Vigils Reading - Corpus Christi
2025-06-22
THE BODY OF CHRIST
From a commentary by St Augustine
◊◊◊
You see on God’s altar bread and a cup. That is what the evidence of your
eyes tells you, but your faith requires you to believe that the bread is the body of
Christ, the cup the blood of Christ. In these few words we can say perhaps all
that faith demands.
Faith, however, seeks understanding; so you may now say to me: “You
have told us what we have to believe, but explain it so that we can understand
it”… We know from whom our Lord Jesus Christ took his flesh – it was from the
Virgin Mary. As a baby, he was suckled, he was fed, he developed, he came to
young man’s estate. He was slain on the cross, he was taken down from it, he
was buried, he rose again on the third day. On the day of his own choosing, he
ascended to heaven, taking his body with him; and it is from heaven that he will
come to judge the living and the dead. But now that he is there, seated at the
right hand of the Father, how can bread be his body? And the cup, or rather
what is in the cup, how can that be his blood?
These things, my friends, are called sacraments, because our eyes see in
them one thing, our understanding another. Our eyes see the material form;
our understanding, its spiritual effect. If, then, you want to know what the body
of Christ is, you must listen to what the Apostle tells the faithful: Now you are
the body of Christ, and individually you are members of it.
If that is so, it is the sacrament of yourselves that is placed on the Lord’s a
ltar, and it is the sacrament of yourselves that you receive. You reply “Amen” to
what you are, and thereby agree that such you are. You hear the words “The
body of Christ” and you reply “Amen“. Be, then, a member of Christ’s body, so
that your “Amen” may accord with the truth.
Yes, but why all this in bread? Here let us not advance any ideas of our
own, but listen to what the Apostle says over and over again when speaking of
this sacrament: Because there is one loaf, we, though we are many, form one
body. Let your mind assimilate that and be glad, for there you will find unity,
truth, piety, and love. He says, one loaf. And who is this one loaf? We, though
we are many, form one body. Now bear in mind that bread is not made of a
single grain, but of many. Be, then, what you see, and receive what you are…
Just as the unity of the faithful, which holy Scripture describes in the
words: They were of one mind and heart in God, should be like the kneading
together of many grains into one visible loaf, so with the wine. Think how wine
is made. Many grapes hang in a cluster, but their juice flows together into an
indivisible liquid.
It was thus that Christ our Lord signified us, and his will that we should
belong to him, when he hallowed the sacrament of our peace and unity on his
altar.

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2025-06-23
AN UNDIVIDED
LOVE FOR CHRIST
From the documents of the Second Vatican Council
◊◊◊
From the beginning, the tradition of the Church presents us with this
privileged witness of a constant seeking for God, of an undivided love for Christ
alone, and of an absolute dedication to the growth of his kingdom. Without this
concrete sign there would be a danger that the charity which animates the entire
Church would grow cold, that the salvific paradox of the Gospel would be
blunted, and that the “salt” of faith would lose its savor in a world undergoing
secularization.
From the first centuries, the Holy Spirit has stirred up, side by side with
the heroic confession of the martyrs, the wonderful strength of disciples and
virgins, of hermits and anchorites. Religious life already existed in germ, and
progressively it felt the growing need of developing and of taking on different
forms of community or solitary life, in order to respond to the pressing
invitation of Christ: “There is no one who has left house, wife, brothers,
parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not be given
repayment many times over in this present time, and in the world to come,
eternal life.“
Who would venture to hold that such a calling today no longer has the
same value and vigor? That the Church could do without these exceptional
witnesses of the transcendence of the love of Christ? Or that the world without
damage to itself could allow these lights to go out? They are lights which
announce the kingdom of God with a liberty which knows no obstacles and is
daily lived by thousands of sons and daughters of the Church.
Certainly many exterior elements, recommended by founders of orders or
religious congregations, are seen today to be outmoded. Various encumbrances
or rigid forms accumulated over the centuries need to be curtailed. Adaptations
must be made. New forms can even be sought and instituted with the approval
of the Church. For some years now the greater part of religious institutes have
been generously dedicating themselves to the attainment of this goal,
experimenting – sometimes too hardily – with new types of constitutions and
rules. We know well and we are following with attention this effort at renewal
which was desired by the Council.
We would like to encourage you to proceed with greater sureness and with
more joyful confidence along the way that you have chose. In the “pursuit of
perfect charity” which guides your existence, what attitude could you have
other than a total surrender to the Holy Spirit who, working in the Church, calls
you to the freedom of the children of God.

