Vigils Reading - Easter Saturday
2023-04-15
Death is Swallowed Up in Victory7
A sermon by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
…We do not like to speak of victories in our lives. It is too large a word for us. We have suffered too many defeats in our lives. Too many hours of weakness and too many crude sins have reduced victory to nothing. But, isn’t it true, the spirit within us longs for this word, yearns for the final victory over sin, over the anxious fear of death in our lives. And now God’s word does not speak to us about our victory. It does not promise us that from now on we will be victorious over sin and death. It does say with all power, however, that someone has won this victory, and that this one will also win the victory over us when we have him as our Lord. It is not we who are victorious but Jesus.
Today, we proclaim and believe this, against everything that we see around us, against the graves of our loved ones, against the dying nature outdoors, against the death that the war casts over us once again. We see the reign of death, but we preach and believe in the victory of Jesus Christ over death. Death is swallowed up in victory. Jesus is victor, resurrection of the dead, and eternal life.
…Death and sin puff themselves up and instill fear in humankind, as if they were still the rulers of the world. But it is only an illusion. They have long since lost their power. Jesus has taken it from them… Hell no longer has any power over us who are with Jesus. They are powerless. They still rage like a vicious dog on a chain, but they cannot get at us, because Jesus holds them fast. He remains the victor.
But, we ask ourselves, if that is the case, why does it appear so completely different in our life? Why does one see so little of this victory? Why do sin and death rule so terribly over us? Indeed, this very question is God’s question to you: I have done all this for you, and you live as if nothing has happened! You submit yourselves to sin and fear of death as if they could still enslave you! Why is there so little victory in your life? Because you do not want to believe that Jesus is the victor over death and sin, over your lives. Your unbelief brings about your defeat. But now the victory of Jesus is proclaimed again to you today in the Lord’s Supper: the victory over sin and death for you, too whoever you may be. Seize it in faith… Sin need not rule over you any longer. Jesus will rule over you, and he is stronger than every temptation. Jesus will be victorious in the hour of your trial and fear of death, and you will confess: Jesus has become the victor over my sin, over my death. Whenever you abandon this belief, you will have to sink and succumb, sin and die. Whenever you seize this belief, Jesus will keep the victory.

…Do we believe in the power of death and sin, or do we believe in the power of Jesus Christ? There can be only one of these two beliefs. In the past century, there was a man of God who during his life had often preached the victory of Jesus Christ and done wonderful things in his name. As he lay in great torment and distress on his deathbed, his son bent over toward his ear and called to the dying man, “Father, victory is won.” When dark hours and when the darkest hour comes over us, then we want to hear the voice of Jesus Christ calling in our ear: victory is won. Death is swallowed up in victory. Take comfort. And may God grant that then we will be able to say: I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. It is in this faith that we want to live and die..

7 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ed. Isabel Best. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012. 208-210.

Chicago community 9:00 am CDT. Zoom
2023-04-15 09:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York)
You are welcome to join us:
Join Zoom Meeting
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9:00 Gather for Opening prayer and lighting of the candles illuminating the Theotokos icon of Blessed Mother Mary and the baby Jesus.
We also pray for all our lay Cistercian sisters and brothers in the US and around the world. Specially we pray for our Gethsemani monks. Finally, we pray this month specially for these Gethsemani monks:
Fr. Elias Dietz
Br. John Zuber
Fr. Anton Rusnak
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Mary Ann Dier-Zimmermann.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is More Than You Could Ever Imagine by Bernie Owens, SJ.
10:45 Housekeeping. Volunteer to lead lectio next month? Report on LCG Advisory Council activity; host October LCG retreat (Gethsemani 175th Anniversary—involve the monastic community?). Select reading for May.
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.)

Cleveland LCG Meeting
2023-04-15 15:00 - 16:30
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2023-04-16
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
2nd Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
April 16 – 22, 2023

Sun
16
Mon
17
Tue
18
Wed
19
Thu
20
Fri
21
Sat
22

Office
2nd Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
St Anselm
Bl Maria Gabriella

Vigils
Col 3:1-17
Rev 1:1-20
Rev 2:1-11
Rev 2:12-29
Rev 3:1-22
Rev 4:1-11
Rev 5:1-14

Lauds
Eph 1:1-10
Eph 1:11-14
Eph 1:15-23
Eph 2:1-10
Eph 2:11-18
Eph 2:19-22
Eph 3:1-6

Mass
43
267
268
269
270
271
272

1st
Acts 2:42-47
Acts 4:23-31
Acts 4:32-37
Acts 5:17-26
Acts 5:27-33
Acts 5:34-42
Acts 6:1-7

2nd
1 Pet 1:3-9

Gospel
John 20:19-31
John 3:1-8
John 3:7b-15
John 3:16-21
John 3:31-36
John 6:1-15
John 6:16-21

Vespers
Acts 5:12-16
Acts 5:27-32
Acts 6:8-15
Acts 7:51-60
Acts 8:1b-8
Acts 8:9-13
Acts 8:14-25

Vigils Reading - 2nd Sun Easter
2023-04-16
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN, YET BELIEVE
From the writings of Fr. Romano Guardini1 ◊◊◊
And Jesus said to Thomas, “You have learned to believe, Thomas, because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have learned to believe!” Such words as these are really extraordinary! Thomas believed because he saw. But Our Lord did not call him blessed. He had been allowed to “see,” to see the hands and the side, and to touch the blessed wounds, yet he was not blessed!
Perhaps Thomas had a narrow escape from a great danger. He wanted proofs, wanted to see and touch; but then, too, it might have been rebellion deep within him, the vainglory of an intelligence that would not surrender, a sluggishness and coldness of heart. He got what he asked for: a look and a touch. But it must have been a concession he deplored having received, when he thought on it afterwards. He could have believed and been saved, not because he got what he demanded; he could have believed because God’s mercy had touched his heart and given him the grace of interior vision, the gift of the opening of the heart, and of its surrender.
God could also have let him stay with the words he had spoken: in that state of unbelief which cuts itself off from everything, that insists on human evidence to become convinced. In that case he would have remained an unbeliever and gone on his way. In that state, external seeing and touching would not have helped him at all, he simply would have called it delusion. Nothing that comes from God, even the greatest miracle, proves out like 2 x 2.

It touches one; it is only seen and grasped when the heart is open and the spirit is purged of self. Then it awakens faith…
Thomas was standing a hair’s breadth away from obduracy and perdition. He was not at all blessed.
Blessed indeed are “those who have not seen, and yet have learned to believe!” Those who ask for no miracles, demand nothing out of the ordinary, but who find God’s message in everyday life. Those who require no compelling proofs, but who know that everything coming from God must remain in a certain ultimate suspense, so that faith may never cease to require daring. Those who know that the heart is not overcome by faith, that there is no force or violence there, compelling belief by rigid certitudes. What comes from God touches gently, comes quietly; does not disturb freedom; leads to quiet, profound, peaceful resolve within the heart. And those are called blessed who make the effort to remain openhearted. Who seek to cleanse their hearts of all self-righteousness, obstinacy, presumption, inclination to “know better.” Who are quick to heart, humble, free-spirited… Blessed are those who can see the Lord in all these things

1 Jesus Christus, Chicago 1959, 101-104.

Compline
2023-04-16 19:25 - 20:00
Sunday, April 16, 7:25 pm
Zoom Link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/3917499727

