Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

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.

Vigils Reading
2024-11-12
THE CALL TO REPENTANCE
By Pope Paul VI3
◊◊◊
Christ, who during his life always did what he taught, spent forty days and
forty nights in fasting and prayer before beginning his ministry. He began his
public mission with this joyful message: “The kingdom of God is at hand”, and
immediately added this command, “Repent, and believe in the Good News”. In a
certain way, the whole Christian life is summarized in these words.
Repentance is the only way of attaining to the kingdom which Christ
proclaimed, in other words, by the total and intimate change and renewal of the
whole person, in thought, judgment, and life. This change and renewal effects
itself in man through the light of that holiness and love of God which has been
shown and communicated to us wholly in the Son.
The Son’s call to repentance becomes all the more obligatory for us
because he not only preached it but offered himself as an example. Christ is, in
fact, the supreme example for penitents. He chose to suffer, not for his own sins
but for those of others.
When anyone comes into Christ’s presence they are enlightened by a new
light, for they see the holiness of God and the gravity of sin. Through Christ’s
word they receive the message which summons them to conversion and bestows
pardon on sin. They receive these gifts in their fulness through baptism which
molds them in the likeness of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. After
baptism, their whole life is lived in the light of this mystery.
Therefore every Christian must follow their Master in self-renunciation,
in bearing their cross and in sharing Christ’s suffering. Thus, transformed in the
likeness of his death, they are able to meditate on the glory of the resurrection.
They also follow the Master in living no longer for themselves, but for Christ
who loved them and gave himself for them, and for their brothers and sisters as
well, completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body,
that is the Church.
Moreover, [because] the Church [is] intimately bound to Christ, the
penitence of each Christian is also a real and intimate link with the whole
ecclesial community. Indeed, it is not only in the womb of the Church that,
through baptism, they receive the initial gift of repentance, but this gift is
restored and reaffirmed—through the sacrament of penance—for those
members of the body of Christ who have fallen into sin. Those who come to this
sacrament of penance receive there, through God’s mercy, pardon for the wrong
that they have done. At the same time they are reconciled with the Church,
whom their sin has wounded and who, by means of love, example and prayer,
labors for their conversion.
Lastly, in the Church, the little work of penance imposed on each penitent
in the sacrament has a special part in Christ’s infinite expiation; while, within
the order of the Church, the penitent may unite to sacramental satisfaction
everything that they do, suffer and endure. Thus the baptized Christian, at each
moment and in every aspect of their life, bears the sufferings and death of Jesus
in his body and soul.

Vigils Reading - All Benedictine Saints
2024-11-13
IN PRAISE OF
THE MONASTIC VOCATION
From “The Golden Epistle” by William of St-Thierry4
◊◊◊
Surely it is right to feast in the Lord and rejoice because the fairest part of
the Christian religion, which seemed to come into close contact with heaven, has
returned to life after having died, has been found after being lost.
Our ears had heard tell of it, but we did not believe, we read in books of it
and marveled at the ancient glory of the solitary life and at the great grace of God
manifested in it; when suddenly we found it in the clearings of a wood, on
God’s mountain, on the fertile mountain, where the fair places of the desert now
wax fat on its richness and the hills are girt with exultation.
For there, through you it now offers itself to all and in you it displays itself.
Hitherto unknown, it stands revealed in a few simple men. He who brings it
among us is the same who by means of a few simple men subjected the whole
world to himself, to the amazement of that world. “Do not be afraid then, you,
my little flock,” says the Lord, “but show utter trust, because your Father has
determined to give you his kingdom”… It is not for you to concern yourselves
feebly with the ordinary commandments nor to give your attention only to what
God lays down as of obligation; you must seek his desires, fulfill in yourselves
what is God’s will, the good thing, the desirable thing, the perfect thing.
It is for others to serve God, it is for you to cling to him; it is for others to
believe in God, know him, love him and revere him; it is for you to taste him,
understand him, be acquainted with him, enjoy him.
This is no slight matter, no easy goal; but he who, in his love, makes you
such promises is almighty and good. He will be faithful in fulfilling them and
untiring in giving help. To those who in their great love for him pledge
themselves to great things and, believing and trusting in his grace, undertake
what is beyond their own strength, he imparts both the will and the desire; and
he follows up the grace to will by bestowing also the power to achieve. Let the
calumniator calumniate as he will: if a person faithfully does what is humanly
possible for him to do, God himself in his mercy will give judgment for his poor
one, will champion his cause, because the person did what he could.
Yet…let all exaltation be far from the opinion you have of yourselves.
Consider [others] as being far above you in strength and admire their glory,
those who are mighty with both hands – who use their left hand as readily as
their right. As long as they are allowed, they love to stay inside and devote their
leisure with all devotion to the contemplation of truth in charity; then when
necessity summons or duty impels, they go out without a moment’s hesitation to
give themselves to the practice of charity in truth.
Rather, in fear and trembling work out your own salvation. Do not
wonder what others are like but, to the best of your ability, what they may
become through your influence; not only those who are now alive but also those
who will come after you and take you as their models in the pursuit of their
vocation. For it is from you, from your example, from your authority that all the
future of this holy Order in these parts will derive its character.

Vigils Reading
2024-11-14
THE INSTRUCTIONS OF MARY
QUEEN OF THE ANGELS
Given to Venerable Mary of Agreda5
◊◊◊
Your astonishment at the singular favor conferred by me on my
servant…at his death, affords me an occasion to tell you of a privilege confirmed
to me by the Almighty at the time when I bore the soul…to heaven. Although I
have already on other occasions revealed to you something of this secret, you
shall now understand it more fully in order to increase your filial devotion
toward me. When I brought to heaven the happy soul…the eternal Father spoke
to me:
“My Daughter and Dove…let my courtiers, angels and saints
understand that, for the exaltation of my holy name, for your glory and for the
benefit of mortals, I now give you my royal word, that if men, in the hour of
their death invoke you and call upon you with affection…I will bend to them in
clemency and look upon them with eyes of fatherly mercy; I will defend and
guard them against the dangers of that last hour; I will ward off the cruel
enemies that seek the perdition of souls in that hour; I will furnish them
through you with great helps for resisting these enemies and gaining grace, if
they wish to avail themselves of this help; and you shall present to Me their
souls to be rewarded by my liberal hands.”
For this privilege the whole triumphant Church, and I with it, sang hymns of
thanks and praise to the Most High.
Since I see you desirous of knowing how you can obtain from me this
favor so precious to the soul, I answer your pious wish by exhorting you to take
care lest you make yourself unworthy by ingratitude and forgetfulness; and
before all, to gain for yourself that inviolate purity, which I expect of you… For
the great love which I owe and cherish toward God, obliges me, with sincerest
affection and charity to demand of all the observance of his holy law and the
preservation of their friendship and grace with God. This you must prefer before
your life and be willing to die rather than offend your God and highest Good.
I wish that you set about obeying me, act out my instructions, and work
with all your might to imitate what you see and write of me; that you permit no
intermission in your love, nor forget for one moment the heartfelt affection you
owe to the liberal mercy of your Lord; that you be thankful for all his blessings
and to me, since your obligations are far beyond the power of fulfillment by you
in this mortal life. Be faithful in your correspondence, fervent in your devotion,
ready to do what is most holy and perfect. Let your heart expand and do not
narrow it…following the instigations of the devil. Extend your hand to strong
and powerful deeds, filled with confidence in the Lord; be not oppressed by
adversities, thus impeding the will of the Lord in you, and the high ends of his
glory. Retain vivid faith and hope, even in the greatest assaults and temptations.
In all this let…the certain knowledge of possessing through me the happy
security of those who live under the protection of the Most High… Raise up your
heart…and withdraw it from these deceits; aspire to that which is most pure and
holy, since with you shall be the arm of the Almighty, who wrought such great
wonders in Me.