Vigils Reading - Nativity of St John the Baptist
2025-06-24
HE MUST INCREASE
AND I MUST DECREASE
By Msgr. Ronald Knox3
◊◊◊
In St John the Baptist you could almost say that the hatred of prominence
was born in him. Always we see St John is pointing, always away from himself.
“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” – there, don’t
look at me, look at him; don’t ask who I am, ask who he is. There comes one
after me, who is greater than I, the latches of whose shoe I am not worthy to
loose.
Everyone is crowded round St John, everyone wanting to know who he is,
and he will let them see nothing but the finger that points to a greater than
himself, let them hear nothing but the voice of the forerunner who preaches a
gospel not his own.
And gradually, as our Lord more and more allowed this attention to be
directed towards himself, he, instead of his forerunner, became the center of
interest. “The pupil is outstripping the master“, people will have said; for I
think it’s fairly certain that our Lord, at the opening of his ministry, was
regarded as the disciple of St John, the man who had baptized him. And one by
one the little groups that listened to the Baptist on the rocky hills by Jordan
melted away, and he knew that they had gone off to follow the new Teacher,
who, traveling from village to village, was more easy of access. Perhaps they
even thought that in so transferring their allegiance from the stern prophet of
the desert with his wild clothes and rough manner to the Friend of publicans
and sinners, they were taking an easier yoke upon themselves…
The followers of John became fewer, the audiences of the Galilean
Prophet more numerous. And I want you to see that if St John had been a
smaller man, if he had looked upon his winning popularity in the way in which
you and I would look upon such a thing if it were to happen to ourselves, it
would have been impossible for him not to feel a pang of jealousy at having been
obeyed so well, at having been so successful in diverting attention from himself
to his Master. “He might have left me just a little work to do, just a few souls to
deal with; he might have given me some part to play in his mission“; it’s not
difficult to imagine St John feeling like that.
But that was not St John’s way. “He must increase, and I must decrease“
, so he assures the little band that still remain faithful to him, as if it were the
most natural thing in the world. And again, “The friend of the bridegroom, who
stands and hears him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice“.
Our Lord has come to claim his affianced Bride, the Church, and St John is
content with the humble, the almost undignified role of what we call the “best
man“. It is for him to sink his own claims, his own personality, and rejoice in the
triumph of the Lamb of God. No one has ever stood in the background more
loyally.

3 University Sermons by Msgr. Ronald A. Knox, Palm Publishers, 1963, pp. 346-347.7

Vigils Reading
2025-06-25
THE PILGRIM CHURCH
From the documents of the Second Vatican Council
◊◊◊
In full consciousness of this communion of the whole Mystical Body of
Jesus Christ, the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of
the Christian religion, has honored with great respect the memory of the dead;
and, “because it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that
they may be loosed from their sins“, she offers her suffrages for them.
The Church has always believed that the apostles and Christ’s martyrs,
who gave the supreme witness of faith and charity by the shedding of their
blood, are closely united with us in Christ; she has always venerated them,
together with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the holy angels, with a special love,
and has asked piously for the help of their intercession. Soon there were added
to these others who had chosen to imitate more closely the virginity and poverty
of Christ, and still others whom the outstanding practice of the Christian virtues
and the wonderful graces of God recommended to the pious devotion and
imitation of the faithful.
To look on the life of those who have faithfully followed Christ is to be
inspired with a new reason for seeking the city which is to come, while at the
same time we are taught to know a most safe path by which, despite the
vicissitudes of the world, and in keeping with the state of life and condition
proper to each of us, we will be able to arrive at perfect union with Christ, that is,
holiness. God shows to us, in a vivid way, his presence and his face in the lives of
those companions of ours in the human condition who are more perfectly
transformed into the image of Christ. He speaks to us in them and offers us a
sign of this kingdom, to which we are powerfully attracted, so great a cloud of
witnesses is there given and such a witness to the truth of the Gospel.
It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of
those in heaven; we seek, rather, that by this devotion to the exercise of fraternal
charity the union of the whole Church in the Spirit may be strengthened.
Exactly as Christian communion between peoples on their earthly pilgrimage
brings us closer to Christ, so our community with the saints joins us to Christ,
from whom as from its fountain and head issues all grace and the life of the
People of God itself. It is most fitting, therefore, that we love those friends and
co-heirs of Jesus Christ who are also our brethren and outstanding benefactors,
and that we give due thanks to God for them, humbly invoking them, and having
recourse to their prayers, their aid and help in obtaining from God through the
Son, Jesus Christ… the benefits we need.

