Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Compline
2023-03-19 19:25 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sunday, March 19th at 7:25 pm
Zoom Link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/3917499727

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mass
31
543
245
246
247
248
545

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

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

Heb 10:4-10

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

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

Cleveland LCG Meeting
2023-03-18 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York)
Content is protected.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mass
28
237
238
239
240
241
242

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

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

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

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

Chicago community 9:00 am CDT: Zoom
2023-03-11 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago)
You are welcome to join us!
Join Zoom Meeting
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VIA ZOOM VIDEOCONFERENCE
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. Christian Leblanc
Fr. Andrew McAughan
Fr. Joachim Johnson
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Mary Haley.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hahn.
10:45 Housekeeping. Volunteer to lead lectio next month? Report on LCG Advisory Council activity; report of 1/28/23 IALCC Anglophone Zoom meeting (any next steps?); host October LCG retreat (Gethsemani 175th Anniversary—involve the monastic community?). Select reading for April.
11:00 Update. Share how the Holy Spirt has entered our lives as lay Cistercians since our last meeting. How goes our Lenten experience?
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.)

We look forward to our continuing LCG Chicago journey at our next meeting: April 8, 2023.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vigils Reading
2023-03-08
Wilt Thou Refuse Me? 4
From the private letters of St Teresa of Calcutta –Jan. 13th, 1947
One day at Holy Communion, I heard the same voice very distinctly – “I want…Victims of my love, who would be Mary & Martha. Who would be so very united to me as to radiate my love on souls. I want free nuns covered with my poverty of the Cross – I want obedient nuns covered with my obedience of the Cross. I want full of love nuns covered with the Charity of the Cross. Wilt thou refuse to do this for me?”
On another day. “You have become my Spouse for my Love – you have come to India for Me. The thirst you had for souls brought you so far. – Are you afraid to take one more step for your Spouse – for me – for souls? – Is your generosity grown cold – am I a second to you? You did not die for souls – that is why you don’t care what happens to them. – Your heart was never drowned in sorrow as was My Mother’s. We both gave our all for souls – and you? You are afraid that you will lose your vocation – you will become secular – you will be wanting in perseverance. – Nay- your vocation is to love and suffer and save souls and by taking this step you will fulfil my Heart’s desire for you – That is your vocation… You are I know the most uncapable person, weak & sinful, but just because you are that I want to use you, for my Glory! Wilt thou refuse?”
These words or rather this voice frightened me… I prayed long – I prayed so much – I asked Our Mother Mary to ask Jesus to remove all this from me. The more I prayed – the clearer grew the voice in my heart and so I prayed that He would do with me whatever he wanted. He asked again and again. Then once more the voice was very clear – “You have been always saying ‘do with me what ever you wish’ – Now I want to act – let me do it – my little Spouse – My own little one. – Do not fear – I shall be with you always. – You will suffer and you suffer now – but if you are my own little Spouse – the Spouse of the Crucified Jesus – you will have to bear these torments on your heart. – Let me act – Refuse me not – Trust me lovingly – trust me blindly.” “Little one give me souls… If you would only answer my call – and bring me these souls – draw them away from the hands of the evil one. – If you only knew how many little ones fall into sin everyday…”

This is what went on between Him and me during the days of much prayer. – Now the whole thing stands clear before my eyes… God is calling me – unworthy and sinful that I am. I am longing to give all for souls. They will all think me mad – after so many years – to begin a thing which will bring me for the most part only suffering – but He calls me also to join the few to start the work, to fight the devil and deprive him of the thousand little souls which he is destroying every day…
I long to be really only <for Jesus> – to burn myself completely for Him and souls. – I want Him to be loved tenderly by many… I am ready to do His will. Count not my feelings – count not the cost I would have to pay – I am ready – for I have already given my all to Him. And if you think all this a deception – that too I would accept – and sacrifice myself completely…
Pray for me. That I would become a religious according to His heart