Vigils reading
2023-04-17
THE FAITH THAT OVERCOMES THE WORLD
from a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux2 ◊◊◊
…“All that is born of God triumphs over the world.” For the world hates both Christ and those who belong to Christ, but it is also overcome by them with Christ’s help… The truth of Paul’s words thus becomes perfectly clear: “All those whom he (God the Father) has known from the first, he has destined to be shaped to theimage of his son”. Notice the “shaping.” It is after Christ that they are adopted, so that he is the first-born of many brothers: it is after Christ that the world hates them: it is after Christ that the world is conquered by them.
It is right, then, to say that what is born of God triumphs over the world, and thus the proof of our heavenly birth is victory over temptation. Just as the natural son triumphed over the world and its prince, so we also who are sons by adoption emerge as victors. Yes, victors, but only in him who strengthens us an in whom wecan do all things. For “our faith is the victory which prevails over the world.”
For it is by faith that we are adopted among the sons of God: it is our faith that the world, submerged in wickedness, hates and prosecutes: and it is by faith that the world is conquered. As the Scripture says, “Saints have conquered kingdoms by faith”. Surely our victory is to be attributed to faith, for faith owns our very life: “The just man lives by faith”. So each time that you resist temptation, each time you prevail over evil, do not attribute it to your own strength. Congratulate not yourself but the Lord. For in what circumstances would the armed and brace prince yield before your weakness? In short, listen to the warning of the shepherd appointed to tend the Lord’s fold: “Your enemy the devil goes around like a raging lion seeking someone to devour. Bravely resist him by your faith”. You see how all these evidences of the truth are in harmony. Paul says that the saints have conquered kingdoms by faith. Peter says that we must resist the prince of this world by faith. And John says: “Our faith is the victory which prevails over the world.”

Next we read: “For who can conquer the world except him who believes that Jesus is the son of God”? Any person, brethren, who does not believe in the Son of God is undoubtedly both conquered and judged through this disbelief. For without faith we cannot please God… If a man is not terrified by Christ’s threats nor attracted by his promises, if a man does not obey his commands nor fall in with his designs, does he really believe that Jesus is the Son of God? In fact, even if he proclaims that he knows God, he denies it by his actions. Besides, faith without works is dead. It can hardly seem surprising if such a man fails to conquer, for he is not even alive.
You ask what is a lively and victorious faith. It is undoubtedly the faith through which Christ lives in our hearts. For Christ is our strength and our life. Paul says: “When Christ your life appears, you too will appear in glory with him”. The source of that glory will surely be our victory. We shall appear with him because our victory is won in him. In short, the power to become sons of God is given only to those who acknowledge Christ, and to these only must we apply the words “Every man who is born of God triumphs over the world.

2 Sermo in Octava Paschae 1. – PL 83, 291-294. Trans. in The Way 4 (1964), 66-67.

Vigils Reading
2023-04-18
VICTORY AS THE FRUIT OF SACRIFICE
from a book by Fr. Yves Congar3 ◊◊◊
The victory of the Lamb springs from its sacrifice. This is proclaimed in the canticles of both the elders and the angels: “Worthy are you to take the book and break its seals, for you have been slain and by your blood have purchased for God men from every tribe and tongue, and people and nation.” “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing”.
The Apocalypse in this instance expresses the unanimous theology of the books of the New Testament which unite Christ’s triumph and glory with his humiliation and Passion. The Son of man had to be lifted up as the serpent was lifted up in the desert in order that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “He humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal. That is why God has now lifted him so high and has given him the name beyond all names”. But no words more aptly express the connection between the cross and glory than those in the story of the disciples of Emmaus on the evening of Easter Day: “Was it not fated that the Christ should suffer thus, and then should come into his glory?”.
The factor that is common to these passages is the affirmation of a conjunction between the cross and the self-sacrifice on the one hand, and the power of communicating life on the other… between Good Friday and Easter Day. Thus in our “new creation”, the cross … becomes the true and new tree of life…

This connection between sacrifice and victory, death and life, seems to me to express a kind of inner law that is natural to life “in Christ.” I have been amazed at the constant recurrence of life springing from death, at the foot of the cross, and the cross alone destroys the pride of life in us and releases the energies of that life which is hidden with Christ in God. Trial is the condition of renewal and progress. “For your sake we are killed all the day long; we were accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we win an overwhelming victory through him who has proved his love for us”

3 The Revelation of God, New York-London, 1968, pp. 105-106.

Vigils Reading
2023-04-19
ROOTED IN LOVE
From the spiritual writings of the 13th century anchoress Ancrene Wisse4 ◊◊◊
God has earned our love in every kind of way… He gave us all the world in Adam our first father… He did even more… “Christ,” says St. Paul, “so loved his beloved that he paid for her the price of himself.” Pay close attention, my dear sisters, to why one ought to love him: first, as a man who woos, like a king who loved a noble poor lady of a far land… Hereby hangs a tale, a parable with a hidden meaning.
A lady was completely surrounded by her enemies, her land all ruined, and she completely destitute, inside an earthen castle. Nevertheless, the love of a mighty king was turned to her so passionately that by way of courtship he sent his messengers, one after the other, often many together. He sent her many beautiful presents, provisions to keep her alive, the help of his noble army to hold her castle. She received it all like one who did not care, and was so hard-hearted that he could never come any nearer to her love… He came himself in the end… spoke so sweetly, and such happy words they could raise the dead to life again. He worked miracles, and performed many acts of power before her eyes, revealed to her his might, told her of his kingdom, asked to make her queen of all he had. All this was no use. Is this contempt not strange? For she was never worthy to be his handmaiden. But in his graciousness love had so overcome him that in the end he said:
“Lady, you are beleaguered, and your enemies are so strong that you can in no way escape from their hands without my help. So that they do not put you to shameful death after all your grief, for the love of you I will take this fight upon myself, and rid you of those who seek your death. Yet I know it to be true that I will receive from them my death-wound – and I wish it with all my heart, to win your heart. Now then, I beseech you, for the love I show you, that you love me at least after this deed, dead, when you would not living.”

The king did everything just so: he rid her of all her enemies and was himself cruelly abused and finally killed – yet through a miracle he arose from death to life. Would not this same lady be of an evil sort of nature if she did not love him ever after over all things?
This king is Jesus, God’s Son, who in just this way wooed our souls, which the devil had surrounded; and he, like a noble wooer, after many messengers and many presents, came to prove his love, and showed through chivalry that he was worthy of love, as knights were at one time accustomed to do… And for love of his love had his shield pierced on every side in the fight, like a brave knight. His shield, which covered his Godhead, was his beloved body which was spread on the cross, broad like a shield above in his stretched arms, and narrow beneath where the one foot…was set upon the other.
“But Lord,” you say, “why? Could he not have delivered us with less pain?” Yes indeed, very easily, but he would not… A thing little loved is easily bought. He bought us with his heart’s blood – never was a price dearer – to draw out our love toward him, that cost him so bitterly… After a brave knight’s death, his shield ishung high in church in his memory. So is this shield, that is, the crucifix, set high in church in such a place where it is soonest seen, to bring to mind Jesus Christ’s chivalry, which he performed on the cross. His beloved should see by it how he bought her love, letting his shield be pierced, his side opened to show her his heart, to show her openly how deeply he loved her, and to draw out her heart.

