Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading - Memorial of the BVM
2024-01-13
OF MARY’S CHARITY TOWARDS HER NEIGHBOUR
By St Alphonsus de Liguori7
◊◊◊
Love towards God and love towards our neighbour are commanded by the
same precept: “And this commandment we have from God, that he who loveth
God love also his brother.” Saint Thomas says that the reason for this is, that he
who loves God loves all that God loves. Saint Catherine of Genoa one day said,
‘Lord, Thou willest that I should love my neighbour, and I can love none but
Thee.’ God answered her in these words: All who love Me love what I love.” But
as there never was, and never will be, any one who loved God as much as Mary
loved Him, so there never was, and never will be, any one who loved her
neighbour as much as she did…
For Christ, who is love itself, inspired the Blessed Virgin with charity in
its highest degree, that she might succour all who had recourse to her. So great
was Mary’s charity when on earth… as was the case at the marriage-feast of
Cana, when she told her Son that family’s distress: “They have no wine,” and
asked Him to work a miracle. O, with what speed did she fly when there was
question of relieving her neighbour! When she went to the house of Elizabeth
to fulfil an office of charity, “she went into the hill-country with haste.” She
could not, however, more fully display the greatness of her charity than she did
in the offering which she made of her Son to death for our salvation. On this
subject Saint Bonaventure says,
‘Mary so loved the world as to give her only-
begotten Son.’ Hence Saint Anselm exclaims, ‘O blessed amongst women, thy
purity surpasses that of the angels, and thy compassion that of the Saints!’
Great was the mercy of Mary towards the wretched when she was still in
exile on earth; but far greater is it now that she reigns in heaven. Saint Agnes
assured Saint Bridget that there was no one who prayed without receiving
graces through the charity of the Blessed Virgin. Unfortunate, indeed, should
we be, did not Mary intercede for us! Jesus Himself, addressing the same Saint,
said,
‘Were it not for the prayers of My Mother, there would be no hope of
mercy.’ Blessed is he, says the Divine Mother, who listens to my instructions,
pays attention to my charity, and, in imitation of me, exercises it himself
towards others: “Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at
my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors.
”
Saint Gregory Nazianzen assures us that ‘there is nothing by which we can
with greater certainty gain the affection of Mary than by charity towards our
neighbour. Therefore, as God exhorts us, saying, “Be ye merciful, as your Father
also is merciful,” so also does Mary seem to say to all her children, ‘Be ye
merciful, as your Mother also is merciful.’ It is certain that our charity towards
our neighbour will be the measure of that which God and Mary will show us:
“Give, and it shall be given to you. For with the same measure that you shall
mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.
” Saint Methodius used to
say,
‘Give to the poor, and receive paradise.’ For the apostle writes, that
charity…
“is profitable to all things, having promise of the life that now is, and
of that which is to come.
”
O Mother of Mercy, thou art full of charity for all; forget not my miseries;
thou seest them full well. Recommend me to God, who denies thee nothing.
Obtain me the grace to imitate thee in holy charity, as well towards God as
towards my neighbour.

7 St Alphonsus de Liguori. The Glories of Mary. Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1982. 477-480.15

Skema
2024-01-14
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
2nd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
January 14 – 20, 2024

Sun
14
Mon
15
Tue
16
Wed
17
Thu
18
Fri
19
Sat
20

Office
2nd Sunday
SS Maur & Placid
Weekday
St Anthony
Weekday
Weekday
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Num 12:1-15
Num 13:1-3, 17-33
Num 14:1-25
Num 16:1-24
Num 16:25-35
Num 17:1-15
Num 17:16-28

Lauds
Eccles 2:18-23
Eccles 2:24-3:8
Eccles 3:9-15
Eccles 3:16-22
Eccles 4:1-6
Eccles 4:7-12
Eccles 4:13-17

Mass
65
311
312
313
314
315
316

1st
1 Sam 3:3b-10, 19
1 Sam 15:16-23
1 Sam 16:1-13
1 Sam 17:32-33, 37, 40-51
1 Sam 18:6-9; 19:1-7
1 Sam 24:3-21
2 Sam 1:1-4, 11-12, 19, 23-27

2nd
1 Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20

Gospel
John 1:35-42
Mark 2:18-22
Mark 2:23-28
Mark 3:1-6
Mark 3:7-12
Mark 3:13-19
Mark 3:20-21

Vespers
2 Cor 4:1-6
2 Cor 4:7-18
2 Cor 5:1-10
2 Cor 5:11-15
2 Cor 5:16-21
2 Cor 6:1-13
2 Cor 6:14-7:1

Vigils Reading - 2nd Sunday Ordinary
2024-01-14
BEHOLD, THE LAMB OF GOD
From a commentary by St Basil of Seleucia1
◊◊◊
Spurred on by the testimony of John the Baptist, the glorious apostle
Andrew left his teacher and ran to the one pointed out by him. John’s words
were his signal, and, moving more swiftly than John could speak, he
approached the master with obvious longing, his companion, John the
Evangelist, running beside him. Both had left the lamp to come to the sun.
Andrew was the first to become an apostle. It was he who opened the gates
of Christ’s teaching. He was the first to gather the fruits cultivated by the
prophets, and he surpassed the hopes of all by being the first to embrace the
one awaited by all. He was the first to show that the precepts of the law were in
force only for a limited time. He was the first to restrain the tongue of Moses,
for he would not allow it to speak after Christ had come. Yet he was not rebuked
for this, because he did not dishonor the teacher of the Jews, but honored more
the sender than the one sent. In fact Andrew was seen to be the first to honor
Moses, because he was the first to recognize the one he foretold when he said:
The Lord God will raise up for you from among your kindred a prophet like
myself. Listen to him. Andrew set the law aside in obedience to the law. He
listened to Moses who said: Listen to him. He listened to John who cried out:
Behold the Lamb of God, and of his own accord went to the one pointed out to
him.
Having recognized the prophet foretold by the prophets, Andrew led his
brother to the one he had found. To Peter, who was still in ignorance, he
revealed the treasure: We have found the Messiah for whom we were longing.
How many sleepless nights we spent beside the waters of the Jordan, and now
we have found the one for whom we longed! Nor was Peter slow when he heard
these words, for he was Andrew’s brother. He listened attentively, then
hastened with great eagerness.
Taking Peter with him, Andrew brought his brother to the Lord, thus
making him his fellow-disciple. This was Andrew’s first achievement: he
increased the number of the apostles by bringing Peter to Christ, so that Christ
might find in him the disciples’ leader. When later on Peter won approval, it was
thanks to the seed sown by Andrew. But the commendation given to the one
redounded to the other, for the virtues of each belonged to both, and each was
proud of the other’s merits. Indeed, when Peter promptly answered the master’s
question, how much joy he gave to all the disciples by breaking their
embarrassed silence! Peter alone acted as the mouthpiece of those to whom the
question was addressed. As though all spoke through him, he replied clearly on
their behalf: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. In one sentence he
acknowledged both the Savior and his saving plan.
Notice how these words echo Andrew’s. By prompting Peter the Father
endorsed from above the words Andrew used when he led Peter to Christ.
Andrew had said: We have found the Messiah. The Father said, prompting
Peter: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, almost forcing these words
on Peter. “Peter,” he said, “when you are questioned, use Andrew’s words in
reply. Show yourself very prompt in answering your master. Andrew did not lie
to you when he said: We have found the Messiah. Turn the Hebrew words into
Greek and cry out: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – NY -1993 – pg 72-73.3

