Vigils Reading
2024-10-08
OUR BOAST
IS THE CROSS OF CHRIST
From a letter by St Paulinus of Nola
◊◊◊
From the beginning of the world Christ suffers in all his own. He is “the
beginning and the end”, who is hidden in the law and revealed in the gospel, a
Lord ever “wonderful” and suffering and triumphant “in his saints”. In Abel he
was slain by his brother, in Noah he was ridiculed by his son, in Jacob he was
reduced to servitude, in Joseph he was sold, in Moses he was abandoned and
rejected, in the prophets he was stoned and torn asunder, in his apostles he was
persecuted on land and sea, and in his countless martyrs he was tortured and
assassinated.
He now also bears our weaknesses and our sicknesses, for he is himself
one like us, exposed on our behalf to all evils and capable of enduring the
weakness which without him we would be totally incapable of bearing. He it is
who bears the weight of the world for us and in us so that he might deliver us
from it; see how he achieves power in weakness! It is he who suffers the taunts
you endure; and it is he whom the world hates in you.
Let us give thanks to the Lord, because he “wins out when he is judged.”
According to this word of Scripture, he it is who triumphs in us when, taking the
condition of slavery, he obtains for his servants the grace of freedom.
Accomplishing the mysterious design of his goodness, he assumes this form of a
slave and consents to humble himself for us even to the death of the cross.
Through the lowliness which all could see he achieves our elevation to heaven,
which is interior and invisible.
Look at the height from which we first fell; understand it well. It is by the
design of God’s wisdom and goodness that we have been restored to life. In
Adam we fell through pride, and in Christ we are humbled so that we may efface
the ancient sin by the practice of the opposite virtue. We have offended the Lord
by pride; we now please him by our humility.
Therefore, let us rejoice and glory in him who made ours both his battle
and his victory when he said: “Take courage! I have overcome the world!”… He
who is unconquered will fight for us and conquer in us. The prince of darkness
shall be cast out, for if he is not expelled from the world where he is everywhere,
he is expelled from the human heart. When faith enters us we shut out the evil
one and provide a place for Christ, whose presence expels sin and spells exile for
the serpent who is dislodged..
Let the orators keep their eloquence, the philosophers their wisdom, the
rich their wealth, and kings their realms. Our glory, riches and kingdom is
Christ. Our wisdom lies in the foolishness of the gospel, our strength in the
weakness of the flesh, and our glory in the stumbling block of the cross.
“Through it the world has been crucified to me and I to the world, so that I may
live for God. And the life I live now is not my own; Christ is living in me.”

Vigils Reading
2024-10-09
THE TRUE TEMPLE
AND CITY OF GOD
By St Hilary of Poitiers3
◊◊◊
God chose Zion for his abode and his dwelling place…But Zion was
ultimately destroyed. Where, then, is the everlasting throne of the Lord, where
his eternal resting place, where the temple on which he can reside? It is that
temple about which is written: “You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God
dwells in you.”
This is the house and this is the temple of God, filled with the knowledge
and power of God; made fit for God’s indwelling by holiness of heart – to which
the prophet bore witness: “Holy is your temple, wonderful in justice.” Our
holiness, justice, and purity constitute a temple for the Lord.
Hence, this temple must be built by God. [If it is] erected by human labor,
it will never last; [if] founded on worldly wisdom, it will never hold together; [if
it is only] kept by our foolish labors and care, it will never be preserved. It is not
to be erected on shifting sand but firmly founded on the prophets and the
apostles; with living stones must it take shape, solidified by the cornerstone.
With its materials securely linked together it must grow to perfect maturity, to
the stature of the body of Christ, and is to be adorned with the beauty and
splendor of spiritual gifts…
For a long time already, the Lord has been keeping watch over this city.
He guards Abraham on his pilgrimage, rescues Isaac from immolation, rewards
Jacob for his years of service, and makes a powerful figure of Joseph sold into
Egypt. He strengthens Moses in his conflict with Pharaoh, delegates Joshua to
wage wars, delivers Daniel from all dangers, and bestows the gift of wisdom on
Solomon.
The Lord is there among his Prophets; he snatches up Elijah, chooses
Elisha, gives food to Daniel, and refreshes the youths in the fiery furnace. He
informs Joseph by an angel of his virgin birth, reassures Mary, and sends John
before him.
He chooses apostles, and prays to his Father with the words: “Holy
Father, protect them; as long as I was with them, I guarded them in your name.”
Finally, after his passion, he promises that he himself will have an eternal care
for us: “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the world.”
Such is the never-ending protection of this blessed and holy city, which –
formed as it is of many come together into one and found in each of us – is
indeed the city of God.

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2024-10-10
THE ACTIVITY
OF ALL ACTIVITIES
From “The Golden Epistle” by William of St Thierry4
◊◊◊
In the first place then the newcomer to the desert must be taught to follow
the teaching of the Apostle Paul and offer up his body as a living sacrifice,
consecrated to God and worthy of his acceptance, the workshop due from him as
a rational creature. Therefore the body is to be treated strictly, so that it will not
rebel or grow wanton, yet in such a way that it will be able to serve, for it has
been given to the spirit to serve it. It is not to be regarded as the purpose of life
but as something without which we cannot live. For we cannot break off the
fellowship which we have with the body whenever we want, but we must wait
patiently for it to be broken up in a lawful way and in the meantime observe the
conventions of a valid partnership…
The new monk is then to be trained to follow the common observance and
so bring under control the inordinate desires of his flesh by continual penance
for his past life, and, in order to despise all else, to cultivate a contempt for
himself. He must at all times be fortified in advance against the temptations
which are more savage in their assault upon the solitary who is a novice. The
servant of God, who is serving God gratuitously, is unceasingly beset by vices
that try to make him accept the wages they offer him in the form of pleasures.
This comes at the devil’s suggestion, the flesh making its desires felt and the
world providing material for them. The Lord our God also tempts us, to see
whether we love him or not. Not that he does not know and wishes to find out. It
is in order that we ourselves may realize the truth more fully as a result of the
temptation.
But it is easy to overcome and meet with reason temptations which give
grounds for suspicion or at first sight are obviously evil. It is those which
insinuate themselves under the appearance of good that are more difficult to
recognize and more dangerous to entertain. Just as it is very difficult to observe
due measure in what is believed to be good and not every desire for something
good is safe.
The place, however, where all temptations and evil and useless thoughts
collect, is idleness. For the greatest evil which can befall the mind is unemployed
leisure. The servant of God should never be idle, although he is at leisure to
devote himself to God. A name which gives rise to such suspicion and suggests
such waste of time and such an absence of manliness must not be given to a
matter of such unquestionable value, of such holiness, of such seriousness. Is
leisure to devote one’s time to God idleness? Rather it is the activity of all
activities. Anyone who in his cell is not faithful and fervent in this activity is
indeed idle, whatever else he may do that is not done for the sake of this…
The aim of activity should not be merely to pass the day more or less
enjoyably or at least without becoming too weary of leisure but also that when
the day is over it always leaves something in the mind that will contribute to the
soul’s advancement and that some fresh treasure is added each day to the
heart’s store. A good monk should consider that he has lost a day of his life if
during the day he cannot remember having done any of the things for which a
man lives in solitude.