Vigils Reading
2023-04-20
THE FIRSTBORN OF THE DEAD
By Geoffrey of Auxerre5 ◊◊◊
He arose from the dead, the first fruits of those who sleep, so that death may no longer have dominion over him who is the first to pass through death to immortality. And he is the firstborn among many brethren, who, dead to the world and dead to sin, by adoption are born to God… By his godhead he is the only-begotten; in his humanity he deigned to become the firstborn, giving to those who receive him the power to become children of God that they may be heirs of God and joint heirs with himself…
He loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood. My brothers, we should listen closely to these words, and pay careful attention, because they concern the mystery of our redemption and of our welfare. We must diligently study four matters: the source, the work, the cause, and the means they commend. The source: God and man; the work: our cleansing from our sins; the cause: love; the means: by his own blood. The source’s divinity commends glory, his humanity increases our affection. His divinity draws our attentive souls upward; devout consideration of his humanity spreads to all people everywhere so that a person may communicate it to all his fellow humans for whom the God-man deigned to give himself up.
The work is the abolition of our sins, a work possible only to him. The greatest sinners used to say of it: ‘ Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ A difficult work, but of no little effect; a great work, and greatly needed for everyone touched by the stain of sin. Moreover, unless people receive complete forgiveness of their sins while still alive, so that after death they can be expiated by others, unforgiven faults and indelible stains will produce undying worms, so that the unquenchable fire can neither cleanse the stains nor destroy the worms…

During the first years of my conversion, a lay brother named Yves, who was very devout, lay dying at the monastery of Clairvaux. To a brother who was visiting him, one who is still alive today and can bear witness today, he said: ‘An angel of the Lord appeared to me, showing me his beautiful and joyful countenance as I lay here in my weakness. And he said, “You humans do well to desire the sight and presence of the Lord. If you knew how much he loves you, how much he wants you, with what longing he waits for you, you would hurry to him with far more fervent affection.”’ These were his last words, to which his serene summons, which immediately followed, bore sufficiently trustworthy testimony. But if you do not believe the word of an angel, or the words of a man soon to go to God, believe the works of the Lord, believe the condescension by which the Word became flesh for your sakes. God became a human for the sake of humans. Believe the bloodshed of the New Testament, believe him suffering, believe him dying and descending into hell, ‘for love is strong as death, and jealousy as hard as hell’. No greater human love exists than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends… So that you may realize how exceedingly he loves you, look, he gives a gift you can appreciate deeply, a gift he purchases with the great price of his blood, his death, his cross.
What a marvelous thing, beloved, if we can only keep thus firmly in mind the source, the work, the cause, and the means of our salvation, that this more than threefold cord may not be broken in us without difficulty. If only these thoughts can draw, can entice, can firmly fasten and indissolubly bind and inseparably bind us to our Saviour

5 Geoffrey of Auxerre: On the Apocalypse. CF 42. Trans. Joseph Gibbons, CSSP. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2000. 37-41.

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Vigils Reading - St Anselm
2023-04-21
THE ENTOMBMENT AND RESURRECTION
From the meditations of St Anselm6 ◊◊◊
… Leave not Mary Magdalene, but court her society, help her to prepare the spices, and come with her betimes to the Lord’s sepulchre. O, may you merit to see with the eye of the soul, as she did by bodily vision, now an angel sitting on the stone which he had rolled away from the door of the monument; and now again, within the monument, two, one at the head, and one at the feet, preaching the Resurrection and its glories; and yet again Jesus Himself, refreshing the sad and tearful Magdalene with eyes so gentle, and saying with voice so sweet, ‘Mary.’ At this word all the cataracts of her soul are broken loose, and tears are distilled from her very marrow, and sighs and sobs from her heart’s inmost recess. ‘Mary.’ O happy thou! What were thy thoughts, thy heart, thy soul, when, in answer to this word, flinging thyself at His Feet, and greeting Him in return, thou sayest ‘Rabboni!’ What were the emotions, what the yearnings, what the ardours of thy soul, when thou sayest ‘Rabboni’? Tears prevent more, emotion chokes thy voice, and excess of love absorbs every sense of mind and body.
But why, my dear Jesus, dost Thou drive me, loving Thee as I do, from Thy sacred and so longed-for Feet? ‘Touch Me not,’ Thou sayest. Why, O Lord, why? Why may I not touch those all-desired Feet of Thine, that were burrowed through with nails and drenched with Blood? Why may I not touch them, and caress them with a thousand kisses? What! Is He less my Friend now that He is more glorious? See, I will not let Thee go; I will not leave Thee; I will not spare my tears; my heart shall break with sighs and sobs unless I touch Thee. But He says, ‘Touch Me not.’ This blessing shall not be refused thee, though it be delayed; go only, and tell My brethren that I have risen again. She ran quickly, wishing to return quickly; she returns, but not alone; there are other women with her. And Jesus goes to meet them, and with gentlest greeting raises them from their dejection and consoles their sorrow. And see; what was deferred before is granted now. For ‘they came up, and took hold of His Feet, and worshipped Him’. Linger here, virgin, as long as you can, and neither let sleep break in upon your joys, nor any exterior distraction interrupt it

6 St Anselm. Book of Meditations and Prayers. Trans. M.R. London: Burns and Oates, 1872. 217-220.

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Vigils Reading - Blessed Maria Gabriella
2023-04-22
FROM THE LETTERS OF BLESSED MARIA GABRIELLA
And her abbess Mother Maria Pia7 ◊◊◊
Letter One – Easter, 1939
Dearest Mamma, I write these lines to send you my last thoughts and my last
farewell. The Divine Bridegroom has renewed the invitation, and the longed-for day approaches. I do not say the day of my death, but the day when, loosed from the bands of this miserable flesh, I can finally move on from this life to the happy and blessed life of heaven. The separation from the body is not a death but a transition to real life. Rejoice, oh my Mother, because there will be no more enclosure, and I, although you will not see me, I will come and visit you and hug you so much, as my love for you grows more and more. Be at peace because up there I will be much more useful to you than I could be here; there I will see clearly all your needs, and I will intercede more with the Lord…
I wish indeed that the same day you receive the news, you will all go to Mass and Communion and pray for me and thank the Lord very much for the graces he has given me and for his predilections in my regard… I still recommend that you remain tranquil and happy in the Lord. Pray for me and commend me to the prayers of our relatives and acquaintances to whom I am sending with you my final greeting. One last time I ask everyone for forgiveness for any offenses that I may have caused. I embrace you tightly in the heart of Jesus, together with all the family.
Always your daughter, Sister Maria Gabriella ◊◊◊
Letter Two – Wednesday, April 26, 1939
Dear Mrs. Sagheddu, How much you must have waited for this letter from me!
With it comes the last letter written by your daughter, who wrote it according to my

advice, and she agreed that I would send it to you after her passage to the heavenly kingdom.
For Thursday the twentieth, Mother Maria Gabriella had a significant worsening. Already since Easter we were keeping vigil with her at night, even though she did not want to disturb us… Her body of twenty-five years and two months fought with strong resistance. But she was suffering with such docility and resignation. Consenting to acts of acceptance, love, and offering that we suggested to her, Saturday night seemed to be her last, but she was fully conscious. She asked with that small voice that was soon clear, “Communion, if possible, if possible.” It was brought to her again as Viaticum. She recovered a bit… But we remained all night, the nurse, two sisters, and I… and the Father Chaplain, who wanted to stay, despite his advanced age, not wishing to leave her without accompanying her to the last breath… That Saturday…all during the night she suffered greatly, indeed, like a lamb…
At half past five, very tranquilly, she ceased to breathe. She lowered her eyelids – as when she was unable to speak, to say, “Yes.” Then she raised her eyelids again. She was already with her Lord, whom she loved so much that she offered the sacrifice of her young life for the union of the separated churches. It was GoodShepherd Sunday, and the gospel spoke thus: “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also.” Signora, cry pure tears: you are her Mother. But give thanks, give thanks to the Lord. Yesterday we had the burial ceremony… Now she rests in the tomb of the monastery, which is located under the presbytery, and her coffin is place just below the altar… I will send you a rosary that when she was sick, I put into her hands, saying that I would later send it to her mother. “Thank you,” she replied gratefully…
May Jesus bless you… Sister Maria Pia, o.c.r

7 Blessed Gabriella Sagheddu. The Letters of Blessed Maria Gabriella: With the Notebooks of Mother Pia Gullini. MW 57. Trans. David Lavich, OCSO. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2019. 132-135.

