Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading - 16th Sunday
2025-07-20
MARTHA AND MARY
From a commentary by St Bruno of Segni
◊◊◊
Everything our Savior did was full of sacred teaching. In every situation
his actions were meant to point beyond themselves. For example, his outward
actions in the hillside village of Bethany are repeated every day in his holy
church. Daily the Lord Jesus enters in, not thinking frequent visits beneath his
dignity. There he is welcomed by Martha who takes him into her home.
Let us see then what Martha stands for, and what Mary symbolizes. Each
of them denotes something important, for these two make up the entire church.
One of them, namely Martha, symbolizes the active life; the other, Mary,
the contemplative. That is why Scripture says it was Martha, not Mary, who
received Christ into her house. Mary, of course, does not own a house, since the
contemplative life entails the renunciation of all worldly possessions. All that
contemplatives want to do is sit at the feet of the Lord – to read, pray, and give
themselves up to contemplating God is their whole desire. It is enough for them
to be always listening to the word of God and feeding their minds rather than
their stomachs. Such as these were the apostles and prophets, such are many
others who leave everything, flee from the world and cling to the Lord. They
seem to possess nothing, yet they have everything…
Now the reason the active life is so called is because it consists of constant
activity, weariness and toil, so that scarcely a moment’s quiet can be found in it.
We are not referring here though to that kind of active life that occupies thieves,
impels tyrants, tempts misers, stirs up adulterers, and incites all wicked people
to commit evil deeds. For just as we speak only of one Martha who was Mary’s
sister, so we are referring only to that type of active life which is most closely
related to the contemplative life, that is, an active life that is pure and blameless.
When the apostle preached and baptized, worked with his hands to gain a
livelihood, journeyed from city to city, and showed solicitude for all the
churches, was he not living the active life? In the same way then our text says of
Martha that she was busy with much serving. In fact, right down to the present
day we see prelates in charge of the churches and the other clergy devotedly
hurrying to and fro about their work, hot and bothered, sweating over the needs
of their brothers and sisters in various ways, so that we may rightly describe
them also as busy with much serving. The contemplative life then is superior to
the active because it is free from anxiety and will never end. Nevertheless the
active life is so indispensable that in this life the contemplative life itself cannot
exist without it.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-21
MAKING THE MOST OF
UNFAVORABLE CIRCUMSTANCES
By Alessandro Pronzato
◊◊◊
I have always been impressed by this detail: “the night in which he was
betrayed“. In an atmosphere of betrayal, in a climate of tiredness and sleep, in a
difficult situation, while the shadows of suspicion, evil, vileness and fear are
thickening, Christ offers us his supreme gift. The Eucharist is instituted
precisely in the midst of unfavorable circumstances. On that night, men and
women put together a whole collection of damaged goods: opportunism,
sleepiness, dirty business, suspicious alliances, malice, stupidity and
fanaticism. And it is precisely in this gloomy situation, which is the opposite of
encouraging, that Christ gives us the gift of himself as our food.
At the moment – certainly not ideal – when man presents his most hateful
face, Christ “invents” the way to remain always at man’s disposal. At the
moment when man sells him off and abandons him, Christ assures his own
presence at man’s table.
Reflecting on this paradox, it is all too easy to discover a new occupation
for our ordinary days: to take advantage of unfavorable circumstances. We
should not wait to do something or to give our best when certain situations that
we consider “ideal” occur. Instead, look for the less favorable circumstances.
Take advantage of the less opportune moments. Yes, precisely in this paltry
environment, in this impossible climate, in the midst of the most shameless
falsehood and hypocrisy with these unbearable individuals, you are called to do
something good.
If you wait for the ideal superior, the understanding brothers, the work of
your liking, the perfect community, to do something, to fulfill yourself, to
provide your contribution to the common life, you will probably have to remain
unemployed all your life. Take advantage, then, of unfavorable circumstances…
When it seems that everything is going smoothly… a chain of disasters
rains down on you. Precisely then is the “right” moment to sing. When you are
the victim of suspicions, of unfair accusations. You find yourself involved in a
tangle of envy. You are the target of slander. Then it is the “favorable” moment
to build your inner peace. When you taste the bitter taste of disappointment
and ingratitude. You hit a wall of indifference. Then it is the “apt” moment to
offer others something else, something beautiful. When you don’t feel like
praying. You feel distrustful and dry. You have nothing to say to the Lord. You
have so many other things to think about. Then it is the “ideal” time to pray.
Do not miss…these unfavorable occasions. You would find yourself
empty-handed. And others will never receive anything from you. So, do not wait
for extraordinary, exceptional occasions. Tenaciously build your greatness with
the ordinary materials you find at hand… True greatness passes through the
seasons of your ordinary days. If you wait for it at the rendezvous of the
exceptional, you will never see its face.
Work patiently with what you have, with what you are, if you don’t want to
accumulate delays and disappointments. It is the heart you put inside that
makes even the most trivial things great… The choice is, then, between
exclusively ideal situations and situations that are less than ideal at the starting
point, but which open the possibility of encountering, along the way, the
transforming action of God.

Vigils Reading - St Mary Magdalene
2025-07-22
KEEP WATCH
AT THE DOORS OF WISDOM
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny
◊◊◊
Abraham exulted that he might see the day of Christ and by this token he
saw and rejoiced. You too, if you keep watch daily at the doors of wisdom,
steadfast at its threshold, if you stay awake through the night with Magdalen at
the entrance of his tomb, if I am not mistaken you will experience with Mary
how true are the words we read of the Wisdom which is Christ: “She is easily
seen by those who love her and she is found by those who seek her. She
anticipates those who desire her and shows herself to them first. He who, as
soon as it is light, keeps watch for her will not have to toil, for he will find her
seated at his doors.” So did Christ, Wisdom himself, promise in the words: “I
love those who love me, and they who from early morning keep watch for me
will find me.”
Mary found Jesus in the flesh. For this she was keeping watch… You, who
no longer ought to know Jesus according to the flesh but according to the spirit,
will be able to find him spiritually if you seek him with a [similar] desire, if he
finds you likewise vigilant in prayer. Say then to the Lord Jesus with the desire
and the affection of Mary: “My soul has longed for you during the night, my
spirit too, deep within me; from early morning I will keep watch for you”. Say
with the voice and the mind of the Psalmist: “God, my God, for you as soon as it
is light I keep watch, my soul is athirst for you”. And see if it is not your lot to
sing with him: “We have been filled early in the morning with your mercy, we
have exulted and been delighted”.
Keep watch then, brethren, intent in prayer; keep watch and carefully
guard your actions; especially since the morning of that day which has no sunset
has already shone upon us. For already eternal light has come back to us from
the nether regions, more serene and more pleasing, and the morning has given
its welcome to the newly restored Sun. Indeed it is time now for us to arise from
sleep; the night has passed away, while the day has drawn near. Keep watch, I
say, that the morning light may rise for you, that is Christ, whose coming forth
has been made ready like the dawn, ready to renew often the mystery of the
morning of his resurrection in those who keep watch for him. Then you will sing
with jubilant heart: “God the Lord has shone upon us… For then he will give you
a glimpse of the light which he has hidden in his hands, telling his friend that it
is his possession and he can attain to it.

