Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading
2024-06-27
THE UNITY OF SPIRIT AND MATTER
By Karl Rahner5
◊◊◊
The history of the angels and the history of the world are at least
interlaced in many respects. The common goal of both is the eternal kingdom
of God… In the Christian teaching the angels, whether they are to be thought of
as good or bad, certainly exercise functions in this world… The angels can be
understood quite correctly, even according to scripture, as cosmic powers of the
order of nature and of its history. Christian theology has always seen the object
of the personal decision of personal spiritual powers, called angels, to live in
Christ and in his salvific function for the history of humankind and hence of the
material world.
If one looks at these data, it will be quite legitimate to be of the opinion
that, first of all, the doctrine of the angels understood as ‘pure spirits’, no matter
how materially correct, unjustifiably lends too much support to a platonic and
non-Christian removal of the created spirit from this world. Furthermore, it
will have to be said that the angels, in spite of their differences from human
beings, can be conceived in such a way that, in their own way and of their own
most proper and original nature, they are powers of the one and hence also
material world to whose material nature they are genuinely and essentially
related. It may rightly be said, at any rate, that the Christian teaching about the
angels does not basically bar the way to a decided and consequential conception
of the unity of spirit and matter in their common history.
Since ultimately we really know very little that is certain about the angels
and demons, we have the perfect right after what has been said to look at the
unity of spirit and matter as we experience it directly in the history of
humankind and also as interpreted in a way compatible with revelation, and to
look at this unity as paradigmatic in principle for the unity of spirit and matter
in the created sphere as such. The highest grade of all productive becoming is
the human spirit and matter tends towards it as towards its final principle of
nature and form, for a human being is the goal of all generative becoming.
Matter and spirit have a unity in their starting point, in their history and in their
goal. Both of them remain eternally valid before God and form for ever, now
and in the state of perfection, the mutually correlative, non-separable
constitutive elements of the one created reality.

5 Theological Investigations VI, On Angels. Karl Rahner, Seabury Press, 1974, pp. 159-160.10

Vigils Reading - St Irenaeus
2024-06-28
WHERE THE CHURCH IS,
THERE IS THE SPIRIT OF GOD
From the writing of St Irenaeus6
◊◊◊
It is within reach of all who want to see the truth to discern the tradition
of the apostles which has been manifested in the whole world. All we have to do
is to list those who are appointed bishops in the churches by the apostles and
their successors up to our own time who neither taught nor recognized anything
like that which the heretics rave about. For even if the apostles would have
known “secret mysteries” which they used to teach the “perfect” separately and
secretly apart from the others, they would especially have passed these things
down to those to whom they also were entrusting the churches themselves. For
they wanted those whom they left as successors to be quite perfect and beyond
reproach in all things, handing over to them their own place as teachers. To
those who do what is right this would have great usefulness, but to those who
fall away it would be great disaster…
The preaching of the church is consistent everywhere and persists equally
and has behind it the testimony of the prophets and the apostles and all the
disciples through the beginning, middle, and end and through the whole saving
plan of God and that solid system which is in our faith which lends itself to
human salvation. We keep what we have received from the church and what is
always from the Spirit of God like some precious deposit growing in a good vase
which also makes the vase it is in to grow. For this gift of God has been entrusted
to the church, like the breath of creation, so that all the members receiving it
may be made alive. And in it has been deposited the means of communicating
with Christ, that is, the Holy Spirit, the…confirmation of our faith and ladder of
ascent to God. “For in the Church,” [Scripture] says, “God has appointed
apostles, prophets, teachers”, and all the other working of the Spirit. All who do
not gather with the church but defraud themselves of life through evil thought
and worse deed do not participate in the Spirit. For where the church is, there
is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the church and every
gift; and the Spirit is truth. Accordingly, those who do not participate in the
Spirit are not nourished unto life by the mother’s breasts nor do they receive
that brilliant fountain which flows from the Body of Christ. Rather, they dig for
themselves broken cisterns in dirty ditches and they drink putrid water from
the dirt, fleeing the faith of the church, lest they be convicted, rejecting the Spirit
that they may not be instructed.

6 UNDERSTANDING OF THE CHURCH, Edited by Glenn Hinson (Fortress Press, Phila. PA,
1986) pp. 40-42.12

Vigils Reading - SS Peter & Paul
2024-06-29
THE CHURCH BUILD UPON
THE APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
From a sermon by St Maximus the Confessor7
◊◊◊
Since all the most blessed apostles obtain a like reward of sanctity with
the Lord, I do not know by what consideration Peter and Paul, nevertheless,
appear to excel in a certain virtue of faith; which fact, in truth, we can prove
from the judgment of the Lord Himself. For to Peter, as to a good steward, He
gave the key to the heavenly Kingdom; on Paul, as an apt teacher, He enjoins
the teaching office of the Church, so that those whom the latter instructs unto
salvation, the former receives into their reward, and to the souls of those whose
hearts Paul enlightens by the word of teaching, Peter opens the realm of heaven.
In a way Paul, too, received the key of knowledge from Christ. For that must be
called a key by which the hard hearts of sinners are unbolted to belief, the
secrets of minds are revealed, and whatever is kept enclosed within is brought
forth plainly by a reasonable manifestation. That is a key, I say, which, on the
one hand, opens the conscience to the confession of its sin, and, on the other,
makes fast unto eternity the grace of the saving mystery.
Consequently, both men received keys from their Lord: the latter (Paul)
the key of knowledge, the former (Peter) the key of power; the former bestows
the riches of an immortal life; the latter grants the treasures of knowledge. For
there are treasures of knowledge, as it is written: “In whom are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Hence, the blessed Peter and Paul stand
out above all the apostles and supersede them by a certain, peculiar prerogative.
But between these two it is uncertain who is to be placed first. I think they are
equal in merits, for they were equal in their suffering…
Accordingly, I believe, the day was decreed for their merit; the place, for
their glory; the persecutor, for their virtue. Yet where did they finally suffer
martyrdom? In the city of Rome which stands as the prince and head of nations,
so that there, where the source of superstition was, the source of sanctity should
repose; and where the rulers of the nations were dwelling, there the princes of
the Church should stay. Of what merit the Blessed Peter and Paul might be, we
can comprehend from this, that while our Lord glorified the region of the Orient
by His own Passion, He deigned to make bright the land of the Occident (lest it
should be of lesser account) in its turn by the blood of the Apostles, and, while
His own Passion served us for salvation, He held forth their martyrdom as an
example.

7 LITURGICAL READINGS, Compiled at St Meinrad’s Abbey (St Meinrad, IN 1943) pp. 400-
401.14

Skema
2024-06-30
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
13th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
June 30 – July6, 2024

Sun
30
Mon
1
Tue
2
Wed
3
Thu
4
Fri
5
Sat
6

Office
13th Sunday
Weekday
Weekday
St Thomas
Weekday
Weekday
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Judg 19:20-30
Judg 20:1-19
Judg 20:20-48
Job 23:1-12
Judg 21:1-25
Ruth 1:1-22
Ruth 2:1-23

Lauds
Amos 9:11-15
Obad 1-7
Obad 8-14
Isa 43:8-13
Obad 15-18
Mic 1:1-9
Mic 2:1-5

Mass
98
377
378
593
380
381
382

1st
Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24
Amos 2:6-10, 13-16
Amos 3:1-8; 4:11-12
Eph 2:19-22
Amos 7:10-17
Amos 8:4-6, 9-12
Amos 9:11-15

2nd
2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15

Gospel
Mark 5:21-43
Matt 8:18-22
Matt 8:23-27
John 20:24-29
Matt 9:1-8
Matt 9:9-13
Matt 9:14-17

Vespers
1 Thess 5:1-11
1 Thess 5:12-28
2 Thess 1:1-7, 11-12
1 Pet 1:3-9
2 Thess 2:1-10
2 Thess 2:11-17
2 Thess 3:1-10