4 Teresa, Mother. Come be my light: the private writing of the Saint of Calcutta / Mother Teresa. Ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk. New York: Doubleday, 2007. 47-52.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-07
I Have Brought Fasting into My Soul3
A Meditation by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
With fasting I gladden my hope in You, my Lord, Who are to come again. Fasting hastens my preparation for Your coming, the sole expectation of my days and nights. Fasting makes my body thinner, so that what remains can more easily shine with the spirit.
…But truly, abstaining from food will not save me. Even if I were to eat only the sand from the lake, You would not come to me, unless the fasting penetrated deeper into my soul.
I have come to know through my prayer, that bodily fasting is more a symbol of true fasting, very beneficial for someone who has only just begun to hope in You, and nevertheless very difficult for someone who merely practices it.
Therefore I have brought fasting into my soul to purge her of many impudent fiancés and to prepare her for You like a virgin. And I have brought fasting into my mind, to expel from it all daydreams about worldly matters and to demolish all the air castles, fabricated from those daydreams. I have brought fasting into my mind, so that it might jettison the world and prepare to receive Your Wisdom.
And I have brought fasting into my heart, so that by means of it my heart might quell all passions and worldly selfishness. I have brought fasting into my heart, so that heavenly peace might ineffably reign over my heart, when Your stormy Spirit encounters it.

I prescribe fasting for my tongue, to break itself of the habit of idle chatter and to speak reservedly only those words that clear the way for You to come.
And I have imposed fasting on my worries so that it may blow them all away before itself like the wind that blows away the mist, lest they stand like dense fog between me and You, and lest they turn my gaze back to the world.
And fasting has brought into my soul tranquility in the face of uncreated and created realms, and humility towards men and creatures. And it has instilled in me courage, the likes of which I never knew when I was armed with every sort of worldly weapon. What was my hope before I began to fast except merely another story told by others, which passed from mouth to mouth? The story told by others about salvation through prayer and fasting became my own.
False fasting accompanies false hope, just as no fasting accompanies hopelessness. But just as a wheel follows behind a wheel, so true fasting follows true hope..

3 Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich. A Treasury of Serbian Orthodox Spirituality Volume 5 – Prayers by the Lake. Trans. Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Todor Mika, S.T.M. and Very Rev. Dr. Steven Scott. Grayslake, IL: The Serbian Orthodox Metropolitante of New Gracanica, 1999. 72-73.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-06 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
Be Merciful2
from the mystical writings of St Gertrud the Great
…The Lord Jesus appeared to her as he is seen when scourged at the pillar, standing bound between two men, of whom the one seemed to strike him with thorns and the other a knotted scourge, but each was striking him in the face. As a result his face appeared so wretched that, with melted heart, all her inner organs were moved to compassion as she gazed on him, so much so that throughout that day, as often as that picture came to her mind, she could not restrain her tears; for she had never considered in her heart that one would see on earth someone of such wretched appearance as was the Lord’s at that moment. For that part of his face that she saw struck with thorns appeared so lacerated that even the pupil of his inner eye was wounded, black and blue from the swelling caused by the knotted scourge. Also from the bitterness of his suffering he seemed to turn his face away, and when he turned away from one, the other assaulted him the more keenly.
Then turning to the woman who saw these things, he said, “Have you not read what is written of me: We saw him as it were a leper and so on?” Then she replied, “Ah, Lord, how can the pain, so wretched and sharp, of your most tender face now be relieved?” Then the Lord said, “If anyone meditating on my passion with devout heart were pierced through love of compassion and in such charity prayed for sinners, that person’s heart would be a gentlest dressing for me, by which all that pain would be relieved.” Also she understood that the two who were striking him symbolized those who at that time were devoted to the attractions of gluttony, that is, laypeople who openly <strike the Lord> as if with thorns, and some religious who, the more greatly they offend against their religious state, the more they <strike him> as if with knotted scourges. And this <they do> in the face: for as far as they can they do not [fear] to dishonor the sight of him who reigns in heaven. From this she understood that this is why the account of the Lord’s passion is recited in the gospel… that that passion may be more devoutly honored by the special <friends> of Christ, both to the honor of the Lord and to the amendment of the church. But in particular she understood that there is good reason that there are two mentions of the flagellation in the same gospel, the manner of which was shown her on that very day so wretchedly.

