord has revealed to me,” began the great elder, “that in your childhood you longed to know the aim of our Christian life and continually asked questions about it of many and great ecclesiastical dignitaries.”… “But no one,” continued Father Seraphim, “has given you a precise answer… Prayer, fasting, watching, and all other Christian acts, however good they may be, do not alone constitute the aim of our Christian life, although they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this aim. The true aim of our Christian life, is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God…
“How do you mean acquire?” I asked Father Seraphim…
“To acquire is the same as to gain,” he answered. “You understand what acquiring money means. Acquiring God’s Spirit, it’s all the same… Acquire, my son, the grace of the Holy Spirit by all the other virtues in Christ; trade in those that are most profitable to you… Thus, if prayer and watching give you more of God’s grace, pray and watch; if fasting give much of God’s Spirit, fast; if almsgiving gives more, give alms. In such manner decide about every virtue in Christ…
We have become very inattentive to the work of our salvation, whence it comes about that many other words also in the Holy Scriptures we do not take in the proper sense; and all because we do not seek the grace of God, because in the pride of our minds we do not allow it to enter our souls, and therefore we have no true enlightenment from the Lord, which is sent into the hearts of men, to all who hunger and thirst in heart for God’s truth.

When our Lord Jesus Christ had accomplished the whole work of salvation, after His resurrection, He breathed on the Apostles to restore the breath of life which had been lost by Adam, and gave them that same grace of the Holy Spirit of God which had been Adam’s. On the day of Pentecost He triumphantly sent down on them the Holy Spirit in the rushing of a mighty wind like tongues of fire, which sat upon each one of them and entered in and filled them with the strength of Divine flame-like grace; whose breath is laden with dew, and it creates joy in the souls partaking of its power and influence. And, when this same fire-inspired grace of the Holy Spirit is given to all the faithful in Christ in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, they seal it in the chief places appointed by the Holy Church on our flesh, as the eternal vessel of this grace… If we were never to sin after our baptism, we should remain forever holy, spotless, exempt from all foulness of flesh and spirit, like the saints of God. But the trouble is that, though we increase in stature, we do not increase in the grace and mind of God, as our Lord Jesus Christ increased; but on the contrary, growing dissipated bit by bit, we are deprived of the grace of God’s Holy Spirit and become sinners of many degrees and many sins.
But, when a man, stirred by the Divine Wisdom which seeks our salvation, is resolved for her sake to rise early before God and keep watch for the attainment of his eternal salvation, then must he in obedience to her voice hasten to repent truly of all his sins and to perfect the virtues that are their contrary, and thus by virtuous acts done for Christ’s sake to acquire the Holy Spirit, which works in us and sets up in us the kingdom of God. Notwithstanding man’s repeated falls, notwithstanding the darkness around the soul, the grace of the Holy Spirit… shines still in the heart with the Divine immemorial light of the precious merits of Christ. When the sinner turns to the way of repentance, this Christ-Light smooths out all trace of past sin and clothes the former sinner once more in a robe of incorruption woven from the grace of the Holy Spirit..

3 The Spiritual Instructions of Saint Seraphim of Sarov. Ed. Franklin Jones. Los Angeles: The Dawn Horse Press, 1973. 41-44, 46-48, 50.

Vigils Reading - Visitation of BVM
2023-05-31
SHE MAGNIFIES THE LORD
From the letters of Adam of Perseigne4 ◊◊◊
She, now saluted by the angel, now made fruitful by the Holy Spirit, now raised to the height of all the virtues, honored by the leaping of the yet unborn <John>, commended by the prophetic words of Elizabeth, cries out and says: ‘my soul magnifies the Lord’…
The soul of Mary magnifies the Lord because she herself is magnified by the Lord. For unless she were first magnified by the Lord, Mary’s soul could not magnify the Lord… Many magnify him with their tongue but blaspheme him with their deeds and become persecutors through the arrogance of their hearts. Of them it is written: ‘They confess that they know God but deny him by their deeds’. They do not magnify him, but as much as in them lies they belittle the name of the Lord. These are they to whom the apostle says: ‘Through you my good name is blasphemed among the nations.’… But in Mary her tongue, her life, her soul, all magnify the Lord…
How do you magnify him? Do you make greater him whose magnificence has no end?… How then do you magnify one whom you cannot from small make great nor from great greater? But you magnify because you praise, you magnify because amid the darkness of the world, being brighter than the sun, lovelier than the moon, more fragrant than the rose, whiter than snow, you spread abroad the splendor of the knowledge of God. You magnify him therefore not by increasing his surpassing greatness but by bringing the unknown radiance of the true deity to the world’s darkness. For the Lord whom you magnify, since he is eternal,

knows no failure and, since he is perfect, knows no increase. He is eternal for he has neither beginning nor end. He is perfect for his fulness nothing is lacking. But him you magnify when you so far raise yourself by your surpassing merits that you receive the fulness of grace [and] merit the coming upon you of the Holy Spirit, [and] that, being made the Mother of God, remaining still a pure virgin, you bring forth for the perishing world a Saviour.
But for what reason? Because the Lord is with you and he has made your merits his gift. Therefore the more you are magnified in him and by him, the more you are said to magnify him… You are drenched with all the dew of the Holy Spirit, you are inundated wholly with heavenly unction… For you are Moses’ basket, you are the vessel containing the Word, you are the storehouse of the new wine by which the soberness of believers becomes inebriated. You are the Mother of God, the limit set to sin, by whom men rise from the depths of vice and reach the delights of angels…
Draw me after you that I may be strong enough to run in the odor of your perfumes, breathe in the examples of your virtues, be aided by the winds of your discourses, so that at your petition, my soul may first learn by fearing God to withdraw from evil and afterwards, with you, by loving and doing justice may learn to magnify the Lord, to whom is honour and glory and might and power for ever and ever

4 Adam of Perseigne. The Letters of Adam of Perseigne: Volume I. CF 21. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, INC. 1976. 58-63.

Vigils Reading - St Justin Martyr
2023-06-01
HE DID IT SOLELY FOR THE SAKE OF MAN
From the Dialogue with Trypho by St Justin Martyr5 ◊◊◊
When I had finished, Trypho said, ‘…Explain to me the following words of Isaias: “There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety; and he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord.” Now you have admitted (he said) that these words were spoken of Christ, who, you claim, already existed as God, and, becoming incarnate by the will of God, was born of a virgin. This, then, is my question: How can you prove that Christ already existed, since He is endowed with those gifts of the Holy Spirit which the above-quoted passages of Isaias attribute to Him as though He had lacked them?’
‘You proposed a very sensible and intelligent question,’ I remarked, ‘which appears to raise a real difficulty… The Scriptures state that these gifts of the Holy Spirit were bestowed upon Him, not as though He were in need of them, but as though they were about to rest upon Him, that is, to come to an end with Him, so that there would be no more Prophets among your people as of old (as is plainly evident to you, for after Him there has not been a prophet among you)…
The Spirit therefore rested, that is, ceased, when Christ came. For, after man’s redemption was accomplished by Him, these gifts were to cease among you, and, having come to an end in Him, should again be given, as was foretold, by Him, from the grace of His Spirit’s powers, to all His believers according to their merits. I have already affirmed, and I repeat, that it had been predicted that He would do this after His Ascension into Heaven. It was said, therefore: “He ascended on high; He led captivity captive; He gave gifts to the sons of men.” And in another prophecy it is said: “And it shall come to pass after this, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and upon My servants, and upon My handmaids, and they shall prophesy.”