Vigils Reading - Gethsemani Church
2024-11-15
THE FOUNDATION OF
GETHSEMANI ABBEY
By Dom Eutropius Proust6
◊◊◊
We left Louisville on the twentieth of December, and were to arrive that
evening at Bardstown. Here we were to call on the Jesuit Fathers, who conducted
the College of St Joseph, and to whom we had a letter of introduction from Mgr.
Flaget. We should arrive by daylight at Bardstown, which was twelve miles from
Gethsemani; but the unfavorable weather delayed us very much, and we were yet
nine miles from the town, when a dark and dreary night set in. We did not stop to
take any nourishment by the wayside, but refreshed ourselves as best we could, in
the wagons, with bread, cheese and fruit. The good God supplied the drink. The
rain did not cease to fall abundantly the entire day, so that, alighting from the
wagons, we resembled water rats that came out of the river.
We arrived at eleven o’clock. The streets were so full of water and mud that
we were knee-deep therein. We went directly to St Joseph’s College… Our difficulty
was to find the entrance, for one could not see a yard ahead. Taking with me two
Irish religious, we made a circuit of the house to find the entrance…We kept on
seeking and groping until we succeeded in finding the door. We knocked again and
again, but no answer. Not knowing what to do, we called aloud together the word
“Trappist.” In this we were successful. As soon as the good fathers heard that word
they opened the windows. I told them who we were, where we were going, and that
I had a letter of introduction to them from Mgr. Flaget, asking them to give us
lodging for the night. In an instant three or four of the fathers arose, with as many
brothers, and the doors were opened for us. A good fire was made in the hall, and
the brothers prepared for us something to eat. At the end of half an hour we were
led into the refectory, where we took at the same time our breakfast, dinner and
supper.
The following day, having heard Holy Mass and received Holy Communion,
our conductors arrived, with a new wagon, borrowed by them at Bardstown. After
thanking our hosts for their kind hospitality, we installed ourselves in the wagons
and pursued our way to Gethsemani. About two o’clock in the afternoon, we
arrived at the entrance of a large forest, after passing the little village of New Haven
on the Nashville Railroad. We were informed that this was the beginning of our
property. It is difficult to express the feelings that this announcement produced in
our souls. I had the wagons stop. Falling on our knees we recited a “Pater and Ave”
to salute the good guardian angels of Gethsemani; and we kissed the earth soon to
be watered by our sweat and even by our tears. We re-entered our wagons and
continued our journey through the woods for three-quarters of an hour. Our hearts
swelled with emotion. With what feelings of joy and admiration, did we not
contemplate these magnificent woods. We were astonished in finding ourselves so
rich, after having made the vow of poverty…We climbed a hill on which are situated
wooden cottages, declining with age. We were going to find at last the crib of our
Divine Saviour at Bethlehem. Such, too, were the thoughts of all our religious.
They were in transports of joy in beholding these ten or twelve cottages, thrown
here and there on the sloping hillside, facing the sun. These composed the entire
monastery of Gethsemani.

Vigils Reading - St Gertrude the Great
2024-11-16
TO BE ONE WITH GOD
From “The Spiritual Exercises” by St Gertrude the Great7
◊◊◊
O love, the fruition of you is that worthiest coupling of your Word and the
soul which is brought about by perfect union with God. To use you is to become
intertwined in God. To enjoy you is to be one with God. You are that peace which
surpasses all understanding and you are the road by which one comes to the
inner chamber.
Oh, if only it happened to me, too, miserable as I am, to repose for a
moment under your dearest cloak of cherishing-love so that my heart might be
emboldened by one consolatory utterance of your living Word, or that my soul
might hear this good and pleasant word from your mouth: ‘I am your salvation;
behold, now the bedchamber of my heart is open to you.’
Why, then, O love so unwavering, have you deeply loved someone so foul,
so ugly, if not to make her beautiful in you? Your loving-kind charity attracts
and allures me…
Let me not be confounded in my expectation but grant me to find rest for
my soul in you. I have found nothing more desirable, I have judged nothing
more lovable, I have wished for nothing more dear than to be held tight, O love,
in your embraces, to rest under the wings of my Jesus, and to dwell in the
tabernacle of divine charity.
O love, O radiant noonday, I would die a thousand times to be at rest in
you. If only you would bend to me your face of such beautiful cherishing-love…
Oh, if I were granted to come exceedingly close to you so that I might now
find myself not only next to you but within you. Then, through you, sun of
justice, flowers of all the virtues might arise in me, who am dust and ashes. With
you as a husband, my Lord, such fecundity might enter my soul that the
renowned offspring of total perfection would be born in me. Then, having been
snatched from the valley of this misery, I might be able to glory in you forever in
the presence of your desirable face; for you, mirror without spot, have not
scorned to be, in truth, coupled with a sinner like me.

Skema
2024-11-17
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
33rd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
November 17 – 23, 2024

Sun
17
Mon
18
Tue
19
Wed
20
Thu
21
Fri
22
Sat
23

Office
33rd Sunday
Weekday
St Mechtild
Weekday
Presentation of the BVM
St Cecilia
St Columban

Vigils
Bar 1:1-22
Bar 2:1-26
Bar 2:27-3:14
Bar 3:15-38
Bar 4:1-29
Bar 4:30-5:9
Bar 6:1-28

Lauds
Job 14:1-6
Job 16:1-12b
Job 29:1-10
Job 30:9-19
Job 30:20-28
Job 31:2-11
Job 31:16-23

Mass
158
497
498
499
500
501
502

1st
Dan 12:1-3
Rev 1:1-4; 2:1-5
Rev 3:1-6, 14-22
Rev 4:1-11
Rev 5:1-10
Rev 10:8-11
Rev 11:4-12

2nd
Heb 10:11-14, 18

Gospel
Mark 13:24-32
Luke 18:35-43
Luke 19:1-10
Luke 19:11-28
Luke 19:41-44
Luke 19:45-48
Luke 20:27-40

Vespers
Rom 11:13-20
Rom 11:25-36
Rom 13:8-14
Rom 15:4-13
1 Cor 15:1-11
1 Cor 15:12-19
Rev 19:11-16