Vigils Reading - St John XXIII
2024-10-11
THE SPIRITUAL TESTAMENT
AND LAST WISHES
of St Pope John XXIII5
◊◊◊
On the point of presenting myself before the One and Triune Lord who
created me, redeemed me, chose me to be his priest and bishop, and covered me
with unending graces, I entrust my poor soul to His mercy; I humbly ask pardon
for my sins and deficiencies. I offer Him the little good, although petty and
imperfect, that with His aid I have succeeded in doing, for His glory, for the
service of Holy Church, for the edification of my brethren, begging Him finally
to receive me, like a good and kind Father, with His Saints into eternal
happiness.
I profess once again with all my heart my entire Christian and Catholic
faith, my adherence and subjection to the Holy Apostolic and Roman Church,
and my complete devotion and obedience to her August Head, the Supreme
Pontiff, whom it was my great honor to represent for long years in various
regions of the East and West, who at the end chose me to come to Venice as
Cardinal and Patriarch, and whom I have always followed with sincere
affection, aside from and above any dignity conferred upon me. The sense of my
own littleness and nothingness has always been my good companion, keeping
me humble and calm, and making me employ myself to the best of my ability in
a constant exercise of obedience and charity for souls and for the interests of the
Kingdom of Jesus, my Lord and my all. To Him be all glory; for me and for my
merit, His mercy.
I ask pardon of those whom I have unwittingly offended, of all to whom I
have not been a source of edification. I feel that I have nothing to forgive anyone,
for all who have known and dealt with me – including those who have offended
me, scorned me, held me in bad esteem (with good reason, for that matter), or
have been a source of affliction for me – I regard solely as brothers and
benefactors, to whom I am grateful and for whom I pray and always will pray.
Born poor, but of honorable and humble people, I am particularly happy
to die poor, having given away, in accord with the various demands and
circumstances of my simple and modest life, for the benefit of the poor and of
Holy Church that had nurtured me, all that came into my hands – which was
little enough as a matter of fact – during the years of my priesthood and
episcopacy. Outward appearances of ease and comfort often veiled hidden
thorns of distressing poverty and kept me from giving with all the largess I
would have liked. I thank God for this grace of poverty which I vowed in my
youth, poverty of spirit as a priest of the Sacred Heart, and real poverty…
As I face death, I recall each and every one – those who preceded me in
taking the final step, those who will survive me and who will follow me. May
they pray for me. I will repay them from Purgatory or from Paradise, where I
hope to be received. I repeat it once again, not because of my merits, but because
of the mercy of the Lord. At the moment for saying farewell, or better still,
arrivederci, I once more remind everyone of what counts most in life: blessed
Jesus Christ, His Holy Church, His Gospel; and in the Gospel, above all, the
Pater noster in the spirit and heart of Jesus and the Gospel, the truth and
goodness, the goodness meek and kind, active and patient, victorious and
unbowed.

Vigils Reading
2024-10-12
ENTIRELY TURNED TOWARDS GOD
By Lucien Legrand6
◊◊◊
The significance of Mary’s virginity is entirely different from both cultic
virginity and philosophical continence. Mary knows that her virginity has no
value of its own and no power but that of the Spirit. She does not speak of the
greatness of her virginity. For her, it is not virginity that makes her great: it is
the Lord. As far as she is concerned, she is nothing and her virginity seals her
nothingness. Because she is a virgin, she is ‘poor’, a contemptible thing,
considered worthless by the world. Of course, in the case of Mary as in that of
the ‘Poor of Yahweh’ in the Old Testament, poverty should be taken in the
biblical sense. It is not merely negative. It does not mean only destitution…
Poverty is a religious attitude which underlies the spiritual development
of the Old Testament and prepares the way for the abasement of the cross, the
imprint of which it bears by anticipation. Biblical poverty does indeed mean life
deprived of any human hope but also and mostly at its deepest, radical
detachment, total humility and consequently utter confidence in God. Mary’s
virginity belongs to this type of poverty. It is a form of that religious attitude
made up of faith and abandon, joy and confidence; it is akin to humility and can
be summarized as an attitude of religious expectation. It is silence, readiness,
emptiness. And her greatness comes from the faith and confidence in god which
spring in the heart on that emptiness, and from the answer God gave to that
faith and confidence.
Virginity of this kind differs entirely from its pagan counterparts. It does
not represent an attempt to substitute our influence for God’s power: on the
contrary, Mary has no other ambition than to be the handmaid of the Lord.
Neither does Mary’s virginity correspond to a merely human longing for purity
and moral greatness. Her virginity does not belong so much to the moral as to
the theological virtues. It manifests an attitude before god rather than an effort
of moral perfection and of self-achievement. Luke’s Gospel of the Infancy does
not describe in Mary a heroic form of the virtue of chastity. What it sees in her is
sheer faith and hope which has no reliance in creatures but is entirely turned
toward God.

LCG Chicago 9:00 am CDT
2024-10-12 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago)
All are Welcome to Join Our Zoom Meeting
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9:00 Gather for Opening prayer and lighting of the candles illuminating the Theotokos icon of Blessed Mother Mary and the baby Jesus.
We also pray for all our lay Cistercian sisters and brothers in the US and around the world. Specially we pray for our Gethsemani monks. Finally, we pray this month specially for these Gethsemani monks:
Br. Maximilian Pickerill
Br. Abel Arbuckle
Br. Joseph Bender
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Tom Kosnik.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is to complete (chapters 8 and 9) Augustine Roberts’ Centered on Christ. This work has been subject of monthly Zoom LCG study—check in on LCG website—led by Fr. Michael Casagram (see attachments to this email). Notably, Fr. Michael used the book to mentor Gethsemani novices. A fruitful way to more fully understand and appreciate our brother monks and the Cistercian charism.
10:45 Housekeeping. Volunteer to lead lectio next month? And our next reading selection? Chicago Report on LCG Advisory Council activity. Plans for international meeting in 2025 and Anglophone lead-ins thereto. Finally, we await meeting next week at the Autumn LCG Retreat at Gethsemani.
11:00 Update. Share how the Holy Spirt has entered our lives as lay Cistercians since our last meeting.
11:45 Closing worship and prayer. We will pray the liturgical hour of None as with our Gethsemani monks (identical Psalms as done today at Gethsemani Abbey.)
Our next meeting: November 9, 2024.

Skema: 28th Week in Ordinary Time
2024-10-13
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
28th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
October 13 – 19, 2024

Sun
13
Mon
14
Tue
15
Wed
16
Thu
17
Fri
18
Sat
19

Office
28th Sunday
Weekday
St Teresa of Avila
St Hedwig
St Ignatius of Antioch
St Luke
North American Martyrs

Vigils
Wis 6:1-11
Wis 6:12-21
Wis 6:22-7:12
Wis 7:13-22a
Wis 7:22b-8:1
Ezek 1:1-14
Wis 8:2-16

Lauds
Hos 12:1-7
Hos 12:8-15
Hos 13:1-8
Hos 13:9-14:1
Hos 14:2-10
Isa 52:7-10
Job 1:1-5

Mass
143
467
468
469
470
661
472

1st
Wis 7:7-11
Gal 4:22-24, 26-27, 31-5:1
Gal 5:1-6
Gal 5:18-25
Eph 1:1-10
2 Tim 4:10-17b
Eph 1:15-23

2nd
Heb 4:12-13

Gospel
Mark 10:17-30
Luke 11:29-32
Luke 11:37-41
Luke 11:42-46
Luke 11:47-54
Luke 10:1-9
Luke 12:8-12

Vespers
1 John 5:1-5
1 John 5:6-12
1 John 5:13-17
1 John 5:18-21
2 John 1-6
Acts 11:19-26
2 John 7-13

