Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

St. Luke
2024-10-18
THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN
By St Jerome 6
◊◊◊
Luke, a physician from Antioch, who, as his writings show, was not
ignorant of the Greek language, was a follower of the Apostle Paul and his
companion on all his travels. he wrote the Gospel of which Paul says: “We have
sent also with him the brother, whose praise is in the Gospel, through all the
churches.” And to the Colossians, “Luke, the beloved physician, greets you.”
Also to Timothy, “Only Luke is with me.”
Likewise, he published another wonderful volume which bears the title
Acts of the Apostles. Its narratives continue up to the two years spent by Paul at
Rome, that is, up to the fourth year of Nero’s reign. From it we learn that the
book was composed in that city. Hence we are to relegate the journeys of Paul
and Thecla and the complete tale of the lion’s baptism to the apocryphal
writings. For how can it be that among all the rest of Paul’s deeds, Luke, the sole
companion of the Apostle, should be ignorant of this alone?
Even Tertullian, who lived close to that time, tells us that a certain priest
in Asia, an admirer of the Apostle Paul, when charged by John to be the author
of the book, confessed that he had done it out of his love for Paul, and he had
forthwith fallen dead on the spot. Certain ones suspect that as often as Paul says
in his Epistles, “according to my Gospel,” he refers to Luke’s work.
That Luke had learned the Gospel not only from Paul, who had not been
with our Lord in the flesh, but from the rest of the apostles, he himself declares
at the beginning of his book, saying: “those who were eyewitnesses and
ministers of the word have handed them down to us.” Consequently, he wrote
the Gospel as he had heard it , while he composed the Acts of the Apostles
according as he had himself seen.
6
from The Lessons of the Temporal Cycle and the Principal feasts of the Sanctoral Cycle According to the Monastic Breviary,
compiled and adapted for the Office of the Brothers of St. Meinrad’s Abbey, St. Meinrad, IN, 1943, pp. 483-484.

North American Martyrs
2024-10-19
THE NORTH AMERICAN MARTYRS
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints 7
◊◊◊
On March 16, 1649, the Iroquois attacked the village at which Brébeuf and
Lalemant were stationed. The torture of these two missionaries was as
atrocious as anything recorded in history. At the height of the torments Father
Lalemant raised his eyes to Heaven and invoked God’s aid, whilst Father de
Brebeuf set his face like a rock as though insensible to the pain. Then, like one
recovering consciousness, he preached to his persecutors and to the Christian
captives until the savages gagged his mouth, cut off his nose, tore off his lips,
and then, in derision of baptism, deluged him and his companion martyrs with
boiling water. Finally, large pieces of flesh were cut out of the bodies of both the
priests and roasted by the Indians, who tore out their hearts before their death
by means of an opening above the breast, feasting on them and their blood,
which they drank while it was still warm.
Before the end of the year 1649 the Iroquois had penetrated as far as the
Tobacco nation, where Father Garnier had founded a mission in 1641 and where
the Jesuits now had two stations. The inhabitants of the village of Saint-Jean
hearing that the enemy was approaching, sent out their men to meet the
attackers, who, however, took a roundabout way and arrived at the gates
unexpectedly. An orgy of incredible cruelty followed, in the midst of which
Garnier, the only priest in the mission, hastened from place to place, giving
absolution to the Christians and baptizing the children and catechumens,
totally unmindful of his own fate. While thus employed he was shot down by the
musket of an Iroquois. He strove to reach a dying man whom he thought he
could help, but after three attempts he collapsed, and subsequently received his
death-blow from a hatchet which penetrated to the brain.
Father Noël Chabanel, the missionary companion of Garnier, was
immediately recalled. He had started on his way back with some Christian
Hurons when they heard the cries of the Iroquois returning from Saint-Jean.
The father urged his followers to escape, but was too much exhausted to keep up
with them. His fate was long uncertain, but a Huron apostate eventually
admitted having killed the holy man out of hatred of the Christian faith.
These martyrs of North America, SS John de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues,
Anthony Daniel, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, Noël Chabanel, René
Goupil and John de Lalande, were canonized in 1930.
7
Butler’s Lives of the Saints, ed. Michael Walsh, Harpers San Francisco, 1985, p.136-137.

Skema
2024-10-20
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
29th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
October 20 – 26, 2024

Sun
20
Mon
21
Tue
22
Wed
23
Thu
24
Fri
25
Sat
26

Office
29th Sunday
Weekday
St John Paul II
Weekday
Office for the Dead
Weekday
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Wis 8:17-9:6
Wis 9:7-18
Wis 10:1-12
Wis 10:13-21
Wis 11:1-16
Wis 11:17-12:1
Wis 12:2-15

Lauds
Job 1:6-12
Job 1:13-22
Job 2:1-10
Job 3:1-10
Job 3:11-26
Job 4:1-11
Job 4:12-21

Mass
146
473
474
475
476
477
478

1st
Isa 53:10-11
Eph 2:1-10
Eph 2:12-22
Eph 3:2-12
Eph 3:14-21
Eph 4:1-6
Eph 4:7-16

2nd
Heb 4:14-16

Gospel
Mark 10:35-45
Luke 12:13-21
Luke 12:35-38
Luke 12:39-48
Luke 12:49-53
Luke 12:54-59
Luke 13:1-9

Vespers
3 John 1-8
3 John 9-15
Jude 1-7
Jude 8-16
Jude 17-25
Rom 1:1-12
Rom 1:13-17

Vigils Reading - 29th Sunday Ordinary Time
2024-10-20
THE SERVANT OF ALL
From a commentary by St John Chrysostom1
When the ten disciples were indignant with James and John for separating themselves from their company in the hope of obtaining the highest honor, Jesus corrected the disordered passions of both groups. Notice how he did it.
He called them to him and said: Gentile rulers lord it over their people, and holders of high office make their authority felt. This must not happen among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to be first among you must be last of all.
You see that what the two brothers wanted was to be first, greatest and highest: rulers, one might say, of the others. So, revealing their secret thoughts, Jesus put a curb on their ambition, saying: whoever wants to be first among you must become the servant of all. If you wish to take precedence and to have the highest honors, aim for what is lowest and worst: to be most insignificant and humble of all, of less account than anyone else, to put yourself after the others. It is virtue of this kind that wins the honor you aspire to, and you have an outstanding example of it near at hand. For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as ransom for many. This is what will make you illustrious and far-famed. See what is happening in my case: I do not seek glory and honor, yet by acting in this way I am gaining innumerable blessings.
The fact is that before the incarnation and self-abasement of Christ the whole world was in a state of ruin and decay, but when he humbled himself he lifted the world up. He annulled the curse, put and end to death, opened paradise, destroyed sin, flung wide the gates of heaven, and introduced there the first fruits of our race. He filled the world with faith in God, drove out error, restored truth, caused our first fruits to ascend a royal throne, and gained innumerable blessings beyond the power of myself or anyone else to describe in words. Before he humbled himself he was known only to the angels, but after his self-abasement he was recognized by the whole human race.
1
(Homilies against the Anomeans, VIII: Bareille 2, 253-54).

