Skema
2025-05-04
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
3rd Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
May 4 – 10, 2025

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

Office
3rd Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Bl Christian de Cherge
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Rev 6:1-17
Rev 7:1-17
Rev 8:1-13
Rev 9:1-12
Rev 9:13-21
Rev 10:1-11
Rev 11:1-19

Lauds
Eph 3:7-13
Eph 3:14-21
Eph 4:1-6
Eph 4:17-24
Eph 4:25-32
Eph 5:1-5
Eph 5:6-14

Mass
48
273
274
275
276
277
278

1st
Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41
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
Rev 5:11-14

Gospel
John 21:1-19
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
Acts 9:1-9
Acts 9:10-19a
Acts 9:19b-22
Acts 9:23-31
Acts 10:1-8
Acts 10:9-16
Acts 10:17-28

Vigils Reading - 3rd Sunday of Easter
2025-05-04
LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER
From a commentary by St Augustine
◊◊◊
The Lord appeared once again to his disciples after his resurrection, and
questioning Peter, who from fear had thrice denied him, extracted from him a
threefold declaration of love. Christ had been raised to life in the flesh, and Peter
to life in the spirit, for when Christ died as a result of the torments he endured,
Peter was also dead as a result of denying his master. Christ the Lord was raised
from the dead; Christ the Lord raised up Peter through Peter’s love for him. And
having obtained from him the assurance of that love, he entrusted his sheep to
Peter’s care.
We may wonder what advantage there could be for Christ in Peter’s love
for him. If Christ loves you, you profit, not Christ; and if you love him, again the
advantage is yours, not his. But wishing to show us how we should demonstrate
our love for him, Christ the Lord made it plain that it is by our concern for his
sheep. Do you love me?, he asked. I do love you. Then feed my sheep. Once,
twice, and a third time the same dialogue was repeated. To the Lord’s one and
only question, Peter had no other answer than I do love you. And each time the
Lord gave Peter the same command: Feed my sheep. Let us love one another
then, and by doing so we shall be loving Christ.
Christ, the eternal God, was born in time as man. A true member of the
human race, he appeared as one of us; but as God in human form he performed
many wonderful signs. As a human being, he suffered much from other human
beings; but as God in human form he rose from the dead. For forty days he lived
on earth as one of us; then, before the eyes of his disciples, he ascended to
heaven, where, as God in human form, he is now seated at the right hand of the
Father. We believe all these things, though we have never seen them; we are
commanded to love Christ the Lord, whom we have never seen. And we all cry
out and say that we love Christ.
But listen to John’s words: If you do not love the brother or sister that
you can see, how can you love the God you cannot see? It is by loving the sheep
that you show your love for the shepherd, for the sheep are the members of the
shepherd. Indeed, it was to make the sheep members of his own body that the
Lord became one of them himself, that he allowed himself to be led like a lamb
to the slaughter, and that he allowed the baptist to point him out and say:
Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Surely a
crushing burden for a lamb! But that lamb possessed tremendous strength. Do
you wish to know how much strength was in this lamb? Because the lamb was
crucified, the lion was overcome. If he could vanquish the devil by his own
death, think with what power he is able to rule the world! May nothing, then,
ever be dearer to us than Christ the Lord; let us love him with all our hearts.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-05
THE LIFE THAT CONQUERS
From “The Eternal Year” by Fr Karl Rahner
◊◊◊
Because [Jesus] did not begin to heal, to save, and to transfigure the world
by transfiguring the symptoms on the surface, but began rather at the
innermost root, we suppose that nothing has happened to the essence beneath
this superficial area. Because the waters of grief and guilt still flow on the
surface where we stand, we fancy that their source in the depths is not yet dried
up. Because evil still carves new marks in the face of the earth, we conclude that
in the deepest heart of reality love is dead. But these are only appearances,
which we take for the reality of life.
Christ is risen because in death he conquered, and redeemed forever, the
innermost center of all earthly existence. And, having risen, he has kept this
innermost center in his control, and he continues to preserve it. If we
acknowledge that he has gone away to God’s heaven, this is only another way of
saying that he withdraws from us for a while the tangibility of his transfigured
humanity. But this is only another way of saying that there is no longer any
abyss between God and the world.
Christ is already in the midst of the poor things of this earth… He is in the
ineffable yearning of all creatures who, without knowing it, yearn for a share in
the transfiguration of his body. He is in the history of the earth, whose blind
course, with all its victories and all its crashing defeats, steers with uncanny
precision towards the day when his splendor, transforming everything, will
erupt out of the earth’s own depths. He is in all the tears as hidden joy, and in
every death as the life that conquers by seeming to die. He is the heart of this
earthly world and the mysterious seal of its eternal validity.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-06
THE REDEMPTION
OF OUR BODIES
From a sermon by Fr Ronald Knox
◊◊◊
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.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-07
CHRIST IS THE DOOR
From “Symbols of Christ” by Dom Damasus Winzen
◊◊◊
To pass through a door is an initiation and a consecration, because it
means to leave behind the past and to enter a new life. To the Romans of old, the
victorious army, by marching through the arch of triumph, was cleansed of past
offenses and consecrated to a new era of peace. For the people of the Old
Testament, the temple gate of Jerusalem took the place of the arch of triumph.
No armies marched through it, but the festive throngs of the pilgrims
approached it in solemn procession on the Feast of the Tabernacles. Their
summons rang out to the warders: “This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous
shall enter into it!”
The real door to the Messianic era, however, is not made of stone. It is the
living heart of the Saviour. The very shape of the door indicates salvation
through Christ, because its two side-posts, holding up the lintel, form a gallows-
shaped cross. Every wall effects a separation between those within, whom it
protects, and those without, whom it excludes. Walls, therefore, are needed
only in a world where enmity exists between those who share in the blessedness
of a common life and those who are strangers and exiles. The door, however,
pierces the wall, and unites the two groups – in the power of the cross.
After the earth had been cursed, and enmity placed between the serpent
and the woman, Paradise was walled off from the rest of the world. But the gate
remained, guarded by the cherub with the flaming sword – waiting for the time
of man’s re-entrance. God also hid his Holy Presence behind the walls of the
temple, but a door remained, through which, once a year, the high priest was
allowed to enter the Holy of Holies.
When Christ extended his hands on the Cross he became the Door
through which the wall of separation between God and ourselves was opened.
The cherub at the gate of Paradise put away his sword when God’s Eternal Love,
hanging on the Cross, said to the good thief: “This day you shall be with me in
Paradise!” When Christ gave up the spirit, the curtain of the Holy of Holies was
rent, to indicate that we can “enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus.”
Christ is the Door through which we have access to the Father, because he is the
sacrificial victim which reconciles us in one body to God, so that we are citizens
with the saints and members of God’s household.
This Door was foreshadowed in the door of Noah’s ark, which,
significantly enough, “was set in the side thereof”; the Door was opened when
the lance of the soldier pierced the side of Jesus. We enter through this Door by
being baptized into the Death and Resurrection of Christ, through which we are
cleansed from past offenses and consecrated as children of the Heavenly Father.