Vigils Reading - 13th Sunday
2024-06-30
THE DEAD WILL RISE
From a commentary by St Peter Chrysologus1
◊◊◊
Every gospel reading, beloved, is most helpful for our present life and for
the attainment of the life to come. Today’s reading, however, sums up the whole
of our hope, banishing all grounds for despair.
Let us consider the synagogue official who took Christ to his daughter and
in so doing gave the woman with a hemorrhage an opportunity to approach him.
Here is the beginning of today’s reading: An official came to Jesus and did
homage, saying: Lord, my little daughter has just died, but come and lay your
hands on her and she will live.
Christ could foresee the future and he knew that this woman would
approach him. Through her the Jewish official was to learn that there is no need
to move God to another place, take him on a journey, or attract him by a physical
presence. One must only believe that he is present in the whole of his being
always and everywhere, and that he can do all things effortlessly by a single
command; that far from depriving us of strength, he gives it; that he puts death
to flight by a word of command rather than by physical touch, and gives life by
his mere bidding, without need of any art.
My daughter has just died. Do come. What he means is that the warmth
of life still remains, there are still indications that her soul has not departed, her
spirit is still in this world, the head of the house still has a daughter, the
underworld is still unaware of her death. Come quickly and hold back the
departing soul!
In his ignorance the man assumed that Christ would not be able to raise
his daughter unless he actually laid his hand on her. So when Christ reached the
house and saw the mourners lamenting as though the girl were dead, he
declared that she was not dead but sleeping. In order to move their unbelieving
minds to faith and convince them that one can rise from death more easily than
from sleep. The girl is not dead, he told them, but asleep.
And indeed for God death is nothing but sleep. He can restore life-giving
warmth to limbs grown cold in death sooner than we can impart vigor to bodies
sunk in slumber. Listen to the apostle: In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye,
the dead will rise. He used an image because it is impossible to express the
speed of the resurrection in words. How could he explain its swiftness verbally
when divine power outstrips the very notion of swiftness? How could time enter
the picture when an eternal gift is given outside of time? Time implies duration,
but eternity excludes time.
1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 94.3

Vigils Reading
2024-07-01
THE DEEPEST NEED OF ALL
From “The Eternal Promise” by Thomas Kelly2
◊◊◊
Is God your passion? Do you long for Him and rejoice in Him and find
life meaningful only to the degree you are in His Presence and He is in your life?
Do you keep close to the Divine Center, the Inner principle counting all else as
loss? For a depth of commitment such as mild men do not know, I speak in
order that you may hear Him speak in you the same message. Out of such lives
will the world be reborn, will the church be reborn… There will you find rest for
your souls, and power, and peace, and joy unspeakable and full of Glory. Hasten
unto God.
I have spoken with deep feeling, for I am convinced this is the deepest
need of all. We…have become earthy. We are more at home with humans than
we are with God. We have men of burning social passion, but not so many that
burn for God, who long for God, who go down deep into the Waters of His life,
who call to us, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” Social reformers we have
now, men who are great in their contribution to social thinking… But this epoch
of history is weak in great prophets of the inner life, great voices who cry in the
wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord within your hearts.”…
Strip monasticism; strip it of its retreat behind walls from much human
need… and there is left, in Bernard of Clairvaux and Francis of Assisi, a God-
hunger, and completeness of renunciation of all else in the world in comparison
with the life that is hid with Christ in God. Such a passion for God as leads
men…to leave father and mother and all the world…until deep relations with
God have been found… Such men and women, not with social techniques, but
with God-motivations born out of deep immersion in the ocean of the Love of
God… Down at the base of life, for all such people, would be a fellowship in a
common Life which is the Light within every man who is kindled and enflamed
by God.
Do not misunderstand me. There is a practice of the presence of God
which is done on the run, in the busiest of days… Little prayers and
communion; ejaculation of surrender and joy and exaltation… And most of our
lives can be lived this way, as divine conversation of our soul with God, going
on behind the scenes all the time. But then come crucial periods in life when the
quest for God grows hot, when the hot breath of the Hound of Heaven is at our
heels, when the heart cries out, “Give me the Presence or I die.” And these are
the times when we get beneath the conventional mildness of average religiosity,
and find Him more fully, who is dearer than life itself. From these men and
women will come the profound return to religion…the love of God and neighbor,
which is so desperately needed.

2 Kelly, Thomas. The Eternal Promise. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966. 116-118.5

Vigils Reading
2024-07-02
WHEN THE LORD CRIES OUT
IN OUR HEARTS
From “Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah” by St Aelred of Rievaulx3
◊◊◊
Wishing to make his soldiers lightly armed for this spiritual war, our
leader says, Those who do not renounce all their possessions cannot be my
disciples. And again, Those who do not hate their father and mother and wife
and children, and even their own soul, cannot be my disciples. And so the
lightly armed soldiers…are those who disentangle themselves from all this
world’s affairs and riches, from all their longings and even from their own will.
They can thus safely resist the…vices into which they had fallen and nakedly
follow the naked Christ.
When these lightly armed soldiers feel themselves attacked by natural
provocations, demonic suggestions, or their own thoughts, they send forth to
God a loud wail of the heart and a wretched lamentation of voice with tears and
sighs, saying with the prophet, I am terribly afflicted and lowly; I roared out
my complaint from my heart…
Thanks be to you, good Jesus! Truly, your compassion is over all your
works! If inwardly where God sees, a person’s heart turns to God and is
crushed, then God’s heart will soon turn to that person. God’s heart expresses
his goodness and compassion. My heart will cry out to Moab. Moab wails in
repentance; Christ cries out in mercy. Moab wails in fear; Christ cries out by
showing pity. Moab wails in confession; Christ cries out with forgiveness. Moab
seeing the strong wind coming, fears and wails; Christ, stretching out his hand
and crying out, rebukes the hesitating, trembling one, saying You of little faith,
why did you doubt? The cry thus answers the wail, desire answers desire, mercy
answers the wretched one; the doctor, the sick one; compassion, the one
laboring and in pain.
Further…the depths of Scripture…are opened to us when the Lord cries
out in our hearts… The more outer persecution or inner disturbance saddens
us, the more does divine consolation from the sacred writings cheer us. For
whatever has been written was written for our instruction, so that we might
have hope through the patience and consolation of the Scriptures. I say to you,
brothers, nothing adverse can happen, nothing so sad or so bitter can take place,
which does not quickly vanish or is not more easily endured as soon as the
sacred page is opened to us. This is the field to which Isaac went to meditate
when the day was already drawing to a close; Rebecca met him there and
relieved his pain with her sweetness.
How often does day give way to evening for me, good Jesus! How often
does unbearable pain take the place of what little consolation I have, just as the
dark of night succeeds daylight. All things turn to boredom, and everything that
I see is a burden. If someone speaks, I barely hear; if someone knocks, I barely
perceive it. My heart grows as hard as a rock, my tongue clings to my palate,
and my eyes dry up. What then? I go out, of course, to the field to meditate, I
reflect on the sacred book, and I fix my meditations in wax. Then suddenly,
Rebecca comes to meet me. In other words, your grace, good Jesus, scatters the
darkness with your light, drives away boredom, and breaks up the hardness.
Soon tears follow sighs, and heavenly joy accompanies tears. Unhappy are
those who do not enter this field and rejoice in this way when some sadness
disturbs them!
3 Aelred of Rievaulx. Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah. CF 83. Trans. Lewis White.
Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2018. 256-265.7

Vigils Reading - St Thomas
2024-07-03
WHY DID THOMAS DEMAND PROOF?
From a commentary by St Peter Chrysologus4
◊◊◊
When Thomas heard from his fellow disciples that they had seen the
Lord, he answered: Unless I see the wounds made by the nails and put my
hand into his side, I will not believe. Why did Thomas thus demand proof before
believing? Why was he so devout toward the suffering Christ, but so resistant to
the risen Christ? Why did a pious hand open again the wounds made by a
wicked hand? Why did the hand of a follower strive to plunge anew into the side
opened by the spear of a wicked soldier?…
When the Lord died, the devil’s power collapsed, the prison of hell was
thrown open, the fetters of the dead were broken, tombs were destroyed; when
the Lord rose again death’s nature was completely changed. The stone before
the Lord’s most holy sepulcher was rolled away, and the linen cloths were
loosened; at his rising in glory death took to flight and life returned; his body
arose never to die again. Why then, Thomas, were you the only one to make
such a shrewd inquiry, demanding that the Lord’s wounds be shown as the only
way to convince you? Suppose those wounds had vanished with all the other
marks of suffering – what danger to your faith would not your curiosity have
engendered?
My brothers and sisters, piety made this search and devotion these
demands to ensure that impiety should not thereafter raise doubts about the
Lord’s resurrection. It was not only the doubts in his own heart that Thomas
was healing, but everyone else’s as well; and as he was to proclaim these things
to the nations, this energetic advocate was diligently trying to discover how he
could support the profession of so great a faith. Beyond question his spirit of
prophecy was greater than his doubt. For why should he have made such a
request unless he had learned from the Lord by prophetic inspiration that these
wounds alone were to be retained as proof of the resurrection?
Furthermore, the Lord of his own accord had shown the others what this
man subsequently demanded. The text says: Jesus came and stood in their
midst and showed them his hands and his side. For he who had entered through
closed doors and was with good reason thought by the disciples to be a ghost
could not prove himself to their doubting minds except by the wounds that told
of his passion. Then he came and said to Thomas: Put your finger here, and see
my hands, and put out your hand and put it into my side, and be not faithless
but believing. Do this so that when you reopen these wounds which have
already poured forth water and blood to cleanse and ransom all humankind,
faith may pour out over the whole world. Thomas answered: My Lord and my
God!
See how scripture shows not only a human body but also, through the
suffering this body endured, that Christ is, as Thomas acclaims him, God and
Lord. Truly he is God who lives again after being dead, who rose after suffering
a mortal wound; for although he endured so much suffering and received such
great wounds, he lives and reigns as God for countless ages.