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-21
HAPPY ARE THE MEEK
From a sermon by Isaac of Stella2
The disease of desire for gain closely accompanies the vice of pride. For the wisdom that is not from above is earthly, sensual, of the devil, full of jealousy and contention. It equates domination with happiness and buys a farm so that it can dominate others and quarrel endlessly. This wisdom is truly of the devil, it is the firstborn of him who sought to set his throne above the other stars. But the disciples, leaving behind that disordered and disordering wisdom together with the crowd, were privileged to hear the words: “Happy are the meek, they shall possess the earth.”
He does not say this or that or any section of earth, however large, but simply “the earth.” Did ever a man, for all his sweat and toil, his money and his fists, gain more than a part of the earth? Even in this, few have succeeded and many failed. And who has been able to keep possession of what he has won? What profit is there in working hard and long to gain something that of necessity must quickly be lost? Heaven is for the poor, the earth for the meek, what is left for the contentious? What else do they want, in their desire of riches.
If heaven and earth do not suffice them, what then? “O men, how long will you be dull of heart, will you love what is futile and seek what is false?” Earthly dominion is but an illusion of power, dignity and happiness. Why be content with only a part? Why covet so little and aim so low? The whole is promised and the way is shown. By voluntary poverty we go and by meekness we move still more speedily. The truly poor man has the happiness of heaven, the meek man the happiness of earth.
What remains then for those restless with ambition except the misery of hell? You who are wealthy and powerful, what will you do? Think carefully. You have wealth on the one hand and meekness on the other and a thief is approaching. If you defend your property, you will lose your meekness. If you hold fast to meekness, you will be throwing away your money. I am caught on either side, for at one and the same time the thief may take my money and the devil my patience.
Indeed, brothers, would that money had never existed, for in these evil times it cannot be possessed together with meekness, nor may it be carried on the road by the disciples of Jesus. Perhaps that is why the Wisdom which is from above and is pure and peaceable, instructed us to carry neither purse nor money on the journey, to go to law with no one, to give even more than what is robbed, and not to ask for the return of what has been taken; in short, to hold fast to meekness which is the way to happiness. The Apostle praises this when he says: “You gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves”…
Lord Jesus, is there anyone today “who believes what we have heard?” Is there anyone to whom your way is revealed in the way he lives? How very narrow is your way and how few tread it! This was “your way through the mighty sea” of this present world, but in our times “your footprints are unheeded.” The Apostle [Paul] named your way “wisdom” but today it is called the greatest folly, idleness, inertia. Alas, my brothers, these footprints are read of everywhere, but how often disregarded!
2
(CF 11:11-12).

Vigils Reading - St John Paul II
2024-10-22
THE ONE SAVIOR OF ALL
An excerpt from “Redemptoris Missio” by St John Paul II3
The Church’s universal mission is born of faith in Jesus Chhrist, as stated in our Trinitarian profession of faith: “I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father… For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven…” The redemption event brings salvation to all. “For each one is included in the mystery of the redemption and with each one Christ has united himself forever through this mystery.” It is only in faith that the Church’s mission can be understood and only in faith that it finds its basis.
If we go back to the beginnings of the Church, we find a clear affirmation that Christ is the one Savior of all, the only one able to reveal God and lead to God. In reply to the Jewish religious authorities who question the apostles about the healing of the lame man, Peter says: “By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well… And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given men by which we must be saved”. This statement, which was made to the Sanhedrin, has a universal value, since for all people – Jews and Gentiles alike – salvation can only come from Jesus Christ.
The universality of this salvation in Christ is asserted throughout the New Testament. St Paul acknowledges the risen Christ as the Lord. He writes: “Although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’ – yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist”. One God and one Lord are asserted by way of contrast to the multitude of “gods” and “lords” commonly accepted. Paul reacts against the polytheism of the religious environment of his time and emphasizes what is characteristic of the Christian faith: belief in one God and one Lord sent by God.
In the Gospel of St John, this salvific universality of Christ embraces all the aspects of his mission of grace, truth and revelation: the Word is “the true light that enlightens every person”. And again: “no one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known”. God’s revelation becomes definitive and complete through his only-begotten Son… In this definitive Word of his revelation, God has made himself known in the fullest possible way. He revealed to mankind who he is. This definitive self-revelation of God is the fundamental reason why the Church is missionary by her very nature. She cannot do otherwise than proclaim the Gospel, that is, the fullness of the truth which God has enabled us to know about himself.
Christ is the one mediator between God and mankind… No one, therefore, can enter into communion with God except through Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s one, universal mediation, far from being an obstacle on the journey toward God, is the way established by God himself, a fact of which Christ is fully aware. Although participated forms of mediation of different kinds and degrees are not excluded, they acquire meaning and value only from Christ’s one, universal mediation.
3
Encyclical Letter of John Paul II – Redemptoris Missio – Pauline Books & Media – Boston – 1990 – pg 13.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-23
AUTHORITY AND
PRIVATE JUDGMENT
From the writing of St John Henry Newman4
It is the custom with Protestant writers to consider that, whereas there are two great principles in action in the history of religion, Authority and Private Judgment, they have all the Private Judgment to themselves, and we have the full inheritance and the superincumbent oppression of Authority. But this is not so; it is the vast Catholic body itself, and it only, which affords an arena for both combatants in that awful, never-dying duel. It is necessary for the very life of religion, viewed in its large operations and its history, that the warfare should be incessantly carried on.
Every exercise of Infallibility is brought out into act by an intense and varied operation of the Reason, both as its ally and as its opponent, and provokes again, when it has done its work, a re-action of Reason against it; and, as in civil polity the State exists and endures by means of the rivalry and collision, the encroachments and defeats of its constituent parts, so in like manner Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of religious absolutism, but presents a continuous picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide; — it is a vast assemblage of human beings with willful intellects and wild passions, brought together into one by the beauty and the Majesty of a Superhuman Power, — into what may be called a large reformatory or training-school, not as if into a hospital or into a prison, not in order to be sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but (if I may change my metaphor) brought together as if into some moral factory, for the melting, refining, and molding, by an incessant, noisy process, of the raw material of human nature, so excellent, so dangerous, so capable of divine purposes.
St Paul says in one place that his Apostolic power is given him to edification, and not to destruction. There can be no better account of the Infallibility of the Church. It is a supply for a need, and it does not go beyond that need. Its object is, and its effect also, not to enfeeble the freedom or vigor of human thought in religious speculation, but to resist and control its extravagance. What have been its great works? All of them in the distinct province of theology: to put down Arianism, Eutychianism, Pelagianism, Manichaeism, Lutheranism, Jansenism. Such is the broad result of its action in the past; and now as to the securities which are given us that so it ever will act in time to come.
4
APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA , by Card Newman, (Longmans, Green & Co. 1918), pp. 252-53.