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
2024-10-13
FOLLOWING CHRIST’S CALL
From a commentary by St John Henry Newman 1
◊◊◊
All through our life Christ is calling us. He called us first in Baptism, but
afterwards also; whether we obey his voice or not, he graciously calls us still. If
we fall from our Baptism, he calls us to repent; if we are striving to fulfill our
calling, he calls us on from grace to grace, and from holiness to holiness, while
life is given us. Abraham was called from his home. Elisha from his farm,
Nathanael from his retreat; we are all in course of calling, on and on, from one
thing to another, having no resting place, but mounting towards our eternal
rest, and obeying one command only to have another put upon us. He calls us
again and again, in order to justify us… and more and more, to sanctify and
glorify us.
It were well if we understood this…that Christ is, as it were, walking
among us, and by his hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow him. We do not
understand that his call is a thing which takes place now. We think it took place
in the Apostles’ day; but we do not believe in it, we do not look out for it in our
own case. We have not eyes to see the Lord; far distant from the beloved Apostle,
who knew Christ even when the rest of the apostles knew him not. When he
stood on the shore after his resurrection, and bade them cast the net into the
sea, that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the Lord.
Now what I mean is this: that they who are living religiously, have from
time to time truths they did not know before, or had no need to consider,
brought before them forcibly; truths which involve duties, which are in fact
precepts, and claim obedience. In this and such-like ways Christ calls us now.
There is nothing miraculous or extraordinary in his dealings with us. He works
through our natural faculties and circumstances of life. Still what happens to us
in providence is in all essential respects what his voice was to those whom he
addressed when on earth; whether he commands by a visible presence, or by a
voice, or by our consciences, it matters not, so that we feel it to be a command. If
it is a command, it may be obeyed or disobeyed; it may be accepted as Samuel or
St. Paul accepted it, or put aside after the manner of the young man who had
great possessions.
We need not fear spiritual pride in following Christ’s call, if we follow it as
people in earnest. Earnestness has no time to compare itself with the state of
others; earnestness is simply set in doing God’s will. It simply says: Speak,
Lord, for thy servant heareth; Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Oh that we
had more of this spirit! Oh that we could take that simple view of things, as to
feel that the one thing which lies before us is to please God!
Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls more
fully; to quicken our senses; to give us sight and hearing, taste and touch of the
world to come; so to work within us that we may sincerely say: Thou shalt guide
me with Thy counsel, and after that receive me to glory.
1
Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 124.

Weekday
2024-10-14
THE UNIVERSAL CALL
TO HOLINESS
From the encyclical Lumen Gentium 2
◊◊◊
The Church, whose mystery is set forth by this sacred Council, is held, as a
matter of faith, to be unfailingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God,
who with the Father and the Spirit is hailed as “alone holy,” loved the Church as
his Bride, giving himself up for her so as to sanctify her; he joined her to himself
as his body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God.
Therefore all in the Church, whether they belong to the hierarchy or are cared
for by it, are called to holiness, according to the apostle’s saying: “For this is the
will of God, your sanctification”. This holiness of the Church is constantly
shown forth in the fruits of grace which the Spirit produces in the faithful and so
it must be; it is expressed in many ways by the individuals who, each in his or
her own state of life, tend to the perfection of love, thus sanctifying others; it
appears in a certain way of its own in the practice of the counsels which have
been usually called “evangelical.” This practice of the counsels prompted by the
Holy Spirit, undertaken by many Christians whether privately or in a form or
state sanctioned by the Church, gives and should give a striking witness and
example of that holiness.
The Lord Jesus, divine teacher and model of all perfection, preached
holiness of life (of which he is the author and maker) to each and every one of his
disciples without distinction: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your
heavenly Father is perfect”. For he sent the Holy Spirit to all to move them
interiorly to love God with their whole heart, with their whole soul, with their
whole understanding, and with their whole strength, and to love one another as
Christ loves them.
The followers of Christ, called by grace, and justified in the Lord Jesus,
have been made sons and daughters of God in the baptism of faith and partakers
of the divine nature, and so are truly sanctified. They must therefore hold on to
and perfect in their lives that sanctification which they have received from God.
They are told by the apostle to live “as is fitting among saints”, and to put on “as
God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness,
meekness, and patience”, to have the fruits of the Spirit for their sanctification.
But since we all offend in may ways, we constantly need God’s mercy and must
pray everyday: “And forgive us our debts.”
It is therefore quite clear that all Christians in any state or walk of life
are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love, and by
this holiness a more human manner of life is fostered also in earthly society.
2 Vatican II Documents. Austin Flannery, OP. Costello Pub. 1981.

St. Teresa of Avila
2024-10-15
SURRENDERING OUR WILL TO GOD
From the writing of St Teresa of Ávila 3
◊◊◊
We can promise easily enough to give up our will to someone else, but
when it comes to the test we find it the most difficult thing in the world to do
perfectly. But God knows what each of us is able to bear, and when he finds a
valiant soul he does not hesitate to accomplish his will in that person.
So I want to warn you and make you understand what God’s will is, so that
you may realize with whom you are dealing (as the saying goes) and what the
good Jesus is offering on your behalf to the Father. I want you to make sure you
know what you are giving him when you say, “Your will be done.” You are asking
that God’s will may be done in you; it is this and nothing else you are praying for.
You need not be afraid he will give you wealth or pleasures or great honors or
any earthly good things; his love for you is not so weak as that. He sets a far
greater value on your gift and desires to reward you generously, giving you his
kingdom even in this life.
Would you like to see how he treats people who make this petition without
reserve? Ask his glorious Son, who made it genuinely and resolutely in the
garden. Was not God’s will accomplished in him through the trials, the
sufferings, the insults and the persecutions he sent him until at last his life was
ended on the cross? You see then what God gave to one he loved best of all, and
that shows you what his will is. These things are his gifts in this world, and he
gives them in proportion to his love for us. To those he loves most he gives more,
to those less dear he gives less; his gifts are measured by the courage he sees we
have and the love we bear his Majesty. Fervent love can suffer a great deal for his
sake, while lukewarmness will endure very little. I myself believe that love is the
gauge of the crosses, great or small, that we are able to bear.
So if you have this love, think what you are doing. Do not let the promises
you make to so great a Lord be no more than empty compliments, but brace
yourselves to suffer whatever God wishes. Any other way of surrendering our
will to him is like offering someone a precious stone, entreating him to accept it,
and then holding onto it when he puts out his hand to take it. Such mockery is
not for him who endured so much mockery for us. If for no other reason, it
would be wrong to mock him in this way every time we say the Lord’s Prayer. Let
us give him once and for all the precious stone we have offered him so many
times — for he in fact first gave us the thing we now give back to the Father.
3Obras de Santa Teresa, pp. 238-242; reprinted in Meditations on the Sunday Gospels: Year C; introduced and edited by John
E. Rotelle, Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1995, pp. 106-107.

St. Hedwig
2024-10-16
ST HEDWIG OF SILESIA
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints 4
◊◊◊
Hedwig was born in Bavaria about the year 1174, the daughter of
Berthold, count of Andechs. When she was only twelve she was married to
Henry, duke of Silesia. Together they founded a large number of religious
houses, the best known of which was a convent for Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz,
near Breslau in modern Poland, the first convent for women in Silesia. These
foundations helped both to develop the religious life of the people and to spread
a common German culture throughout their lands. They also established
hospitals and a house for lepers. Their seventh and last child was born in 1209,
and Hedwig persuaded her husband to take a mutual vow of chastity. They lived
apart, with Hedwig taking up residence close to the nunnery at Trebnitz, and
often sharing the austere life of the nuns. She recommended fasting to those
who wanted to live holier lives, saying that it could “master concupiscence, lift
up the soul, confirm it in the paths of virtue, and prepare a fine reward for the
Christian”.
Much of the rest of Hedwig’s life was spent in trying to keep peace
between her warring sons Henry and Conrad and in attempts to make peace
between her husband and his enemies. When Henry died in 1238, she
comforted those who mourned him with the words, “Would you oppose the will
of God? Our lives are his; our will is whatever he is pleased to ordain, whether
our own death or that of our friends.” She took the habit at Trebnitz but did not
take any religious vows, remaining free to administer her property for the good
of the poor. We are told that she took great care to instruct the uneducated in
their religion, on one occasion having an old woman share a room with her so
that they could go through the Our Father together whenever there was a free
moment. After ten weeks of patient teaching, the old woman could repeat and
understand the prayer.
When her son Henry II was killed in 1240 fighting the Tartar invaders,
Hegwig knew of his death three days before a messenger arrived from the
battlefield. Other miracles were attributed to her; she cured a blind man, for
example, and had the gift of prophecy, foretelling her own death in October
1243. She was canonized in 1267, and her feast was extended to the Western
Church in 1706.
4
Butler’s Lives of the Saints – New Full Edition – October – The Liturgical Press – Collegeville, MN – 1997.