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2025-07-23
FOR GOD ALONE
From the decree “Perfectae Caritatis” by Pope St Paul VI
◊◊◊
From the beginning of the Church there have been men and women who
have sought to follow Christ with greater freedom, and to imitate him with
closer fidelity through the practice of the evangelical counsels. They have led
lives dedicated to God, each in his or her own way. Many of them, under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have lived in solitude or have founded religious
communities, which the Church willingly recognized and approved.
As a result, in accordance with God’s plan, there has grown up a
wonderful variety of religious families. These have been of great service to the
Church in equipping it “for every good work” and preparing it “for the work of
the ministry for the building up of the Body of Christ“, and also in adorning it
with the different gifts of its children, so that the Church may appear in beauty “
as a bride adorned for her husband, and show forth the many-faceted wisdom
of God.“
Surrounded by this rich profusion of gifts, all who are called by God to the
practice of the evangelical counsels and profess them with fidelity, dedicate
themselves to the Lord in a special way. They follow Christ, who in virginity and
poverty redeemed and sanctified humankind through obedience, “even to
death upon a cross.“
Driven thus by the love that the Holy Spirit pours into their hearts, they
live more and more for Christ and for “his Body which is the Church.” The more
fervent their union with Christ through this gift of self throughout their lives,
the richer is the life of the Church, and the more vigorous and fruitful its
apostolate.
The members of each institute should remember above all that in
professing the evangelical counsels they have given their response to the call of
God in such a way that they are to live for God alone, not only by dying to sin but
also by renouncing the world. They have surrendered to his service the whole of
their lives: this constitutes a special consecration, deeply rooted in the
consecration of baptism, to which it gives fuller expression.
Those who profess the evangelical counsels should seek and love above all
things the God who has first loved us. In every circumstance of life they should
strive to foster a life hidden with Christ in God; such a life is a source of, and
stimulus to, the love of one’s neighbor for the salvation of the world and the
building up of the Church. This love is the animating and guiding principle for
the practice of the evangelical counsels.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-24
VIRTUES AND OBSERVANCES
From “The Mirror of Charity” by St Aelred of Rievaulx
◊◊◊
It remains for us to inquire what conversion of life according to the Rule
of Saint Benedict is. If we resort to virtues here, so that, for example, a once
proud person is hereafter humble and a once hot-tempered person meek, surely
we can say that this conversion of life is enjoined not so much on monks by the
Rule of Saint Benedict as on all Christians by the Gospel. Hence for some
diversity to be found among the diverse types of conversion of life which are
professed according to the diverse rules, there is nothing to which we may have
recourse except those traits which constitute the diversity among the diverse
rules…
How then can anyone who does not keep these things keep to his
profession? Someone will say: if someone is proud, stubborn, impatient, and yet
observes all the things mentioned above, must we say that he keeps the Rule of
Saint Benedict? I maintain that if a monk has committed any of these faults
against God’s law, he will not be guilty of transgressing his profession if he
makes amends for them according to the means prescribed by the Rule.
But what if someone looks at the Rule of Saint Benedict as a tool for
pruning away vices more easily and fulfilling the gospel precepts more carefully,
and yet, as could happen, abusing this excellent tool, he neither prunes away his
vices nor acquires virtues by it. Does he not keep the Rule to his peril then, and
still not fulfill Christ’s precepts? Does blessed Benedict not allude to this? We
are going to establish, he says, a school of the Lord’s service, in which we hope
not to institute anything harsh or burdensome, “but if reason and fairness
dictate being a little stricter to correct faults or to persevere love, do not then
and there become daunted by fear and run from the way of salvation”.
Now…what is this strictness which he encourages beginners not to fear?
He certainly confirms that what he has established is situated in this strictness.
If patience, humility, and the other virtues were meant, would he say he was
going to establish them, as though they were something new? Assuredly, there is
nothing to which we have recourse – except to the new practices he institutes.
Neither the law nor the prophets nor Christ himself gave these precepts.
To beginners, of course, this strictness seems not inconsiderable when
they think about the meager, paltry quantity of food and drink, the roughness of
the clothing, the discomforts of fasts and vigils, the wearing grind of daily work,
and all the other things we find he instituted in the Rule. If anyone does not
agree that the Rule consists of these alone, at least let him admit what cannot be
denied except by stubborn obstinacy: that our profession and Rule consist of
both, that is, of virtues and observances, and let him therefore not refuse to
admit – that we necessarily practice both.

Vigils Reading - St James
2025-07-25
CAN YOU DRINK THE CHALICE?
From a homily by St John Chrysostom
◊◊◊
Let no one take scandal if we say now that the apostles were not perfect,
for the mystery of the cross had as yet not been consummated; the grace of the
Holy Spirit had not yet been infused into their hearts. If you are desirous of
knowing their virtue, consider what kind of men they were after the grace of the
Spirit had been given, and you will see that they overcame every perverse
inclination in them. For this very purpose their imperfection is now revealed
that you might clearly see what they suddenly became through the operation of
grace.
That they once sought nothing spiritual, nor thought about the Kingdom
of Heaven, is very clear. But still let us consider how they approached our Lord
and what they said. “We desire,” they said, “that whatsoever we ask of thee,
thou wilt grant us.” To which Christ replied, “What do you desire?” – certainly
not because He did not know, but that He might compel them to answer and
thereby might lay open the wound and thus apply the remedy. But they,
blushing and held back by shame because they had come to Him motivated by
human aspirations, took Christ apart from the rest and questioned Him. They
moved aside lest perhaps they be heard by the rest.
And so at last they said what they wished. I conjecture that they had heard
that the disciples were to be seated on twelve thrones and they wished to ask for
the place of honor in this assembly; they knew that at other times they were
given precedence over the rest, but fearing that Peter might be put before them,
they were bold enough to request, “Say that one may sit on thy right hand, the
other on they left.” And they pressed Him saying, “Speak thus.“
And what did He say? That He might show that they sought nothing
spiritual, and did not even realize what they were asking – for had they known
they would not have asked it – Jesus said to them, “You know not what you ask;
you know not how great, how admirable a thing this is, far surpassing even
the higher Powers.“
And He added further: “Can you drink the chalice which I shall drink,
and be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?” Notice how He
moves them from their present state of mind by bringing to their attention
things entirely contrary. “For,” He says, “you ask me for crowns and honors,
but I speak to you of struggle and perspiration. This is not a time for rewards,
nor will my glory appear at this time, but the present is the time of death and
dangers.” But observe how by His very manner of questioning He exhorts and
consoles. He did not say, “Can you undergo suffering? Can you shed your
blood?” But He said, “Can you drink the chalice?” Then by way of consolation
He adds, “which I am to drink.” So that by their very union with Him they
might become more eager for hardships.

Vigils Reading - SS Joachim & Ann
2025-07-26
JOACHIM AND ANN
From a sermon by St John Damascene
◊◊◊
Ann was to be the mother of the Virgin Mother of God, and hence nature
did not dare to anticipate the flowering of grace. Thus nature remained sterile,
until grace produced its fruit. For she who was to be born had to be a first-born
daughter, since she would be the mother of the first-born of all creation, in
whom all things are held together.
Joachim and Ann, how blessed a couple! All creation is indebted to you.
For your hands the Creator was offered a gift exceeding all other gifts: a chaste
mother, who alone was worthy of him.
And so rejoice, Ann, that you were sterile and have not borne children;
break forth into shouts, you who have not given birth. Rejoice, Joachim,
because from your daughter a child is born for us, a son is given us, whose
name is Messenger of great counsel and universal salvation, mighty God. For
this child is God.
Joachim and Ann, how blessed and spotless a couple! You will be known
by the fruit you have borne, as the Lord says: “by their fruits you will know
them”. The conduct of your life pleased God and was worthy of your daughter.
For by the chaste and holy life you led together, you have fashioned a jewel of
virginity; she who remained a virgin before, during and after giving birth. She
alone for all time would maintain her virginity in mind and soul as well as in
body. Joachim and Ann, how chaste a couple! While safeguarding the chastity
prescribed by the law of nature, you achieved with God’s help something which
transcends nature in giving the world the Virgin Mother of God as your
daughter. While leading a devout and holy life in your human nature, you gave
birth to a daughter nobler than the angels, whose queen she now is.
Girl of utter beauty and delight, daughter of Adam and mother of God,
blessed the loins and blessed the womb from which you come! Blessed the arms
that carried you, and blessed your parent’s lips, which you were allowed to cover
with chaste kisses, ever maintaining your virginity. Rejoice in God, all the earth.
Sing, exult and sing hymns. Raise your voice, raise it and be not afraid.