Vigils Reading - SS Maur & Placid
2024-01-15
SAINTS MAUR AND PLACID
From the Dialogues of St Gregory the Great2
◊◊◊
The holy man, St Benedict, having returned to Subiaco, long continued to
shine by his virtue and miracles, and assembled a great number of solitaries
who consecrated themselves to the service of God, so that, with the aid of our
Lord Jesus Christ, he built twelve monasteries, placing in each twelve Religious
with an Abbot to govern them. He retained with himself only a few of his
disciples who, he thought, still needed his presence to be better formed to
perfection. It was at this time that many persons in Rome, conspicuous for their
nobility and virtue, began to visit him and offer their children that he might
mold them to piety, and teach them to live for God alone. Aequitas and
Tertullus, who had the honor of being Roman Patricians, came to see the saint
and confided to his care their two children; the former was distinguished for
spotless innocence of life, and merited, though young, to be chosen by his
master to assist him in his functions. As to Placid, being only a boy, he was
subject to the weaknesses inseparable from tender age…
The venerable Benedict being one day in his cell, the boy Placid…went out
to fetch water from the lake, but, when dipping his pitcher into the water, not
taking sufficient heed, his body followed the vessel and he fell into the lake. The
waves immediately bore him out from the land as far as the usual flight of an
arrow. The saint, who was in his cell, knew of the sad accident at that very
instant, and at once calling Maurus, his disciple, said to him: “Brother Maurus,
run with all speed; the boy who went to fetch water fell into the lake and has
been already carried off a long distance.”
The thing wonderful and unheard of since that instance of the Apostle
Peter! Maurus having asked and received the blessing, ran to the lake to execute
the order of his Abbot. Thinking he was treading upon dry land, he advanced to
the very place whither the waves had carried off the child, and laying hold of
him by the hair, brought him back with great haste to the shore. Having reached
the land, he began to reflect on what he did, and casting a look behind, saw that
he had been running over the waves. He was astonished thereat and very much
afraid, seeing that he had performed what he would not have dared to undertake
if he had been aware of what he was doing. Having returned to the monastery,
he narrated the whole occurrence to the Abbot. The venerable Benedict did not
attribute this miracle to his own merit, but to the obedience of the disciple.
Maurus, on the other hand, said he was only fulfilling a command, and could
have no share in a miracle which he unconsciously performed.
During this pious dispute arising from the humility of the holy Abbot and
his disciple, the boy rescued from peril presented himself as arbitrator, and put
an end to the contest thus: “When I was being drawn out of the waves, I saw the
Abbot’s robe above my head, and it seemed to me that it was he who delivered
me from the water.”
…
An ancient tradition says that the monk Maurus was sent into Gaul by the
same holy Father. There, according to the same tradition, he founded a
monastery at Glannofol; after having governed it for a long time, he died in the
Lord in a good old age, renowned for his sanctity and miracles… while Placid
died a martyr’s death in Sicily in 541, a few years before the death of St Benedict
himself.

2 from the LITURGICAL READINGS compiled and adapted at St Meinrad’s Abbey (St Meinrad , IN, 1941) pp. 311-313.5

Vigils Reading
2024-01-16
DIVINE LOVE
From “The Four Hundred Chapters of Love” by Maximus the Confessor3
◊◊◊
When through love the mind is ravished by divine knowledge…then,
according to the divine Isaiah, it comes in consternation to a realization of its
own lowliness and says with conviction the words of the prophet: Woe is me for
I am stricken at heart; because being a man having unclean lips, I dwell in the
midst of a people with unclean lips and I have seen with my eyes the King, the
Lord of hosts. The one who loves God cannot help but love also every man as
himself even though he is displeased by the passions of those who are not yet
purified. Thus when he sees their conversion and amendment, he rejoices with
an unbounded and unspeakable joy.
The passionate soul is impure, filled with thoughts of lust and hatred. The
one who sees a trace of hatred in his own heart through any fault at all toward
any man whoever he may be makes himself completely foreign to the love for
God, because love for God in no way admits of hatred for man.
“The one who
loves me,” says the Lord,
“will keep my commandments” and “this is my
commandment, that you love one another.” Therefore the one who does not love
his neighbor is not keeping the commandment, and the one who does not keep
the commandment is not able to love the Lord…
The one who has acquired divine love in himself does not grow weary of
closely following after the Lord his God, as the divine Jeremiah says; rather he
endures nobly every reproachful hardship and outrage without thinking any evil
of anyone. When you are insulted by someone or offended in any matter, then
beware of angry thoughts, lest by distress they sever you from charity and place
you in the region of hatred. Whenever you are suffering intensely from insult or
disgrace, realize that this can be of great benefit to you, for disgrace is God’s way
of driving vainglory out of you.
As the memory of fire does not warm the body, so faith without love does
not bring about the illumination of knowledge in the soul. As the light of the sun
attracts the healthy eye, so does the knowledge of God draw the pure mind to
itself naturally through love… The soul is pure when it has been freed from the
passions and rejoices unceasingly in divine love… For he recalls his former
worldly life and different transgressions and the temptations bedeviling him
from his youth, and how the Lord delivered him from all these things and made
him pass from this life of passion to a divine life. And so with fear he receives
love as well, ever thankful with deep humility to the benefactor and pilot of our
life.

Maximus the Confessor. Selected Writings. Trans. George C. Berthold. New York: Paulist Press, 1985. 36-40.7

Vigils Reading - St Anthony
2024-01-17
HE KEPT HIS HEART WATCHFUL
From the writing of Nikiphorus the monk4
◊◊◊
Once two brothers were on their way to visit St Antony, but on the journey
their water gave out and one of them died and the other was near to dying.
Unable to go any further, he too lay down on the ground and awaited death. But
Antony, seated on the mountain, called two monks who happened to be with
him and said to them urgently, ‘Take a jar of water and go as fast as you can
along the road leading to Egypt: two men were on their way here, but one has
just died and the other will also die if you don’t hurry. This was revealed to me
as I was praying.’
The monks set off; and finding the one man dead they buried him, while
they revived the other with water and brought him to the elder. It was about a
day’s journey off. Should you ask why Antony did not speak before the first man
died, I would say that the question is inapt: the decision about death rested not
with Antony but with God, and He allowed the first man to die and sent a
revelation to St Antony about the second. The miracle happened to St Antony,
and to him alone, because while seated on the mountain he kept
his heart watchful, and so the Lord showed him what was happening a long way
off.
Do you see how through watchfulness of heart St Antony was able to
perceive God…? For it is in the heart that God manifests Himself to
the intellect…as fire that purifies the lover and then as light that illumines
the intellect and renders it godlike.
We cannot be reconciled with God and assimilated to Him unless we
first…enter into ourselves, in so far as this lies within our power. For the miracle
consists in tearing ourselves away from the distraction and vain concerns of the
world and in this way relentlessly seizing hold of the kingdom of heaven within
us
4 https://orthodoxchurchfathers.com/fathers/philokalia/nikiphoros-the-monk-from-the-life-of-our-holy-father-
antony.html. Accessed: Jan. 11, 2024.9

Vigils Reading
2024-01-18
UNCEASING PRAYER AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE
By Elder Paisios of Mount Athos5
◊◊◊
In regards to unceasing prayer, if you want, use a simple method if you
are a simple person… Unfortunately, some people don’t have as their aim the
putting off of their old man, repentance, humility and the placing of asceticism
as a supporting means for the sanctification of their soul in order to sense deeply
their sinfulness and feel profoundly the need for God’s mercy, and say with
sweet pain, “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me”. Instead, they begin with arid
ascesis and pursue divine pleasures and divine lights… When they believe that
they have become holy, immediately the enemy approaches…
Therefore, my brother, ask for repentance in your prayer and nothing
else, neither for divine lights, nor miracles, nor prophecies, nor spiritual gifts –
– nothing but repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will
bring the Grace of God, and God will have in His Grace everything you need for
your salvation, or anything you might need to help another soul.
Things are very simple and there is no reason why we should complicate
them. If we regard matters in this way, we will feel…prayer as a necessity and
will not grow weary. We will…feel a sweet pain and then Christ Himself will
shed His sweet consolation inside our heart.
Thus prayer does not tire but invigorates. It is tiresome only when we do
not enter into its meaning and do not understand the sense given it by our Holy
Fathers. Once we comprehend the need of God’s mercy, the desire of this
hunger will compel us, without pressuring ourselves in prayer, to open our
mouth like a nursing infant, and we will feel, simultaneously, all the security
and joy of a baby in its mother’s embrace…
We should be in frequent contact with God and, if possible, in “constant
vigilance” for more safety in order to continuously have an abundance of divine
strength. Of course, the enemy does not rest and is constantly attacking us in a
variety of ways. However, we can turn it to our advantage, and render him into
an unpaid worker, who assists us in our unceasing prayer. For example, when
he brings us evil or blasphemous thoughts, we should start the Jesus Prayer and
say to the devil: “It’s good that you pricked at me, for I had forgotten my Christ”.
When we do this, even if we were to keep the devil near, he won’t remain, since
he is not so dumb as to work for free and to bring benefit to our soul.
If we want to engage in fine and painstaking work, let us take, in order,
the most difficult passions we have, and whatever fault we detect during the
day, and humbly ask for God’s mercy so that we can be redeemed… In this way,
the passions are uprooted…
When someone first gets to know himself and becomes conscious of his
great sinfulness and the great benevolence of God, his heart breaks even if it is
as hard as granite. Then, real tears flow naturally and man does not pressure
himself neither in prayer nor in order to shed tears. Humility and <gratitude>
continually work to “drill” on his heart, and the wellsprings increase, and God’s
hand constantly caresses His hardworking grateful child.