St. Ignatius of Antioch
2024-10-17
ON THE NEED TO PERSEVERE
IN OUR FAITH
From a letter of St Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians 5
◊◊◊
The last epoch has arrived! Therefore let us exercise restraint and fear lest
God’s long-suffering should turn to our condemnation. Obviously, we must
either fear the gathering storm of anger, or else cherish the present time of grace
— one of the two; only let us be found in union with Christ Jesus so as to possess
the true life. Apart from him, let nothing fascinate you. In union with him I carry
about these chains of mine — spiritual pearls they are! May I be privileged
through your prayer — in which I wish I may ever have a share — to wear them
when I rise from the dead! Thus I shall be found in the ranks of the Christians of
Ephesus, who have ever been of one mind with the Apostles through the power
of Jesus Christ…
Make an effort then, to meet more frequently to celebrate God’s Eucharist
and to offer praise. For, when you meet frequently in the same place, the forces
of Satan are overthrown, and his baneful influence is neutralized by the
unanimity of your faith. Peace is a precious thing: it puts an end to every war
waged by heavenly or earthly enemies.
Nothing of this escapes you; only persevere to the end in your faith in, and
your love for, Jesus Christ. Here is the beginning and the end of life: faith is the
beginning,”the end is love”; and when the two blend perfectly with each other,
they are God. Everything else that makes for right living is consequent upon
these. No one who professes faith sins; no one who possesses love hates. “The
tree is known by its fruit.” In like manner, those who profess to belong to Christ
will be known as such by their conduct. Certainly, what matters now is not mere
profession of faith, but whether one is found to be actuated by it to the end.
It is better to keep silence and be something than to talk and be nothing.
Teaching is an excellent thing, provided the speaker practices what he teaches.
Now, there is one Teacher who “spoke and it was done.” But even what he did
silently is worthy of the Father. He who has made the words of Jesus really his
own is able also to hear His silence. Thus he will be perfect: he will act through
His speech and be understood through His silence. Nothing is hidden from the
Lord; no, even our secrets reach him. Let us, then, do all things in the
conviction that he dwells in us. Thus we shall be his temples and he will be our
God within us. And this is the truth, and it will be made manifest before our
eyes. Let us then, love him as he deserves.
5
Ancient Christian Fathers, Vol I (Newman Press, 1946) pp. 64-66.

St. Luke
2024-10-18
THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN
By St Jerome 6
◊◊◊
Luke, a physician from Antioch, who, as his writings show, was not
ignorant of the Greek language, was a follower of the Apostle Paul and his
companion on all his travels. he wrote the Gospel of which Paul says: “We have
sent also with him the brother, whose praise is in the Gospel, through all the
churches.” And to the Colossians, “Luke, the beloved physician, greets you.”
Also to Timothy, “Only Luke is with me.”
Likewise, he published another wonderful volume which bears the title
Acts of the Apostles. Its narratives continue up to the two years spent by Paul at
Rome, that is, up to the fourth year of Nero’s reign. From it we learn that the
book was composed in that city. Hence we are to relegate the journeys of Paul
and Thecla and the complete tale of the lion’s baptism to the apocryphal
writings. For how can it be that among all the rest of Paul’s deeds, Luke, the sole
companion of the Apostle, should be ignorant of this alone?
Even Tertullian, who lived close to that time, tells us that a certain priest
in Asia, an admirer of the Apostle Paul, when charged by John to be the author
of the book, confessed that he had done it out of his love for Paul, and he had
forthwith fallen dead on the spot. Certain ones suspect that as often as Paul says
in his Epistles, “according to my Gospel,” he refers to Luke’s work.
That Luke had learned the Gospel not only from Paul, who had not been
with our Lord in the flesh, but from the rest of the apostles, he himself declares
at the beginning of his book, saying: “those who were eyewitnesses and
ministers of the word have handed them down to us.” Consequently, he wrote
the Gospel as he had heard it , while he composed the Acts of the Apostles
according as he had himself seen.
6
from The Lessons of the Temporal Cycle and the Principal feasts of the Sanctoral Cycle According to the Monastic Breviary,
compiled and adapted for the Office of the Brothers of St. Meinrad’s Abbey, St. Meinrad, IN, 1943, pp. 483-484.

North American Martyrs
2024-10-19
THE NORTH AMERICAN MARTYRS
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints 7
◊◊◊
On March 16, 1649, the Iroquois attacked the village at which Brébeuf and
Lalemant were stationed. The torture of these two missionaries was as
atrocious as anything recorded in history. At the height of the torments Father
Lalemant raised his eyes to Heaven and invoked God’s aid, whilst Father de
Brebeuf set his face like a rock as though insensible to the pain. Then, like one
recovering consciousness, he preached to his persecutors and to the Christian
captives until the savages gagged his mouth, cut off his nose, tore off his lips,
and then, in derision of baptism, deluged him and his companion martyrs with
boiling water. Finally, large pieces of flesh were cut out of the bodies of both the
priests and roasted by the Indians, who tore out their hearts before their death
by means of an opening above the breast, feasting on them and their blood,
which they drank while it was still warm.
Before the end of the year 1649 the Iroquois had penetrated as far as the
Tobacco nation, where Father Garnier had founded a mission in 1641 and where
the Jesuits now had two stations. The inhabitants of the village of Saint-Jean
hearing that the enemy was approaching, sent out their men to meet the
attackers, who, however, took a roundabout way and arrived at the gates
unexpectedly. An orgy of incredible cruelty followed, in the midst of which
Garnier, the only priest in the mission, hastened from place to place, giving
absolution to the Christians and baptizing the children and catechumens,
totally unmindful of his own fate. While thus employed he was shot down by the
musket of an Iroquois. He strove to reach a dying man whom he thought he
could help, but after three attempts he collapsed, and subsequently received his
death-blow from a hatchet which penetrated to the brain.
Father Noël Chabanel, the missionary companion of Garnier, was
immediately recalled. He had started on his way back with some Christian
Hurons when they heard the cries of the Iroquois returning from Saint-Jean.
The father urged his followers to escape, but was too much exhausted to keep up
with them. His fate was long uncertain, but a Huron apostate eventually
admitted having killed the holy man out of hatred of the Christian faith.
These martyrs of North America, SS John de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues,
Anthony Daniel, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, Noël Chabanel, René
Goupil and John de Lalande, were canonized in 1930.
7
Butler’s Lives of the Saints, ed. Michael Walsh, Harpers San Francisco, 1985, p.136-137.

