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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260615
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260616
DTSTAMP:20260616T051528
CREATED:20260614T104035Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260614T104035Z
UID:15069-1781481600-1781567999@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:A reading from \nBLESSED GUERRIC OF IGNY \n◊◊◊ \nChrist is the way by which we journey to the heights\, the eternity at the \njourney’s end; he is the spotless way\, the blessed dwelling place. \nHowever\, I think that even before you reach that blessed dwelling\, if you \nhave prepared for the Lord a spotless way he will quite often deign to tread the \nway with you\, making smooth the path before you\, so that your heart may be \nenlarged and you may run in the way of his commandments. The beginning\, you \nmay say\, is strait and narrow. For wisdom walks in the way of justice\, as she \nherself says. And he that possesses justice shall lay hold of her and she will meet \nhim as a mother welcomes the son who cherishes her. She goes about seeking \nsuch as are worthy of her and she shows herself to them cheerfully in her ways \nand meets them with all prudence. \nIf you complain she seldom if ever meets you\, consider whether you have \nperhaps soiled your way. For it is written: “The foolishness of a man soils his \nway; he finds fault with God in his heart.” Yet God stands at the gate and knocks\, \nin order that if a man opens to him he may share with him the delights of the \nheavenly banquet. The spouse says: “A knock on the door\, and then my true \nlove’s voice: Let me in\, my sister\, my spouse. Open your heart to me and I will \nnourish it; open your mouth and I will fill it.” “I have opened my mouth\,” says \nDavid\, “and have drawn my breath.” \nNow the breath of our mouth is Christ the Lord. He is to be not merely \ninvited but drawn into the guest chamber of our heart by the violence of our \nprayers and the vehemence of our fervor. The gospel tells us of the two disciples \nto give us an example of this. Indeed if sometimes he makes as though he would \ngo farther\, he does so for no other reason than that he may prove the zeal of your \nlove\, just as the two angels whom Lot adored and begged to enter. They \ndissembled saying: “No\, we will remain in the street.” But what does Scripture \ntell us? “He pressed them very much to turn in unto him.” Loving violence\, by \nwhich the heavenly kingdom is borne away; matchless importunity that wins as \nguest Christ or angels.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-435/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260616
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260617
DTSTAMP:20260616T051528
CREATED:20260614T104212Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260614T104212Z
UID:15071-1781568000-1781654399@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - St Lutgard
DESCRIPTION:A reading from Thomas Merton on \nTHE MYSTICISM OF ST LUTGARDE3 \n◊◊◊ \nIn the month of June\, when the sun burns high in the bright firmament \nand when Cistercian monks\, like all other farmers\, hitch up their teams and go \nout to gather in the wheat\, St Lutgarde’s Day comes around in the Liturgical \ncycle. It is not a universal feast\, celebrated by the whole Church. It belongs only \nto two Belgian dioceses and to the saint’s own Order – the Cistercians. Yet she is \na saint whose spirit is as ardent and colorful as the June weather and as bright as \nthe tiger lilies that enliven the fields and roadsides of America in the month in \nwhich we celebrate her memory. And it is especially fitting that her feast should \noccur in the month of the Sacred Heart. St Lutgarde was one of the great \nprecursors of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. \nThe charm of St Lutgarde is heightened by a certain earthy simplicity \nwhich has been preserved for us unspoiled in the pages of her medieval \nbiography. She was a great penitent\, but she was anything but a fragile wraith of \na person. Lutgarde\, for all her ardent and ethereal mysticism\, remained always \na living human being of flesh and bone. When she was a young girl in the world \nshe seems to have been remarkably attractive\, and we can imagine her as \nsomething more than merely pretty. She must have had one of those \nmarvelously proportioned Flemish faces\, full of a mature and serious beauty\, \nwhich we find in the paintings of the great Flemish masters of a later day then \nhers. \nIn any case\, her entrance into the mystical life was not without an element \nof excitement and romance. She was faced with no mere abstract choice \nbetween heavenly and earthly love: it was not the mere solution of a conflict of \nideals which brought her eventually to the cloister. She was carried into