5 Elder Paisios of Mount Athos. Epistles. Souroti, Thessaloniki, Greece: Holy Monastery “Evangelist John the
Theologian, 2002. 71-73.11

Vigils Reading
2024-01-19
THE WAY OF REPENTANCE
From the writing of Jacob Boehme6
◊◊◊
When…a man finds within himself a hunger, so that he would eagerly repent,
but finds in himself no proper sorrow for his past sins, and yet a hunger for sorrow
(as the poor, captured soul ever groans, fears itself and acknowledges itself as guilty
of sins before God’s judgement), he can do no better than to gather sense, mind
and all reason together into one and…when he feels a desire to repent he is to make
a powerful resolution, that in this hour, in this minute, he will enter into
repentance, and leave his godless way, give no attention to any worldly power and
honour and, if it must be, leave all for true repentance and esteem nothing.
And [he] is to make such a firm and stern resolution for himself that he will
never again leave [repentance], even if the whole world considers him a fool; and
that he will wish to lead his mind obediently away from the beauties and pleasures
of this world into the sufferings and death of Christ, under His cross, and order his
whole hope to the coming life and enter into Christ’s vineyard, in righteousness
and truth to do God’s will, and begin and complete all his work in this world in
Christ’s spirit and will. For the sake of Christ’s word and promise by which He
promised us heavenly reward, he should eagerly suffer and bear all misfortune and
suffering, so that he may be counted among the community of Christ’s children…by
the blood of Jesus Christ.
He is strongly to consider, and completely wrap his soul [in the idea] that he
has made the resolution to gain the love of God in Christ Jesus, and that according
to His true promise God will give him the noble pledge of the Holy Spirit as a
beginning so that in himself he might be reborn in Christ’s humanity, according to
the heavenly divine being, and that the spirit of Christ might renew his mind…and
strengthen his weak faith so that in his soul’s desire… he might receive…from the
sweet fountain, Jesus Christ, the water of eternal life…
He is to consider fully the great love of God, that God does not wish the death
of the sinner, but that he be converted and live. And he is also to [consider] how
Christ, in a friendly manner, calls poor sinners to Himself, since He desires to
revive them; and that God sent His son into the world to seek and to make holy
that which was lost, the poor, repentant, converted sinner; and how, for the sake
of the poor sinner, He gave His life unto death, and for him died in our humanity,
taken on [for us].
He is to consider strongly also that God in Christ Jesus will more readily hear
[him] and receive him into grace than he himself wants to come to Him; and that
in the love of Christ, in the very precious Name JESUS, God can desire no evil, that
there is no glimpse of wrath in this Name, but that He is the highest and deepest
love and faithfulness… so that He would pour His sweet love into us so that the
Father’s wrath, which was enflamed in us, might be put out and changed into love.
All of this occurred for the sake of the poor sinner so that he might again gain the
open gate of grace.
In such a consideration he should firmly imagine that at this hour and
moment he stands in the presence of the Holy Trinity, and that God is truly present
in him and outside of him… Thus, he is to know and believe for certain that he
stands, with his soul, before the face of Jesus Christ, before the holy Godhead, and
that his soul has turned from God’s face; and that he now, this hour, wishes to turn
his soul’s eyes and desire to God, and, with the poor, prodigal and returning son
[desires to] come to the Father.

6 Jacob Boehme. The Way to Christ. Trans. Peter Erb. New York: Paulist Press, 1978. 31-34.13

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2024-01-20
ALL WHO HUNGER AND THIRST
From a homily by Ogier of Locedio7
◊◊◊
How sweet and delightful it is, ever to call to mind our heavenly mother,
that fragrant spikenard, about whom roses waft the scent of Paradise!… For
thus sang Mary, Queen of the world and Mother of Humility: He cast down the
mighty from their thrones and raised up the lowly… Therefore be meek of
heart, you who wear the habit of humility: let what your habit professes
outwardly preserve you inwardly in virtue… Thus you will be pleasing to God,
who emptied himself and, accepting the form of a servant, gave himself up to
suffer, dying on the rood, lest humankind die and for ever live in the abyss of
savage cruelty…
Whatever your past, take no pleasure in what is displeasing to your
Creator, but in him alone, whom you have vowed yourself to please in all your
actions. If you have lived chastely, if you have not strafed the citadel of humility
with bolts of pride, then you will be comely and beautiful in the sight of the Most
High. He himself — who filled the hungry with good things and sent away the
wealthy empty-handed –– will find it good to be your spouse.
How blessed the hungry whom the Lord fills with his lasting goodness…
All who hunger and thirst for justice will be fed by the Bread of Angels that came
down from heaven to give life to the world. These hungry ones Jesus does not
turn away empty-handed; he satisfies their desires with his goodness, by
enriching them with the good of everlasting life. They are indeed rich when they
share in the wealth of joy in the glory of heaven. There true wealth lies, where
no one is wretched or poor; for there dwell glory and life, utter joy, and total
bliss. With such good things the author of goodness will fill those who in this
life have rid themselves of sin, who suffer torment in order to possess Him, and
who find no pleasure except in the true joy of God, and the supreme bliss of
Christ.
He enriches holy paupers with his ineffable goodness, but he
impoverishes the wicked wealthy, and sends them away empty. Death separates
the rich from their passing wealth, but when the poor of Christ pass on, they
gain eternity… The true pauper has nothing of mortal sin. Even if he has earthly
riches, he reckons them as worthless, because he does not yet possess the true
wealth of the Lord Jesus. To see him, to hold him: this is the desire towards
which he labors with all his heart.
The rich…are those whose lives are doubly mortal: they covet passing
gains, and neglect to live for God. O what an evil wealth is the enormity of sin
and vice, which plunders the soul of divine riches! The greater the accumulation
of such wealth, the more its possessors will be cast down and despised by Christ,
who will dismiss them empty-handed, saying: Depart from me, workers of
iniquity; in truth I tell you, I do not know you!… Let us rid ourselves of worldly
wealth and sin. Let the rich whose true wealth is Christ bestow their goods on
the poor and needy, so that they—and we—may join the company of the angels
in the Kingdom of his Father, and he says those wondrous words of welcome:
Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you before the
beginning of the world… This promise of eternal inheritance knows no end, for
believers will want for nothing at the end of time, but will enjoy beatific glory
for ever and beyond. May the Mother of glory deign through her merits to bring
us to that bliss.

7 Ogier of Locedio. In Praise of God’s Holy Mother. CF 70. Trans. D. Martin Jenni. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian
Publications, 2006. 111, 120-122, 128.15

Skema: Week 3 of Ordinary Time
2024-01-21
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
3rd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
January 21 – 27, 2024

Sun
21
Mon
22
Tue
23
Wed
24
Thu
25
Fri
26
Sat
27

Office
3rd Sunday
Weekday
Weekday
St Francis de Sales
Conversion of St Paul
SS Robert, Alberic & Stephen
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Num 20:1-13; 21:4-9
Num 21:21-35
Num 22:2-21
Num 22:22-40
Acts 26:1-23
Lev 26:3-13
Num 22:41-23:12

Lauds
Eccles 5:1-6
Eccles 5:7-11
Eccles 5:12-19
Eccles 6:1-6
Sir 39:1-10
Ezek 34:23-31
Eccles 6:7-12

Mass
68
317
318
319
519
606, 322, 815.8
322

1st
Jon 3:1-5, 10
2 Sam 5:1-7, 10
2 Sam 6:12b-15, 17-19
2 Sam 7:4-17
Acts 22:3-16
Sir 44:1,10-15
2 Sam 12:1-7a, 10-17

2nd
1 Cor 7:29-31

Heb 11:1-2, 8-16

Gospel
Mark 1:14-20
Mark 3:22-30
Mark 3:31-35
Mark 4:1-20
Mark 16:15-18
Mark 10:24b-30
Mark 4:35-41

Vespers
2 Cor 7:5-10
2 Cor 7:11-16
2 Cor 8:1-7
2 Cor 8:8-15
1 Jn 4:13-21
2 Cor 4:7-18
2 Cor 9:6-15