…We indeed know that He did not approach the river because He needed either the baptism or the Spirit who came down upon Him in the shape of a dove. So, too, He did not condescend to be born and to be crucified because He was in need of birth or crucifixion; He did it solely for the sake of man, who from the time of Adam had become subject to death and the deceit of the serpent, each man having sinned by his own fault…
For, when John, wearing only a cincture of skins and a cloak of camel’s hair, and eating only locusts and wild honey, sat by the River Jordan and preached the baptism of repentance, men supposed that he was the Christ, but he cried out to his listeners: “I am not the Christ, but the voice of one crying: for there will come He that is stronger than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to carry.” When Jesus came to the Jordan… the Holy Spirit for the sake of mankind descended upon Him in the form of a dove, and at the same instant a voice out of the heavens spoke the words which had also been uttered by David, when he , in the person of Christ, spoke what was later to be said to Christ by the Father: “Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee,” meaning that His birth really began for men when they first realized who He was.

5 Saint Justin Martyr. Writings of Saint Justin Martyr. Trans. Thomas B. Falls, D.D. New York: Christian Heritage, INC., 1948. 286-290.

Vigils Reading
2023-06-02
THE RECORDED EXHORTATION OF THE DYING ELDER ZOSIMA
An excerpt from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky6 ◊◊◊
Remember especially that you cannot be the judge of anyone. For there can be no judge of a criminal on earth until the judge knows that he, too, is a criminal, exactly the same as the one who stands before him, and that he is perhaps most guilty of all for the crime of the one standing before him. When he understands this, then he will be able to be a judge. However mad that may seem, it is true. For if I myself were righteous, perhaps there would be no criminal standing before me now. If you are able to take upon yourself the crime of the criminal who stands before you and whom you are judging in your heart, do so at once, and suffer for him yourself, and let him go without reproach. And even if the law sets you up as a judge, then, too, act in this spirit as far as you can, for he will go away and condemn himself more harshly than you would condemn him. And if, having received your kiss, he goes away unmoved and laughing at you, do not be tempted by that either: it means that his time has not yet come, but it will come in due course; and if it does not come, no matter: if not he, then another will know, and suffer, and judge, and accuse himself, and the truth will be made full. Believe it, believe it without doubt, for in this lies all hope and all the faith of the saints.
…Have faith to the end, even if it should happen that all on earth are corrupted and you alone remain faithful: make your offering even so, and praise God, you who are the only one left. And if there are two of you who come together thus, there is already a whole world, a world of living love; embrace each other in tenderness and give praise to the Lord: for his truth has been made full, if only in the two of you.

If you yourself have sinned, and are sorrowful even unto death for your sins, or for your sudden sin, rejoice for the other, rejoice for the righteous one, rejoice that though you have sinned, he still is righteous and has not sinned.
If the wickedness of people arouses indignation and insurmountable grief in you, to the point that you desire to revenge yourself upon the wicked, fear that feeling most of all; go at once and seek torments for yourself, as if you yourself were guilty of their wickedness. Take these torments upon yourself and suffer them, and your heart will be eased, and you will understand that you, too, are guilty, for you might have shone to the wicked, even like the only sinless One, but you did not. If you had shone, your light would have lighted the way for others, and the one who did wickedness would perhaps not have done so in your light. And even if you do shine, but see that people are not saved even with your light, remain steadfast, and do not doubt the power of the heavenly light; believe that if they are not saved now, they will be saved later. And if they are not saved, their sons will be saved, for your light will not die, even when you are dead.
…When you are alone, pray. Love to throw yourself down on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it, tirelessly, insatiably, love all men, love all things, seek this rapture and ecstasy, treasure it, for it is a gift from God, a great gift, and it is not given to many, but to those who are chosen.

6 Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. 320-322.

Vigils Reading - St Charles Lwanga & Companions
2023-06-03
SAINTS CHANGE THE WORLD
The witness of St Charles Lwanga and Companions7 ◊◊◊
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Catholic and Anglican missionaries began to evangelize Buganda, part of modern Uganda in eastern Africa. Its king expelled the missionaries in 1882, but in 1885 his son and successor Mwanga invited them back. They happily discovered that their original converts were living truly Christian lives and were reaching out to evangelize everyone around them. Christianity was thus spreading rapidly. This produced in Mwanga and his closest advisors a panic that his power, which had been total, might be undermined by a group that seemed not to fear him.
Mwanga’s first victims were an Anglican bishop and six other Anglican missionaries whom he murdered because they sought entry to his kingdom. Twenty- six-year-old Joseph Mkasa, Mwanga’s majordomo and a Catholic, sought unsuccessfully to prevent the murders, at which point Mwanga concluded that Joseph himself was a threat, especially since he was a leading catechist and had taken on the role of protecting the king’s pages who had become Christian, hiding or sending away those whom the king wanted in order to use them sexually. Mwanga ordered Joseph to be burned alive, but the assigned executioner instead beheaded him and then burned the body. Joseph’s last message to the king was one of both forgiveness and a call to repentance from his debauched way of life.
Charles Lwanga succeeded to Joseph’s post and role as protector of the pages. A catechumen himself, he also catechized the pages. He and other catechumens, likely soon to face execution themselves, were baptized by the White Fathers – and then freely went back to their positions at court. Some months after the execution of Joseph, the king called for one of his pages and discovered that all of the Christian ones were missing. When he discovered that they had been receiving instruction in the faith from the page Denis Ssebuggwawo, he sent for Denis and murdered him by a thrust of his spear. Nevertheless, the Christian pages did not flee – they did not want to be seen as disloyal to their monarch.