the \narms of Christ by circumstances that shook her to the depths of her sensitive \nbeing. \nThe life of St Lutgarde introduces us to a mysticism that is definitely \nextraordinary. This is not the mysticism which theologians claim to be a \n“normal” development of the Christian life of grace and the infused virtues and \nthe Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Here we are in the presence of visions\, ecstasies\, \nstigmata\, prophecies\, miracles. St Lutgarde was a “mystic” in the popular sense \nof that term\, and her life was certainly colorful and extraordinary enough to \nmake her popular with Catholics of our own time\, too. Of course\, medieval \nsaints’ lives abound in strange phenomena\, and we are inclined to be a little \nsuspicious of the facile enthusiasm with which so many pious writers of those \ndays set down the deeds of their heroes as “miracles.” But the biographer of St \nLutgarde\, though occasionally suffering from the naivete common in his age\, is \nas reliable as anyone in the thirteenth century. \nIt cannot be too much stressed that in St Lutgarde\, as in all the early \nCistercians\, the love that embraces penance and hardship for the sake of Christ \nis never merely negative\, never descends to mere rigid formalism\, never \nconcentrates on mere exterior observance of fasts and other penitential rigors. \nThe fire of love that consumed the heart of St Lutgarde was something vital and \npositive and its flames burned not only to destroy but to rejuvenate and \ntransform. \n3 What Are These Wounds\, Milwaukee\, 1950\, pp vii-ix.7 \n 
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-st-lutgard/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260617
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260618
DTSTAMP:20260616T051528
CREATED:20260614T104400Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260614T104400Z
UID:15073-1781654400-1781740799@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - Bl Joseph Mary Cassant
DESCRIPTION:A reading from Dom Bernardo Bonowitz on \nBLESSED MARIE JOSEPH CASSANT4 \n◊◊◊ \nJoseph Cassant was born on March 6\, 1878 in the southern French town \nof Casseneuil\, the younger son of Pierre and Marie Cassant… Whereas Joseph’s \nelder brother\, Emile\, was clearly marked out to continue his father’s agricultural \nwork\, Joseph’s single ambition was to be a priest. \nJoseph’s devotion to the Eucharist drew the attention of the pastor\, who \ntook him in and began to direct his studies toward seminary. However it soon \nbecame apparent that Joseph’s talent did not lay in academic studies. The \npastor then directed his interests toward the Trappist life\, thinking that \nacademics would not be of such importance there. The pastor took Joseph into \nthe rectory and established a Trappist way of life there for the two of them. \nPriest and teenager arose every night at two a.m. They celebrated the whole \nTrappist horarium including the whole Divine Office\, manual labor\, a rigorous \nsilence and kept to a vegetarian diet. \nJoseph entered the Trappist Abbey of Sainte Marie du Desert\, near \nToulouse at the age of sixteen. The novice was captivated by the Novice Master\, \nFr. Andre Malet. He was well equipped to help the novice overcome his natural \ntendencies to scrupulosity and discouragement. Instead of putting the emphasis \non Trappist asceticism and penance…he led Joseph to an emphasis on love\, thus \nbringing him to a spirit of peace rather than turbulence. He fought to give \nhimself in complete confidence in Jesus\, rather than succumbing to paralyzing \nanxiety… With the help of his director\, Fr Andre\, he sought to live as much as \npossible within the Sacred Heart of Jesus\, seeking to make Christ’s inner \nattitudes his own. \nHis greatest challenge was the studies\, as his pastor had originally \nexpected. It was during his time of studies that Joseph first showed ill health. \nHe suffered from migraine headaches and other difficulties… As he prepared for \nthe priesthood\, he started to show the classic symptoms of tuberculosis. But his \nfirm conviction was that God’s will was that he not complain. He was ordained a \npriest on October 12\, 1902. By this time\, everyone was aware that Joseph’s \nordination was a participation in the death of Jesus… But suffering was an art \nthat Cassant knew well because of his love of Jesus… In the early morning of \nJune 17\, 1903\, as Fr Andre was celebrating Mass for his friend’s intentions\, \nJoseph went to the Lord. \nWe might ask: what does Joseph Cassant have to offer us today? First of \nall\, he instructs us. A man of little intellectual capacity and a very ordinary \nexperience of prayer\, Cassant is nonetheless a theologian of the monastic life. \nHe saw\, and makes us see\, that the personal relation with Jesus is the heart of \nChristian