Easter Friday
2024-04-05
PRAISE THE LORD
From a sermon by St Augustine6
◊◊◊
Since it is the will of our Lord that we should see you during the time the
Alleluia is sung, we feel that we ought to say a word to you about the Alleluia. I
trust I shall not bore you by reminding you of something you already know, for
we delight in singing the alleluia every day. As you know, Alleluia in our
language means “praise the Lord.” By this word we encourage one another to
praise the Lord with one voice and one heart. Only that person can rightfully
praise Him who is free from all that could displease Him. During this time of
our earthly pilgrimage we sing the Alleluia for our solace on the journey. Now
the Alleluia is our pilgrim’s song on the way to the resting place of our true
country, where all our striving must be left behind and only the song of Alleluia
will endure.
What great happiness the virtue of hope engenders in us! But what will
the realization itself be like? We hunger and we thirst and it is necessary that
we have our fill. Yet now on the pilgrimage there is famine and only in the
heavenly home will there be plenty. When, then, are we to be satisfied? “I shall
be satisfied when your glory shall appear.” But now the glory of our God, the
glory of our Christ is hidden, and along with it our glory, too, lies concealed. But
“when Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with
him in glory.” Then the Alleluia will be a thing of reality; now it is simply a
matter of hope. Now it is hope that sings Alleluia, and love also, of course. Then
it will be love, too, that will sing Alleluia, however a love that will know
fulfillment, whereas now it is a love that remains unsatisfied.
What is the Alleluia, my brothers and sisters? I have already told you that
it is the praise of God. Now when you hear the word, you take delight in its very
sound, and in this delight you are already rendering homage. If now you love
the drop of dew, how much more will you love the rushing fountain itself? If
faith now prompts us to render praise, how much more will the vision of the
reality intensify our praise?
Since in the life to come we shall lack nothing, for that very reason we
shall be happy. We shall be fully satisfied – but with God. He will take the place
of all that we so ardently desired here on earth. Do you now have a craving for
food? God will be your food in the life to come. Do you now yearn for fleshly
caresses? “But it is good for me to adhere to my God.” Is your heart set on riches
here? How will it be possible for you to lack anything when you are going to
possess Him who is the Creator of everything? To strengthen your assurance,
let me quote the words of the apostle, who says of the future life: “That God may
be all in all.

6 Selected Easter Sermons of Saint Augustine. Commentary by Philip T. Weller. B. Herder Book Co. St. Louis, MO.
1959. p. 127.13

Easter Saturday
2024-04-06
THE FRATERNAL CITY OF GOD
By Maertens & Frisque7
◊◊◊
Faith in the paschal mystery makes the world appear as an enormous
edifice under construction! All are called, in Jesus Christ, to take their part in
the building up of the fraternal city of God. This is a gigantic labour which
demands the co-operation of all peoples and all cultures. Christ planted once
and for all the seed of true salvation-history; this seed was his own life as
human, lived with perfect fidelity unto death on the cross, a life whose
significance is eternal because it was that of the Son. Beginning with this unique
seed, the process of growth must continue until the Body of Christ has attained
its perfect stature. This slow growth of the Kingdom here on earth – where the
Kingdom takes shape without manifesting itself as such – progressively
concerns humanity and the entire creation.
To the degree to which he takes part in the mission, the Christian will
necessarily experience those “tribulations” of which St. Paul often speaks. How
can they be avoided? The Kingdom is not constructed without a constant
passage from death to life, and this work of love inevitably provokes the fierce
resistance of the wisdom of this world. But, like St. Paul, the Christian “is
overjoyed amid all afflictions“, because he knows that through them the final
city is being built.
Christian hope is no longer the hope of Judaic person. For Israel, the
Kingdom was not a thing to be built; it would appear fully achieved, so to speak.
The Christian lives a hope in the dynamism of a task to be accomplished: the
mission. The accomplishment will not come until the gospel has been preached
to all the nations. But what does such a proclamation involve? It is a matter of
implanting the mystery of Christ in time and space so that the light of Easter
may effectively illumine the spiritual journey of all the peoples and cultures of
the earth. This is a very long enterprise, because no sector of human life
remains foreign to it. After twenty centuries, we are only beginning to measure
the very close connection that exists between the mission of the Church and the
history of humanity. St. Paul believed that the universal mission was a task he
could undertake himself – at least he thought so for a time! Today, we have not
finished discovering its whole amplitude.

7Guide for the Christian Assembly. T. Maertens & J. Frisque. Biblica, Belgium, 1965, pp. 119-120.15

Skema
2024-04-07
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
2nd Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
April 7 – 13, 2024

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

Office
2nd Sunday of Easter
Annunciation of the Lord
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
St Stanislaus
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Col 3:1-17
1 Chron 17:1-15
Acts 5:17-42
Acts 6:1-15
Acts 7:1-16
Acts 7:17-43
Acts 7:44-8:3

Lauds
Rev 3:1-6
Wis 9:1-12
Rev 4:6-11
Rev 5:6-10
Rev 6:1-4
Rev 6:9-11
Rev 7:1-8

Mass
44
545
268
269
270
271
272

1st
Acts 4:32-35
Isa 7:10-14; 8:10
Acts 4:32-37
Acts 5:17-26
Acts 5:27-33
Acts 5:34-42
Acts 6:1-7

2nd
1 John 5:1-6
Heb 10:4-10

Gospel
John 20:19-31
Luke 1:26-38
John 3:7b-15
John 3:16-21
John 3:31-36
John 6:1-15
John 6:16-21

Vespers
Rev 3:7-13
Heb 2:11-18
Rev 5:1-5
Rev 5:11-14
Rev 6:5-8
Rev 6:12-17
Rev 7:9-12

Vigils Reading - 2nd Sunday of Easter
2024-04-07
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN,
AND YET BELIEVE
From a commentary by St Cyril of Alexandria1
◊◊◊
Thomas’s profession of faith came swiftly when, eight days after he had
declared his unwillingness to believe, Christ showed him his side and the nail
marks in his hands and removed every possible doubt.
Our Lord Jesus Christ had miraculously entered the room when the doors
were closed. As this would have been impossible for an ordinary earthly body
he reassured Thomas, and through him, the other disciples, by letting him see
his side and the wounds in his flesh.
Only Thomas is reported to have said: Unless my hands touch the marks
of the nails and I see them, and unless I put my hand into his side, I will not
believe, yet to some extent all the disciples were guilty of disbelief. Doubt
remained in their minds even after they had told Thomas that they had seen the
Lord. St. Luke’s account says that while they were amazed, torn between joy
and disbelief, Christ said to them, “Have you anything to eat?” They gave him
a piece of broiled fish and part of a honeycomb, which he took and ate before
their eyes. This surely proves that it was not only in the mind of blessed Thomas
that disbelieving thoughts still lurked, but in the minds of the other disciples as
well. It was their very astonishment that made them slow to believe, but when
it became impossible to disbelieve what they could see with their own eyes,
blessed Thomas made his profession of faith: My Lord and My God.
Jesus said to him: ‘Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have
believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.” There was a
wonderful providence behind these words of the Savior, and they can be of very
great help to us. They show once again how much he cares for our souls, for he
is good and as Scripture says: He wants everyone to be saved and to come to
knowledge of the truth. Even so, this saying of his may surprise us.
As always, Christ had to be patient with Thomas when he said he would
not believe, and with the other disciples too when they thought they were seeing
a ghost. Because of his desire to convince the whole world, he most willingly
showed them the marks of the nails and the wound in his side, because he
wished those who needed such signs as a support for their faith to have no
possible reason to doubt, he even took food although he had no need for it.
But when anyone accepts what he has not seen, believing on the word of
his teacher, the faith by which he honors the one his teacher proclaims to him
is worthy of great praise. Blessed, therefore, is everyone who believes the
message of the holy apostles who, as Luke says, were eyewitnesses to Christ’s
actions and ministers of the word. If we desire eternal life and long for a
dwelling place in heaven, we must listen to them.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – NY -1994 – pg. 51.3