The king having shut everyone in his compound, Charles quickly baptized five of the pages he had been instructing, including the youngest, thirteen-year-old Kizito. All the pages were summoned and the Christians were ordered to identify themselves. Led by Charles, fifteen boys and young men (some Catholic, some Anglican) obeyed the order, not quaking with fear but filled with joy. One of the king’s own bodyguards then made <himself> part of the group. When asked if they intended to adhere to their faith, they all said they would, until death. The king then sentenced them to die and sent them out, together with other prisoners also scheduled for execution. A Catholic missionary priest who witnessed the group as it was led to the place of execution some miles away saw that they showed courage, happiness, and resignation to what they faced, even the youngest of them. Along the way several members of the group were martyred, including some who joined the original group as it was taken to the place of execution… As the martyrs died, they called on Jesus’ name. With his last breath, Charles evangelized an executioner who subsequently became a catechumen.
Altogether, twenty-two Catholic martyrs who died on May 26 and June 3, 1886 and on January 27, 1887, became the protomartyrs of Uganda. The Ugandan martyrs showed exceptional fortitude and loyalty to their Christian beliefs. “God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control”. The heroic witness of these martyrs is one of the reasons why sub-Saharan Africa has nearly one hundred twenty million Catholics today. Saints change the world

7 The Association for Catechumenal Ministry (ACM). https://kcgolddome.org/~kcgolddo/oldsite/uploads/1332611439.pdf. Accessed: 5.24.23.

Skema
2023-06-04
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
9th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
June 4 – 10, 2023

Sun
4
Mon
5
Tue
6
Wed
7
Thu
8
Fri
9
Sat
10

Office
Most Holy Trinity
St Boniface
St Norbert
Office for the Dead
Weekday
St Ephrem
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Sir 36:1-22
Gen 5:1-32
Gen 6:1-22
Gen 7:1-24
Gen 8:1-22
Gen 9:1-29
Gen 11:1-9, 27-32

Lauds
Sir 42:15-25
Prov 3:13-24, 35
Prov 3:25-34
Prov 4:1-9
Prov 4:10-18
Prov 4:20-27
Prov 5:1-14

Mass
164
353
354
355
356
357
358

1st
Exod 34:4b-6, 8-9
Tob 1:3; 2:1a-8
Tob 2:9-14
Tob 3:1-11a, 16-17a
Tob 6:10-11; 7:1bcde, 9-17; 8:4-9a
Tob 11:5-17
Tob 12:1, 5-15, 20

2nd
2 Cor 13:11-13

Gospel
John 3:16-18
Mark 12:1-12
Mark 12:13-17
Mark 12:18-27
Mark 12:28-34
Mark 12:35-37
Mark 12:38-44

Vespers
1 Cor 2:11-16
Gal 2:15-21
Gal 3:1-9
Gal 3:10-14
Gal 3:15-22
Gal 3:23-29
Heb 9:18-22

Vigils Reading - Most Holy Trinity
2023-06-04
GOD SENT HIS SON
From a commentary by St Gregory Nazianzen1 ◊◊◊
To speak of the Godhead is, I know, like crossing the ocean on a raft, or like flying to the stars with wings of narrow span. Even heavenly beings are unable to speak of God’s decrees or of his government of the world. But enlighten my mind and loosen my tongue, Spirit of God, and I will sound aloud the trumpet of truth, so that all who are united to God may rejoice with their whole heart.
There is one eternal God, uncaused and uncircumscribed by any being existing before him or yet to be. He is infinite, and all time is in his hands. He is the mighty Father of one mighty and noble Son. In no way does the birth of this Son resemble human birth, for God is spirit. The Word of God is another divine Person, but not another Godhead. He is the living seal of the Father, the only son of the only God. He is equal to the Father, so that although the Father always remains wholly the Father, the Son is the creator and ruler of the world and is the Father’s power and wisdom.
Let us praise the Son first of all, venerating the blood that expiated our sins. He lost nothing of his divinity when he saved me, when like a good physician he stooped to my festering wounds. He was a mortal man, but he was also God. He was of the race of David, but Adam’s creator. He who has no body clothed himself with flesh. He had a mother, but she was a virgin. He who is without bounds bound himself with the cords of our humanity. He was victim and high priest – yet he was God. He offered up his blood and cleansed the whole world. He was lifted up on the cross, but it was sin that was nailed to it. He became as one among the dead, but he rose from the dead, raising to life also many who had died before him. On the one hand, there was the poverty of his humanity; on the other, the riches of his divinity. Do not let what is human in the Son permit you wrongfully to detract from what is divine. For the sake of the divine, hold in the greatest honor the humanity which the immortal Son took upon himself for love of you.

My soul, why do you hold back? Sing praise to the Holy Spirit as well, lest your words tear asunder what is not separated by nature. Let us tremble before the great Spirit who also is God, through whom we have come to know God, who transforms us into God. He is the omnipotent bestower of diverse gifts and the giver of life both in heaven and on earth. He is the divine strength, proceeding from the Father and subject to no power. He is not the Son, for there is only one Son, but he shares equally in the glory of the Godhead.
In the one God are three pulsations that move the world. Through them I became a new and different person when I came out of the font, where my death was buried, into the light – a man restored to life from the dead. If God cleansed me so completely, then I must worship him with my whole being

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 74-75.

Vigils Reading - St Boniface
2023-06-05
A MEDITATIVE READING OF THE ATHANASIAN CREED
by St Athanasius of Alexandria2 ◊◊◊
Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith. Which faith unless every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated, nor three infinites, but one uncreated, and one infinite. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords, but one Lord. For, like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic religion, to say, There are three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

So there is one Father, not three Fathers, one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is before, or after another, none is greater, or less than another. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved, let him thus think of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting Salvation, that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man.
God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds, and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world. Perfect God, and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by assumption of the Manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person.
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ, Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies, And shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved

2 Athanasius of Alexandria. The Athanasian Creed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed . Accessed on: May 31, 2023.

Vigils Reading - St Norbert
2023-06-06
ANSWERING THE DEMAND OF GOD’S TRINITY AND UNITY
From the writing of Hadewijh3 ◊◊◊
The most sublime life and the most rapid growth lie in dying away and wasting away in the pain of Love… the great debt-payment of which is being demanded every hour-that Love demands of Love… By the demand of the Father’s omnipotence, through the wisdom of the Son and the goodness of the Holy Spirit, in the Trinity, man was created. But because man did not answer the demand of the Unity, he fell. By the demand of the Trinity God’s Son was born, and to satisfy the debt to the Unity he died. By the demand of the Trinity he rose again among men; and to satisfy the debt to the Unity he ascended to his Father.
So it is also with us. When payment of the debt we owe is demanded of us by the Trinity, grace is given us to live worthily according to the noble Trinity, as is fitting. But if, because our will is estranged, we thwart this and fall back from this unity into our own self-complacency, we no longer grow and no longer make progress in that perfection which was thus demanded of us from the beginning by the Unity and the Trinity. But if rational man’s noble reason would recognize its just debt and follow Love’s leading into her land—that is, follow Love according to her due then he would be capable of attaining that great object and being enriched in God with divine riches…
There are three things through which one lives for Love, here with the Trinity and, in the beyond, in the Unity. First, here, one desires Love under the guidance of reason, and one desires to content her with all just works of perfection, and to be perfect and worthy of all perfection. In this manner one lives the Son of God. Second, at all hours one wills in this way the will of Love with new ardor, and exercises all the virtues with overflowing desire, and enlightens all creatures according to what they are and according to the due of the nobility he recognizes in them, be it in nobility or in lowness; so shall we, for the honor of love, do the pure will of our God in our works and love. In this manner one lives the Holy Spirit.