Then she also understood that love is so greatly commended in <the epistle> because, as the proverb says, the love of friends is proved in dire necessity. Hence on those days the Lord’s special friends ought particularly to exert themselves in the love of both God and neighbor, that is, by whole-heartedly feeling compassion for God, because the little son of the gentle Virgin, so lovable and delicate, is suffering so innocently and undeservedly at the hands of those for whom he died. Also we should have compassion on our neighbors as if they were our brothers, because they are provoking so stern a judge against themselves. Hence for the amendment of both let us be particularly mindful of the benefit of the Lord’s passion, for which let us devoutly give praise to the Lord, and let us pray that he may have mercy and spare those for whom he suffered

2 Gertrud the Great of Helfta. The Memorial of the Abundance of the Divine Sweetness. Trans. Alexandra Barratt. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2022. 278-279.

Vigils Reading - 2nd Sun Lent
2023-03-05
His Face Shone like the Sun1
A sermon by St Leo the Great
In the presence of chosen witnesses the Lord unveils his glory, investing with such splendor that bodily appearance which he shares with the rest of the human race that his face shines like the sun and his clothes become white as snow.
The primary purpose of this transfiguration was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of Christ’s disciples; the greatness of his hidden glory was revealed to them to prevent their faith being shaken by the self-abasement of the suffering he was voluntarily to undergo. In his foresight, however, he was also laying the foundations of the Church’s hope, teaching the whole body of Christ the nature of the change it is to receive, and schooling his members to look forward to a share in the glory which had already shone forth in their head. The Lord had told them of this when he spoke of his coming in majesty: Then shall the just shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. The blessed apostle Paul bears witness to the same thing: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us. And again: You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Still further instruction was to come from the transfiguration to fortify the apostles and perfect their understanding. Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets, appeared in conversation with the Lord. Thus through the presence of these five men the saying was fulfilled: On the evidence of two or three witnesses every word shall stand. What could be more firmly established than that Word in whose proclamation the trumpets of Old and New Testaments sound in unison, and the writings of ancient witnesses are in perfect accord with the teaching of the gospel? The pages of both covenants agree with one another. He who had been promised beforehand by mysteriously veiled signs was now revealed clearly and distinctly in the radiance of his glory, since, as Saint John says, The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ. In Christ what was promised by prophetic figures and what was signified by legal precepts are alike fulfilled, for by his presence he teaches the truth of the prophecies, and by grace he makes it possible for us to obey the commandments.

May we all therefore be confirmed in our faith through the preaching of the holy Gospel, and let no one be ashamed of the cross by which Christ has redeemed the world. None of us must be afraid to suffer for the sake of justice or doubt the fulfillment of the promises, for it is through toil that we come to rest and through death that we pass to life. If we continue in the acknowledgment and love of Christ who took upon himself all the weakness of our lowly nature, what he conquered we too shall conquer, and the promise he gave us we shall receive. So then, whether it is to encourage us to obey his commands or toendure hardships, let the Father’s voice always be ringing in our ears and telling us: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: listen to him

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 38-39.

Skema
2023-03-05
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
2nd Week of Lent

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
March 5 – 11, 2023

Sun
5
Mon
6
Tue
7
Wed
8
Thu
9
Fri
210
Sat
11

Office
2nd Sunday of Lent
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday
Lenten Weekday

Vigils
Exod 9:1-12
Exod 9:13-35
Exod 10:1-20
Exod 10:21-11:10
Exod 12:1-20
Exod 12:21-36
Exod 12:37-51

Lauds
Deut 6:10-15
Deut 6:16-19
Deut 6:20-25
Deut 7:1-6
Deut 7:7-11
Deut 7:12-15
Deut 7:16-21

Mass
25
230
231
232
233
234
235

1st
Gen 12:1-4a
Dan 9:4b-10
Isa 1:10, 16-20
Jer 18:18-20
Jer 17:5-10
Gen 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a
Mic 7:14-15, 18-20

2nd
2 Tim 1:8b-10

Gospel
Matt 17:1-9
Luke 6:36-38
Matt 23:1-12
Matt 20:17-28
Luke 16:19-31
Matt 21:33-43, 45-46
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Vespers
Heb 6:1-8
Heb 6:13-20
Heb 7:17-28
Heb 8:1-6
Heb 8:7-13
Heb 9:1-10
Heb 9:11-14