Skema
2024-10-20
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
29th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
October 20 – 26, 2024

Sun
20
Mon
21
Tue
22
Wed
23
Thu
24
Fri
25
Sat
26

Office
29th Sunday
Weekday
St John Paul II
Weekday
Office for the Dead
Weekday
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Wis 8:17-9:6
Wis 9:7-18
Wis 10:1-12
Wis 10:13-21
Wis 11:1-16
Wis 11:17-12:1
Wis 12:2-15

Lauds
Job 1:6-12
Job 1:13-22
Job 2:1-10
Job 3:1-10
Job 3:11-26
Job 4:1-11
Job 4:12-21

Mass
146
473
474
475
476
477
478

1st
Isa 53:10-11
Eph 2:1-10
Eph 2:12-22
Eph 3:2-12
Eph 3:14-21
Eph 4:1-6
Eph 4:7-16

2nd
Heb 4:14-16

Gospel
Mark 10:35-45
Luke 12:13-21
Luke 12:35-38
Luke 12:39-48
Luke 12:49-53
Luke 12:54-59
Luke 13:1-9

Vespers
3 John 1-8
3 John 9-15
Jude 1-7
Jude 8-16
Jude 17-25
Rom 1:1-12
Rom 1:13-17

Vigils Reading - 29th Sunday Ordinary Time
2024-10-20
THE SERVANT OF ALL
From a commentary by St John Chrysostom1
When the ten disciples were indignant with James and John for separating themselves from their company in the hope of obtaining the highest honor, Jesus corrected the disordered passions of both groups. Notice how he did it.
He called them to him and said: Gentile rulers lord it over their people, and holders of high office make their authority felt. This must not happen among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to be first among you must be last of all.
You see that what the two brothers wanted was to be first, greatest and highest: rulers, one might say, of the others. So, revealing their secret thoughts, Jesus put a curb on their ambition, saying: whoever wants to be first among you must become the servant of all. If you wish to take precedence and to have the highest honors, aim for what is lowest and worst: to be most insignificant and humble of all, of less account than anyone else, to put yourself after the others. It is virtue of this kind that wins the honor you aspire to, and you have an outstanding example of it near at hand. For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as ransom for many. This is what will make you illustrious and far-famed. See what is happening in my case: I do not seek glory and honor, yet by acting in this way I am gaining innumerable blessings.
The fact is that before the incarnation and self-abasement of Christ the whole world was in a state of ruin and decay, but when he humbled himself he lifted the world up. He annulled the curse, put and end to death, opened paradise, destroyed sin, flung wide the gates of heaven, and introduced there the first fruits of our race. He filled the world with faith in God, drove out error, restored truth, caused our first fruits to ascend a royal throne, and gained innumerable blessings beyond the power of myself or anyone else to describe in words. Before he humbled himself he was known only to the angels, but after his self-abasement he was recognized by the whole human race.
1
(Homilies against the Anomeans, VIII: Bareille 2, 253-54).

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-21
HAPPY ARE THE MEEK
From a sermon by Isaac of Stella2
The disease of desire for gain closely accompanies the vice of pride. For the wisdom that is not from above is earthly, sensual, of the devil, full of jealousy and contention. It equates domination with happiness and buys a farm so that it can dominate others and quarrel endlessly. This wisdom is truly of the devil, it is the firstborn of him who sought to set his throne above the other stars. But the disciples, leaving behind that disordered and disordering wisdom together with the crowd, were privileged to hear the words: “Happy are the meek, they shall possess the earth.”
He does not say this or that or any section of earth, however large, but simply “the earth.” Did ever a man, for all his sweat and toil, his money and his fists, gain more than a part of the earth? Even in this, few have succeeded and many failed. And who has been able to keep possession of what he has won? What profit is there in working hard and long to gain something that of necessity must quickly be lost? Heaven is for the poor, the earth for the meek, what is left for the contentious? What else do they want, in their desire of riches.
If heaven and earth do not suffice them, what then? “O men, how long will you be dull of heart, will you love what is futile and seek what is false?” Earthly dominion is but an illusion of power, dignity and happiness. Why be content with only a part? Why covet so little and aim so low? The whole is promised and the way is shown. By voluntary poverty we go and by meekness we move still more speedily. The truly poor man has the happiness of heaven, the meek man the happiness of earth.
What remains then for those restless with ambition except the misery of hell? You who are wealthy and powerful, what will you do? Think carefully. You have wealth on the one hand and meekness on the other and a thief is approaching. If you defend your property, you will lose your meekness. If you hold fast to meekness, you will be throwing away your money. I am caught on either side, for at one and the same time the thief may take my money and the devil my patience.
Indeed, brothers, would that money had never existed, for in these evil times it cannot be possessed together with meekness, nor may it be carried on the road by the disciples of Jesus. Perhaps that is why the Wisdom which is from above and is pure and peaceable, instructed us to carry neither purse nor money on the journey, to go to law with no one, to give even more than what is robbed, and not to ask for the return of what has been taken; in short, to hold fast to meekness which is the way to happiness. The Apostle praises this when he says: “You gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves”…
Lord Jesus, is there anyone today “who believes what we have heard?” Is there anyone to whom your way is revealed in the way he lives? How very narrow is your way and how few tread it! This was “your way through the mighty sea” of this present world, but in our times “your footprints are unheeded.” The Apostle [Paul] named your way “wisdom” but today it is called the greatest folly, idleness, inertia. Alas, my brothers, these footprints are read of everywhere, but how often disregarded!
2
(CF 11:11-12).

Vigils Reading - St John Paul II
2024-10-22
THE ONE SAVIOR OF ALL
An excerpt from “Redemptoris Missio” by St John Paul II3
The Church’s universal mission is born of faith in Jesus Chhrist, as stated in our Trinitarian profession of faith: “I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father… For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven…” The redemption event brings salvation to all. “For each one is included in the mystery of the redemption and with each one Christ has united himself forever through this mystery.” It is only in faith that the Church’s mission can be understood and only in faith that it finds its basis.
If we go back to the beginnings of the Church, we find a clear affirmation that Christ is the one Savior of all, the only one able to reveal God and lead to God. In reply to the Jewish religious authorities who question the apostles about the healing of the lame man, Peter says: “By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well… And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given men by which we must be saved”. This statement, which was made to the Sanhedrin, has a universal value, since for all people – Jews and Gentiles alike – salvation can only come from Jesus Christ.
The universality of this salvation in Christ is asserted throughout the New Testament. St Paul acknowledges the risen Christ as the Lord. He writes: “Although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’ – yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist”. One God and one Lord are asserted by way of contrast to the multitude of “gods” and “lords” commonly accepted. Paul reacts against the polytheism of the religious environment of his time and emphasizes what is characteristic of the Christian faith: belief in one God and one Lord sent by God.
In the Gospel of St John, this salvific universality of Christ embraces all the aspects of his mission of grace, truth and revelation: the Word is “the true light that enlightens every person”. And again: “no one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known”. God’s revelation becomes definitive and complete through his only-begotten Son… In this definitive Word of his revelation, God has made himself known in the fullest possible way. He revealed to mankind who he is. This definitive self-revelation of God is the fundamental reason why the Church is missionary by her very nature. She cannot do otherwise than proclaim the Gospel, that is, the fullness of the truth which God has enabled us to know about himself.
Christ is the one mediator between God and mankind… No one, therefore, can enter into communion with God except through Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s one, universal mediation, far from being an obstacle on the journey toward God, is the way established by God himself, a fact of which Christ is fully aware. Although participated forms of mediation of different kinds and degrees are not excluded, they acquire meaning and value only from Christ’s one, universal mediation.
3
Encyclical Letter of John Paul II – Redemptoris Missio – Pauline Books & Media – Boston – 1990 – pg 13.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-23
AUTHORITY AND
PRIVATE JUDGMENT
From the writing of St John Henry Newman4
It is the custom with Protestant writers to consider that, whereas there are two great principles in action in the history of religion, Authority and Private Judgment, they have all the Private Judgment to themselves, and we have the full inheritance and the superincumbent oppression of Authority. But this is not so; it is the vast Catholic body itself, and it only, which affords an arena for both combatants in that awful, never-dying duel. It is necessary for the very life of religion, viewed in its large operations and its history, that the warfare should be incessantly carried on.
Every exercise of Infallibility is brought out into act by an intense and varied operation of the Reason, both as its ally and as its opponent, and provokes again, when it has done its work, a re-action of Reason against it; and, as in civil polity the State exists and endures by means of the rivalry and collision, the encroachments and defeats of its constituent parts, so in like manner Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of religious absolutism, but presents a continuous picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide; — it is a vast assemblage of human beings with willful intellects and wild passions, brought together into one by the beauty and the Majesty of a Superhuman Power, — into what may be called a large reformatory or training-school, not as if into a hospital or into a prison, not in order to be sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but (if I may change my metaphor) brought together as if into some moral factory, for the melting, refining, and molding, by an incessant, noisy process, of the raw material of human nature, so excellent, so dangerous, so capable of divine purposes.
St Paul says in one place that his Apostolic power is given him to edification, and not to destruction. There can be no better account of the Infallibility of the Church. It is a supply for a need, and it does not go beyond that need. Its object is, and its effect also, not to enfeeble the freedom or vigor of human thought in religious speculation, but to resist and control its extravagance. What have been its great works? All of them in the distinct province of theology: to put down Arianism, Eutychianism, Pelagianism, Manichaeism, Lutheranism, Jansenism. Such is the broad result of its action in the past; and now as to the securities which are given us that so it ever will act in time to come.
4
APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA , by Card Newman, (Longmans, Green & Co. 1918), pp. 252-53.