Third, one is held by sweet constraint to be in perpetual exertion; and with never-conquered power to be a match for this Being; and strong and unconquered and joyful – by ardent striving to grow up as <the> loved one in the Beloved in every respect: to work with his hands; to walk with his feet; to hear with his ears where the voice of the Godhead never ceases to speak through the mouth of the Beloved, in all truth of counsel, of justice, of sweet sweetness, of consolation for everyone according to each person’s need, and of caution against sin; to appear like the Beloved, unadorned and without beauty live for no one else but for the Beloved in love alone, live in him as the loved one in the Beloved, with the same way of acting, with one spirit, and with one heart; and in one another to taste the unheard-of sweetness he merited by his sufferings. Oh yes! To feel heart in heart, with one single heart and one single sweet love and continually have fruition of one full-grown love. And lastly, that one must ever know certainly, without any doubt, that one is wholly in the Unity of Love. In this state one is the Father.
Thus one pays off here on earth the debt that the Trinity demands, and that it has always demanded of the Unity from all eternity

3 Hadewijch. The Complete Works. Trans. Mother Columba Hart, O.S.B. New York: Paulist Press, 1980. 116-118.

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2023-06-07
A CONTEST OF LOVE
From the writing of Servant of God Dolindo Ruotolo4 ◊◊◊
According to the revelation of Saints and we might even say according to logic, Purgatory is divided into different areas, depending on the degree of purification that the soul has to endure in proportion to the sin committed…
Saint Francesca Romana saw Purgatory divided into three distinct parts: in the upper region are the souls who suffer only the pain of loss, that is the lack of the vision of God or some small pain… which prepares them for the vision and enjoyment of God. In the middle region, …suffer the souls who committed venial sins or those… who must atone for the punishment due to mortal sin already forgiven. At the bottom of the abyss, close to Hell, the Saint saw the third region, which she calls the “lower Purgatory”, filled with a clear and penetrating fire, different from that of Hell, where <it> is dark and gloomy.
This third region she saw divided <into> three further areas where the pain increases according to the responsibility of the soul and the degree of glory and happiness they are destined to reach. The first is for the laity; the second for the non-ordained Clergy; the third for the Priests and Bishops. It should be understood that this third area has an even lower level reserved for members of Religious Orders: men and women, who had higher means of sanctification and light from God and now have to bear greater responsibility for their faults and, therefore, a greater need of expiation.

Both Priests and Religious, called to the greatest sanctity, are called to a very high state of glory… In consequence, their pains are likewise stronger and lengthier… The intensity of the pain is in exact proportion to the sins committed and… is intensely dominated by the pain of loss, which is the sense of abandonment by God and the desire to possess Him, because of the intensity of love that the souls feel for Him and the even more intense love that God has for the souls.
That is why we call Purgatory “a contest of love”. The Lord is not very severe with souls. Instead, He is very loving and He purifies them since He wants perfect happiness for them. The soul realizes this love of God and, even more, it soars toward Him: it yearns and groans for His love; it is aware of the dark fog that envelops it, knowing that it is loved and the soul loves in return. It begs for help to come out of this state, that it may be shortened. Yet <the soul> cannot shorten the time with its own merits, being unable to acquire merits. All this anxiety it has is love.
The groaning of love the soul has for God and the attraction to the Divine Love, feeling that God wants its happiness, is the pain of loss and the contest of love… It seems like a paradox but… the contest of love itself makes the soul look at each purifying pain as a step that brings it closer to the Supreme Good and to its eternal happiness

4 Ruotolo, Dolindo. Who Dies Shall See: Purgatory and Heaven. Trans. Giovanna Invitti Ellis. Self- Published online by Giovanna Invitti Ellis: www.dolindo.org/english, 2008. 29-30.

Vigils Reading
2023-06-08
THE ETERNAL PROMISE
By the 19th century Quaker Thomas R. Kelly5 ◊◊◊
The old self, the little self-how weak it is, and how absurdly confident and how absurdly timid it has been! How jealously we guard its strange precious pride! Famished for superiority… its defeats must be offset by a dole of petty victories. In religious matters we still thought that we should struggle to present to God a suitable offering of service. We planned, we prayed, we suffered, we carried the burden. The we, the self, how subtly it intrudes itself into religion! And then steals in, so sweetly, so all-replacing, the sense of Presence, the sense of Other, and he plans, and he bears the burdens, and we are a new creature.
Prayer becomes not hysterical cries to a distant God, but gentle upliftings and faint whispers, in which it is not easy to say who is speaking, we, or an Other through us. Perhaps we can only say: praying is taking place. Power flows through us, from the Eternal into the rivulets of Time. Amazed, yet not amazed, we stride the stride of the tender giant who dwells within us, and wonders are performed. Active as never before, one lives in the passive voice, alert to be used, fearful of nothing, patient to stand and wait.
It is an amazing discovery, at first, to find that a creative Power and Life is at work in the world. God is no longer the object of a belief; He is a Reality, who has continued, within us, his real Presence in the world. God is aggressive. He is an intruder, a lofty lowly conqueror on whom we had counted too little, because we had counted on ourselves. Too long have we supposed that we must carry the banner of religion, that it was our concern. But religion is not our concern; it is God’s concern. Our task is to call men to “be still,” and… hearken to that of God within them, to invite, to unclasp the clenched fists of self-resolution, to be pliant in his firm guidance, sensitive to the inflections of the inner voice.