Vigils Reading - 33rd Sunday ORD
2024-11-17
THE REAPERS OF THE HARVEST
From a commentary by St Gregory Palamas1
◊◊◊
All those who hold to the true faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and show
proof of their faith by good works, guarding themselves from sins or cleansing
themselves from their stains by confession and repentance; who practice the
virtues opposed to those sins – temperance, chastity, love, almsgiving, justice
and fair dealing – all these, I say, will rise again to hear the king of heaven
himself saying to them: Come, my Father’s blessed ones, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you since the creation of the world. So they will reign with Christ,
receiving as their inheritance that heavenly kingdom which cannot be shaken,
living forever in the ineffable light that knows no evening and is interrupted by
no night, having fellowship with all the saints who have lived from the
beginning of time, and enjoying delights beyond description in Abraham’s
embrace, where all pain has fled away and all grief and groaning.
For just as there is a harvest for inanimate sheaves of wheat, so for the
rational wheat which is the human race, there is a harvest that cuts people away
from unbelief, and gathers into faith those who accept the proclamation of the
good news. The reapers of this harvest are the Lord’s apostles and their
successors, and in the course of time the teachers of the Church. Of them the
Lord said: The reaper receives his wages, and gathers a crop for eternal life,
for teachers who instruct others in piety will in their turn receive from God such
recompense as befits those who gather the obedient into eternal life.
But there is yet another harvest: the transfer of each one of us by death
from the present life into that which is to come. The reapers of this harvest are
not the apostles but the angels, who have a greater responsibility than the
apostles, because after the harvesting they sort out the good and separate them
from the wicked like wheat from darnel. The good they send on to the kingdom
of heaven, but the wicked they throw into hell fire.
As for us, who in this present age are God’s chosen people, a priestly race,
the Church of the living God separated from all the impious and ungodly, may
we be found separated from the darnel in the age to come as well, and united to
those who are saved in Christ our Lord, who is blessed for ever.

Vigils Reading
2024-11-18
CHRIST THE CORNERSTONE
By Dom Damasus Winzen2
◊◊◊
Stone is firm and lasting. Builders test their stones, selecting the most
solid for foundations on which to rear the whole building, for cornerstones to
hold the wall together, or for headstones which will lock into a single mass the
entire structure. Stone likewise offers firm resistance to the thrust of an enemy;
it will crush him upon whom it falls; it will bruise those who fall against it.
God is the “Stone of Israel”, because he is a God of truth and his mercies
endure forever. His faithfulness towards his people is the firm and precious
cornerstone which is laid in Zion. In Christ Jesus, God’s loyalty becomes
manifest. He is the stone that the leaders of Israel rejected when they crucified
him… He became the cornerstone when he rose from the dead. When we try to
penetrate into the meaning of the symbolism of the cornerstone, we discover
that various ideas are fused in this picture. The idea of the foundation stone is
clearly expressed in Isaiah: Thus says the Lord God: behold I laid in Zion for a
foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation:
he that believes shall not make haste. Christ is the foundation stone, for
another foundation no one can lay but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.
He alone has wrought our redemption by dying for us and rising for us. We
depend entirely on his work and on his strength. The Hebrew word used in
Psalm 117, rosch pinnah — still surviving in our word “pinnacle” — has been
translated in various ways as “head of the corner,” “cornerstone,” or “head
stone.” The idea of the cornerstone implies that Christ is a part of the
foundation, but its most important, visible part, the part which binds the walls.
This is true of Christ, because in him the two walls of God and mankind, of the
Jews and the Gentiles, and the Old and the New Testament meet…
In recent years, more and more scholars agree that rosch pinnah is rather
the head stone, or capstone, which holds a vault or arch together. The Risen
Savior is indeed the headstone of the spiritual Temple in which the whole
building culminates, which holds it together and defines its design. This three-
fold meaning of Christ as the cornerstone is well expressed by Cynewulf in his
poem “Christ.”…
Thou art the wall stone
that the workers once threw out from the work,
well it becomes thee that thou be head
of a mighty hall and weld together
its wide walls in fast union,
Flint unbreakable, that throughout earth’s dwelling
all that have eyes may wonder ever more,
O Lord of glory.

Vigils Reading - St Mechthild of Hackeborn
2024-11-19
OUR SERVICE OF GOD
An excerpt from “The Book of Special Grace” by St Mechthild of Hackeborn3
◊◊◊
If any obstacle arises in our service of God, whether from the attitude of
others, from external circumstances, from our own desires, memories, or from
any other cause – whatever the impediment, we should take it as a messenger
from God, sending it back to Him, so to speak, with praise and thanksgiving.
Three things very pleasing to God are: first, never to abandon one’s
neighbors in their needs, and to excuse their shortcomings and sins as much as
possible; second, in tribulation to seek refuge only in God, abandoning to Him
alone all that disquiets the heart; third, to walk with Him in truth.
When it is time to eat or to sleep, say in your heart: “Lord, in union with
the love with which you created this useful thing for me, and yourself made us of
it when you were on earth, I take it for your eternal praise and for my bodily
need.” The Blessed Virgin tells us: “if you wish to be truly holy, stay close to my
Son; he is holiness itself, making all things holy.”
We should be lovingly grateful not only for the spiritual blessings God
gives us, but for all bodily necessaries, such as food and clothing, receiving them
with a sincerely thankful heart and considering ourselves unworthy of them.
We should also thank God for everything that he has given to his Mother and to
the angels.
Works which give no human satisfaction may nevertheless be very
pleasing to God. What best pleases God in members of religious orders is purity
of heart, holy desires, gentle kindness in conversation, and works of charity.
When you are alone, raise your heart constantly to God, speak with him and
direct all your desire to him with great intensity. You can never be in so large a
crowd that your are not alone with him.
When those who receive from the Lord the gift of a fine orchard, they
cannot taste the fruit until it is ripe. Likewise, when one receives a special grace,
any interior joy is not experienced until by the practice of mortification one has
broken the hard rind of earthly pleasure.

Vigils Reading
2024-11-20 08:00 - 17:00
DISCIPLINE IS A CROSS
By Baldwin of Ford4
◊◊◊
A person who is tempted by the flesh, and who yields to this temptation,
however, is someone who feels his passions and gives them his full consent. The
more carnal he is, the more provision he makes for the flesh in gratifying its
desires. He does not give his consent to the spirit against the flesh but allies
himself with the flesh, whose desires are opposed to the spirit.
Such a person loves wine and good things, ease and security and plenty.
[He loves] to be clothed in purple and fine linen and to feast sumptuously every
day. Nor does he refuse his eyes whatever they desire. He allays all his desires
impulsively and willingly, and whatever does not serve the delights of flesh he
regards as vain. He reckons that the best thing for him is to enjoy good things in
his lifetime, and he gains nothing more than this by all the toil at which he toils
under the sun. The end that carnal man will come to is shown in the gospel
parable of the rich man and the poor man, where it says, “The rich man died and
was buried in hell.” And of Babylon it is written, “As she exalted herself and lived
in her delights, so give her a like measure of torment and sorrow!”
It is better for us, then, to deliver such a man to death for the destruction
of the flesh than to be drawn with him into the pit of destruction. Our flesh,
therefore, should be mortified and crucified, so that the body of sin may be
destroyed. Such is in accord with the voice of the prophet speaking to the Lord:
‘Pierce my flesh with your fear’.
Because it is said to carnal man, ‘You have hated discipline, If we can find
no better cross on which to crucify carnal man than the austerity of regular
discipline, for the discipline which he hates is a torment to him. Regular
discipline is a cross, and the two pieces of wood from which it is built symbolize
the laws of abstinence and continence. Abstinence tempers gluttony, and the
law of continence restrains excess in all the senses of mind and body: and it is
precisely these things which are characteristic of the carnal man.’