4 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 94.9

Vigils Reading
2024-07-04
THE SOCIAL TEACHING
OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
From a pastoral letter of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops5
◊◊◊
In the Catholic social vision, the human person is central, the clearest
reflection of God among us. Each person possesses a basic dignity that comes
from God, not from any human quality or accomplishment, not from race or
gender, age or economic status. The test of every institution or policy is whether
it enhances or threatens human life and human dignity. We believe that people
are more important than things.
Flowing from our God-given dignity, each person has basic rights and
responsibilities. These include the rights to freedom of conscience and religious
liberty, to raise a family, to immigrate, to live free from unfair discrimination,
and to have a share of earthly goods sufficient for oneself and one’s family.
People have a fundamental right to life and to those things which make life truly
human: food, clothing, housing, health care, education, security, social services,
and employment. Corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities
– to one another, to our families, and to the larger society, to respect the rights
of others and to work for the common good.
The human person is not only sacred but social. We realize our dignity
and rights in relationship with others, in community. No community is more
central than the family; it needs to be supported, not undermined. It is the basic
cell of society, and the state has an obligation to support the family. The family
has major contributions to make in addressing questions of social justice. It is
where we learn and act on our values. What happens in the family is at the basis
of a truly human social life. We also have the right and responsibility to
participate in and contribute to the broader communities in society. The state
and other institutions of political and economic life, with both their limitations
and obligations, are instruments to protect the life, dignity, and rights of the
person; promote the well-being of our families and communities; and pursue
the common good. Catholic social teaching does offer clear guidance on the role
of government. When basic human needs are not being met by private initiative,
then people must work through their government, at appropriate levels, to meet
those needs. A central test of political, legal and economic institutions is what
they do to people, what they do for people, and how people participate in them.
Poor and vulnerable people have a special place in Catholic social
teaching. A basic moral test of a society is how its most vulnerable members are
faring. This is not a new insight; it is the lesson of the parable of the Last
Judgment. Our tradition calls us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable
first. As Christians, we are called to respond to the needs of all our sisters and
brothers, but those with the greatest needs require the greatest response. We
must seek creative ways to expand the emphasis of our nation’s founders on
individual rights and freedom by extending democratic ideals to economic life
and thus ensure that the basic requirements for life with dignity are accessible
to all.

5 Pastoral Letters & Statements of the U.S. Catholic Bishops – vol. VI – National Conference of Catholic Bishops
United States Catholic Conference – Washington DC – pg 217f11

Vigils Reading
2024-07-05
THE TAX COLLECTOR
ABANDONED EARTHLY WEALTH
From a homily by St Bede the Venerable6
◊◊◊
Jesus saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to
him: Follow me. Jesus saw Matthew, not merely in the usual sense, but more
significantly with his merciful understanding of men.
He saw the tax collector and, because he saw him through the eyes of
mercy and chose him, he said to him: Follow me. This following meant
imitating the pattern of his life – not just walking after him. Saint John tells us:
Whoever says he abides in Christ ought to walk in the same way in which he
walked.
And he rose and followed him. There is no reason for surprise that the
tax collector abandoned earthly wealth as soon as the Lord commanded him.
Nor should one be amazed that neglecting his wealth, he joined a band of men
whose leader had, on Matthew’s assessment, no riches at all. Our Lord
summoned Matthew by speaking to him in words. By an invisible, interior
impulse flooding his mind with the light of grace, he instructed him to walk in
his footsteps. In this way Matthew could understand that Christ, who was
summoning him away from earthly possessions, had incorruptible treasures of
heaven in his gift.
As he sat at table in the house, behold many tax collectors and sinners
came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. This conversion of one tax
collector gave many men, those from his own profession and other sinners, an
example of repentance and pardon. Notice also the happy and true anticipation
of his future status as apostle and teacher of the nations. No sooner was he
converted than Matthew drew after him a whole crowd of sinners along the
same road to salvation. He took up his appointed duties while still taking his
first steps in the faith, and from that hour he fulfilled his obligation and thus
grew in merit.
To see a deeper understanding of the great celebration Matthew held at
his house, we must realize that he not only gave a banquet for the Lord at his
earthly residence, but far more pleasing was the banquet set in his own heart
which he provided through faith and love. Our Savior attests to this: Behold I
stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I
will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.
On hearing Christ’s voice, we open the door to receive him, as it were,
when we freely assent to his promptings and when we give ourselves over to
doing what must be done. Christ, since he dwells in the hearts of his chosen
ones through the grace of his love, enters so that he might eat with us and we
with him. He ever refreshes us by the light of his presence insofar as we
progress in our devotion to and longing for the things of heaven. He himself is
delighted by such a pleasing banquet.

6 The Liturgy of the Hours: Vol. IV. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1975. 1418-1419.13

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2024-07-06
MARY, THE MOTHER OF THE LORD
By Fr Karl Rahner7
◊◊◊
All that the faith says about the realization of redemption, about salvation
and grace and the fullness of grace, is realized in Mary. This human person
whom we call Mary is as it were the very point in the whole history of our
redemption at which the saving grace of the living God descends from him into
this history, and from which it is diffused over the whole of humankind. For her
Son, whom she accepted in the strength of her heart, whom she conceived in
faith and love, is the Redeemer of the world. And since, as Scripture testifies,
the consent she gave in faith and obedience belongs not only to her private life-
story, but to the public history of redemption, it must correspond, in harmony
of person and function, to the purpose for which it was given; in short it must
be perfect.
It follows too that Mary is one of us. We honor her, praise her, love and
revere her unique dignity. But if, in view of the mystery of her son, we ask, where
does Mary stand? We must reply, she belongs entirely with us. She must receive
God’s mercy just as we must, for she lives and typifies to perfection what we
ourselves are to be in Christ’s sight. We too are to become what she is. She comes
before God with us – like us and as one of our company – in the innumerable
host of humanity. In our midst, within the history of humankind as a whole, as
a part of it, she accomplishes her own life-story, which takes on a unique
importance for our salvation, and which, once lived through with this
significance, endures eternally in God’s sight.

Precisely because Mary, in this position as intermediary, is entirely one of
us, and only occupies that position because she belongs with us, as a mere
creature, to the one human family, is she so near and dear to us. That is why we
love her. And have an almost too merely human trust in her. And feel her
intercession, protection and love to be so near and human, although, or rather
because this dear and familiar humanity has been taken up, unimpaired and
transfigured, into the eternal life of God himself.

