Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading
2024-06-20
THE CHRISTIAN SAINT
From “The Faith and Modern Man” by Fr Romano Guardini5
◊◊◊
We associate the word saints with the idea of exceptional persons. In the
New Testament, however, it signifies Christians generally. Being a Christian at
all was extraordinary. For the Christians stood out sharply from the
environment; either one lived in the Old Testament world, or in the Hellenistic-
pagan world, and by both they were regarded as something strange if not
hostile. The experience of conversion lifted them out of the environment. A
sense of the reality of God not learned from natural religious experience or from
the teaching of the Old Testament had shaken and, at the same time, blessed
them. In the existence of Christ, God’s countenance had been unveiled. The life
of Christ had made them aware of how God is toward us. These experiences had
changed their whole lives. They had acquired new ideas of God, new standards
of judging the world.
The “renewal of mind” of which the Gospel speaks and which they had
begun to fulfill, now consisted not only in a conversion to a good and pious life,
but in a change of direction in their whole way of thinking. Thus for them “all
things had become new” — and with all these “new things” they found
themselves still in an old world, a world which regarded them with distrust and
hostility. All this is, in itself, extraordinary — indeed the very essence of the
extraordinary, and the “saint” was one who led this existence.
But the spread of Christianity and its increase in members tended to
obscure its unique nature. Time went on, the Gospel grew familiar, and the
sense of newness wore off. Christianity became the state religion and, as such,
the official order of society. Thus the fact that being a Christian at all was in
itself extraordinary faded out of people’s consciousness, and Christianity grew
to be regarded as normal and usual.
By contrast, a new form of the unusual arose. Now it belonged to the idea
of a special calling, a divine favor and testing, with a wearisome, dangerous way
of life granted only to the few. Such tendencies had appeared in Christian
antiquity as in the reverence for those who had given their lives for the Master
—the martyrs — or for those who had retired into solitude to live a life of
extraordinary austerity — the hermits and ascetics. But this concept of
saintliness developed particularly in the Middle Ages, great human and
religious forces expressing themselves in extraordinary intensification of
Christian daring and achievement. Then arose also the ideas of missionaries of
the Faith… masters of sacred science, mystical writers. In modern times
something else came in — the Renaissance feeling for the exceptional in human
life which affected the concept of the saint. With the ideas of Christian election
and testing now blended that of the great man, the pioneer, the man of genius
and the hero.
But the original concept of the saint was of a purely religious, of a purely
spiritual character. The concept of perfection, to be sure, includes religious
perfection — all that is signified by redemption, grace, providence, God’s inward
working. Nevertheless…if anyone had asked Paul what constituted the holiness
of the saint, he would probably have replied that it came into the world at
Pentecost. The Holy Ghost is holy, and so also is the man whom the Spirit seizes.
The God Who reveals Himself in Christ is holy, and so also is the man whom the
Spirit brings into the kingdom of God. The saints, then, were those in whom the
mystery of God held sway, in whom His providence was working to bring about
God’s kingdom, that is to say, those who have believed and have been baptized.

5 The Faith and Modern Man, New York 1952, 128-133.11

Vigils Reading - St Aloysius Gonzaga
2024-06-21
FROM A LETTER TO HIS MOTHER
by St Aloysius Gonzaga6
◊◊◊
Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I
must rouse myself to make my way to heaven at last and to praise God for ever
in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey
there would have been over. If charity, as St. Paul says, means to weep with
those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad, then, dearest mother, you
shall rejoice exceedingly that God in His grace and His love for you is showing
me the path to true happiness, and assuring me that I shall never lose Him.
The divine goodness…is a fathomless and shoreless ocean, and I confess
that when I plunge my mind into thought of this it is carried away by the
immensity and feels quite lost and bewildered there. In return for my short and
feeble labors, God is calling me to eternal rest; His voice from heaven invites me
to the infinite bliss I have sought so languidly, and promises me this reward for
the tears I have so seldom shed.
Take care above all things…not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness;
you should certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with
God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than
they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each
other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Savior; there we shall praise
him with heart and soul, sing his mercies forever, and enjoy eternal happiness.
When He takes away what He has once lent us, His purpose is to store our
treasure elsewhere more safely and bestow on us those very blessings that we
ourselves would most choose to have.
I write all this with the one desire that you and all <the> family may
consider my departure a joy and favor and that you especially may speed with a
mother’s blessing my passage across the waters till I reach the shore to which
all blessings belong. I write the more willingly because I have no clearer way of
expressing the love and respect I owe you as your son.