Vigils Reading
2025-06-26
THAT THEY MAY BE ONE
From the encyclical “Ut Unum Sint” by St John Paul II
◊◊◊
At the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church committed herself
irrevocably to following the path of the ecumenical venture, thus heeding the
spirit of the Lord, who teaches people to interpret carefully the “signs of the
times”. The experiences of these years have made the Church even more
profoundly aware of her identity and mission in history. The Catholic Church
acknowledges and confesses the weaknesses of her members, conscious that
their sins are so many betrayals of and obstacles to the accomplishment of the
Savior’s plan.
Because she feels herself constantly called to be renewed in the spirit of
the Gospel, she does not cease to do penance. At the same time, she
acknowledges and exalts still more the power of the Lord, who fills her with the
gift of holiness, leads her forward, and conforms her to his Passion and
Resurrection.
Taught by the events of her history, the Church is committed to freeing
herself from every purely human support, in order to live in depth the Gospel
law of the Beatitudes. Conscious that the truth does not impose itself except “by
virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly
and with power”, she seeks nothing for herself but the freedom to proclaim the
Gospel. Indeed her authority is exercised in the service of truth and charity.
Together with all Christ’s disciples, the Catholic Church bases upon God’s
plan her ecumenical commitment to gather all Christians into unity. Indeed,
“the Church is not a reality closed in on herself. Rather, she is permanently
open to missionary and ecumenical endeavor, for she is sent to the world to
announce and witness, to make present and spread the mystery of
communion which is essential to her, and to gather all people and all things
into Christ, so as to be for all an “inseparable sacrament of unity”.
The unity of all divided humanity is the will of God. For this reason He
sent His son, so that by dying and rising for us he might bestow on us the Spirit
of love. On the eve of his sacrifice on the Cross, Jesus himself prayed to the
Father for his disciples and for all those who believe in him, that they might be
one, a living communion. This is the basis not only of the duty, but also of the
responsibility before God and his plan, which falls to those who through
Baptism become members of the Body of Christ, a Body in which the fullness of
reconciliation and communion must be made present.
How is it possible to remain divided, if we have been “buried” through
Baptism in the Lord’s death, in the very act by which God, through the death of
His Son, has broken down the walls of division? Division openly contradicts the
will of Christ, provides a stumbling block to the world, and inflicts damage on
the most holy cause of proclaiming the Good News to every creatures.

Vigils Reading - Sacred Heart of Jesus
2025-06-27
A BAPTISM OF BLOOD AND WATER
From “The Dialogues” of St Catherine of Siena
◊◊◊
“Why, gentle spotless lamb, since you were dead when your side was
opened, did you want your heart to be pierced and parted?” He answered,
“there were plenty of reasons, but I shall tell you one of the chief. My longing for
humanity was infinite, but the actual deed of bearing pain and torment was
finite and could never show all the love I had. This is why I wanted you to see my
inmost heart, so that you would see that I loved you more than finite suffering
could show.”
“By shedding both blood and water I showed you the holy baptism of
water that you receive through the power of my blood. But I was also showing
you the baptism of blood, and this in two ways. The first touches those who are
baptized in their own blood poured out for me. Though they could not have the
other baptism, their own blood has power because of mine. Others are baptized
in fire when they lovingly desire baptism but cannot have it. Nor is there any
baptism of fire without blood, for blood has been fused with the fire of divine
charity, because it was shed for love.
There is a second way the soul receives this baptism of blood, figuratively
speaking. This my divine charity provided because I know how people sin
because of weakness. Not that weakness or anything else can force them to sin if
they do not want to, but being weak they do fall into deadly sin and lose the
grace they had drawn from the power of the blood in holy baptism. So my divine
charity had to leave them an ongoing baptism of blood accessible by heartfelt
contrition and a holy confession as soon as they can confess to my ministers who
hold the key to the blood. absolution.
This blood the priest pours over the soul in
So you see, this baptism is ongoing, and the soul ought to be baptized in it
right up to the end, in the way I have told you. In this baptism you experience
that though my act of suffering on the cross was finite, the fruit of that suffering
which you have received through me is infinite. This is because of the infinite
divine nature joined with finite human nature. It was this human nature in
which I was clothed that suffered in me, the Word. But because the two natures
are fused with each other, the eternal Divinity took to itself the suffering I bore
with such burning love.
For this reason what I did can be called infinite. Not that either the actual
bodily suffering or the pain of my longing to accomplish your redemption was
infinite… But the fruit was infinite that came from my suffering and from my
desire for your salvation, and therefore you receive it without limit. Had it not
been infinite, the whole of humankind, past, present and to come, would not
have been restored. Nor could those who sin get up again if this baptism of
blood…had not been given to you without limit.
I showed you this in the opening up of my side. There you find my heart’s
secret and it shows you, more than any finite suffering could, how I love you.”