Vigils Reading - Annunciation of the Lord
2024-04-08
THIS KIND WORD
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny2
◊◊◊
It is indeed a kind word, a reliable word in which you can believe, this
gospel of our salvation which the angel sent by God announced to Mary on this
day. It is a joyful word which day utters unto day, the angel to the virgin,
concerning the incarnation of the Word. It promises a son to the Virgin, and at
the same time pardon to sinners, redemption to captives, release to the
imprisoned, life to those in the grave. In foretelling the Son’s kingdom and
announcing the glory of the righteous, it makes hell fearful and gives joy to
heaven. By the revelation of these mysteries and by the new joys it brings them,
it seems to have increased the perfection of the angels.
Is there an afflicted person who would not be cheered by this kind word,
or anyone whose lowliness it would not console? Remember your word to your
servant by which you gave me hope, sang David. It was this which consoled
me when I was brought low. He received only a promise, a word which did not
show any sign of coming true. The delay in the fulfillment of his desire
distressed him, but he took comfort by hoping firmly in the good faith of the
one who had made the promise. If David could sustain his spirit with just the
hope of the salvation which was being kept for us, with what joy and delight
ought we not to greet its realization?
Blessed are the mourners because they will be comforted, blessed those
whose hearts are afflicted by a holy grief because they shall be gladdened by a
kind word. Clearly the kind word which consoles is your all-powerful Word, O
Lord, which came today from the heavenly throne into the womb of a virgin.
There, too, he made a royal throne, and from there he consoles those who
mourn on earth even while he sits as king surrounded by the hosts of angels in
heaven.

2 A Word in Season – vol/ IV – Augustinian Press p 1991 – pg 52.5

Vigils Reading
2024-04-09
THE REDEMPTION OF OUR BODIES
From a sermon by Ronald Knox3
◊◊◊
I am content to think of my present body as merely the inadequate symbol
of that body which will be mine in eternity. A symbol, yes; but we must remind
ourselves again, it isn’t merely a kind of book token, entitling me to the
possession of a body in eternity; it is rather a kind of cloak-room ticket, entitling
me to the possession of my body in eternity. Our Lord’s Resurrection meant
an empty tomb; our Lord’s Ascension meant, presumably, the disappearance
from earth of a certain quantum of matter which had previously been part of
earth. If it is going to be possible to establish identity between that body of
yours which will lie in the cemetery, and that body of yours which will, we hope,
attain the enjoyment of heaven, aren’t we going to land ourselves in rather
difficult physical speculations to account for it? …What is certain is that the
thing, whatever it is, which expresses itself here and now in terms of a mass of
matter about six feet high, will persist, although it may be expressed in quite
different terms, in that order of creation, whatever it be, which will succeed
when the material creation itself has passed away.
The practical importance of that truth for us is, I take it, that as Christians
we are bound to think of our bodies as part of ourselves, as included not only in
the scheme of our creation but in the scheme of our redemption, as having…a
supernatural importance, and as demanding reverence in our treatment of
them. We look forward, as St Paul says, to the redemption of our bodies; they
are not encumbrances which we drag about with us, they are first-fruits of
eternity, entrusted to our keeping…
If you lean towards Eastern spiritualism, you will find yourself talking,
like the man in that poem of Lyall’s, about your body as if it were something
that didn’t matter; it “is a garment no more fitting, is a tent that I am quitting,
is a snare, from which at last, like a hawk, my soul hath passed“. If you lean
towards Western materialism, you will find yourself talking about your body as
if it were the only thing that mattered, like that poem of Housman’s, “The
Immortal Part”, which ends up: “And leave with endless night alone the
steadfast and enduring bone“. If you avoid both those excesses, you will find
yourself talking like Thomas a’ Kempis:
Ah, frail body, earth forsaking,
In what glory wilt thou rise,
Passing fair in thy remaking,
Strong and whole and swift and wise,
Free, and joy in freedom taking,
Framed for life that never dies!
Up, and stir thee, onward spur thee;
What, though toil be hard to bear,
If God’s grace shall count thee worthy
Those unguessed rewards to share?
Brief the pains that shall prefer thee
To eternal glory there

3 University Sermons, Ronald Knox. Palm Publishers, 1963. p.299, 301-2.7

Vigils Reading
2024-04-10
THE DWELLING-PLACES
OF OUR FOREFATHERS
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman4
◊◊◊
The Churches which we inherit are not the purchase of wealth nor the
creation of genius, they are the fruits of martyrdom. They come of high deeds
and sufferings, as long before their very building as we are after it. Their
foundations are laid very deep, even in the preaching of Apostles, and the
confession of Saints, and the first victories of the Gospel in our land. All that is
so noble in their architecture, all that captivates the eye and makes its way to
the heart, is not a human imagination, but a divine gift, a moral result, a
spiritual work.
The Cross is ever planted in hazard and suffering, and is watered with
tears and blood. No where does it take root and bear fruit, except its preaching
be with self-denial. It is easy indeed, for the ruling powers to make a decree, and
set religion on high, and extend its range, and herald its name; but they cannot
plant it, they can but impose it. The Church alone can plant the Church. The
Church alone can found her sees, and enclose herself within walls. None but
saintly men, mortified men, preachers of righteousness, and confessors for the
truth, can create a home for the truth in any land. Thus the Temples of God are
withal the monuments of his Saints, and we call them by their names while we
consecrate them to his glory. Their simplicity, grandeur, solidity, elevation,
grace, and exuberance or ornament, do but bring to remembrance the patience
and purity, the courage, meekness, and great charity, the heavenly affections,
the activity in well-doing, the faith and resignation, of men and women who
themselves did but worship in mountains, and in deserts, and in caves and dens
of the earth.
They labored, but not in vain, for others entered into their labor; and, as
if by natural consequence, at length their word prospered after them, and made
itself a home, even these sacred palaces in which it has so long dwelt and which
are still vouchsafed to us, in token, as we trust, that they too are still with us
who spoke that word, and with them, his presence, who gave them grace to
speak it.
O happy they, who, in a sorrowful time, avail themselves of this bond of
communion with the Saints of old and with the Universal Church! O wise and
dutiful, who, when the world has robbed them of so much, set the more account
upon what remains! We have not lost all, while we have the dwelling-places of
our forefathers; while we can repair those which are broken down, and build
upon the old foundations, and propagate them upon new sites! Happy they, who
when they enter within their holy limits, enter in heart into the court of heaven!
And most unhappy, who, while they have eyes to admire, admire them only for
their beauty’s sake, and the skill they exhibit; who regard them as works of art,
not fruits of grace; bow down before their material forms, instead of
worshipping “in spirit and in truth;” count their stones, and measure their
spaces, but discern in them no tokens of the invisible, no canons of truth, no
lessons of wisdom, to guide them forward in the way heavenward
In heaven is the substance, of which here below we are vouchsafe the
image; the thither, if we be worthy, we shall at length attain. There is the holy
Jerusalem, whose light is like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper
stone, clear as crystal; and whose wall is great and high, with twelve gates, and
an Angel at each; whose glory is the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb is the
light.

