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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260416
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260417
DTSTAMP:20260412T075545
CREATED:20260412T002916Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260412T002916Z
UID:14815-1776297600-1776383999@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:From a reading by \nFR HUGO RAHNER \n◊◊◊ \nPrecisely in weakness the Church of the crucified is the very essence of \nGod’s force of grace\, the sacramentally humble symbol of the irresistibly \nvictorious love of the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The weak Church is the \njoy of our faith. Not only despite her weakness\, but rather because she is weak. \nThis is no theological dialectic that would release us from the responsibility of \nconstantly attempting anew to perfect the power of the Church’s witness\, her \nholiness\, even her glory that can be dramatized here on earth. \nHowever\, our faith in the Church remains pure\, resilient\, filled with \nunshatterable joy in the victory of Our Lord\, only if we perceive that the power \nand dominion of God\, which is totally different in nature from anything else in \nour experience\, chooses to show itself most often in earthly impotence and \ndespicability – as long as we in the midst of the Church celebrate the death of \nOur Lord\, until Christ returns as the Messiah of glory. Christ\, once and for all\, \ndied beyond the barricades of human comprehensibility\, and therefore the \nChurch must bear his disgrace. \nAlas\, this is so difficult for us here below to comprehend. Our eyes are \nveiled\, and our hearts are still as dull as those of the journeying disciples of \nEmmaus. They recognized the Lord only after the breaking of bread. Then\, \nhowever\, their hearts burned. It is the same with us… \nThis also holds true for the mystery of the Church. It is the same for her as \nit was for Our Lord: In sacrifice has he conquered\, in the breaking of bread he \ninflamed joy\, in the fact that he was killed has he driven out the prince of this \nworld. Therefore we recognize him and his Church only in the breaking of bread\, \nin the breaking of our believing hearts. \nAnd from his broken Church we discover with the quiet delight of tested\, \nsuffered\, disappointed and wise faith: Here is the Lord. Here is his Church\, the \nholy\, the catholic. Then our hearts also burn. Then we know: She is still on the \ndesert path\, but this leads into the promised land. She is still on the way of the \ncross to death’s place of skulls\, but only so will the Pasch come\, and this means \nthe transition to the eternal… \n“Probably there is much in the Church that betrays the weaknesses of our \nhuman nature. Her divine founder\, however\, endures these weaknesses. He \nendures them even in the higher members of his mystical body… Therefore\, the \nfact that many members suffer from spiritual infirmity is no reason for us to \nlessen our love for the Church\, rather it is an occasion for us to feel deeper \nsympathy with her members.” \nLook about in this world – everywhere there is desert\, aimless wandering\, \nthirst that cannot be quenched\, strangers who no longer know home. But in this \ndesert you see a thornbush burst into flames\, and you hear the divine words: “The \nplace where you stand is holy ground”. This is a type\, a model of the holy Church. \nShe is a wretched\, prickly shrub in the desert\, but even now she bursts into flames \nwith heavenly fire. Here we stand: we believe in this Church of weak brambles \nand tremendous fire. She is our trial of faith and our love’s joy.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-418/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260417
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260418
DTSTAMP:20260412T075545
CREATED:20260412T003021Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260412T003021Z
UID:14817-1776384000-1776470399@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:From a reading by \nFR LOUIS BOUYER \n◊◊◊ \nThe discovery of grace\, the discovery of love which loves us without \nlooking for any return\, which loves us although we are sinners\, which loves us in \nour sin\, but which alone will lead us\, by obscure ways known to God alone\, from \nsin to sanctity\, that is\, in the last analysis\, the great discovery. Then it is that God \nreveals Himself to us as One who speaks to us\, as One whose Word for the \nsecond time draws us out of nothingness to being\, as One whom we have not so \nmuch to seek as to discover seeking us. It is He\, the Shepherd who left the \nninety-nine sheep in safety to seek and save that which was lost. It is He\, the \nFather of the prodigal who goes along the road to welcome his son when he has \nscarcely started out to meet his father\, and takes him in his arms. \n“To seek God”\, to seek Him as a person\, as the Person par excellence\, and \nnot only as the “Thou” to whom all our love should be addressed\, but as the “I” \nwho has first approached us\, whose word of love\, addressed to the primeval \nchaos\, drew us forth from it in the first place\, and\, spoken to us in our sin\, draws \nus forth from it again: to be a monk is nothing else than this. \nTo be a monk\, then\, is simply to be an integral Christian. And regarded in \nthis light\, the Christian is simply the person restored by the Word of the Gospel \nto the vocation which the creative Word destined for each: to respond to the \nWord of Agape by the word of