7 Mary, the Mother of the Lord, Herder & Herder NY 1963, pp.38-40.15

Skema
2024-07-07
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
14th Week in Ordinary Time

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

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

Office
14th Sunday
Bl Eugene III
Weekday
Weekday
St Benedict
Office for Vocations
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Ruth 3:1-18
Ruth 4:1-22
1 Sam 1:1-19
1 Sam 1:20-2:11
Tobit 4:14-19, 21
1 Sam 2:12-36
1 Sam 3:1-21

Lauds
Mic 3:5-8
Mic 3:9-12
Mic 4:1-5
Mic 4:6-8
Sir 45:1-5
Mic 4:9-14
Mic 5:1-8

Mass
101
383
384
385
597, 477, 810
387
388

1st
Ezek 2:2-5
Hos 2:16, 17c-18, 21-22
Hos 8:4-7, 11-13
Hos 10:1-3, 7-8, 12
Prov 2:1-9
Hos 14:2-10
Isa 6:1-8

2nd
2 Cor 12:7-10

Eph 4:1-6

Gospel
Mark 6:1-6
Matt 9:18-26
Matt 9:32-38
Matt 10:1-7
Luke 22:24-27
Matt 10:16-23
Matt 10:24-33

Vespers
2 Thess 3:11-18
1 Tim 1:1-11
1 Tim 1:12-20
Eph 5:14-20
Phil 2:12-18
1 Tim 2:1-8
1 Tim 3:1-7

Vigils Reading - 13th Sunday
2024-07-07
THE CHRIST WHO SPEAKS NOW
From a commentary by St Symeon the New Theologian1
◊◊◊
Many people never stop saying – I have heard them myself – “If only we
had lived in the days of the apostles, and been counted worthy to gaze upon
Christ as they did, we should have become holy like them.” Such people do not
realize that the Christ who spoke then and the Christ who speaks now
throughout the whole world is one and the same. If he were not the same then
and now, God in every respect, in his operations as in the sacraments, how
would it be seen that the Father is always in the Son and the Son in the Father,
according to the words Christ spoke through the Spirit: My Father is still
working and so am I?
But no doubt someone will say that merely to hear his words now and to
be taught about him and his kingdom is not the same thing as to have seen him
then in the body. And I answer that indeed the position now is not the same as
it was then, but our situation now, in the present day, is very much better. It
leads us more easily to a deeper faith and conviction than seeing and hearing
him in the flesh would have done.
Then he appeared to the uncomprehending…as a man of lowly station;
now he is proclaimed to us as true God. Then in his body he associated with tax
collectors and sinners and ate with them; now he is seated at the right hand of
God the Father, and is never in any way separated from him. We are firmly
persuaded that it is he who feeds the entire world, and we declare – at least if
we are believers – that without him nothing came into being. Then even those
of lowliest condition held him in contempt. They said: Is this not the son of
Mary, and of Joseph the carpenter? Now kings and rulers worship him as Son
of the true God, and himself true God, and he has glorified and continues to
glorify those who worship him in spirit and in truth, although he often punishes
them when they sin. He transforms them, more than all the nations under
heaven, from clay into iron. Then he was thought to be mortal and corruptible
like the rest of humankind. He was no different in appearance from other men.
The formless and invisible God, without change or alteration, assumed a human
form and showed himself to be a normal human being. He ate, he drank, he
slept, he sweated, and he grew weary. He did everything other people do, except
he did not sin. For anyone to recognize him in that human body, and to believe
that he was the God who made heaven and earth and everything in them was
very exceptional.
This is why when Peter said: You are the Son of the living God, the master
called him blessed, saying: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and
blood has not revealed this to you — you do not speak of something your eyes
have seen – but my Father who is in heaven.
It is certain therefore that anyone who now hears Christ cry out daily
through the holy Gospels, and proclaim the will of his heavenly Father, but does
not obey him with fear and trembling and keep his commandments – it is
certain that such a person would have refused to believe in him then, if he had
been present, and seen him, and heard him teach. Indeed there is reason to fear
that in his total incredulity he would have blasphemed by regarding Christ not
as true God, but as an enemy of God.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 96-97.3

Vigils Reading - Bl Eugene III
2024-07-08
FROM THE TREATISE “ON CONSIDERATION”
By St Bernard of Clairvaux for Pope Eugenius III2
◊◊◊
It has occurred to me to write something which might edify, delight or
console you, Blessed Father Eugene. But I do not know the rules for writing a
formal yet intimate treatise. Two opposites, your majesty and my love, vie to
dictate my style. Love draws me on; majesty holds me back. But you graciously
intervene and request rather than command this treatise, although it would be
more fitting for you to command it. Since your majesty so admirably
condescends, why does my hesitancy persist? What if you have ascended the
throne? Even if you were to walk on the wings of the wind, you would not escape
my affection. Love knows no master. It recognizes a son even though he wear
the tiara. It is the nature of a lover to be suitably humble, willingly submissive,
freely compliant, respectful without duress.
This is not the way with others however; they are driven either by fear or
by greed. Such men bless openly, but harbor evil in their hearts. They flatter you
when you are present, yet fail you in time of need. But charity never fails. It is
true that I have been freed of maternal obligation toward you, but I am not
stripped of affection for you. You were once in my womb; you will not be drawn
from my heart so easily. Ascend to the heavens, descend to the depths, you will
not escape me. I will follow you wherever you go. I loved you when you were
poor in spirit; I shall love you still as father of the poor and the rich. If I know
you, you did not cease being poor in spirit when you became the father of the
poor. I am confident that this change has been thrust on you and was not of
your doing, that this promotion has not replaced your former state, but rather
has enhanced it. Therefore I will instruct you not as a teacher, but as a mother,
indeed as a lover. I may seem more the fool, but only to one who does not love,
to one who does not feel the force of love.

2 The Five Books On Consideration – St Bernard of Clairvaux – CF Series #37 – Cistercain
Publications – Kalamazoo, MI – 1976 – pg 23.5

Vigils Reading
2024-07-09
THE HIGHEST PROOF OF LOVE
An excerpt from Lumen Gentium3
◊◊◊
‘God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in
him’. God has poured out his love in our hearts through the Holy spirit who has
been given to us; therefore the first and most necessary gift is charity, by which
we love God above all things and our neighbor because of him. But if charity is
to grow and fructify in the soul like a good seed, each of the faithful must
willingly bear the word of God and carry out his will with deeds, with the help
of his grace; he must frequently partake of the sacraments, chiefly the
Eucharist, and take part in the liturgy; he must constantly apply himself to
prayer, self-denial, active brotherly service and the practice of all the virtues.
This is because love, as the bond of perfection and fullness of the law, governs,
gives meaning to, and perfects all the means of sanctification. Hence the true
disciple of Christ is marked by love both of God and of neighbor.
Since Jesus, the Son of God, showed his love by laying down his life for
us, no one has greater love than he who lays down his life for him and his
brothers. Some Christians have been called from the beginning, and will always
be called, to give this greatest testimony of love to all, especially to persecutors.
Martyrdom makes the disciple like his master, who willingly accepted death for
the salvation of the world, and through it he is conformed to him by the
shedding of blood. Therefore the Church considers it the highest gift and
supreme test of love. And while it is given to few, all however must be prepared
to confess Christ before men and to follow him along the way of the cross amidst
persecutions which the Church never lacks.
3 Vatican Council II. ed Austin Flannery,OP. Costello Publishing Co., NY, 1981, pp. 400-401.

Vigils Reading
2024-07-10
THE BOOK OF PROVERBS
From a commentary by Dom Damasus Winzen4
◊◊◊
To fear God, in the Old Testament, does not mean to be afraid of Him, but
to be devoted to Him. “In the fear of the Lord a person has great confidence…
The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life”. The wisdom which grows out of this
fear of the Lord is, therefore, a progressive transformation of the heart…
The Book of Proverbs is a guide to establish peace in the minds of the
faithful by bringing them into contact with the light of that Divine Wisdom
which rules the world gently and peacefully. The fear of the Lord, the keeping
of the commandments, the right way of life, is the object… Wisdom and folly are
opposed to each other as life and death. It is the Way, the Truth and the Life
Who speaks in these proverbs. His charity is foreshadowed in the love of the
poor…Wisdom was with Her Father when He established the heavens, and
when He set a circle upon the face of the deep, and when He appointed the
foundations of the earth. Therefore Wisdom opens to the eyes of mortals the
divine meaning of this visible creation.
The teaching…would not be complete, however, without the revelation of
two other great mysteries, which represent, in someway, the beginning and the
end of God’s ways: the mystery of the Divine Personality of the Word of God,
and that of the eternal life of the just. Wisdom is not only a mental image or an
abstract thought or a guiding principle. It is a Divine Person. It is the inner
nature of Wisdom to be the true, substantial image of the Father’s glory. If
Wisdom were only a personification of the Law she would be dead. Only as a
Divine Person can she become a source of life. As this is shown in the beginning
of creation, so still more gloriously at the end. The last triumph of Wisdom is
the Last Judgment, which will bring eternal life to the just. In the earlier periods
of the Old Testament revelation, the immortality of the soul was shrouded in
mystery. Now it enters into the full light of faith.
From the beginning to the end, the universal rule of Wisdom has been
established. Nevertheless those whose eyes have been opened in Baptism to the
light of Christ will realize that the teaching of Solomon lacks one thing: the
“foolishness of God”, Christ crucified. Wisdom was going to be more than a
guide to the wise, more than eternal life for the just, more, even, than the
beginning of creation. She was to become the Lamb who would not only expose
but take away the sin of the world. The wisdom of Solomon preached reward to
the virtuous and death to those who hate her. But more than Solomon is here,
where Christ Jesus becomes unto us sinners “wisdom and justice and
and redemption” through the foolishness of the Cross.