Vigils Reading - Immaculate Heart of Mary
2025-06-28
MARY’S VIRTUES
From a treatise by St Paschasius Radbertus
◊◊◊
The nature and the greatness of the blessed and glorious ever-virgin Mary
is divinely declared by the Angel, when he says, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is
with you. Blessed are you among women”. For surely it was fitting that the
Virgin should be enriched by gifts so great as to make her full of grace, who in
her turn was to give such gifts! For Mary has given glory to heaven, and to the
earth she has given the Lord. She has poured out peace upon the world, brought
faith to nations, put an end to vice, given law to life, and discipline to conduct.
Truly she is “full of grace”, because grace comes to others by measure, but
on Mary it poured itself out all at once in all its fullness. Truly, “full of grace”, for
even though, as we believe, grace was in the holy patriarchs and prophets, it was
not yet in its fullness. But, in Mary? – hers was the whole fullness of that grace
which is in Christ, though in a different manner than it was in him. And this is
why the angel says, “Blessed are you among women”, that is to say, more
blessed than all other women. Thus, whatever curse had been incurred through
Eve was wholly taken away through the blessing given to Mary.
It was in praise of Mary, as it were, that Solomon says in the Song of
Songs, “Come, my dove, my immaculate one! For see, the winter is past, the
rains are over and gone”. And then he says, “Come from Lebanon, come and be
crowned!”. Not without reason is Mary bidden to come from Lebanon, for
“Lebanon” means “shining whiteness”. Mary was dazzling white with her many
virtues and merits, and, by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, she became whiter than
snow itself, showing in all things the simplicity of the dove. For everything about
Mary is wholly the work of purity and simplicity, wholly grace and truth, wholly
mercy and that justice which has looked down from heaven. She is, then,
immaculate, because corruption has had no part in her. She has encompassed a
man in her womb, as the holy Jeremiah testifies, and received him from no
other person. “The Lord”, he says, “has made a new thing upon the earth, and a
woman shall encompass a man”
.
Truly this was a new thing, an act of power new in a surpassing degree,
when God, whom the world cannot contain nor man see and live, entered the
guest chamber of Mary’s womb in such a way as not to know confinement within
her body, was so borne that the whole God was within her, came forth in such a
way that, as Ezekiel prophesied, the door remained closed.
This is why the same Song of Songs sings of her, “An enclosed garden, a
fountain sealed, your plants are a paradise”. Truly a garden of delights,
planted with all kinds of flowers and filled with the perfumes of all virtues; so
enclosed as to have known no violation, no corruption by deceit or wile; a
fountain sealed, therefore, with the seal of the whole Trinity.