4 Parochial & Plain Sermons, John H. Newman (Ignatius Press CA, 1987) pp. 1348-1349.9

Vigils Reading - St Stanislaus
2024-04-11
ST STANISLAUS
BISHOP AND MARTYR OF CRACOW, POLAND
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints5
◊◊◊
Stanislaus was born on July 26, 1030 in Poland. He came of noble parents
who had been childless for many years until this son was granted to them in
answer to prayer. They devoted him from birth to the service of God, and
encouraged the piety he showed from childhood. He was ordained a priest
by the Bishop of Cracow, who gave him a canonry in the cathedral and
subsequently appointed him his preacher and archdeacon. The eloquence of
the young priest and his saintly example brought about a great reformation
of morals among his penitents, clergy as well as laity. Upon the death of the
Bishop, Stanislaus was appointed Bishop by Pope Alexander II, and was
consecrated Bishop in 1072.
Poland at that time was ruled by Boleslaus, a prince whose finer qualities
were eclipsed by his unbridled lust and savage cruelty. Stanislaus alone
ventured to confront the tyrant and to remonstrate with him at the scandal
his conduct was causing. At first the king tried to vindicate his behavior, but
when pressed more closely he made some show of repentance. The good
effects of the admonition, however, soon wore off and Boleslaus relapsed
into his evil ways. There were acts of injustice which brought him into
conflict with the Bishop and at length he created an outrage which caused
general indignation.
A certain nobleman had a wife who was very beautiful. Boleslaus cast
lustful eyes upon this lady, and when she repelled his advances, he caused
her to be carried off by force and lodged in his palace. The Polish nobles
called upon the Archbishop of Gnesen and the court prelates to confront the
monarch. But fear of offending the king closed their lips. St. Stanislaus,
when appealed to, had no such hesitation. He went to Boleslaus and rebuked
him for his sin. He threatened the prince that if he persisted in his evil course
he would bring upon himself the censure of the Church.
Finding all remonstrance useless, Stanislaus launched against the king a
formal sentence of excommunication. The tyrant professed to disregard the
sentence, but when he entered the cathedral of Cracow he found that the
services were at once suspended by order of the Bishop. Furious with rage,
he pursued the Bishop to the little chapel of St. Michael outside the city,
where he was celebrating Mass, and ordered some of his guards to enter and
slay him. The men however returned saying they could not kill the saint as
he was surrounded by a heavenly light. Upbraiding them for cowardice, the
king himself entered the chapel and dispatched the Bishop with his own
hand. The guards then cut the body into pieces and scattered them abroad
to be devoured by the beasts of prey. However the sacred relics were rescued
three days later by the cathedral canons and privately buried at the door of
the chapel where Stanislaus had been slain.
It is not true that the action of Boleslaus led to an immediate uprising of
the people which drove him from Poland; but it certainly hastened his fall
from power. Pope Gregory VII laid the country under an interdict, and
nearly two centuries later, in 1253, St Stanislaus was canonized by Pope
Innocent IV.

5 Butler’s Lives of the Saints – Revised edition – edited by Michael Walsh – Harper – San
Francisco – 1991 – pg 109.12

Vigils Reading
2024-04-12
TO BE RISEN WITH CHRIST
By Thomas Merton6
◊◊◊
The risen life is not easy; it is also a dying life. The presence of the
Resurrection in our lives means the presence of the Cross, for we do not rise
with Christ unless we also first die with him. It is by the Cross that we enter the
dynamism of creative transformation, the dynamism of resurrection and
renewal, the dynamism of love. The teaching of St. Paul is centered entirely on
the Resurrection. How many Christians really understand what St. Paul is
talking about when he tells us that we have “died to the Law” in order to rise
with Christ? How many Christians dare to believe that whoever is risen with
Christ enjoys the liberty of the sons and daughters of God and is not bound by
the restrictions and taboos of human prejudice?
To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one
may live by a higher law – the law of grace and love – but that one must do so.
The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all
superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty
forms of legalism. Read the Epistle to the Galatians again… Read it in the light
of the Church’s summons to complete renewal.
The Christian must have the courage to follow Christ. The Christian who
is risen in Christ must dare to be like Christ: one must dare to follow conscience
even in unpopular causes. One must, if necessary, be able to disagree with the
majority and make decisions one knows to be according to the Gospel and
teaching of Christ, even when others do not understand why the person is acting
this way.
“The followers of Christ are called by God not according to their
accomplishments, but according to God’s own purpose and grace.”… Too many
Christians are not free because they submit to the domination of other people’s
ideas. They submit passively to the opinions of the crowd. For self-protection
they hide in the crowd, and run along with the crowd – even when it turns into
a lynch mob. They are afraid of the aloneness, the moral nakedness, which they
feel apart from the crowd.
But the Christian in whom Christ is risen dares to think and act differently
from the crowd. He has ideas of his own, not because he is arrogant, but because
he has the humility to stand alone and pay attention to the purpose and the
grace of God, which are often quite contrary to the purposes and the plans of an
established human power structure. If we have risen with Christ then we must
dare to stand by him in the loneliness of his Passion, when the entire
establishment, both religious and civil, turned against him as a modern state
would turn against a dangerous radical. In fact, there were “dangerous radicals”
among the Apostles. If we study the trial and execution of Jesus we find that he
was condemned on the charge that he was a revolutionary, a subversive radical,
fighting for the overthrow of legitimate government. This was not true in the
political sense. Jesus stood entirely outside of all Jewish politics, because his
Kingdom was not of this world. And yet he was a “freedom fighter” in a different
way. His death and resurrection were the culminating battle in his fight to
liberate us from all forms of tyranny, all forms of domination by anything or
anyone except the Spirit, the Law of Love, the “purpose and grace” of God.

