Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Lenten Weekday
2026-03-23
From a letter by 2
ST AUGUSTINE
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When the time came for the grace of the New Testament to be revealed through the man Christ Jesus, there was no question of his attracting us to himself with the promise of earthly happiness. This explains our Lord’s willingness to undergo suffering, to be scourged, spat upon, mocked, nailed to the Cross, and to accept death itself like one conquered and humiliated. All this he endured so that those who believed in him might learn what recompense for their dutiful service they could ask for and expect from God who had made them his children. They had to learn to serve him without any eye to earthly prosperity, for to value their faith at so low a price would be tantamount to rejecting it and trampling it underfoot.
By his great human compassion and by appearing among us in the form of a servant, Christ, who is both God and man, meant to teach us what we should spurn in this life and what we should hope for in the next. It was accordingly at the very height of his Passion, when his enemies thought they had won such a mighty victory, that he gave voice to our human weakness which was being crucified together with our former selves to set our sinful bodies free; and his cry was My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
In taking up this expression of our frailty our Head is praying the psalm: My God, my God, look upon me: why have you forsaken me? Here the suppliant feels abandoned; his prayer seems to be of no avail. Jesus made these words his own; they are the words of his Body, that is, of the Church which must endure the travail of conversion from unregenerate human nature into the new
creation. His is the voice of our human weakness, which has to be weaned from the good things of the Old Testament and taught to long after and hope for those of the New.
2
St Augustine, Letter 140.13-15 (PL 33:543-544); Word in Season II, 1st ed.

Lenten Weekday
2026-03-24
From a homily by 3
ST AUGUSTINE
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The Lord marked out for us the fullness of love we ought to have for each other when he told us: There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Taking into account his previous words, namely: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you, the conclusion we must draw is the same as that of the evangelist John who recorded these statements. In his first letter John tells us that we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren in the same way as Christ laid down his life for us, loving one another after the example of Christ who loved us and made the supreme sacrifice for us.
Surely this is what we read in the Proverbs of Solomon: When you sit down to eat at the table of a ruler, consider carefully what is set before you, then stretch out your hand and take your portion knowing that you in your turn will have to provide the same kind of meal. What is this ruler’s table, if not the altar at which we receive the body and blood of him who laid down his life for us?
And what does it mean to sit at this table, if not to approach it with humility? What does it mean to stretch out your hand and take your portion knowing that you will have to provide the same kind of meal yourself, if not what I have already told you, namely that just as Christ laid down his life for us so we too ought to lay down our lives for our brethren? This is what the apostle Peter said: Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we might follow in his footsteps.
This is what it means to provide the same kind of meal, and what their burning love enabled the blessed martyrs to do. If we are to give true meaning to our celebration of their memorials, approaching the Lord’s table at the very feast at which they were fed, we must, like them, provide the same kind of meal. At this table we do not commemorate the martyrs in the same way as we commemorate others who now rest in peace, so as to include them in our prayers, but rather in order that they should pray for us and help us to follow in their footsteps. They practiced that perfect love which Christ said could not be surpassed, offering their brethren the same kind of meal as they themselves had received from the table of the Lord.
This must not be understood as implying that we can be the Lord’s equals by bearing witness to him to the extent of shedding our blood. Christ had the power to lay down his life and to take it up again; but we cannot choose how long we shall live, and death comes to us even against our will. Finally, even if martyrs die for their brethren, none of them by shedding his blood brings forgiveness for the sins of his brothers, as Christ brought forgiveness to us. In this he gave us not so much an example to imitate as a reason for rejoicing. Insofar, then, as they shed their blood for their brethren, the martyrs provided the same kind of meal as they themselves had received from the table of the Lord. Let us therefore love one another as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.
3
St Augustine, In John. 84.1-2 (CCL 36:536-538); Word in Season II, 1st ed.

Annunciation of the Lord
2026-03-25
From a sermon by 4
BLESSED GUERRIC OF IGNY
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It is indeed a kind word, a reliable word in which you can believe, this gospel of our salvation which the angel, sent by God, announced to Mary on this day. It is a joyful word which day utters unto day, the angel to the virgin, concerning the incarnation of the Word. It promises a son to the Virgin, and at the same time pardon to sinners, redemption to captives, release to the imprisoned, life to those in the grave. In foretelling the Son’s kingdom and announcing the glory of the righteous, it makes hell fearful and gives joy to heaven. By the revelation of these mysteries and by the new joys it brings them, it seems to have increased the perfection of the angels.
Is there an afflicted person who would not be cheered by this kind word, or anyone whose lowliness it would not console? Remember your word to your servant by which you gave me hope, sang David. It was this which consoled me when I was brought low. He received only a promise, a word which did not show any sign of coming true. The delay in the fulfillment of his desire distressed him, but he took comfort by hoping firmly in the good faith of the one who had made the promise. If David could sustain his spirit with just the hope of the salvation which was being kept for us, with what joy and delight ought we not to greet its realization?
Blessed are the mourners because they will be comforted, blessed those whose hearts are afflicted by a holy grief because they shall be gladdened by a kind word. Clearly the kind word which consoles is your all-powerful Word, O Lord, which came today from the heavenly throne into the womb of a virgin. There, too, he made a royal throne, and from there he consoles those who
mourn on earth even while he sits as king surrounded by the hosts of angels in heaven.
4
A Word in Season – vol/ IV – Augustinian Press p 1991 – pg 52.