Vigils Reading - Br Christian de Cherge
2025-05-08
CHRISTIAN DE CHERGÉ
MARTYR, MONK, AND MYSTIC
By Dom Bernardo Olivera
◊◊◊
In its early stages, monastic life was interpreted in various ways. Not a few
understood monasticism as an authentic martyrdom. The martyr, the monk and
the mystic are people who have oriented their lives toward mystery and entered
deeply therein. They long for one thing only: to enter into communion with their
Lord in death in order to be joined with him in the Resurrection.
Christian de Chergé was born on January 18, 1937 at Colmar into a
distinguished family of eight children. His father was a military man, as would
be his older brother later on. During his childhood he spent three years in
Algeria during the Second World War. From the time of his childhood he always
remained impressed by the Muslim’s way of approaching God.
On October 6, 1956, at the age of nineteen he entered the seminary of the
Carmelites in Paris. His studies were interrupted in 1959 when he had to report
for military service. Set on becoming an officer, he took the required courses
and in July of the following year he was made second lieutenant. That same
month, at the time of the war of independence, he arrived in Algeria at the age of
twenty-three.
An event occurred during this time that left its mark on him for the rest of
his life. He had made friends with an Algerian who worked as a warden under
the French authorities, a position that made him susceptible to the violence of
the National Liberation Army. Mohamed tried to be faithful at one and the same
time to his Christian friend, to his Islamic faith, and to his own people. It so
happened one day that they were involved in a scuffle in the street. Mohamed10
protected his friend and tried to pacify his aggressors. The following day, he was
found dead. This painful episode was never to be forgotten. Christian came back
to it in later years, writing: “I know at least one beloved brother, a convinced
Muslim, who gave his life for love of another, in a concrete way, by spilling his
own blood. Indeed, since then, in my hope for communion of all the elect in
Christ, I can fix my eyes on this friend who lived, even in his death, the one
commandment.”
For Christian de Chergé all of this was a foundational experience and the
seed of a vocation. In the blood of his friend, assassinated for not having wanted
to bargain with hatred, Christian said in 1982: “I knew my calling to follow
Christ would end up living itself out sooner or later in the same country where
I had been given the pledge of the greater love, ‘shed for you and for many’”.
On March 21, 1964, he was ordained a priest and shortly thereafter was sent to
Algeria and to the monastic life. On September 14, 1976, he made his perpetual
vows. In it he expressed his desire to “live in Prayer in the service of the Church
of Algeria, listening to the Muslim soul, God willing, until the final gift of my
death.”
Christian was elected Titular Prior of Atlas monastery in 1984. He was
already deeply involved in the interreligious dialogue. On May 21, 1996, united
with his six brothers of the community, he sealed with his blood the witness of
his life.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-08

Vigils Reading
2025-05-09
THE SECRET OF THE LORD
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman
◊◊◊
Our Lord expressly promises all Christians a certain gracious
manifestation of himself, which it is natural, at first sight, to suppose a sensible
one: and many persons understand it to be such, as if it were not more blessed to
believe than to see. Our Lord says; “He that has my commandments and keeps
them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me, shall be loved of my Father,
and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.” When Jude asked him,
“Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the
world?” Our Lord answered, “If one loves me, he will keep my words; and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with
him.” In accordance with this promise, St Paul says, “The Spirit itself bears
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”; and St John, “He that
believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself.”
Now, that this great gift, whatever it be, is of a nature to impart
illumination, sanctity, and peace, to the soul to which it comes, far from
disputing, I would earnestly maintain. And, in this indirect way, doubtless, it is
in a certain sense apprehended and perceived; perceived in its effects, with a
consciousness that those effects cannot come of themselves, but imply a gift
from which they come, and a presence of which they are, as it were, the shadow,
a voice of which they are the echo.
But there are persons who desire the inward manifestation of Christ to be
much more sensible than this. They will not be contented without some sensible
sign and direct evidence that God loves them; some assurance, in which faith
has no part, that God has chosen them; and which may answer to their
anticipations of what Scripture calls “the secret of the Lord,” and “the hidden
manna” which Christ invites us to partake. Some, for instance, hold that their
conscience would have no peace, unless they recollected the time when they
were converted from darkness to light, from a state of wrath to the kingdom of
God.
Others consider that, in order to possess the seal of election, they must be
able to discern in themselves certain feelings or frames of mind, a renunciation
of their own merit, and an apprehension of gospel salvation; as if it were not
enough to renounce ourselves and follow Christ, without the lively
consciousness that we are doing so; and that in this lies “the secret of the Lord.”
Others go further; and think that without a distinct inward assurance of his
salvation, one is not in a saving state.
This is what men and women often conceive; not considering that
whatever be the manifestation promised to Christians by our Lord, it is not
likely to be more sensible and more intelligible than the great sign of his own
Resurrection. Yet even that, like the miracle wrought upon Jonah, was in secret,
and they who believed without seeing it were more blessed than those who saw.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-10
NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES PEACE
From a homily by St Oscar Romero
◊◊◊
Justice is not enough; love also is necessary… We have said that the power
of the Christian is love, and we repeat it: the power of the church is love.
Love enables us to feel that we are sisters and brothers to one and all… As
long as we do not reach that strength of love, we cannot be true peacemakers.
Those whose hearts are filled with resentment, violence, and hatred cannot be
forgers of peace. We have to know how to love like Jesus, who loved even those
who crucified him: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do… If they
knew you, they would love you… Give them love also, Lord.” How much good
the powerful would do if they truly loved and were not selfish and envious! How
beautiful the world would be… if we all were to expand this power of love!
Here the Second Vatican Council was careful to define two kinds of peace,
and we should pay close attention to this. One kind of peace is that which Christ
reserved for his closest friends, those who understood the redemption and the
need to root out sin from themselves. As long as there is sin in the heart, there
can be no truly divine peace, such as the peace Christ achieved when he
reconciled us with the Father by dying on the cross and bearing the sins of all of
us in his body. For us Christians and Catholics, this is the culmination of peace:
peace in the grace of God, the peace of those who have left sin and controlled
their passions, the peace of holy souls. This is the peace that Christ spoke of: “I
leave you peace; my peace I give to you, not as the world gives peace.”
Romero Vol. 1 (of 6). Trans. Joseph Owens, SJ. Miami: Convivium Press, 2015. 181-184.14
Here we distinguish another kind of peace, the peace that the church
shares with the world, the peace that non-Christians can also possess, the peace
of people of good will that we sing about in the Gloria of the Mass… Here is
meant this other peace, the peace that proceeds from natural love. It is the
peace of those who, even though they do not know God, are able to discover the
intense power of being in solidarity with those who suffer. It is the peace that
enables people to bring a little comfort to the grief-stricken and to denounce
injustices… This is the peace that all people can possess…
The problem of peace is immense, and it needs many peacemakers:
priests, men and women religious, laity… the call goes out to all… Let each one
of us, according to our means, nurture this vocation to become instruments of
peace… Those whose hearts feel the need for God, those who find the joy of life
in the cross and sacrifice, those who have learned the true secret of peace in the
crucified One. This secret consists of loving God to the extreme of letting
oneself be killed for him and of loving one’s neighbors to the point of being
crucified for them. This is the love of the modern redeemers, the love of Christ,
this love that endures forever. Let us promise this to the Lord while we proceed
to proclaim our faith in him.