faith\, in order eventually to meet God face to face. \nCommenting on Canticle of Canticles\, Origen tells us that the Church\, \nunder the old dispensation\, only heard the Bridegroom’s voice\, whereas in the \nnew\, she is offered the sight of his countenance. And he adds that the \ndevelopment of the Christian life is made up solely of this transition. The monk \nis the one who does not limit him or herself to accepting it in some measure \npassively\, by yielding to grace slothfully and reluctantly. The monk is one who \nresponds with the whole heart to the call which comes from the very heart of \nGod. \nMonks are of the number of the violent who will not allow the divine \nKingdom to fall upon them as it were unawares\, but who take it by storm in \nadvance. For that the monks have staked their all\, they have burned their boats. \nTo the one who believes that life consists in what is possessed\, the monk seems \nto be consenting to\, even to be deliberately seeking\, a fatal renunciation. To the \none who knows that being is of greater value than having\, and that being which \nis of value is not that which passes but that which endures\, the monk will seem \nto be the only true humanist. For the human person is born only as subject to the \ndivine Word and will only be fully that person the day when\, freed from the \nnothingness which holds one prisoner\, fully surrendered to the Word which \ncalls\, the person will at last come to discover the Face which promised us being \nin promising us His own image.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-419/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260418
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260419
DTSTAMP:20260412T075545
CREATED:20260412T003133Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260412T003133Z
UID:14819-1776470400-1776556799@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:From a commentary by \nWILLIAM OF ST THIERRY \n◊◊◊ \n“Come\, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord\, and to the house of the \nGod of Jacob\, and He will teach us his ways.” \nYearnings\, strivings\, thoughts and affections\, and all that is within me\, \ncome and let us go up to the mountain or place where the Lord both sees and is \nseen! But worries and anxieties\, concerns and toils\, and all the sufferings \ninvolved in my enslaved condition\, all of you must stay here with the donkey – I \nmean my body – while I and the lad – my intellectual faculties – hasten up the \nmountain; so that when we have worshiped\, we may come back to you. \nFor we shall come back\, and that unfortunately\, all too soon. Love of the \ntruth does indeed lead us far from you; but for the brethren’s sake\, the truth of \nthe love forbids us to abandon or reject you. But\, though you need thus call us \nback\, that sweet experience must not be wholly forgotten on your account. \nBut alas\, O Lord\, alas! To want to see God when one is unclean in heart is \nsurely quite outrageous\, rash and presumptuous\, and altogether out of order \nand against the rule of the word of truth and of your wisdom! Yet you are he who \nis supremely good\, goodness itself\, the life of our hearts and the light of our \ninward eyes. For your goodness’ sake\, then\, have mercy on me\, Lord; for the \nbeholding of your goodness is of itself my cleansing\, my confidence\, my \nholiness… \nSince it happens only by your gift\, you know how from the inmost depths \nof my being and after I have put away from me all striving after worldly honors \nand delights and pleasures\, and everything else that can – and often does – \narouse in me the lust of the flesh\, or of the eyes\, or that stirs me in a wrong \nambition – you know how my heart then says to you: “My face has sought you; \nyour face will I seek. Do not turn your face from me; do not turn away in anger \nfrom your servant.”… \nLet your voice testify deep down within my soul and spirit\, shaking my \nwhole being like a raging storm\, while my inward eyes are dazzled by the \nbrightness of your truth\, which keeps on telling me: “No man shall see you and \nlive.” For I indeed am as yet wholly in my sins\, I have not learned yet how to die \nto myself in order to live to you. \nAnd yet it is by your command and by your gift that I stand upon the rock \nof faith in you\, the rock of the Christian faith\, and in the place where truly you \nare present. On that rock I take my stand meanwhile\, with such patience as I can \ncommand\, and I embrace and kiss your right hand that covers and protects me. \nAnd sometimes\, when I gaze with longing\, I do see the “back” of him who sees \nme; I see your Son Christ “passing by” in the abasement of his incarnation.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-420/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260509T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260509T120000
DTSTAMP:20260412T075545
CREATED:20260406T153956Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260406T154454Z
UID:14796-1778317200-1778328000@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Chicago LCG 9:00 am CDT
DESCRIPTION:All are welcome \n  \nJoin Zoom Meeting \nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/86028356465 \nMeeting ID: 860 2835 6465 \nOne tap mobile \n+13126266799\,\,86028356465# US (Chicago) \n+13092053325\,\,86028356465# US
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/chicago-lcg-900-am-cdt/
CATEGORIES:LCG Local Community Meetings,LCG open events
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