6 He is Risen. Thomas Merton. Argus Communications. 1975. p.18.14

Vigils Reading
2024-04-13
LET US OFFER HIM OURSELVES
From a sermon by St John Chrysostom7
◊◊◊
Yesterday I was crucified with Christ; today I am glorified with him.
Yesterday I died with him; today I am given life with him. Yesterday I was buried
with him; today I rise again with him. Today let us offer him, not gold or silver
or precious things, – rather, let us offer him ourselves, which to God is the most
precious and becoming of gifts. Let us offer to His image what is made in the
image and likeness of the Image. And let us recognize our own dignity. Let us
give honor to Him in whose likeness we were made. Let us dwell upon the
wonder of this mystery, that we may understand for what Christ has died.
Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become
Gods because of Him, since He for us became man. He took upon Himself a low
degree that He might give us a higher one. He became poor, that through His
poverty we might become rich. He took upon Himself the form of a servant that
we might be delivered from slavery. He came down that we might rise up. He
was tempted that we might learn to overcome. He was despised that we might
be given honor. He died that He might save us from death. He ascended to
heaven that we who lie prone in sin may be lifted up to Him.
Let each one of you give all to Him. Offer all to Him Who gave Himself in
exchange for us, as the price of our redemption. But should <we> come to
understand this mystery in Christ, and that what He did He has done for <us>,
<we> shall give nothing unless <we> give <our> own selves. For all that is His
He has given you.

7 The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers – vol. 2 – Henry Regnery Co – Chicago – 1958 – pg
220.

LCG Chicago Zoom 9am CDT
2024-04-13 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. Giuseppe Nazionale
Br. Luke Armour
Br. Christian Lebanc
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Anthony Nuccio.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is the intro and chapters 1-3 of Erik Varden’s The Shatttering of Loneliness.
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.
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.)
We look forward to our continuing LCG Chicago journey at our next meeting: May 11, 2024.
US (Chicago)

Advisory Council Meeting
2024-04-13 14:30 - 16:00 (America/New_York)
Advisory Council Zoom Meeting
April 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm

Skema
2024-04-14
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
3rd Week of Easter

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

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

Office
3rd Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Acts 8:4-25
Acts 8:26-40
Acts 9:1-22
Acts 9:23-43
Acts 10:1-33
Acts 10:34-11:4, 18
Acts 11:19-30

Lauds
Rev 7:13-17
Rev 10:8-11
Rev 12:1-6
Rev 12:13-18
Rev 14:6-13
Rev 15:2-4
Rev 19:5-10

Mass
47
273
274
275
276
277
278

1st
Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
Acts 6:8-15
Acts 7:51-8:1a
Acts 8:1b-8
Acts 8:26-40
Acts 9:1-20
Acts 9:31-42

2nd
1 John 2:1-5a

Gospel
Luke 24:35-48
John 6:22-29
John 6:30-35
John 6:35-40
John 6:44-51
John 6:52-59
John 6:60-69

Vespers
Rev 8:1-5
Rev 11:15-19
Rev 12:7-12
Rev 14:1-5
Rev 14:14-16
Rev 19:1-4
Rev 19:11-16

Vigils Reading - 3rd Sunday of Easter
2024-04-14
THE MYSTERY OF EASTER
An excerpt from “The Eternal Year” by Fr Karl Rahner1
◊◊◊
To do justice to the mystery of Easter joy with the stale words of human
speech is rather difficult. This is so not only because every mystery of the Gospel
penetrates only with difficulty into the narrow confines of human life – thereby
making it even harder for our words to grasp and contain and express these
mysteries – but because the Easter message is the most human tidings of
Christianity. That is why we find it the most difficult message to understand.
For what is most true, most obvious, and most easy, is the most difficult to be,
to do, and to believe. That is to say, we modern people base our life on the
unexpressed, and therefore all the more self-evident, prejudice that anything
“religious” is merely an affair of the most interior heart and of the loftiest spirit
– something that we must bring about by ourselves, something, therefore, that
involves the difficulties and unreality of the heart’s thoughts and moods.
But Easter tells us that God has done something. God himself. And his
action has not merely gently touched the heart of one here and there, so that
they tremble slightly from an ineffable and nameless someone. God has raised
his Son from the dead. God has quickened the flesh. God has conquered death.
He has done this – he has conquered – not merely in the realm of inwardness, in
the realm of thought, but in the realm where we, the glory of the human mind
notwithstanding, are most really ourselves: in the actuality of this world, far
from all “mere” thoughts and “mere” sentiments. He has conquered in the realm
where we experience practically what we are in essence: children of the earth,
who die.
1 The Eternal Year, Karl Rahner, Baltimore: Helicon Press 1964. pp.87f.

Vigils Reading
2024-04-15
ON LOVING CHRIST
By St Augustine2
◊◊◊
Appearing to his disciples after the Resurrection, Our Lord put a question
to the Apostle Peter, prompting him who had denied him three times out of fear
to make a threefold profession of his love. Christ rose bodily from the dead,
Peter was raised spiritually. Christ our Lord rose from the dead, and by his love
raised Peter. What advantage was it to Christ to be loved by Peter? When Christ
loves you, you are the gainer, not Christ. And when you love Christ, again you
stand to gain, not Christ.
Wishing to teach all peoples how they can prove their love for him, Christ
our Lord made it plain that this is best proved by their concern for his sheep.
“Do you love me” Lord, you know that I love you. Feed my sheep.” This
happened not once, but a second and third time. Our Lord asked only, “Do you
love me?” He received no other answer than, “You know that I love you.” He
gave no other charge to Peter than “Feed my sheep”. If we love one another then
we also love Christ. For Christ, God from all eternity, was born of a human in
the course of time… As God in the form of human He worked many miracles.
As human He suffered many wrongs at the hands of humans. As God in the form
of human He arose from the dead. As human among humans He tarried on
earth forty days. As God in the form of human He ascended into heaven before
their eyes, and now is seated at the right hand of the Father. All this we fully
believe, although we do not see it.
2 Selected Easter Sermons of Saint Augustine. Commentary by Philip T. Weller. B. Herder Book Co. St. Louis, MO.
1959. p. 169.4
Neither do we see Christ whom we are commanded to love, and yet each
one of us cries out avowal: I love Christ! “If you do not love your brother or sister
whom you see, how can you love God whom you do not see?” In loving the sheep
we prove that we love the Shepherd, for the sheep are in truth the very members
of the Shepherd. In order that the sheep might be his members, He deigned to
become the Lamb of God. In order that the sheep might be his members, “He
was led as a sheep to the slaughter.” In order that the sheep might be his
members, it was said of him, “Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes
away the sins of the world.” But what tremendous strength there is in this Lamb.
Would you like to know when strength was made manifest in this Lamb? Well,
the Lamb was crucified and the lion was overcome. Consider and reflect with
what power the world is ruled by Christ our Lord who vanquished the devil by
his death.
Let us, then, give him our love, and let nothing be dearer to us than He.
Or do you think that our Lord is not questioning us? Do you imagine that Peter
alone deserved to be questioned, and not ourselves? Whenever this lesson is
read, the heart of each and every Christian is being scrutinized. Therefore,
whenever you hear the Lord saying, “Peter, do you love me?” visualize a mirror
and examine your own reflection. For what else was Peter but a symbol of the
Church? Hence when the Lord questioned Peter, He was questioning us.