LCG Chicago May Meeting Zoom 5/10/25 9 am CDT
2025-05-10 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago)
All are invited:
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 860 2835 6465
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9:00 Gather for Opening prayer.
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:
Fr. Joachim Johnson
Br. Christopher Lucas
Br. Roger Kaler
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Tom Kosnik.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is completion (from page 50 to end) of The Impact of God by Fr. Iain Matthew. Does the author help/sense the concept of “night” by St. John of the Cross?
10:45 Housekeeping. Volunteer to lead lectio next month? Selection of our next book. Chicago Report on LCG Advisory Council activity. Plans for 2025 international meeting in Avila.
11:00 Update. Share how the Holy Spirt has entered our lives as lay Cistercians since our last meeting.
11:45 Closing worship and prayer. We will pray the liturgical hour of None as with our Gethsemani monks (identical Psalms as done today at Gethsemani Abbey.)
Our next meeting: June 14, 2025.

Skema, 4th Easter
2025-05-11
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
4th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
May 11 – 17, 2025

Sun
11
Mon
12
Tue
13
Wed
14
Thu
15
Fri
16
Sat
17

Office
4th Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
St Mathias
St Pachomius
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Rev 12:1-18
Rev 13:1-18
Rev 14:1-13
Phil 3:13-4:1
Rev 15:5-16:21
Rev 17:1-18
Rev 18:1-20

Lauds
Eph 5:15-20
Eph 6:10-17
Col 1:1-8
1 Jn 2:18-25
Col 1:15-23
Col 1:24-29
Col 2:1-8

Mass
51
279
280
564
282
283
284

1st
Acts 13:14, 43-52
Acts 11:1-18
Acts 11:19-26
Acts 1:15-17, 20-26
Acts 13:13-25
Acts 13:26-33
Acts 13:44-52

2nd
Rev 7:9, 14b-17

Gospel
John 10:27-30
Jn 10:1-10
John 10:22-30
John 15:9-17
John 13:16-20
John 14:1-6
John 14:7-14

Vespers
Acts 10:34-43
Acts 10:44-49
Acts 12:1-5
1 Cor 4:1-7
Acts 13:6-12
Acts 14:1-7
Acts 16:16-24

4th Sunday of Easter
2025-05-11
PERMANENT MYSTICAL KINSHIP
From a commentary by St Cyril of Alexandria 1
◊◊◊
The mark of Christ’s sheep is their willingness to hear and obey, just as the sign of those who are not his is their disobedience. We take the word “hear” to imply obedience to what has been said. People who hear God are known by him. No one is entirely unknown by God, but to be known in this way is to become his kin. Thus, when Christ says, “I know mine. I will receive them, and give them permanent mystical kinship with myself.”
It might be said that inasmuch as he has become man, he has made all human beings his kin, since all are members of the same race; we are all united to Christ in a mystical relationship because of his incarnation. Yet those who do not preserve the likeness of his holiness are alienated from him. “My sheep follow me”, says Christ. By a certain God given grace, believers follow in the footsteps of Christ. No longer subject to the shadows of the law, they obey the commands of Christ, and guided by his words rise through grace to their own dignity, for they are called children of God. When Christ ascends into heaven, they also follow him.
Christ promises his followers as a recompense and reward eternal life, exemption from death and corruption, and from the torments the judge inflicts upon transgressors. By giving life Christ shows that by nature he is life. He does not receive it from another, but supplies it from his own resources. And by eternal life we understand not only length of days which all, both good and bad, shall possess after the resurrection, but also the passing of those days in peace and joy.
We may also see in the word “life” a reference to the Eucharist. By means of which Christ implants in believers his own life through their sharing in his flesh, according to the text: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”.
1
Journey with the Fathers = Year C – New City Press – 1984 – pg 54.

Vigils: Easter Weekday
2025-05-12
GOD HAS CONQUERED DEATH
From “The Eternal Year” by Fr Karl Rahner 2
◊◊◊
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.
2
The Eternal Year, Karl Rahner, Baltimore: Helicon Press 1964. pp.87f

Vigils: Easter Weekday
2025-05-13
THE CRUCIAL CHALLENGE
OF OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH
By Thomas Merton 3
◊◊◊
The season of Lent summoned us to change our hearts, to effect in ourselves the Christian metanoia…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…
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.
3
New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965, pp. 145-146.