Lenten Weekday
2026-03-26
From a commentary by 5
ST AUGUSTINE
◊◊◊
If our natural, sinful life had not been symbolically hanging on the Cross when the Lord died, the unregenerate instincts that were once ours would not have been crucified with him. But the apostle Paul assures us that our former selves were put to death with Christ on the Cross. The Lord died to free our bodies from the tyranny of sin. He intended us to be slaves of sin no longer.
Christ’s death and our sin were foreshadowed long ago in the desert, when Moses fastened a serpent to a wooden stake and held it on high. We must remember that it was through heeding the voice of a serpent that the human race had incurred the penalty of death, and so it was appropriate that a serpent, fastened to a wooden standard and raised aloft, should prefigure the death of Christ. In that symbol we have an image of the Lord’s death by hanging.
Now if Scripture were to say: Cursed be all that hang from a tree, we should scarcely feel disturbed. Yet that serpent hanging from a tree represents our Lord’s physical death. He himself confirmed this interpretation by saying: Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up above the earth. No one therefore will be likely to accuse Moses of intending to insult the Lord by this action, when he understands the power the Cross contains for the healing of the human race. Only because the serpent was a symbol of our Lord’s Cross did Moses command it to be erected, so that the people who were dying from snakebite might find instant cure through fixing their gaze upon it.
The serpent was fashioned from bronze as a symbol of faith in the enduring effects of the Lord’s Passion… The fact is that if people were to forget that Christ died for them and every record of the time of his Passion were to be destroyed, the human race would indeed be in the grip of death. But faith in Christ’s Cross abides for ever; it is as enduring as bronze. Despite the constant cycle of birth and death the Cross continues to be held high above the earth for the healing of all who gaze upon it.
There need be no surprise, then, at the way in which Christ dealt with the curse on the human race. He overcame that curse by taking it upon his own person. He vanquished death by undergoing death himself, sin by identifying himself with sin, and the ancient serpent by means of another serpent. Death, sin and the serpent were all included in God’s curse, but the Cross has triumphed over each of them.
And so there is profound truth in that word of Scripture: Cursed be all that hang on a tree. Christ grants justification to those who believe in him, simply because they have faith and not because they observe the Law. This means that any fear of falling under the curse attached to the Cross has been taken away, while love endures. The blessing granted to Abraham for his exemplary faith is extended to the Gentiles, so that we may receive the promised Spirit through faith. In other words, the promised gift to believers is not a spirit of outward observance based on fear, but one of inward devotion inspired by love.
5
St Augustine, In Gal. 22 (PL 35:2120-2121); Word in Season II, 1st ed.

Lenten Weekday
2026-03-27
From a commentary by 6
ORIGEN
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While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Few people would die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man one might have the courage to die.
Saint Paul has just told us that the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Now in his desire to demonstrate the power of that love more fully, he gives us the convincing proof that it was not for good men but for sinners that Christ died. It is indeed true that we were sinners before we turned to God, and that our Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life for us before we believed in him. This he surely could not have done without an immense love for us, either the love he himself showed by dying for sinners, or the love God the Father showed by giving his only Son for our redemption.
Few people would give their lives even for a righteous man, and all of us face death with reluctance, even in a just cause. How great a Saviour we have then, and how deeply we ought to ponder his love for us! It is a clear proof of his divine goodness that when the appointed time came, he did not hesitate to suffer and die for the ungodly and the unjust. In the Gospel it is said that no one is good but God the Father; and so unless our Saviour had been his Son, sharing in the Father’s very substance, he could not have shown such great goodness toward us. By this proof, therefore, we can recognize in him that good man for whom someone might have the courage to die.
Once people have understood the extent of Christ’s goodness toward them and his love has been poured into their hearts, they will long not only to die for this good man Christ, but to die voluntarily. In fact we often see this happen, when Christians whose hearts are overflowing with the love of Christ present themselves before their persecutors of their own free will and with the utmost courage, confessing the name of Christ in the presence of angels and men for the whole world to hear. Not only do they have the courage to suffer injustice for the name of this good man, but for his sake they are even ready to give their lives. Few would do this even for a righteous man, since our love of this mortal life is so great that even in a just cause hardly anyone can bear to die. Only for God’s sake will people have the courage to submit to death of their own free will. For any other reason they can scarcely endure it, even in the cause of justice and in obedience to the laws of nature.
6
Origen, In Rom. 4.10-11 (PG 14:997-999); Word in Season II, 1st ed.

Lenten Weekday
2026-03-28
From the writing of 7
DOM COLUMBA MARMION
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When we thus submit ourselves entirely to Christ Jesus, when we abandon ourselves to Him, when our soul only responds, like His own, with a perpetual Amen to all that He asks of us in the name of His Father…then Christ Jesus establishes His peace in us: His peace, not that which the world promises, but the true peace which can only come from Himself…
Doubtless, here below, peace is not always sensible; upon earth we are in a condition of trial and, most often, peace is won by conflict… We may be slighted, opposed, persecuted, be unjustly treated, our intentions and deeds may be misunderstood; temptation may shake us, suffering may come suddenly upon us; but there is an inner sanctuary which none can reach; here is the sojourn of our peace, because in this innermost secret of the soul dwell adoration, submission and abandonment to God. “I love my God,” said St Augustine, “no one takes Him from me: no one takes from me what I ought to give Him, for that is enclosed within my heart…”
Death cannot trouble the soul that has sought only God. Has it not confided itself to the One Who says: “He that believes in Me, although he be dead, shall live”…
In one of her “Exercises,” St Gertrude allows her assurance, which the infinite merits of Jesus give her, to overflow. “Woe, woe unto me, if, when I come before You, I had no advocate to plead my cause!… Come with me to judgment… there let us stand together. Judge me, for the right is Yours; but remember You are also my Advocate. In order that I be fully acquitted, You have but to recount what You did become for love of me, the price wherewith You have purchased me…”
For souls moved by such sentiments, death is but a transition; Christ comes Himself to open to them the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem… There will be no more darkness, trouble, tears, or sighs; but peace, infinite and perfect peace. “Peace first becomes ours with the longing and seeking for the Creator; it is in the full vision and eternal possession of Him that peace is made perfect.”