Vigils Reading
2024-04-16
REVEALING CHRIST’S LOVE
By Caryll Houselander3
◊◊◊
Christ never forced his love on anyone. Though he is perfection, he never
allowed himself to dominate the will and mind of another with his own. He
desired love that would be communion, closer than human marriage, closer
than the life of a mother to her unborn child, an unimaginable communion of
love, but all were to come to it through their own experience, in their own way;
even, by a positive miracle of mercy, through their own sorrow for their sins.
The impulse was to begin for each one in their own heart. It was never a
violation of the individual soul; instead, a gentle, almost imperceptible,
movement of inward life. It could be likened to the quickening of the seed in
the earth, when the warmth and light of the sun which is burning in heaven
comes down through the darkness and enters into it, and the tender green shoot
pushes up towards the light, compelled by the very sun that is so far away, and
yet is within it.
Most people who want to know God and who are outside the Church have
just one thing that is precious to them, though to us with our clear-cut
definitions, our discipline, and our sacraments, it may seem so vague that it is
hard for us to realize how much it means to them. This is their personal
approach to God. Very often it seems to be hardly that at all, so vague is it, so
closely does it lean to sentimentality. It may be simply a memory of childhood,
or a stirring of the heart to God on seeing the first wild spray of blossoms that
proclaim the spring, or the stirring of the spirit when a certain familiar hymn is
heard. But it is surely an indication of that individual’s approach to God and of
his approach to them, and it is as sweet to them as it would be to a blind man if,
reaching out in darkness, he touched the garment hem of Christ.
Christ’s example shows us so clearly and simply how to practice his
objective love, how to learn what is in the hearts of others. First we must realize
everyone separately and approach each one differently. There are those who
come to him through their minds, through study, and through considering the
problems of today, suffering above all.
Sometimes the revelation is secret, and is made through reparation,
through gladly bearing the wounds of sin, our own and the world’s, inwardly,
and offering our suffering and sorrow in Christ’s to redeem the world and bring
peace and the forgiveness of sins. By this means it is that Christ in us still passes
through the locked doors of other lives, of closed minds, and frightened hearts.

3 The Risen Christ. Caryll Houselander, Sheed & Ward, New York, 1958, pp. 38-49.6

Vigils Reading
2024-04-17
IN CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE
By St John Henry Newman4
◊◊◊
Jesus Christ says, “As the Father has life in Himself, so has He given also
to the Son to have life in Himself;” and afterwards He says, “Because I live, you
also shall live.” It would seem then, that as Adam is the author of death to the
whole human race, so is Christ the origin of immortality. When Adam ate the
forbidden fruit, it was as a poison spreading through his whole nature, soul and
body, and from there through every one of his descendants. We are told
expressly “in Adam all die.” We are born heirs to that infection of nature which
followed upon his fall.
But we are also told, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive;” and the same law of God’s providence is maintained in both cases.
Adam spreads poison; Christ diffuses life eternal. Christ communicates life to
us, one by one, by means of that holy and incorrupt nature which He assumed
for our redemption. Therefore St. Paul says that “the last Adam was made” not
merely “a living soul,” but “a quickening” or life-giving “Spirit”, as being “the
Lord from heaven.” Let us not doubt, though we do not sensibly approach Him,
that He can still give us the virtue of His purity and incorruption, as He has
promised, and in a more heavenly and spiritual manner than “in the days of His
flesh;” in a way which does not remove merely the ailments of the body, but
sows the seed of eternal life in body and soul.
Let us not deny Him the glory of His life-giving holiness, that quickening
grace which is the renovation of our whole race, a spirit quick and powerful and
piercing, so as to leaven the whole mass of human corruption and make it live.
He is the first-fruits of the Resurrection: we follow Him each in our own order,
as we are hallowed by His inward presence. And in this sense, among others,
Christ, in the Scripture phrase, is “formed in us;” that is, communication is
made to us of His new nature, which sanctifies the soul, and makes the body
immortal.
Such then is our risen Savior in Himself and towards us: — conceived by
the Holy Spirit; holy from the womb; dying, but abhorring corruption; rising
again the third day by His own inherent life; exalted as the Son of God and Son
of man, to raise us after Him; and filling us incomprehensibly with His
immortal nature, till we become like Him; filling us with a spiritual life which
may expel the poison of the tree of knowledge and restore us to God. How
wonderful a work of grace! Strange it was that Adam should be our death, but
stranger still and very gracious, that God Himself should be our life, by means
of that human tabernacle which He has taken on Himself.

4 Parochial and Plain Sermons. John Henry Newman. Ignatius Press. San Francisco. 1987. p.316.8

Vigils Reading
2024-04-18
OUR CORRUPTIBLE AND MORTAL BODY
by Pope St Leo the Great5
◊◊◊
Though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, we now do so no
longer. The resurrection of the Lord did not mean the end of his flesh, but its
transformation, and his bodily substance was not consumed by its increase in
power. The quality changed, but the nature did not pass away. What could die
became immortal, what could be harmed became incorruptible. And so he says
correctly that he no longer knows the body of Christ in its former state, because
there remains nothing in it subject to suffering or to weakness. It remains
essentially human, but surpasses itself through the glory of the resurrection. It
is not surprising that Paul says this of the body of Christ, when he says about
Christians who live according to the Spirit, From now on, we know no one
according to the flesh. From now on, he says, resurrection in Christ has begun
in us; from Christ who died for all comes the shape of all our hope. We do not
hold back through diffidence, nor are we held in suspense through uncertainty:
we have received the beginnings of what we are promised, and see already with
the eyes of faith the things that will be ours. Rejoicing in the lifting up of our
nature, we possess already all that we believe.
Therefore, let us not be taken up by the appearances of things that pass,
nor let things which are merely of this earth turn our thoughts from the things
of heaven. Let us take as passing those things which have even now scarcely
any reality; and with our minds intent on those that endure, let us fix our desire
there where what is offered is eternal. For though we are saved only in hope,
and carry with us still our corruptible and mortal body, yet we rightly claim to
be no longer in the flesh if carnal passions do not rule us: rightly do we disclaim
allegiance to something which no longer holds us in its power. And so when the
Apostle says: “Make no provision for the flesh, to follow its desires, we
understand that he has not forbidden those things consistent with our bodily
health, or those demanded by human weakness. But in that we are not to cater
to all our desires, or fulfill all that the flesh covets, we recognize that he has
warned us to observe a certain measure of temperance, that the flesh, which is
created subject to the soul, is not given too much, nor is denied what is
necessary.