4 Pathways of Scripture, Dom Damasus Winzen, pg. 93 Unpublished MS.8

Vigils Reading - St Benedict
2024-07-11
A SOUL THAT SEES ITS CREATOR
From the Dialogues of St Gregory the Great5
◊◊◊
Long before the night office began, Benedict was standing at his window,
where he watched and prayed while the rest were still asleep. In the dead of night
he suddenly beheld a flood of light shining down from above more brilliant than
the sun, and with it every trace of darkness cleared away. Another remarkable
sight followed. According to his own description, the whole world was gathered
up before his eyes in what appeared to be a single ray of light. As he gazed at all
this dazzling display, he saw the soul of Germanus, the Bishop of Capua, being
carried by angels up to heaven in a ball of fire.
Wishing to have someone else witness this great marvel, he called out for
Servandus, repeating his name two or three times in a loud voice. As soon as he
heard the Saint’s call, Servandus rushed to the upper room and was just in time
to catch a final glimpse of the miraculous light. He remained speechless with
wonder as Benedict described everything that had taken place. Then without any
delay the man of God instructed the devout Theoprobus to go to Cassino and have
a messenger sent to Capua that same night to find out what had happened to
Germanus. In carrying out these instructions the messenger discovered that the
revered bishop was already dead. When he asked for further details, he learned
that his death had occurred at the very time blessed Benedict saw him carried
into heaven.
To understand this miracle, let us keep in mind that all creation is bound
to appear small to a soul that sees the Creator. Once it beholds a little of His light,
it finds all creatures small indeed. The light of holy contemplation enlarges and
expands the mind in God until it stands above the world. In fact, the soul that
sees Him rises even above itself, and as it is drawn upward in His light all its inner
powers unfold. Then, when it looks down from above, it sees how small
everything is that was beyond its grasp before.
How else was it possible for this man to behold the ball of fire and watch
the angels on their return to heaven except with light from God? Why should it
surprise us, then, that he could see the whole world gathered up before him after
this inner light had lifted him so far above the world? Of course, in saying that
the world was gathered up before his eyes I do not mean that heaven and earth
grew small, but that his spirit was enlarged. Absorbed as he was in God, it was
now easy for him to see all that lay beneath God. In the light outside that was
shining before his eyes, there was a brightness which reached into his mind and
lifted his spirit heavenward, showing him the insignificance of all that lies below.

5 Dialogues, Bk II, ch 35.10

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2024-07-12
THE MEANING OF VOCATION
From the writing of St John Paul II6
◊◊◊
Faith and love are not just words or vague feelings. Believing and loving
God means a consistent life, lived wholly in the light of the Gospel. This is not
easy. It often calls for great courage in going against the trends of fashion and
the opinions of our world. But this is the one requirement for a truly successful
and happy life.
If, in spite of your personal effort to follow Christ you are sometimes weak
and do not live in conformity to the law of love, to the commandments, do not
be discouraged. Christ continues to wait for you. He, Jesus, is the Good
Shepherd who searches for the lost sheep and who tenderly bears it on his
shoulder. Christ is the friend who never lets you down.
In the gospel story we see that the young man, having affirmed that he
has kept the commandments, adds: “What do I still lack?” The young heart,
moved by God’s grace, felt a desire for greater generosity, more commitment,
greater love. This desire for more is characteristic of youth; a heart that is in
love does not calculate, does not begrudge, it wants to give of itself without
measure. “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, come, follow me.”
To those who entered the path of life by observing the commandments,
the Lord proposes new horizons; the Lord proposes to the means that are loftier
and calls them to commit themselves to his love without reserve. To discover
this call, this vocation, is to realize that Christ is looking on you and inviting you
by his glance to give yourself totally in love. Before this glance, before his love,
the heart opens its doors gradually and is capable of saying yes.
If some of you hear the call to follow Christ more closely, to dedicate your
entire heart to him, like the apostles John and Paul, be generous, do not be
afraid, because you have nothing to fear when the prize that you await is God
Himself, for whom, sometimes without ever knowing it, all young people are
searching.
Young people who are hastening to me, young people who more than
anything else want to know what you must do to gain eternal life, always say yes
to God and he will fill you with his happiness.
“There is one thing you lack, come, follow me”. Is Jesus perhaps repeating
to some of you today: “There is one thing you lack?” Is he perhaps asking for
even more love, more generosity, more sacrifice? Yes, the love of Christ involves
generosity and sacrifice. To follow Christ and to serve the world in his name
requires courage and strength. There is no place for selfishness – and no place
for fear! Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid
when love requires sacrifice.
To each one of you I say, therefore: Heed the call of Christ when you hear
him saying to you: “Follow me!” Walk in my path! Stand by my side! Remain in
my love! There is a choice to be made: a choice for Christ and the way of life,
and his commandment of love.

6 The Meaning of Vocation – St John Paul II – Scepter Publishers – Princeton, NJ – 1997 – pg 18.12

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2024-07-13
SHE OBEYED THE WORD
By Han Urs von Balthasar7
◊◊◊
Mary is a prototype of the Church, and this for two reasons: she is the
place of the real and bodily in-dwelling of the Word in the most intimate union
of Mother and Child sharing the same flesh; and, in the spiritual sphere, she is
a servant, in her entire person, body and soul, one who knows no law of her
own, but only conformity to the Word of God. Because she was a virgin, which
means a pure, exclusive hearer of the word, she became mother, the place of the
incarnation of the Word. Her womb was blessed, only because she “heard the
Word of God and kept it”, because she “kept all these words and pondered them
in her heart”. She is the model which should govern contemplation, if it is to
keep clear of two dangers: one, that of seeing the word only as something
external, instead of the profoundest mystery within our own being, that in
which we live, move and are: the other, that of regarding the word as so interior
to us that we confuse it with our own being, with a natural wisdom given us once
and for all, and ours to use as we will…
The hearer par excellence is the virgin who became pregnant with the
Word, and bore him as her own and the Father’s Son. She herself, even when
Mother, remained a servant; the Father alone is the Master, together with the
Son, who is her life and who molds her life. She lives wholly for the fruit of her
womb. Even after she has given him birth, she continues to carry him within
her; she only needs to look into her heart, to find him. But she does not omit,
on that account, to turn her gaze uninterruptedly upon the child growing up by
her side, upon the youth and the man, whose ideas and actions seem to her ever
more unpredictable and astonishing. More and more, she “understood not”
what he meant when he stayed behind in the temple without telling her, when
he failed to receive her, when, in his public life, he concealed his power and
spent himself in vain and, in the end, detached himself from her as she stood at
the foot of the cross, substituting for himself a stranger, John, to be her son.
With all the force of her body, she obeys the word that resounds ever more
strongly and divinely but seems more and more alien and almost tears her
asunder, although, in spite of all, she has given herself to it wholly and radically
in advance. She lets herself be led where she “knows not”; the word she follows
is far from being her own wisdom. Yet she is wholly in accord with its leading,
so surely is the word she loves “engrafted” in her heart.