Skema - 13th week ORD
2025-06-29
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
13th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
June 29 – July 5, 2025

Sun
29
Mon
30
Tue
1
Wed
2
Thu
3
Fri
4
Sat
5

Office
SS Peter & Paul
Weekday
Weekday
Weekday
St Thomas
Weekday
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Gal 1:11-2:10
Gen 16:1-16
Gen 17:1-27
Gen 18:1-15
Acts 5:12-32
Gen 18:16-33
Gen 19:1-14

Lauds
Isa 49:1-6
Eccles 6:1-6
Eccles 6:7-12
Eccles 7:1-9
Isa 43:8-13
Eccles 7:10-14
Eccles 7:15-22

Mass
591
377
378
379
593
381
382

1st
Acts 12:1-11
Gen 18:16-33
Gen 19:15-29
Gen 21:5, 8-20a
Eph 2:19-22
Gen 23:1-4, 19; 24:1-8, 62-67
Gen 27:1-5, 15-29

2nd
2 Tim 4:6-8, 17-18

Gospel
Matt 16:13-19
Matt 8:18-22
Matt 8:23-27
Matt 8:28-34
John 20:24-29
Matt 9:9-13
Matt 9:14-17

Vespers
1 Peter 4:12-19
Gal 4:12-20
Gal 4:21-31
Gal 5:1-6
1 Pet 1:3-9
Gal 5:7-15
Gal 5:16-26

Vigils Reading - SS Peter & Paul
2025-06-29
THE FISHERMAN
AND THE TENTMAKER
From a treatise by St John Chrysostom
◊◊◊
Before the crucifixion, <Peter>, the prince of the apostles did not
endure the threat of a doorkeeper. After such an initiation as he had
received, he said that he did not know the man. But after the crucifixion, he
traveled all over the world; as a result of his travels and preaching, countless
people died the death of martyrs because they chose to be slain rather than
say what the prince of the apostles said when he was frightened by the threat
of one doorkeeper who was a mere maid-servant.
The result of his travels and preaching was that every land and city,
every desert and area where men dwell has joined us in preaching Christ
crucified. Now we find on our side emperors and generals, princes and
consuls, free men and slaves, private persons, the wise, the unlearned, and
the barbarian; among every race of men and in every land over which the sun
passes and shines, we hear his name and find him worshiped. From this you
may understand what Isaiah meant when he said: “His resting place shall be
glorious.”
Although the place which received his slain body was very small and
narrow, it is more venerable than royal palaces, and the emperors themselves
hold his tomb in higher honor. “His resting place shall be glorious.” And
this is true not only of his tomb but also of the tombs of his apostles. Those
men who were dragged from one court of justice to another, who were bound
in chains and treated with contempt, those who endured ten thousand
torments in their lifetime, now that they have died, are held in higher honor
than the emperors themselves.
At Rome, the most imperial of cities, emperors, consuls, and generals
put all else aside and hurried to the tombs of the fisherman and tentmaker.
And in Constantinople, those who were crowned with royal diadems did not
wish their bodies buried close to the apostles but outside the church,
alongside the entrance. In this way, emperors became door-keepers for the
fishermen. Even in death, both the emperors themselves and their children
feel no disgrace in this but even consider it an honor.
As Isaiah said: “His resting place shall be glorious.” You will see how
great this glory is when you have considered the symbol of his death, a death
which was the most cursed and ignominious of all deaths. This kind of death
was the only one subject to a curse. Let me give you an example. In ancient
times. Some malefactors were burned, others were stoned to death, and
others ended their lives by some other kind of punishment. But the man who
was nailed to a cross and was left hanging on its wood not only endured the
harsh punishment to which he had been sentenced but he was also subject to
a curse. “Everyone who is hanged on a gibbet is accursed.” But that
accursed, abominable symbol of the worst of punishments has now become
an object of man’s desire and love.