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
2024-01-21
THE GREATNESS OF GOD’S LOVE
From a commentary by St Caesarius of Arles1
◊◊◊
In today’s gospel, beloved, we heard the exhortation to repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now the kingdom of heaven is Christ, who, as we
know, is the judge of good and evil and scrutinizes the motives for all our
actions. We should therefore do well to forestall God’s judgment by freely
acknowledging our sins and correcting our wrongheaded attitudes; for by
failing to seek out the needful remedies and apply them, we place ourselves in
danger. And our knowledge that we have to account for the motives behind our
shortcomings makes the need for such a change of heart even greater.
We must recognize the greatness of God’s love for us; so generous is it
that he is willing to be appeased by the amends we make for our evil deeds,
provided only that we freely admit them before he has himself condemned
them. And though his judgments are always just, he gives us a warning before
he passes them, so as not to be compelled to apply the full rigor of his justice. It
is not for nothing that our God draws floods of tears from us; he does so to incite
us to recover by penance and a change of heart what we had previously let slip
through carelessness. God is well aware that human judgment is often at fault,
that we are prone to fleshly sins and deceitful speech. He therefore shows us the
way of repentance, by which we can compensate for damage done and atone for
our faults. And so to be sure of obtaining forgiveness, we ought to be always
bewailing our guilt. Yet no matter how many wounds our human nature has
sustained, we are never justified in giving ourselves over to despair, for our Lord
is magnanimous enough to pour out his compassion abundantly on all who
need it.
But perhaps one of you will say: “What have I to fear? I have never done
anything wrong.” On this point hear what the apostle John says: If we claim to
be sinless, we deceive ourselves and are blind to the truth. So let no one lead
you astray; the most pernicious kind of sin is the failure to recognize one’s own
sinfulness. Once let wrongdoers admit their guilt and repent of it, and this
change of heart will bring about their reconciliation with the Lord; but no sinner
is more in need of the tears of others than the one who thinks he has nothing to
weep for. So I implore you, beloved, to follow the advice given you by the holy
Scripture and humble yourselves beneath the all-powerful hand of God.
As none of us can be wholly free from sin, so let none of us fail to make
amends; here too we do ourselves great harm if we presume our own innocence.
It may be that some are less guilty than others, but no one is entirely free from
fault; there may be degrees of guilt, but no one can escape it altogether. Let
those then whose offenses are more grievous be more earnest in seeking
pardon; and let those who have so far escaped contamination by the more
heinous crimes pray that they may never be defiled by them….
1
Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1999 – pg 74-75.

Blessed Madeleine Delbrel
2024-01-22
WHEREVER LOVE IS PRESENT
From the writing of Blessed Madeleine Delbrêl 2
◊◊◊
Anywhere we are, God is there, too. The space where we join him is the
place of our love, a love that does not want to be separated from God, that wants
to encounter God. Whoever has not tried to know who Jesus is – truly, fully,
presently – will not desire him. He will desire him less than a child desires an
orange from the grocery store.
But those who have struggled to climb toward the mystery of God, who
thought him possible, who believed him possible, who, in the end, believed him
to be true, who found the joy of joys in this truth; those who had to make room
in themselves for still more joy in knowing that this mystery was made
perceptible to the eyes of men in a man who was both man and God; those who
know that this man will remain with them until the end of time, with his body,
with his blood, with his glory, those who believed and who still believe in all
this, we who believe it – will we lack the desire to find him wherever he says he
can be found? To knock down or pierce through all the obstacles that would
keep us from being with him forever, ever more deeply? It is this desire that
makes prayer and that makes it anywhere. Wherever love is present, it carries
within itself this desire. To love God enough to want to be with him, to carry
within ourselves the desire of this love, gives us strength enough to cut through
even the hardest, most hectic of lives, so that in prayer we can reach the One we
love.
A few minutes of such prayer will give us to God and give us God more
than hours of powerful meditation if they are not preceded by a free and living
desire. The retreat to the desert can be…at the end of the day, after we have
spent all day “digging” a well toward these few brief moments; in contrast, this
same desert could be without retreat if we put off our desire to meet the Lord.
Our comings and goings – and not only the big ones, but also those we make
from one room to the next – the moments when we are required to wait…are
moments of prayer prepared for us, as long as we are prepared for them. To
waste them through lack of preparation can rightly be called a small fault. But
if one day we find that, with the Lord, it is not a question of sin but one of love,
perhaps we will realize that we have been strange lovers.
2 Delbrêl, Madeleine. The Dazzling Light of God. Trans. Mary Dudro Gordon. San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
2023. 119-120.

Weekday
2024-01-23
OUR NEIGHBOUR IS THE IMAGE OF GOD
From the writing of Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov 3
◊◊◊
Holy monks constantly remembered Christ’s words: Truly I tell you, when you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me. They did not stop to consider whether their neighbour deserved their respect or not; they paid no attention to his numerous and obvious defects. Their attention was taken up with seeing that they did not somehow fail to realize that our neighbour is the image of God, and that Christ accepts what we do to our neighbour as if it were done to Him…
It requires considerable spiritual effort and it requires the co-operation of divine grace for the heart damaged by sin to grasp this notion so as to have it constantly in mind,” in our relations with our brethren. But when by the mercy of God we grasp this notion, it becomes a source of the purest love for our neighbour, a love for all equally. Such love has a single cause — the Christ Who is honoured and loved in every neighbour.
The realization of this truth becomes a source of the sweetest compunction, of the most fervent, undistracted, most concentrated prayer. Holy Abba Dorotheus used to say to his disciple, St. Dositheus, whenever he was overcome by anger: ‘Dositheus! You get angry, and are you not ashamed that you get angry and offend your brother? Do you not realize that he is Christ and that you offend Christ?’
The great Saint Apollos often used to tell his disciples regarding the reception of who came to him that they must be given honour with a prostration to the earth. In bowing to them we bow not to them but to God… And that we must welcome and show hospitality to the brethren we have learnt from Lot who urged the Angels to spend the night at his house.
This way of thought and behaviour was adopted by all the monks of Egypt… St. Cassian the Roman… of the fourth century, relates the following: “When we…wishing to learn the rules of the elders, arrived from the region of Syria in the province of Egypt, we were astonished to find that they received us there with extraordinary kindness. Moreover they never observed the rule for the use of food, for which a fixed hour is appointed, contrary to what we had learnt in the Palestinian monasteries. Wherever we went the regular fast for that day was relaxed, with the exception of the canonical fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. We asked one of the elders: “Why do you all without distinction disregard the daily fasting?” He replied: “Fasting is always with me, but you I must send away eventually and I cannot always have you with me. Although fasting is beneficial and constantly necessary, yet it is a gift and a voluntary sacrifice, whereas the observance of love…is an invariable duty required by the commandment. I receive Christ in your person, and I must show Him wholehearted hospitality… Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? But when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast lawfully”…
Through humility in your dealings with your neighbour, and through love for your neighbour, hardness and callousness is expelled from the heart. It is rolled away like a heavy rock from the entrance to a tomb, and the heart revives for spiritual relations with God.
3 Brianchaninov, Ignatius. The Arena: An Offering to Contemporary Monasticism. Trans. from the Russian. Madras, 1970. 62-65.

St. Francis de Sales
2024-01-24
HOW CHARITY PRODUCES LOVE OF NEIGHBOR
By St Francis de Sales 4
◊◊◊
Just as God has created “us in his image and likeness,” so also has he
ordained for us a love in the image and likeness of the love due to his divinity.
He says: “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your
whole soul, and with your whole mind.” This the greatest and the first
commandment. and the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.”… Why do we love God? “The reason for which we love God is God
himself.” says St. Bernard, as if to say that we love God because he is the most
supreme and most infinite goodness. Why do we love ourselves in charity?
Surely, it is because we re God’s image and likeness.
Since all persons have this same dignity, we also love them as ourselves,
that is, in their character is most holy and living images of the divinity. It is in
this character…that we are related to God by such close alliance and such loving
dependence that nothing prevents him from saying that he is our Father and
from calling us his children. It is in this character that we are capable of being
united to his divine essence by enjoyment of his supreme goodness and bliss. It
is in this character that we receive his grace and our spirits are associated with
his most holy Spirit, and as it were “are made partakers of his divine nature,” as
St. Leo says.
Hence, the same charity that produces acts of love of God produces at the
same time those of love of neighbor. Just as Jacob saw that one and the same
ladder touched heaven and earth and equally served the angels both to descend
and to ascend, so also we know that one and the same dilection reaches out to
cherish both God and neighbor. Thus it raises us up to unite our spirit with God
and it brings us back again to loving association with our neighbors. However,
this is always on condition that we love our neighbors in as much as they are
God’s image and likeness, created to communicate with the divine goodness, to
participate in his grace, and to enjoy his glory…
To love our neighbor in charity is to love God in the human being or the
human being in God. It is to cherish God alone for love of himself and creatures
for love of him. When we see our neighbor created in the likeness and image
of God, should we not say to one another, “Stop, do you see this created being,
do you see how it resembles the Creator?” Should we not cast ourselves upon
him, caress him, and weep over him with love? Should we not give him a
thousand, thousand blessings? Why so?… It is for love of God who made us in
his own image and likeness and therefore capable of sharing in his goodness in
grace and glory.
4 On the Love of God, Tan Books & Pub. Inc., 1975, pp. 170-171.