monasticism. He understood that the central monastic practices – \nobedience\, silence and humility – are Christological realities\, expressions of \nChrist’s Sonship and means of our conformity to Christ… Trappist vocation is a \nlifelong process of healing. Joseph Cassant is a monk who was healed\, and Fr \nMalet by betting on and developing the essentially healthy aspect of Joseph was \nthe instrument of the cure. Finally\, Cassant challenges us. The tools that he \nbrought to the monastery were few but indispensable: a good and upright will\, \nwith a consistent practice of fidelity and generosity\, an interior and exterior \nobedience to the formation offered by his superiors. He staked his spiritual \ndestiny on the sanctifying power of the conversatio and was sanctified by it. \n  \n4 Cist. Studies Quarterly = vol. 39.1 2004 – pg 67.9 \n 
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-bl-joseph-mary-cassant/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260618
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260619
DTSTAMP:20260616T051528
CREATED:20260614T104505Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260614T104505Z
UID:15075-1781740800-1781827199@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
DESCRIPTION:A reading from “The Rule of Life for a Recluse” by \nST AELRED OF RIEVAULX \n◊◊◊ \nIf the gifts [God] bestows on his own in the present [time are so great]\, \nwhat must be those he is keeping for them in the future? \nThe beginning of the future and the end of the present is death. Is there \nanyone who has not a natural repulsion for death\, who does not feel a dread of \nit? “Wild beasts guard themselves from death\, preserve life by flight\, hiding- \nplaces and a thousand other devices.” Now then examine yourself carefully. \nWhat answer does your conscience give you\, what is it your faith counts on\, your \nhope promises you\, your affections expect? \nIf your life is a burden to you\, if you are weary of the world\, if the flesh \nbrings you only pain\, then indeed death is something you long for\, to free you \nfrom the burden of this life\, to put an end to your weariness\, to take away bodily \npain. This by itself I consider to surpass all the delights of this world\, all its \nhonors and riches: to have such serenity of conscience\, such firm faith and such \ncertain hope that you do not fear death. Some experience of this will come \nespecially to the man who on occasion\, sighing under the burden of his \nservitude\, has been enabled to breathe the fresh air of a conscience set at liberty. \nThese are the wholesome first fruits of your beatitude to come\, so that at the \nmoment of death the natural horror you feel for it may be overcome by faith\, \nsoftened by hope\, driven away by an assured conscience. \nConsider too how death is the beginning of eternal happiness\, the goal of \nall your labors\, the destroyer of vice. For so it is written: “Blessed are the dead \nwho die in the Lord. Let them rest from their labors\, says the Spirit.” Therefore \nthe Prophet distinguishes between the death of the reprobate and that of the \nelect in the words: “All the kings have fallen asleep in glory\, each in his own \nhouse\, while you have been cast out of your tomb like a useless root\, twisted and \ndecayed.” \nThey indeed sleep in glory whose death is commended by a good \nconscience\, for in the eyes of the Lord the death of his saints is precious.” Truly \nhe sleeps in glory whose falling asleep is attended by angels\, whom saints come \nto meet\, bringing help and solace to their fellow-citizen and withstanding his \nenemies\, driving off those who stand in the way\, repelling those who bring \ncharges against him\, and so accompanying his holy soul right up to Abraham’s \nbosom and depositing it in a place of peace and rest.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-office-for-the-dead-26/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260619
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260620
DTSTAMP:20260616T051528
CREATED:20260614T104633Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260614T104633Z
UID:15077-1781827200-1781913599@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:A reading from “On Contemplating God” by \nWILLIAM OF ST THIERRY6 \n◊◊◊ \nThus far I have perceived and seen\, faintly enough indeed; and yet that \nslight experience has sufficed to kindle my longing afresh\, so that I can scarcely \nnow contain myself for hoping that one day you will remove your covering hand \nand pour out your illuminating grace\, so that at last\, dead to myself and alive to \nyou\, according to the answer of your truth with unveiled face I shall begin to see \nyour face\, and by that seeing shall be united to you. O face\, face\, happy face that \nmerits thus to be united to yourself through seeing you!.. Here with truth