For there is a life beyond earnestness to be found. It is the life rooted and grounded in the Presence, the Life which has been found by the Almighty. Seek it, seek it. Yet it lies beyond seeking. It arises in being found. To have come only as far as religious determination is only to have stood in the vestibule. But our confidence in our shrewdness, in our education, in our talents, in some aspect or other of our self-assured self, is our own undoing. So earnestly busy with anxious, fevered efforts for the kingdom of God have we been, that we failed to hear the knock upon the door, and to know that our chief task is to open that door and be entered by the Divine Life.
…To become unselfed is to become truly integrated as a richer self. The little, time-worn self about which we fretted – how narrow its boundaries, how unstable its base, how strained its structure. But the experience of discovering that life is rooted and grounded in the actual, active, loving Eternal One is also to experience our own personal life firm-textured and stable.
…There is an introduction to suffering which comes with the birth pains of Love. And in such suffering one finds for the first time how deep and profound is the nature and meaning of life. And in such suffering one sees, as if one’s eye were newly opened upon a blinding light, the very Life of the Eternal God himself. And there too is suffering, but there, above all, is peace and victory

5 Kelly, Thomas R. Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings. New York: Paulist Press, 1984. 307-309.

Vigils Reading - St Ephrem
2023-06-09
THE DAYS ARE PASSING,
AND SOON YOU WILL ENCOUNTER THE END
From the prayers of Ephraim the Syrian6 ◊◊◊
Let us awake from sleep and with sighs call out to the Lord. Day and night let us labor, attending to our correction while our life still lasts, until the time comes when there will be no more place for repentance. Let us stand vigilant at the Bridegroom’s door, that we might enter with the Bridegroom into His bridal chamber and inherit eternal life. Come, let us all sing praises to God at night and imitate the hosts of angels who ceaselessly praise Him. And our Savior, when He arises and comes, accompanied by the angels, and sees our wakefulness and our vigilance, will call us His good servants and will seat us at His banquet.
With the righteous, who have pleased God day and night, let us labor in good things, beg our Lord for mercy; and, singing with David, let us say: at midnight I arose to give thanks unto Thee because of Thy righteous judgements. Spare me and have mercy on me and vouchsafe me the inheritance of Thy kingdom. I will not cease to praise Thee, O our Lord. Ceaselessly will I sing of Thy glory, that Thy truth might not condemn me. I know the extent of my guilt. I know that if Thou dost punish me according to my sins, then my inheritance will be gehenna. Then all hope will be lost. My prayer will be silenced. Have mercy on me therefore, and forgive me my debts… Extend to me Thy right hand and I will arise, like the harlot in Simon’s house, like the thief on the cross. Have mercy on me, Thou Who art kindhearted to sinners…

To Thee, O only good Lord Who bearest no grudges, do I confess my sins. Even were I to keep silent, Thou, O Lord, knowest all, and nothing is hidden before Thine eyes. For Thou, O Lord, hast said by Thy Prophet: declare your sins beforehand and you will be justified. And so I will say: I have sinned, O Lord, and I am not worthy to look up and behold the heights of heaven because of the multitude of mine iniquities… What am I to do, I who am the most miserable of all men? I shall weep over myself day and night, while there is yet time to offer tears… Grant me tears of contrition, O only good and merciful Lord, that with them I might gain from Thee purification from the defilement of my heart…
God requires from us only our consummate determination; it is He Who gives us strength and grants us victory… He gave these lips of dust the capacity to magnify Him, so that through them all creation might sing praise unto Him.
Come, ye who are endowed with speech, let us sing praise unto Him until we repose in the sleep of death.. Let us rouse our bodies with psalms and spiritual hymns that we might join the wise virgins whom our Lord praised, and in vigilance behold His glory in the night that will cause the world to tremble… The body that burdened itself with prayer shall soar through the air on the day of the resurrection; without shame shall it behold its Lord; with Him shall it enter into the habitation of light, where it will be cherished by the angels and by those who here burdened themselves with vigilance and prayer.
Blessed is He Who made us instruments of His glory and put exaltation in our unworthy lips! Praise be to His compassion, for He has made those who were of dust concelebrants with the angels, that every night and at all times they might sing His holy name

6 Ephraim the Syrian. A Spiritual Psalter or Reflections on God. Excerpted by Bishop Theophan the Recluse. Trans. Antonina Janda. Liberty, TN: The St. John of Kronstadt Press, 1997. 150-155.

LCG Retreat June 9 - 11, 2023
2023-06-09 08:00 - 2023-06-11 14:00 (America/New_York)
Content is protected.

Vigils Reading - Memorial of B.V.M.
2023-06-10
THE LIFE OF CHRIST, HIDDEN IN YOUR HEARTS
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny7
◊◊◊
What can so stir up man to the love of God as the love which God first bestows on man, a love for man so ardent that he wills to become man for the sake of man?… Or what exhibits more plainly the power and merit of faith as that the Virgin conceived God by faith, by faith deserved to have all that God had promised her fulfilled? “Blessed,” we read, “is she who believed, for what was told her by the Lord shall be brought to fulfillment.”
Now that you may know more fully that the Virgin’s conception has not only a mystical but also a moral sense, what is a mystery for your redemption is also an example for your imitation, so that you clearly frustrate the grace of the mystery in you if you do not imitate the virtue of the example. For she who conceived God by faith promises you the same if you have faith; if you will faithfully receive the Word from the mouth of the heavenly messenger you too may conceive the God whom the whole world cannot contain, conceive him however in your heart, not in your body…
Pay careful attention then to your hearing as it is written, for “faith comes from hearing, while hearing comes through the word of God,” which without any doubt the angel of God proclaims to you when a faithful preacher treats with you of the fear or the love of God… How blessed are they who can say: “For fear of you, Lord, we have conceived and given birth to the Spirit of Salvation,” which indeed is no other than the Spirit of the Savior, the Truth of Jesus Christ. Behold the unspeakable condescension of God and at the same time the power of the mystery which passes all understanding. He who created you is created in you, and as if it were too little that you should possess the Father, he wishes also that you should become a mother to himself. “Whoever,” he says, “does the will of my Father he is my brother and sister and mother.” O faithful soul, open wide your bosom, expand your affections, admit no constraint in your heart, conceive him whom creation cannot contain. Open to the Word of God an ear that will listen. This is the way to the womb of your heart for the Spirit who brings about conception; in such fashion are the bones of Christ, that is the virtues, built up in the pregnant womb.

Thanks be to you, Spirit, who breathe where you will. By your gift I see not one but countless faithful souls pregnant with that noble offspring. Preserve your works, lest anyone should suffer miscarriage and expel, shapeless and dead, the progeny he has conceived of God.
You also, blessed mothers of so glorious an issue, attend to yourselves until Christ is formed in you. Be careful lest any violent blow coming from without should… extinguish the spirit you have conceived. Spare, if not yourselves, at least the Son of God in you; spare him not only from evil deeds and utterances but also from harmful thoughts and deadly pleasures which obviously stifle the seed of God. Guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it life will come forth, that is, when the offspring is ready for birth and the life of Christ which is now hidden in your hearts will be made manifest in your mortal flesh. You have conceived the spirit of salvation, but you are still in labor, you have not yet given birth. If there is labor in giving birth, great consolation comes from the hope of offspring… For he who is now conceived as God in our spirits, conforming them to the Spirit of his charity, will then be born as man in our bodies, conforming them to his glorified body, in which he lives in majesty, God, for ever and ever

7 Bl. Guerric of Igny, “The Second Sermon for the Annunciation”, Liturgical Sermons, (vol.2), Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1971, pp. 44-46.