7 London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1963, pp. 22-24.14

Skema: 15th Week in Ordinary Time
2024-07-14
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
15th Week in Ordinary Time

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

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

Office
15th Sunday
St Bonaventure
Bl Virgin Martyrs of Orange
Weekday
St Camillus de Lillus
Weekday
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
1 Sam 4:1-22
1 Sam 5:1-12
1 Sam 6:1-7:1
1 Sam 7:2-17
1 Sam 8:1-22
1 Sam 9:1-24
1 Sam 9:25-10:16

Lauds
Mic 5:9-14
Mic 6:1-8
Mic 6:9-16
Mic 7:1-7
Mic 7:8-10
Mic 7:14-20
Nahum 1:1-8

Mass
104
389
390
391
392
393
394

1st
Amos 7:12-15
Isa 1:10-17
Isa 7:1-9
Isa 10:5-7, 13b-16
Isa 26:7-9, 12, 16-19
Isa 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8
Mic 2:1-5

2nd
Eph 1:3-14

Gospel
Mark 6:7-13
Matt 10:34-11:1
Matt 11:20-24
Matt 11:25-27
Matt 11:28-30
Matt 12:1-8
Matt 12:14-21

Vespers
1 Tim 3:8-13
1 Tim 3:14-4:5
1 Tim 4:6-10
1 Tim 4:11-16
1 Tim 5:1-8
1 Tim 5:17-25
1 Tim 6:3-10

Vigils: 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
2024-07-14
THEY SET OUT TO PREACH REPENTANCE
From a commentary by Theophylact of Ohrid 1
◊◊◊
Besides teaching himself the Lord also sent out the Twelve in pairs. The
reason for sending them in pairs was so that they would go more readily, for
they might not have been willing to set out all alone and, on the other hand, if
he had sent more than two together, there would not have been enough apostles
to cover all the villages. So he sent them two by two: two are better than one, as
Ecclesiastes says.
He commanded them to take nothing with them, neither bag, nor money,
nor bread, so as to teach them to despise riches, and to make people ashamed
when they saw them preaching poverty by their own lack of possessions. For
who would not blush for shame, strip himself of his possessions, and embrace
a life of poverty when he saw an apostle carrying neither bag, nor even bread
which is so essential?
The Lord instructed them to stay in the same house so as not to give the
appearance of restlessness, as though they moved from one family to another in
order to satisfy their stomachs. On the other hand, he told them to shake the
dust off their feet when people refuse to receive them, to show that they had
made a long journey for their sakes and they owed them nothing; they had
received nothing from them, not even their dust, which they shook off as a
testimony against them – a testimony of reproach. Be sure of this, I tell you:
Sodom and Gomorrah will fare better on the Day of Judgment than those who
will not receive you. The Sodomites were punished in this world, so they will be
punished less severely in the next. What is more, no apostles were sent to them.
For those who refused to receive the apostles, greater sufferings are in store.
So they set out to preach repentance. They cast out many demons, and
anointed many sick people with oil and cured them. The fact that the apostles
anointed the sick with oil is mentioned only by Mark, but the practice is also
referred to in his general letter by James, the brother of the Lord, who says: Are
there any sick people among you? Let them send for the elders of the Church
and let these pray over them, anointing them with oil. Oil is beneficial for the
relief of suffering, and it also produces light and makes for cheerfulness. It
symbolizes the mercy of God and the grace of the Spirit, through which we are
freed from suffering and receive light, gladness, and spiritual joy.
1
Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 98-99.

Vigils: St. Bonaventure
2024-07-15
THE LIFE OF ST BONAVENTURE
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints 2
◊◊◊
Of the youth of this greatest successor of St Francis of Assisi nothing is
known beyond the facts that he was born at Bagnoregio, near Viterbo, in the
year 1221, the son of John Fidanza and Mary Ritella. He was clothed in the order
of Friars Minor and studies at the University of Paris under an Englishman,
Alexander of Hales, ‘the Unanswerable Doctor’; Bonaventure, who was to
become known as the Seraphic Doctor, himself taught theology and Holy
Scripture there from 1248 to 1257.
Bonaventure was called by his priestly obligation to labor for the salvation
of his neighbor, and to this he devoted himself with enthusiasm. He preached
to the people with an energy which kindled a flame in the hearts of those that
heard him. While at the University of Paris he produced one of the best-known
of his written works, the “Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard”,
which covers the whole field of scholastic theology. The years of his public
lecturing at Paris were greatly disturbed, however, by the attack made on the
mendicant friars by the other professors at the university. Jealousy of their
pastoral and academic success and the standing reproof to worldliness and ease
of the friars’ lives were in part behind this attempt to get them excluded from
the schools. The leader of the secular party was William of Saint-Amour, who
made a bitter onslaught on the mendicants in a book called “The Perils of the
Last Times”, and other writings.
Bonaventure, who had to suspend lecturing for a time, replied in a treatise
on evangelical poverty, named “Concerning the Poverty of Christ”. The pope,
Alexander IV, appointed a commission of cardinals to go into the matter at
Anagni, and on their findings ordered Saint-Amour’s book to be burnt,
vindicated and reinstated the friars, and ordered the offenders to withdraw
their attack. A year later, in 1257, St Bonaventure and St Thomas Aquinas
received the degree of doctor of theology together.
In 1257 Bonaventure was chosen minister general of the Friars Minor. He
was not yet thirty-six years old, and the order was torn by dissensions, some of
the friars being for an inflexible severity, others demanding certain mitigation
of the rule; between the two extremes were a number of other interpretations.
Some of the extreme rigorists, called Spirituals, had even fallen into error and
disobedience, and thus given a handle to the friars’ opponents in the Paris
dispute. The new minister general wrote a letter to his provincials in which he
made it clear that he required a disciplined observance of the rule, involving a
reformation of the relaxed, but giving no countenance to the excesses of the
Spirituals.
At Narbonne in 1260, the first of the five general chapters which he held,
he produced a set of constitutions on the rule, which were adopted and had a
permanent effect on Franciscan life, but they failed to pacify the excessive
rigorists. At the request of the friars assembled in this chapter, he undertook to
write the life of St Francis, which he compiled with a spirit which shows him to
have been filled with the virtues of the founder whose life he wrote. He governed
his order for seventeen years and has been justly called its second founder.
2 BUTLER’S LIVES OF THE SAINTS, Concise Edition edited by M. Walsh (Harper San Francisco, 1991) pp. 216-
217.

Vigils: Bl. Virgin Martyrs of Orange
2024-07-16
THE MARTYRS OF ORANGE
◊◊◊
The Martyrs of Orange were a group of 32 beatified religious women
martyred at Orange, France, during the French Revolution between July 5 and
26, 1794. Two were Cistercian nuns from Avignon, the others were from
Bollene, near Avignon. The others…included 16 Ursulines, 13 Sacramentine
nuns and one Benedictine nun. For refusing to take the oath of Liberty of the
new regime, the nuns were expelled from their convents, arrested and held in
La Cure prison in Orange. These and other nuns formed a kind of religious
community and spent hours in prayer and religious exercises daily until
condemned for fanaticism and superstition…
The martyrs of the prison ships of Rochefort died in 1794, the same year
as the nuns of Orange, and were declared martyrs in 1925. On October 1, 1995,
Pope John Paul II beatified three other Cistercians at the same time as 61 other
priests and religious of various Congregations. They were not the only
Cistercians who died of starvation or illness in the slave ships or on the islands
off the shore of La Rochelle. Our Menology mentions several others. Yet for the
cause of beatification, only 64 among the 547 who died, were retained as
martyrs, namely, those who were explicitly mentioned in the list of the
deported.
The three Cistercians were: Br Elias Desgardin, Dom Paul Charles, and
Dom Gervais Brunel. Br. Elias Desgardin was a lay Brother from Sept Fons. He
cared for his sick companions. A martyr of charity, he died of typhoid fever at
the age of forty-four. He was buried on the island of Aix… Dom Paul Charles
was the Prior of Sept Fons. Detained on the ship Les Deux Associes, he died at
the age of fifty-one, esteemed and loved by his companions in captivity. He was
buried on the island called Madame. The third beatified martyr was Dom
Gervais Brunel, Superior of La Trappe, who died at the age of fifty in a
provisional hospital on the island Madame. Stricken with typhoid fever, he
arrived there on the point of dying, dying on the very day of the disembarkment.
One of them made a statement that can be applied to all these beatified
religious and to many others condemned to die on the prison ships: “If we are
the most unhappy of men, we are also the happiest of Christians”.