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2024-10-24
DEATH AND NEW LIFE IN CHRIST
By Fr Johannes Pinsk5
The tragedy and paradox of all cosmic life is that it is itself consumed in the process of living. Through living it dies. This paradox however, is entirely absent from the new kind of life that is founded upon the resurrection. Here the organism is no longer subject to wear and tear, and the struggle for existence is at an end. Christ died once; he has risen from the dead, and now will die no more. This, surely, is the most stirring event in human history, so far exceeding our experience and imagining that we can scarcely conceive of it as a human fiction. Who could have invented such a thing, faced with the constant spectacle of the decline and death of the human organism? The history of religious thought shows that unaided reason has never resigned itself to the idea of bodily resurrection. It has always repugned it as completely untenable. That a human body should really have risen from the dead is, therefore, no invention of the human mind. It is a superhuman reality, and alone the object of the Easter faith of Christendom.
But that is not all. Christ’s resurrection is no isolated event. This new life is not confined to him. It is not restricted to his own humanity. He becomes the Head and Father of a new humanity, joined to him in the reality of the new life, which resides not merely in the intellect and will, but in the whole being. In principle, Christ’s resurrection has already achieved the transformation of the whole of humanity into this new life. Such the mystery of our Easter faith. The Eastern liturgy expresses it with wonderful assurance in a passage taken from an Easter sermon of St John Chrysostom and read out on the first day of Easter: “Christ is risen; no dead are left in the grave.” This faith of ours is not to be refuted by pointing to the countless millions of the dead who lie buried in the earth and in the sea. No one denies this. Indeed, we are only too conscious of it.
What is it, then, that our faith affirms? Not that there are no dead bodies left in the earth, but that these bodies are not truly dead. To be truly dead means to be dissolved forever, utterly annihilated. But when the disruptive forces of the world have done their worst, there remains, in virtue of Christ’s resurrection, some mysterious, indestructible, vital energy within the body — wherever it is buried — which will never finally and utterly forsake it, but which one day will raise it up again in glory. Only in such faith as this can we say in all honesty: death is truly conquered; no one is really dead. Such faith has its roots in St Paul’s teaching that we are all risen with Christ, and enthroned with him above the heavens.
5
From Meditations on the Church, introduction by Bishop John Wright, New York, 1967, pp. 63 B 64.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-25
THE UNKNOWN JUDGMENT
From the writing of Blessed Guerric of Igny6
Brethren, how beautiful and blessed it is not only to be without fear of death but with the assurance of a good conscience to triumph over it; in the spirit and words of Martin, to rebuke the foul beast if he dares to present himself, to open joyfully to the Judge when he comes and knocks. At that hour you may see unfortunates like me tremble, begging for a truce and having it denied them; wanting to buy the oil of penance for a sorrowing conscience and not having enough time; desirous of turning aside those ghostly specters and not being able to do so; anxious to bide away in the body from angry wrath and being forced to go forth. He will go forth, his spirit shall go forth and the sinner shall return into his earth whence he was drawn. “In that day all their thoughts shall perish.”
It is only human, I know, to be distressed about the moment of our passage from the earth. Even the perfect wish not to be stripped but rather to be further clothed. And although their conscience does not in fact reproach them, yet since that is not where their justification lies, they must of necessity fear the unknown judgment. But whether it be attachment to this life, or lack of holiness, or fear of the judgment that troubles the soul the just man says: “You, O Lord, will remember mercy, and you will send your mercy and your truth and will deliver my soul from the midst of the young lions, and I who was up till now sore distressed, in peace in the selfsame I will sleep and will rest.”
God called the earth and it heard him with trembling. For when he made known judgment from heaven, at the very sound of it the earth trembled and then, purified by its terror, was at rest. Blessed are they who so purge themselves of all the dross of sin during this present life that at the moment of death they need no more than the purification effected by fear. As for me, a useless and negligent servant, it will go well if I am saved through fire, all the wood, hay and stubble that I have heaped up for myself consumed by the flames; or if I escape, only half-burned. And indeed, by comparison with the evil of damnation, it is a good thing to be saved by fire; without any doubt it is much better to be made perfect by the mere cleansing of fear; and best of all not to be disturbed even by fear.
6
(CF 8 : 15-16).

Vigils Reading - Memorial of the BVM
2024-10-26
THE WOMAN OF FAITH
By Irénée Hausherr
The secret of prayer and of contemplation is faith. The Blessed Virgin Mary, the greatest of contemplatives, is she who had faith. She had great thoughts about everything. She encountered the First Cause in all things, spontaneously, without difficulty. She lived the religion of her people to the full. She related the slightest events of her life to her faith. This is what is called living by faith, or to use another term, stemming not from the Gospel but from Christian tradition: Living by contemplation. To contemplate is to see the infinitely Great in the infinitely small, or the invisible eternal in the visible temporal, and the First Cause throught the second causes.
There is another word, often used by spiritual authors to define contemplation. To contemplate is to traverse, to pass through the visible world in order to ascend to the invisible attributes of God. Mary did this from a spontaneous impulse, not without suffering. There were painful surprises, disappointments, fears: all the sorrowful mysteries. In the midst of sufferings as well as in the midst of joys, she gave herself to contemplation…
Let us hold fast to the faith of Mary! She no longer needs it in heaven! May she give it to us! May she help us to realize that faith is the victory over all the difficulties of daily life! May her faith remove the mountains that crush our heart and our soul. May it put into our spirit an habitual serenity that does honor to God.