6 The Liturgy of the Hours – vol. III – Catholic Book Publishing Co – New York – 1975 – pg 1475.13

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2024-06-22
THE NATURE OF MARY’S MATERNITY
From “The Divine Motherhood” by Anscar Vonier7
◊◊◊
Let us always bear in mind the great truth that the Blessed Virgin’s
maternity was a most natural maternity in the sense that she fully responded to
it, was not overwhelmed by it, that there was no separation between her and her
offspring; Christ came from her as her own dear child, the fruit of her own
blessed womb. I am right, therefore, in asserting that Mary’s maternal function
in the conception of Christ was raised to an incredibly high plane of vitality so
as to make her maternity not only an instrumental, but a natural maternity. If
Mary’s mission had been merely to minister the human element to the Word
when he became flesh, her maternity would have been just instrumental; it
would have existed only to serve a higher purpose. But Mary’s role is more than
that; she is permanently the Mother of God; her maternity is not a transient
ministration, but an abiding dignity that makes her share with God the Father,
in literal truth, the parenthood of Jesus Christ.
A threefold hypothesis may make this point clearer still. We can think of
a woman being made a mother by the direct productive act of God; in that case
the offspring of that mother would not be divine, but human. Then there can be
the conception in a woman’s womb of a divine person, as happened in the
incarnation, but the woman being merely instrumental to the production of the
body; in such a case it would be divine maternity in the most restricted
physiological sense. Thirdly, there is the glorious possibility of perfect divine
maternity with all the graces and privileges, with all the rights and splendors, of
one who shares to the full, with God the Father, the parenthood of the God
Incarnate.
Such is Mary’s maternity; such is the meaning of Elizabeth’s salutation,
or rather the salutation of the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Elizabeth, when
full of the divine Spirit she cried with a loud voice: Blessed are you among
women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And whence is this to me, that
the Mother of my Lord should come to me? Elizabeth was the first creature to
call Mary “the Mother of God”; she gave us the grandest title of our Lady:
“Mother of God.” The archangel, indeed, had said as much, but only by
implication; Elizabeth, the happiest of human mothers, has the privilege of
having spoken for the first time the words “Mother of God.”
When, moreover, in the same breath she calls blessed the Mother and the
fruit of her womb, bestowing the same encomium on the two lives which were
not yet disjoined, she gives us an additional reason for saying that Mary’s
maternity had been raised to the divine plane of dignity and perfection, where
one and the same blessedness holds mother and offspring wrapped in a
matchless sanctity.

7 pp. 345-346; reprinted in Meditations on the Sunday Gospels: Year A; introduced and edited by John E. Rotelle, Hyde
Park, NY: New City Press, 1995, pp. 28-29.15

Skema
2024-06-23
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
12th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
June 23 – 29, 2024

Sun
23
Mon
24
Tue
25
Wed
26
Thu
27
Fri
28
Sat
29

Office
12th Sunday
Nativity of St John the Baptist
Weekday
Office for the Dead
Weekday
St Ireneaus
SS Peter & Paul

Vigils
Judg 16:23-31
Jerm 1:4-19
Judg 17:1-13
Judg 18:1-11
Judg 18:13-31
Judg 19:1-21
Gal 1:11-2:10

Lauds
Amos 7:10-17
Malachi 3:19-24
Amos 8:1-8
Amos 8:9-14
Amos 9:1-6
Amos 9:7-10
Isa 49:1-6

Mass
95
587
372
373
374
375
591

1st
Job 38:1, 8-11
Isa 49:1-6
2 Kgs 19:9b-11, 14-21, 31-35a, 36
2 Kgs 22:8-13; 23:1-3
2 Kgs 24:8-17
2 Kgs 25:1-12
Acts 12:1-11

2nd
2 Cor 5:14-17
Acts 13:22-26

2 Tim 4:6-8, 17-18

Gospel
Mark 4:35-41
Luke 1:57-66, 80
Matt 7:6, 12-14
Matt 7:15-20
Matt 7:21-29
Matt 8:1-4
Matt 16:13-19

Vespers
1 Jn 4:1-6
Acts 13:15-26
1 Thess 3:6-13
1 Thess 4:1-12
1 Thess 4:13-18
1 Peter 4:12-19
Acts 3:1-10