AC Dialogue with the Monks
2023-06-10 15:00 - 16:00

Skema: 10th Week in Ordinary Time
2023-06-11
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
10th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
June 11 – 17, 2023

Sun
11
Mon
12
Tue
13
Wed
14
Thu
15
Fri
16
Sat
17

Office
Corpus Christi
St Alice
St Anthony of Padua
Bl Gerard
Weekday
Sacred Heart of Jesus
Immaculate Heart of Mary

Vigils
Exod 16:2-15
Gen 12:1-20
Gen 13:1-18
Gen 14:1-24
Gen 15:1-21
Jerm 30:18-31:5, 18-20
Gen 16:1-16

Lauds
Wis 16:20-28
Prov 5:15-23
Prov 8:1-11
Prov 8:12-21
Prov 8:22-31
Jerm 32:36-42
Prov 8:32-36

Mass
167
359
360
361
362
170
364, 573

1st
Deut 8:2-3, 14b-16a
2 Cor 1:1-7
2 Cor 1:18-22
2 Cor 3:4-11
2 Cor 3:15-4:1, 3-6
Deut 7:6-11
2 Cor 4:7-15

2nd
1 Cor 10:16-17

1 Jn 4:7-16

Gospel
John 6:51-58
Matt 5:1-12
Matt 5:13-16
Matt 5:17-19
Matt 5:20-26
Matt 11:25-30
Luke 2:41-51

Vespers
Acts 2:42-47
Gal 4:1-11
Gal 4:12-20
Gal 4:21-31
1 Jn 3:14-18
Eph 2:1-8
Gal 5:1-6

Corpus Christi Sunday: 10th Week in Ordinary Time
2023-06-11
THE BODY OF CHRIST
From a commentary by St Augustine1
◊◊◊
You see on God’s altar bread and a cup. That is what the evidence of your
eyes tells you, but your faith requires you to believe that the bread is the body of
Christ, the cup the blood of Christ. In these few words we can say perhaps all
that faith demands.
Faith, however, seeks understanding; so you may now say to me: “You
have told us what we have to believe, but explain it so that we can understand it,
because it is quite possible for someone to think along these lines: We know from
whom our Lord Jesus Christ took his flesh – it was from the Virgin Mary. As a
baby, he was suckled, he was fed, he developed, he came to young man’s estate.
He was slain on the cross, he was taken down from it, he was buried, he rose
again on the third day. On the day of his own choosing, he ascended to heaven,
taking his body with him; and it is from heaven that he will come to judge the
living and the dead. But now that he is there, seated at the right hand of the
Father, how can bread be his body? And the cup, or rather what is in the cup,
how can that be his blood?”
These things, my friends, are called sacraments, because our eyes see in
them one thing, our understanding another. Our eyes see the material form; our
understanding, its spiritual effect. If, then, you want to know what the body of
Christ is, you must listen to what the Apostle tells the faithful: Now you are the body
of Christ, and individually you are members of it.
If that is so, it is the sacrament of yourselves that is placed on the Lord’s
altar, and it is the sacrament of yourselves that you receive. You reply “Amen” to
what you are, and thereby agree that such you are. You hear the words “The
body of Christ” and you reply “Amen.” Be, then, a member of Christ’s body, so
that your “Amen” may accord with the truth.
Yes, but why all this in bread? Here let us not advance any ideas of our own,
but listen to what the Apostle says over and over again when speaking of this
sacrament: Because there is one loaf, we, though we are many, form one body. Let
your mind assimilate that and be glad, for there you will find unity, truth, piety,
and love. He says, one loaf. And who is this one loaf? We, though we are many,
form one body. Now bear in mind that bread is not made of a single grain, but of
many. Be, then, what you see, and receive what you are.
So much for what the Apostle says about the bread. As for the cup, what we
have to believe is quite clear, although the Apostle does not mention it expressly.
Just as the unity of the faithful, which holy Scripture describes in the words: They
were of one mind and heart in God, should be like the kneading together of many
grains into one visible loaf, so with the wine. Think how wine is made. Many
grapes hang in a cluster, but their juice flows together into an indivisible liquid.
It was thus that Christ our Lord signified us, and his will that we should belong to
him, when he hallowed the sacrament of our peace and unity on his altar. Anyone,
however, who receives this sacrament of unity and does not keep the bond of
peace, does not receive it to his profit, but as a testimony against himself.
1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB.
New York: New City Press, 1992. 76-77.

Advisory Council Meeting
2023-06-11 14:00 - 17:00

St. Alice
2023-06-12
PURITY OF HEART
From a sermon by Isaac of Stella2
◊◊◊
“HAPPY are the pure in heart, they shall see God.” Once love is present there
too is longing to see what is loved… Those alone who have purified their hearts shall
see him, because it is solely by a pure heart that God can be seen. And I ask you
frankly, brothers, of what use are all our years of such effort if we have not made our
hearts clean? Perhaps we have indeed purified our hearts for the sake of virtue?
Well, now they must be purified for the sake of truth. And if we have already
cleansed them for loving, now they must be made clean for seeing…
When the Lord purifies the eye of a man’s mind, enabling him to perceive
truth, he is indeed giving a blind man his sight. It must be clearly understood, then,
that when we speak of purity of heart, we do not mean simply that the heart is to be
purified from vices, call them disordered desire or perverted love, but that it must
be purified from the phantasies that are absorbed by the corporeal senses and
remain in the imagination, for these become an obstruction that prevents our seeing
the sun’s clear light. They either cut us off from that solar body, the very source of
light itself (they are so unlike it) or at least they reduce the sun’s brightness…
Don’t let this discourage you! Once you have passed through all these clouds
by vigilance of mind and purity of heart, once your every thought is silent, or, rather,
left far behind then, at last, brothers, there will appear before you a shining cloud, “a
cloud filled with light”, not stormy now nor dense, a cloud of wisdom, not of
ignorance.
For there is darkness in light, darkness all the deeper in much light, until
finally, when the light reaches the threshold of its own incomprehensibility and
enters that unapproachability in which dwells “ that peace which passes all
understanding,” it is taken from our eyes so that any further knowledge of the Light
is obtained not through speculation but through revelation, just as the apostles
gazing heavenward, learned from the men who stood beside them in white
garments…
So now you know from what things the heart must be purified and to what
extent, and for what purpose, namely, to be able to gaze upon the Being who is
Perfection unlimited, who is Beauty without quality, Greatness without extension,
Presence uncircumscribed by place, Existence beyond time. But without this
purification it is impossible to see God and so he tells us: “Happy are the pure in
heart, they shall see God.” Here, “a confused reflection; there, as he is.”…
To speak plainly, brothers, no man can be fully and perfectly spiritual nor can
he be ready to go out with tranquil mind from his tent in the leisure of
contemplation, unless he has first rid his home of vice, that is, of all perverted and
disordered love, and has furnished and decorated it with good habits, and left it
fortified with a strong guard of virtues. Otherwise, the adulterous unclean spirit… if
he find “the house swept clean and put in order,” but empty of virtues, may make his
way in by force or favor and take possession, protecting himself with a bodyguard of
seven associates more evil than himself… Then indeed, “the last state of this type of
spiritual a man is worse than the first”. He who began in the Spirit is now ending
with the flesh, or rather, is ended by the flesh.
If a man desires to be truly spiritual, let him first pay attention to his desires
rather than to his ideas, to his way of life rather than his form of meditation. For he
must first use his feet to walk before soaring into flight. And since he cannot always
be in flight, let him go about sensibly on foot lest he suddenly crash down.
2 Isaac of Stella. Sermons on the Christian Year: Volume One. CF 11. Trans. Hugh McCaffery.
Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979. 29-34.