Vigils Reading
2023-03-04 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
Love Your Enemies
An excerpt from “The Cost of Discipleship” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
…For the first time in the Sermon on the Mount, we meet the word which sums up the whole of its message, the word “love.” Love is defined in uncompromising terms as the love of our enemies. Had Jesus only told us to love our brethren, we might have misunderstood what he meant by love, but now he leaves us in no doubt whatever as to his meaning…
In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbour hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility, for Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility. The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behaviour must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus…
…Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need it. And who needs our love more than those who are consumed with hatred and are utterly devoid of love? Who in other words deserves our love more than our enemy? Where is love more glorified than where she dwells in the midst of her enemies?
Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy’s hatred, the greater his need of love… In such love there is no inner discord between private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all. Am I asked how this love is to behave? Jesus gives the answer: bless, do good, and pray for your enemies without reserve and without respect of persons.

Jesus… bids us not only to bear with evil and the evil person patiently, not only to refrain from treating him as he treats us, but actively to engage in heart- felt love towards him. We are to serve our enemy in all things without hypocrisy and with utter sincerity. No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy. If out of love for our brother we are willing to sacrifice goods, honour and life, we must be prepared to do the same for our enemy. We are not to imagine that this is to condone his evil; such a love proceeds from strength rather than weakness, from truth rather than fear, and therefore it cannot be guilty of the hatred of another. And who is to be the object of such a love, if not those whose hearts are stifled with hatred?
Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God… For if we pray for them, we are taking their distress and poverty, their guilt and perdition upon ourselves, and pleading to God for them. We are doing vicariously for them what they cannot do for themselves. Every insult they utter only serves to bind us more closely to God and them. Their persecution of us only serves to bring them nearer to reconciliation with God and to further the triumphs of love.
How then does love conquer? By asking not how the enemy treats her but only how Jesus treated her. The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy’s hatred. For then it is not the disciple’s own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there. In the face of the cross the disciples realized that they too were his enemies, and that he had overcome them by his love. It is this that opens the disciple’s eyes, and enables him to see his enemy as a brother

7 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. New York: Touchstone, 1995, 146-150.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-03
Christ’s Patient Endurance of Suffering
From the Spiritual Writings of John Ruusbroec
…He began to suffer at the time of his birth, for he was born in poverty and in cold. He was circumcised and so shed his blood. He was forced to flee to a strange land… He suffered hunger and thirst, disgrace and contempt, and… slanderous words and deeds… He fasted, kept vigils, and was tempted by the devil. He was subject to everyone. He went from country to country and from city to city with much labor and zeal in order to preach the Good News.
Finally he was arrested by… enemies even though he was a friend to them. He was betrayed, mocked, and insulted; scourged and beaten; and condemned on the basis of false testimony. In great pain he carried his cross to the highest place on earth and was there stripped naked. No man or woman has ever seen so beautiful a body so cruelly treated. He suffered disgrace, pain, and cold before all the world, for he was naked and it was cold, with a sharp wind cutting into his wounds. He was nailed to the wood of the cross with blunt nails and was so stretched out that his veins were ruptured. He was raised up on the cross, which was then dropped down into its hole with such force that his wounds began bleeding. His head was crowned with thorns. His ears heard the… shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” and many other abusive words. His eyes saw… obstinacy and malice… and the misery of his mother, and his eyes lost their power of sight in the bitterness of pain and death. His nose smelled the foulness which those standing by spat out of their mouths into his face. His mouth and his sense of taste were drenched with vinegar and gall. Every sensitive part of his body was pervaded with the pain of the scourging. Thus was Christ our Bridegroom wounded unto death, abandoned by God and all creatures; he hung dying on the cross like a piece of wood for which no one cared except Mary his mother, who could do nothing to help him.