Skema
2025-07-27
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
17th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
July 27 – Aug.2, 2025

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

Office
17th Sunday
Weekday
SS Martha, Mary & Lazarus
Weekday
St Ignatius Loyola
St Alphonsus Ligouri
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Gen 30:25-43
Gen 31:1-24
Gen 31:25-54
Gen 32:1-22
Gen 32:23-33:20
Gen 34:1-31
Gen 35:1-29

Lauds
Hos 4:7-12
Hos 4:13-19
Hos 5:1-7
Hos 5:8-15
Hos 6:1-6
Hos 6:7-7:2
Hos 7:3-10

Mass
111
401
402, 607
403
404
405
406

1st
Gen 18:20-32
Exod 32:15-24, 30-34
Exod 33:7-11; 34:5b-9, 28
Exod 34:29-35
Exod 40:16-21, 34-38
Lev 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37
Lev 25:1, 8-17

2nd
Col 2:12-14

Gospel
Luke 11:1-13
Matt 13:31-35
John 11:19-27
Matt 13:44-46
Matt 13:47-53
Matt 13:54-58
Matt 14:1-12

Vespers
Eph 6:1-9
Eph 6:10-17
Eph 6:18-24
Phil 1:1-11
Phil 1:12-18a
Phil 1:18b-26
Phil 1:27-30

Vigils Reading - 17th Sunday
2025-07-27
ASK, SEEK, AND KNOCK
From a commentary by The Venerable Bede
◊◊◊
Our Lord and Savior wishes us to attain the joy of the heavenly kingdom,
and so he taught us to pray for it, promising to give it to us if we did so. Ask, he
said, and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be
opened to you.
We should consider most seriously and attentively what these words of
the Lord may mean for us, for they warn that not the idle and lazy but those who
ask, seek, and knock will receive, find and have the door opened to them. We
must therefore ask for entry into the kingdom by prayer, seek it by upright
living, and knock at its door by perseverance. Merely to ask verbally is not
enough; we must also diligently seek to discover how to live so as to be worthy of
obtaining what we ask for. We know this from our Savior’s words: Not everyone
who says to me, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those
who do the will of my heavenly Father.
There is a need, then, for constant and unflagging prayer. Let us fall upon
our knees with tears before our God and Maker; and that we may deserve a
hearing, let us consider carefully how he who made us wishes us to live, and
what he has commanded us to do…
Seek first the kingdom of God and its justice, and these other things will
be given you as well. To seek the kingdom of God and its justice is to long for the
graces of our heavenly homeland, and to give constant thought to the kind of
upright living that will deserve to obtain them; for should we chance to stray
from the path that leads there we shall never be able to reach our goal.
To ask God for the justice of his kingdom is to ask principally for faith,
hope and love. These virtues above all we should strive to obtain, for Scripture
says: Mercy surrounds those who hope in the Lord; and To love is to fulfill the
law, for the whole law is summed up in one word: You shall love your neighbor
as yourself. And so the Lord graciously promises that the Father will give the
good Spirit to those who ask him, in order to show that those who of themselves
are evil can become good only by receiving the grace of the Spirit…
As we do our best, then, to follow in our Lord’s footsteps, let us ask God
the Father for the grace of his Spirit to lead us along the path of that true faith
which works through love… Then, if we keep the almighty Father’s
commandments, he will certainly reward us with the eternal blessing which
from the beginning he prepared as our heritage through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who with the Holy Spirit lives and reigns with him, God for ever and ever.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-28
THE GLORY OF GOD
From a commentary by Eric Peterson
◊◊◊
Angels are more than poetic extras from the repertoire of folk-lore. They
have to do with Christ and with the Holy Spirit; but they have to do with us well.
They represent for us a possibility in our own nature, an enhancement and
intensification of our being – but never the possibility of a new and different
faith. They teach us about dark depths in our being wherein is movement and
impulse, independent, it may be, of ourselves, and which we may not even
recognize for what they really are, nor attribute yet awhile to angelic influence.
An impulse might simply be felt as an urge towards purity of heart; or one might
become conscious of an overwhelming desire for mental clarity and a true
existence.
We hurry towards the angels along many paths, not as though we
expected to become an angel, but because our own being is only a preliminary
existence and it does not yet appear what we shall be. And if we do not hurry
towards those angels who stand in God’s presence, then we shall most certainly
hasten towards those who have turned away from God; we shall rush towards
the demons. For we always live so that we transcend ourselves and thus move
toward either the angels or the demons. And we who transcend ourselves – for
to do this is our being – are able to ascend higher and higher, not in the moral
but in the metaphysical sense, until we become an associate of the angels and
arrive at the frontier of that realm where stand the cherubim and seraphim.
This boundary line, marked out neither by ourselves nor by any
archangel, arrests our progress: here we begin to join in the music of the
spheres and in the singing of the angels. Our song is no mere imitation of the
angelic song, no modest joining in the cry of Holy, holy, holy which resounds
from their lips majestically and without ceasing; but it is also something which
erupts from our innermost being when we reach the bounds of all things – the
bounds of ourselves as creatures.
What do we learn on reaching the angelic world but the creation praises
God, praises him from the last star down to the least blade of grass? What
applies to the highest grade of creation applies equally to the lowest, to plant-
life, animals and things which stand much lower than we in the scale of being.
When in the psalms let us say, animals and mountains break froth in praise of
God, this is no mere hyperbole or excess of poetic fancy, an unwarrantable
human personifying of inanimate nature. It is something based ultimately in
the nature of the created thing, and which runs fight through the whole scale of
creation from the cherubim and seraphim down to the least thing in the world.
As the Gospel has told us, the whole creation is full of the glory of God.

Vigils Reading - SS Martha, Mary & Lazarus
2025-07-29
THE HAPPINESS OF
MARTHA AND MARY
From a sermon by St Aelred of Rievaulx
◊◊◊
Jesus entered a certain fortress, and a certain woman named Martha
received him into her house. And she had a sister named Mary. You have heard
in the Gospel about the great happiness of the two women. Truly, brothers, great
was the happiness of Martha, who welcomed such a guest, who waited upon
him, who was completely engaged with serving him. Great was the happiness of
Mary, who recognized the excellence of her guest, who listened to his wisdom
and tasted his sweetness…
If therefore…our soul according to what we have said, becomes a fortress,
it is fitting that two women live in it: one who sits at the feet of Jesus and listens
to his words, the other who waits upon Jesus and feeds him. Consider this: if
Mary were alone in this house, there would be no one to feed the Lord; if Martha
were alone, there would be no one to take delight in the discourses and presence
of the Lord. Therefore…Martha signifies that action by which a person labors
for Christ, and Mary signifies that rest by which a person ceases from bodily
activities and takes delight in the sweetness of God, either through reading,
prayer, or contemplation. Therefore…as long as Christ is poor and goes about
afoot on earth, and is hungry and thirsty, and is tempted, it is necessary that
both of these women dwell in one house, that both of their actions be in one
soul.
As long as you or I or anyone else is on earth, he himself is present in the
world, if we are his members. Whenever those who are his members are hungry,
thirsty, and tempted, then Christ will be hungry, thirsty, and tempted. For this
reason, Christ himself will say on the day of judgment: “Whenever you, did it to
one of the least of my brothers or sisters, you did it to me”. Therefore…in this
miserable and burdensome life, it is necessary that Martha be in our house, that
is, that our soul be busy with bodily activities. As long as we must eat and drink,
then we have to labor. As long as we are tempted by carnal pleasures, it is
necessary for us to tame the flesh by vigils, fasts, and bodily labor. This part is
Martha’s.
Mary also should be in our soul, for she represents activity of spirit. We
should not always give ourselves to bodily exercises but occasionally should rest
and see how delightful, how sweet, is the Lord; we should sit at the feet of Jesus
and listen to his word. In no way ought you to neglect Mary because of Martha,
nor again Martha because of Mary. If you neglect Martha who will feed Jesus? If
you neglect Mary, what will it benefit you that Jesus entered your house, since
you taste nothing of his sweetness?