5 Sermo de Resurrectione Domini I. –nn 4-5; SC, Vol 74, pp 125-126.10

Vigils Reading
2024-04-19
THE CRUCIAL CHALLENGE
OF OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH
By Thomas Merton
◊◊◊
The season of Lent summoned us to change our hearts, to effect in
ourselves the Christian metanoia. But at the same time Lent has reminded us
perhaps all too clearly of our own powerlessness to change our lives in any way.
Lent in the liturgical year plays the role of the Law, the pedagogue, who
convinces us of sin and inflicts upon us the crushing evidence of our own
nothingness. Hence it disquiets and sobers us, awakening in us perhaps some
sense of that existential “dread” of the creature whose freedom suspends him
over an abyss which may be an infinite meaninglessness, and unbounded
despair. This is the fruit of that Law which judges our freedom together with its
powerlessness to impose full meaning on our lives merely by conforming to a
moral code. Is there nothing more than this?
But now the power of Easter has burst upon us with the resurrection of
Christ. Now we find in ourselves a strength which is not our own, and which is
freely given to us whenever we need it, raising us above the Law, giving us a new
law which is hidden in Christ: the law of his merciful love for us. Now we no
longer strive to be good because we have to, because it is a duty, but because our
joy is to please him who has given all his love to us! Now our life is full of
meaning.
Easter is the hour of our own deliverance–from what? Precisely from
Lent and from its hard Law which accuses and judges our infirmity. We are no
longer under the Law. We are delivered from the harsh judgment! Here is all
the greatness and all the unimaginable splendor of the Easter mystery. Here is
the “grace” of Easter which we fail to lay hands on because we are afraid to
understand its full meaning. To understand Easter and live it, we must
renounce our dread of newness and of freedom!
Death exercises a twofold power in our lives: it holds us by sin, and it
holds us by the Law. To die to death and live a new life in Christ we must die
not only to sin but also to the Law.
Every Christian knows that he must die to sin. But the great truth that St
Paul exhausted himself to preach in season and out is a truth that we Christians
have barely grasped, a truth that has got away from us, that constantly eludes
us and has continued to do so for twenty centuries. We cannot get it into our
heads what it means to be no longer slaves of the Law. And the reason is that
we do not have the courage to face this truth which contains in itself the crucial
challenge of our Christian faith, the great reality that makes Christianity
different from every other religion.

6 New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965, pp. 145-146.12

Vigils Reading
2024-04-20
THE REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION
By Bruce Vawter
◊◊◊
In biblical faith the resurrection is something; something did occur to
account for the appearances of Jesus after his death. It is not to retreat into
obscurity or equivocation to confess that we have no better way of defining that
something than to call it resurrection. We cannot define what is indefinable in
terms of human experience; we can only describe it in some fashion by the use
of the pictures we call analogies. The picture we use following the New
Testament precedent to describe both what God effected in Christ and, with it
as the proleptic example, what its faith promises to all who share in God’s
kingdom, is mythical to the extent that, taken in all literalness, it might equally
well serve to describe the resuscitation of a corpse, which the New Testament
does not intend to do…
Paul…for all his insistence on the resurrection as a reality, did not think
of it as a resurrection of dead flesh: “Perhaps someone will say, ‘How are the
dead to be raised up? What kind of body will they have?’ A nonsensical question!
The seed you sow does not germinate unless it dies. When you sow, you do not
sow the full-blown plant but a kernel of wheat or some other grain. God gives
body to it as he pleases — to each seed its own fruition… So is it with the
resurrection of the dead.
Paul admittedly tells us more about what, in his view, the resurrection is
not than what it is, but at the same time he tells us enough to dissuade us from
dismissing lightly the testimony of his senses, which he joined to the witness of
his tradition. Here was a man quite conscious of the validity of what are
sometimes thought to be modern and scientific objections to the idea of
resurrection; a man convinced that something had occurred that he could only
call resurrection while regretting the inadequacy of the concept. Paul was as
prepared as anyone today for demythologizing, but he was not prepared to
disallow any fact out of his inability to explain it. Rather than deny the fact, he
preferred to retain the myth with all its attendant ambiguities.

7 This Man Jesus, Bruce Vawter. Doubleday & Co. 1973. p.48-9.14.

Cleveland LCG meeting
2024-04-20 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York)
Cleveland LCG monthly meeting
Date: April 20, 2024
Time: 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Place: St Martin of Tours in Valley City, OH

Skema: Fourth Week in Easter
2024-04-21
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
4th Week of Easter

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

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

Office
4th Sunday of Easter
Bl Maria Gabriella
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
St Mark
Easter Weekday
St Rafael Arnaiz Baron

Vigils
Acts 12:1-23
Acts 12:24-13:14a
Acts 13:14b-43
Acts13:44-14:7
1 Thess 2:1-13
Acts 15:5-35
Acts 15:36-16:15

Lauds
Rev 19:19-21
Rev 20:11-15
Rev 21:5-8
Rev 21:15-21
Sir 51:13-22
Rev 22:14-21
Eph 1:11-14

Mass
50
279
280
281
555
283
284

1st
Acts 4:8-12
Acts 11:1-18
Acts 11:19-26
Acts 12:24-13:5a
1 Pet 5:5b-14
Acts 13:26-33
Acts 13:44-52

2nd
1 John 3:1-2

Gospel
John 10:11-18
John 10:1-10
John 10:22-30
John 12:44-50
Mark 16:15-20
John 14:1-6
John 14:7-14

Vespers
Rev 20:4-6
Rev 21:1-4
Rev 21:9-14
Rev 21:22-27
2 Tim 4:1-11
Eph 1:1-10
Eph 1:15-23

4th Sunday in Easter
2024-04-21
THE SHEPHERD OF OUR SOULS
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman1
◊◊◊
Our Lord here appropriates to Himself the title under which He had been
foretold by the Prophets. “David My servant shall be king over them” says
Almighty God by the mouth of Ezekiel: “and they all shall have one Shepherd.”
And in the book of Zechariah, “Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and
against the man that is My fellow, says the Lord of Hosts; smite the Shepherd,
and the sheep shall be scattered.” And in like manner St. Peter speaks of our
returning “to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.”
“The good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” In those countries of
the East where our Lord appeared, the office of a shepherd is not only a lowly
and simple office, and an office of trust, as it is with us, but, moreover, an office
of great hardship and of peril. Our flocks are exposed to no enemies, such as
our fidelity to the sheep by encounters with fierce beasts of prey. The hireling
shepherd is not tried. But where our Lord dwelt in the days of His flesh it was
otherwise. There it was true that the good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep
– “but he that is a hireling, and whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf
coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf catches them and scatters
the sheep. The hireling flees, because he is a hireling, and cares not for the
sheep.”
Our Lord found the sheep scattered; or, as He had said shortly before, “All
that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers;” and in consequence the
sheep had no guide. “When Christ came and saw the multitudes He was moved
with compassion on them because they fainted, and were scattered abroad as
sheep having no shepherd.”
So was it all over the world when Christ came in His infinite mercy “to
gather in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” And though for
a moment, when in the conflict with the enemy the good Shepherd had to lay
down His life for the sheep, they were left without a guide, yet He soon rose
from death to live for ever, and said, “He that scattered Israel will gather him,
as a shepherd does his flock.” And as He says Himself in the parable before us,
“He called His own sheep and they follow Him for they know His voice.” So,
on His resurrection, while Mary wept, He did call her by her name, and she
turned herself and knew Him by the ear whom she had not known by the eye.
So, too, He said, “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?” And He added, “Follow
Me.” And so again He and His Angel told the women, “Behold He goes before
you into Galilee… go tell My brethren, that they go into Galilee, and there shall
they see me.”
1 Plain and Parochial Sermons. John Cardinal Henry Newman, Ignatius Press, 1987, 00. 1686-87.