Vigils Reading - 12th Sunday
2024-06-23
OBEY THE GOD WHO MADE YOU
From a commentary by St Augustine1
◊◊◊
The Lord’s power is by no means dead, nor is it asleep. Do you think the
Almighty was overcome by sleep in the boat against his will? If you do, then
Christ is asleep in your hearts. If he were indeed keeping watch within you, then
your faith too would be vigilant. The Apostle, remember, speaks of Christ
dwelling in your hearts through faith.
This sleep of Christ has a symbolic meaning. The boat’s crew are human
souls sailing across the sea of this world in a wooden vessel. That vessel, of
course, also represents the Church; but as each one of us is a temple of God,
each one’s heart is a sailing boat, nor can it be wrecked so long as we fill our
minds only with what is good.
When you have to listen to abuse, that means that you are being buffeted
by the wind; when your anger is roused, you are being tossed by the waves. So
when the winds blow and the waves mount high, the boat is in danger, your
heart is imperiled, your heart is taking a battering. On hearing yourself insulted,
you long to retaliate; but the joy of revenge brings with it another kind of
misfortune – shipwreck. Why is this? Because Christ is asleep in you. What do
I mean? I mean you have forgotten his presence. Rouse him, then; remember
him, let him keep watch within you, pay heed to him.
Now what is your desire? You wanted to get your own back. You have
forgotten that when Christ was being crucified he said: Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do. Christ, the sleeper in your heart, had no desire
for vengeance in his. Rouse him, then, call him to mind. (To remember him is
to recall his words… his commands.) Then, when he is awake within you, you
will ask yourself, “Whatever kind of wretch am I to be thirsting for revenge?
Who am I to threaten another? Suppose I were to die before I were avenged!
Suppose I were to take leave of my body breathing out threats, inflamed with
rage and thirsting for that vengeance which Christ himself never sought; would
he not refuse to receive me? He who said, Give and it shall be given you; forgive
and you will be forgiven, would indeed decline to acknowledge me. So I will
curb my anger and restore peace to my heart.
Now all is calm again. Christ has rebuked the sea. What I have said about
anger must be your rule of conduct in every temptation. A temptation arises: it
is the wind. It disturbs you: it is the surging of the sea. This is the moment to
awaken Christ and let him remind you of these words: Who can this be? Even
the winds and the sea obey him. Who is this whom the sea obeys? It is he to
whom the sea belongs, for he made it; all things were made through him.
Try, then, to be more like the wind and the sea; obey the God who made
you. The sea obeys Christ’s command, and are you going to turn a deaf ear to it?
The sea obeys him, the wind is still; will you persist with your blustering?
Words, actions, schemes, what are all these but a constant huffing and puffing,
a refusal to be still at Christ’s command?
When your heart is in this troubled state, do not let the waves overwhelm
you. If, since we are only human, the driving wind should stir up in us a tumult
of emotions, let us not despair but awaken Christ, so that we may sail in quiet
waters, and at last reach our heavenly homeland.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 92.3

Vigils Reading - Nativity of St John the Baptist
2024-06-24
THE NATIVITY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux2
◊◊◊
Let us rejoice, dearly beloved, on the Nativity of blessed John [the
Baptist], on the solemnity of whose birth is celebrated today, and let us rejoice
in that very nativity. Our reason for remembering [John] is certainly rich, and
the source of [our] rejoicing sundry. Listen, brothers, to what is said about
John: “He was a burning and shining lamp,” [Scripture] says. A great testimony,
my brothers: great is the one to whom it is given, but greater is the one who
gives [it]. “He was a burning and shining lamp.” Only to shine is nothing; only
to burn is not enough. To burn and shine is complete… He burned for himself;
he was shining for us. Let us rejoice in his fervor for the purpose of imitation;
let us also rejoice in [his] light—yet not remaining there, but that in his light we
may see light, the true light, which is not [John] himself, but the One to whom
he bears witness.
It is especially said to the apostles and to apostolic men: “Let your light
shine before people.” [This is said to them] as to people who have been kindled,
and mightily kindled, who are not to fear any situation whatever, or the winds’
force. It was said even to John, [while] they but hear it in the ear, John, like an
angel, is instructed in the Spirit. Assuredly, he [was] as close to God as the voice
is near the Word. No other voice, which would sound outwardly as an
intermediary, was needed for him to be taught.
Inspiration, not preaching, taught John, whom the Spirit filled in his
mother’s womb. Truly burning and mightily kindled [was] he whom the
celestial flame so possessed that he perceived Christ’s coming when he could
not yet perceive even himself. That new fire, recently fallen from heaven, surely
penetrated the Virgin’s ear through Gabriel’s mouth, and through the Virgin’s
mouth and his mother [Elizabeth’s] ear [that fire] entered into the little child,
so that from that moment the Holy Spirit filled his chosen vessel, and prepared
a lamp for Christ the Lord. Then he was already a burning lamp, but [he was]
still for a time under a bushel, until he could be placed on a lampstand and shine
for all who were in the Lord’s house. At that time, he was able to illuminate only
his own bushel, and to shine for a while to his mother alone, revealing the great
mystery of holiness to her by the motion of [his] singular joy!
“Why,” [Elizabeth] says, “does the mother of my Lord come to me?” Who
made the Lord’s mother known to you, holy woman? [So Mary asks Elizabeth,]
“How do you know me?” “When the voice of your greeting,” [Elizabeth] says,
“came to my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.”
Already then he illumined the bushel under which he lay hidden, but the
burning lamp under the bushel did not leave hidden the One whom it would
soon afterwards make known to the whole world with unheard of brightness.