Conversion of St. Paul
2024-01-25
FROM A HOMILY ON THE PRAISE OF ST PAUL
By St John Chrysostom 5
◊◊◊
Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what humankind really is, and
in what our nobility consists, and of what virtue this particular animal is
capable. Each day he aimed ever higher; each day he rose up with greater ardor
and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him. He summed up
his attitude in the words: I forget what is behind me and push on to what lies
ahead. When he saw death imminent, he bade others share his joy: Rejoice and
be glad with me! And when danger, injustice and abuse threatened, he said: I
am content with weakness, mistreatment and persecution. These he called the
weapons of righteousness, thus telling us that he derived immense profit from
them.
Thus, amid the traps set for him by his enemies, with exultant heart he
turned their every attack into a victory for himself; constantly beaten, abused
and cursed, he boasted of it as though he were celebrating a triumphal
procession and taking trophies home, and offered thanks to God for it all:
Thanks be to God who is always victorious in us!
The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew
himself to be loved by Christ. Enjoying this love, he considered himself happier
than anyone else; were he without it, it would be no satisfaction to be the friend
of principalities and powers. He preferred to be thus loved and be the least of
all, or even to be among the damned, than to be without that love and be among
the great and honored.
To be separated from that love was, in his eyes, the greatest and most
extraordinary of torments; the pain of that loss would alone have been hell, and
endless, unbearable torture.
So too, in being loved by Christ he thought of himself as possessing life,
the world, the angels, present and future, the kingdom, the promise and
countless blessings. Apart from that love nothing saddened or delighted him;
for nothing earthly did he regard as bitter or sweet.
Death itself and pain and whatever torments might come were but child’s
play to him, provided that thereby he might bear some burden for the sake of
Christ.
5 Hom. 2 de laudibus sancti Pauli: PG 50, 477-480.

SS Robert, Alberic, and Stephen
2024-01-26
THE JOURNEY TO THE WILDERNESS OF CITEAUX
From the “Exordium Magnum” of Conrad of Eberbach 6
◊◊◊
In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1098, Dom Robert, the abbot of
the Abbey of Molesme…and with him went those brothers whose hearts God had
touched, set out from Molesme, making the same choice as their father Saint
Benedict, to tire themselves out in working for God rather than settling down in a
comfortable way of life. They hurried eagerly to that place which by the grace of
God had been offered them beforehand as suitable to their endeavor, that is, to the
wilderness called Citeaux. Situated in the diocese of Chalon, it was at that time a
place but seldom approached by human beings because of the woods and dense
briars and inhabited only by wild beasts.
The men of God arrived at this place of horror and vast solitude; and thought
it quite suitable for the sort of religious observance which they had long had in
mind and for which they had come, all the more so when they realized that the
density of woods and briars would make the monastery remote and cut off, quite
forgotten by and inaccessible to the world. So by the will of the bishop of Chalon
and the consent of the person to whom the place belonged, they began to build
there… on 21 March, that is, on the solemnity of the birth [to eternal life] of Saint
Benedict, which was also Palm Sunday and therefore celebrated with double joy,
to the rejoicing of angels and the casting down of demons…By a happy omen, those
who had decided to arrange the ordering of their life and the guidelines for divine
services according to the form prescribed in the Rule began this undertaking on
the birthday of the very person who had, through the life-giving Spirit, given the
saving law to many.
…Just as at the beginning of grace, when Christ our Lord and Savior was
born, the world, while it knew him not, received a pledge of new redemption, of
ancient reconciliation, of eternal happiness, so too in these last days, when charity
is cold and iniquity everywhere abounds, the almighty and merciful Lord planted
the seed of that same grace in the wilderness of Citeaux. Watered by the rain of
the Holy Spirit, it gathered an incredibly plentiful harvest of spiritual riches,
growing and developing into a great tree so surpassingly beautiful and fruitful that
people of various nations, tribes, and tongues delighted to rest in its shade and
satisfy themselves with its fruits. Yet although this fruit makes bitter the stomach
of carnal desire by the work of repentance, it is as sweet as honey in the mouth of
the developing conscience.
6 Conrad of Eberbach. The Great Beginnning of Citeaux: A Narrative of the Beginning
of the Cistercian Order: The Exordium Magnum of Conrad of Eberbach. CF 72. Trans.
Benedicta Ward, SLG, and Paul Savage. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2012.
75-78.

Memorial of the BVM
2024-01-27
ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD
From the writing of St Bernard of Clairvaux 7
◊◊◊
‘And the Lord will give to him the throne of his father David’. Those are
the very words spoken by the angel to the Virgin about the Son who had been
promised to her, and by them he promised also that He should possess the
kingship of David…
At first, as long as she was doubtful, she prudently kept silence…
preferring, of course, humbly to give no reply rather than to speak hastily about
matters of which she knew nothing. But once she was reassured… for the Lord
was with her as the angel had said… once she was strengthened by the faith
which casts out fear, and by the joy which casts out confusion, she said to the
angel, ‘How can this be, since I know no man?’ She does not doubt the event,
but wonders how it shall occur…
He said then, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the
Most High will overshadow you.’… It is as if the angel replied to the Virgin, ‘Why
ask me about something which you are going soon to experience in yourself?
You will find out…how happily you will find out, and your teacher will be none
other than he who works this [within you], I have been sent only to announce
this virginal conception, not to bring it about. This is something which can only
be taught by the giver, and learnt only by the receiver. “Therefore the Holy to be
born of you will be called the Son of God.”…
What then? Are you the one who was promised, or must we look for
another? No, it is you and no one else… So, answer the angel quickly or rather,
through the angel, answer God. Only say the word and receive the Word: give
yours and conceive God’s. Breathe one fleeting word and embrace the
everlasting Word. Why do you delay? Why be afraid? Believe, give praise and
receive. Let humility take courage and shyness confidence… Blessed Virgin,
open your heart to faith, your lips to consent and your womb to your Creator.
Behold, the long-desired of all nations is standing at the door and knocking. Oh,
what if he should pass by because of your delay and, sorrowing, you should
again have to seek him whom your soul loves? Get up, run, open! Get up by
faith, run by prayer, open by consent!
‘Behold,’ she says, ‘I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me
according to your word’… May the Word who in the beginning was with God,
become flesh of my flesh, according to your word… I do not want it to be a word
proclaimed to me in discourse, symbolized in figures, or dreamed in the
imagination, but one silently inspired, personally incarnate, corporally
inviscerate. May the Word which could not…be made in himself, deign to be in
me, deign to be to me according to your word. Let it be for the whole world, but
let it be to me uniquely ‘according to your word’.
7 Bernard of Clairvaux. Homilies in Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary. CF 18A. Trans. Marie-Bernard Saïd. Kalamazoo, MI:
Cistercian Publications, 1993. 45, 48-50, 54-55.