7
Marmion, Dom Columba, O.S.B. Suffering with Christ: An anthology of the Writings of Dom Columba Cmarmion, O.S.B. Compiled by Dom Raymund Thibaut, O.S.B. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1954. 220-221, 232-233.

Skema Holy Week
2026-03-29
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
Holy Week

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (II)
March 29 – April 4, 2026

Sun
29
Mon
30
Tue
31
Wed
1
Thu
2
Fri
3
Sat
4

Office
Palm Sunday
Monday of Holy Week
Tuesday of Holy Week
Wednesday of Holy Week
Holy Thursday
Good Friday
Holy Saturday

Vigils
Zech 9:9-17
Lam 1:1-16
Lam 2:1-10
Lam 2:18-22
Lam 3:19-54
Lam 4:1-6
Lam 5:1-22

Lauds
Zeph 3:14-20
Lam 1:17-22
Lam 2:11-17
Lam 3:1-18
Lam 3:55-66
Wis 2:10-22
Isa 63:1-6

Mass
38
257
258
259
39
40

1st
Isa 50:4-7
Isa 42:1-7
Isa 49:1-6
Isa 50:4-9a
Exod 12:1-8, 11-14
Isa 52:13-53:12

2nd
Phil 2:6-11

1 Cor 11:23-26
Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Gospel
Matt 26:14-27:66
John 12:1-11
John 13:21-33, 36-38
Matt 26:14-25
John 13:1-15
John 18:1-19:42

Vespers
1 Tim 6:11-16
Rom 5:6-11
1 Cor 1:18-25
1 Pet 2:20-25
—-
—-
1 Pet 4:1-8

Palm Sunday
2026-03-29
From the writing of 1
HENRI DANIEL-ROPS
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Jesus stopped at a village called, Bethphage, which means “the house of figs”, and it was market day. “Go into the village,” said Jesus, “and untie a donkey and a colt that you will find there, and bring them to me. If anyone raises an objection, say that the Lord has need of them, and you will be allowed to take the animals”. The command seems rather strange to a modern reader, but it would have seemed much less so to the Jews round Jesus. Even if the mode of borrowing the donkey is unusual, one could sense that it had a prophetic significance. After all, Zacharias had said” “See where thy king comes to greet thee, a trusty deliverer; see how lowly he rides, mounted on a donkey, the foal of a donkey”. A messianic entry was being arranged.
Such was certainly the scene that actually took place. “The moment”, says Romano Guardini, “belongs to the power of the Spirit.” Jesus arrived, in the sunshine of the Palestinian spring, in sight of the city. His friends and followers acclaimed him, and there was soon a whole crowd surging round him…
“Who is it?” asked those loitering by the roadside. “Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee”, was the answer, and Hosannas rang out, people cut branches off the palm trees and waved them enthusiastically above their heads, and cloaks were strewn on the ground to make a ceremonial carpet for the Messiah’s mount. A curious triumph, which was to remain limited and modest, but a significant one; now that the hour of decision was at hand, Jesus no longer needed to keep his messianic character half-concealed; indeed, it was important that it should be recognized.
However, amid this manifestation of joy, Jesus had a deep feeling of anxiety and anguish. When he arrived on the crest of the mount of Olives, he stopped; the city lay before him behind huge walls bristling with towers, looking invincible and eternal. But the power of the Holy Spirit gave Christ a quite different picture, that of a Jerusalem besieged, crushed and destroyed. Why? Because it had been blind to the light…
When he arrived at the Temple, the goal of his entry as a pilgrim, Jesus caused a spectacular scene. Noticing in the colonnades the traders who were changing money or selling counters entitling their holders to the ritual lamb or doves for sacrifice, he rushed to their tables and overturned them. “Was the house of prayer to become a den of thieves?” He was really blazing with the zeal of God. It was an astonishing mysterious day. It looks as if Jesus wanted to confront all humans with the truth, with their responsibilities, once and for all.
When the day was over, and the western sky was red behind the three Herodian towers which crowned the wall on that side of the city, he had this further lesson for the little band of faithful followers who had stayed round him and was probably gazing at the setting sun: “I have come into this world as a light, so that all those who believe in me may continue no longer in darkness.” As they returned with him to Bethany, to spend the night there, the disciples must have had much to think about.