St. Anthony of Padua
2023-06-13
ST ANTHONY OF PADUA 3
◊◊◊
Anthony was born in the year 1195 at Lisbon, Portugal, where his father
was a captain in the royal army. Already at the age of fifteen years the youth had
entered the Congregation of Canons Regular of St. Augustine… in the monastery
at Coimbra, when… the relics of St. Berard and companions, the first martyrs of
the Franciscan Order, were being brought from Africa to Coimbra. At the sight of
them, Anthony was seized with an intense desire to suffer martyrdom as a
Franciscan missionary in Africa. In response to his repeated and humble
petitions, the permission of his superiors to transfer to the Franciscan Order was
reluctantly given. At his departure, one of the canons said to him ironically: “Go
then, perhaps you will become a saint in the new order.” Anthony replied:
“Brother, when you hear that I have become a saint, you will surely praise God
for it.”
In the quiet little Franciscan convent at Coimbra he received a friendly
reception, and in the very same year his earnest wish to be sent to the missions
in Africa was fulfilled… Anthony scarcely set foot on African soil when he was
seized with a grievous illness. Even after recovering from it, he was so weak that,
resigning himself to the will of God, he boarded a boat back to Portugal…
Anthony was sent to Forli with some other brethren, to attend the
ceremony of ordination. At the convent there the superior wanted somebody to
give an address for the occasion. Everybody excused himself, saying that he was
not prepared, until Anthony was finally asked to give it. When he, too, excused
himself most humbly, his superior ordered him by virtue of the vow of obedience
to give the sermon. Anthony began to speak in a very reserved manner; but soon
holy animation seized him, and he spoke with such eloquence, learning, and
unction that everybody was fairly amazed. When St. Francis was informed of the
event, he gave Anthony the mission to preach all over Italy. At the request of the
brethren, Anthony was later commissioned also to teach theology, “but in such a
manner,” St. Francis distinctly wrote, “that the spirit of prayer be not
extinguished either in yourself or in the other brethren.”
St. Anthony himself placed greater value on the salvation of souls than on
learning. For that reason he never ceased to exercise his office as preacher along
with the work of teaching. The concourse of hearers was sometimes so great
that no church was large enough to accommodate the audiences and he had to
preach in the open air. He wrought veritable miracles of conversion. Deadly
enemies were reconciled with each other. Thieves and usurers made restitution
of their ill-gotten goods. Calumniators and detractors recanted and apologized.
He was so energetic in defending the truths of the Catholic Faith that many
heretics re-entered the pale of the Church, so that Pope Gregory IX called him
“the ark of the covenant.”… In all his labors he never forgot the admonition of his
spiritual Father, that the spirit of prayer must not be extinguished. If he spent
the day in teaching, and heard the confessions of sinners till late in the evening,
then many hours of the night were spent in intimate union with God…
Due to his taxing labors and his austere practice of penance, he soon felt
his strength so spent that he prepared himself for death. After receiving the last
sacraments he kept looking upward with a smile on his countenance. When he
was asked what he saw there, he answered: “I see my Lord.”… He breathed forth
his soul on June 13, 1231, being only thirty-six years old. Pope Gregory IX
enrolled him among the saints the very next year… In 1946 he was declared a
Doctor of the Church.
3 Habig, Marion O.F.M. The Franciscan Book of Saints. Chicago, IL: Franciscan Herald Press, 1959. 415-418.

Bl. Gerard Matt
2023-06-14
LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF GERARD
By St Bernard of Clairvaux4
◊◊◊
How much better for me, O Gerard, if I had lost my life rather than your
company, since through your tireless inspiration, your unfailing help and under
your provident scrutiny I persevered with my studies of things divine. Why, I
ask, have we loved, why have we lost each other? O cruel circumstance! But pity
pertains to my lot only, not to his.
And the reason, dear brother, is that though you have lost your loved ones,
you have found others more lovable still. As for me, already so miserable, what
consolation remains to me, and you, my only comfort, gone? Our bodily
companionship was equally enjoyable to both, because our dispositions were so
alike; but only I am wounded by the parting. All that was pleasant we rejoiced to
share; now sadness and mourning are mine alone: anger has swept over me, rage
is fastened on me. Both of us were so happy in each other’s company, sharing the
same experiences, talking together about them; now my share of these delights
has ceased and you have passed on, you have traded them for an immense
reward.
What harvest of joys, what a profusion of blessings is yours. In place of my
insignificant person you have the abiding presence of Christ, and mingling with
the angelic choirs you feel our absence no loss. You have no cause to complain
that we have been cut off from you, favored as you are by the constant presence
of the Lord of Majesty and of his heavenly friends. But what do I have in your
stead? How I long to know what you now think about me, once so uniquely
yours, as I sink beneath the weight of cares and afflictions, deprived of the
support you lent to my feebleness! Perhaps you still give thought to our
miseries, now that you have plunged into the abyss of light, become engulfed in
that sea of endless happiness. It is possible that though you once knew us
according to the flesh, you now no longer know us and because you have entered
into the power of the Lord you will be mindful of his righteousness alone,
forgetful of ours.
Furthermore, “he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him,”
his whole being somehow changed into a movement of divine love. He no longer
has the power to experience or relish anything but God, and what God himself
experiences and relishes, because he is filled with God. But God is love, and the
deeper one’s union with God, the more full one is of love. And though God cannot
endure pain, he is not without compassion for those who do; it is his nature to
show mercy and pardon. Therefore you too must of necessity be merciful,
clasped as you are to him who is Mercy; and though you no longer feel the need
of mercy, though you no longer suffer, you cans still be compassionate. Your love
has not diminished but only changed; when you were clothed with God you did
not divest yourself of concern for us, for God is certainly concerned about us. All
that smacks of weakness you have cast away, but not what pertains to love. And
since love never comes to an end, you will not forget me for ever.
It seems to me that I can almost hear my brother saying: “Can a woman
forget the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet I will not forget you.”
This is how it must be.
4 On The Song Of Songs II Sermon 26.III. Trans. Kilian Walsh. Cistercian Publications 1976. 62-64.