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2024-10-24
DEATH AND NEW LIFE IN CHRIST
By Fr Johannes Pinsk5
The tragedy and paradox of all cosmic life is that it is itself consumed in the process of living. Through living it dies. This paradox however, is entirely absent from the new kind of life that is founded upon the resurrection. Here the organism is no longer subject to wear and tear, and the struggle for existence is at an end. Christ died once; he has risen from the dead, and now will die no more. This, surely, is the most stirring event in human history, so far exceeding our experience and imagining that we can scarcely conceive of it as a human fiction. Who could have invented such a thing, faced with the constant spectacle of the decline and death of the human organism? The history of religious thought shows that unaided reason has never resigned itself to the idea of bodily resurrection. It has always repugned it as completely untenable. That a human body should really have risen from the dead is, therefore, no invention of the human mind. It is a superhuman reality, and alone the object of the Easter faith of Christendom.
But that is not all. Christ’s resurrection is no isolated event. This new life is not confined to him. It is not restricted to his own humanity. He becomes the Head and Father of a new humanity, joined to him in the reality of the new life, which resides not merely in the intellect and will, but in the whole being. In principle, Christ’s resurrection has already achieved the transformation of the whole of humanity into this new life. Such the mystery of our Easter faith. The Eastern liturgy expresses it with wonderful assurance in a passage taken from an Easter sermon of St John Chrysostom and read out on the first day of Easter: “Christ is risen; no dead are left in the grave.” This faith of ours is not to be refuted by pointing to the countless millions of the dead who lie buried in the earth and in the sea. No one denies this. Indeed, we are only too conscious of it.
What is it, then, that our faith affirms? Not that there are no dead bodies left in the earth, but that these bodies are not truly dead. To be truly dead means to be dissolved forever, utterly annihilated. But when the disruptive forces of the world have done their worst, there remains, in virtue of Christ’s resurrection, some mysterious, indestructible, vital energy within the body — wherever it is buried — which will never finally and utterly forsake it, but which one day will raise it up again in glory. Only in such faith as this can we say in all honesty: death is truly conquered; no one is really dead. Such faith has its roots in St Paul’s teaching that we are all risen with Christ, and enthroned with him above the heavens.
5
From Meditations on the Church, introduction by Bishop John Wright, New York, 1967, pp. 63 B 64.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-25
THE UNKNOWN JUDGMENT
From the writing of Blessed Guerric of Igny6
Brethren, how beautiful and blessed it is not only to be without fear of death but with the assurance of a good conscience to triumph over it; in the spirit and words of Martin, to rebuke the foul beast if he dares to present himself, to open joyfully to the Judge when he comes and knocks. At that hour you may see unfortunates like me tremble, begging for a truce and having it denied them; wanting to buy the oil of penance for a sorrowing conscience and not having enough time; desirous of turning aside those ghostly specters and not being able to do so; anxious to bide away in the body from angry wrath and being forced to go forth. He will go forth, his spirit shall go forth and the sinner shall return into his earth whence he was drawn. “In that day all their thoughts shall perish.”
It is only human, I know, to be distressed about the moment of our passage from the earth. Even the perfect wish not to be stripped but rather to be further clothed. And although their conscience does not in fact reproach them, yet since that is not where their justification lies, they must of necessity fear the unknown judgment. But whether it be attachment to this life, or lack of holiness, or fear of the judgment that troubles the soul the just man says: “You, O Lord, will remember mercy, and you will send your mercy and your truth and will deliver my soul from the midst of the young lions, and I who was up till now sore distressed, in peace in the selfsame I will sleep and will rest.”
God called the earth and it heard him with trembling. For when he made known judgment from heaven, at the very sound of it the earth trembled and then, purified by its terror, was at rest. Blessed are they who so purge themselves of all the dross of sin during this present life that at the moment of death they need no more than the purification effected by fear. As for me, a useless and negligent servant, it will go well if I am saved through fire, all the wood, hay and stubble that I have heaped up for myself consumed by the flames; or if I escape, only half-burned. And indeed, by comparison with the evil of damnation, it is a good thing to be saved by fire; without any doubt it is much better to be made perfect by the mere cleansing of fear; and best of all not to be disturbed even by fear.
6
(CF 8 : 15-16).

Vigils Reading - Memorial of the BVM
2024-10-26
THE WOMAN OF FAITH
By Irénée Hausherr
The secret of prayer and of contemplation is faith. The Blessed Virgin Mary, the greatest of contemplatives, is she who had faith. She had great thoughts about everything. She encountered the First Cause in all things, spontaneously, without difficulty. She lived the religion of her people to the full. She related the slightest events of her life to her faith. This is what is called living by faith, or to use another term, stemming not from the Gospel but from Christian tradition: Living by contemplation. To contemplate is to see the infinitely Great in the infinitely small, or the invisible eternal in the visible temporal, and the First Cause throught the second causes.
There is another word, often used by spiritual authors to define contemplation. To contemplate is to traverse, to pass through the visible world in order to ascend to the invisible attributes of God. Mary did this from a spontaneous impulse, not without suffering. There were painful surprises, disappointments, fears: all the sorrowful mysteries. In the midst of sufferings as well as in the midst of joys, she gave herself to contemplation…
Let us hold fast to the faith of Mary! She no longer needs it in heaven! May she give it to us! May she help us to realize that faith is the victory over all the difficulties of daily life! May her faith remove the mountains that crush our heart and our soul. May it put into our spirit an habitual serenity that does honor to God.

Skema - 30th Week Ordinary Time
2024-10-27
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
30th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
October 27 – November 2, 2024

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

Office
30th Sunday
SS Simon & Jude
Weekday
Weekday
Weekday
All Saints
All Souls

Vigils
Wis 12:16-27
1 Macc 2:42-66
Wis 13:1-10
Wis 13:11-19
Wis 14:1-11
Rev 5:1-14
Ezek 37:1-14

Lauds
Job 5:8-16
Deut 32:1-9
Job 5:17-27
Job 6:1-4, 8-15
Job 7:1-6
Isa 65:17-25
Isa 38:9-20

Mass
149
666
480
481
482
667
668

1st
Jer 31:7-9
Eph 2:19-22
Eph 5:21-33
Eph 6:1-9
Eph 6:10-20
Rev 7:2-4, 9-14
Wis 3:1-9

2nd
Heb 5:1-6

1 Jn 3:1-3
2 Cor 5:1, 6-10

Gospel
Mark 10:46-52
Luke 6:12-16
Luke 13:18-21
Luke 13:22-30
Luke 13:31-35
Matt 5:1-12a
John 11:17-27

Vespers
Rom 2:1-11
Jude 17-21
Rom 2:12-16
Rom 2:17-24
Rev 19:5-9
Heb 11:32-12:2
Rom 3:21-26