Monday of Holy Week
2026-03-30
From a sermon by 2
ST AELRED OF RIEVAULX
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Our Lord Jesus Christ worked our salvation not in one way only, but undoubtedly in many ways. Since it was in mercy that he had planned our redemption, he wrought this redemption in such a way that he might serve as an example for us… In this season you are recalling this redemption of ours. Be careful, then, to reflect not only on the fact of this redemption but also on two other points: the manner in which this redemption was wrought, and the place in which it was wrought. The manner of redemption is the suffering of the Cross; the place, outside the city.
Let us then learn from the Cross of Jesus our proper way of living. Should I say ‘living’ or, instead, ‘dying’? Rather, both living and dying. Dying to the world, living for God. Dying to vices and living by the virtues. Dying to the flesh, but living in the spirit. Thus in the Cross of Christ there is death and in the Cross of Christ there is life. The death of death is there, and the life of life. The death of sins is there and the life of the virtues. The death of the flesh is there, and the life of the spirit. But why did God choose this manner of death? He chose it as both a mystery and an example. In addition, he chose it because our sickness was such as to make such a remedy appropriate.
It was fitting that we who had fallen because of a tree might rise up because of a tree. Fitting that the one who had conquered by means of a tree might also be conquered by means of a tree… And because we had fallen from the security of that most blessed place on earth into this great, expansive sea, it was fitting that wood should be made ready to carry us across it. For no one crosses the sea except on wood, or this world except on the Cross…
Death on a Cross is endured not on the earth but above the earth; and the victim’s limbs are not cut off but stretched. They are stretched horizontally and perpendicularly, so that the crucified man is stretched out in the four directions and seems to embrace the four quarters of the world, taking possession of both heaven and earth. For when a Cross is set upright, the head is directed to heaven and the feet to earth, and the outstretched arms to what is located between heaven and earth. Moreover, if you lay a crucified man on the ground, one part of him will occupy the east, another the west, another the south, and another the north.
Do you see, now, the mystery in the kind of death Christ chose? The Apostle sets forth this point with clarity, when he says: He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to death on the Cross. And, revealing the mystery, he says: Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above all names, so that at the name of Jesus every knee might bend of those who are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Since, then, he was to take possession of heaven and earth through the Cross, on the Cross he embraced heaven and earth.
2
St Aelred, In Hebd. Sancta, sermon 36.1-2.4 (CCM 2A:294-295); Word in Season II, 2nd ed.

Tuesday of Holy Week
2026-03-31
From “On the Virtue of Patience” by 3
ST CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE
◊◊◊
Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, said that he had come down to earth to do his Father’s will. Among the virtues that revealed his divine majesty was the endurance that mirrored his Father’s patience. Every act of his, from the moment of his first appearing, bore the stamp of the patience with which it was carried out. He was no sinner, but the Son of God; yet when he descended to earth from the heights of heaven, he did not disdain to assume human nature and bear the sins of men.
Laying aside his immortality for a while, he suffered himself to be made mortal, in order that the innocent could die to save the guilty. He, the Lord, was baptized by a servant, and though he had come to grant forgiveness of sins he did not think it beneath him to wash in the life-giving waters. He fasted for forty days, yet it is through him that others are filled with good things. If he hungered and thirsted, it was to enable those who were faint for want of the word and grace of God to be filled with bread from heaven. He engaged in combat with the devil who tempted him, but was content to defeat his enemy by words alone.
He did not govern his disciples as a master rules his slaves. He was kind and gentle, loving them as brothers, even washing the feet of the apostles, showing by his example how a servant should bear himself toward his equals when his master dealt in such a way with his servants. No wonder he could show such goodness to the disciples who obeyed him, if he was able to bear so long and so patiently with Judas, eating and drinking with his enemy, recognizing the foe in his own household yet neither exposing him publicly nor refusing his treacherous kiss.
At the time of his Passion and Cross, even before it had gone as far as the inhuman crucifixion and the shedding of his blood, how patiently he bore reviling and reproach, insult and mockery! A little while before, he had cured the eyes of a blind man with his spittle, yet now he allowed his tormentors to spit in his face. His servants today scourge the devil and his angels in the name of Christ, but at the time of his Passion Christ himself submitted to being scourged. He crowns the martyrs with never-fading flowers, though he himself was crowned with thorns. Others he clothes in the garment of immortality, yet he himself was stripped of his earthly garments. He had fed them with bread from heaven, yet he himself was fed with gall; and he who had poured out the saving cup was offered vinegar to drink.
He the innocent, he the just, he rather who is the embodiment of innocence and justice, is counted among evil-doers. Truth is confuted by false evidence. The future judge is subjected to judgment; the Word of God is led to the Cross in silence. At the Lord’s crucifixion the stars are thrown into confusion, the elements are disturbed, earth trembles, and night swallows up day. But he himself is silent, unmoved, hiding every sign of his godhead throughout the whole duration of his Passion. Enduring all things, he perseveres to the end, so that in him patience may be brought to its full measure of perfection.
3 St Cyprian, On the Virtue of Patience 6-7 (CSEL 3:401-402); Word in Season II, 1st ed.

Wednesday of Holy Week
2026-04-01
From a sermon by 4
ST LEO THE GREAT
◊◊◊
When God, whose absolute being is immune from suffering, assumed our fragile humanity in Christ, he strengthened it beyond measure. Henceforth it was no longer to remain under death’s dominion; through a nature immortal in itself, mortal man would be raised to life.
We must strive, dearly beloved, with great effort of soul and body to join ourselves inseparably to this mystery. While failure to observe the Paschal Solemnity would be a very grave offense, it would be still more dangerous to be united with congregations at Church but have no sharing in our Lord’s Passion. The apostle’s saying is true: If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.No one can truly worship the suffering, dead and risen Christ unless he himself suffers, dies, and rises again with him.
For all the Church’s children this sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection begins at the mystery of regeneration, when sin is destroyed and we are born to new life. There the Lord’s three-day sojourn in the grave is represented by a three-fold immersion. The stone is, as it were, rolled away from the tomb, and those who enter the font in their old, sin-stained condition are brought forth new by the baptismal waters. What has been effected in mystery, however, must still be carried out in their daily lives. As long as they are in this mortal body, those who are born of the Spirit must take up their cross.
Christ has lifted us up with himself on the Cross: there let the Christian take his stand. He knows it is the place where his human nature was redeemed, and all his steps should be directed toward it – for the Lord’s Passion is prolonged until the end of the world. Just as it is he whom we honour and love in the saints, he whom we feed and clothe in the poor, so too it is he who suffers in all who endure adversity for the sake of what is right, unless, indeed, we are to imagine that, with the spread of the faith, all persecution has come to an end together with every conflict which ever raged against the blessed martyrs – as if the bearing of the Cross were reserved only for those who have to suffer atrocious torments for the love of Christ.
Wise souls who have learned to fear and love the one and only Lord and to hope in him alone, mortify their passions and crucify their bodily senses. They prefer the will of God to their own lives, and insofar as they renounce love of self for love of God, they love themselves all the more truly. In such members of Christ’s body, beloved brethren, the Holy Passover is celebrated properly and they shall lack none of those victories which our Saviour’s Passion has won.
4
St Leo the Great, Sermon 70.3-5 – Good Friday 443 (PL 54,:382-384); Word in Season II, 2nd ed.