Vigils Reading
2025-06-30
THE HOLY APOSTLES
From a homily by Origen
◊◊◊
All of us who believe in Christ Jesus are called “living stones” in the words
of Scripture: “You, too, are living stones, built as an edifice of spirit, into a holy
priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ.“
You know that in the case of earthly stones the builder takes care to lay
first the strongest and most massive stones as the foundation, so that the whole
weight of the building can then rest upon them. The next stones, of not quite
such good quality, are laid upon the foundation stones; and so on according to
the strength of the stones: the weakest are laid at the top, near the roof. The
same is true of living stones, some of which are the foundation of our spiritual
building. Who are these stones that are laid at the foundation? “The apostles
and prophets.” This is Paul’s teaching: “You form a building which rises on the
foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the
capstone.“
To prepare yourself more zealously to construct this building, to be one of
the stones near the foundation, you must realize that Christ himself is the
foundation of the building which we are describing. Paul the apostle declares
this to be so: “No one can lay a foundation other than the one that has been
laid, namely Jesus Christ.” Happy are they who have built holy, religious
buildings, on such a noble foundation!…
Moreover, I believe that there are among you those who as “living stones
” are able to become an altar – those of you who have resolved to dedicate
yourselves to prayer, to offer God supplications day and night, and to immolate
your sacrifices – and that it is with you that Jesus builds his altar.
Think of the worth to be discerned in altar stones. “Joshua built an altar
to the Lord,” says Scripture, “of unhewn stones on which no iron tool had been
used, in keeping with the command of Moses.” What do you think these
unhewn (whole, perfect) stones represent? It is for each one’s conscience to say
whether we have integrity, whether we are without impurity or spot…
To my mind these whole, spotless stones must be the holy apostles who
together form but one stone because of their unity of heart and soul. Indeed, it is
said that “all with one accord devoted themselves to constant prayer,” and that
they said: “O Lord, you read the hearts of men.” For those who can pray with
one accord, with one voice and one spirit, are indeed worthy to have been built
together into a single altar on which Jesus offers sacrifices to his Father. But we,
for our part, must strive to “agree” in what we say, “united in spirit and ideals;
never acting out of rivalry or conceit,” but “be united in mind and judgment,“
so that we too may try to become altar stones.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-01
OUR FIRST PARENTS
From a sermon by Isaac of Stella
◊◊◊
The common wounds of Adam and his posterity, are disorders that come
to our nature from its origins, born at our beginning and burgeoning as we grow.
Such is our condition thanks to “the Amorite that begot” us and “the Hittite that
bore us” and forsook us. Truly we are “the seed of Canaan, and not of Judah.”
Born of such stock there was “no water to wash us, no salt to harden us, none
would wrap us in swaddling-clothes, our navel-string was left uncut.”
None showed us the pity such cases are in need of. No, not even those
First Parents of ours, so truly “of the earth”, “earthly” did they prove. Parents at
once of our nature and our guilt, they gave us death at the very time that they
gave us life. They sowed what was indeed theirs to bestow; they freely donated
what they had themselves sadly discovered. They begot us into their own
confused condition, children in every way like their fathers. Just as our First
Parents reaped variously from different sources, so did they sow in different
ways, implanting in us nature from God and guilt from the devil. No wonder our
origins condition us so that we are children of God and children of the devil. We
are good, well-endowed creatures of God, and also wickedly and woefully ruined
by the devil. On the one hand, we have a nature that makes us something; on the
other, we bear the guilt that brings us to nothing.
This last, this nothingness of ours, is all the devil’s doing and is precisely
that from which the Son of God at his coming, would loose and free us, and so
rescue that something that we really are. He came to restore what is his in us to
destroy what another has done to us… He would separate the good from the evil
in us, the evil from the good, the precious from the vile…
We have but to listen to Isaiah would we learn how resolutely and how
ready Christ came to the task of our redemption. “From the root of Jesse,” he
says, “a rod shall burgeon”—it could not do so from the branches— “and out of
its root a flower shall spring.” This should kindle hope in me: flowers are sure
harbingers of fruit. “On him the spirit of the Lord will rest.” No wonder the Fruit
is so Good. Where else could Christ be conceived if not in Nazareth, where born
save in Bethlehem? On him had rested “a spirit wise and discerning.” His soul
was indeed rich in virtue, abounding in divine gifts; and not for nothing. Having
to measure up to and vanquish seven forms of concupiscence, the Gifts of the
Spirit are seven; Adam’s cravings are countered by seven Gifts in Christ. Seven
wounds call for seven medicines, one against the other. Though nature in Adam
is one thing and guilt is another, yet both are in him together.
Were a single fountain to supply, even if by different pipes, wine and
water together, the result would mean drawing watered wine or wine-filled
water. This is our case, “sons of Adam!” Our “wine has grown watery;” our
native guilt and our guilty nature, both, come [into existence] simultaneously.
Your nature is no sooner a good gift of the Good God than it is guilt infected by
the Wicked One. Child begotten to man is by that very fact sinner begotten to
sinner. Our nature, for all its goodness, is never without evil or guilt; this very
evil guilt has no foothold except in a nature that is good.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-02
THE SALVATION
OF THE WORLD
From a sermon by the Venerable Bede
◊◊◊
Jesus said to the Apostles: “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ
to suffer, and to rise again from the dead, the third day: and that penance and
remission of sin should be preached in his name, unto all nations.”
So it was necessary that Christ suffer, and rise again; because it was
impossible for the world to be saved unless God came as one of us, Who,
appearing in our own nature, would teach us how to serve God, and Who,
submitting to death in his humanity, would triumph over it by divine power;
and thus awaken in those who believed in Him a contempt for death, and kindle
in them a certain hope of resurrection and of life everlasting.
For in what way could we be more truly encouraged to believe in the glory
to come, and to strive for eternal life, than by knowing that God Himself had
become a Sharer of our humanity and our mortality? In what other way could
we be more efficaciously appealed to, to suffer evils of every kind for the sake of
salvation, than by learning that our own Creator had undergone at the hands of
the impious infamy of every kind; and, even the sentence of death itself?
For what reason could we more fittingly accept the hope of resurrection,
than through remembering that we have been cleansed and sanctified by His
sacraments, and made one in His Body Who, tasting death on our behalf,
speedily offered us an example of rising from the dead?
It was then necessary that Christ should suffer, and rise again from the
dead the third day, and that, as He says, penance and the forgiveness of sin be
preached in His Name to all nations. For this it was necessary that first the
blood of Christ should be shed for the salvation of the world, and that afterwards
by His Resurrection and Ascension he should open to us the gates of heaven.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-03
WHY DID THOMAS DEMAND PROOF?
From a commentary by St Peter Chrysologus
◊◊◊
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.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-04
THE LAW OF THE GOSPEL
From “Faith and Theology” by Fr Marie-Dominique Chenu
◊◊◊
For Christians, peace is a decisive sign of the kingdom of God; hence, as
students of the history of civilization, they find war a religious enigma which no
casuistry can fit into a vision of the plan of salvation. Since the Gospel is the
substantial datum of theology, this sacred science knows war only by negation
— just as it knows sin in terms of the negation of love.
Some, such as Joseph de Maistre, have tried to integrate war positively
into theology by making it an expression of the divine will, but this attempt is
doomed to failure. The so-called “holy wars” of the Church can only bring a
blush of shame, and no sociology of the kingdom of God can justify them. For
that matter there is an intrinsic paradox in suggesting a “theology of war”, for
how can war be fitted into the word of God (theo-logos), into the Gospel law of
love? Is it ever possible that the disciple of Christ should believe it his duty to
fight? For how could collective, murderous violence, stemming from hate and
avarice, become a meritorious act of fraternal love?
Since theology is a rational and sacred exposition of the word of God
addressed to the world, and incarnate in the world, it is easy to see that the
world at war is an object of theological study only in the sense that the Christian
conscience is faced with a conflict between the absolute law of the Gospel and
the harsh reality of human history. Unless it descend to pure casuistry, theology
will find it more difficult there than anywhere else to invent “reasons” — reasons
which could justify war within the law of the Gospel.
We must start with the Gospel, and always insist on it, for it is the one
constant of Christian life. Before all else, before any doctrinal elaboration,
theology is the word of God – the word of God in the sacred text, the word of God
today and always, in the world of history and the world of nature; that is why the
spontaneous reaction to the expression “theology of war” is one of rejection.
For war is the opposite of peace and in the language of the Gospel, peace is the
consequence of love, which in turn is the one and absolute evangelical rule of
human conduct.
Love is the primary and uncompromising message of the Gospel, not just
something that appeals to a subjective religious sentimentality, but a stern
demand based on the very object of our faith. Here we are faced with the
unequivocal alternative of yes or no: this is the very substance of the Gospel
because it is the substance of the mystery of God communicated to us in Christ.
He who renounces peace renounces the kingdom of God.