2 From Sermons for the Summer Season: Liturgical Sermons from Rogationtide and Pentecost; translated, with an
Introduction, by Beverly Mayne Kienzle; additional translations by James Jarzembowski (CF 53); Kalamazoo, MI:
Cistercian Publications, 1991, pp. 88-96.5

Vigils Reading
2024-06-25
THE EXAMPLE OF THE SAINTS
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman3
◊◊◊
I have not yet mentioned the peculiar benefit to be derived from the
observance of Saints’ days: which obviously lies in their setting before the mind
patterns of excellence for us to follow. In directing us to these, the Church does
but fulfil the design of Scripture. Consider how great a part of the Bible is
historical; and how much of the history is merely the lives of those who were
God’s instruments in their respective ages. Some of them are no patterns for us,
others show marks of the corruption under which human nature universally
lies. Yet the chief of them are specimens of special faith and sanctity, and are
set before us with the evident intention of exciting and guiding us in our
religious course…
First of all, and in his own incommunicable glory, Our Blessed Lord
Himself gives us an example, but His faithful servants lead us on towards Him,
and confirm and diversify His pattern. Now it has been the aim of our Church
in her Saints’ days to maintain the principle, and set a pattern, of this peculiarly
Scriptural teaching.
Christ’s Church is indestructible; and lasting on through all the
vicissitudes of this world, she must rise again and flourish, when the poor
creatures of a day who opposed her, have crumbled into dust. In the meantime
let us not forget our duty; which is, after the example of the Saints, to take up
our cross meekly, and pray for our enemies.
Every year brings wonders. We know not any year, what wonders shall
have happened before the circle of Festivals has run out again, from St.
Andrew’s to All Saints’. Our duty then is, to wait for the Lord’s coming, to
prepare His way before Him, to pray that when he comes, we may be found
watching… Let us not forget, that, as we are called to be Saints, so we are, by
that very calling, called to suffer; and, if we suffer, must not think it strange
concerning the fiery trial that is to try us, nor be puffed up by our privilege of
suffering, nor bring suffering needlessly upon us, nor be eager to make out we
have suffered for Christ, when we have but suffered for our faults, or not at all.
May God give us grace to act upon these rules, as well as to adopt and admire
them; and to say nothing for saying’s sake, but to do much and say little!

3 Parochial & Plain Sermons, Ignatius Press: San Francisco 1987. pp.476-478.7

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2024-06-26
DEATH AND OUR LIVES AS CHRISTIANS
By Cardinal Jean Daniélou4
◊◊◊
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE is altogether an act of waiting. Christians know
that they are made for greater things. They feel acutely the misery of their
present condition. They aspire to be relieved of the weight of animal life and its
servitude. “I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ” (Phil 1:23). While the
carnal in us grasps desperately at pleasures and possessions, the Christian lives
already in the order of being, detached, free, making use of time, so long as it is
given, to perform works of charity towards all – an activity invisible to the eyes
of the world. The Christian life is a hidden life. But when the world is folded up
like a tent, the reality that has been hidden until that moment will be clearly
revealed. It is to prepare oneself for this solemn act, which is the entry of every
person into the heavenly Temple, through the veil that still conceals it, that
one’s whole life must be devoted.
That life consists for the Christian in being endowed little by little with
divine manners… We must not be without a country on our arrival in heaven.
Our life is an apprenticeship. It is a matter of learning the rudiments of what we
shall have one day to do. So let us already try in prayer to stammer what will
later be the ‘conversation in heaven’ with God and his angels; so we must try to
make less crude this intellect of ours, which is so immersed in the world of time
and space, and to acclimatize it gradually to heavenly things through the action
of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Thus charity itself is the clumsy beginning of that
complete communion which will embrace all the saints. So doing, we begin to
do what we have always to do. It is our real life which is being mapped out. Let
us begin it.
4 The Presence of God, Baltimore 1959, pp.55-57.

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.