Skema
2023-04-23
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
3rd Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
April 23 – 29, 2023

Sun
23
Mon
24
Tue
25
Wed
26
Thu
27
Fri
28
Sat
29

Office
3rd Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
St Mark
Easter Weekday
St Rafael Arnaiz Baron
Easter Weekday
St Catherine of Siena

Vigils
Rev 6:1-17
Rev 7:1-17
Eph 4:1-16
Rev 9:1-12
Rev 9:13-21
Rev 10:1-11
Rev 11:1-19

Lauds
Eph 3:7-13
Eph 3:14-21
Sir 51:13-22
Eph 4:17-24
Eph 4:25-32
Eph 5:1-5
Eph 5:6-14

Mass
46
273
555
275
276
277
278

1st
Acts 2:14, 22-33
Acts 6:8-15
1 Pet 5:5b-14
Acts 8:1b-8
Acts 8:26-40
Acts 9:1-20
Acts 9:31-42

2nd
1 Pet 1:17-21

Gospel
Luke 24:13-35
John 6:22-29
Mark 16:15-20
John 6:35-40
John 6:44-51
John 6:52-59
John 6:60-69

Vespers
Acts 9:1-9
Acts 9:10-19a
2 Tim 4:1-11
Acts 9:23-31
Acts 10:1-8
Acts 10:9-16
Acts 10:17-28

Vigils Reading - 3rd Sun Easter
2023-04-23
THEY RECOGNIZED JESUS AT THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD
From an unknown Twelfth century author1
Their eyes were opened, and they knew him when he broke the bread. When bread is broken, it is in a way diminished, or “emptied.” By breaking understand the virtue of humility, by which Christ – even he who is the bread of life – broke, diminished, and emptied himself. And by emptying himself he gave us knowledge of himself.
The hidden Wisdom of the Father, and a treasure whole and concealed – what use are they? Break your bread for the hungry, Lord, the bread that is yourself, so that human eyes may be opened, and it may not be regarded as a sin for us to long to be like you, knowing good and evil. Let him who from the beginning wished to strive after or grope for you in your undiminished state, know you through the breaking of bread.
Break yourself that we may learn to break our own selves, for you are not known through the breaking of bread. Balaam heard words of God and saw visions of the Almighty, but he fell with open eyes because he did not know the Lord through the breaking of bread. It is the same today: you see many studying the Scriptures, teaching in their words. With words they claim to have a knowledge of God, but with their deeds they deny it, because God cannot be known except through the breaking of bread.
And in fact, the Lord became our bread and we are his bread. He condescended to eat his bread with sweat on his brow, so that we might eat with joy. If you want to know him, break yourself as he did, because anyone who claims to abide in Christ ought to live as he lived. The kingdom of God lies not in words, but in power.

Break yourself, then, by the labor of obedience, by the humiliation of repentance. Bear in your body the marks of Jesus Christ by accepting the condition of a servant, not of a superior. And when you have emptied yourself, you will know the Lord through the breaking of bread. True humility opens our eyes, “breaking” and diminishing the other virtues which might blind us with a spirit of pride, and teaching us that of ourselves we are nothing. And when we humble ourselves by self-contempt, so much the more do we grow in the knowledge of God

1 Translated by Rowan A Greer, Classics of Western Spirituality series, New York: Paulist Press, 1979, pp. 138-139.

Vigils Reading
2023-04-24
THE TRUE BREAD FROM HEAVEN
From Origen’s treatise On Prayer2
[Jesus] says, “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”. The true bread is He who nourishes the true Man, made in the image of God; and the one who has been nourished by it will come to be in the likeness of Him who Created him. And what is more nourishing to the soul than the Word, or what is more honorable than the Wisdom of God to the mind that holds it? What more rightly corresponds to a rational nature than truth?
But if someone objects to this and says that He would not have taught us to ask for “daily bread” if He meant something else, let him hear that even in the Gospel according to John sometimes He speaks about it as though it were something other than Himself, and sometimes as though He were Himself “bread.” An example of the first is, “Moses gave you bread from heaven, not the true bread, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven”. An example of referring it to Himself is what he says to those who said to him, “Give us this bread always”: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst”
Now all food is called “bread” in Scripture, as is clear from what is written about Moses, “For forty days I neither ate bread nor drank water”. How manifold and varying, then, is the nourishing Word, since not everyone can be nourished by the solid and vigorous food of divine teachings. That is why, when He wishes to offer food for an athlete, suitable for the more perfect, He says, “The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh”, and a little further on, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is true food”. This is the “True food”, the “flesh” of Christ, existing as the Word become flesh… And when we eat and drink Him, He also has dwelt in us.

Just as the corporeal bread distributed to the body of the person to be nourished goes into his being, so also “the living bread which came down from heaven” and is distributed to the mind and the soul gives a share in its own power to the person who provides himself food from it. And thus the bread we ask will be “daily” in the sense that it will be “for our being.”… It procures at one time health, vigor, and strength to the soul; and since the Word of God is immortal, it shares its own immortality with the one who eats it

2 Translated by Rowan A Greer, Classics of Western Spirituality series, New York: Paulist Press, 1979, pp. 138-139.

Vigils Reading - St. Mark
2023-04-25
A LIGHT TO THE GENTILES
From St Thomas Aquinas’s Catena Aurea on the Gospel of St. Mark3
…The Lord after His resurrection, that He might fulfil the will of the Father, sent His disciples to preach, saying, Go ye, and teach all nations; some He sent to the Jews, some received the ministry of preaching to the Gentiles. But because it was right that the Gospel should not only be preached for those who then lived, but also be written for those who were to come, the same distinction is observed in the writers of the Gospel.
For Matthew wrote the Gospel to the Jews in Hebrew, and Mark was the first to write a Gospel amongst the Gentiles… to commit to writing those things which he preached by word of mouth, that they might have a perpetual memorial of them, and might continue both at home and abroad in meditations of this sort upon the word…
Mark, when about to finish his Gospel… says, And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature… It goes on: And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents… and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them… They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover… Are we then without faith because we cannot do these signs? Nay, but these things were necessary in the beginning of the Church, for the faith of believers was to be nourished by miracles, that it might increase. Thus we also, when we plant groves, pour water upon them, until we see that they have grown strong in the earth; but when once they have firmly fixed their roots, we leave off irrigating them… For Holy Church does every day in spirit what then the Apostles did in body; for when her Priests by the grace of exorcism lay their hands on believers, and forbid the evil spirits to dwell in their minds, what do they, but cast out devils? And the faithful who have left earthly words, and whose tongues sound forth the Holy Mysteries, speak a new language; they who by their good warnings take way evil from the hearts of others, take up serpents; and when they are hearing words of pestilent persuasion, without being at all drawn aside to evil doing, they drink a deadly thing, but it will never hurt them; whenever they see their neighbours growing weak in good works, and by their good example strengthen their life, they lay their hands on the sick, that they may recover. And all these miracles are greater in proportion as they are spiritual, and by them souls and not bodies are raised…

Grant then, O Christ, that the good words which we speak may be confirmed by works and deeds, so that at last, Thou working with us in word and in deed, we may be perfect, for Thine as is fitting is the glory both of word and deed. Amen

3 St Thomas Aquinas. Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels Collected out of the Works of the Fathers – Volume II: St. Mark. Trans. St John Henry Cardinal Newman of the Oratory. London: The Saint Austin Press, 1999. 2-3; 345-346, 348-349.