Vigils Reading
2025-07-30
ASCETICISM
AS A WAY OF LOVE
By Paul Evdokimov
◊◊◊
The methods provided for asceticism reflect the epoch which practices it
and adapt themselves to its way of thinking. In the conditions of modern life,
under the weight of overwork and nervous exhaustion, emotional reaction
changes. Medicine protects and prolongs life but at the same time diminishes
the resistance to suffering and to privations. Christian asceticism is never an
end in itself; it is only a means, a method in the service of life, and it will seek to
be in harmony with new requirements.
Formerly, the asceticism of the desert Fathers imposed fasts of a severe
kin, and constraints; today the battle is shifting to other ground. Man has no
need to impose supplementary suffering upon himself; to use [highly artificial
methods] would be to risk breaking him to no purpose.
Today ‘mortification’ means being relaxed from all necessity to ‘dope’
oneself: through speed, noise, excitements, drugs, alcohol, [and similar] stimuli
of all kinds. Asceticism would be, rather, the repose that is imposed upon us, the
discipline of calmness and silence in which a man rediscovers the faculty to
pause for prayer and contemplation, even at the heart of all the noises of the
world, in the [train and bus stations], in the crowd, at the crossroads of a town;
but above all it is the faculty of appreciating the presence of others, the friends of
each encounter.
Fasting, contrary to the maceration which one inflicts upon oneself,
would be the joyous renunciation of all that is superfluous, sharing it with the
poor, and a smiling, natural, peaceful equilibrium. Back beyond the [bodily] and
psychological asceticism of the Middle Ages, we should seek the eschatological
asceticism of the first centuries, that act of faith which transformed the whole
human being into the joyous expectation of the Second Coming, an expectation
which was not chronological, but qualitative, and which discerns the final and
sole necessity, for, according to the Gospel, the time is short and “the Spirit and
the Bride say ‘Come!’”
Asceticism thus becomes a means of paying attention to the challenges of
the Gospel, to the standard of the Beatitudes: it will seek for humility and purity
of heart, in order to deliver its neighbor and to restore him to God. In a world
that is weary, crushed with cares, living to an intensely accelerated rhythm, the
task is to find and to live a ‘spiritual childhood’, the freshness and the
evangelical simplicity of the ‘little way’ which leads to sitting at the table of
sinners, to blessing and breaking bread together.…
Thus, [asceticism] is never anything but a means, a strategy… The
evangelical asceticism of the Gospel goes to extremes, not out of fear, but out of
a love that overflows with tenderness towards the world. St. Dorotheus gives a
beautiful picture of salvation, in the form of a circle. Its center is God, and all the
people stand at the circumference. The nearer one draws to the center — God —
the nearer do the rays of the circle — one’s neighbor — draw to one another.
[And so] St. Isaac can say [a similar thing] to his disciple: “Here is a
commandment for you: let mercy always [be the measure] your scale, until…
you feel within yourself the mercy that God feels towards you and towards the
world.”

Vigils Reading -St Ignatius Loyola
2025-07-31
THE FIRST TRIAL OF
IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA
From The Autobiography of St Ignatius
◊◊◊
On the Vigil of the Annunciation in 1522 he set out at nightfall, as
discreetly as possible, to find a beggar. Stripping off his clothes he gave them to
this pauper and dressed…in the garb for which he had longed. Then he went and
knelt before the altar of our Lady, where, staff in hand, he spent the whole night,
now kneeling, now standing, and after receiving the Blessed Sacrament left at
day-break <for Manresa>, in order not to be recognized.
It was while he was living at the hospital at Manresa that the following
strange event took place. Very frequently on a clear moonlight night there
appeared in the courtyard before him an indistinct shape which he could not see
clearly enough to tell what it was. Yet it appeared so symmetrical and beautiful
that his soul was filled with pleasure and joy as he gazed at it. It had something
of the form of a serpent with glittering eyes, and yet they were not eyes. He felt
an indescribable joy steal over him at the sight of this object. The oftener he saw
it, the greater was the consolation he derived from it, and when the vision left
him, his soul was filled with sorrow and sadness.
Up to this period he had remained in a constant state of tranquility and
consolation, without any interior knowledge of the trials that beset the
spiritual life. But during the time that the vision lasted, sometimes for days,
his soul was violently agitated by a thought that brought him no little
uneasiness. There flashed upon his mind the idea of the difficulty that
attended the kind of life he had begun, and he felt as if he head some one
whispering to him, “How can you keep up for seventy years of your life these
practices which you have begun?” Knowing that this thought was a
temptation of the evil one, he expelled it by this answer: “Can you, wretched
one, promise me one hour of life?” In this manner he overcame the temptation,
and his soul was restored to peace. This was his first trial.

Vigils Reading - St Alphonsus Ligouri
2025-08-01
THE FULLNESS OF HIMSELF
From a sermon by St Alphonsus Ligouri
◊◊◊
All holiness and perfection of soul lies in our love for Jesus Christ our
God, who is our Redeemer and our supreme good. It is part of the love of God to
acquire and to nurture all the virtues that make one perfect.
Has not God in fact won for himself a claim on all our love? From all
eternity he has loved us. And it is in this vein that he speaks to us: “O consider
carefully that I first loved you. You had not yet appeared in the light of day, nor
did the world yet exist, but already I loved you. From all eternity I have loved
you.”
Since God knew that we are enticed by favors, he wished to bind us to his
love by means of his gifts: “I want to catch mortals with these snares, these
chains of love in which they allow themselves to be entrapped, so that they will
love me.” And all the gifts which he bestowed on us were given to this end. He
gave us a soul, made in his likeness, and endowed with memory, intellect and
will; he gave us a body equipped with the senses; it was for us that he created
heaven and earth and such an abundance of things. He made all things out of
love for us, so that all creation might serve us, and we in turn might love God out
of gratitude for so many gifts.
But God did not wish to give us only beautiful creatures; the truth is that
to win for himself our love, he went so far as to bestow upon us the fullness of
himself. The eternal Father went so far as to give us his only Son. When he saw
that we were all dead through sin and deprived of his grace, what did he do?
Compelled, as the Apostle says, by the superabundance of his love for us, he sent
his beloved Son to make reparation for us and to call us back to a sinless life.
By giving us his Son, whom he did not spare precisely so that he might
spare us, he bestowed on us every good: grace, love and heaven; for all these
goods are certainly inferior to the Son: He who did not spare his own Son, but
handed him over for all of us; how could he fail to give us along with his Son all
good things?