Bl Maria Gabriella
2024-04-22
MY ONLY DESIRE IS TO LOVE
From the final letter of Blessed Maria Gabriella to her mother 2
◊◊◊
I do not want you to get ideas and begin to pray for my recovery. Pray
instead that the Lord will do with me whatever is to his greater glory… I am
always content to do the will of God, whatever it might be, for that is my joy, my
happiness, my peace… Remain firm in your dispositions of abandonment to the
will of God and bless him always for whatever he chooses to do with me. Forget
that I am sick and think only about the Lord: thank him and bless him for the
graces and the gifts he has given me.
I feel that I love my Spouse with all my heart, but I would like to love him
even more. I would like to love him for those who do not love him, for those who
scorn him, for those who offend him. In short, my only desire is to love.
My happiness is great and no one can take it from me. It is greater than
that enjoyed by rich people in their mansions who, while they enjoy themselves,
perhaps have death in their hearts. There is no happiness greater than being
able to suffer something for Jesus and for the salvation of souls… You must be
happy as well, mother, and thank the Lord for this grace which he has given to
you and to me… I want you all to be as happy as I am… Resign yourselves and
rejoice, all of you, in the Lord.
Do not think that I am not well cared for—on the contrary, I am taken
care of hand and foot. The Reverend Mother is so good that she does not spare
herself anything in order to give me every possible assistance… No mother’s
heart could outdo her in the love and attention she demonstrates towards me.
I thank the Lord, and will thank and bless him always for all he has done for me
and for you, but I feel that I will never be able to thank him enough.
2
from Martha Driscoll, OCSO, The Silent Herald of Unity, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990, pp. 99-
100.

Easter Weekday
2024-04-23
JESUS IN THE HOLY EUCHARIST
From the Spiritual Autobiography of St Charles de Foucauld 3
◊◊◊
Lord Jesus, you are in the Holy Eucharist. You are there, a yard away in the
tabernacle. Your body, your soul, your human nature, your divinity, your whole
being is there, in its twofold nature. How close you are, my God, my Saviour, my
Jesus, my Brother, my Spouse, my Beloved!
You were not nearer to the Blessed Virgin during the nine months she
carried you in her womb than you are to me when you rest on my tongue at Holy
Communion. You were no closer to the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph in the caves
at Bethlehem or the house at Nazareth or during the flight into Egypt, or at any
moment of that divine family life than you are to me at this moment – and so many
others – in the tabernacle. St. Mary Magdalene was no closer to you when she sat
at your feet at Bethany than I am here at the foot of this altar. You were no nearer
to your apostles when you were sitting in the midst of them than you are to me
now, my God. How blessed I am!
It is wonderful, my Lord, to be alone in my cell and converse there with you
in the silence of the night – and you are there as God, and by your grace. But to
stay in my cell when I could be before the Blessed Sacrament – why, it would be as
though St. Mary Magdalene had left you on your own when you were at Bethany
to go and think about you alone in her room! It is a precious and devout thing, O
God, to go and kiss the places you made holy during your life on earth – the stones
of Gethsemane and Calvary, the ground along the Way of Sorrows, the waves of
the sea of Galilee – but to prefer it to your tabernacle would be to desert the Jesus
living beside me, to leave him alone, going away alone to venerate the dead stones
in places where he is no longer. It would be to leave… the Jesus living at my side
to go into another room to greet his portrait…
Wherever the sacred Host is to be found, there is the living God, there is your
Saviour, as really as when he was living and talking in Galilee and Judea, as really
as he now is in heaven. Never deliberately miss Holy Communion. Communion is
more than life, more than all the good things of this world, more than the whole
universe: it is God himself…
3 St Charles de Foucauld. Spiritual Autobiography of Charles de Foucauld. Ed. JeanFranҫois Six. Trans. J. Holland Smith. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1964. 98-99.

Easter Weekday
2024-04-24
THE NEW AGE OF THE RESURRECTION
By Thomas Merton 4
◊◊◊
The “new life,” the life of the Spirit, life “in Christ,” is communicated to
the human spirit by the invisible Mission of the Holy Spirit — a direct
consequence of the Resurrection of Jesus. Therefore the “new creation”
instituted by the second Adam is in fact a prolongation of his Resurrection.
The new world which is called the Kingdom of God, the world in which God
reigns in us by his divine Spirit, the world of the Second Adam is, in fact, the
Eon of the Resurrection — the new age that begins to dawn with the rising of
Christ from the dead, which reaches out to touch, with the pure spiritual light
of that dawning, each soul newly incorporated into the Risen Christ, until all
the elect are gathered together in him and the Kingdom is openly and
definitively established without question and without opposition in the
general resurrection of all the dead.
“If,” says St Paul, “by reason of the one man’s offense death reigned
through the one man, much more will they who receive the abundance of
grace …reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.” That is exactly the Pauline
concept of the Kingdom of God — a Kingdom of superabundant spiritual life,
in which the saints “reign in life through the one Christ.”
To reign in life is to have domination and autonomy by union with God
as the source of life. It is to have and enjoy the sublime liberty of the children
of God, the freedom of the Spirit by which Christ has come to make us free.
The early Church was entirely penetrated with this doctrine of liberation,
plenitude and life. Wherever the authentic Christian spirit has prevailed, it
has always been marked by this same perfect liberty and vitality in the Spirit.
For always and everywhere the Spirit of Christ teaches this message to those
who are his own: “For whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the
children of God. Now you have not received a spirit of bondage so as to be
again in fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption, by virtue of which
we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit that
we are the children of God.”
In this view of Christ’s role as second Adam, establishing the final
victory of life over death, we are still confronted with the ideas of death and
life together. The liberation from sin and death is effected by the death of
Christ. The communication of life to our souls is effected by the resurrection
of Christ. “Jesus… was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our
justification.” We shall see that in order to enter fully into communion with
the life brought to us by Christ we must in some sense — sacramentally,
ascetically, mystically — die with Christ and rise with him from the dead. The
whole life of the Kingdom of God consists then in the gradual extension of
the spiritual effects of the death and resurrection of Jesus to one soul after
another until Christ lives perfectly in all whom he has called to himself.
4 THE NEW MAN, Thomas Merton (Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, NY 1961) pp. 152-154.