Thursday of Holy Week
2026-04-02
From the writing of 5
ST EPHREM OF SYRIA
◊◊◊
The evening before our Lord gave himself up to death he shared his own body with his Apostles and offered them his blood, with the command that they were to do what he had done in order to keep the memory of his Passion alive. Then a strange thing happened. Earlier Jesus had charged his disciples not to fear death. Do not be afraid of those who have power to kill your body, he had said. But now he himself showed fear, and begged to be spared the cup of suffering. Father, he prayed if it be possible, let this cup pass me by. How are we to explain this?
The answer is that our Lord’s petition was wrung from the human weakness he had made his own. There was no pretense about his incarnation; it was absolutely real. And since the donning of our poor humanity had made him puny and defenseless, it was only natural that he should experience fear and alarm. Eating to alleviate hunger, showing weariness after exertion, and revealing human weakness by the need for sleep were all the effects of his taking our flesh and clothing himself with our infirmity. Consequently when the moment of death drew near, he necessarily experienced the ultimate frailty of our human condition; he was gripped by a dreadful horror of dying.
It was then that Jesus said to his disciples: Stay awake and pray that you may be spared the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And in answer to our question he might well say: ‘When you are afraid, it is not your spirit that trembles but your human weakness. Remember then that I myself tasted the fear of death in my desire to convince you that I truly shared your flesh and blood.’
A further answer to our question is that Jesus wished to teach his disciples how to commit themselves to God both in life and in death. His own divine knowledge made him supremely wise, yet he prayed for what his Father judged to be expedient. How much more ought we ignorant men to surrender our wills to God’s omniscience!
We may also tell ourselves that we too were in our Lord’s mind as he prayed. In time of temptation our minds become confused and our imagination runs riot. By persevering in prayer Jesus was showing us how much we ourselves need to pray if we are to escape the wiles and snares of the devil. It is only by constant prayer that we gain control of our distracted thoughts.
Finally, there is our Lord’s desire to strengthen all who are afraid of death. By letting them see that he himself had experienced fear he would show them that fear does not necessarily lead to sin, provided one continues to resist it. This is the force of our Lord’s concluding prayer: Not my will, Father, but yours be done. He is saying: ‘Yes, Father, I am ready to die in order to bring life to many.’
5. St Ephrem of Syria, Diatessaron 20.3-4, 6-7 (CSCO 145:201-204); Word in Season II, 2nd ed.

Good Friday
2026-04-03
From a sermon by 6
ST LEO THE GREAT
◊◊◊
When our Lord was handed over to the will of his cruel foes, they ordered him, in mockery of his royal dignity, to carry the instrument of his own torture. This was done to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah: A child is born for us, a son is given to us; sovereignty is laid upon his shoulders. To the wicked, the sight of the Lord carrying his own Cross was indeed an object of derision; but to the faithful a great mystery was revealed, for the Cross was destined to become the scepter of his power. Here was the majestic spectacle of a glorious conqueror mightily overthrowing the hostile forces of the devil and nobly bearing the trophy of his victory.
As the crowd accompanied Jesus to the place of execution, the soldiers found a man called Simon of Cyrene, onto whose shoulders they transferred the weight of the Lord’s Cross. This action prefigured the faith of the Gentiles, to whom the Cross of Christ would mean glory rather than shame. By this substitution the atonement of the unblemished lamb and the fulfillment of all the rites of the old Law passed from the people of the circumcision to the Gentiles, from the children born of the flesh to those born of the spirit.
In the words of the Apostle: Christ our Passover is sacrificed. As the new and authentic sacrifice of reconciliation, it was not in the Temple, whose cult was now at an end, that he offered himself to the Father; nor was it within the walls of the city doomed to destruction for its crimes. It was beyond the city gates, outside the camp, that he was crucified, in order that when the ancient sacrificial dispensation came to an end a new victim might be laid on a new altar, and the Cross of Christ become the altar not of the Temple, but of the world.
You drew all things to yourself, Lord, when all the elements combined to pronounce judgment in execration of that crime. Figures gave way to reality, prophecy to manifestation, Law to Gospel. You drew all things to yourself in order that the worship of the whole human race could be celebrated everywhere in a sacramental form which would openly fulfill what had been enacted by means of veiled symbols in that single Jewish Temple.
6
St Leo the Great, Sermon 59.4-6 – Weds in HWK 444 (PL 54:339-341); Word in Season II, 1st ed.