Skema - 30th Week Ordinary Time
2024-10-27
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
30th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
October 27 – November 2, 2024

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

Office
30th Sunday
SS Simon & Jude
Weekday
Weekday
Weekday
All Saints
All Souls

Vigils
Wis 12:16-27
1 Macc 2:42-66
Wis 13:1-10
Wis 13:11-19
Wis 14:1-11
Rev 5:1-14
Ezek 37:1-14

Lauds
Job 5:8-16
Deut 32:1-9
Job 5:17-27
Job 6:1-4, 8-15
Job 7:1-6
Isa 65:17-25
Isa 38:9-20

Mass
149
666
480
481
482
667
668

1st
Jer 31:7-9
Eph 2:19-22
Eph 5:21-33
Eph 6:1-9
Eph 6:10-20
Rev 7:2-4, 9-14
Wis 3:1-9

2nd
Heb 5:1-6

1 Jn 3:1-3
2 Cor 5:1, 6-10

Gospel
Mark 10:46-52
Luke 6:12-16
Luke 13:18-21
Luke 13:22-30
Luke 13:31-35
Matt 5:1-12a
John 11:17-27

Vespers
Rom 2:1-11
Jude 17-21
Rom 2:12-16
Rom 2:17-24
Rev 19:5-9
Heb 11:32-12:2
Rom 3:21-26

Vigils Reading - 30th Sunday Ordinary Time
2024-10-27
OPEN YOURSELVES TO THE LIGHT
From a commentary by St Clement of Alexandria1
The commandment of the Lord shines clearly, enlightening the eyes. Receive Christ, receive power to see, receive your light, “that you may plainly recognize both God and man.” More delightful than gold and precious stones, more desirable than honey and the honeycomb is the word that has enlightened us. How could he not be desirable, he who illumined minds buried in darkness, and endowed with clear vision “the light bearing eyes” of the soul?
“Despite the other stars, without the sun the whole world would be plunged in darkness.” So likewise we ourselves, had we not known the Word and been enlightened by him, should have been no better off than plump poultry fattened in the dark, simply reared for death. Let us open ourselves to the light, then…and become disciples of the Lord. For he promised his Father: I will make known your name to my brothers and sisters, and praise you where they are assembled.
Sing his praises, then, Lord, and make known to me your Father, who is God. Your words will save me, your song instruct me. Hitherto have I gone astray in my search for God, but now that you light my path, Lord, and I find God through you, and receive the Father through you, I become co-heir with you, since you are not ashamed to own me as your brother.
Let us, then, shake off forgetfulness of truth, shake off the mist of ignorance and darkness that dims our eyes, and contemplate the true God, after first raising this song of praise to him: “All hail, O Light!” For upon us buried in darkness, imprisoned in the shadow of death, a heavenly light has shone, a light of clarity surpassing the sun’s and of a sweetness exceeding any this earthly life can offer. That light is eternal life, and those who receive it live. Night, on the other hand, is afraid of the light, and melting away in terror gives place to the day of the Lord. Unfailing light has penetrated everywhere, and sunset has turned into dawn. This is the meaning of the new creation; for the Sun of Righteousness, pursuing his course through the universe, visits all alike, in imitation of his Father, who makes his sun rise upon all, and bedews everyone with his truth.
He it is who has changed sunset into dawn and death into life by his crucifixion. He it is who has snatched the human race from perdition and exalted it to the skies. Transplanting what was corruptible to make it incorruptible, transforming earth into heaven, he, God’s gardener, points the way to prosperity, prompts his people to good works, “reminds them how to live” according to the truth, and bestows on us the truly great and divine heritage of the Father, which cannot be taken away from us… Let us accept the laws of life, let us obey God’s promptings. Let us learn to know Him, so that He may be merciful to us.
1
Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 128.

Vigils Reading - SS Simon & Jude
2024-10-28
THE ZEAL OF
SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE
By St John Henry Newman2
The Apostles commemorated on this Festival direct our attention to the subject of Zeal. St. Simon is called Zealot, which means the Zealous; a title given him (as is supposed) from his belonging before his conversion to the Jewish sect of Zealots, which professed extraordinary Zeal for the Law… St. Jude’s Epistle, which forms part of the service of the day, is almost wholly upon the duty of manifesting Zeal for Gospel Truth, and opens with a direct exhortation to “contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints.”
It will be a more simple account of Zeal, to call it the earnest desire for God’s honor, leading to strenuous and bold deeds in His behalf; and that in spite of all obstacles. Now Zeal is one of the elementary religious qualifications; that is, one of those which are essential in the very notion of a religious man. A man cannot be said to be in earnest in religion, till he magnifies his God and Savior; till he so far consecrates and exalts the thought of Him in his heart, as an object of praise, and adoration, and rejoicing, as to be pained and grieved at dishonor shown to Him, and eager to avenge Him. In a word, a religious temper is one of loyalty towards God; and we all know what is meant by being loyal from the experience of civil matters.
To be loyal is not merely to obey; but to obey with promptitude, energetic dutifulness, disinterested devotion, disregard of consequences. And such is Zeal, except that it is ever attended with that reverential feeling which is due from a creature and a sinner towards his Maker, and towards Him alone. It is the main principle in all religious service to love God above all things; now, Zeal is to love Him above all other people, above our dearest and most intimate friends. This was the especial praise of the Levites, which gained for them the reward of the Priesthood, that is , their executing judgment on the people in the sin of the golden calf. Zeal is the very consecration of God’s Ministers to their office.
Accordingly our Blessed Savior, the One Great High Priest, the Antitype of all Priests who went before Him and the Lord and Strength of all who come after, began His manifestation of Himself by two acts of Zeal. When twelve years old he deigned to put before us in representation the sacredness of this duty, when He remained in the Temple “while His father and mother sought Him sorrowing,” and on their finding Him, returned answer, “Do you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” And again, at the opening of His public Ministry, He went into the Temple, and “made a scourge of small cords, and drove out the sheep and oxen, and overthrew the changers’ tables” that profaned it: thus fulfilling the prophecy contained in the text, “Zeal for your house has eaten me up.” Being thus consumed by Zeal Himself, no wonder He should choose His followers from among the Zealous.
2
“Christian Zeal,” in Parochial and Plain Sermons, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987, pp. 464 ff.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-29
A VIRGIN LIFE
From the writing of Louis Bouyer3
Baptism is our union with Christ’s cross, our union with his death, so that we may also be united with him in his risen life of glory. Baptism therefore implies, and has always implied, in some way the abandonment, the renunciation of everything in human life as this is lived in a “natural”, that is, a fallen and sinful way. This fact was made clear to the first Christians by the very conditions in which God’s providence allowed them to live; they knew that if they wanted to be members of Christ by faith and baptism, they had to be prepared for martyrdom. They had to be ready at any moment to witness to the reality of their attachment to Christ. They had to be ready to give a witness which might imply the abandonment, not only of all the pleasures of human life, but of life itself.
And thus from the very beginning it was understood that someone could not be a Christian without in some way struggling with the world, without accepting a permanent and lifelong struggle with their own “flesh”, with their own sinful self. Christians understood, of course, that they were called to take part in Christ’s work of saving the world, but they knew that they could not take this part unless in some way they escaped from the world. Christ saved the world because he engaged in the struggle to death with the powers of evil… He was willing to abandon the life of this world for the sake of the salvation of humanity. A struggle with the evil in oneself and the world, and abandonment and escape from the world, is a necessary preliminary to taking part with Christ in his work of redeeming the world.
From the very beginning of Christianity, therefore, a virgin life, all life consecrated to Christ to the exclusion of all human attachment, even the most legitimate, has been proposed as the ideal realization of the will of God. It has always been considered better that Christians, in order to fight most effectively against the powers of this world, should abandon their hopes of realizing the fullness of life in this world, so as to be free and ready to meet Christ with his cross and to follow him through death to the world of eternal life.
This virgin life, this life of freedom from the claims and attachments of this world, was thought of first as the ideal preparation for the possibility of martyrdom – a possibility which faced every Christian in the first Christian generations. But when the persecutions of the first centuries ended, it came to be understood that this free and spontaneous offering of one’s own life to Christ in virginity, this consecration to him which implies the abandonment of the hope of realizing human love and love in this world – that this consecration was not only the ideal preparation for martyrdom, for full union with Christ and his cross, but that it was itself a spiritual martyrdom. For it is a spiritual witnessing by our whole lives to the love of God revealed and given to us in Christ, and to our desire to respond fully to that love.
3
Liturgy and Religious Life, St. Louis, 1959, pp. 20-22.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-30
THE SAINT AND THE MISSION
An excerpt from “The World of Prayer” by Adrienne von Speyr4
A saint’s standing before God with a community within is no plain and simple fact. The saints can be in God’s presence in such a personal way that, involuntarily or even voluntarily, they forget their mission. And between these two poles there is a whole spectrum. It may happen involuntarily when God alone wishes it so because he wants to have his saint to himself. It happens voluntarily when the saint feels it right on this occasion to be alone in God’s presence, leaving the particular mission out of focus in the background.
There is another extreme in relation to these two forms of prayer, namely, the prayer of those saints who never appear before God except in the very midst of their mission, whether because God wills it so or because the saint will not have it otherwise. Here too there are gradations. One is inclined to a certain suspicion of those who always do everything completely deliberately and of their own free will, choosing whether to go before God with or without the mission entrusted to them, whereas there can be no grounds for suspicion in the case of the saint who, involuntarily and only as God requires, is always standing before God in one sense or another. In general, however, there is an alternation: There are times and moments in which the saint is more important to God than the individual mission, and others when the mission itself is the most important thing.
If the saints themselves make no choice, God can work in them or in their mission or in both, within the relationship he chooses. But if the saint and the mission constitute a single unity as willed by God, God’s shaping influence on the one will always benefit the other. It can happen, then, that when a particular mission begins to make itself felt it brings difficulties for the saint in standing before God in prayer. But these difficulties and their mastery contribute to the saint’s fruitfulness. They never take the form of insuperable obstacles but of a gain at a higher level, be it a deeper insight or a better adaptation to God’s will or a closer integration of saint and mission. Mission here always means an embodiment of the community. It is what, in the saint, is of and for the community: the seed of community, a task within the community, a fruit entrusted to the community. This fruit is greater than the I; it is the Thou, in all its manifold forms, which has been entrusted to the I. Ultimately this multiplicity belongs to the Church and indeed can be the Church.
4
The World of Prayer, Adrienne von Speyr, Ignatius: San Francisco 1985. pp.255-256.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-31
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST
From the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate5
For the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to the mystery of God’s saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are already found among the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ, Abraham’s sons according to faith are included in the same patriarch’s call, and likewise that the salvation of the Church was mystically foreshadowed by the chosen people’s exodus from the land of bondage.
The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom in God’s inexpressible mercy deigned to establish the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles. Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, our Peace, reconciled Jew and Gentile, making them both one in Himself.
Also, the Church ever keeps in mind the words of the Apostle about his kinsmen, “who have the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenant and the legislation and the worship and the promises; who have the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh”, the son of the Virgin Mary. The Church recalls too that from the Jewish people sprang the apostles, her foundation stones and pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ to the world.
As holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor did the Jews in large number accept the gospel; indeed, not a few opposed the spreading of it. Nevertheless, according to the Apostle, the Jews still remain most dear to God because of their fathers, for He does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. In company with the prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and “serve him with one accord”.
Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred Synod wishes to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit above all of biblical and theological studies, and of brotherly dialogues.
True, authorities of the Jews and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as repudiated or cursed by God, as if such views followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should take pains, then, lest in catechetical instruction and in the preaching of God’s Word they teach anything out of harmony with the truth of the gospel and the spirit of Christ.
5
The Documents of Vatican II, Decree on Non-Christians. General Ed. Walter M. Abbott SJ, Herder & Herder, 1966, pp. 664-666.