Vigils: St. Matthias
2025-05-14
OUR VERY GLORY
IS OUR WARNING
By St John Henry Newman 4
◊◊◊
<The feast of St Matthias> is the only day which is to be celebrated with mingled feelings of joy and pain. It records the fall as well as the election of an Apostle. St Matthias was chosen in place of the traitor Judas. In the history of the latter we have the warning recorded in very deed, which our Lord in the text gives us in word, “Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” And doubtless many were the warnings such as this, addressed by our Lord to the wretched man who in the end betrayed him.
The reflection which rises in the mind on a consideration of the election of St Matthias, is this: how easily God may affect His purposes without us, and put others in our place, if we are disobedient to Him. It often happens that those who have long been in His favor grow secure and presuming. They think their salvation certain, and their service necessary to Him who has graciously accepted it. Now, this feeling of self-importance is repressed all through the Scriptures, and especially by the events we commemorate today.
What solemn overpowering thoughts must have crowded on St Matthias, when he received the greetings of the eleven Apostles, and took his seat among them as their brother! His very election was a witness against himself if he did not fulfill it. And such surely will ours be in our degree. We take the place of others who have gone before, as Matthias did; we are “baptized for the dead,” filling up the ranks of soldiers, some of whom, indeed, have fought a good fight, but many of whom in every age have made void their calling. Many are called, few are chosen. The monuments of sin and unbelief are set up around us. The casting away of the Jews was the reconciling of the Gentiles. The fall of one nation is the conversion of another. The Church loses old branches and gains new. God works according to His own inscrutable pleasure…
Thus the Christian of every age is but the successor of the lost and of the dead. How long we of this country shall be put in trust with Gospel, we know not; but while we have the privilege, assuredly we do but stand in the place of Christians who have either utterly fallen away, or are so corrupted as scarcely to let their light shine before others. We are at present witnesses of the Truth; and our very glory is our warning. By the superstitions, the profanities, the indifference, the unbelief of the world called “Christian”, we are called upon to be lowly-minded while we preach aloud, and to tremble while we rejoice. Let us then, as a Church and as individuals, one and all, look to Him who alone can keep us from falling. Let us with single heart look up to Christ our Saviour, and put ourselves into His hands, from whom all our strength and wisdom is derived.
4
Parochial and Plain Sermons, San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987, pp. 300-301, 304-305.

Vigils: St. Pachomius
2025-05-15
OUR RIGHTEOUS
FATHER PACHOMIUS
From “The Life of Pachomius” 5
◊◊◊
Theodore began to tell the brothers of the life of our father Pachomius from his childhood on and of all the labors he underwent from the beginning when he established the holy Koinonia. He told them of the temptations of demons and how he snatched away from them the souls which the Lord gave him and of the revelations which the Lord disclosed to him. And he told them everything he had heard from that saint’s mouth as well as those things he had seen with his own eyes.
He spoke to them as follows:
‘Listen to me, my brothers, and understand well the things I am telling you. For the man whom we are exalting is truly the father of us all after God. God established a covenant with him to save a great many souls by means of him. And us also the Lord has saved through his holy prayers… Our righteous father Pachomius – is also one of the holy people of God and one who did his will always and everywhere. I am fearful that we may forget his labors and actually be unmindful of who it was who made this multitude one spirit and one body. It was accomplished by means of him and of our other holy fathers who aided him in the establishment of this holy institution. We believe that the blessing of our father will remain with us and with those who come after us before God forever. Now then, let us not be negligent and forget his laws and his commandments, which he gave us while he was still with us in the body.’
‘Pachomius pursued in its entirety the way of life of the prophets and the way of service in which, according to the Gospel, our Lord walked. He was without blame before all, as you yourselves bear witness. You are also not unaware how he used to teach us frequently with tears, as Paul said in the book of the Acts of those whom he was teaching. You know how he used to gather us together daily and speak to us about the holy commandments so that we might observe each of the commandments in the holy Scriptures of Christ, and how he used first to put them into practice before giving them to us.
It is through our contact with such a righteous man that we have learned the will of God even in such details as the manner of stretching our hands upward to the Lord and how one should pray to God. It is he who taught it to us. Is it not right for us to bless him next after the Lord who created us? Indeed, did God not say to Abraham, who had done his will, I will bless him who blesses you and I will curse him who curses you? Now then, my brothers, let us all say, “Blessed be God and our righteous father Pachomius who through the labors of his prayers has become for us a guide to eternal life”‘.
5
Pachomian Koinonia, Vol One, Trans., Armand Veilleux, Kalamazoo, 1980; pp 237-8.

Vigisl: Easter Weekday
2025-05-16
THE LIGHT THAT IS LIFE
By Fr Gerald Vann 6
◊◊◊
The tree of death is also the tree of life; the tomb of death is the womb of life; it is through going down with Christ into his death that we are to be ourselves reborn; the dry bones shall live again because the Lord will send his Spirit into the bones: the rebirth is made possible through water and the Holy Spirit. Life, in other words, must come from without, from God; but at the same time we must be able to receive it: there are conditions to be fulfilled on our side and it is these that are expressed in terms of going down into the darkness, into the dark waters, into death.
For in death and darkness we can be freed from our pride and learn to be humble of heart: we can imitate the Word who ‘dispossessed himself and took the nature of a slave’ and then ‘lowered his own (human) dignity, accepted an obedience which brought him to death, death on a cross.’ And that is why, St Paul goes on, that is why ‘God has raised him to such a height, given him a name which is greater than any other name’: that is why: because of his self-humbling even to death.
Everywhere the spectacle confronts us of the destruction of what makes life worth living: our garden is laid waste, the beauty we have made is ravaged, the home is destroyed, the hearth a heap of dead ashes; and these things are images of a much deeper tragedy, the death of the soul. And the dry bones, it is clear, will never find life again of themselves, from within themselves. A dead heart can live again only if the two conditions are fulfilled, a dying world can live again only if the two conditions are fulfilled: if life is brought them from without, and if they themselves are able to receive it. But to be able to receive it they must first admit their own death; and human nature finds that very difficult to do. People will sometimes say that God is dead; they will very seldom admit that they themselves are dead; and if they do, it is all too often, like Judas, only with the sterile voice of despair.
In the Garden of Eden, the symbol of the life we might have had, the life we long for but have lost, there is a tree of life and a tree of knowledge: but we would not receive life, we wanted to seize it for ourselves, dominate over it; we would not receive knowledge of the truth, we wanted to fashion it for ourselves; and so the life is lost; we are expelled from the garden, and the soul dies. The soul dies because we wanted in our pride to make ourselves God; we tried to take to ourselves a glory that was not ours.
But now there is hope for us again because the Son of God did exactly the opposite: he dispossessed himself of the glory that was his and became a slave; and so in him humanity was healed, and in him we may each of us be healed, provided only that we in our turn do the same thing, reverse in the same way the primal sin, become humble enough to admit the death that is in us, the evil that is in us, and so, in that act of going down into the darkness where pride is killed, find again the light that is life.
6
The Water and the Fire, Gerald Vann O.P. Collins 1953 p.181-2.