Vigils Reading - 30th Sunday Ordinary Time
2024-10-27
OPEN YOURSELVES TO THE LIGHT
From a commentary by St Clement of Alexandria1
The commandment of the Lord shines clearly, enlightening the eyes. Receive Christ, receive power to see, receive your light, “that you may plainly recognize both God and man.” More delightful than gold and precious stones, more desirable than honey and the honeycomb is the word that has enlightened us. How could he not be desirable, he who illumined minds buried in darkness, and endowed with clear vision “the light bearing eyes” of the soul?
“Despite the other stars, without the sun the whole world would be plunged in darkness.” So likewise we ourselves, had we not known the Word and been enlightened by him, should have been no better off than plump poultry fattened in the dark, simply reared for death. Let us open ourselves to the light, then…and become disciples of the Lord. For he promised his Father: I will make known your name to my brothers and sisters, and praise you where they are assembled.
Sing his praises, then, Lord, and make known to me your Father, who is God. Your words will save me, your song instruct me. Hitherto have I gone astray in my search for God, but now that you light my path, Lord, and I find God through you, and receive the Father through you, I become co-heir with you, since you are not ashamed to own me as your brother.
Let us, then, shake off forgetfulness of truth, shake off the mist of ignorance and darkness that dims our eyes, and contemplate the true God, after first raising this song of praise to him: “All hail, O Light!” For upon us buried in darkness, imprisoned in the shadow of death, a heavenly light has shone, a light of clarity surpassing the sun’s and of a sweetness exceeding any this earthly life can offer. That light is eternal life, and those who receive it live. Night, on the other hand, is afraid of the light, and melting away in terror gives place to the day of the Lord. Unfailing light has penetrated everywhere, and sunset has turned into dawn. This is the meaning of the new creation; for the Sun of Righteousness, pursuing his course through the universe, visits all alike, in imitation of his Father, who makes his sun rise upon all, and bedews everyone with his truth.
He it is who has changed sunset into dawn and death into life by his crucifixion. He it is who has snatched the human race from perdition and exalted it to the skies. Transplanting what was corruptible to make it incorruptible, transforming earth into heaven, he, God’s gardener, points the way to prosperity, prompts his people to good works, “reminds them how to live” according to the truth, and bestows on us the truly great and divine heritage of the Father, which cannot be taken away from us… Let us accept the laws of life, let us obey God’s promptings. Let us learn to know Him, so that He may be merciful to us.
1
Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 128.

Vigils Reading - SS Simon & Jude
2024-10-28
THE ZEAL OF
SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE
By St John Henry Newman2
The Apostles commemorated on this Festival direct our attention to the subject of Zeal. St. Simon is called Zealot, which means the Zealous; a title given him (as is supposed) from his belonging before his conversion to the Jewish sect of Zealots, which professed extraordinary Zeal for the Law… St. Jude’s Epistle, which forms part of the service of the day, is almost wholly upon the duty of manifesting Zeal for Gospel Truth, and opens with a direct exhortation to “contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints.”
It will be a more simple account of Zeal, to call it the earnest desire for God’s honor, leading to strenuous and bold deeds in His behalf; and that in spite of all obstacles. Now Zeal is one of the elementary religious qualifications; that is, one of those which are essential in the very notion of a religious man. A man cannot be said to be in earnest in religion, till he magnifies his God and Savior; till he so far consecrates and exalts the thought of Him in his heart, as an object of praise, and adoration, and rejoicing, as to be pained and grieved at dishonor shown to Him, and eager to avenge Him. In a word, a religious temper is one of loyalty towards God; and we all know what is meant by being loyal from the experience of civil matters.
To be loyal is not merely to obey; but to obey with promptitude, energetic dutifulness, disinterested devotion, disregard of consequences. And such is Zeal, except that it is ever attended with that reverential feeling which is due from a creature and a sinner towards his Maker, and towards Him alone. It is the main principle in all religious service to love God above all things; now, Zeal is to love Him above all other people, above our dearest and most intimate friends. This was the especial praise of the Levites, which gained for them the reward of the Priesthood, that is , their executing judgment on the people in the sin of the golden calf. Zeal is the very consecration of God’s Ministers to their office.
Accordingly our Blessed Savior, the One Great High Priest, the Antitype of all Priests who went before Him and the Lord and Strength of all who come after, began His manifestation of Himself by two acts of Zeal. When twelve years old he deigned to put before us in representation the sacredness of this duty, when He remained in the Temple “while His father and mother sought Him sorrowing,” and on their finding Him, returned answer, “Do you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” And again, at the opening of His public Ministry, He went into the Temple, and “made a scourge of small cords, and drove out the sheep and oxen, and overthrew the changers’ tables” that profaned it: thus fulfilling the prophecy contained in the text, “Zeal for your house has eaten me up.” Being thus consumed by Zeal Himself, no wonder He should choose His followers from among the Zealous.
2
“Christian Zeal,” in Parochial and Plain Sermons, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987, pp. 464 ff.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-29
A VIRGIN LIFE
From the writing of Louis Bouyer3
Baptism is our union with Christ’s cross, our union with his death, so that we may also be united with him in his risen life of glory. Baptism therefore implies, and has always implied, in some way the abandonment, the renunciation of everything in human life as this is lived in a “natural”, that is, a fallen and sinful way. This fact was made clear to the first Christians by the very conditions in which God’s providence allowed them to live; they knew that if they wanted to be members of Christ by faith and baptism, they had to be prepared for martyrdom. They had to be ready at any moment to witness to the reality of their attachment to Christ. They had to be ready to give a witness which might imply the abandonment, not only of all the pleasures of human life, but of life itself.
And thus from the very beginning it was understood that someone could not be a Christian without in some way struggling with the world, without accepting a permanent and lifelong struggle with their own “flesh”, with their own sinful self. Christians understood, of course, that they were called to take part in Christ’s work of saving the world, but they knew that they could not take this part unless in some way they escaped from the world. Christ saved the world because he engaged in the struggle to death with the powers of evil… He was willing to abandon the life of this world for the sake of the salvation of humanity. A struggle with the evil in oneself and the world, and abandonment and escape from the world, is a necessary preliminary to taking part with Christ in his work of redeeming the world.
From the very beginning of Christianity, therefore, a virgin life, all life consecrated to Christ to the exclusion of all human attachment, even the most legitimate, has been proposed as the ideal realization of the will of God. It has always been considered better that Christians, in order to fight most effectively against the powers of this world, should abandon their hopes of realizing the fullness of life in this world, so as to be free and ready to meet Christ with his cross and to follow him through death to the world of eternal life.
This virgin life, this life of freedom from the claims and attachments of this world, was thought of first as the ideal preparation for the possibility of martyrdom – a possibility which faced every Christian in the first Christian generations. But when the persecutions of the first centuries ended, it came to be understood that this free and spontaneous offering of one’s own life to Christ in virginity, this consecration to him which implies the abandonment of the hope of realizing human love and love in this world – that this consecration was not only the ideal preparation for martyrdom, for full union with Christ and his cross, but that it was itself a spiritual martyrdom. For it is a spiritual witnessing by our whole lives to the love of God revealed and given to us in Christ, and to our desire to respond fully to that love.
3
Liturgy and Religious Life, St. Louis, 1959, pp. 20-22.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-30
THE SAINT AND THE MISSION
An excerpt from “The World of Prayer” by Adrienne von Speyr4
A saint’s standing before God with a community within is no plain and simple fact. The saints can be in God’s presence in such a personal way that, involuntarily or even voluntarily, they forget their mission. And between these two poles there is a whole spectrum. It may happen involuntarily when God alone wishes it so because he wants to have his saint to himself. It happens voluntarily when the saint feels it right on this occasion to be alone in God’s presence, leaving the particular mission out of focus in the background.
There is another extreme in relation to these two forms of prayer, namely, the prayer of those saints who never appear before God except in the very midst of their mission, whether because God wills it so or because the saint will not have it otherwise. Here too there are gradations. One is inclined to a certain suspicion of those who always do everything completely deliberately and of their own free will, choosing whether to go before God with or without the mission entrusted to them, whereas there can be no grounds for suspicion in the case of the saint who, involuntarily and only as God requires, is always standing before God in one sense or another. In general, however, there is an alternation: There are times and moments in which the saint is more important to God than the individual mission, and others when the mission itself is the most important thing.
If the saints themselves make no choice, God can work in them or in their mission or in both, within the relationship he chooses. But if the saint and the mission constitute a single unity as willed by God, God’s shaping influence on the one will always benefit the other. It can happen, then, that when a particular mission begins to make itself felt it brings difficulties for the saint in standing before God in prayer. But these difficulties and their mastery contribute to the saint’s fruitfulness. They never take the form of insuperable obstacles but of a gain at a higher level, be it a deeper insight or a better adaptation to God’s will or a closer integration of saint and mission. Mission here always means an embodiment of the community. It is what, in the saint, is of and for the community: the seed of community, a task within the community, a fruit entrusted to the community. This fruit is greater than the I; it is the Thou, in all its manifold forms, which has been entrusted to the I. Ultimately this multiplicity belongs to the Church and indeed can be the Church.
4
The World of Prayer, Adrienne von Speyr, Ignatius: San Francisco 1985. pp.255-256.