Skema
2024-01-28
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
4th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
January 28 – February 3, 2024

Sun
28
Mon
29
Tue
30
Wed
31
Thu
1
Fri
2
Sat
3

Office
4th Sunday
Office for the Dead
Weekday
St John Bosco
Weekday
Presentation of the Lord
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Num 23:13-26
Num 23:27-24:13
Num 25:1-17
Josh 1:1-18
Josh 2:1-24
Exod 13:1-16
Josh 3:1-17

Lauds
Eccles 7:1-9
Eccles 7:10-14
Eccles 7:15-22
Eccles 7:23-29
Eccles 8:1-9
1 Sam 1:20-28
Eccles 8:10-13

Mass
71
323
324
325
326
524
328

1st
Deut 18:15-20
2 Sam 15:13-14, 30; 16:5-13
2 Sam 18:9-10, 14b, 24-25a, 30-19:3
2 Sam 24:2, 9-17
1 Kgs 2:1-4, 10-12
Heb 2:14-18
1 Kgs 3:4-13

2nd
1 Cor 7:32-35

Gospel
Mark 1:21-28
Mark 5:1-20
Mark 5:21-43
Mark 6:1-6
Mark 6:7-13
Luke 2:22-40
Mark 6:30-34

Vespers
2 Cor 10:1-11
2 Cor 11:1-6
2 Cor 11:7-15
2 Cor 11:21b-30
2 Cor 12:1-10
Rom 12:1-5
2 Cor 12:11-18

Vigils Reading - 4th Sunday ORD
2024-01-28
A MOST SURPRISINGLY MIRACLE OF MERCY
From a commentary by St John Henry Newman1
◊◊◊
At the time appointed Christ came forth from the Father and showed
himself in this external world, first as its Creator, then as its teacher, the
revealer of secrets, the mediator, the effluence of God’s glory, and the express
image of his person. Neither cloud nor image, emblem nor words, are
interposed between the Son and his eternal Father. No language is needed
between the Father and him, who is the very Word of the Father; no knowledge
is imparted to him, who by his very nature and from eternity knows the Father
and all that the Father knows. Such are his own words, No one knows the Son
but the Father, neither does anyone know the Father except the Son, and
anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Again he says, Whoever has
seen me has seen the Father; and he accounts for this when he tells us that he
and the Father are one, and that he is in the bosom of the Father and so can
disclose him to humankind, as he was still in heaven, even while he was on
earth.
Accordingly the blessed apostle draws a contrast between Moses and
Christ to our comfort. The Law, he says, was given by Moses, but grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ. In him God is fully and truly seen, so that he is absolutely
the way, and the truth, and the life. All our duties are summed up for us in the
message he brings us. Those who look towards him for teaching, who worship
and obey him, will by degrees see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in his face, and will be changed into the same image from glory to glory, And
thus it happens that people of the lowest class and the humblest education may
know fully the ways and works of God; fully, that is, as human beings can know
them; far better and more truly than the most sagacious of this world from
whom the gospel is hidden.
Religion has a store of wonderful secrets which no one can communicate
to another, and which are most pleasant and delightful to know. Call on me,
says God by the prophet, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty
things of which you have no knowledge. This is no great mere idle boast, but a
fact which all who seek God will find to be true, though they cannot perhaps
clearly express their meaning. Strange truths about ourselves, about God, about
our duty, about the world, about heaven and hell, new modes of viewing things,
discoveries which cannot be put into words, marvelous prospects and thoughts
half understood, deep convictions inspiring joy and peace, these are a part of
the revelation which Christ, the Son of God, brings to those who obey him.
Moses had much toil to gain from the great God, some scattered rays of the
truth, and that for his personal comfort, not for all Israel; but Christ has brought
from his Father for all of us the full and perfect way of life. Thus he brings grace
as well as truth, a most surprising miracle of mercy.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1999 – pg 76-77.3

Vigils Reading - Office of the Dead
2024-01-29
FEAR AND HOPE
From the writing of Michael Schmaus2
◊◊◊
To understand God’s call as one of love does not do away with the
awesomeness of death; even the faithful anticipate it with fear. Indeed, the
element of fear in the believer is liable to be stronger than in the atheist or
nihilist, who has resolved to his own satisfaction the problem of what comes
after death and is chiefly disturbed by the knowledge the one must abandon a
work which one has begun, leaving something unfinished. The believer,
however, sees in death the moment of encounter with God, that moment
towards which the person has been journeying, in an anticipation never free of
tension, during one’s whole lifetime. As the person awaits the judgment God
will pronounce, anxiety can be overcome only in a loving confidence. The
death of the faithful Christian is a death in the Lord. It is a death which will not
bring condemnation, since no one who lives and has faith in Christ will ever
die.
Although God is an impenetrable mystery, the person of faith perceives
the meaning of the divine summons in a way that prevents one from falling
into despair. When the time had come for him to take leave of his disciples,
Christ said: “Trust in God always; trust also in me.” In that hour Christ gave
his own assurance that they would have life, and have it abundantly. He never
promised them an untroubled existence within time, but only a life of joy in
God. Thus anxiety is changed into tremulous expectation: the Lord comes. In
the First Letter of John, Jesus’ exhortation to his disciples to have confidence
in the Father and in himself is made explicit when he says: “There is no room
for fear in love; perfect love banishes fear. For fear brings with it the pains of
judgment, and anyone who is afraid has not attained to love in its perfection.”
So, in the face of death, there remains to everyone only trust and hope with
which to meet the unavoidable fear of death.

2 Dogma 6, Justification & the Last Things. Michael Schmaus, Sheed & Ward, 1977, pp.220-221.5

Vigils Reading
2024-01-30
THE DIVINE POWER OF THE MESSAGE
By St Pope Paul VI3
◊◊◊
For the Church, evangelizing means bringing the Good News into all the
strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from within
and making it new… But there is no new humanity if there are not first of all new
persons renewed by Baptism and by lives lived according to the Gospel. The
purpose of evangelization is therefore precisely this interior change, and if it had
to be expressed in one sentence the best way of stating it would be to say that the
Church evangelizes when she seeks to convert, solely through the divine power
of the Message she proclaims, both the personal and collective consciences of
people, the activities in which they engage, and the lives and concrete milieux
which are theirs.
With regard to the strata of humanity which are to be transformed: for the
Church it is a question not only of preaching the Gospel in ever wider geographic
areas or to ever greater numbers of people, but also of affecting and as it were
upsetting, through the power of the Gospel, the popular criteria of judgment,
determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration and
models of life, which are in contrast with the Word of God and the plan of
salvation.
All this could be expressed in the following words: what matters is to
evangelize human culture and cultures (not in a purely decorative way as it were
by applying a thin veneer, but in a vital way, in depth and right to their very
roots… taking the person as one’s starting-point and always coming back to the
relationships of people among themselves and with God.
The Gospel, and therefore evangelization, are certainly not identical with
culture, and they are independent in regard to all cultures. Nevertheless, the
Kingdom which the Gospel proclaims is lived by people who are profoundly
linked to a culture, and the building up of the Kingdom cannot avoid borrowing
the elements of human culture or cultures. Though independent of cultures, the
Gospel and evangelization are not necessarily incompatible with them; rather
they are capable of permeating them all without becoming subject to any one of
them.

3 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, nn 18-20.7

Vigils Reading - St John Bosco
2024-01-31
GIVE ME SOULS, AND TAKE ALL THE REST AWAY
A reading on St Don Bosco4
◊◊◊
Don Bosco has struck the imagination of all who have known him and his
work. There is no doubt that he was one of the most wonderful of men, and even
in that galaxy of great names which is the catalogue of Saints, he occupies a
place apart.
[Paul Claudel said that “In the Church there are some who made a
profession of sanctity…; who, from the very first, had the Calendar of Saints as
a goal. Don Bosco had no time for this, and we can readily believe that if he
became a saint it was not his fault.”]
Genius as well as Saint, it is often difficult to see where the one ends and
the other begins. Simple as a child and mostly to be found in the dust and clamor
of a playground crowded with children, he plays also with miracles and
prophecies, which he seems to make for fun. His speech is simple: so simple
that children listen fascinated to his new kind of eloquence — an eloquence very
different from that of the pulpit orators of the time. And his mind is so wise,
that ministers, kings and popes listen to his advice.
A poor man, of poor parents, more millions passed through his hands
than through those of many a banker. He spent them with the prodigality of an
American playboy, when it was a question of the salvation of souls; but he was
as tight with each cent as the peasants he came from, when it was a question of
his person, or his comfort. He had the shrewdness of a captain of industry and
a trust in God that made him undertake even the impossible when he saw it was
for God’s glory.
Above all, he was the most lovable of men. To know him was to love him,
and often to be so fascinated as to be physically unable to leave him.
His chosen, or better, his God-given mission was education, and he is the
educator of modern times. A man who could do with children what no man has
ever done; he could attach to himself the little ruffians that roam the streets and
make of them lovable, ideal young men.
Indeed, Don Bosco as a man, as a Saint, as an Educator occupies a place
apart. [He had a tremendous love for God and for souls, and not much for
anything else.] His motto was “Give me souls, and take all the rest
away.”