Holy Saturday
2026-04-04
From a homily by 7
ST AUGUSTINE
◊◊◊
Today, my dearest friends, there is every reason for heaven to rejoice and earth to be glad. It is a day on which more light shines forth from the tomb than rays from the sun. When our Lord and Savior was born as one of us he brought light into the world; so also today, being dead in the body, he has illumined the underworld with the powerful presence of his divinity as well as of his human soul. Today at the Lord’s visitation there is leaping and dancing in the nether regions over the fulfillment of the prophecy: The people that sat in darkness(that is to say the whole human race enveloped in the gloom of Sheol) has seen a great light. He who created Adam has this day sought him out in the underworld, and by his own power has set him free.
Wonderful beyond words is the loving kindness of our God! Death had indeed invaded Paradise, but life has now conquered the abyss, and by assuming our mortality the Son of God has trodden underfoot the law that all must die. Thus he has made good the prophet’s assertion: O death, I will be your death! Those whom you have caused to die through sin I will gather up from that place of eternal ruin, and by dying myself I will deliver them from everlasting death.
Look now at the author of our undoing! With what snares he is entangled and fettered! As he deceived us, so he is himself deceived; in the very act of killing he is destroyed.
When the Lord’s body was laid in the tomb, he himself descended into the lowest and most hidden abode of the infernal regions. There, where he was presumed to be held captive, he bound death fast, and so broke the chains of all who had died. And from that place whence none had ever returned before, not even alone, he carried off an immense plunder with which he penetrated the heavens.
See what tremendous things God’s surpassing love has accomplished for our healing and restoration! For our sake he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, having taken upon himself the evils of this present life in order to bestow upon us the good things of eternity.
7
Sermo Mai 146: PLS 2, 1242-1243(CL I p 168-169).

Skema
2026-04-05
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
Easter Octave

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (II)
April 5 – 11, 2026

Sun
5
Mon
6
Tue
7
Wed
8
Thu
9
Fri
10
Sat
11

Office
Easter Sunday
Easter Monday
Easter Tuesday
Easter Wednesday
Easter Thursday
Easter Friday
Easter Saturday

Vigils
* Easter Vigil
Acts 1:1-26
Acts 2:1-21
Acts 2:22-41
Acts 2:42-3:11
Acts 3:12-26;4:1-4
Acts 4:5-31

Lauds
Acts 13:28-33
1 Cor 15:1-11
1 Cor 15:12-19
1 Cor 15:20-28
1 Cor 15:35-41
1 Cor 15:42-49
1 Cor 15:50-58

Mass
42
261
262
263
264
265
266

1st
Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Acts 2:14, 22-33
Acts 2:36-41
Acts 3:1-10
Acts 3:11-26
Acts 4:1-12
Acts 4:13-21

2nd
Col 3:1-4

Gospel
John 20:1-9
Matt 28:8-15
John 20:11-18
Luke 24:13-35
Luke 24:35-48
John 21:1-14
Mark 16:9-15

Vespers
Rev 1:12-18
Rev 1:1-8
Rev 1:9-11
Rev 2:1-7
Rev 2:8-11
Rev 2:12-17
Rev 2:18-29

Easter Vigil Readings* 1st) Gen 1:1-2:2 2nd) Gen 22:1-18 3rd) Exod 14:15-15:1 4th) Isa 54:5-14 5th) Isa 55:1-11 6th) Bar 3:9-15,32-4:4 7th) Ezek 36:16-17a,18-28 Epistle) Rom 6:3-11 Gospel) Matt 28:1-10

Vigils Reading - Easter Sunday
2026-04-05
From a commentary by
RUFINUS OF AQUILEIA
◊◊◊
“On the third day He rose again from the dead.” The glory of His
resurrection brought out in Christ the splendor of everything that previously
seemed feeble and weak. If a few moments ago you thought it impossible for
One who was immortal to reach death, you can now perceive the impossibility of
His being mortal who is declared to have vanquished death and to have risen
again.
In this you should discern the Creator’s goodness, in His readiness to
follow you down to the depths to which your sins have plunged you. You should
not, either, suggest that anything is impossible for God, the Creator of all things,
imagining that His work could have been brought to an end by falling into an
abyss to which He could not penetrate in order to accomplish salvation…
So He returned victoriously from the dead, bringing with Him spoils from
hell. For He conducted forth those whom death held prisoners, as He Himself
had prophesied in the words: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw
all things to myself.” The Gospel bears witness to this when it states: “The
graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints that slept arose, and they
appeared to many, and entered into the holy city.” By this is meant…the city
intended by the Apostle when he wrote: “But that Jerusalem, which is above is
free: which is mother of us all.”
He made the same point again to the Hebrews: “For it became Him for
whom are all things, and by whom are all things, who had brought many
children to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation by His passion.” By
His passion, therefore, He made perfect that human flesh which had been
brought down to death by the first man’s sin, and restored it by the power of His
resurrection: sitting on God’s right hand, He placed it in the highest heavens. In
view of this the Apostle says: “Who has raised us up together, and has made us
sit together in the heavenly places.”
It was He, you see, who was the potter mentioned by the prophet
Jeremias: “The vessel which had fallen from His hand and was broken, He
again raised up with His hands and formed anew, as it seemed good in His
eyes.” So it seemed good to Him to raise the mortal and corruptible body He had
assumed from the rocky tomb, and rendering it immortal and incorruptible to
place it, no longer in an earthly environment, but in heaven at His Father’s right
hand…