Vigils Reading - All Saints
2024-11-01
MERCY AND JUDGMENT
by Isaac of Stella6
“Happy are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Even a righteous person cannot contend safely with the all-righteous God. It is silly to go out with ten thousand men to meet him who comes against you with twenty. The sensible thing is to send a messenger and ask for terms, before the other has advanced too far; to say, in a word, “Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no one living be justified.” Who, then, is this ambassador of peace? His name is mercy. For only by showing mercy can we hope to get it. Without mercy, righteousness is cruel and brings no one salvation. Only the merciful will have the joy, at the last day, of hearing the king say, “Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me meat… For that is as much as to say, “You showed mercy, and now you are obtaining it.” “Happy,” therefore, “are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
David, you remember, sings of “mercy and judgment” in that order, mercy first. For mercy must first be shown, and then sought at the judgment seat. The one who has shown no mercy will be sentenced without mercy too.
There are two kinds of mercy, one giving, one forgiving. “Give, and it shall be given unto you,” says the Lord, “forgive, and you shall be forgiven.” And that in proportion to what we ourselves do. “Forgive us, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” “With what measure you mete, it shall be meted unto you.”
In the first degree of giving mercy a person gives to others some of his own possessions. This is in accord with the Lord’s command, “Give alms, and all things shall be pure unto you.”
In the second degree one gives all one’s possessions. In that, one is like the apostles, who said, “Lo, we have left all and followed thee. What shall we have, then?”
In the third degree one gives oneself. The apostle Paul did that, who said, “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you.” No one has a greater love than this. One who possesses it gives himself to the Lord to the full extent of his capacity for giving.
The matter stands similarly with the other kind of mercy, the forgiving kind. You can remit some of the debts that other people owe you. Or you can remit them all. Or you can give back the debtor’s very self to him, as when an owner frees a slave.
We religious have renounced all property. We cannot practice either kind of mercy in material things. But there are other things that we can give: advice, our prayers, a good example and so forth. And we can forgive injuries.
6
Cistercian Studies , vol.2, no.1 1967. “Selections From the Sermons of Isaac of Sella” by Sr. Penelope. pp.262-263.

Vigils Reading - All Souls
2024-11-02
PRAYING TO THE SAINTS
by Fr Karl Rahner7
Nothing can come ‘between’ God and us. On the other hand, one of the conditions for this closeness to God is that we should belong to the communion of the saints. But perhaps this still does not make it quite clear how the communion of the saints, which can certainly be effected by means of a specific, explicit act, can take the concrete form of appealing to the saints to ask for their intercession. Although this communion with the saints is included in the official liturgy of the Church, the saints themselves are not addressed directly. Why? How can this still be possible? No clear-cut answer has so far been found to this question, chiefly because we cannot take it for granted that we can address the saints directly simply because they exist, as is attempted in spiritualist gatherings.
The following short anecdote might help us to proceed in our investigations. When I was in Rome during the Council I had the opportunity, together with a group of others, to meet the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth. Our discussion turned to the veneration of the Virgin. I asked Karl Barth whether an individual may ask another Christian to pray for him. After a short hesitation, he replied that the individual should ask his fellow Christian to pray with him. The conversation then moved on to other topics. I admit that for many years I thought Barth’s answer was intentionally evasive, that he wished to avoid the issue of veneration of the Virgin. Now I wonder if we should not pursue his point.
To start with, there is nothing new about the saints’ intercession on our behalf with God. On the contrary it is central to their entire history and to eternal salvation; they rest in God’s presence yet are also joined in perpetual communion with us. Their intercession for us depends of course on the degree of intensity, explicit or otherwise, with which we participate in their act of communion, which in turn reflects on our relationship to God. The saints pray ‘with us’ and thus ‘for us’. Our plea for their intercession is not therefore an attempt to create some new, individualistic kind of spiritualistic communication. The concrete reality of the communion of saints exists already, and through it we worship God. It is the practical realization of this communion which freely embraces a wide variety of religious acts. Hence it can include a petition for intercession, while still remaining essentially the faithful realization of the communion of saints in which we stand before God, and in which we may expect his mercy and help. Seen in these terms, calling on the saints for their intercession in no way interposes ‘between’ us and God.
On the contrary it provides concrete evidence of the fact that God loves each one of us as a unique being. He loves every single being he has created, and forms us into a community in which we can all love one another. We do not invoke the help of the saints because otherwise they would not intercede on our behalf; rather, in their eternal salvation they do nothing but intercede for us. In praying to the saints we show that we believe in this perpetual intercession because it enables us to accept and make use of its beneficial effects.
7
THE COURAGE TO PRAY, by Karl Rahner (Crossroad, NY 1981) pp. 69-71.