Vigils: Easter Weekday
2025-05-17
THE FRATERNAL
CITY OF GOD
By Thierry Maertens & Jean Frisque 7
◊◊◊
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.
7
Guide for the Christian Assembly. T. Maertens & J. Frisque. Biblica, Belgium, 1965, pp. 119-120.

Skema
2025-05-18
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
5th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
May 18 – 24, 2025

Sun
18
Mon
19
Tue
20
Wed
21
Thu
22
Fri
23
Sat
24

Office
5th Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Rev 18:21-19:10
Rev 19:11-21
Rev 20:1-15
Rev 21:1-8
Rev 21:9-27
Rev 22:1-9
Rev 22:10-21

Lauds
Col 2:9-15
Col 3:1-11
Col 3:12-17
1 Tim 1:1-7
1 Tim 1:12-17
1 Tim 2:1-7
1 Tim 4:6-10

Mass
54
285
286
287
288
289
290

1st
Acts 14:21-27
Acts 14:5-18
Acts 14:19-28
Acts 15:1-6
Acts 15:7-21
Acts 15:22-31
Acts 16:1-10

2nd
Rev 21:1-5a

Gospel
John 13:31-33a, 34-35
John 14:21-26
John 14:27-31a
John 15:1-8
John 15:9-11
John 15:12-17
John 15:18-21

Vespers
Acts 16:35-40
Acts 17:1-5a
Acts 17:10-15
Acts 17:16-23
Acts 18:18-23
Acts 19:8-12
Acts 19:13-20

Vigils Reading - 5th Sunday of Easter
2025-05-18
A LOVE THAT
TRANSCENDS THE LAW
From a commentary by St Cyril of Alexandria
◊◊◊
I give you a new commandment, said Jesus: Love one another. But how,
we might ask, could he call this commandment new? Through Moses, he said to
the people of old: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your mind. And your neighbor as yourself. Notice what follows. He was not
content simply to say, I give you a new commandment: love one another. He
showed the novelty of his command and how far the love he enjoined surpassed
the old conception of mutual love by going on immediately to add: Love one
another as I have loved you.
To understand the full force of these words, we have to consider how
Christ loved us. Then it will be easy to see what is new and different in the
commandment we are now given. Paul tells us that although his nature was
divine, he did not cling to his equality with God, but stripped himself of all
privilege to assume the condition of a slave. He became as we are, and
appearing in human form humbled himself by being obedient even to the
extent of dying on a cross. And elsewhere Paul writes: Though he was rich, he
became poor.
Do you not see what is new in Christ’s love for us? The law commanded
people to love their brothers and sisters as they love themselves, but our Lord
Jesus Christ loved us more than himself. He who was one in nature with God the
Father and his equal would not have descended to our lowly state, nor endured
in his flesh such a bitter death for us, nor submitted to the blows given him by
his enemies, to the shame, the derision, and all the other sufferings that could
not possibly have been enumerated, nor being rich, would he have become poor,
had he not loved us far more than himself. It was indeed something new for love
to go as far as that.
Christ commands us to love as he did, putting neither reputation, nor
wealth nor anything whatever before love of our brothers and sisters. If need be,
we must even be prepared to face death for our neighbor’s salvation as did our
Savior’s blessed disciples and those who followed in their footsteps. To them,
the salvation of others mattered more than their own lives and they were ready
to do anything or to suffer anything to save souls that were perishing. I die daily
, said Paul. Who suffers weakness without my suffering too? Who is made to
stumble without my heart blazing with indignation?
The Savior urged us to practice this love that transcends the law as the
foundation of true devotion to God. He knew that only in this way could we
become pleasing in God’s eyes, and that it was by seeking the beauty of the love
implanted in us by himself that we should attain to the higher blessings.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-19
THE MANY SECRET
RESURRECTIONS
From “The Risen Christ” by Caryll Houselander
◊◊◊
Christ seems to have fallen in love with our suffering, so passionately has
he laid hold of it and made it his. He is known to the whole world as the Man of
Sorrows. Yet he came to give us life, life full of joy. It was not with our suffering
that Christ fell in love, but with us. He identified himself so wholly with our
suffering, because our lives are necessarily made up of it. It is the inescapable
consequences of sin. No one can escape it; everyone must somehow either make
friends with suffering or be broken by it. No one can come close to another, let
alone love him, without coming closer to his suffering. Christ did far more, he
wed himself to our suffering, he made Death his bride, and in the
consummation of his love, he gave her his life. Christ has lived each of our lives,
he has faced all our fears, suffered all our griefs, overcome all our temptations,
labored in all our labors, loved in all our loves, died all our deaths.
He took our humanity, just as it is, with all its wretchedness and ugliness,
and gave it back to us just as his humanity is, transfigured by the beauty of his
living, filled full of his joy. He came back from the long journey through death,
to give us his Risen Life to be our life, so that no matter what suffering we meet,
we can meet it with the whole power of the love that has overcome the world. “I
have said this to you, so that in me you may find peace. In the world, you will
only find tribulation; but take courage, I have overcome the world“.
He has come back as spring comes back out of the ground, renewing the
earth with life, to be a continual renewing of life in our hearts, that we may
continually renew one another’s life in his love, that we may be his Resurrection
in the world. We are the resurrection, going on always, always giving back
Christ’s life to the world.
In every life there are many secret resurrections. In our sin, we are the
tombs in which Christ lies dead, but at the first movement of sorrow for sin he
rises from the dead in us, the life of the world is renewed by our sorrow, the soul
that was in darkness radiates the morning light. In the moment that we are
forgiven, the world is flooded with forgiveness. No wonder that angels rejoice
when one sinner does penance more than over the ninety-nine who need no
penance, for the resurrection in the soul of the sinner is complete. It is not just
the poor sinner licking his wounds and limping on, crippled by the past; it is
Christ risen, alive, whole.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-20
THE DAY OF THE LORD
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman
◊◊◊
“A little while, and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and
you shall see me, because I go to the Father.“… Now observe what the promise
is… A new era was to commence, or what is called in Scripture “a day of the
Lord.” We know how much is said in Scripture about the awfulness and
graciousness of a day of the Lord, which seems to be some special time of
visitation, grace, judgment, restoration, righteousness, and glory. Much is said
concerning days of the Lord in the Old Testament… We read of those august
days <in the beginning>, seven in number, each perfect, perfect all together, in
which all things were created, finished, blessed, acknowledged, approved by
Almighty God.
And all things will end with a day greater still, which will open with the
coming of Christ from heaven, and the judgment; this is especially the Day of
the Lord, and will introduce an eternity of blessedness in God’s presence for all
believers… Observe how solemn, how high a day it is: this is his account of it, “I
will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice; your joy no one takes from
you… At that Day you shall ask in my Name, and I do not say to you, that I will
pray to the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you, because you have
loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.”
The Day, then, that dawned upon the Church at the Resurrection, and
beamed forth in full splendour at the Ascension, that Day which has no setting,
which will be, not ended but absorbed in Christ’s glorious appearance from
heaven to destroy sin and death; that Day in which we now are, is described…as
a state of special Divine manifestation, of special introduction into the presence
of God. By Christ, says the Apostle, “we have the access by faith into this grace
wherein we stand.” He “has raised us up together, and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus.“…
Thus we as Christians stand in the courts of God Most High, and, in one
sense see his face; for he who once was on earth, has now departed from this
visible scene of things in a mysterious, twofold way, both to his Father and into
our hearts, thus making the Creator and his creatures one; according to his own
words, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while,
and the world sees me no more; but you see me: because I live, you shall live
also. At that Day you shall know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I
in you.“