Vigils Reading - Presentation of the BVM
2024-11-21
THE VIRGIN AND THE TEMPLE
From the writing of Fr Yves Congar5
◊◊◊
The only occasion on which the Gospels expressly mention the Virgin
Mary in connection with the Temple are in the account of her Purification and of
the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the finding of the child Jesus in the
Temple after four days’ absence on his part and three anxious searching by his
parents. To these very brief indications, the piety of Christians very soon added
the idea of the presentation of Mary in the Temple at the age of three to be
consecrated to the service of God. We are dealing here with a symbolical
representation of a profound spiritual reality about which the tradition and the
doctrine of the Church provide us with valid information.
Mary, predestined to be the Mother of Jesus, true God and true man, and
to be worthy of her vocation, was prepared by the gift of exceptional graces and
lived with unfailing fidelity a most pure life of inner consecration to the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As the type of all faithful souls and of the Church
herself, Mary expressed spiritually and supremely in her life the “presentation”
which, for each one of us, is to begin by the service of faith and to be
consummated in heaven.
It is obvious that the tradition and doctrine of the Church may, without
falling prey to the imaginary productions of the apocrypha, propound
statements concerning the status of the Mother of God in relation either to the
Jewish messianic temple going far beyond what we are explicitly told in the
three short passages from the Gospel which narrate the incidents mentioned
above.
If Mary is the Mother of God, she has a special relation to the body of
Christ which is the true temple – to his physical body and doubtless also, in a
certain sense, to his body the Church. She is herself a temple of God in a quite
specific and sublime way, both because Christ was within her from the moment
of his conception until that of his birth, and because of the exceptional spiritual
gifts she received in preparation for her divine motherhood and as a reward for
her free acceptance of this vocation, not only after the Annunciation but during
the whole of her life. Hence the liturgy – the Oriental liturgy in particular –
shows a profound understanding of the mystery of Mary when it constantly uses
the texts concerning the Temple and the tabernacle in order to express it.

Vigils Reading - St Cecilia
2024-11-22
THE VIRGINITY OF
ST CECILIA
From a homily by Fr Ronald Knox6
◊◊◊
The legends of the early Roman saints, among whom St Cecilia is
numbered, do not always command great attention from the critically minded
historian. But whether the story of St Cecilia as it is told in her acts is all true or
only partly true, there is a simplicity about the whole story and a simplicity
about St Cecilia’s character in the story which demands a retelling. Let me
remind you in the most general way of her story: how she was married to a
young pagan called Valerian, but persuaded him to respect her vow of virginity,
because her guardian angel would make him sorry for it if he did otherwise; how
Valerian wanted to see this guardian angel, but Cecilia, with her innocent craft,
said he could not do that unless he was baptized first; how he was baptized, and
saw the angel at her side as she prayed; how he made a convert of his brother
Tiburtius, and how first the two brothers, and then Cecilia herself were
punished with death for professing the Christian religion. It is an old story, and
a familiar one: and while we do all homage to other great saints for their public
witness to Christ, we shall always need St Cecilia as well, quietly working at
home for the conversion of her own husband and his family.
Not that St Cecilia herself was in the position of a modern wife. Like so
many Christian ladies of her time, she had taken, in imitation of our blessed
Lady, a vow of perpetual virginity. These virgin martyrs were martyrs because
they were virgins: it was because they insisted on keeping their vow when their
parents wished them to marry that the secret of their attachment to the
Christian faith was discovered; and it was their persistency in maintaining it
that led to their martyrdom. It would be hard to estimate, I think, how much the
unpopularity in Roman society of the Christian faith owed to its tradition of
virginity. Virginity is an ideal which the pagan had no right to misunderstand.
For, in theory, they, too, honored it; and it should have commended itself to
their heathen instinct for sacrifice. For the point of a sacrifice is that the victim
should be spotless, the best of its kind. You must offer not what you can well
afford to spare, but what will cost you something. That is the pagan idea of
sacrifice; and the Christian idea of sacrifice is based on the same principle. In
order to give up something to God, we forgo, not the sinful pleasures which we
have no right to in any case, but the lawful pleasures which he has given us to
enjoy if we will.
So, let St. Cecilia’s feast remind us to take our Christian vocation
seriously, to follow out in our lives the words we profess with our lips. And may
this Roman maiden pray for us who worship here and for those who minister to
us, that when Christ, the Master she served, comes again in judgment, we may
be found blameless before almighty God.

Vigils Reading - St Columban
2024-11-23
TRUE DISCRETION
From “The Rule of St Columban for Monks”7
◊◊◊
How necessary discretion is for monks is shown by the mistake of many,
and indicated by the downfall of some, who beginning without discretion and
passing their time without a sobering knowledge, have been unable to complete
a praiseworthy life; since, just as error overtakes those who proceed without a
path, so for those who live without discretion intemperance is at hand, and this
is always the opposite of virtues which are placed in the mean between each
extreme. Therefore we must pray God continually that He would bestow the
light of true discretion to illumine this way, surrounded on every side by the
world’s thickest darkness, so that His true worshippers may be able to cross this
darkness without error to Himself.
So discretion has got its name from discerning, for the reason that it
discerns in us between good and evil, and also between the moderate and the
complete. For from the beginning either class has been divided like light and
darkness, that is, good and evil, after evil began through the devil’s agency to
exist by the corruption of good, but through God’s agency Who first illumines
and then divides.
What things then are good? Doubtless those which are untouched, and
have remained in the undefiled state of their creation; which God alone created
and prepared, according to the Apostle, that we should walk in them; which are
the good works in which in Christ Jesus we were created, namely goodness,
innocence, righteousness, justice, truth, pity, love, saving peace, spiritual joy,
together with the fruit of the Spirit – all these with their fruits are good. Since
this is so, the good must be firmly held by those that have God’s help, which is
ever to be prayed for in prosperity and in adversity, lest either in prosperity we
be lifted up to pride, or in adversity be cast down to despair… We must always
restrain ourselves from either danger, that is, from all excess by a splendid
temperance and true discretion, which cleaves to Christian lowliness and opens
the way of perfection to Christ’s true soldiers, namely by ever discerning rightly
in doubtful cases.
Thus between the little and the excessive there is a reasonable measure in
the midst, which ever recalls us from every superfluity on either side, and in
every case provides what is universally fixed by human need, and spurns the
unreasonable demand of superfluous desire. And this measure of true
discretion, weighing all our actions in the scales of justice, in no way allows us to
err from what is just, or to suffer a mistake, if we ever follow straight behind it as
our leader. For while we must always restrain ourselves from either side,
according to that saying: “Keep yourselves from the right and from the left,” we
must ever proceed straight forward by discretion, that is, by the light of God,
while very often we say and sing the victorious psalmist’s verse: “My God,
enlighten my darkness, since in You I am rescued from temptation. For
temptation is the life of humans on earth.”