Vigils Reading
2023-04-26
JESUS IN THE HOLY EUCHARIST
From the Spiritual Autobiography of St Charles de Foucauld4
Lord Jesus, you are in the Holy Eucharist. You are there, a yard away in the tabernacle. Your body, your soul, your human nature, your divinity, your whole being is there, in its twofold nature. How close you are, my God, my Saviour, my Jesus, my Brother, my Spouse, my Beloved!
You were not nearer to the Blessed Virgin during the nine months she carried you in her womb than you are to me when you rest on my tongue at Holy Communion. You were no closer to the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph in the caves at Bethlehem or the house at Nazareth or during the flight into Egypt, or at any moment of that divine family life than you are to me at this moment – and so many others – in the tabernacle. St. Mary Magdalene was no closer to you when she sat at your feet at Bethany than I am here at the foot of this altar. You were no nearer to your apostles when you were sitting in the midst of them than you are to me now, my God. How blessed I am!
It is wonderful, my Lord, to be alone in my cell and converse there with you in the silence of the night – and you are there as God, and by your grace. But to stay in my cell when I could be before the Blessed Sacrament – why, it would be as though St. Mary Magdalene had left you on your own when you were at Bethany to go and think about you alone in her room! It is a precious and devout thing, O God, to go and kiss the places you made holy during your life on earth – the stones of Gethsemane and Calvary, the ground along the Way of Sorrows, the waves of the sea of Galilee – but to prefer it to your tabernacle would be to desert the Jesus living beside me, to leave him alone, going away alone to venerate the dead stones in places where he is no longer. It would be to leave… the Jesus living at my side to go into another room to greet his portrait…

Wherever the sacred Host is to be found, there is the living God, there is your Saviour, as really as when he was living and talking in Galilee and Judea, as really as he now is in heaven. Never deliberately miss Holy Communion. Communion is more than life, more than all the good things of this world, more than the whole universe: it is God himself…

Vigils Reading - St Rafael Arnaiz Baron
2023-04-27
THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
a reflection from St Rafael Arnaiz5
The other day, everything seemed dark to me. My somber life, locked up in the infirmary, no sunshine, no light, or anything else that might help me bear the weight that God has thrown down upon my shoulders… Illness, silence, abandonment… My soul was suffering a great deal. Memories of the world and my freedom overwhelmed me… My thoughts were sad and gloomy. I felt no love for God, and I felt forgotten by human beings, with neither faith nor light. My habit weighed upon me… The darkness of the church saddened me… I looked up at the tabernacle, and it had nothing to say to me. I felt dead though alive, trapped within the monastery like a dead man in his grave… worse than that, because at least there’s rest in the grave…
Such was the state of my soul when I went up to receive the Lord. I had just knelt down and was about to ask Jesus to put my spirit to rest when I felt this very great fervor and immense love for Jesus, and completely forgot about everything I’d been thinking about before, because I remembered these words that I believe Jesus gave me at that moment: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
Why attempt to put my soul’s consolation into words?! I nearly wept for joy, finding myself at the feet of Jesus… My hands gripped the crucifix, and my heart longed for death again, but this time for love of Jesus, for love of true life and true freedom… I wanted to die on my knees, embracing the cross, loving God’s will… loving my illness, my confinement, my silence, my darkness, my loneliness.

Loving my sufferings, which in a moment of light, with a little spark of love for God… are so quickly forgotten.
…And so everything began to fade away in the light of the infinite goodness of a God who would lean down toward me to say, “Why are you suffering?… I am your health… I am the Life… What are you searching for here?” Oh, good Jesus… if only people knew what it means to love You on the cross!… If only they had any idea what it means to renounce everything for Your sake! What a joy it is to live without a will of one’s own. What a great treasure it is to be no one and nothing… to be the very last… What a great treasure Jesus’ cross is, and how wonderful it is to live in its embrace… Lord, I want to love Your cross madly… do not permit me to be parted from it.
This is my life as a Cistercian oblate… to suffer, to endure, and to love with abandon everything that God in His infinite goodness wishes to send me… He is the one who is doing it, and if my consolation comes from Him… so too does my pain… How could we not love the one who does it all for our own good? How could we not go mad with joy upon realizing that God is the one who sends us our cross? How could we not adore that blessed cross until our dying day, knowing that it is our only health, resurrection, and life?… All I can say is that I have found true happiness in loving the cross of Christ. I am happy, completely happy, more than anyone could ever imagine, when I embrace the bloodstained cross and realize that Jesus loves me despite my misery, my negligence, and my sins, as does Mary. But I am of no importance… God alone

5 Saint Rafael Arnaiz. The Collected Works. Ed. Sr. Maria Gonzalo-Garcia, OCSO. Trans. Catherine Addington. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2022. 640-642.

Vigils Reading
2023-04-28
THE SACRAMENT OF LOVE
From the spiritual writings of St Alphonsus de Liguori6
People on their death-bed often make a last bequest of an article of clothing or a ring to their friends as a token of their affection. But you, Jesus, as you were on the point of leaving this world, what was the token of love that you left us? It was not an article of clothing or a ring, but your body and your blood, your soul and divinity, your whole self. As St. John Chrysostom expresses it: “He gave you everything, he left himself nothing.”…According to St. Bernardino of Siena, he was not simply ready to die for us, but before dying was constrained by the excess of his love to give us his own body as food.
This sacrament was rightly called by St. Thomas Aquinas “the sacrament and the pledge of love.”… St. Philip Neri could call Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament by no other name than love. When viaticum was brought to him, he was heard to exclaim, “Here is my love, give me my love.”
…When Jesus revealed to his disciples his intention of leaving us this sacrament, they were unable to believe it and abandoned him, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” and “This saying is hard. Who can accept it?”. The great love of Jesus Christ has conceived and brought about what human beings could not imagine or even believe. What is the food, Savior of the world, which you desired to give us before you died? “This is my body”: This is no earthly food, it is I giving myself to you.

…He encourages us by promising us paradise: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”; “Whoever eats this bread will live forever”. He goes as far as threatening us with exclusion from paradise should we refuse: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you”. All of these invitations, promises, and threats are born of his great desire to come to us in this sacrament.
Here is the reason why Jesus desires so much to come in Holy Communion. According to St. Denis, love always aspires and tends toward union, or as St. Thomas puts it, “Lovers desire that the two become one.” He means that people who are truly in love want to be as close to one another as though they were a single person. God’s great love has so arranged things that he gives himself to us not just in the eternal kingdom, but even here below he allows us to possess him in the greatest intimacy possible, by giving himself to us under the appearance of bread in this sacrament. He is like the lover in the Canticle: “Here he stands behind our wall, / gazing through the windows, / peering through the lattices”. Even though we cannot see him in the Eucharist, he sees us and is really present there. He is present so that we can possess him, but hidden in order that we might desire him.
Until such time as we come to our homeland, Jesus wishes to give himself completely to us and to remain completely united with us. That is why St. Francis de Sales said: “Here the Savior is seen at his most tender and loving. Here, he seems to annihilate himself, and to reduce himself to food in order to enter into our souls, and be united with the hearts of his faithful.” St. John Chrysostom says that it was out of his great love for us that Jesus Christ wished to unite himself to us so much in order that we might become the same thing as he is