Weekday
2023-06-15
ON THE SIN OF ANGER
A Sermon by Alphonsus Liguori 5
◊◊◊
ANGER resembles fire; hence, as fire is vehement in its action, and, by the
smoke which it produces, obstructs the view, so anger makes men rush into a
thousand excesses, and prevents them from seeing the sinfulness of their
conduct; and thus exposes them to the danger of the judgment of eternal death.
“Whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment”. Anger
is so pernicious to man, that it even disfigures his countenance. No matter how
comely and gentle he may be, he shall, as often as he yields to the passion of
anger, appear to be a monster and a wild beast full of terror… But, if anger
disfigures us before men, how much more deformed will it render us in the eyes
of God!…
But you will perhaps say: If I resent such an injury, God will have pity on
me, because I have just grounds for resentment. Who, I ask, has told you, that
you have just grounds for seeking revenge? It is you, whose understanding is
clouded by passions, that say so. I have already said, that anger obscures the
mind, and takes away our reason and understanding. As long as the passion of
anger lasts, you will consider your neighbour’s conduct very unjust and
intolerable; but, when your anger shall have passed away, you shall see that his
act was not so bad as it appeared to you. But, though the injury be grievous, or
even more grievous, God will not have compassion on you, if you seek revenge.
No; he says: vengeance for sins belongs not to you, but to me; and when the time
shall come, I will chastise them as they deserve… But let us pass to the things…
which will assist you to overcome this vice…
In the first place, it is necessary to know that it is not possible for human
weakness, in the midst of so many occasions, to be altogether free from every
motion of anger… All our efforts must be directed to the moderation of the
feeling of anger which spring up in the soul. How are they to be moderated? By
meekness. This is called the virtue of the lamb–that is, the beloved virtue of
Jesus Christ. Because, like a lamb, without anger or even complaint, he bore the
sorrows of his passion and crucifixion…
A certain monk once passed through a corn field: the owner of the field ran
out, and spoke to him in very offensive and injurious language. The monk
humbly replied: Brother, you are right; I have done wrong; pardon me. By this
answer the husbandman was so much appeased, that he instantly became calm,
and even wished to follow the monk, and to enter into religion. The proud make
use of the humiliations they receive to increase their pride; but the humble and
the meek turn the contempt and insults offered them into an occasion of
advancing in humility…
The meek are useful to others; because, as… St. Chrysostom says, there is
nothing better calculated to draw others to God, than to see a Christian meek and
cheerful when he receives an injury or an insult… The reason is, because virtue is
known by being tried; and, as gold is tried by fire, so the meekness of men is
proved by humiliation…
When we meet with crosses, persecutions, and injuries, let us turn to God,
who commands us to bear them with patience; and thus we shall always avoid
anger. Remember the fear of God, and be not angry with thy neighbour. Let us
give a look at the will of God, which disposes things in this manner for our merit,
and anger, shall cease. Let us give a look at Jesus crucified, and we shall not have
courage to complain.
5 St. Alphonsus Liguori. The Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori – For All the Sundays of the Year.
Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publishers, INC, 1982. 254-255, 257-259.

Sacred Heart of Jesus
2023-06-16
CAST YOURSELF INTO HIS HEART
From the mystical dialogue between Jesus and Sister Josefa Menéndez6
◊◊◊
With a gesture of indescribable love He drew her into His Heart: “Come, and
take your rest here in My Heart.”…”Do not think that I love you more now that I
console you, than when I ask you to suffer.”… But the more feeble you are, the more
tenderly I love you.’
“I entreated Him again to give me a love true and strong,” she wrote…, “for
I believe that if I really loved Him in the right way I should be better able to
conquer myself. This was during my prayer, and Jesus came and said to me: ‘Yes,
Josefa, let your food be love and humility. But do not forget that I want you to be
always abandoned and happy, because My Heart cares for you tenderly.’ “Then I
explained how sad I feel that I cannot conquer myself nor correspond to so much
goodness.” “Never mind. Cast yourself into My Heart, and follow the guidance that
is given you. That will suffice.”… “I asked Him how we can console Him, since we
are so full of miseries and weakness. He answered me by pointing to His Heart: ‘I
make little account of all that,’ He said, ‘provided souls come to Me with confidence
and love. I Myself make up for all their frailty.’
“During the nine-o’clock Mass,” she wrote…, “Jesus came with a radiant
Heart. It might have been the sun. “Behold the Heart that gives life to souls,” He
said. “The fire of this love is stronger than the indifference and ingratitude
of men.” “Behold the Heart that bestows on the souls He has chosen a vehement
desire to consume themselves, and if necessary, die to prove Me their love.” “His
words were so forcible that they went through and through my soul. Then,
glancing at me, He continued: ‘Sinners tear Me to pieces and fill My Heart with
sorrow… Will not you, My chosen little victim, repair all this ingratitude?’
“I asked Him what He would have me do, for He knows my helplessness well.
‘My will is that you should enter deeply into My Heart today; there you will find
strength to suffer. Do not reflect on your helplessness; My Heart is powerful
enough to sustain you. It is yours; take from It all you need. Be consumed in It …
offer this Heart and this Blood to the Eternal Father. Cease to live except a life of
love, reparation, and suffering.’”
That evening during Benediction Jesus again manifested Himself, and from
His Heart there streamed light. “A little group of fervent souls can obtain mercy
for many sinners,” He said, “for My Heart cannot resist their prayers…”
“After a few minutes of silence He continued: ‘Come near Me, Josefa, rest on
My Heart and share Its grief. So many fill It with sorrow, but your love will comfort
Me.’ “As He drew me nearer to His Heart, mine was instantly drowned in
inexpressible sorrow and bitterness. I knew that I could not assuage His grief, for
I am so powerless . . . so I offered Him His own pain, to supply for the insufficiency
of mine… For a long while I stayed in silence, adoring, humbling myself and asking
forgiveness for souls; Jesus then said: ‘Repair, Josefa, for those who ought to but
do not make reparation.”…
“Ask forgiveness for the sins of the world. O! how they sin… how many are
lost… souls that once knew and loved Me… but now they prefer their own
enjoyment and pleasure to My Heart… where shall I find relief for My distress?’ “I
said to Him: ‘Why, here Lord, in this house, in our souls… there are still many
everywhere who love Thee.’ ‘Yes, I know, but those are the souls I seek; I love them
with a boundless love.’
6 Sister Josefa Menéndez. The Way of Divine Love – or The Message of the Sacred Heart to the
World. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1950. 150-151, 154, 156, 159.