Skema
2024-11-24
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
34th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
November 24 – 30, 2024

Sun
24
Mon
25
Tue
26
Wed
27
Thu
28
Fri
29
Sat
30

Office
Christ the King
St Catherine of Alexandria
Weekday
Weekday
Weekday Thanksgiving
Weekday
St Andrew

Vigils
Ezek 34:11-31
Bar 6:29-50
Bar 6:51-72
Obad 1-11
Deut 26:1-19
Obad 12-21
Ezek 47:1-12

Lauds
Jerm 10:1-10
Job 38:1-12
Job 42:1-6
Job 42:7-11
Joel 2:21-27
Job 42:12-17
Sir 14:20-27

Mass
161
503
504
505
943.3, 944.3, 947.6
507
684

1st
Dan 7:13-14
Rev 14:1-3, 4b-5
Rev 14:14-19
Rev 15:1-4
Isa 63:7-9
Rev 20:1-4, 11-21:2
Rom 10:9-18

2nd
Rev 1:5-8

Col 3:12-17

Gospel
John 18:33b-37
Luke 21:1-4
Luke 21:5-11
Luke 21:12-19
Luke 17:11-19
Luke 21:29-33
Matt 4:18-22

Vespers
Eph 1:15-23
1 Cor 15:20-28
1 Cor 15:29-34
1 Cor 15:35-41
1 Cor 15:42-49
1 Cor 15:50-58
Rev 1:1-8

Vigils Reading - 34th Sunday - Christ the King
2024-11-24
THE KINGDOM OF
THE BELOVED SON
From a commentary by St Augustine1
◊◊◊
Banish the groundless fear that filled Herod the Great on hearing that
Christ was born. More cruel in his fear than in his anger, he put many children
to death, so that Christ also would die. But my kingdom is not of this world, says
Christ. What further reassurance do we seek? Come to the kingdom not of this
world. Be not enraged by fear, but come by faith. In a prophecy Christ also
said…God the Father has made me king on Zion his holy mountain. But that
kingdom and that mountain are not of this world.
What in fact is God’s kingdom? It is simply those who believe in him,
those to whom he said: You are not of this world, even as I am not of this
world. He willed, nevertheless, that they should be in the world, which is why
he prayed to the Father: I ask you not to take them out of the world, but to
protect them from the evil one. So here also he did not say my kingdom is not
in this world, but is not of this world. And when he went on to prove this by
declaring: If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have fought to
save me from being handed over… he concluded by saying…my kingdom is not
from here.
Indeed, his kingdom is here until the end of time, and until the harvest it
will contain weeds. The harvest is the end of the world, when the reapers who
are the angels, will come and gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin, and this
could not happen if his kingdom were not here. But even so, it is not from here
for it is in exile in the world. Christ says to his kingdom: You are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world. They were indeed of the world
when they belonged to the prince of this world, before they became his
kingdom. Though created by the true God, everyone born of the corrupt and
accursed stock of Adam is of the world. On the other hand, everyone who is
reborn in Christ becomes the kingdom which is no longer of the world. For so
has God snatched us from the powers of darkness, and brought us into the
kingdom of his beloved Son: that kingdom of which he said My kingdom is not
of this world; my kingly power does not come from here

Vigils Reading - St Catherine of Alexandria
2024-11-25
ST CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints2
◊◊◊
Since about the tenth century, veneration of St Catherine of Alexandria
has been marked in the East, but from the time of the Crusades until the 18th
century her popularity was even greater in the West. Numerous churches were
dedicated in her honor, including the parish church of Gethsemani Abbey at
New Haven, KY. She was venerated as patroness of maidens and women
students of philosophers, preachers and apologists. Adam of St Victor wrote a
poem in her honor; hers was one of the heavenly voices heard by St Joan of Arc.
But not a single fact about her life or death has been established.
It is said in her Acts that she belonged to a patrician family of Alexandria
and devoted herself to learned studies, in the course of which she learned about
Christianity. She was converted by a vision of Our Lady and the Holy Child.
When Maxentius began persecuting Christians, Catherine went to him and
rebuked him for his tyranny. He could not answer her arguments against his
gods, so summoned fifty philosophers to oppose her. These confessed
themselves convinced by the learning of this Christian girl, and were therefore
burned to death by the infuriated emperor. Then he tried to seduce Catherine
with an offer of a consort’s crown, and went off to inspect a camp. On his return
he discovered that his wife and an officer had gone to see Catherine out of
curiosity and had both been converted, together with two hundred soldiers of
the guard. They accordingly were all slain and Catherine was sentenced to be
killed on a spiked wheel. When she was placed on it, her bonds were
miraculously loosed and the wheel broke, its spikes flying off and killing many
of the onlookers. Then she was beheaded.
All the texts of the “acts” of Catherine state that her body was carried by
angels to Mount Sinai, where a church and monastery were afterwards built. In
527 the Emperor Justinian built a monastery for hermits of the place, and the
body of Catherine was said to have been taken there in the 8th or 9th century.
The monastery has borne her name since then. The great monastery of Mount
Sinai still claim the alleged relics of St Catherine, in the care of the monks of the
Eastern Orthodox Church. Archbishop Falconio of Santa Severina said that the
meaning of the “angels” is that her body was carried by the monks of Sinai to
their monastery. Tradition has referred to the monastic life as “the angelic life”.
This is still a current expression in Eastern monasticism.

Vigils Reading
2024-11-26
THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
From “The Faith and Modern Man” by Fr Romano Guardini3
◊◊◊
We associate the word saints with the idea of exceptional persons. In the
New Testament, however, it signifies Christians generally. Being a Christian at
all was extraordinary. For the Christians stood out sharply from the
environment; either one lived in the Old Testament world, or in the Hellenistic-
pagan world, and by both they were regarded as something strange if not
hostile. The experience of conversion lifted them out of the environment. A
sense of the reality of God not learned from natural religious experience or from
the teaching of the Old Testament had shaken and, at the same time, blessed
them.
In the existence of Christ, God’s countenance had been unveiled. The life
of Christ had made them aware of how God is minded toward us. These
experiences had changed their whole lives. They had acquired new ideas of God,
new standards of judging the world. The “renewal of mind” of which the Gospel
speaks and which they had begun to fulfill, now consisted not only in a
conversion to a good and pious life, but in a change of direction in their whole
way of thinking. Thus for them, actually, “all things had become new” -and with
all these “new things” they found themselves still in an old world, a world which
regarded them with distrust and hostility. All this is, in itself, extraordinary
-indeed the very essence of the extraordinary, and the “saint” was one who led
this existence.
But the spread of Christianity and its increase in members tended to
obscure its unique nature. Time went on, the Gospel grew familiar, and the
sense of newness wore off. Christianity became the state religion and, as such,
the official order of society. Thus the fact that being a Christian at all was in itself
extraordinary faded out of people’s consciousness, and Christianity grew to be
regarded as normal and usual.