Vigils Reading - Memorial of the BVM
2025-08-02
THE CHRISTIAN
PAR EXCELLENCE
By Fr Émile Mersch
◊◊◊
The final step in the long preparation for Christ is His mother. We cannot
say anything more glorious or more beautiful about her than that, as the mother
of Jesus Christ, she is inseparable from Christ and from all that is Christ…
The other saints have particular kinds of holiness exclusive of one
another. Their sanctity is that of members. The foot is not the hand, and the ear
is not the eye; St Benedict Labre is quite different from St Francis de Sales, and
St Peter Damien is different from St Theresa of Lisieux. But Mary, who is holy in
her capacity as the mother of Christ, possesses all holiness: the unblemished
splendor of the woman clad with the sun is in striking fashion the splendor of
the sun itself.
This holiness partakes of all the matchless perfections of Christ. Its
excellence, which consists in uniting Christ to all humankind, makes of it a
holiness of union with all; it is a common and everyday holiness, an imitable and
approachable holiness, because it is pure holiness.
There is nothing extraordinary in Mary’s life, nothing to excite wonder. As
Jesus was quite simply a man who did not exalt Himself above His station and
did not harden Himself against pain or despise the slight value to be found in us,
so she was simply His mother, the woman whose Son is Jesus.
All the facts at the disposal of Christian piety show her living, in faith,
hope, and charity, the life that God appointed for her. She does not hesitate to
ask herself exactly what the future will bring, but at the same time she always
and in everything sees, loves, and carries out fully the will of God. She grasps, as
a mother can, with an intuition born of love, which is adequate but may remain
indistinct, what her Son is and what mission He came to accomplish. She
accepts and wishes what he wishes, and with all her heart allows her consent to
be fixed and carried out in His. Because of this unique excellence of hers she is
the Christian par excellence; and that is exactly what she ought to be.

Skema
2025-08-03
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
18th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
August 3 – 9, 2025

Sun
3
Mon
4
Tue
5
Wed
6
Thu
7
Fri
8
Sat
9

Office
18th Sunday
St John Vianney
Weekday
Transfiguration of the Lord
St Cajetan
St Dominic
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Gen 37:1-20
Gen 37:21-36
Gen 38:1-30
2 Cor 3:7-4:6
Gen 39:1-23
Gen 40:1-23
Gen 41:1-32

Lauds
Hos 7:11-16
Hos 8:1-7
Hos 8:8-14
Exod 24:12-18
Hos 9:1-9
Hos 9:10-17
Hos 10:1-8

Mass
114
407
408
614
410
411
412

1st
Eccl 1:2; 2:21-23
Num 11:4b-15
Num 12:1-13
Dan 7:9-10, 13-14
Num 20:1-13
Deut 4:32-40
Deut 6:4-13

2nd
Col 3:1-5, 9-11

2 Peter 1:16-19

Gospel
Luke 12:13-21
Matt 14:13-21
Matt 14:22-36
Luke 9:28b-36
Matt 16:13-23
Matt 16:24-28
Matt 17:14-20

Vespers
Phil 2:1-11
Phil 2:12-18
Phil 3:2-11
Heb 12:18-29
Phil 3:12-16
Phil 3:17-21
Phil 4:1-9

Vigils Reading - 18th Week
2025-08-03
THE GENEROUS INVITATION
From a commentary by St Basil the Great
◊◊◊
“The land of a rich man produced abundant harvests, and he thought to
himself: What am I to do? I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones.”
Now why did that land bear so well, when it belonged to a man who would
make no good use of its fertility? It was to show more clearly the forbearance of
God, whose kindness extends even to such people as this. He sends rain on both
the just and unjust, and makes the sun rise on the wicked and the good alike.
But what do we find in this man? A bitter disposition, hatred of other
people, unwillingness to give. This is the return he made to his Benefactor. He
forgot that we all share the same nature; he felt no obligation to distribute his
surplus to the needy. His barns were full to the bursting point, but still his
miserly heart was not satisfied. Year by year he increased his wealth, always
adding new crops to the old. The result was a hopeless impasse: greed would not
permit him to part with anything he possessed, and yet because he had so much
there was no place to store his latest harvest. And so he is incapable of making a
decision and could not escape from his anxiety. What am I to do?
Who would not pity a man so oppressed? His land yields him no profit but
only sighs: it brings him no rich returns, but only cares and distress and a
terrible helplessness. He laments in the same way as the poor do. Is not his cry
like that of one hard pressed by poverty? What am I to do? How can I find food
and clothing?
You who have wealth, recognize who has given you the gifts you have
received. Consider yourself, who you are, what has been committed to your
charge, from whom have you received it, why have you been preferred to most
other people? You are the servant of the good God, a steward on behalf of your
fellow servants. Do not imagine that everything has been provided for your own
stomach. Take decisions regarding your property as though it belonged to
another. Possessions give you pleasure for a short time, but then they will slip
through your fingers and be gone, and you will be required to give an exact
account of them.
What am I to do? It would have been so easy to say: “I will feed the
hungry, I will open my barns and call in all the poor…proclaiming good will
toward everyone.” I will offer the generous invitation: “Let anyone who lacks
bread come… You shall share, each according to need, in the good things God
has given, just as though you were drawing from a common well.”

Vigils Reading - St John Vianney
2025-08-04
PRAYER IN THE LIFE
OF THE CURÉ D’ ARS
From the encyclical “Sacerdoti Nostri Primordia” by St John XXIII
◊◊◊
To the priests of this century, apt to be sensitive to the effect of action and
easily tempted by a dangerous activism, how beneficial is that model of
assiduous prayer in a life given up entirely to the care of souls, which was the
Curé d’Ars! O What prevents us priests from being saints, he said. It is lack of
reflection. We don’t search our hearts; we don’t know what we do. Reflection,
prayer, union with God, are the things we need. He himself remained, according
to contemporary evidence, in a state of continual prayer from which he was not
distracted by the wearisome burden of confessions nor by his other pastoral
cares. He preserved a constant union with God in the midst of an exceedingly
busy life.
Let us listen to him again: he is unfailing on the subject of the joy and
blessing of prayer. Man is a beggar who needs to be asking everything from God.
How many souls we can convert by our prayers! And he would repeat: prayer is
all man’s happiness on earth. This happiness he long enjoyed himself with his
eyes, lit by faith, contemplating the divine mysteries and, in adoration of the
Word incarnate, his pure and simple soul lifted towards the Holy Trinity, the
supreme object of his love. And the pilgrims who thronged the Church of Ars
realized that the humble priest was confiding to them something of the secret of
his own inner life with the frequent exclamation dear to him: A Being loved by
God, united to God, living in the presence of God: oh, what happiness in life and
in death!
We could wish that all priests might be convinced, by the witness of the
holy Curé d’Ars, of the need to be men of prayer and of the possibility of being5
so, whatever the heavy and sometimes severe load of the labors of their
ministry. But we need an intense faith, such as moved Jean-Marie Vianney and
made him able to work miracles. What faith! exclaimed one of his colleagues.
Enough to spread over a whole diocese!
With St Pius X, let us consider it certain and well-founded that a priest, in
order to occupy his station properly and fulfill his duty, must devote himself
before all else to prayer. Above all he should obey Christ’s precept: We ought
always to pray, a precept earnestly recommended by St Paul: Continue
steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. Pray constantly.
The prayer of the Curé d’Ars, who, so to speak, spent the last thirty years
of his life in his church where he was kept by his numerous penitents, was above
all a prayer of thanksgiving. His devotion to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament
of the altar was indeed wonderful. He is there, he would say, he who loves us so
much; how could we not love him? And most certainly he loved him and felt
irresistibly drawn towards the tabernacle: We do not need many words to pray
well, he explained to his parishioners. We know that God is there, in the holy
tabernacle; we open our hearts to him; we rejoice in his holy presence. This is
the best prayer of all.