Vigils: Weekday
2024-07-17
RELIGION IN A FREE SOCIETY
By Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel 3
◊◊◊
Little does contemporary religion ask of man. It is ready to offer comfort;
it has no courage to challenge. It is ready to offer edification; it has no courage
to break the idols, to shatter callousness. The trouble is that religion has
become…institution, dogma, ritual. It is no longer an event. Its acceptance
involves neither risk nor strain. There is no substitute for faith, no alternative
for revelation, no surrogate for commitment. We define self-reliance and call it
faith, shrewdness and call it wisdom, anthropology and call it ethics, literature
and call it Bible, inner security and call it religion, conscience and call it God.
However, nothing counterfeit can endure forever…
It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for
the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame
religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but
because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely
replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today
is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom
rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority
rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
The primary task of religious thinking is to rediscover the questions to which
religion is an answer, to develop a degree of sensitivity to the ultimate questions
which its ideas and acts are trying to answer…
The most serious obstacle which modern men encounter in entering
discussion about the ideas of the Bible, is the absence from man’s consciousness
of the problems to which the Bible refers. The Bible is an answer to the
question, “What does God require of man?” But to modern man, this question
is suppressed by another one, namely, “What does man demand of God?”
Modern man continues to ponder: “What will I get out of life?” What escapes
his attention is the fundamental, yet often forgotten question, “What will life
get out of me?”
Absorbed in the struggle for the emancipation of the individual we have
concentrated our attention upon the idea of human rights and overlooked the
importance of human obligations… Oblivious to the fact of his receiving
infinitely more than he is able to return, man began to consider his self as the
only end… We can ill afford to set up needs, an unknown, variable, vacillating,
and eventually degrading factor, as a universal standard, as a supreme, abiding
rule or pattern for living. This, indeed, is the purpose of our religious traditions:
to keep alive the higher Yes as well as the power of man to say, “Here I am”; to
teach our minds to understand the true demand and to teach our conscience to
be present…
It is an inherent weakness of religion not to take offense at the segregation
of God, to forget that the true sanctuary has no walls. Religion has suffered from
the tendency to become an end in itself, to seclude the holy, to become
parochial, self-indulgent, self-seeking; as if the task were not to ennoble human
nature but to enhance the power and beauty of its institutions or to enlarge the
body of doctrines. It has often done more to canonize prejudices than to wrestle
for truth; to petrify the sacred than to sanctify the secular. Yet the task of
religion is to challenge the stabilization of values. Religion is not for religion’s
sake but for God’s sake.
3 Excerpted and quoted from The Insecurity of Freedom (New York: Schocken Books, 1959, 1960,
1963, 1964,1966), pp.1-23. Accessed online, July 5, 2023.

Vigils: St. Camillus de Lillus
2024-07-18
ST CAMILLUS DE LELLIS
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints 4
◊◊◊
Camillus de Lellis was born in 1550 at Bucchianico…. When he was
seventeen he went off with his father to fight with the Venetians against the
Turks. But soon he contracted a painful and repulsive disease in his leg that
was to afflict him for the rest of his life. In 1571 he was admitted to the San
Giacomo hospital for incurables at Rome, as a patient and servant. After nine
months he was dismissed, for his quarrelsomeness among other things. He
returned to active service in the Turkish war. Though Camillus habitually
referred to himself as a great sinner, his worst disorder was an addiction to
gambling that continually reduced him to want and shame. In the autumn of
1574 he gambled away his savings, his arms, everything down to his shirt, which
was stripped off his back in the streets of Naples.
The indigence to which he had reduced himself, and the memory of a vow
he had made in a fit of remorse to join the Franciscans, caused him to accept
work as a laborer in the new Capuchin buildings at Manfredonia, and there a
moving exhortation which the guardian of the friars gave him one day,
completed his conversion. He… fell on his knees, and with tears deplored his
past life, and cried to Heaven for mercy. This happened on Candlemas day in
1575, the 25th of his age. From that time he never departed from his penitential
course. He entered the novitiate of the Capuchins, but could not make
profession because of the disease in his leg. He therefore returned to the
hospital of San Giacomo and devoted himself to the service of the sick. The
administrators of the hospital witnessed his charity and later appointed him
superintendent of the hospital.
To make himself more useful in spiritually assisting the sick, he
proceeded, with the approval of his confessor, St. Philip Neri, to receive Holy
Orders… With two companions he laid the foundations of his congregation.
They went every day to the hospital of the Holy Ghost, where they served the
sick with such affection and diligence that it was obvious to all who saw them
that they considered Christ Himself as lying sick or wounded in His members…
Camillus was afflicted by many illnesses himself: the disease in his leg for
forty-six years, a rupture for thirty-eight years, two sores in the sole of his foot,
which gave him great pain. Yet under these infirmities, he would not allow
anyone to wait on him, but sent all his brethren to serve others. When he was
not able to stand, he would creep out of his bed, even at night, and crawl from
one patient to another to see if they wanted anything.
Camillus saw the foundation of fifteen houses of his brothers and eight
hospitals… He expired on July 14, 1614, being sixty-four years old. St Camillus
de Lellis was canonized in 1746, and was, with St. John of God, declared patron
of the sick by Pope Leo XIII, and of nurses and nursing associations by Pope
Pius XI.
4 Butler’s Lives of Saints, vol. 3, pg. 134, P.J. Kennedy & Sons, New York, 1956.

Vigils: Weekday
2024-07-19
DIRECT YOUR THOUGHTS UTTERLY TO GOD
From “The Form of Living” by Richard Rolle 5
◊◊◊
Because you have abandoned the comforts and the pleasures of this world
and devoted yourself to the solitary life for the love of God, in order to endure
distress and hardship in this life and subsequently to come to [rest and joy in
heaven], I believe most sincerely that the consolation of Jesus Christ, and the
sweetness of his love, with the fire of the Holy Spirit who cleanses all sin, shall
be in you and with you, leading you and instructing you how you are to meditate,
how you are to pray, and what you are to do, so that after a few years you shall
certainly have more delight in being yourself and speaking with your beloved
and your spouse, Jesus Christ…
People suppose that we live in suffering and in a life of” privation, but we
have more pleasure and more real delight in one day than they have in worldly
things throughout their entire lives. They see our bodies, but they do not see
our hearts, where all our comfort lies. If they could see the heart, many of them
would abandon all they have in order to follow us. So be heartened and
emboldened and do not fear any discomfort or hardship, rather fix your whole
desire on Jesus, so that your life may be good and quiet… It is the special
goodness of God that he should encourage miraculously those who have no
encouragement from the world. If they give their hearts entirely to him and
desire nothing, and look for nothing except himself, then he gives himself in
sweetness and delight, in the ardor of love… No man can arrive at such
revelation and grace on the first day, but through long labor and diligence in
loving Jesus Christ…
Direct your thoughts utterly to God, as you have by your outward
appearance directed your body. For I don’t want you to think that all those who
bear the outward appearance of holiness are holy and not preoccupied by the
world; nor that all who concern themselves with worldly affairs are sinful. But
those alone are holy, whatever condition or rank they are in, who despise all
worldly things, that is to say, who do not cherish the things of the world, but
burn in the love of Jesus Christ, whose every desire is directed toward the joy of
heaven, and who hate all sin, and never give up doing good, and feel in their
heart a sweet savor of the love that never ends.
And all the same, they reckon themselves to be the most despicable of all
men, and consider themselves the most contemptible, most insignificant and
most abject. This is the lifestyle of the holy: follow it, and be holy… For those
who follow Jesus Christ in voluntary poverty, and in humility, in love and in
patience, give up exactly the same amount as those want to acquire who do not
follow him. And consider how great and how good is the state of mind within
you, with which you present your vows before him, because that is what he is
looking for, and also whether you are offering your prayers with great yearning
love, and strive eagerly, with great fervor, to see him, seeking no earthly
consolation except for the taste of heaven, and take your delight in the
contemplation of it.
I want you to be constantly climbing toward Jesus, and intensifying your
love and your attendance on him… If you apply all your thoughts on how you
may love your Jesus Christ more than you have been doing, then I venture to
say that your worth is increasing and not diminishing.
5 Richard Rolle. The English Writings. Trans. Rosamund S. Allen. New York: Paulist Press, 1988.
157-158, 160-161, 163