Vigils Reading - Weekday
2024-10-31
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST
From the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate5
For the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to the mystery of God’s saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are already found among the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ, Abraham’s sons according to faith are included in the same patriarch’s call, and likewise that the salvation of the Church was mystically foreshadowed by the chosen people’s exodus from the land of bondage.
The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom in God’s inexpressible mercy deigned to establish the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles. Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, our Peace, reconciled Jew and Gentile, making them both one in Himself.
Also, the Church ever keeps in mind the words of the Apostle about his kinsmen, “who have the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenant and the legislation and the worship and the promises; who have the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh”, the son of the Virgin Mary. The Church recalls too that from the Jewish people sprang the apostles, her foundation stones and pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ to the world.
As holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor did the Jews in large number accept the gospel; indeed, not a few opposed the spreading of it. Nevertheless, according to the Apostle, the Jews still remain most dear to God because of their fathers, for He does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. In company with the prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and “serve him with one accord”.
Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred Synod wishes to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit above all of biblical and theological studies, and of brotherly dialogues.
True, authorities of the Jews and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as repudiated or cursed by God, as if such views followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should take pains, then, lest in catechetical instruction and in the preaching of God’s Word they teach anything out of harmony with the truth of the gospel and the spirit of Christ.
5
The Documents of Vatican II, Decree on Non-Christians. General Ed. Walter M. Abbott SJ, Herder & Herder, 1966, pp. 664-666.

Vigils Reading - All Saints
2024-11-01
MERCY AND JUDGMENT
by Isaac of Stella6
“Happy are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Even a righteous person cannot contend safely with the all-righteous God. It is silly to go out with ten thousand men to meet him who comes against you with twenty. The sensible thing is to send a messenger and ask for terms, before the other has advanced too far; to say, in a word, “Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no one living be justified.” Who, then, is this ambassador of peace? His name is mercy. For only by showing mercy can we hope to get it. Without mercy, righteousness is cruel and brings no one salvation. Only the merciful will have the joy, at the last day, of hearing the king say, “Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me meat… For that is as much as to say, “You showed mercy, and now you are obtaining it.” “Happy,” therefore, “are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
David, you remember, sings of “mercy and judgment” in that order, mercy first. For mercy must first be shown, and then sought at the judgment seat. The one who has shown no mercy will be sentenced without mercy too.
There are two kinds of mercy, one giving, one forgiving. “Give, and it shall be given unto you,” says the Lord, “forgive, and you shall be forgiven.” And that in proportion to what we ourselves do. “Forgive us, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” “With what measure you mete, it shall be meted unto you.”
In the first degree of giving mercy a person gives to others some of his own possessions. This is in accord with the Lord’s command, “Give alms, and all things shall be pure unto you.”
In the second degree one gives all one’s possessions. In that, one is like the apostles, who said, “Lo, we have left all and followed thee. What shall we have, then?”
In the third degree one gives oneself. The apostle Paul did that, who said, “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you.” No one has a greater love than this. One who possesses it gives himself to the Lord to the full extent of his capacity for giving.
The matter stands similarly with the other kind of mercy, the forgiving kind. You can remit some of the debts that other people owe you. Or you can remit them all. Or you can give back the debtor’s very self to him, as when an owner frees a slave.
We religious have renounced all property. We cannot practice either kind of mercy in material things. But there are other things that we can give: advice, our prayers, a good example and so forth. And we can forgive injuries.
6
Cistercian Studies , vol.2, no.1 1967. “Selections From the Sermons of Isaac of Sella” by Sr. Penelope. pp.262-263.

Vigils Reading - All Souls
2024-11-02
PRAYING TO THE SAINTS
by Fr Karl Rahner7
Nothing can come ‘between’ God and us. On the other hand, one of the conditions for this closeness to God is that we should belong to the communion of the saints. But perhaps this still does not make it quite clear how the communion of the saints, which can certainly be effected by means of a specific, explicit act, can take the concrete form of appealing to the saints to ask for their intercession. Although this communion with the saints is included in the official liturgy of the Church, the saints themselves are not addressed directly. Why? How can this still be possible? No clear-cut answer has so far been found to this question, chiefly because we cannot take it for granted that we can address the saints directly simply because they exist, as is attempted in spiritualist gatherings.
The following short anecdote might help us to proceed in our investigations. When I was in Rome during the Council I had the opportunity, together with a group of others, to meet the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth. Our discussion turned to the veneration of the Virgin. I asked Karl Barth whether an individual may ask another Christian to pray for him. After a short hesitation, he replied that the individual should ask his fellow Christian to pray with him. The conversation then moved on to other topics. I admit that for many years I thought Barth’s answer was intentionally evasive, that he wished to avoid the issue of veneration of the Virgin. Now I wonder if we should not pursue his point.
To start with, there is nothing new about the saints’ intercession on our behalf with God. On the contrary it is central to their entire history and to eternal salvation; they rest in God’s presence yet are also joined in perpetual communion with us. Their intercession for us depends of course on the degree of intensity, explicit or otherwise, with which we participate in their act of communion, which in turn reflects on our relationship to God. The saints pray ‘with us’ and thus ‘for us’. Our plea for their intercession is not therefore an attempt to create some new, individualistic kind of spiritualistic communication. The concrete reality of the communion of saints exists already, and through it we worship God. It is the practical realization of this communion which freely embraces a wide variety of religious acts. Hence it can include a petition for intercession, while still remaining essentially the faithful realization of the communion of saints in which we stand before God, and in which we may expect his mercy and help. Seen in these terms, calling on the saints for their intercession in no way interposes ‘between’ us and God.
On the contrary it provides concrete evidence of the fact that God loves each one of us as a unique being. He loves every single being he has created, and forms us into a community in which we can all love one another. We do not invoke the help of the saints because otherwise they would not intercede on our behalf; rather, in their eternal salvation they do nothing but intercede for us. In praying to the saints we show that we believe in this perpetual intercession because it enables us to accept and make use of its beneficial effects.
7
THE COURAGE TO PRAY, by Karl Rahner (Crossroad, NY 1981) pp. 69-71.