Christ also suffered spiritually, in his soul, because of the obdurate willfulness of… those who put him to death, for however many signs and wonders they saw, they persisted in their evil ways. He suffered because of the ruin and retribution which would come upon them on account of his death, for God would inflict retribution upon them in both soul and body. He also suffered because of the distress and misery of his mother and his disciples, who were sorely afflicted. He suffered because his death would be of no avail for so many persons and because many would be ungrateful and even swear false oaths in order to ridicule and revile him who had died out of love for us. His human nature and his lower reason suffered because God withdrew from them the influx of his gifts and consolation and left them to themselves in such distress. For this reason, Christ said in complaint, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But our Lover was silent about all his sufferings and cried out to his Father, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. Christ was heard by his Father because of his reverence, for those who acted out of ignorance were afterwards probably all converted.
These, then, were interior virtues of Christ: humility, charity, and the patient endurance of suffering. Christ practiced them throughout his life, died with them, and so redeemed us through his righteousness..

6 John Ruusbroec. The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works. Trans. James A. Wiseman, O.S.B. New York: Paulist Press, 1985. 50-51.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-02
The Deep Meaning of Fasting
A Meditation by Matthew the Poor
Fasting… represents the first battle in which Christ did away with His adversary, the prince of this world. In His forty days’ experience of absolute fasting, Christ laid down for us the basis of our dealings with our enemy – along with all his allurements and vain illusions. “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting”. For when a person enters into prayerful fasting, Satan departs from the flesh.
As the Son of God, Christ did not need fasting, nor did He need an open confrontation with Satan or baptism or filling with the Holy Spirit. Yet He fulfilled everything for our sake so His life and deeds would become ours… Fasting was to elevate the flesh to the level of war with the spirits of evil, those powers that hold sway over our weaker part, the flesh.
…Baptism, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and fasting form a fundamental and inseparable series of acts in Christ’s life that culminated in perfect victory over Satan in preparation for his total annihilation by the cross.
It is then extremely important to accept and to feel the power of each of these three acts in our depths and draw from Christ their action in us as they worked in Him, so that His same life may identify with ours. The ultimate aim of baptism, of being filled with the Holy Spirit, and of fasting is that Christ Himself may dwell in us: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”.
…It is impossible for us to carry our cross well and get through the temptation of the devil, the ordeal of the world, and the oppression of evil without fasting on the Mount of Temptation… Here the Church’s imitation of Christ’s work is a necessary course of life for us, in which we may discover our salvation, strength, security, and victory. It was not for Himself that Christ was baptized, nor was it for Himself that He was crucified, and, consequently, it was not for Himself that He fasted forty days. The works of Christ – themselves a mighty and omnipotent power – have become sources of our salvation and life. Their power, however is not imparted to us unless we experience and practice it…

In Lent we prepare ourselves for the Last Supper. We prepare for two like things coming together. How could those who do not sacrifice themselves be worthy of Him who sacrificed His life? If we eat of a sacrificed body and do not sacrifice our own selves, how can we claim that a union takes place? The Mystical Supper on Thursday, which is the intentional acceptance of a life of sacrifice, is but a preparation for accepting suffering openly, even unto death

5 Matthew the Poor. The Communion of Love. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984. 109-122.

Vigils Reading
2023-03-01
Behold, Now is the Acceptable Time
A sermon by St Aelred of Rievaulx
…These forty days are called an acceptable time and named a day of salvation, because during these days the Lord cleanses and sanctifies his church through fasting. That is why the Lenten fast was established by the holy fathers, so that whatever is lacking in us during the year may be purified and made clean for the remaining times, generally by fasting in this holy observance…
Moses fasted for forty days and nights so that he would merit to receive the law. And through fasting he merited to have an audience before God and to see God face to face. So let anyone who desires to approach the Lord love fasting… Although we do not presume to investigate secret and profound mysteries of divinity, let us nonetheless gain acquaintance with God as much as we can. To do so we must still prepare and train ourselves; that way we might contemplate God here as through a mirror and obscurely, and in the future we might see him face to face…
That forgiveness of sins is given generously through fasting, we see manifestly among the Ninevite penitents who took refuge in repentance and reconciled themselves to God through fasting… when the Lord had threatened them, through the prophet, with death and overthrow of the city. In fact, the wise king also learned to avoid the danger; having laid aside royal finery and sitting in ashes, he exhausted his flesh with fasting, ordering not only human beings but even beasts to fast and to cry out to God through fasting with courage. Thus they evaded the overturn of the Ninevite city and peril of death…