and \nfittingly it sings: “My heart has said to you\,’My face has sought you; your face\, \nLord\, will I seek.’” \nSo\, as I said: by a gift of your grace looking at all the nooks and limits of \nmy conscience\, I desire only and exclusively to see you\, so that all the ends of my \nearth may see the salvation of their God; and that\, when I have seen him\, I may \nlove him whom to love is to live indeed… \nBut he who longs for you…is at once confronted with the qualities that \nmake you lovable; for from heaven and earth alike and by means of all your \ncreatures these present themselves to me and urge me to attend to them. And \nthe more clearly and truly these things declare you and affirm that you are \nworthy to be loved\, the more ardently desirable do they make you appear to me. \nBut alas! This experience is not one to be enjoyed with unmitigated \npleasure and delight; rather it is one of yearnings\, strivings\, and frustration\, \nthough not a torment without some sweetness. For just as the offerings I make \nto you do not suffice to please you perfectly unless I offer you myself along with \nthem\, so the contemplation of your manifold perfections\, though it does give us \na measure of refreshment\, does not satisfy us unless we have yourself along with \nit. Into this contemplation my soul puts all its energies; in the course of it I push \nmy spirit around like a rasping broom. And using these qualities of yours that \nmake you lovable like hands and feet on which to lift my weight\, with all my \npowers I reach up to you\, to you who are Love supreme and sovereign Good. But \nthe more I reach up\, the more relentlessly am I thrust back\, and down into \nmyself\, below myself… \nSo when my inward eyes grow blurred like this\, and become dim and \nblind\, I pray you with all speed to open them\, not as Adam’s fleshly eyes were \nopened\, to the beholding of his shame\, but that I\, Lord\, may so see your glory \nthat\, forgetting all about my poverty and littleness\, my whole self may stand \nerect and run into your love’s embrace\, seeing him whom I have loved and \nloving him whom I have yet to see. In this way\, dying to myself\, I shall begin to \nlive in you. \n  \n6 On Contemplating God – William of St Thierry.13
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-436/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260620
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260621
DTSTAMP:20260616T051528
CREATED:20260614T104749Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260614T104749Z
UID:15079-1781913600-1781999999@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - Memorial of the BVM
DESCRIPTION:A reading from “The Seat of Wisdom” by \nFR LOUIS BOUYER \n◊◊◊ \nVirginity consecrated to God in Christ has its justification in that it is a \nmeans for engendering offspring without number; and therein lies the real \nnature of its sacrifice. This is the supreme truth revealed to us by Mary’s virginal \nmotherhood\, and\, at the same time\, its supreme justification. By her \nrenunciation in a spirit of perfect faith\, of the very possibility of generation on \nthe earthly plane\, that of the first creation\, she lent herself to be used to generate \nthe human body of the Son of God. And\, since he is\, in himself\, not only the \norigin but the whole of the new creation\, she also brought this to birth in bearing \nhim. \nThe sacrifice inherent in her chosen virginity was fulfilled in that the \n“Holy One” born of her was the Son of God\, since this made him\, the fruit of her \nown life\, the absolute Stranger to her. though belonging wholly to her as to no \none else\, Christ could not but be the one who was apart from her from the very \nmoment of his birth\, more so than any other child from its parents. At the same \ntime\, her virginity was justified in that it made a birth of the kind possible. And \nall the hopes of renewal that this birth held out to mankind\, in the state it then \nwas in\, justified the seeming refusal of human love by the one most worthy of \nloving and being loved that had been seen on earth since Eve. \nThe counterpart of this is that it is by their participation in Mary’s destiny \nthat\, henceforth\, those vowed to virginity will see and fulfill the purpose of their \nown sacrifice. They renounce all possibility of prolonging and continuing the \npresent order of creation in order to dedicate themselves wholly to engendering \nthe new order which is to redeem the old. Such entire devotion to bringing about \nthe new birth of a humanity regenerated in Christ makes of their virginity\, not a \nnegation of love\, but an act of love of the most exalted kind.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-memorial-of-the-bvm-10/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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