4 From the Preface to Saint John Bosco, by A. Auffray; Salesian House: Tirpattur, India, 1959.9

Vigils Reading
2024-02-01
THE GREAT DISCOVERY
By Fr Louis Bouyer5
◊◊◊
The discovery of grace, the discovery of love which loves us without
looking for any return, which loves us although we are sinners, which loves us
in our sin, but which alone will lead us, by obscure ways known to God alone,
from sin to sanctity, that is, in the last analysis, the great discovery. Then it is
that God reveals Himself to us as One who speaks to us, as One whose Word for
the second time draws us out of nothingness to being, as One whom we have
not so much to seek as to discover seeking us. It is He, the Shepherd who left
the ninety-nine sheep in safety to seek and save that which was lost. It is He, the
Father of the prodigal who goes along the road to welcome his son when he has
scarcely started out to meet his father, and takes him in his arms.
“To seek God”, to seek Him as a person, as the Person par excellence, and
not only as the “Thou” to whom all our love should be addressed, but as the “I”
who has first approached us, whose word of love, addressed to the primeval
chaos, drew us forth from it in the first place, and, spoken to us in our sin, draws
us forth from it again: to be a monk is nothing else than this. To be a monk,
then, is simply to be an integral Christian. And regarded in this light, the
Christian is simply the person restored by the Word of the Gospel to the
vocation which the creative Word destined for each: to respond to the Word of
Agape by the word of faith, in order eventually to meet God face to face.
Commenting on Canticle of Canticles, Origen tells us that the Church,
under the old dispensation, only heard the Bridegroom’s voice, whereas in the
new, she is offered the sight of his countenance. And he adds that the
development of the Christian life is made up solely of this transition. The monk
is the one who does not limit him or herself to accepting it in some measure
passively, by yielding to grace slothfully and reluctantly. The monk is one who
responds with the whole heart to the call which comes from the very heart of
God. Monks are of the number of the violent who will not allow the divine
Kingdom to fall upon them as it were unawares, but who take it by storm in
advance. For that the monks have staked their all, they have burned their boats.
To the one who believes that life consists in what is possessed, the monk
seems to be consenting to, even to be deliberately seeking, a fatal renunciation.
To the one who knows that being is of greater value than having, and that being
which is of value is not that which passes but that which endures, the monk will
seem to be the only true humanist. For the human person is born only as subject
to the divine Word and will only be fully that person the day when, freed from
the nothingness which holds one prisoner, fully surrendered to the Word which
calls, the person will at last come to discover the Face which promised us being
in promising us His own image.

5 The Meaning of the Monastic Life, Louis Bouyer, New York, 1955, p.19 & 22.11

Vigils Reading - Presentation of the Lord
2024-02-02
THE PASCHAL SIGNIFICANCE
OF JESUS’ PRESENTATION
From “Sign of Contradiction” by St John Paul II6
◊◊◊
Forty days after the nativity the Church celebrates an event full of
spiritual significance. On that day the Son of God, as a tiny child of poor parents,
born in a rough stable in Bethlehem, was carried to the temple in Jerusalem.
This was his own temple, the temple of the living God, but he came to it not as
the Lord but as one under the law. For the poor the law prescribed that forty
days after the birth of the firstborn two turtle-doves or two young pigeons must
be offered in sacrifice, as a sign that the child was consecrated to the Lord.
The message which the Spirit of God allowed the old man Simeon to sense
and express so wonderfully was implicitly in the event itself, in this first
encounter between the Messiah and his temple. On seeing the child, Simeon
begins to utter words that are not of human provenance. He prophesies,
prompted by the Holy Spirit; he speaks with the voice of God, the God for whom
the temple was built and who is its rightful master.
Simeon’s words begin, in what the liturgy calls the Song, by bearing
witness to the light… They end…by bearing witness to the cross, in which
contradiction of Jesus, the Christ, is to find tangible expression. The cost of the
cross was shared by the mother, whose soul — according to Simeon’s words —
was to be pierced by a sword, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be laid
bare.
Chronologically the presentation of Jesus in the temple is linked with the
nativity, but in its significance it belongs with the mystery of the pasch. It is the
first of the events which clearly reveal the messianic status of the newborn child.
With him are linked the fall and the rising of many in the old Israel and also the
new. On him the future of humankind depends. It is he who is the true Lord of
the ages to come. His reign begins when the temple sacrifice is offered in
accordance with the law, and it attains full realization through the sacrifice on
the cross, offered in accordance with an eternal plan of love.

6 pp. 40-41; reprinted in Meditations on the Sunday Gospels: Year A; introduced and edited by John E. Rotelle, Hyde Park,
NY: New City Press, 1995, pp. 144-145.13

Vigils Reading - Memorial of the BVM
2024-02-03
THE NATURE OF MARY’S MATERNITY
From “The Divine Motherhood” by Anscar Vonier7
◊◊◊
Let us always bear in mind the great truth that the Blessed Virgin’s
maternity was a most natural maternity in the sense that she fully responded to
it, was not overwhelmed by it, that there was no separation between her and her
offspring; Christ came from her as her own dear child, the fruit of her own
blessed womb. I am right, therefore, in asserting that Mary’s maternal function
in the conception of Christ was raised to an incredibly high plane of vitality so
as to make her maternity not only an instrumental, but a natural maternity. If
Mary’s mission had been merely to minister the human element to the Word
when he became flesh, her maternity would have been just instrumental; it
would have existed only to serve a higher purpose. But Mary’s role is more than
that; she is permanently the Mother of God; her maternity is not a transient
ministration, but an abiding dignity that makes her share with God the Father,
in literal truth, the parenthood of Jesus Christ.
A threefold hypothesis may make this point clearer still. We can think of
a woman being made a mother by the direct productive act of God; in that case
the offspring of that mother would not be divine, but human. Then there can be
the conception in a woman’s womb of a divine person, as happened in the
incarnation, but the woman being merely instrumental to the production of the
body; in such a case it would be divine maternity in the most restricted
physiological sense. Thirdly, there is the glorious possibility of perfect divine
maternity with all the graces and privileges, with all the rights and splendors, of
one who shares to the full, with God the Father, the parenthood of the God
Incarnate. Such is Mary’s maternity; such is the meaning of Elizabeth’s
salutation, or rather the salutation of the Holy Spirit through the mouth of
Elizabeth, when full of the divine Spirit she cried with a loud voice: Blessed are
you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And whence is this
to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?
Elizabeth was the first creature to call Mary “the Mother of God”; she gave
us the grandest title of our Lady: “Mother of God.” The archangel, indeed, had
said as much, but only by implication; Elizabeth, the happiest of human
mothers, has the privilege of having spoken for the first time the words “Mother
of God.” When, moreover, in the same breath she calls blessed the Mother and
the fruit of her womb, bestowing the same encomium on the two lives which
were not yet disjoined, she gives us an additional reason for saying that Mary’s
maternity had been raised to the divine plane of dignity and perfection, where
one and the same blessedness holds mother and offspring wrapped in a
matchless sanctity.

7 pp. 345-346; reprinted in Meditations on the Sunday Gospels: Year A; introduced and edited by John E. Rotelle, Hyde
Park, NY: New City Press, 1995, pp. 28-29.15

Skema
2024-02-04
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
5th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
February 4 – 10, 2024

Sun
4
Mon
5
Tue
6
Wed
7
Thu
8
Fri
9
Sat
10

Office
5th Sunday
St Agatha
St Paul Miki & Comp.
Weekday
Office for Vocations
Weekday
St Scholastica

Vigils
Josh 4:1-24
Josh 5:1-15
Josh 6:1-27
Josh 7:1-26
Josh 8:1-29
Josh 8:30-9:2
Josh 9:3-27

Lauds
Eccles 8:14-17
Eccles 11:3-10
Eccles 12:1-8
Eccles 12:9-14
Wis 1:1-8
Wis 1:9-15
Wis 4:7-19

Mass
74
329
330
331
332
333
334

1st
Job 7:1-4, 6-7
1 Kgs 8:1-7, 9-13
1 Kgs 8:22-23, 27-30
1 Kgs 10:1-10
1 Kgs 11:4-13
1 Kgs 11:29-32; 12:19
1 Kgs 12:26-32; 13:33-34

2nd
1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23

Gospel
Mark 1:29-39
Mark 6:53-56
Mark 7:1-13
Mark 7:14-23
Mark 7:24-30
Mark 7:31-37
Mark 8:1-10

Vespers
2 Cor 12:19-13:4
2 Cor 13:5-13
Gal 1:1-10
Gal 1:11-24
Gal 2:1-10
Gal 2:11-14
Gal 2:15-21