Skema
2024-11-03
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
31st Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
November 3 – 9, 2024

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

Office
31st Sunday
St Charles Borromeo
Weekday
Weekday
Office for Vocations
Weekday
Lateran Basilica

Vigils
Wis 14:12-24
Wis 14:25-15:6
Wis 15:7-19
Wis 16:1-15
Wis 16:16-29
Wis 17:1-15
Exodus 40:1-34

Lauds
Job 7:7-11
Job 9:1-12
Job 9:13-21
Job 9:25-10:1a
Job 10:1b-9
Job 11:1-9
1 Macc 4:52-59

Mass
152
485
486
487
488
489
671

1st
Deut 6:2-6
Phil 2:1-4
Phil 2:5-11
Phil 2:12-18
Phil 3:3-8a
Phil 3:17-4:1
Ezek 47:1-2, 8-9, 12

2nd
Heb 7:23-28

1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17

Gospel
Mark 12:28b-34
Luke 14:12-14
Luke 14:15-24
Luke 14:25-33
Luke 15:1-10
Luke 16:1-8
John 2:13-22

Vespers
Rom 5:1-11
Rom 6:1-11
Rom 8:18-27
Rom 6:16-23
Rom 7:14-25
Rom 8:1-6
Heb 10:19-25

Vigils Reading - 31st Sunday
2024-11-03
OUR REASON FOR LOVING
From a commentary by St Francis de Sales1
◊◊◊
Because God created us in is own image and likeness, he ordained that our
love for one another should be in the image and likeness of the love we owe him,
our God. He said: You must love the Lord our God with your whole heart. This
is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it. You must love
your neighbor as yourself.
What is our reason for loving God? God himself is the reason we love him;
we love him because he is the supreme and infinite goodness. What is our
reason for loving ourselves? Surely because we are the image and likeness of
God. And since all men and women possess this same dignity we love them as
ourselves, that is, as holy and living images of the Godhead. It is as such that we
belong to God through a kinship so close and a dependence so lovable that he
does not hesitate to call himself our Father, and to name us his children. It is as
such that we are capable of being united to him in the fruition of his sovereign
goodness and joy. It is as such that we receive his grace and that our spirits are
associated with his most Holy Spirit and rendered, in a sense, sharers in the
divine nature.
So it is then that the same charity produces together acts of love of God
and of our neighbor. As Jacob saw that the same ladder touching heaven and
earth was used by the angels both for ascending and descending, so we can be
sure that the same charity cherishes both God and our neighbor, raising us even
to spiritual union with God, and bringing us back to loving companionship with
our neighbors.
It must always be understood, however, that we love our neighbors for
this reason, that they are made in the image and likeness of God, created to
communicate in his goodness, share in his grace, and rejoice in his glory.
To have a Christian love for our neighbors is to love God in them, or them
in God; it is to cherish God alone for his own sake, and his creatures for love of
him. When we look upon our neighbors, created in the image and likeness of
God, should we not also say to each other: “Look at these people he has made –
are they not like their maker?” Should we not be drawn irresistibly toward
them, embrace them, and be moved to tears for love of them? Should we not call
down upon them a hundred blessings? And why? For love of them? No indeed,
since we cannot be sure whether, of themselves, they are worthy of love or hate.
Then why? For love of God, who created them in his own image and likeness,
and so capable of sharing in his goodness, grace, and glory; for love of God, I say,
unto whom they exist, for whom they exist, through whom they exist, for whom
they exist, and whom they resemble in a very special manner.
This is why divine Love not only repeatedly commands us to love our
neighbors, but also itself produces this love and pours it out into our hearts,
since they bear its own image and likeness; for just as we are the image of God,
so our holy love for one another is the true image of our heavenly love for God.

Vigils Reading - St Charles Borromeo
2024-11-04
THE LEGACY OF
ST CHARLES BORROMEO
From a homily by Fr Ronald Knox2
◊◊◊
When our Lord’s apostles came to look back upon that terrible night in the
Lake of Galilee, when they strained every nerve against the tempest while their
Master lay sleeping in the boat, they found in it an allegory of their own
situation, as they launched out the frail bark of his Church upon waves so
troubled, with prospects so uncertain. And in every age the Church has looked
back to that picture and taken comfort from it in times of adversity. [With great
confidence], the Church of God, which is Peter’s boat, has breasted the waves all
through her troubled history. It is not upon the captain’s judgment or the pilot’s
experience, not human wisdom or human prudence, that she depends for her
safe voyage: she rests secure in the presence of her inviolable passenger.
Yet we should do ill if we grudged recognition and gratitude to those
servants of his who at various times have steered our course for us through
difficult waters, and especially to the saints of the Counter-Reformation — that
remarkable group of saints whom God raised up at the time of Europe’s
apostasy, by whose influence, humanly speaking, the faith survived that terrible
ordeal. And not the least, nor the least prominent, of these is [St. Charles
Borromeo], who ruled the Church of Milan in the latter part of the sixteenth
century…
Whatever be the rights and wrongs of all the controversies we hear about
the medieval Church, this at least is clear, that in the days of the Council of Trent
its organization needed reform. And reform needs more than mere legislation to
decree it; it needs administration to execute it. That is St. Charles’s
characteristic legacy to the Church: it was the influence of his example, in great
measure, that molded her organization on the new model which Trent had
decreed. The bishop has got to be the center of everything in his diocese, and the
clergy of the diocese are to be his clergy — a family of which he is to be the father,
a guild of which he is to be the master.
See how fond St. Charles was of synods: the whole of his comparatively
short episcopate is a long record of the synods he gathered amongst his clergy.
See how enthusiastic he is for the seminary idea; the bishop, henceforth, is not
merely to ordain people, he is to know whom he is ordaining. And above all what
was characteristic of St. Charles was the institute which he left behind him — a
body of secular priests, putting themselves at the disposal of the bishop as
absolutely as the religious puts himself at the disposal of his superior. Yes, there
is much about St. Charles’s life which is more exciting, and much which is more
attractive, than all this; his boundless generosity to the poor, the relentless
mortification that regulated his busy, competent life. But what makes him stand
out among the saints more than either is his intense devotion even to the most
uninspiring details of diocesan routine.

Vigils Reading
2024-11-05
VOLUNTARY POVERTY
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux3
◊◊◊
Jesus entered into a certain fortified town, and a certain woman, named
Martha, received him into her home. The fortified town where Christ entered is
voluntary poverty, which protects its inhabitants from twin attacks that assault
lovers of this world: one’s own envy, of course, and that of another. You see,
poverty, as long as it is considered wretched, is not envied by others. And
because poverty is voluntary, it envies no one anything.
These two sisters signify the two lifestyles of those who love poverty.
Certain careful people, with Martha, prepare two dishes, that is, correction of
works with the salt of contrition, and works of piety with the seasoning of
devotion. But those who, with Mary, give all their time to God alone,
contemplating what God is in the world, what in human beings, what in angels,
what in himself, what in the condemned, contemplate God as ruler and pilot in
the world, liberator and helper of human beings, flavor and beauty of angels,
beginning and end in himself, terror and horror of the condemned: wonderful
in creatures, lovable in human beings, desirable in angels, incomprehensible in
himself, intolerable in the condemned.
3Sermo 48, Bernard of Clairvaux Monastic Sermons, CF 68. pg. 244.