6 St Alphonsus de Liguori. Selected Writings. Ed. Frederick M. Jones, C.SS.R. New York: Paulist Press, 1999. 118-121.

12

Vigils Reading - St Catherine of Siena
2023-04-29
THE SOUL WHO RECEIVES THIS BREAD OF LIFE
From the mystical Dialogue between God and St Catherine of Siena7
…Open wide your mind’s eye and look into the abyss of my charity. There is not a person whose heart would not melt in love to see, among all the other blessings I have given you, the blessing you receive in this sacrament. And how, dearest daughter, should you and others look upon this mystery and touch it? Not only with your bodily eyes and feeling, for here they would fail you. You know that all your eyes see is this white bit of bread; this is all your hand can touch and all your tongue can taste, so that your dull bodily senses are deceived. But the soul’s sensitivity cannot be deceived, unless she so chooses by extinguishing the light of holy faith by infidelity.
What tastes and sees and touches this sacrament? The soul’s sensitivity. How does she see it? With her mind’s eye, so long as it has the pupil of holy faith. This eye sees in that whiteness the divine nature joined with the human; wholly God, wholly human; the body, soul, and blood of Christ, his soul united with his body and his body and soul united with my divine nature, never straying from me… So the spiritual must be the principal vision, because it cannot be deceived. It is with this eye, then, that you must contemplate this sacrament.
How is this sacrament touched? With the hand of love. This hand it is that touches what the eye has seen and known in this sacrament. The hand of love touches through faith, confirming as it were what the soul sees and knows spiritually through faith. How is this sacrament tasted? With holy desire. The body tastes only the flavor of bread, but the soul tastes me, God and human. So you see, the body’s senses can be deceived, but not the soul’s… What she has seen she touches in love and faith. And she tastes it with her spiritual sense of holy desire, that is, she tastes the burning, unspeakable charity with which I have made her worthy to receive the tremendous mystery of this sacrament and its grace. So you see, you must receive this sacrament not only with your bodily senses but with your spiritual sensitivity, by disposing your soul to see and receive and taste this sacrament with affectionate love.

Dearest daughter, contemplate the marvelous state of the soul who receives this bread of life, this food of angels, as she ought. When she receives this sacrament she lives in me and I in her. Just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish, so am I in the soul and the soul in me, the sea of peace. Grace lives in such a soul because, having received this bread of life in grace, she lives in grace. When this appearance of bread has been consumed, I leave behind the imprint of my grace, just as a seal that is pressed into warm wax leaves its imprint when it is lifted off.
Thus does the power of this sacrament remain there in the soul; that is, the warmth of my divine charity, the mercy of the Holy Spirit, remains there. The light of my only-begotten Son’s wisdom remains there, enlightening the mind’s eye. [The soul] is left strong, sharing in my strength and power, which make her strong and powerful against her selfish sensuality and against the devil and the world… See, then, how bound and obliged you are to love me in return, since I have loved you so much, and because I am supreme eternal Goodness, deserving to be loved by you

7 St Catherine of Siena. The Dialogue. Trans. Suzanne Noffke, O.P. New York: Paulist Press, 1980. 209- 212.

Skema
2023-04-30
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
4th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
April 30 – May 6, 2023

Sun
30
Mon
1
Tue
2
Wed
3
Thu
4
Fri
5
Sat
6

Office
4th Sunday of Easter
St Joseph the Worker
St Athanasius
SS Philip & James
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Rev 12:1-18
Rev 13:1-18
Rev 14:1-13
1 Cor 12:1-13
Rev 15:5-16:21
Rev 17:1-18
Rev 18:1-20

Lauds
Eph 5:15-20
Eph 6:10-17
Col 1:1-8
2 Thess 2:13-3:5
Col 1:15-23
Col 1:24-29
Col 2:1-8

Mass
49
279, 559
280
561
282
283
284

1st
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Acts 11:1-18
Acts 11:19-26
1 Cor 15:1-8
Acts 13:13-25
Acts 13:26-33
Acts 13:44-52

2nd
1 Pet 2:20b-25

Gospel
John 10:1-10
Matt 13:54-58
John 10:22-30
John 14:6-14
John 13:16-20
John 14:1-6
John 14:7-14

Vespers
Acts 10:34-43
Acts 10:44-49
Acts 12:1-5
2 Cor 4:1-6
Acts 13:6-12
Acts 14:1-7
Acts 16:16-24

Vigils Reading - 4th Sun Easter
2023-04-30
THE SHEPHERD OF THE SHEEP
From a commentary by St Clement of Alexandria1
In our sickness we need a savior, in our wanderings a guide, in our blindness someone to show us the light, in our thirst the fountain of living water which quenches for ever the thirst of those who drink from it. We dead people need life, we sheep need a shepherd, we children need a teacher, the whole world needs Jesus!
If we would understand the profound wisdom of the most holy shepherd and teacher, the ruler of the universe and the Word of the Father, when using an allegory he calls himself the shepherd of the sheep, we can do so for he is also the teacher of little ones.
Speaking at some length through Ezekiel to the Jewish elders, he gives them a salutary example of true solicitude. I will bind up the injured, he says; I will heal the sick; I will bring back the strays and pasture them on my holy mountain. These are the promises of the Good Shepherd.
Pasture us children like sheep, Lord. Fill us with your own food, the food of righteousness. As our guide we pray you to lead us to your holy mountain, the Church on high, touching the heavens.
I will be their shepherd, he says, and I will be close to them, like their own clothing. He desires to save my flesh by clothing it in the robe of immortality and he has anointed my body. They shall call on me, he says, and I will answer, “Here I am.” Lord, you have heard me more quickly than I ever hoped! And if they pass over they shall not fall says the Lord, meaning that we who are passing over into immortality shall not fall into corruption, for he will preserve us. He has said he would and to do so is his own wish. Such is our Teacher, both good and just. He said he had not come to be served but to serve, and so the gospel shows him tired out, he who labored for our sake and promised to give his life as ransom for many, a thing which, as he said, only the Good Shepherd will do.

How bountiful the giver who for our sake gives his most precious possession, his own life! He is a real benefactor and friend, who desired to be our brother when he might have been our Lord, and who in his goodness even went so far as to die for us

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 62-63.

Vigils Reading - St Joseph the Worker
2023-05-01
THE VIRTUES OF ST JOSEPH
From the Spiritual Conferences of St Francis de Sales2
The just shall flourish like the palm-tree… The palm has a strength, courage, and even constancy far beyond all other trees… The palm shows its strength in this, that the more it is laden, the more it shoots up and the higher it grows; which is quite unlike all other trees… for the more heavily they are laden, the more they bow down to the earth. The palm, however, shows its strength and constancy, never bending down, whatever load is placed upon it… Certainly St. Joseph is most justly said to resemble the palm, for he was always constant, persevering, strong, and valiant…
As regards his constancy, did he not display it wonderfully when, seeing Our Lady with child, and not knowing how that could be, his mind was tossed with distress, perplexity, and trouble? Yet, in spite of all, he never complained, he was never harsh or ungracious towards his holy Spouse, but remained just as gentle and respectful in his demeanour as he had ever been. But what valour and strength did he not display in the victor which he gained over the two greatest enemies of man, the devil and the world? And that by the practice of a most perfect humility… throughout the whole course of his life… We may, therefore, well say: “Valiant and strong is the man who, like St. Joseph, perseveres in humility; he will be conqueror at once of the devil and of the world, which is full of ambition, vanity, and pride.”
As regards perseverance, which overcomes that secret enemy of our souls, weariness and dejection under the continued assaults of humbling, painful circumstances… how greatly was the Saint tried in this way by God and man in his journey into Egypt! The Angel commanded him to set forth immediately and to take Our Lady and the Holy Child into that country. Instantly, without a moment’s delay, without even a word, he obeys. He does not ask: “Where shall I go? What road shall I take? How shall we be fed?… With his tools on his back, so that he may earn his poor livelihood and that of his family in the sweat of his brow, he sets forth on his journey…

God wills that he should be always poor… And what poverty – despised, rejected, needy poverty! That voluntary poverty which is one of the vows of Religious is very mild… forbidding and depriving them only of superfluities. But the poverty of St. Joseph, of Our Lord and of Our Lady, was not like this, for although it too was voluntary, and although they loved it dearly, it was nevertheless abject, mean, despised, and most needy; for every one looked upon this Saint as a poor carpenter. Though he toiled with the most affectionate zeal for the support of his little family, yet he could not earn enough to prevent their wanting many necessary things. Then, as the years went on, and his poverty and abjection continued, he still submitted always most humbly to the will of God. He never allowed himself to be conquered or subdued by dejection of mind, which yet, no doubt, constantly attacked him, but always increased and grew in moreperfect submission as in all other virtues…
St. Joseph is, then, undoubtedly in heaven in body and soul… If we have confidence in him, he will obtain for us growth in all virtues, but especially in those which, as we have seen, he possesses in a higher degree than any other man. These are great purity of body and mind, humility, constancy, courage, and perseverance. These virtues will make us victorious in this life over our enemies, and through them we shall merit the grace to enjoy… eternal life

2 St Francis de Sales. The Spiritual Conferences of St. Francis de Sales. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Bookshop, 1945. 364-385.