Vigils Reading - Easter Monday
2026-04-06
From a homily by
POPE BENEDICT XVI
◊◊◊
“You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not
here.” With these words, God’s messenger, robed in light, spoke to the women
who were looking for the body of Jesus in the tomb.
But the evangelist says the same thing to us: Jesus is not a character of the
past. He lives and He walks before us as one who is alive; he calls us to follow
him, the Living One, and in this way to discover for ourselves the path of life.
At Easter we rejoice because Christ did not remain in the tomb, his body
did not see corruption; he belongs to the world of the living, not to the world of
the dead; we rejoice because he is the Alpha and also the Omega, as we proclaim
in the Rite of the Paschal candle; he lives not only yesterday, but today and for
eternity.
But somehow the Resurrection is situated so far beyond our horizon, so
far outside all our experience that, returning to ourselves, we find ourselves
continuing the argument of the disciples: Of what exactly does this “rising”
consist? What does it mean for us, for the whole world, and the whole of history?
A theologian once said that the miracle of a corpse returning to life would
be ultimately irrelevant precisely because it would not concern us. In fact if it
were simply that someone was once brought back to life, and no more than that,
in what way would that concern us? But the point is that Christ’s Resurrection is
something more, something different… It is the…most crucial leap into a totally
new dimension that there has ever been in the long history of life and its
development: a leap into a completely new order which does concern us, and
concerns the whole of history.
The crucial point is that this man Jesus was not alone, he was not an “I”
closed in upon itself. He was one single reality with the living God, so closely
united with him as to form one Person with him. He found himself, so to speak,
in an embrace with him who is life itself, an embrace not just on the emotional
level, but one which included and permeated his being. His own life was not just
his own, it was an existential and essential communion with God, a “being taken
up” into God, and hence, it could not in reality be taken away from him.
Out of love, he could allow himself to be killed, but precisely by doing so
he broke the definitiveness of death, because in him the definitiveness of life
was present. He was one single reality with indestructible life, in such a way that
it burst forth anew through death…
His death was an act of love, of self-giving. At the Last Supper he
anticipated death and transformed it into self-giving. His existential
communion with God was concretely an existential communion with God’s
love, and this love is the real power against death, it is stronger than death.
The Resurrection was like an explosion of light, an explosion of love which
dissolved the hitherto indissoluble compenetration of “dying and becoming”. It
ushered in a new dimension of being. A new dimension of life in which, in a
transformed way, matter too was integrated and through which a new world
emerges.

Vigils Reading - Easter Tuesday
2026-04-07
From a prayer by
WILLIAM OF ST THIERRY
◊◊◊
O Truth supreme, you are the heaven of heavens, you who are what you
are, who have your being from yourself, who belong to yourself and are
sufficient to yourself. You lack nothing, yet you have no excess; you have within
yourself supremest concord, utmost clarity, most perfect fullness and
completest life.
O Lord, the height, the depth, the wisdom and the might – are these the
heaven of which you are the door? It is so, truly; that is why the ark of the
covenant was seen in heaven when the door was opened… You are yourself that
ark. In you from all eternity was hidden, and in you in these latter days has been
fulfilled, all that from the beginning of the world has been revealed to all the
saints and prophets by the Law and by the prophecies, by wonders and by
signs…
These blessings, that were hidden in your secret heaven through the ages,
you at the ages’ end unveiled to the world’s longing eyes, when you opened in
heaven the door that is yourself. You opened that door when your grace
appeared to all [people], teaching us… The heavens being thus opened, all the
good and glory and delight of heaven poured itself out on earth. And then, O
God, who spared not your own Son, but delivered him up for us all, the
greatness of your kindness…to us was published openly to all. You made known
your salvation to the world, and in the sight of all the nations you revealed your
righteousness…
Those unsearchable riches of your glory, Lord, were hidden in your secret
place in heaven until the soldier’s spear opened the side of your Son our Lord
and Savior on the cross, and from it flowed the mysteries of our redemption.
Now we may not only thrust our finger or our hand into his side, like Thomas,
but through that open door may enter whole, O Jesus, even into your heart, the
sure seat of your mercy, even into your holy soul that is filled with the fullness of
God, full of grace and truth, full of our salvation and our consolation…
Open, O Lord, the ark-door of your side, that all your own who shall be
saved may enter in, before this flood that overwhelms the earth. Open to us your
body’s side, that those who long to see the secrets of your Son may enter in, and
may receive the sacraments that flow [from there], even the price of their
redemption. Open the door of your heaven, that your redeemed may see the
good things of God in the land of the living, though they still labor in the land of
the dying…
Open to me, O Lord, so that, although I am a stranger unworthy of
enrollment as a citizen, yet nonetheless, I may by your gift be suffered on
occasion for a little while to journey there, that I may truly see your glory, and
not come out again unless I am thrown out!.. O, if only I may see, if only I may
persevere, if only I may hear some day: “Enter into the joy of your Lord,” and
may thus enter in, never to come out again!

Vigils Reading - Easter Wednesday
2026-04-08
From the Catechesis of
ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
◊◊◊
If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to
the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a Lamb without
blemish, commanded Moses, and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were
to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could
possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving
power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s
blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he
did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he
sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of
believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.
If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it
came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The
gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier
came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water
and blood. Now the water was a symbol of Baptism and the blood, of the holy
Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred
temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the
lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.
“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over
this mystery without thought, it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will
explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized Baptism and the holy
Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from Baptism, “the
cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and
from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of Baptism and the Eucharist flowed9
from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had
fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the
story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh
from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so
Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God
took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us
the blood and the water after his own death.
Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and
what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought
into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood
and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom
he himself has given life.