Vigils Reading - 5th Sunday ORD
2024-02-04
MERCY AND HELP TO ALL
From a commentary by St Peter Chrysologus1
◊◊◊
Those who have listened attentively to today’s gospel will have learnt why
the Lord of heaven, by whom all creation was renewed, entered the houses of
his servants on earth. Nor should it surprise us that he so courteously adapted
himself to every situation, since his motive in coming among us was to bring
mercy and help to all.
You can easily see what drew Christ to Peter’s house on this particular
occasion; it was not to sit down and rest himself, but compassion for a woman
stricken down by sickness. He was prompted not by the need to eat but by the
opportunity to heal, his immediate preoccupation being the performance of a
work which only his divine power could carry out, rather than the enjoyment of
human company at table. In Peter’s house that day it was not wine that flowed,
but tears. Consequently Christ did not enter to obtain sustenance for himself,
but to restore vitality to another. God wants human beings, not human goods.
He desires to bestow what is heavenly, not to acquire anything earthly. Christ
came to seek not our possessions but us.
As soon as Jesus crossed the threshold he saw Peter’s mother in-law lying
in bed with a fever. On entering the house he immediately saw what he had come
for. He was not interested in the comfort the house itself could offer, nor the
crowds awaiting his arrival, nor the formal welcome prepared for him, nor the
assembled household. Still less did he look for any outward signs of preparation
of his reception. All he had eyes for was the spectacle of a sick woman, lying
there consumed with a raging fever. At a glance he saw her desperate plight, and
at one stretched out his hands to perform their divine work of healing; nor would
he sit down to satisfy his human needs before he had made it possible for the
stricken woman to rise up and serve her God. So he took her by the hand, and
the fever left her. Here you see how fever loosens its grip on a person whose
hand is held by Christ’s; no sickness can stand its ground in the face of the very
source of health. Where the Lord of life has entered, there is no room for death.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1999 – pg 78-79.3

Vigils Reading -St Agatha
2024-02-05
ST AGATHA
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints2
◊◊◊
St Agatha has retained her place in the Universal Calendar following the
reforms of 1969, even though nothing that can be called historical fact is known
of her life. There is, however, good evidence of an early cult, with many versions
of her legend recorded in both Greek and Latin, the Greek being the earlier, with
the Latin dating from the sixth century. This means that however fictitious the
details of her Acts, she cannot be dismissed as a mere fiction altogether. Her
Acts, though, are more of an indication of the type of woman held up for
veneration as a saint in the early centuries than anything else.
She is described as a wealthy woman who had dedicated her virginity to
Christ. This, then, rather than her life, is the most precious thing she has to
offer. Her birthplace is assigned to either Palermo or Catania in Sicily, and she
is said to have died at Catania, which has the stronger historical claim to be her
birthplace. Among those who try to take the precious gift she has vowed to
Christ from her is a consul named Quintianus. He used the imperial edict
against Christians to have her brought before him, then placed in a brothel run
by a woman with the appropriate name of “Aphrodisia” and her assistants,
referred to as her daughters. All tricks, assaults and threats to make her yield
her virginity fail, and so she stands as an example of “virginity as a sacred power,
a concrete realization within this world of the divine spirit”.
Quintianus then handed her over to be tortured, and her Acts dwell on
the tortures inflicted on her, culminating in the cutting off of her breasts, which
were placed on a platter. Perhaps because further details of her tortures involve
her being rolled over live coals, she is invoked against fire in general. This may,
though, be an extension of her protection against eruptions from Mount Etna,
because she is associated with Sicily, and her legend states that after her death
a flow of lava from Mount Etna was miraculously diverted by her silken veil held
up on a staff. This is last recorded as happening in the 1840s, and her veil is still
carried in solemn procession on her feast day in Catania. By extension she
protects against earthquakes everywhere. She is also patron saint of bell-
founders. The association is ancient and certain, but the reason has not been
determined. It may be that it derives from her protection against volcanic
eruptions and fire, as bells were rung to warn of both. Another explanation
given is that the molten metal involved in casting bells suggests the flow of
molten lava. Her breasts also brought a more appropriate patronage, as she is
invoked against diseases of the breast. Her breasts on a dish were often
mistaken for loaves in the Middle ages, from which arose the custom of blessing
bread on a dish at her altar on her feast day.
Pope Damasus I composed a hymn in her honor. Two churches were
dedicated to her in the sixth century. Pope St Gregory the Great had rich shrines
made for some of her relics in Rome, then moved them to the monastery of San
Stefano on the island of Capri. Other relics remained in Catania until 1840,
when they were moved to Constantinople.
Whatever the facts behind her legend, Agatha remains one of the best-
loved and most invoked saints in the Christian devotional life.

2 Butlers Lives of the Saints.5

Vigils Reading - St Paul Miki & Companions
2024-02-06
THE MARTYRDOM OF ST PAUL MIKI
AND HIS COMPANIONS
By a contemporary writer3
◊◊◊
The crosses were set in place. Fr Pasio and Fr Rodriguez took turns
encouraging the victims. Their steadfast behavior was wonderful to see. The
Father Bursar stood motionless, his eyes turned heavenward. Brother Martin
gave thanks to God’s goodness by singing psalms. Again and again he repeated:
“Into your hands, Lord, I entrust my life.” Brother Francis Branco also thanked
God in a loud voice. Brother Gonsalvo in a very loud voice kept saying the Our
Father and Hail Mary.
Our brother, Paul Miki, saw himself now standing in the noblest pulpit he
had ever filled. To his “congregation” he began by proclaiming himself a
Japanese and a Jesuit. He was dying for the Gospel he preached. He gave thanks
to God for this wonderful blessing and he ended his “sermon” with these words:
“As I come to this supreme moment of my life, I am sure none of you would
suppose I want to deceive you. And so I tell you plainly: there is no way to be
saved except the Christian way. My religion teaches me to pardon my enemies
and all who have offended me. I do gladly pardon the Emperor and all who have
sought my death. I beg them to seek baptism and be Christians themselves.”
Then he looked at his comrades and began to encourage them in their
final struggle. Joy glowed in all their faces, and in Louis’ most of all. When a
Christian in the crowd cried out to him that he would soon be in heaven, his
hands, his whole body strained upward with such joy that every eye was fixed
on him.
Anthony, hanging at Louis’ side, looked toward heaven and called upon
the holy names – “Jesus, Mary!” He began to sing a psalm: “praise the Lord, you
children!”… Others kept repeating “Jesus, Mary!” Their faces were serene. Some
of them even took to urging the people standing by to live worthy Christian lives.
In these and other ways they showed their readiness to die.
Then, according to Japanese custom, the four executioners began to
unsheathe their spears. At this dreadful sight, all the Christians cried out,
“Jesus, Mary!” And the storm of anguished weeping then rose to batter the very
skies. The executioners killed them one by one. One thrust of the spear, then a
second blow. It was over in a very short time.

Vigils Reading
2024-02-07
THE HOLY SPIRIT BESTOWS
THE UNDERSTANDING OF FAITH
From a treatise by William of St Thierry4
◊◊◊
If your whole being hesitates before the all too profound mysteries
of faith, say without fear, not in disagreement but out of a desire to obey,
“How can this be?” Let your question be a prayer, let it be love, devotion,
humble desire. Do not let it look haughtily at the divine majesty, but seek
for salvation in the means of salvation which the God of our deliverance
provides. Then the Angel of great Counsel will answer you: “When the
Counsellor comes whom I shall send to you from the Father, …he will
bear witness to me and will teach you all things: all truth will come to you
from the Spirit of truth.” “Who, for example, knows one’s own innermost
self but one’s own spirit within him? Similarly, no one knows what lies at
the depths of God but the Spirit of God.”
Hasten, then, to come into communion with the Holy Spirit: and he
is invoked only when he is present. When called upon, he comes; he
arrives in the abundance of divine blessings. It is he who is the swift-
flowing river which makes glad the city of God. At his coming, if he finds
you humble and free from anxiety, reflecting on the word of God, he will
rest upon you and reveal to you what God hides from the wise and prudent
of this world. You will then be enlightened by all the things which
Wisdom, when on earth, could have said to the disciples, but which they
could not bear before the coming of the Spirit of truth who would lead
them into all truth.
To receive and learn this truth, it is useless to expect from the mouth
of another human person what one was not able to receive or learn from
the lips of the Truth himself. For as this Truth declared, “God is Spirit”;
and just as those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth,
so those who desire to know him must seek only in the Holy Spirit to
understand faith and the meaning of this pure and unalloyed truth.
In the darkness and ignorance of this life the Holy Spirit is himself,
for the poor in spirit, the light which lightens, the love which attracts, the
gentleness which charms, the love of one who loves, the piety of one who
gives himself without reserve. It is he who from one conviction to another,
reveals the justice of God to those who believe; he gives grace for grace
and enlightenment for the faith which “comes from hearing.

4 THE MIRROR OF FAITH; PL 180, 384-D.9