Vigils Reading
2024-11-06
GOD REQUIRES ONLY LOVE
A letter to Hugh the Recluse from St Anselm of Canterbury4
◊◊◊
The person who will have the grace to reign in the kingdom of heaven will
see the realization of everything desired in heaven and on earth, and nothing
unwanted will be realized in heaven or on earth. The love which will unite God
with those who will live there, and the latter among themselves, will be such that
all will love one another as themselves, and all will love God more than
themselves.
If someone asks what price, here is the response: the one who offers a
kingdom in heaven has no need of earthly money. No one can give God what
already belongs to God, since everything that exists is God’s. Yet God does not
give such a great thing unless one attaches value to it; God does not give it to one
who does not appreciate it. For no one gives what he prizes to someone who
attaches no value to it. Hence, although God has no need of your goods, God will
not give you such a great thing as long as you disdain to love it; God requires
only love, but without it nothing obliges God to give. Love, then, and you will
receive the Kingdom. Love, and you will possess it.
And since to reign in heaven is nothing other than to adhere to God and all
the saints, through love, in a single will, to the point that all together exercise
only one power, love God more than yourself, and you will already begin to have
what you wish to possess perfectly in heaven. Put yourself at peace with God and
with others – if the latter do not separate themselves from God – and you will
already begin to reign with God and all the saints. For to the extent that you now
conform to the will of God and to that of all others, God and all the saints will
concur with your will. Hence, if you want to be king in heaven, love God and all
others as you should, and you will merit to be what you desire.
However, you will not be able to possess it to perfection unless you empty
your heart of every other love… This is why those who fill their hearts with love
for God and their neighbor have no other will than that of God – or that of
another, provided it is not contrary to God. That is why they are faithful in
praying as well as in carrying on a dialogue with and remembering heaven; for it
is pleasing to them to desire God and to speak of someone whom they love, to
hear him spoken about, and to think of him. It is also why they rejoice with
those who are joyful, weep with those who are in pain, have compassion on the
suffering, and give to the poor; for they love others as themselves.

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2024-11-07
DIVINE CALLS
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman5
◊◊◊
We find in scripture a remarkable instance of a Divine Call, and the
manner in which it is our duty to meet it. Samuel was a mere child when he was
brought to the house of the Lord; and in due time he was called to a sacred
office, and made a prophet. He was called, and he forthwith answered the call.
He did not understand at first who called, and what was meant; but on going to
Eli he learned who spoke, and what his answer should be. So when God called
again, he said: “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.” Here is prompt obedience.
Very different in its circumstances was St Paul’s call, but resembling
Samuel’s in this respect, that, when God called, he also promptly obeyed. When
St Paul heard the voice from heaven, he said at once, trembling and astonished,
“Lord, what will you have me do?” This same obedience is stated or implied in
two accounts which he himself gives of his miraculous conversion. In chapter 22
he says, “And I said, What shall I do, Lord?” and in ch. 26 he tells King Agrippa:
“Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision”.
Such is the account given us in St Paul’s case of that first step in God’s gracious
dealings with him, which ended in his eternal salvation. “Whom He foreknew,
He also predestined – and whom He predestined, He also called” – here was the
first act which took place in time – “and whom He called He also justified, and
whom He justified, He also glorified”. Such is the Divine series of mercies; and
you see that it was prompt obedience on St Paul’s part which moved Divine
grace forward.
This, then, is the first lesson taught us by St Paul’s conversion, promptly
to obey the call. If we do obey it, to God be the glory, for He it is Who works in us.
If we do not obey, to ourselves be all the shame, for sin and unbelief work in us.
Such is the state of mind expressed by holy David: “When you said, Seek
My face, my heart said to you: Your face, O Lord, will I seek”. And this also is
illustrated in the case of many other saints in scripture shown in word and deed.
For instance, we read of the apostles that “Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee,
saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net
into the sea, for they were fishers. And He said to them, Follow me, and I will
make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets and followed him”.
Again, when He saw James and John with their father Zebedee, “He called
them; and they immediately left the ship, and their father and followed Him.”
And so also with St Matthew at the custom house, “He said to him, Follow Me;
and he left all, rose up and followed Him.”

Vigils Reading
2024-11-08
HIS CROSS IS MY GLORY
From a homily by William of St-Thierry6
◊◊◊
It is to my crucified one that I turn. His cross is my glory: its mark is on my
brow; it gives joy to my mind, direction to my life, love even for death itself. May
they not despise me for this, O Lord, they who are worthy to behold you, seated
as you are on your throne, the exaltation of your godhead, filling all the earth
with your majesty. The mysteries of your dealings with men here and now fill
the temple of every mind, great and small. May your holy angels have the
honour that is their due in heaven: but may they sometimes also share their
grace and favours with us here on earth. For he loves us to make progress in our
lives: and their blessed perfection is sweet to him.
As the Apostle says: God’s many-splendoured wisdom has been
manifested to principalities and powers in heaven through his dealings with the
Church. Wherefore may they pardon us, Lord, even if your love should
sometimes so captivate us that we desire to see, with them, what with them we
already love: with a full heart we felicitate them, as they behold what we are not
yet worthy to behold.
May they blissfully contemplate your divine majesty residing in your
eternal wisdom: those things to be, seen before this our mortal wayfaring and
after it, everything that is, past and future, enfolding it all within his eternal
present: it reaches in its power and strength from one extremity to another. But
our temporal passage, belonging to your dealings with men as a whole, he has
strewn with his charity, disposing all things in sweetness, for the sake of the
daughters of Jerusalem, the devout but as yet infirm souls. They who have not
thus far their elevated gaze fixed on contemplating the sublime would fain
undergo hardship for your servants and be transformed so as to belong among
their fellows. Among these, O Lord, may my spirit some day be taught to adore
you, spirit as you are, in spirit and in truth, flesh no longer desiring what is
contrary to the spirit, nor yet holding it back.
But now that for the moment you are kept from boldly taking possession
of what is to be yours, make a proper disposition of what is his, with what grace
and harmony you best can, as befits him, the true owner. I have not yet risen
above the rough-hewn figures of my earthly imagination: but may you indulge
and be gracious to my feeble spirit, as it expresses its true nature in letting its
fancy play on your more humble creatures. Behold! the meager enfolding the
newly born, the holy child being adored; the footprints of the crucified one being
licked, as he hangs on the cross; his feet being held and kissed now that he is
risen; the hand, put in the place where the nails went; and then the exclamation
– My Lord and my God!