Vigils Reading
2025-05-21
THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST
By Thomas Merton4
◊◊◊
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…
“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 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.“
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. 152-154.9

Vigils Reading
2025-05-22
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
From a homily by St Gregory the Great
◊◊◊
Since all of our Lord’s sacred utterances contain commandments, why
does he say about love as if it were a special commandment: This is my
commandment, that you love one another? It is because every commandment
is about love, and they all add up to one commandment because whatever is
commanded is founded on love alone. As a tree’s many branches come from one
root, so do many virtues come forth from love alone. The branch which is our
good works has no sap unless it remains attached to the root of love. Our Lord’s
commandments are then both many and one: many through the variety of the
works, one in their root which is love. He himself instructs us to love our friends
in him, and our enemies for his sake. That person truly possesses love who loves
his friend in God and his enemy for God’s sake.
There are some people who love their neighbors, drawn by blood
relationship or by natural affection, and Scripture does not oppose this kind of
love. But what we give freely and naturally is one thing, and the obedience we
owe to the Lord’s commandments out of love is another. Those I’ve mentioned
indisputably love their neighbors, yet they don’t attain love’s sublime rewards
since their love does not come from spiritual but from natural motives.
Therefore when the Lord said: This is my commandment, that you love one
another, he added immediately: Just as I have loved you, meaning, ‘You must
love for the same reason that I have loved you.’
Dearly beloved, we must consider this carefully. When our ancient enemy
draws our hearts to delight in temporal things, he is stirring up a weaker
neighbor against us. This neighbor may be plotting to take away the very things
we love. In doing this our ancient enemy is not concerned to do away with our
earthly possessions; he wants to destroy our lives. Suddenly we are set on fire
with hatred, and while we desire to be outwardly unconquerable, inwardly we
are gravely wounded. When we defend our small outer possession, we lose our
great inner one, since when we love something temporal we lose our true love.
Everyone who takes away our possessions is an enemy. But if we begin to hate
our enemy, our loss is of something internal. When then we suffer something
external from a neighbor, we must be on our guard against a hidden ravager
within. This one is never better overcome then when we love the one who
ravages us from without. The unique, the highest proof of love is this, to love the
person who is against us. This is why Truth himself bore the suffering of the
cross and yet bestowed his love on his persecutors, saying: Father, forgive them
for they know not what they do.
Why should we wonder that his living disciples loved their enemies, when
their dying master loved his. He expressed the depth of his love when he said:
No one has greater love than this, than that he lay down his life for his friends.
The Lord had come to die even for his enemies, and yet he said he would lay
down his life for his friends to show us that when we are able to win over our
enemies by loving them even our persecutors are our friends.
But no one is persecuting us to the point of death. How then can we prove
that we love our friends?… John the Baptist says: Let him who has two tunics
give to him who has none. Will a person, then, who will not give up his tunic for
the sake of God during quiet times give up his life during a persecution?
Cultivate the virtue of love in tranquil times by showing mercy, then, so that it
will be unconquerable in times of disorder. Learn first to give up your
possession for almighty God, and then yourself.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-23
MY ALL IN ALL
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny
◊◊◊
Now, my brethren, what witness to Christ’s love does the joy of your
hearts give you? I venture to judge, and rightly as you will see, that if you have
ever loved Jesus alive or dead or risen from the dead, your heart rejoices within
you. As the tidings of his resurrection resound and re-echo again and again
through the Church you will say to yourselves: “They have told me that Jesus
my God is still alive. On hearing it my spirit, which was asleep through
weariness, languishing through tepidity, disheartened through timidity, has
revived.” For the joyful voice of this happy message raises even from death
those buried deep in sin. Otherwise, if Christ, coming up from hell, left them
there in the depths, there would certainly be no hope for them; their fate would
be buried in forgetfulness. By this token you may clearly know that your soul
lives again fully in Christ if it echoes this sentiment: “It is enough for me that
Jesus is still alive.”
How faithful and worthy of a friend of Jesus is that voice, how pure that
act of love which says: “It is enough for me that Jesus is still alive. If he lives, I
live, for my spirit acts through his. Yes, he is my life, my all in all. For what
can I lack if Jesus is still alive? Rather everything else may be taken from me,
nothing else matters to me so long as he lives. If he wishes then, let him take no
account of me. It is enough for me that he still lives even if he only lives for
himself.” When the love of Christ so absorbs all our affections that, unmindful
and forgetful of ourselves, we have no feeling for anything but Jesus Christ and
what pertains to him, then, I say, love has been made perfect in us. To one who
so loves, poverty is no burden, no hurt is felt, insults are to be laughed at,
misfortune disdained, and death considered as gain. In fact one does not think
in terms of death knowing that death is a passage to life. And one can
confidently assert: “I will go and see him before I die.”
Although, my brethren, we have not been endowed with such a great
purity of conscience, let us, nevertheless, go to see Jesus journeying to the
mountain of heavenly Galilee, where he awaits us. On the way our love will
increase, and on our arrival, at least, it will be perfected. On the way, the road, at
first hard and difficult, will grow easier, and the strength of the weak will
increase. The flesh of Christ is our food for the journey, his Spirit our means of
conveyance. He himself is the food, he himself is the chariot and charioteer of
Israel. When you arrive, all the goods, not of Egypt but of heaven, will be yours.
There, in the best place in the kingdom, at the bidding of Christ you will take
your rest. “Come to me all you that labor and are burdened with hunger, and I
will refresh you. Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom
prepared for you.” May he who calls you lead you to where he lives and reigns
with the Father and the Holy Spirit, through endless ages.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-24
WE ARE ALL WITNESSES
By Fr Paul Evdokimov
◊◊◊
There are no half measures, no intermediary formulas. We are in the
presence of the fundamental evidence of Jesus risen from the dead. A God who
does not present his charter as lover of <humanity>, a God who is not love
crucified in order to radiate “life, death of death“, as St Augustine says, is not
really God. In following St Paul’s thought to its conclusion, we could say that all
religion exists only by the resurrection and mystically leans on this event. If
Christ is risen, this is of interest for all… If the Christian testimony to the risen
Lord is suppressed, no religion will survive on the level of the modern world, for
outside the Gospel every religious message stops halfway.
The Gospel’s transcendent end is God become a risen <human being>.
This fact does not concern just a few witnesses only; the risen Christ in
becoming the contemporary of all <humanity> means that every <one> is
contemporary with the eternal Christ. This makes all the events of history
essentially Christological. Christ is risen as head of the human body, and now all
religions and all <individuals> can and ought to seek their life in him. This
testimony alone determines the ecumenical mission of the Church in the midst
of all religions and in the great meeting between East and West. History places
the Christian faith in the risen Christ as the crossing point of all ideologies that
now reformulate the only important question – that asked by Pilate – “What is
truth?” It obliges faith to say its yes, going if need be as far as the confession of
martyrdom, that unique answer that resounds universally. Christ is in agony,
and eternity is impatient to hear this answer.
The apostolic kerygma announces the event of Easter, the intervention of
God raising up Jesus; this alone gives a definitive meaning to the existence of
<humankind> in history. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s “Amen” to his
promise, an “Amen” full of the Holy Spirit who manifests it. “Amen” comes from
the Hebrew heemin and it means an unshakable base of operations. Those who
proclaim it—the apostles and martyrs—claim the right to proclaim the event
before the magistrates of the earthly city.
Likewise the Apologies of Justin, Athenagoras, and Aristides present to
emperors the same decisive message and warn them of the imminent judgment.
Their kerygma is of interest to all <humanity>. It is preached in the presence of
angels and concerns all of creation: the kingdom of God has already arrived; we
are contemporaries of the one who sits at the right hand of the Father. Here is
the lamb immolated and risen and here is his kingdom. He is here and it is the
fullness of time.
All religions are ways by which <we> seek God. They are numerous.
However, the Christian revelation is unique for it is God who finds <humanity>.
The preaching of St Paul is of capital importance for the theology of religion. In
deciphering the monument to the unknown God and in giving it the name Jesus
Christ, the apostle integrated with Christ the religious aspiration of all times
and gave it value in Christ.