Vigils Reading - Easter Thursday
2026-04-09
From a sermon by
ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
◊◊◊
Our Lord expressly promises all Christians a certain gracious
manifestation of himself, which it is natural, at first sight, to suppose a sensible
one: and many persons understand it to be such, as if it were not more blessed to
believe than to see. Our Lord says; “He that has my commandments and keeps
them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me, shall be loved of my Father,
and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.” When Jude asked him,
“Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the
world?” Our Lord answered, “If one loves me, he will keep my words; and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with
him.” In accordance with this promise, St Paul says, “The Spirit itself bears
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”; and St John, “He that
believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself.”
Now, that this great gift, whatever it be, is of a nature to impart
illumination, sanctity, and peace, to the soul to which it comes, far from
disputing, I would earnestly maintain. And, in this indirect way, doubtless, it is
in a certain sense apprehended and perceived; perceived in its effects, with a
consciousness that those effects cannot come of themselves, but imply a gift
from which they come, and a presence of which they are, as it were, the shadow,
a voice of which they are the echo.
But there are persons who desire the inward manifestation of Christ to be
much more sensible than this. They will not be contented without some sensible
sign and direct evidence that God loves them; some assurance, in which faith
has no part, that God has chosen them; and which may answer to their
anticipations of what Scripture calls “the secret of the Lord,” and “the hidden
manna” which Christ invites us to partake. Some, for instance, hold that their
conscience would have no peace, unless they recollected the time when they
were converted from darkness to light, from a state of wrath to the kingdom of
God.
Others consider that, in order to possess the seal of election, they must be
able to discern in themselves certain feelings or frames of mind, a renunciation
of their own merit, and an apprehension of gospel salvation; as if it were not
enough to renounce ourselves and follow Christ, without the lively
consciousness that we are doing so; and that in this lies “the secret of the Lord.”
Others go further; and think that without a distinct inward assurance of his
salvation, one is not in a saving state.
This is what men and women often conceive; not considering that
whatever be the manifestation promised to Christians by our Lord, it is not
likely to be more sensible and more intelligible than the great sign of his own
Resurrection. Yet even that, like the miracle wrought upon Jonah, was in secret,
and they who believed without seeing it were more blessed than those who saw.

Vigils Reading - Easter Friday
2026-04-10
From a sermon by
ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
◊◊◊
Now let us contemplate the means which God’s Divine Wisdom actually
adopted with a view to making Christ’s resurrection subservient to the
propagation of His Gospel. He showed Himself openly, not to all the people, but
to witnesses chosen before of God. It is, indeed, a general characteristic of the
course of God’s providence to make the few the channels of His blessings to the
many; but in the instance we are considering, a few were selected because only a
few could be made instruments…
To be witnesses of His resurrection it was necessary to have known our
Lord intimately before His death. This was the case with the Apostles; but it was
not enough. It was necessary that they should be certain it was He himself, the
very same whom they had known before. You recollect how He urged them to
handle Him, and be sure that they could testify to His rising again… But people
are not easily prevailed upon to be faithful advocates of any cause. Not only is
the multitude fickle; but the best, unless urged, tutored, disciplined to their
work, give way; untrained nature has no principles.
It would seem, then, that our Lord gave His attention to a few because, if
the few are gained, the many will follow. To these few He showed Himself again
and again. These He restored, comforted, warned, inspired. He formed them to
Himself, that they might show forth His praise. That period of preparatory
prayer, meditation and instruction which the Apostles passed through under
our Lord’s visible presence for forty days, was to them something that could not
have been had they been following Him from place to place in public and mixing
in the busy crowds of the world.
So much then in answer to the question: Why did Christ not show Himself
to the whole Jewish people after His resurrection? – I ask in reply: what would
have been the purpose of it? – a mere passing triumph over sinners whose
judgment is reserved for the next world. On the other hand, such a procedure
would have interfered with, even defeated, the real object of His rising again,
namely, the propagation of His Gospel through the world by means of His own
intimate friends and followers.
We, too, though we are not witnesses of Christ’s actual resurrection, are so
spiritually. By a heart awake from the dead, and by affections set on heaven, we
can as truly and without figure witness that Christ lives, as they did. Whoever
believes in the Son of God has the witness in themselves. Truth bears witness by
itself to its Divine Author. Whoever obeys God conscientiously, and lives holily,
forces all about them to believe and tremble before the unseen power of Christ.
To the world at large the believer does not witness; for few can see them
near enough to be moved by their manner of living. But to one’s neighbors one
manifests the Truth in proportion to their knowledge of the person; and some of
them, through God’s blessing, catch the holy flame, cherish it, and in their turn
transmit it. And thus in a dark world Truth still makes way in spite of the
darkness, passing from hand to hand.

Vigils Reading - Easter Saturday
2026-04-11
From the writing of
FR BRUCE VAWTER
◊◊◊
In biblical faith the resurrection is something; something did occur to
account for the appearances of Jesus after his death. It is not to retreat into
obscurity or equivocation to confess that we have no better way of defining that
something than to call it resurrection. We cannot define what is indefinable in
terms of human experience; we can only describe it in some fashion by the use of
the pictures we call analogies. The picture we use following the New Testament
precedent to describe both what God effected in Christ and, with it as the
proleptic example, what its faith promises to all who share in God’s kingdom, is
mythical to the extent that, taken in all literalness, it might equally well serve to
describe the resuscitation of a corpse, which the New Testament does not intend
to do…
Paul…for all his insistence on the resurrection as a reality, did not think of
it as a resurrection of dead flesh: “Perhaps someone will say, ‘How are the dead
to be raised up? What kind of body will they have?’ A nonsensical question!
The seed you sow does not germinate unless it dies. When you sow, you do not
sow the full-blown plant but a kernel of wheat or some other grain. God gives
body to it as he pleases – to each seed its own fruition… So is it with the
resurrection of the dead.”
Paul admittedly tells us more about what, in his view, the resurrection is
not than what it is, but at the same time he tells us enough to dissuade us from
dismissing lightly the testimony of his senses, which he joined to the witness of
his tradition. Here was a man quite conscious of the validity of what are
sometimes thought to be modern and scientific objections to the idea of
resurrection; a man convinced that something had occurred that he could only
call resurrection while regretting the inadequacy of the concept. Paul was as
prepared as anyone today for demythologizing, but he was not prepared to
disallow any fact out of his inability to explain it. Rather than deny the fact, he
preferred to retain the myth with all its attendant ambiguities.

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