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2025-07-05
MARY’S VIRGINITY
From the writing of Lucien Legrand
◊◊◊
The significance of Mary’s virginity is entirely different from both cultic
virginity and philosophical continence. Mary knows that her virginity has no
value of its own and no power but that of the Spirit. She does not speak of the
greatness of her virginity. For her, it is not virginity that makes her great: it is
the Lord. As far as she is concerned, she is nothing and her virginity seals her
nothingness. Because she is a virgin, she is ‘poor’, a contemptible thing,
considered worthless by the world.
Of course, in the case of Mary as in that of the ‘Poor of Yahweh’ in the Old
Testament, poverty should be taken in the biblical sense. It is not merely
negative. It does not mean only destitution. As we find it in the life of the great
biblical figures such as Jeremiah, Job the anawim in the Psalms and the
Suffering Servant in Isaiah, poverty is a religious attitude which underlies the
spiritual development of the Old Testament and prepares the way for the
abasement of the cross, the imprint of which it bears by anticipation.
Biblical poverty does indeed mean life deprived of any human hope but
also and mostly at its deepest, radical detachment, total humility and
consequently utter confidence in God. Mary’s virginity belongs to this type of
poverty. It is a form of that religious attitude made up of faith and abandon, joy
and confidence; it is akin to humility and can be summarized as an attitude of
religious expectation. It is silence, readiness, emptiness. And her greatness
comes from the faith and confidence in god which spring in the heart on that
emptiness, and from the answer God gave to that faith and confidence.
Virginity of this kind differs entirely from its pagan counterparts. It does
not represent an attempt to substitute our influence for God’s power: on the
contrary, Mary has no other ambition than to be the handmaid of the Lord.
Neither does Mary’s virginity correspond to a merely human longing for purity
and moral greatness. Her virginity does not belong so much to the moral as to
the theological virtues. It manifests an attitude before god rather than an effort
of moral perfection and of self-achievement. Luke’s Gospel of the Infancy does
not describe in Mary a heroic form of the virtue of chastity. What it sees in her is
sheer faith and hope which has no reliance in creatures but is entirely turned
toward God.