Vigils Reading
2025-08-05
THE LIVING STONES
OF THE CHURCH
From a homily by Origen
◊◊◊
All of us who believe in Christ Jesus are called “living stones” in the words
of Scripture: “You, too, are living stones, built as an edifice of spirit, into a holy
priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ.”
You know that in the case of earthly stones the builder takes care to lay
first the strongest and most massive stones as the foundation, so that the whole
weight of the building can then rest upon them. The next stones, of not quite
such good quality, are laid upon the foundation stones; and so on according to
the strength of the stones: the weakest are laid at the top, near the roof. The
same is true of living stones, some of which are the foundation of our spiritual
building. Who are these stones that are laid at the foundation? “The apostles
and prophets.” This is Paul’s teaching: “You form a building which rises on the
foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the
capstone.”
To prepare yourself more zealously to construct this building, to be one of
the stones near the foundation, you must realize that Christ himself is the
foundation of the building which we are describing. Paul the apostle declares
this to be so: “No one can lay a foundation other than the one that has been laid,
namely Jesus Christ.” Happy are they who have built holy, religious buildings,
on such a noble foundation!
Now in this building which is the Church there must be an altar.
Moreover, I believe that there are among you those who as “living stones” are
able to become an altar – those of you who have resolved to dedicate yourselves
to prayer, to offer God supplications day and night, and to immolate your
sacrifices – and that it is with you that Jesus builds his altar.
Think of the worth to be discerned in altar stones. “Joshua built an altar to
the Lord,” says Scripture, “of unhewn stones on which no iron tool had been
used, in keeping with the command of Moses.” What do you think these unhewn
(whole, perfect) stones represent? It is for each one’s conscience to say whether
we have integrity, whether we are without impurity or spot…
To my mind these whole, spotless stones must be the holy apostles who
together form but one stone because of their unity of heart and soul. Indeed, it is
said that “all with one accord devoted themselves to constant prayer,” and that
they said: “O Lord, you read the hearts of men.” For those who can pray with one
accord, with one voice and one spirit, are indeed worthy to have been built
together into a single altar on which Jesus offers sacrifices to his Father. But we,
for our part, must strive to “agree” in what we say, “united in spirit and ideals;
never acting out of rivalry or conceit,” but “be united in mind and judgment,” so
that we too may try to become altar stones.

Vigils Readings - Transfiguration of the Lord
2025-08-06
THE GLORY OF GOD
From the last “Angelus” message of Pope St Paul VI
◊◊◊
The Transfiguration of Our Lord, recalled by the liturgy of today’s
solemnity throws a dazzling light on our daily life, and makes us turn our mind
to the immortal destiny which that fact foreshadows. On Mount Tabor, Christ
reveals for a few moments the splendor of his dignity, and he manifests himself
to chosen witnesses as he really is, the Son of God, “the glory of God and the
very stamp of his nature”. But it also shows the transcendent destiny of our
human nature, which he assumed in order to save us, and which is destined –
because redeemed by his sacrifice of irrevocable love – to participate in the
fullness of life, “in the inheritance of the saints in light”.
That body, which is transfigured before the astonished eyes of the
apostles, is the body of Christ our brother, but it is also our body called to glory.
That light, which bathes it, is and also will be our share of inheritance and of
splendor. We are called to share such great glory because we are “partakers of
the divine nature”. And incomparable destiny awaits us if we honor our
Christian vocation, if we live a life that is logically consistent in word and deed
with the commitments that our baptism imposes on us…

Vigils Reading - St Cajetan
2025-08-07
ST CAJETAN
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints
◊◊◊
St Cajetan was son of Caspar, Count of Thiene, of the nobility of Vicenza,
where he was born in 1480. Two years later his father was killed, fighting for the
Venetians against King Ferdinand of Naples. Cajetan went for four years to
Padua University, where he distinguished himself in theology, and took the
degree of doctor in civil and canon law in 1504. He then returned to his native
town, of which he was made senator. In pursuance of his resolve to serve God as
a priest he received the tonsure. In 1506 he went to Rome. Soon after his arrival
Pope Julius II conferred on him the office of protonotary… On the death of
Julius Cajetan refused his successor’s request to continue in that office, and
devoted three years to preparing himself for the priesthood. He was ordained in
1516, being thirty-three years old, and returned to Vicenza in 1518.
Cajetan had re-founded a confraternity in Rome called “The Oratory of
the Divine Love”, which was an association of zealous and devout clerics who
devoted themselves to labor with all their power to promote God’s honor and
the welfare of souls… but consisted only of men in the lowest station of life. This
circumstance gave great offense to his friends, who thought it a reflection on the
honor of his family. He persisted, however, and sought out the sick and the poor
throughout the whole town, served them and cared for those who suffered from
the most loathsome diseases in the hospital of the incurables. He founded a
similar oratory at Verona and then went in 1520 to Venice where he took up his
lodgings in the new hospital of that city… He introduced exposition of the
Blessed Sacrament in that city, as well as continuing the promotion of frequent
communion.
The state of Christendom at this time shocked and distressed Cajetan, and
in 1523 he went back to Rome to confer with his friends of the Oratory of Divine
Love. They agreed that little could be done other than by reviving in the clergy
the spirit and zeal of those holy pastors who first planted the faith, and a plan
was formed for instituting an order of regular clergy upon the model of the lives
of the Apostles. The first associates of Cajetan were John Peter Caraffa, who
later became pope under the name of Paul IV. The institute was approved by
Clement VII, and Caraffa was chosen as the first provost general. From the
name of his episcopal see of Theatensis these clerks regular came to be
distinguished from others as Theatines…
In 1527, when it still numbered only a dozen members, the army of
Emperor Charles V sacked Rome. The Theatines house was demolished and the
members had to escape to Venice. Cajetan was sent to Verona, where both the
clergy and the laity were opposing the reformation of discipline, which their
bishop was endeavoring to introduce among them. A general improvement was
the fruit of his example, preaching and labors.
Worn out with trying to appease civil strife in Naples, and disappointed at
the suspension of the Council of Trent, from which he hoped so much for the
Church’s good, Cajetan had to take to his bed in the summer of 1547. The end
came on Sunday, August 7. Many miracles wrought by his intercession were
approved at Rome after rigorous scrutiny, and he was canonized in 1671.

Vigils Reading - St Dominic
2025-08-08
ST DOMINIC
And the History of the Order of Preachers
◊◊◊
Dominic possessed such great integrity and was so strongly motivated by
divine love, that without a doubt he proved to be a bearer of honor and grace.
And since a joyful heart animates the face, he displayed the peaceful composure
of a spiritual man in the kindness he manifested outwardly and by the
cheerfulness of his countenance.
Wherever he went he showed himself in word and deed to be a man of the
Gospel. During the day no one was more community-minded or pleasant
toward his brothers and associates. During the night hours no one was more
persistent in every kind of vigil and supplication. He seldom spoke unless it was
with God, that is, in prayer, or about God; and in this matter instructed his
brothers.
Frequently he made a special personal petition that God would deign to
grant him genuine charity in caring for and obtaining the salvation of others.
For he believed that only then would he be truly a member of Christ, when he
had given himself totally for the salvation of others, just as the Lord Jesus, the
Savior of all, had offered himself completely for our salvation. So, for this work,
after a lengthy period of careful and provident planning, he founded the Order
of Friars Preachers.
In his conversations and letters he often urged the brothers of the Order
to study constantly the Old and New Testaments. He always carried with him
the gospels according to Matthew and the epistles of Paul, and so well did he
study them that he almost knew them from memory.
Two or three times he was chosen bishop, but he always refused,
preferring to live with his brothers in poverty. Of him Pope Gregory IX
declared: “I knew him as a steadfast follower of the apostolic way of life. There
is no doubt that he is in heaven, sharing in the glory of the apostles themselves.”