Skema
2025-05-25
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
6th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
May 25 – 31, 2025

Sun
25
Mon
26
Tue
27
Wed
28
Thu
29
Fri
30
Sat
31

Office
6th Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
St Augustine of Canterbury
Easter Weekday
St Paul VI
Easter Weekday
Visitation of the BVM

Vigils
1 Jn 1:1-10
1 Jn 2:1-11
1 Jn 2:12-17
1 Jn 2:18-29
1 Jn 3:1-10
1 Jn 3:11-17
Gal 3:15-29

Lauds
1 Tim 4:11-16
1 Tim 6:11-16
2 Tim 1:1-8
2 Tim 1:9-14
2 Tim 2:1-7
2 Tim 2:8-13
Zech 2:10-17

Mass
57
291
292
293
294
295
572

1st
Acts 15:1-2, 22-29
Acts 16:11-15
Acts 16:22-34
Acts 17:15, 22-18:1
Acts 18:1-8
Acts 18:9-18
Zeph 3:14-18a

2nd
Rev 21:10-14, 22-23

Gospel
John 14:23-29
John 15:26-16:4a
John 16:5-11
John 16:12-15
John 16:16-20
John 16:20-23
Luke 1:39-56

Vespers
Acts 19:23-30
Acts 20:7-12
Acts 21:7-14
Acts 21:27-34
Acts 22:23-30
Acts 23:12-16
Col 3:1-11

Vigils Reading - 6th Sunday of Easter
2025-05-25
CHRIST LIVES IN OUR HEARTS
THROUGH FAITH
From a commentary by St Bernard of Clairvaux
◊◊◊
My Father and I will come to him – that is to say, to the holy of heart –
says the Son of God, and we will make our home with him. It seems to me that
when the psalmist said to God: you make your dwelling in the holy place, you
who are Israel’s praise, he had no other heaven in mind than the hearts of the
saints. The apostle expresses it quite clearly: Christ lives in our hearts through
faith, he tells us.
Surely it is no wonder that the Lord Jesus gladly makes his home in such a
heaven because, unlike the other heavens, he did not bring it into existence by a
mere word of command. He descended into the arena to win it; he laid down his
life to redeem it. And so after the battle was won he solemnly declared: this is
my resting place for ever and ever; here I have chosen to dwell. Blessed indeed
is the soul to whom the Lord says, Come, my chosen one, I will set up my throne
in you.
Why, then, are you sorrowful, my soul, and why are you troubled with
me? Are you trying to find a place for the Lord within yourself? Who among us
can provide a fitting place for the Lord of glory, a place worthy of his majesty! O
that I might be counted worthy to worship at his footstool, that I might at least
cling to the feet of some saintly soul whom the Lord has chosen to be his
dwelling place! However, the Lord has only to anoint my soul with the oil of his
mercy for me in my turn to be able to say: I have run the way of your
commandments because you have enlarged my heart. Then perhaps, even if I
cannot usher him into a large and richly furnished room in my heart where he
may refresh himself with his disciples, I shall at least be able to offer him a place
to lay his head.
It is necessary for a soul to grow and be enlarged until it is capable of
containing God within itself. But the dimensions of a soul are in proportion to
its love, as the apostle confirms when he urges the Corinthians to widen your
hearts in love. Although the soul, being spiritual, cannot be measured
physically, grace confers on it what nature does not bestow. It expands
spiritually as it makes progress toward human perfection, which is measured by
nothing less than the full stature of Christ, and so it grows into a temple sacred
to the Lord.
Love, then, is the measure of the soul. Souls are large that love much,
small that love little; while as to the soul that has no love at all, such a soul is
itself nothing. Without love, says St Paul, I am nothing.