4

Vigils Reading - St Athanasius
2023-05-02
AS BRIGHTNESS FROM LIGHT
From the Expositio Fidei by St Athanasius 3
We believe in one Unbegotten God, Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, that has His being from Himself. And in one Only- begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and eternally; word not pronounced… nor an effluence of the Perfect, nor a dividing of the impassible Essence, nor an issue; but absolutely perfect Son, living and powerful, the true Image of the Father, equal in honour and glory. For this, he says, ‘is the will of the Father, that as they honour the Father, so they may honour the Son also’: very God of very God… For all things which the Father rules and sways, the Son rules and sways likewise: wholly from the Whole, being like the Father as the Lord says, ‘he that has seen Me has seen the Father’.
But He was begotten ineffably and incomprehensibly, for ‘who shall declare his generation?’… no one can. Who, when at the consummation of the ages, He had descended from the bosom of the Father, took from the undefiled Virgin Mary our humanity… delivered of His own will to suffer for us, as the Lord saith: ‘No man takes My life from Me. I have power to lay it down, and have power to take it again’… He was crucified and died for us, and rose from the dead, and was taken up into the heavens, having been created as the beginning of ways for us, when on earth He showed us light from out of darkness, salvation from error, life from the dead, an entrance to paradise, from which Adam was cast out, and into which he again entered by means of the thief, as the Lord said, ‘This day shall you be with Me in paradise’…

We believe, likewise, also in the Holy Spirit that searches all things, even the deep things of God… But the Holy Spirit, being that which proceeds from the Father, is ever in the hands of the Father Who sends and of the Son Who conveys Him, by Whose means He filled all things. The Father, possessing His existence from Himself, begot the Son… and did not create Him, as a river from a well and as a branch from a root, and as brightness from a light, things which nature knows to be indivisible; through whom to the Father be glory and power and greatness before all ages, and unto all the ages of the ages. Amen

3 Translated by Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing
Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2821.htm>.

Vigils Reading - SS Philip and James
2023-05-03
SAINTS PHILIP AND JAMES
From the writings of Alban Butler4
Jesus, we are told, “found Philip” and said to him, “Follow me”… Though his knowledge was imperfect, so much so that he describes Jesus as “the son of Joseph of Nazareth”, he goes at once to find his friend Nathanael… and tells him, “We have found him of whom Moses, in the law and the prophets did write”, being plainly satisfied that this was in truth the <Messiah>. At the same time Philip gives proof of a sober discretion in his missionary zeal… When Nathanael objects, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” his answer is… “Come and see”… Another glimpse is afforded us… when on the evening before the Passion our Lord announced, “No man cometh to the Father but by me.”… Philip saith to Him: “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us”. Jesus saith to him: “Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou: Show us the Father?”
Apart from the fact that St Philip is named with the other apostles who spent ten days in the upper room awaiting the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, this is all we know about him with any degree of certainty…
The apostle St James – the Less, or the younger – here associated with St Philip, is most commonly held to be the same individual who is variously designated “James, the son of Alpheus” and “James, the brother of the Lord”… Although no prominence is given to this James in the gospel narrative, we learn from St Paul that he was favoured with a special appearing of our Lord before the Ascension…

The story of his martyrdom… has been preserved by Eusebius, and runs as follows… There was an uproar among the Jews and scribes and pharisees, for they said: “There is danger that the whole people should expect Jesus as the Christ”. Coming together, therefore, they said to James: “We beseech thee, restrain the people, for they are gone astray unto Jesus, imagining that he is the Christ… Persuade the multitude that they go not astray… The scribes and pharisees set James upon the pinnacle of the temple…
And he replied with a loud voice: “Why ask ye me concerning the Son of Man, since He sitteth in Heaven on the right hand of the Mighty Power, and shall come on the clouds of Heaven?” And when many were fully persuaded and gave glory at the testimony of James and said: “Hosanna to the son of David”, then once more the same scribes and pharisees said among themselves: “We do ill in affording such a testimony to Jesus. Let us rather go up and cast him down, that being affrighted they may not believe him.”… Going up therefore they cast the Just One down… And they began to stone him, for the fall did not kill him. But turning he kneeled down and said: “I beseech thee, O Lord God, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. And while they thus were stoning him, one of the priests… cried aloud, saying: “Cease ye; what do ye? The Just One is praying on your behalf.” And one of them, a fuller, took the stick with which he beat out the clothes, and brough it down on the Just One’s head. Thus he was martyred

4 Butler’s Lives of the Saints: Complete Edition – Volume II. Ed. Herbert Thurston, S.J. New York, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1956. 203-206.

Vigils Reading
2023-05-04
WHOEVER RECEIVES ME
A Meditation on the Gospel of John by Adrienne von Speyr5
When the Lord wanted to institute his Eucharist in the form of a meal, he had to take hunger and satiation into consideration. They are very simple concepts, taken from everyday life, to which the Lord, in his self-giving, imparts a new, infinite, spiritual sense. He wants to express his whole relationship to us in these two concepts. Hunger, then, would be everything that we have to bring to him, and satiation, everything that he gives us. In the end, everyone experiences hunger in one way or another, and one cannot say from the outset that the bad experience either more or less hunger than the good. And, likewise, everyone is sated, for his sacrifice exists not only for a few elect individuals, but for all… Even the one who betrays him… Thus, the hunger of the world and its satiation by the Lord complement each other.
Food is expected to fulfill its purpose of stilling mankind’s hunger. This applies also to the Eucharist, except that in its case no limits can be given to satiation. Nor can one say when satiety from one Communion ends and hunger for a new Communion begins, for both are simultaneous. Both… bring the receiver nearer to the Lord. From him stem both desire and its satisfaction. The kind of satiation varies… But the Eucharist, as related either to hunger or to satiation, is always an expression of a still greater love…
Whoever receives me, receives him who sent me. One can receive the Lord as Martha and Mary received him: as the human friend and master, who then gradually reveals himself as our divine Lord. One can also receive him in the sacramental form of the Eucharist, which the Lord himself has predetermined and to which we must adapt ourselves…

Whoever receives the Lord in one of these forms, receives God. It is not possible to stop at one of these forms, to be content with the Lord’s humanity without going further to God. Whether one is Martha or Mary, whether one receives the Lord in the Eucharist or in faith, one always receives something greater than one was prepared to receive or capable of receiving on one’s own. No one knows what he receives when he receives the Lord. He cannot imagine the infinitude that visits him, for it will always be God whom he receives, and God will always be the transcendent One. Our mission in life will always be greater than our life itself. This is because he whom we receive and who sends us grows beyond himself into the Father, and through his humanity introduces his divinity, and thus the Father, into us

5 Adrienne von Speyr. John: The Farewell Discourses – Meditations on John 13-17. Trans. E.A. Nelson. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987. 38-42.