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2025-08-09
MARY AND
THE VIRTUE OF HOPE
By Fr Romano Guardini
◊◊◊
Elizabeth calls the Virgin Blessed because she had faith – for everything
would happen as the Lord had told her; through the power of the Holy Spirit she
would become the Mother of the Redeemer, and in this find the fulfillment of
her life and salvation. To be assured of this was not always easy. When the
Gospel speaks of Mary and her son, one perceives a great love, but also a
remoteness.
The answer of the twelve-year-old boy in the temple; the answer Jesus
gave at the wedding feast of Cana; his words to the bystanders, when Mary, at
the door, asks for him; what he said to the woman who exalted his Mother; and
his last testament in which he committed her to the care of the disciple – in each
of these, something is revealed that removes him from her, and we always sense
the possibility that she might have become perplexed about God’s guidance. But
each time her confidence increased and she placed all into his hands. Mary lived
completely through her confidence in God’s power, a power that is capable of
consummating all, even in darkness and opposition.
Hope is confidence in God’s power to accomplish all things. He has
promised that we shall become new persons, and that his creation shall be a
“new heaven and a new earth”. This is gainsaid by the impression made on us by
worldly things; by the course our life is taking; by the opinions of people around
us; by our own daily insufficiency and sin – by everything. Hope is the
“nevertheless” of faith. In spite of all contradiction, the new life is within us, and
God will complete it if we trust in him despite all opposition. But that is difficult,
sometimes impossible. So we must ask again that the Lord “may strengthen our
hope.”

LCG Chicago Monthly Meeting 9:00 am CDT
2025-08-09 08:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York)
All are Welcome. Join us on Zoom at:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86028356465
Meeting ID: 860 2835 6465
One tap mobile
+13126266799,,86028356465# US (Chicago)
+13092053325,,86028356465# US

Our August meeting agenda follows:
9:00 Gather for Opening prayer.
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:
Fr. Peter Tong
Br. Bartholomew Pollard
Fr. Lawrence Morey
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Mary Haley.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is completion of God For All Days (Parts 2 and 3).
10:45 Housekeeping. Volunteer to lead lectio next month? Selection our next reading (Fr. James’ recommended Contemplation by Francis Nemeck and Marie Theresa Combs). Chicago Report on LCG Advisory Council activity. Followup on events at the international lay Cistercian meeting last month.
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: September 13, 2025.

Skema
2025-08-10
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
19th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
August 10 – 16, 2025

Sun
10
Mon
11
Tue
12
Wed
13
Thu
14
Fri
15
Sat
16

Office
19th Sunday
St Clare
Office for the Dead
Weekday
St Maximilian Kolbe
Assumption of the BVM
Weekday

Vigils
Gen 41:33-57
Gen 42:1-17
Gen 42:18-38
Gen 43:1-34
Gen 44:1-34
Eph 1:15-2:10
Gen 45:1-28

Lauds
Hos 10:9-15
Hos 11:1-7
Hos 11:8-11
Hos 12:1-7
Hos 12:8-15
Sir 24:1-11
Hos 13:1-8

Mass
117
413
414
415
416
622
418

1st
Wis 18:6-9
Deut 10:12-22
Deut 31:1-8
Deut 34:1-12
Josh 3:7-10a, 11, 13-17
Rev 11:19a; 12:1-6a; 10ab
Josh 24:14-29

2nd
Heb 11:1-2, 8-19

1 Cor 15:20-27

Gospel
Luke 12:32-48
Matt 17:22-27
Matt 18:1-5, 10, 12-14
Matt 18:15-20
Matt 18:21-19:1
Luke 1:39-56
Matt 19:13-15

Vespers
Phil 4:10-14
Phil 4:15-23
Col 1:1-8
Col 1:9-14
1 Cor 15:50-58
Eph 2:1-10
Col 1:15-23

Vigils Reading - 19th Sunday
2025-08-10
AWAITING
THE MASTER’S RETURN
From a commentary by St Gregory of Nyssa
◊◊◊
When the Lord says: Let your loins be girded and your lamps lit, he is
warning us to stay awake, for a light shining in one’s eyes drives away sleep, and
a tightly fastened belt also makes sleep difficult, as the discomfort prevents
relaxation. But the real meaning of the parable is perfectly clear: a person girded
with temperance lives in the light of a clear conscience before God. And so, with
the light of truth shining, the soul stays awake and is not deceived. It does not
dally with illusive dreams.
If following the guidance of the Word we attain this goal, our lives will in a
way be like those of the angels, for we are compared with them on the divine
command: You must be like people waiting for their master to return from a
wedding, ready to open the door immediately when he comes and knocks. It
was the angels who were awaiting the Master’s return from the wedding. They
sat with unsleeping eyes at the heavenly gates, so that when he returned the
King of glory might pass through them once more into the heavenly bliss from
which, as the psalm says, he had come forth like a bridegroom from his tent.
He took us to himself as his virgin bride, our nature once prostituted to
idols being restored by sacramental rebirth to virginal incorruptibility. After the
marriage, when the Church had been wedded to the Word – as John says, He
who has the bride is the bridegroom – and admitted to the bridal chamber of
the sacred mysteries, the angels awaited the King of glory’s return to the
blessedness which is his by nature.
And so the Lord said our lives should be like theirs. Just as they, living
lives far removed from sin and error, are ready to receive the Lord at his coming,
so we also should keep watch at the entrance of our houses, and prepare
ourselves to obey him when he comes to our door and knocks.

Vigils Reading - St Clare
2025-08-11
THE MIRROR
WITHOUT CLOUD
A letter from St Clare to Blessed Agnes of Prague
◊◊◊
Happy indeed is she who is granted a place at the divine banquet, for she
may cling with her inmost heart to him whose beauty eternally awes the blessed
hosts of heaven; to him whose love inspires love, whose contemplation
refreshes, whose generosity satisfies, whose gentleness delights, whose memory
shines sweetly as the dawn; to him whose fragrance revives the dead, and whose
glorious vision will bless all the citizens of that heavenly Jerusalem. For he is the
splendor of eternal glory, the brightness of eternal light, and the mirror
without cloud.
Queen and bride of Jesus Christ, look into that mirror daily and study well
your reflection, that you may adorn yourself, mind and body, with an
enveloping garment of every virtue, and thus find yourself attired in flowers and
gowns befitting the daughter and most chaste bride of the king on high. In this
mirror blessed poverty, holy humility and ineffable love are also reflected. With
the grace of God the whole mirror will be your source of contemplation.
Behold, I say, the birth of this mirror. Behold his poverty even as he was
laid in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes. What wondrous humility,
what marvelous poverty! The King of angels, the Lord of heaven and earth
resting in a manger! Look more deeply into the mirror and meditate on his
humility, or simply on his poverty. Behold the many labors and sufferings he
endured to redeem the human race. Then in the depths of this very mirror,
ponder his unspeakable love which caused him to suffer on the wood of the
cross and to endure the most shameful kind of death. The mirror himself, from
his position on the cross, warned passersby to weigh carefully this act, as he
said: All of you who pass by this way, behold and see if there is any sorrow like
mine. Let us answer his cries and lamentations with one voice and one spirit: I
will be mindful and remember, and my soul will be consumed within me. In
this way, queen of the king of heaven, your love will burn with an even brighter
flame.
Consider also his indescribable delights, his unending riches and honors, and
sigh for what is beyond your love and heart’s content as you cry out: Draw me
on! We will run after you in the perfume of your ointment, heavenly spouse. Let
me run and not faint until you lead me into your wine cellar; your left hand rests
under my head, your right arm joyfully embraces me, and you kiss me with the
sweet kiss of your lips. As you rest in this state of contemplation, remember your
poor mother and know that I have indelibly written your happy memory into my
heart, for you are dearer to me than all the others.