Vigils Reading - Lateran Basilica
2024-11-09
DEDICATION OF
THE LATERAN BASILICA7
◊◊◊
The blessed Pope Sylvester I instituted the rites which the Roman Church
observes in consecrating churches and altars. For although from the ages of the
apostles places had been dedicated to God where assemblies were held every
Sabbath, yet those places had not been consecrated by a solemn rite before this.
Up to the time of Sylvester an altar was not erected under title, which, anointed
with chrism, symbolizes our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Altar, our Victim, our
Priest
But when the Emperor Constantine obtained health and salvation
through the sacrament of Baptism, then for the first time, by an edict published
by him, the Christians throughout the world were permitted to build churches;
he himself encouraged this holy building by his own example, as well as by this
edict. For in his own Lateran palace he dedicated a church to the Savior and
founded adjacent to it a Basilica, under the title of St John the Baptist, on the
very spot where he had been baptized by St Sylvester and cleansed from the
leprosy of unbelief. This basilica the same Pope consecrated on November 9,
and the memory of this consecration is celebrated today, when, for the first
time, a church was publicly consecrated at Rome, and there appeared to the
Roman people an image of the Savior depicted on the wall.
Although later on St Sylvester decreed that from that time forward all
altars should be built of stone, yet the altar of the Lateran Basilica was built of
wood. This is not surprising. For since, from St Peter down to Sylvester, because
of persecutions, the Pontiffs could not dwell in any fixed abode, they offered the
Holy Sacrifice [of the Mass] wherever necessity compelled them, whether in
crypts or in cemeteries, or in the homes of the faithful, upon a wooden altar
which was hollow like a cheSt
When this altar had been placed in the first church, the Lateran, St
Sylvester decreed that from that time on, no one except the Roman Pontiff
should celebrate Mass upon it, in honor of the Prince of the Apostles and of the
rest of the Popes who had been accustomed to use it. This same church, having
been destroyed by fires, pillaging, and earthquakes, and repaired by the
laborious effort of the Supreme Pontiffs, was afterwards rebuilt anew. Pope
Benedict XIII, a Dominican, consecrated it on April 28, 1726, by a solemn rite.

LCG Chicago Monthly Meeting 9 am CST
2024-11-09 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86028356465
Meeting ID: 860 2835 6465
One tap mobile
+13126266799,,86028356465# US (Chicago)
+13092053325,,86028356465# US

9:00 Gather for Opening prayer and lighting of the candles illuminating the Theotokos icon of Blessed Mother Mary and the baby Jesus.
We also pray for all our lay Cistercian sisters and brothers in the US and around the world. Specially we pray for our Gethsemani monks. Finally, we pray this month specially for these Gethsemani monks:
Br. Godric Hathorn
Fr. Raphael Hodari
Br. Alberic Henry
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Tom Kosnik.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is to prepare for Advent by reading Pope Benedict’s The Infancy Narratives: Jesus of Nazareth (chapters 1 and 2).
10:45 Housekeeping. Volunteer to lead lectio next month? Chicago Report on LCG Advisory Council activity. Plans for international meeting in 2025 and Anglophone lead-ins thereto. Finally, we will celebrate Mary Ann’s LCG commitment and share thoughts about the October, 2023 LCG Retreat at Gethsemani.
11:00 Update. Share how the Holy Spirt has entered our lives as lay Cistercians since our last meeting.
11:45 Closing worship and prayer. We will pray the liturgical hour of None as with our Gethsemani monks (identical Psalms as done today at Gethsemani Abbey.)
Our next meeting: December 14, 2024.

Skema
2024-11-10
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
32nd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
November 10 – 16, 2024

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

Office
32nd Sunday
St Martin of Tours
Weekday
All Benedictine Saints
Weekday
Gethsemani Church
St Gertrude the Great

Vigils
Wis 17:16-18:4
Wis 18:5-13
Wis 18:14-25
Dan 7:1-3, 9-22, 27
Wis 19:1-12
Rev 21:9-22:5
Wis 19:13-22

Lauds
Job 11:13-20
Isa 58:6-12
Job 12:1-10
Wisdom 5:1-5, 14-16
Job 13:6-19
Ezek 37:21-28
Job 13:20-27

Mass
155
491
492
573, 677
494
701.2, 704.2, 706.4
496

1st
1 Kgs 17:10-16
Titus 1:1-9
Titus 2:1-8, 11-14
Isa 61:9-11
Phlm 7-20
2 Chron 5:6-10, 13-6:2
3 John 5-8

2nd
Heb 9:24-28

Eph 2:19-22

Gospel
Mark 12:38-44
Luke 17:1-6
Luke 17:7-10
John 15:1-8
Luke 17:20-25
John 4:19-24
Luke 18:1-8

Vespers
Rom 8:9-17
Gal 6:1-5
Rom 9:1-8
Eph 6:10-18
Heb 3:1-6
2 Cor 6:14-7:1
Rom 10:1-13

Vigils reading - 32nd Sunday
2024-11-10
LET US GIVE GLADLY
From a commentary by St Paulinus of Nola1
◊◊◊
What have you, asks the Apostle, that you have not received? This
means, beloved, that we should not be miserly, regarding possessions of our
own, but should rather invest what has been entrusted to us. We have been
entrusted with the administration and use of temporal wealth for the common
good, not with the everlasting ownership of private property. If you accept the
fact that ownership on earth is only for a time, you can earn eternal possessions
in heaven.
Call to mind the widow who forgot herself in her concern for the poor, and
thinking only of the life to come, gave away all her means of subsistence, as the
judge himself bears witness. Others, he says, have given of their superfluous
wealth, but she, possessed of only two small coins and more needy perhaps than
many of the poor – though in spiritual riches she surpassed all the wealthy – she
thought only of the world to come, and had such a longing for heavenly treasure
that she gave away, all at once, whatever she had that was derived from the earth
and destined to return there.
Let us then invest with the Lord what he has given us, for we have nothing
that does not come from him; we are dependent upon him for our very
existence. And we ourselves particularly, who have a special and greater debt,
since God not only created us but purchased us as well – what can we regard as
our own when we do not possess even ourselves?
But let us rejoice that we have been bought at a great price, the price of the
Lord’s own blood, and that because of this we are no longer worthless slaves.
For there is a freedom that is baser than slavery, namely, freedom from justice.
Whoever has that kind of freedom is a slave of sin and a prisoner of death. So let
us give back to the Lord the gifts he has given us; let us give to him who receives
in the person of every poor man or woman. Let us give gladly, I say, and great joy
will be ours when we receive his promised reward.

Vigils Reading - St Martin of Tours
2024-11-11 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
ST MARTIN,
A MAN OF PRAYER
From a letter by Pope John XXIII2
◊◊◊
If St Martin was a bishop and a zealous pastor who can well be imitated in
the practice of charity, he was also and first of all a monk. You might even say
that the only reason he was such a marvelous man of action was that he was first
of all a man of prayer. And from this point of view too, he has a great lesson to
give to the Christians of today.
Eager for solitude and union with God, this giant of the apostolate lived in
constant prayer: “he never turned his mind away from prayer,” according to the
expression -later picked up by the liturgy- of his contemporary and first
biographer Sulpicius Severus, who adds that once he was elevated to the
episcopacy, the servant of God “remained what he had been before and bore the
dignity of bishop without abandoning the design of life and the virtue of a
monk.”
Was not his principal means of evangelization to found churches and
monasteries everywhere?… And thus it was that, thanks to him, monasticism
was introduced into France.
Throwing light on this side of the activity of the great convert-maker is a
way of reminding us of the immense benefits that the monks brought to their
country; it is a way of drawing their attention, which is so easily distracted at the
present time by the agitated pace of modern life, back to the lasting greatness
and beauties of monastic life; it is a way of inviting them to hold this form of life,
and, in general, the grace of a religious vocation, high in their esteem…
The example of St Martin, which has been confirmed by the experience of
centuries, shows what invaluable instruments for spiritual elevation cloisters
are in Christian society and what an effective contribution they make to the
apostolate of the Church.…
May the great Bishop, model of the monk and the pastor, succeed in
stirring up a new spirit of fervor for the service of God.