Vigils Reading
2025-05-26
A COMMUNITY OF THE SPIRIT
By Fr Bede Griffiths
◊◊◊
The Church is the communion of those who are united by the love of the
Spirit in the knowledge of the Word of God, the Eternal Truth, and through him
return to the Father, the Source, the Origin and the Ground of all creation. But
the Church has also a beginning in time as a historical institution. When the
Holy Spirit descended on the disciples at Pentecost, the power of the Spirit
which had transformed the body and soul of Christ at the Resurrection was
communicated to his disciples. A new consciousness dawned, a consciousness
beyond the ordinary rational consciousness, which set the disciples free from
the limitations of our present mode of existence and consciousness and opened
to them the new world of the Resurrection.
The Church is the community of those who experienced this new birth ‘in
the Spirit’ and whose lives were transformed by the experience. The effect of this
was seen in the fact that they were ‘all of one heart and mind‘, and that they sold
all that they possessed and ‘had everything in common’. The new life in the
Spirit thus penetrated the economic and social order and brought a power to
transform human society, but it remained essentially beyond our present
human limitations. The Church was from the beginning a ‘charismatic‘
community, a community of the Spirit.
Yet it had also an elementary organization. Jesus left behind him twelve
‘apostles‘, whom he clearly intended to be the nucleus of the new Israel, a new
‘People of God’. There was also a ceremony of initiation into the new life and a
meal in common, in which the new life with Christ was shared. This was
apparently all that he left by way of organization. In the course of time other
ceremonies were added and ‘elders‘ and ‘overseers‘ were appointed in the
different Churches, but these seem to have been appointed as the need arose.
There was a reason for this. Jesus left his disciples with the expectation that he
would return again in their own lifetime and bring about the final ‘restoration
of all things‘. This is the perspective of the New Testament.
Jesus was not concerned with the ‘history‘ of the Church as an institution,
but with its transcendent Reality. Jesus himself enjoyed the new life of the
Resurrection, and his disciples were called to share this new life with him. The
historical development of the Church is secondary to this great reality of the
experience of the Spirit in the new life of the Resurrection. In this perspective
the time of the second coming is of little importance. As the second letter of
Peter was to say, when the time of his coming was questioned: ‘A thousand
years in his sight are but a day.’
It would seem that the Christian Churches have to recover this
perspective, which is that of the New Testament, if they are to recover their
meaning in the world today. The Church has its place in human history, but for
the Church, as for Christ himself, history is subordinate to the transcendent
reality of life in the Spirit.

Vigils Reading - St Augustine of Canterbury
2025-05-27
ST AUGUSTINE
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints
◊◊◊
When Pope St Gregory the Great decided that the time had come for the
evangelization of Anglo-Saxon England, he chose as missionaries some thirty or
more monks from his monastery of St Andrew… As their leader he gave them
their own prior, Augustine. The party set out from Rome in the year 596; but no
sooner had they arrived in Provence than they were assailed with warnings
about the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and the dangers of the Channel. Greatly
discouraged, they persuaded Augustine to return to Rome and obtain leave to
abandon the enterprise. St Gregory, however, had received definite assurance
that the English were well disposed towards the Christian faith; he therefore
sent Augustine back to his brethren with words of encouragement which gave
them heart to proceed on their way.
They landed in the Isle of Thanet in the territory of Ethelbert, king of
Kent, who was baptized at Pentecost 597. Almost immediately afterwards St
Augustine paid a visit to France, where he was consecrated bishop of the English
by St Virgilius, metropolitan of Arles. At Christmas of that same year, many of
Ethelbert’s subjects were baptized… Augustine sent two of his monks, Laurence
and Peter, to Rome to give a full report of his mission, to ask for more helpers
and obtain advice on various points. They came back bringing the pallium for
Augustine and accompanied by a fresh band of missionaries, amongst whom
were St Mellitus, St Justus and St Paulinus.
Gregory outlined for Augustine the course he should take to develop a
hierarchy for the whole country, and both to him and to Mellitus gave very
practical instructions on other points. Pagan temples were not to be destroyed,
but were to be purified and consecrated for Christian worship. Local customs
were as far as possible to be retained, days of dedication and feasts of martyrs
being substituted for heathen festivals. In Canterbury itself St Augustine rebuilt
an ancient church which, with an old wooden house, formed the nucleus for his
metropolitan basilica and for the later monastery of Christ Church. These
buildings stood on the site of the present cathedral begun by Lanfranc in 1070.
Outside the walls of Canterbury he made a monastic foundation, which he
dedicated in honour of St Peter and St Paul. After his death this abbey became
known as St Augustine’s, and was the burial place of the early archbishops.
Cut off from much communication with the outside world, the British
church clung to certain usages at variance with those of the Roman tradition.
St. Augustine invited the leading ecclesiastics to meet him at some place just on
the confines of Wessex, still known in Bede’s day as Augustine’s Oak. There he
urged them to comply with the practices of the rest of Western Christendom,
and more especially to co-operate with him in evangelizing the Anglo-Saxons.
Fidelity to their local traditions, however, made them unwilling. A second
conference proved a failure. Because St Augustine failed to rise when they
arrived, the British bishops decided that he was lacking in humility and would
neither listen to him nor acknowledge him as their metropolitan.
The saint’s last years were spent in spreading and consolidating the faith
throughout Ethelbert’s realm, and episcopal sees were established at London
and Rochester. About seven years after his arrival in England, St Augustine
passed to his reward, on May 26, 605.