Vigils Reading
2024-11-27
THE WOUNDEDNESS
OF ALL MORTALS
From a sermon by Isaac of Stella4
◊◊◊
“Jesus, when he saw how great was their number, went up to the
mountainside.” Today, dear friends, we see our heaven-sent Physician
unsealing the precious perfumes that he has brought with him from the bosom
of the Father; brought to heal the wounds of the man who, on his way down
from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell in with robbers. This unnamed man on his way
down represents Adam and all his descendants. It was only right that he should
fall in with robbers, he was but paying for the freely chosen folly of his journey.
Had he but chosen it, Adam could have remained in the happy state bestowed
on him at his creation, in that wealth of good things safe from all loss. He freely
fell because he chose to do so, and because he journeyed down, he fell into the
grip of the ruthless. He had to endure what he did not wish precisely because he
refused to stay where suffering could never have touched him.
These malicious robbers are not only the evil spirits, but also the many
passions of our bodies and spirit that wounded the Psalmist and made him
groan, “Oh, how often you have burdened me with bitter trouble.” Yes, he
suffers unwillingly although deservedly; the price (I beg to repeat) of his freely
deciding to descend was his meeting robbers and suffering at their hands. Never
would the Lord of mercy have allowed man to fall into such cruel hands had not
man by his own personal and conscious wickedness first deserted him to whom
he should have looked for strength. Man forsook God, man went his way down,
and because he went down, he was forsaken by him who did not go down.
Forsaken by God, man fell into the power of him to whom such power was
permitted, the devil. He showed no pity, but robbed, wounded, and left him
half-dead. He who is altogether dying left man half-dead, in other words half-
alive. And such is the life of mortal man: a living dying. The devil’s dying, on the
other hand, is completely deadly, leaving no room for recall to life. The angels’
living in its turn, is fully vital, having no tendency toward death.
Mortal man, then, is left half-dead — though alive, he tends inevitably
towards death, though dead, he is open to cure. “They wounded him,” the
Gospel tells us. We must look into this, see what these wounds are, even if our
situation teaches us what it means far better than any explanation. In addition
to the weaknesses and afflictions of the body, themselves “past all numbering”,
the wounds inflicted on and infecting mankind, in and from our first parent, are
of seven kinds, of many species, and beyond all counting. The infections that
stem from Original Sin and afflict us all are only seven, but they beget a
wayward, viper-like brood that caters to all sorts of sinful tendencies.

Vigils Reading - Thanksgiving
2024-11-28
THE FULLNESS
OF THANKSGIVING
By Xavier Leon-Dufour5
◊◊◊
The first reality of biblical history is the gift of God, gratuitous,
superabundant, without return. The encounter with God does not put human
beings simply in the presence of the absolute; it completes them and transforms
their lives.
Thanksgiving appears as the response to this progressive and continual
grace which one day should blossom in Christ. At the same time there is an
intense awareness of the gifts of God, a spirit of soul permeated with wonder
because of God’s generosity, a joyous recognition before the divine greatness;
thus thanksgiving is essential in the Bible because it is a fundamental religious
reaction of creatures when they discover, in a tremor of joy and veneration,
something of God’s greatness and glory. The capital sin of pagans, according to
Paul, is “not to have rendered to God either glory or thanksgiving”. And, in fact,
in the mass of hymns created by the piety of Mesopotamia, the sentiment of
thanksgiving is rare; while it is very frequent in the Bible and brings out
powerful outpourings of the soul.
At the time of the New Covenant thanksgiving truly breaks forth,
becoming present everywhere in the prayer and the life of the Christians as it
had never existed before among the just of the past. Biblical thanksgiving is
truly and essentially Christian. It is not exclusively Christian, however, to the
extent that, as was written in the Old Testament, “Israelites praise without
giving thanks.” If the Old Testament does not yet know the fullness of
thanksgiving, it is because it has not yet tasted the fullness of grace. If praise,
more spontaneous, more exteriorized, holds therein perhaps a greater place
than thanksgiving properly so called, more reflective, more attentive to God’s
actions and self revelation, it is because the most holy God is revealed only
progressively, unveiling little by little the amplitude of the action and the depth
of the gifts of God.
Because it is the revelation and the gift of perfect grace, in the person of
the Lord, it is also the revelation of the perfect thanksgiving rendered to the
Father in the Holy Spirit. The supreme act of the Lord is thanksgiving; the
sacrifice which Jesus made of His life in consecrating it to the Father in order
that He may sanctify His own is our Eucharist. At the last supper and on the
cross, Jesus reveals the drive of all His life and that of His death: thanksgiving
from the heart of the Son. The passion and death of Jesus were necessary that
He might fully glorify the Father, but all His life was an incessant thanksgiving,
which sometimes was made explicit and solemn, to draw all to believe and
return thanks to God with Jesus.
The essential object of this thanksgiving is the work of God, the Messianic
realization, notably manifested by miracles, the gift of His word which God has
made to everyone. The gift of the Eucharist to the church expresses an essential
truth: only Jesus Christ is our thanksgiving, just as He alone is our praise. It is
He first of all who gives thanks to the Father, and Christians afterwards in
Him. In Christian thanksgiving, Christ is the sole model and sole mediator. In
the heavenly Jerusalem, with the Messianic work fulfilled, thanksgiving
becomes pure praise of glory, dazzling contemplation of God and the eternal
marvels.

Vigils Reading
2024-11-29
THE VIRGINITY OF SPIRIT
By Thomas Merton
◊◊◊
The monastic life of humility, obedience, liturgical prayer, lectio divina,
penance, manual labor, contemplation, tends to ever purify the soul of the monk
and lead him to intimacy with Christ in that sacred virginity which makes him
worthy of marriage with the Word of God. This spirit of virginity is the true
essence of the contemplative life which is our vocation.
We are not contemplative by the mere fact of living an enclosed and
penitential life. We can indeed be more active, more restless and more
distracted in the cloister than we would be in the active life, if we do not possess
the interior virginity of spirit, the silence and peace of soul, which enable us to
find God in His word, to listen to the words of Christ, to move with the
breathings of the Holy Spirit within us.
The virginity of spirit to which we are called is a purity of heart in which
our souls preserve their baptismal innocence, or the innocence of the second
baptism of our vows, and offer themselves in perfect purity to God. Virginity of
soul does not preclude temptation and trials, but the deep spirit of faith which it
implies enables us always to rise above the flesh and its storms in order to
meditate on the incorruptible beauty of the Word. St Augustine defines
virginity as: “Perpetual meditation, in corruptible flesh, of what is
incorruptible.” The life of the virgin soul that is the spouse of Christ is a life
lived in the pure, limpid radiance of the Word Himself.
The virginity of spirit which keeps us united to the Word is the perfection
of the monastic life. By it, the monk not only renounces human marriage, but
rather lays hands upon the supernatural and mystical reality of which marriage
is only an external symbol – the union of love which joins the soul to God “in
one spirit.
” Virginity of spirit keeps the soul in constant contact with the Holy
Word of God, the sanctity of God Himself. Above all, sacred virginity makes
visible the union of the Church with Christ her Divine Spouse. Pope Pius XII
says:
“The most delicate fruit of virginity is this: that virgins make
tangible as it were the perfect virginity of their Mother the Church
and the sanctity of her intimate union with Christ. The greatest
glory of the virgins is undoubtedly to be the living images of the
perfect integrity of the union of the Church and her Divine
Spouse.”
This is the end and the perfection of the monastic vocation: to find Christ,
the Word, to cling to Him in the purity of perfect love and unalterable peace, and
to say with the Bride in the Canticle: “I found Him whom my soul loves: I held
him: and I will not let Him go”
.