Vigils Reading
2023-05-05
HE WHO IS THE WAY
From a Sermon by St Isaac of Stella6
…Who does not want to be happy? Why do men universally quarrel and fight, bargain, resort to flattery, and inflict injuries on one another? Is it not simply in order to obtain, by fair means or foul, what seems good to them, something that promises to make them happy? For everyone imagines himself the happier the more he obtains what he desires.
Men agree, then in their desire for happiness, but their conceptions of it differ widely. For one it consists in physical pleasure and fleeting enjoyment, for another in strength of character, for yet another in knowledge of truth…
So he who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”, he who corrects, guides and welcomes, begins with the words: “Happy are the poor in spirit”. The false wisdom of this world, which is true stupidity… relates to wealth that may fail, and to peace that is no peace, and to empty gladness. In direct contradiction, the Wisdom of God, the Right Hand of the Father, his own Son, the Mouth that speaks truth, declares that the happy people are the poor, they will be the kings of a kingdom that is everlasting.
As if he were to say: “You seek happiness but it is not where you think it is. You are running hard, but off the track. Here is the right road, here is the way to happiness. Poverty is the way, poverty willingly embraced for my sake. Happiness is the kingdom of heaven in me. You run energetically but not profitably, for the faster you run, the further you are from the track. Poverty is the way to happiness. Keep to the way and you will arrive.”

Courage, then, brothers; it is for us who are poor to listen to the Poor Man commending poverty to the poor. Someone speaking from experience is to be believed; Christ was born poor, lived poor and died poor. He willed to die; certainly he did not will to become rich. Let us believe Truth when he tells us of the way to life. If it is hard, it is brief, while happiness is eternal. It is narrow but it leads to life and brings us out into freedom; it will “set our feet in an open place”. It is steep, of course it is, for it goes uphill, it reaches to heaven! So we must be lightly equipped, not heavily encumbered, for the climb

6 Isaac of Stella. Sermons of the Christian Year: Volume One. CF 11. Trans. Hugh McCaffery. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979. 6-8.

Vigils Reading
2023-05-06
WHATSOEVER YOU SHALL ASK
From a treatise by St. Augustine7

The Lord, by His promise, gave those whose hopes were resting on Himself a special ground of confidence, when He said, For I go to the Father; and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, I will do it. His proceeding, therefore, to the Father, was not with any view of abandoning the needy, but of hearing and answering their petitions. But

what is to be made of the words, Whatsoever you shall ask, when we behold His faithful ones so often asking and not receiving? Is it, shall we say, for no other reason but that they ask amiss? For the Apostle James made this a ground of reproach when he said, You ask and receive not, because <you> ask amiss… What one, therefore, wishes to receive, in order to turn to an improper use, God in His mercy rather refuses to bestow…
Do we not see how the Israelites got to their own hurt what their guilty lusting craved? For while it was raining manna on them from heaven, they desired to have flesh to eat. They disdained what they had, and shamelessly sought what they had not… For when evil becomes our delight, and what is good the reverse, we ought to be entreating God rather to win us back to the love of the good, than to grant us the evil… But to let us know that the wrong lies not with any creature of God, but with obstinate disobedience and inordinate desire, it was not in swine’s flesh that the first man found death, but in an apple; and it was not for a fowl, but for a dish of pottage, that Esau lost his birthright.

Accordingly, when we wish Him to do whatsoever we ask, let it not be in any way, but in His name… of the Saviour, that we present our petition… For He who condescends to be the Saviour of the faithful, is also a Judge to condemn the ungodly. Whatsoever, therefore, any one that believes in Him shall ask in that name which He bears to those

who believe in Him, He will do it; for He will do it as the Saviour… On that account, not only as the Saviour, but also as the good Master, He taught us, in the very prayer He gave us, what we should ask, in order that, whatsoever we shall ask, He may do it; and that we, too, might thereby understand that we cannot be asking in the Master’s name anything that is inconsistent with the rule of His own instructions.
In no respect, therefore, does the Son act without the Father, since He so acts for

the very purpose that in Him the Father may be glorified. The Father, therefore, acts in the Son, that the Son may be glorified in the Father: and the Son acts in the Father, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; for the Father and the Son are one.

7 St Augustine. The Fathers of the Church: St. Augustine – Tractates on the Gospel of John. Tractate 67. https://sites.google.com/site/aquinasstudybible/home/gospel-of-john-commentary/st-augustine-on- john/augustine-on-john-14

Skema
2023-05-07
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
5th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
May 7 – 13, 2023

Sun
7
Mon
8
Tue
9
Wed
10
Thu
11
Fri
12
Sat
13

Office
5th Sunday of Easter
Bl Christian de Cherge
Easter Weekday
St Damien de Veuster
Holy Abbots of Cluny
Easter Weekday
Our Lady of Fatima

Vigils
Rev 18:21-19:10
Rev 19:11-21
Rev 20:1-15
Rev 21:1-8
Rev 21:9-27
Rev 22:1-9
Rev 22:10-21

Lauds
Col 2:9-15
Col 3:1-11
Col 3:12-17
1 Tim 1:1-7
1 Tim 1:12-17
1 Tim 2:1-7
1 Tim 4:6-10

Mass
52
285
286
287
288
289
290

1st
Acts 6:1-7
Acts 14:5-18
Acts 14:19-28
Acts 15:1-6
Acts 15:7-21
Acts 15:22-31
Acts 16:1-10

2nd
1 Pet 2:4-9

Gospel
John 14:1-12
John 14:21-26
John 14:27-31a
John 15:1-8
John 15:9-11
John 15:12-17
John 15:18-21

Vespers
Acts 16:35-40
Acts 17:1-5a
Acts 17:10-15
Acts 17:16-23
Acts 18:18-23
Acts 19:8-12
Acts 19:13-20

Vigils Readings
2023-05-07
IT IS THE WAY THAT LEADS US
a commentary by St Ambrose1
Let us march forward intrepidly to meet our Redeemer, Jesus, pursuing our onward course without swerving until we come to the assembly of the saints and are welcomed by the company of the just. It is to join our Christian forebears that we are journeying, to those who taught us our faith – that faith which comes to our aid and safeguards our heritage for us even when we have no good works to show. In the place we are making for the Lord will be everyone’s light; the true light which enlightens every human person will shine upon all. In the house where we are going the Lord Jesus has prepared many dwelling-places for his servants, so that where he is we also may be, for this was his desire. Hear his own words about them: In my Father’s house are many dwelling-places, and about his desire: I will come again, he says, and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.
“But he was speaking only to his disciples” you say, “and so it was to them alone that the many dwelling-places were promised.” Do you really suppose it was only for the eleven disciples they were prepared? And what of the saying about people coming from all the corners of the earth to sit at table in the kingdom of heaven? Do we doubt that the divine will will be accomplished? But for Christ, to will is to do! Accordingly he has shown us both the way and the place: You know where I am going, he said, and you know the way. The place is where the Father is; the way is Christ, according to his own declaration: I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. Let us set out on this way, let us hold fast to truth, let us follow life. It is the way that leads us, the truth that strengthens us, the life that is restored to us through him.

To make sure that we really understand his will, Christ prays later on:
Father, it is my desire that those whom you have given me may be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory. How graciously he asks for what he had already promised! The promise came first and then the request, not the other way around. Conscious of his authority and knowing the gift was at his own disposal, he made the promise; then, as if to show his filial submission, he asked his Father to grant it. He promised first to make us aware of his power; he asked afterwards to show us his loving deference to his Father.
Yes, Lord Jesus, we do follow you, but we can only come at your bidding. No one can make the ascent without you, for you are our way, our truth, our life, our strength, our confidence, our reward. Be the way that receives us, the truth that strengthens us, the life that invigorates us

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 64-65.