Even Christ, King and Lord of prophets, who founded and sanctified fasting, before he was tempted by the devil fasted forty days and nights, to teach that the adversary is to be overcome through fasting. The Lord let an example for us, so if we want a full victory over the devil, the world and the flesh, then let us take refuge in the weapons of fasting, by which the devil is slaughtered, the world is conquered, and every attachment of the flesh is expelled.
…Finally we must offer to God repentance in all of our sacrifices, always repenting that we either overlooked the good or continued in evil… Because therefore the measure of repentance must be weighted according to the measure of sin, it is necessary to produce fruit <worthy of> repentance. If your suffering in correction is less than was your enjoyment in the fault, then the fruit of your repentance is not worthy.
…Still, so that a sinning conscience might be consoled, the method and measure of exterior repentance have been set; as the conscience is satisfied and perfected you begin to have confidence, and with a certain holy anticipation in the hope of divine mercy, you have confidence <regarding> pardon and forgiveness of sins, so the more truly then the more sincerely you fulfill the imposed repentance… To the extent that we attain full and perfect pardon we may also merit eternal glory

4 Aelred of Rievaulx. The Liturgical Sermons: The Reading-Cluny Collection, 1 of 2 – Sermons 85-133. Trans. Daniel Griggs. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2021. 108-115.

Vigils Reading
2023-02-28
Penance and Prayer
A sermon by St Oscar Romero
Not everyone… will have the honor of offering their blood physically or of being killed for the faith. But God does ask all those who believe in him to have the spirit of martyrdom. In other words, all of us should be ready to die for our faith even if the Lord does not grant us this honor. If we are so disposed, then when our time comes to give an accounting of our lives, we can say: “Lord, I was willing to give my life for you. And I have given it, because giving one’s life is not only being killed; it means living with the spirit of martyrdom and giving through duty, through silence, through prayer”. Indeed, it is in the honest fulfillment of duty and in the silence of daily life that we give our lives to God. We give our lives as does the mother who with no fuss, with the simplicity of motherly martyrdom, gives birth and gives her breast to her children and lovingly cares for them. This is what it means to give one’s life… May we all interpret for our lives what is now so necessary: surrendering our lives to holiness and being faithful to our obligations…
I tell you, sisters and brothers, it is wonderful to be Catholic at this time. Let us not be distressed but happy. Let us feel joyful in our spirit of courage and in our commitment to God… The less we place our trust in the things of earth, the greater will be God’s protection. “Now has come the victory of the Lord.” In God is our hope.
Penance was the word with which Christ began to preach the gospel, and it is also the substance of the church’s preaching: “Do penance! Be converted! Leave behind your evil ways!”… How I wish… that this Gospel word, spoken with tenderness…would reach those places where so many criminals are hidden, those dark corners of hell where so many calumnies are being plotted: “Be converted. Do not plant seeds of hatred! Do not kill more of our sisters and brothers! Do not spread more calumnies. Be converted, for these perverse roads lead to hell, and the Virgin wants you in her heaven.

… May prayer never fail in our hearts and on our lips. May we lift up our hearts to God, seeking favors, giving thanks, and asking for mercy. At this time I have great confidence… because there are many souls deep in prayer. As long as people are praying, I am not distressed. I tell the Lord in the intimacy of myMass, as all priests do, “Lord, look not on my sins, but on the faith of your church”. The faith of your church, Lord, is the old woman praying her rosary. The faith of our church is the sick man who feels useless but offers his suffering to God. The faith of the church is the father worried about supporting his family, honest and faithful to his home. The faith of the church is the religious who becomes holy in her own vocation. It is the priest, the seminarian, the child, and all those who live their vocation as church. The church is made up of all of us, and insofar as we pray and become holy, we are the power of the world, the force that descends from God, because the power of our prayer is derived from God.
…Let us become a church of penance and prayer… that this Blood of Christ “that is shed for you” may become truly a rain of peace, tranquility, harmony and reconciliation..

3 Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. A Prophetic Bishop Speaks to His People: Vol. 1. Trans. Joseph Owens, S.J. Miami, FL: Convivium Press, 2015. 110-114.

Jim Finley
2023-02-27 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