St. Mark
2024-04-25
ST MARK’S GOSPEL
By Dom Damasus Winzen 5
◊◊◊
In contrast to St Matthew, who starts his gospel with the human
genealogy of Christ, “the son of David, the son of Abraham,” and to Luke, who
explains in his short preface that he intends to “write in order” the facts which
he has most diligently obtained, St Mark’s gospel keeps most faithfully the
original character of the glad tidings of Christ as the Son of God and the
Messiah. He writes not as a historian but as a preacher, recording faithfully
what he had heard from St Peter. In fact, St Peter’s address to the Roman
colonel Cornelius contains the outlines of St Mark’s gospel. This begins with
“the baptism which John preached” and how “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit, and with power”; The first main section describes Christ’s
ministry in Galilee, the “word which began in Galilee, about Jesus of Nazareth,
who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him”. A brief survey deals with “the things that he did in the
land of the Jews (Judea) and in Jerusalem”, and leads up to the second main
section of the gospel which tells us how “they killed him, hanging him upon a
tree,” and how “God raised him up on the third day, and gave him to be made
manifest”.
The fact that St Mark’s narrative of the Lord’s passion and resurrection is
on a scale out of all proportion with the rest of the book indicates clearly that in
the intention of the evangelist the person of the suffering and glorified Lord is
the core and center of the glad tidings. Here is the key to the “mystery of the
Kingdom of God” which his gospel proclaims. One has only to read the first
chapter of St Mark’s gospel to realize that the mystery of the kingdom is the
cross of the king. This first chapter contains the “beginnings” of the entire
gospel. The activity of the precursor is the “beginning” of Christ’s work of
salvation. As Christ reveals the mystery of the kingdom in his word and in his
work, so does John preach repentance and administer baptism. Because the
kingdom of God will not come in power and glory but in the self-sacrificing
charity of the Son of God, only those can enter into it who “repent” or, better,
“change their hearts” from the selfishness of the flesh to the selflessness of the
Spirit.
The rite of baptism, through which the whole person is immersed in water
and then rises, as it were, to a new life, foreshadows the work of salvation of the
Messiah Jesus who will be swallowed up in the waters of death to rise in the
fullness of the Spirit. Rightly, therefore, does Christ begin his public life as
Messiah by having himself baptized by John. He who never knew sin and did
not need repentance has himself made into sin for us, so that in him we might
be turned into the holiness of God. His death is like another flood which drowns
all that is earthly in us.
When he “comes up out of the water” foreshadowing his resurrection, he
is like another Noah, the favorite son of God. Like Noah he receives the dove,
the likeness of the Holy Spirit who descends upon this new Son of David, to
drive him like a captive into the desert. There he is “with the wild beasts.”
Exposed to the attack of the enemy, he remains victorious so that after forty
days and forty nights, which are symbolic of the “old age,” the angels come and
minister to him as the Lord of the new age. Through humiliation to exaltation,
that is the way of the Messiah Jesus, who in his life repeats and fulfills the march
of the chosen people from Egypt, through the Red Sea into the desert, and
ultimately to the promised land.
5 Damasus Winzen, Pathways in Scripture, Ann Arbor, MI: Word of Life, 1976, pp. 243-245.

Easter Weekday
2024-04-26
GOD CAME TO TEACH HUMILITY
From a sermon by St Augustine 6
◊◊◊
Pride is the source of all diseases, because pride is the source of all sins.
When a physician removes a disorder from the body, if he merely cures the
malady produced by some particular cause but not the cause itself, he seems to
heal the patient for a time; but while the cause remains, the disease will repeat
itself.
For example, to speak of this more expressly, some humor in the body
produces sores; a high fever follows and considerable pain. Certain remedies
are prescribed to repress the sores; the remedies are applied and they work. You
see the one who was full of sores now healed; but because that humor was not
expelled, it returns again to ulcers. Perceiving this, the physician purges away
the humor and removes the cause, and there will be no more sores.
What is the source of iniquity? From pride. Cure pride and there will be
no more iniquity. Hence, to cure the cause of all diseases, namely pride, the Son
of God came down and humbled himself. Why are you proud, O mortal, when
God humbled Himself for you? You might perhaps be ashamed to imitate a
humble mortal, but in any case imitate the humble God.
The Son of God came in the nature of humans and humbled himself. You
are commanded to become humble; you are not commanded to go from a
human to a brute. He, who was God, became human; you who are human
recognize that you are such; all your humility consists in knowing what you are
yourself. Therefore, because God teaches humility he said: “It is not to do my
own will that I have come down from heaven, but to do the will of Him who
sent me.” For this is the commendation of humility. Pride does its own will, but
humility does the will of God. Therefore, “No one who comes to me will I ever
reject.” Why? “Because it is not to do my own will that I have come down from
heaven, but to do the will of him who sent me.”
I came humble, I came to teach humility. I came as a master of humility.
Whoever comes to me is made one body with me; whoever adheres to me will
be humble, because they do not their own will but the will of God. Therefore
they will not be cast out, for when they were proud, they were cast out…
Thus the Teacher of humility came not to do his own will but the will of
the One who sent him. Let us come to him, enter into him, be engrafted onto
him, that we may not be doing our own will but the will of God. And he will not
cast us out, because we are his members, because he willed to be our head by
teaching us humility.
6 Christian Readings. Vol. IV. Catholic Publishing Company. New York, 1970. p. 39.

Bl Raphael Arnaiz Baron
2024-04-27
SIMPLICITY OF HEART
From the writings of St Rafael Arnaiz Baron 7
◊◊◊
I see, Brother, that the path you follow is the simple life. God does not
require more of us than simplicity without and love within. The truth is that the
real pathways of God are very easy and very simple when we walk along them
full of the spirit of trust and with free hearts fixed on God. Happy, indeed, is
the Trappist who is not merely a Trappist externally, but whose interior life is
marked by the simplicity that makes the real Trappist. People of the world could
think us somewhat complicated. I do not know how to explain myself, but I
have come to realize what Jesus means when he says: “Unless you become as
little children…”
The ways of the Lord are simplicity; his yoke is easy and his burden is
light. We die to the world in order to be born to God. The self-denial of a life of
silence and solitude blossoms into the exuberant joy of a heart which counts its
blessings in terms of simplicity and integrity. Those who follow Christ, do so
along the way of the Cross. I think that when we love the Cross all is gained.
God always lets his light shine on anyone who loves and seeks him in
simplicity. We have to find our way along many winding paths before we arrive
at the simple straight one. What causes us more distress than complicating
things! How we human beings love to complicate everything for ourselves!
Unless we keep ourselves under control by the practice of virtue, repeatedly,
with our complicated way of existing we drive far from us everything that is
simple.
Time and again, we fail to grasp the greatness hidden deep down in an
act of simplicity. We want to seek greatness in complexity and think that only
when things are difficult have they anything worthwhile to offer… Virtue, God,
Interior Life – difficult values to live out! It is not that I have attained virtue,
nor that my knowledge of God and my life in the spirit are totally clear, but that
I have seen that to achieve something in these matters I need to be free from
complexity and contortion, from clever speculation and technicalities.
I have seen that we reach God by just the opposite. True knowledge of
Him comes through simplicity of heart and integrity. An act of love is not
difficult at all. What is really hard is the effort to attain knowledge of God by
penetrating his mysteries. The act of love brings us to God; the other way leads
us nowhere… Because we are not simple; because we complicate our objectives,
because the weakness of our will makes everything we desire seem difficult. We
pander to this weakness when we let our will satisfy itself with what is pleasant,
consoling, distracting and, oftentimes, plain passion…
With Jesus at my side nothing seems difficult to me, and the path to
holiness seems simpler every time I look at it. Better it seems to consist in going
forward and leaving things behind rather than in acquiring anything new,
stripping back to simplicity rather than adding things on. In so far as we go
forward turning our back on so much inordinate love of creatures and of
ourselves, it seems to me that we are drawing closer to that one real love, that
sole desire, that unique aspiration of this life: the true holiness which is God.
7 Liturgical text, Generalizia Cistercensi S.O., Rome, 1993.

LCG Mentoring Meeting
2024-04-27 11:00 - 12:30 (America/New_York)
Mentoring meeting for all LCG Mentors
April 27, 2024 time to be announced