Vigils: Memorial of the BVM
2024-07-20
MARY AND THE RETURN OF THE LORD
From a book by René Laurentin 6
◊◊◊
It is of the essence of the Christian message that we shall turn our gaze to
the future, to the completion and consummation of all things which the Lord’s
return will bring about.
At that time (already present in the eternity of God), the frontiers between
the earthly and the heavenly are abolished. The corporal world is transfigured,
God is all in all. Time, too, is abolished for the Church. This fragmentary
duration of time, linked up with humanity’s advance along the road to their
salvation, gives place to the infinitely simple rhythm of eternity: the rhythm of
God which gathers together every duration of time and heaps up every hope.
Here the task of Mary, as mother, comes to an end, but her love remains. For
her, at the heart of things, nothing changes. It is the Church which changes,
and only for the reason that its situation is modified.
From the outset Mary had preceded the Church at every stage of its life,
and here we see the Church joining her once more. Between them there is no
longer any difference in the realm of place and time. The tension of nature over
against heaven, of time over against eternity, has been abolished. At the end of
the journey, there they are, perfectly reunited in the place and at the time of
which God is the measure…
Mary was the first personal realization of what awaits the redeemed. She
is that still, but the distances have been done away with.
The Church continues to look at Mary in Christ, but in a different way: no
longer as its future and as a token of its hope, but only as the summit of its
communion in Christ. The Church used to look at Mary [in the same way] as a
fleet in the storm looks at the first ship which has crossed the bar and reached
port. Now, the Church has re-joined her at the end of the voyage. There is no
longer either separation or distance, but common joy in reunion in Christ, and
this dialogue between them is nothing but the overflowing abundance of their
thanksgiving.
In this communion, of which Christ is the beginning and the completion,
we see again the situation of Pentecost: Mary in the Church, but beyond this
world. In the city that is all light, the grandeur of Mary is no longer veiled by
any kind of shadow. The hierarchy, which was the visible summit of the Church
here below, no longer has any purpose. The world of the signs and means of
grace which it administered in this lower world has passed away, and only the
realities remain. The grandeurs of hierarchy are effaced, and the grandeurs of
holiness, at last unveiled, shine forth in all their glory. In the crowd of the
redeemed, ranged henceforth according to their union with Christ and no
longer according to their function, the Mother of Christ occupies the first place,
without common measure with the others. She is seen in the pure truth of the
situation in which God has placed her, at a higher level of grace and glory than
that of the others: between the Redeemer who reigns over her from the
infinitude of his Godhead and the remainder of the redeemed whom she enfolds
in her maternal love.
6 Court traité sur la Vierge Marie, Lethielleux, Paris, 1967, pp. 156-157; reprinted in ALectures chrétiennes pour notre
temps@ (M 82): 8 1971, Abbaye d’Orval, Belgium.

Skema
2024-07-21
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
16th Week in Ordinary Time

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

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

Office
16th Sunday
St Mary Magdalen
Weekday
Weekday
St James
SS Joachm & Ann
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
1 Sam 10:17-11:15
Exodus 15:1-21
1 Sam 12:1-25
1 Sam 13:2-22
Jerm 26:1-15
1 Sam 13:23-14:23a
1 Sam 14:23b-48

Lauds
Nahum 1:9-2:1
Isa 12:1-6
Nahum 2:2-8
Nahum 2:9-14
Wis 3:1-9
Nahum 3:1-7
Nahum 3:8-13

Mass
107
603
396
397
605
399
400

1st
Jer 23:1-6
Song 3:1-4b
Mic 7:14-15, 18-20
Jer 1:1, 4-10
2 Cor 4:7-15
Jer 3:14-17
Jer 7:1-11

2nd
Eph 2:13-18

Gospel
Mark 6:30-34
John 20:1-2, 11-18
Matt 12:46-50
Matt 13:1-9
Matt 20:20-28
Matt 13:18-23
Matt 13:24-30

Vespers
1 Tim 6:11-16
Acts 13:26-31
1 Tim 6:17-21
2 Tim 1:1-8
Acts 11:27-12:5
2 Tim 1:9-14
2 Tim 2:1-7

Vigils Reading - 16th Sunday
2024-07-21
A KINDLY SAVIOR AND PHYSICIAN
From a commentary by Bede the Venerable1
◊◊◊
The apostles returned to Jesus and reported to him everything they had
done and taught. As well as reporting to him…they told him what had befallen
John the Baptist while they were teaching. And he said to them: Come away to
some place where you can be alone by yourselves and rest awhile.
The following words show what real need there was to give the disciples
some rest: For many were coming and going and they had no time even to eat.
The great happiness of those days can be seen from the hard work of those who
taught and the enthusiasm of those who learned. If only in our time such a
concourse of faithful listeners would again press round the ministers of the
word, not allowing them time to attend to their physical needs! For those denied
the time needed to look after their bodies will have still less opportunity to heed
the soul’s or the body’s temptations. Rather, people of whom the word of faith
and the saving ministry is demanded in season and out of season have an
incentive to meditate upon heavenly things so as not to contradict what they
teach by what they do.
And they got into the boat and went away by themselves to a deserted
spot. The disciples did not get into the boat alone, but took the Lord with them,
as the evangelist Matthew makes clear.
Many people saw them set out and recognized them, and from all the
towns they hastened to the place on foot and reached it before them. The fact
that people on foot are said to have reached the place first shows that the
disciples did not go with the Lord to the opposite bank of the Jordan, but
crossed some stream or inlet to reach a nearby spot in the same region, within
walking distance for the local people.
Thus when Jesus landed he saw a large crowd. He took pity on them
because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them
many things.
Matthew relates more fully how he took pity on them. He says: And he
took pity on them and cured their sick. This is what it means really to take pity
on the poor, and on those who have no one to guide them: to open the way of
truth to them by teaching, to heal their physical infirmities, and to make them
want to praise the divine generosity by feeding them when they are hungry as
Jesus did…
Jesus tested the crowd’s faith, and having done so he gave it a fitting
reward. He sought out a lonely place to see if they would take the trouble to
follow him. For their part, they showed how concerned they were for their
salvation by the effort they made in going along the deserted road not on
donkeys or in carts of various kinds, but on foot. In return Jesus welcomed those
weary, ignorant, sick and hungry people, instructing, healing, and feeding them
as a kindly savior and physician, and so letting them know how pleased he is by
believers’ devotion to him.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1999 – pg 100.3

Vigils Reading - St Mary Magdalen
2024-07-22
KEEP WATCH AT THE DOORS OF WISDOM
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny2
◊◊◊
Abraham exulted that he might see the day of Christ and by this token he
saw and rejoiced. You too, if you keep watch daily at the doors of wisdom,
steadfast at its threshold, if you stay awake through the night with Magdalen at
the entrance of his tomb, if I am not mistaken you will experience with Mary
how true are the words we read of the Wisdom which is Christ: “She is easily
seen by those who love her and she is found by those who seek her. She
anticipates those who desire her and shows herself to them first. He who, as
soon as it is light, keeps watch for her will not have to toil, for he will find her
seated at his doors.” So did Christ, Wisdom himself, promise in the words: “I
love those who love me, and they who from early morning keep watch for me
will find me.”
Mary found Jesus in the flesh. For this she was keeping watch… You, who
no longer ought to know Jesus according to the flesh but according to the spirit,
will be able to find him spiritually if you seek him with a [similar] desire, if he
finds you likewise vigilant in prayer. Say then to the Lord Jesus with the desire
and the affection of Mary: “My soul has longed for you during the night, my
spirit too, deep within me; from early morning I will keep watch for you”. Say
with the voice and the mind of the Psalmist: “God, my God, for you as soon as
it is light I keep watch, my soul is athirst for you”. And see if it is not your lot
to sing with him: “We have been filled early in the morning with your mercy,
we have exulted and been delighted”.
Keep watch then, brethren, intent in prayer; keep watch and carefully
guard your actions; especially since the morning of that day which has no sunset
has already shone upon us. For already eternal light has come back to us from
the nether regions, more serene and more pleasing, and the morning has given
its welcome to the newly restored Sun. Indeed it is time now for us to arise from
sleep; the night has passed away, while the day has drawn near. Keep watch, I
say, that the morning light may rise for you, that is Christ, whose coming forth
has been made ready like the dawn, ready to renew often the mystery of the
morning of his resurrection in those who keep watch for him. Then you will sing
with jubilant heart: “God the Lord has shone upon us… For then he will give you
a glimpse of the light which he has hidden in his hands, telling his friend that it
is his possession and he can attain to it.

2 “Sermon 35: the Third Sermon for Easter”
, Liturgical Sermons, vol. 2 (CF 32), Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications,
1971, pp. 93f.5