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2025-08-12
THE GOD
OF THE LIVING
By Maurice Zundel
◊◊◊
The dead have disappeared from our sight. They have not disappeared
from the sight of God. He knows where they are, He knows their lot, He “who
loved them to the end.” But, can we meet them, can we communicate with them?
Some of them occupied such a large place in our life; they were the light of our
eyes, the source of our happiness, the soul of our soul. Is all this now finished
forever?
How can it be finished, if we are more spirit than flesh, and if we have
truly been in communion with what was most intimate and spiritual in them?
But how shall we find them again? By what means shall we reach them? By
entering into what is most intimate in ourselves.
If in truth they sleep in Christ, as we may always hope, they are certainly
freed from the divisions of space and time, from all material constraints, from
all the changes of the outer world. There is, therefore, no means of meeting
them, more certainly efficacious, than to establish ourselves on that internal
plane which they have reached, and strive to live their life. Since their life is
plunged deep in the interior of God, since He is their home, their food and, as
our prayers so touchingly express it, their sleep, if we identify ourselves more
closely with Him, and enter more deeply into His Life, we shall enter into their
life, and the converse broken off on the visible plane will be resumed in a more
living fashion in the silent commerce of souls.
It is indeed within that we must seek, if we would not go astray in a world
beyond, constructed with shadows of the visible world, imagining relations with
our dear ones which would tend to hold them back on the external plane… If
they are withdrawn from the vicissitudes of the sensible world, have been born
to the Life of the Spirit, are in God, we cannot conceive a bond between
ourselves and them more sublime than the communion, always closer, of an
inner life of which God is the source, the center and the gift.
In this way our love not only safeguards its profound reality, it is also most
efficacious. For by the strength of our love for God we can in a sense give Him to
our departed, if they are still detained in the stages of purification which
constitute the mysterious state of Purgatory; or increase in some way their joy in
possessing Him, if they have already reached the beatific vision. To live so as to
be always worthy of God, this surely is the most certain way to be always with
our dead.
They are in God, the very heart of Love. But we also may approach this
Divine Love, for it is in God “that we live, and move and have our being”. We
also are in God, though not yet so completely as they. And God is in us. Christ
exceeded our most daring hopes by making the [unity] of the Divine Persons the
bond of our mutual intimacy…
There can be no surer comfort than this active and sanctifying
communion with our dear ones in an intimacy continually increasing as our
union with God becomes closer. God has not taken them from us: He has hidden
them in His heart that they may be closer to ours. “God is not a God of the dead
but of the living.”

Vigils Reading
2025-08-13
HOLINESS BEFITS
YOUR HOUSE, OH LORD
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux
◊◊◊
“Our bed is covered with flowers; the beams of our houses are of cedar,
the paneling of cypress.” She is singing her marriage-song, describing in
beautiful language the marriage bed and bridal suite. She invites the
bridegroom to repose: for the better thing is to remain at ease and be with
Christ; but necessity drives one forth to help those who are to be saved. So now
when she feels that the opportunity presents itself, she announces that the
bridal suite has been furnished, and pointing to the bed with her finger she
invited, as I have said, the Beloved to rest there. Like the disciples on the way to
Emmaus she cannot contain the ardor in her heart, but entices him to be the
guest of her soul, compels him to spend the night with her. With Peter she says:
“Lord it is good for us to be here.“
Let us now seek the spiritual content of these words. And indeed in the
Church the ‘bed’ where one reposes is, in my opinion, the cloisters and
monasteries, where one lives undisturbed by the cares of the world and the
anxieties of life. This bed is seen to be adorned with flowers when the conduct
and life of the brothers brightly reflect the examples and rules of the Fathers, as
if strewn with sweet smelling flowers. By ‘houses’ understand the ordinary
communities of Christians.
Those who enjoy high office, the Christian leaders of both orders, strongly
bind them together with laws justly imposed, as beams bind the walls, lest living
by their own law and will, they should fall apart from each other like tilting walls
and tottering fences, and thus the whole building fall to the ground and be
destroyed. The paneling however, which is firmly attached to the beams, and
impressively adds to the beauty of the house, seems to me to designate the
courteous and disciplined behavior of a well-trained clergy, who carry out their
duties correctly. For how shall the clerical orders stand and fulfill their duties
unless they are sustained, as by beams, by the beneficence and munificence of
those who govern and protect by their power?…
The cedar, an incorruptible and fragrant wood of great height,
sufficiently indicates the qualities of the men who ought to be selected for the
role of beams. Hence it is necessary that those who are appointed over others
should be strong and reliable, tenacious in hope, their mind directed to
supernatural truths, radiating everywhere the good odor of their faith and
conduct. With the Apostle they can say: We are the incense offered by Christ to
God in every place. The cypress too, a wood that is equally incorruptible and
fragrant, shows that every cleric ought to be of unblemished life and faith, that
he may be seen as an ornamental paneling for the beauty of the house. For it is
written: “Holiness befits your house, O Lord, for evermore,” which expresses
both the beauty of virtue and the constancy of unfailing grace.

Vigils Reading - St Maximilian Kolbe
2025-08-14
A TESTIMONY FROM
THE BEATIFICATION PROCESS
OF ST MAXIMILIAN KOLBE
◊◊◊
Fr Kolbe and I worked together in May or June 1941. We were bringing
sand up from the Sola River. This was some of Auschwitz’s heaviest work, so our
squad had a very hard time indeed. The work itself was very painful; we were
lightly and very insufficiently dressed, and yet we had to wade into the cold
water to dig the sand. In addition, the guards beat us cruelly or sometimes
killed prisoners outright. From the first time I saw Father Maximilian I was
struck by his dignity and calm, so different from others. In spite of the terrible
conditions and bad treatment, he never complained nor did he curse. Instead,
he tried to comfort the other prisoners and lift our spirits. During the three
weeks we worked together, I sometimes saw the kapo beat Father Kolbe with a
big stick. Each time, Father Kolbe took it without a murmur.
The news of his death was an enormous shock to the whole camp. We
became aware someone among us in this spiritual dark night of the soul was
raising the standard of love on high. Someone unknown, like everyone else,
tortured and bereft of name and social standing, went to a horrible death for the
sake of someone not even related to him. Therefore it is not true, we cried, that
humanity is cast down and trampled in the mud, overcome by oppressors, and
overwhelmed by hopelessness. Thousands of prisoners were convinced the true
world continued to exist and that our torturers would not be able to destroy it.
More than one individual began to look within himself for this real world, found
it, and shared it with his camp companion, strengthening both in this encounter
with evil. To say that Father Kolbe died for one of us or for that person’s family
is too great a simplification.
His death was the salvation of thousands. And on this, I would say, rests
the greatness of that death. That’s how we felt about it. And as long as we live,
we who were at Auschwitz will bow our heads in memory of it as at that time we
bowed our head before the bunker of death by starvation. That was a shock full
of optimism, regenerating and giving strength; we were stunned by his act,
which became for us a mighty explosion of light in the dark camp night.