Vigils Reading - St Andrew
2024-11-30
THE APOSTLE,
ST ANDREW
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman7
◊◊◊
St John the Evangelist, [introduces St Andrew in his gospel] under
circumstances which show that, little as is known of this Apostle now, he was, in
fact, very high in the favour and confidence of his Lord. In his twelfth chapter he
describes Andrew as bringing to Christ certain Greeks who came up to
Jerusalem to worship and who were desirous of seeing Him. And, what is
remarkable, these strangers had first applied to St Philip, who, though an
Apostle himself, instead of taking upon him to introduce them had recourse to
his fellowtownsman St Andrew… “Philip comes, and tells Andrew; and again,
Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.”
These two Apostles are also mentioned together in the sixth chapter of the
same Gospel, at the consultation which preceded the miracle of the loaves and
fishes; and there again Andrew is engaged, as before in the office of introducing
strangers to Christ. “There is a lad here,” he says to his Lord, a lad who perhaps,
had not courage to come forward of himself, “who has five barley loaves and
two small fishes.”… After our Lord had predicted the ruin of the Temple, “Peter,
James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately: ‘Tell us when shall these
things be?‘” and it was to these four that our Saviour revealed the signs of his
coming, and of the end of the world. Here St Andrew is represented as in the
special confidence of Christ; and associated too with those Apostles whom he is
known to have selected from the Twelve, on various occasions, by tokens of his
peculiar Favour.
Little is known of St Andrew in addition to these inspired notices of him.
He is said to have preached the Gospel in Scythia; and he was at length martyred
in Achaia. His death was by crucifixion; that kind of cross being used, according
to the tradition, which still goes by his name. Yet, little as Scripture tells us
concerning him, it affords us enough for a lesson, and that an important one.
These are the facts before us. St Andrew was the first convert among the
Apostles; he was especially in our Lord’s confidence; thrice is he described as
introducing others to him; lastly, he is little known in history, while the place of
dignity and the name of highest renown have been allotted to his brother Simon,
whom he was the means of bringing to the knowledge of his Saviour.
Our lesson then is this; that those persons are not necessarily the most
useful in their generation, nor the most favored by God, who make the most
noise in the world, and who seem to be principals in the great changes and
events recorded in history; on the contrary, that even when we are able to point
to a certain number of persons as the real instruments of any great blessings
vouchsafed to humankind, our relative estimate of them, one with another, is
often very erroneous: so that, on the whole, if we would trace truly the hand of
God in human affairs, and pursue his bounty as displayed in the world to its
original sources, we must unlearn our admiration of the powerful and
distinguished, our reliance on the opinion of society, our respect for the
decisions of the learned or the multitude, and turn our eyes to private life,
watching in all we read or witness for the true sign of God’s presence, the graces
of personal holiness manifested in his elect; which, weak as they may seem to
humankind, are mighty through God, and have an influence upon the course of
his Providence, and bring about great events in the world at large, when the
wisdom and strength of the natural man are of no avail.

Skema
2024-12-01
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
1st Week of Advent

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
December 1 – 7, 2024

Sun
1
Mon
2
Tue
3
Wed
4
Thu
5
Fri
6
Sat
7

Office
1st Sunday of Advent
Advent Weekday
St Francis Xavier
Advent Weekday
Advent Weekday
Advent Weekday
St Ambrose

Vigils
Isa 1:1-18
Isa 1:21-2:5
Isa 2:6-22
Isa 3:1-15
Isa 10:5-21
Isa 19:11-25
Isa 21:1-12

Lauds
Micah 7:14-20
Isa 6:1-7
Isa 6:8-13
Isa 7:1-9
Isa 7:10-16
Isa 5:1-7
Isa 5:15-25

Mass
3
175
176
177
178
179
180

1st
Jer 33:14-16
Isa 2:1-5
Isa 11:1-10
Isa 25:6-10a
Isa 26:1-6
Isa 29:17-24
Isa 30:19-21, 23-26

2nd
1 Thess 3:12-4:2

Gospel
Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
Matt 8:5-11
Luke 10:21-24
Matt 15:29-37
Matt 7:21, 24-27
Matt 9:27-31
Matt 9:35-10:1, 5a, 6-8

Vespers
Rev 22:12-21
Rom 1:1-12
Rom 1:13-17
Rom 2:1-11
Rom 2:12-16
Rom 2:17-24
Rom 3:21-26

Vigils Reading - 1st Sunday Advent
2024-12-01
THE COMING OF
YOUR ETERNAL JUDGE
From a commentary by St Gregory the Great1
◊◊◊
The Lord says: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not
pass away. He means: Nothing that is lasting in your world lasts for eternity
without change; and everything that in Him is perceived as passing away is kept
firm, without passing away. His utterance, which passes away, expresses
thoughts that endure without change.
Therefore, my friends, do not love what you see cannot long exist. Keep in
mind the apostle’s precept, in which he counsels us not to love the world or the
things in the world, because if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is
not in him. The day before yesterday…you heard that an old orchard was
uprooted by a sudden hurricane, that homes were destroyed and churches
knocked from their foundations. How many persons who were safe and
unharmed in the evening, thinking of what they would do the next day, suddenly
died that night, caught in a trap of destruction?
We must reflect that to bring these things about our unseen Judge caused
the movement of a very slight breeze; he called a storm out of a single cloud and
overthrew the earth; he struck the foundations of many buildings, causing them
to fall. What will the Judge do when he comes in person, when his anger is
burning to punish sinners, if we cannot bear him when he strikes us with an
insignificant cloud? What flesh will withstand the presence of his anger, if he
moved the wind and overthrew the earth, stirred up the air and destroyed so
many buildings? Paul referred to this severity of the Judge who is to come and
said: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Dearly beloved, keep that day before your eyes, and whatever you now
believe to be burdensome will be light in comparison with it. The Lord says of
this day through the prophet: Yet once more and I will shake not only the earth
but also the heavens.
You see how he moved the air, as I said, and the earth did not withstand it.
Who then will bear it when he moves the sky? What shall we call these terrors we
see but heralds of the wrath to come? We must reflect that these troubles are as
much unlike the final one as the herald’s role is unlike the judge’s power. Give
hard thought to that day, dearly beloved; amend your lives, change your habits,
resist and overcome your evil temptations. The more you now anticipate his
severity by fear, the more securely will you behold the coming of your eternal
Judge.

Vigils Reading
2024-12-02
THE ADVENT OF GOD
From “Pathways in Holy Scripture” by Dom Damasus Winzen
◊◊◊
The word Advent had for the people of old a magic sound. It put before
their eyes the glorious scene of the king’s return from a victorious war. Preceded
and followed by the might of his arms, carrying with him the spoils of victory,
the hosts of the captives, the treasures of the enemy, he stands on his chariot,
vested in the purple of triumph, the golden wreath of victory on his head. The
whole city is in a delirium of joy. The festive throngs of the citizens line the
streets. They greet their king with the royal shout, acclaiming him as savior and
kyrios with incense and hymns. In the evening thousands of lights appear on
windows and doorways, on temples, gates and palaces, for the light is come, and
the glory of the king is risen upon the city.
The Advent of our Ecclesiastical Year does not celebrate the triumphant
entry of an earthly king into his capital, but it sees the King of kings whose might
covers the earth like a cloud, returning to the world which He had left because of
its sin, crushing His enemies, extirpating sin and establishing a kingdom of
peace for those who believe in Him. This is the Divine Action of salvation which
constitutes the real meaning of history, although it may take centuries and
centuries to be accomplished. That the birth of Mary’s little babe in the humble
manger of Bethlehem is the beginning of this glorious Advent would be hidden
from the eyes of men, had the glad tiding not been announced from heaven and
had the Holy Spirit not spoken in times past to the fathers by the prophets. It is
really the vision of the prophets which opens the eyes of the faithful to see
beneath the humble form of man the glory of God, and to realize that Christ’s
First Coming in patience and charity is the beginning of the Day of judgment
which will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven to receive the
Eternal Kingdom from the hands of the Father. It is the unique gift of the
prophets to see sign and reality, the human and the divine, the present and the
future in their compenetration. Therefore, they “rendered service not so much
to them selves but to us,” [as it is written in the first letter of Peter, us] who
celebrate the Advent of God in that incomparable compenetration of visible sign
and divine reality which is the liturgy of the Church.

Vigils Reading - St Francis Xavier
2024-12-03
ST FRANCIS XAVIER
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints
◊◊◊
Francis Xavier was born in Spanish Navarre at the castle of Xavier, near
Pamplona, in 1506, the youngest of a large family. He entered the college of St
Barbara and in 1528 gained the degree of licentiate. It was here that he met
Ignatius Loyola, and later joined with him in the first band of seven who vowed
themselves to the service of God at Montmartre in 1534. With them he received
the priesthood at Venice three years later and in 1540 Ignatius appointed him to
join Fr Simon Rodriguez on the first missionary expedition the Society sent out
to the East Indies…
They arrived at Goa, India on May 6, 1542, after a voyage of thirteen
months. Francis opened the mission with the Christians of Goa, instructing
them in the principles of religion and forming the young to the practice of virtue.
He walked through the streets ringing a bell to summon the children and slaves
to catechism. He offered Mass with lepers each Sunday. For the instruction of
the very ignorant or simple he versified the truths of religion to fit popular
tunes, and this was so successful that the practice spread till these songs were
being sung everywhere, in the streets and fields and workshops…
But before he left he heard about Japan for the first time from Portuguese
merchants. The next fifteen months were spent in endless traveling between
Goa, Ceylon and Cape Comorin, consolidating his work and preparing for an
attempt on that Japan into which no European had yet penetrated. In April 1549
Francis set out, accompanied by a Jesuit priest and lay-brother and three
Japanese converts. On the feast of the Assumption they landed in Japan, at
Kagoshima on Kyushu.
Francis set himself to learn Japanese. A translation was made of a simple
account of Christian teaching, and recited to all who would listen. The fruit of
twelve months labor was a hundred converts, but then the authorities began to
get suspicious and forbade further preaching. So, leaving one of the Japanese
converts in charge of the neophytes, Francis pressed further with his
companions and went by sea to Hirado, north of Nagasaki. Before leaving
Kagoshima he visited the fortress of Ichiku, where the baron’s wife, her steward
and others accepted Christianity. Xavier left the rest in the care of the steward,
and twelve years later the Jesuit lay-brother, Luis de Almeida, found these
isolated converts still retaining their first fervor and faithfulness.
At Hirado the missionaries were well received by the ruler and they had
more success in a few weeks than they had had at Kagoshima in a year. Xavier’s
objective was Miyako (Kyoto), then the chief city of Japan. In due time he was
able to be received by the authorities, who gave him permission to preach and
provided an empty Buddhist monastery for a residence. He preached with such
fruit that he baptized many in that city.
Francis decided to revisit his charge in India, from whence he hoped to
extend his mission to China. After dealing with matters in India, Xavier set sail
for China. In august 1552 the convoy reached the desolate island of Shang-
chwan, half-a-dozen miles off the coast and a hundred miles south-west of Hong
Kong. Here Xavier fell sick with a fever and died on December 3. He was buried
on the island, but his body which was found to be incorrupt, was later moved to
Goa. He was canonized in 1622 at the same time as Ignatius of Loyola.

Vigils Reading
2024-12-04 08:00 - 17:00
THE JOY OF ADVENT
By Thierry Maertens & Jean Frisque
◊◊◊
The announcement of John the Baptist’s birth has put in relief the salient
traits of his personality. The circumstances of his birth hardly add new
elements. Neither the birth nor the circumcision are told for themselves. They
serve only as a framework for the imposition of the name already proclaimed by
the angel.
Thanks to the unexpected agreement of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the
name of John the Baptist appears to be willed by heaven. The healing of
Zechariah’s dumbness too is a sign of a heavenly manifestation. Luke dwells on
the astonishment and joy caused by the manifestation. These are characteristic
symptoms of messianic times. The swiftness with which the news spreads,
image of the swiftness of the spread of the gospel, is also a sign of the presence of
heaven among human beings.
At the very time these two first chapters of Luke were first put out, the
contemporary world was singularly bereft of joy. The Jewish nation was
crushed under the heel of an occupying power, while the Greek peoples were
reduced by apathy to alienation.
Are things very different now, with uneasiness on every horizon, in a
world where the majority of people are ignored and alienated?… Yet Luke’s
message remains valid. Joy resides in the assurance that one has communion
with God, and that God is present even in human events. It is not however an
immediate consequence of belief in God’s presence. The God of the Jansenists
is not a joyful God, nor is the God of the pious. The God who gives joy is the God
who is present in the whole texture of a human being’s life, in secular activities,
in the most private thoughts and the deepest encounters, in sufferings that
surmount discouragement. The joy of messianic times is this joy.

Vigils Reading
2024-12-05
OUR NEED OF
THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST
From an oration by St Gregory of Nazianzus
◊◊◊
The very Son of God, older than the ages, the invisible, the
incomprehensible, the incorporeal, the beginning of beginning, the light of
light, the fountain of life and immortality, the image of the archetype, the
immovable seal, the perfect likeness, the definition and word of the Father: he it
is who comes to his own image and takes our nature for the good of our nature,
and unites himself to an intelligent soul for the good of my soul, to purify like by
like. He takes to himself all that is human, except for sin. He comes forth as God,
in the human nature he has taken, one being, made of two contrary elements,
flesh and spirit. Spirit gave divinity, flesh received it.
He who makes rich is made poor; he takes on the poverty of my flesh, that
I may gain the riches of his divinity. He who is full is made empty; he is emptied
for a brief space of his glory, that I may share in his fullness.
What is this mystery that surrounds me? I received the likeness of God
when I was created, but I failed to keep it. He takes on my flesh, to bring
salvation to the image, immortality to the flesh. He enters into a second union
with us, a union far more wonderful than the first.
Holiness had to be brought to us by the humanity assumed by one who
was God, so that God might lead us back to himself through the mediation of his
Son. The Son arranged this for the honor of the Father, to whom the Son is
clearly obedient in all things.
The Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, came in search
of the straying sheep to the mountains and hills on which you used to offer
sacrifice. When he found it, he took it on the shoulders that bore the wood of the
cross, and led it back to the life of heaven.
We need God to take our flesh and die, that we might live. We have died
with him, that we may be purified. We have risen again with him, because we
have died with him. We have been glorified with him, because we have risen
again with him.