Skema
2025-07-06
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
14th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
July 6 – 12, 2025

Sun
6
Mon
7
Tue
8
Wed
9
Thu
10
Fri
11
Sat
12

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

Vigils
Gen 19:15-38
Gen 20:1-18
Gen 21:1-21
Gen 21:22-34
Gen 22:1-24
Exod 34:27-35; 35:20-29
Gen 23:1-20

Lauds
Eccles 7:23-29
Eccles 8:1-9
Eccles 8:10-13
Eccles 8:14-17
Eccles 9:1-10
Sir 2:1-9
Eccles 9:11-18

Mass
102
383
384
385
386
597, 477, 810
388

1st
Isa 66:10-14c
Gen 28:10-22a
Gen 32:23-33
Gen 41:55-57; 42:5-7a, 17-24a
Gen 44:18-21, 23b-29; 45:1-5
Prov 2:1-9
Gen 49:29-32; 50:15-26a

2nd
Gal 6:14-18

Eph 4:1-6

Gospel
Luke 10:1-12, 17-20
Matt 9:18-26
Matt 9:32-38
Matt 10:1-7
Matt 10:7-15
Luke 22:24-27
Matt 10:24-33

Vespers
Gal 6:1-10
Gal 6:11-18
Eph 1:1-10
Eph 1:11-14
1 Cor 3:5-17
Gal 5:22-6:2
Eph 1:15-23

Vigils Reading - 14th Sunday ORD
2025-07-06
THE LORD OF THE HARVEST
From a commentary by St Augustine
◊◊◊
The gospel for today raises a question. When the Lord told his disciples
that the harvest was indeed abundant but laborers were scarce and urged them
to ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers out to harvest his crop, which
crop did he have in mind? That was the point at which he increased the group of
twelve disciples whom he had named his apostles by the addition of another
seventy-two, and his words make it clear that he sent all these out to gather in
the ripe grain.
But which crop did he mean? Evidently not a crop of Gentiles, from whom
there was nothing to be reaped because there had as yet been no sowing among
them. The conclusion must be that the crop in question consisted of Jews. The
Jewish people were the harvest to which the Lord of the harvest came, and to
which he dispatched his reapers. To the Gentiles he could send no reapers at
that time, only sowers. We may understand, then, that harvest time among the
Jews coincided with sowing time among the Gentiles, for out of the Jewish crop,
sown by the prophets and now ripe for harvesting, the apostles were chosen…
For the seed to sprout it was sufficient for the prophets to sow, but the ripe grain
had to wait for the apostles’ sickle…
Then the reapers were sent out, wielding the gospel as their sickle. They
were to greet no one on the road, which meant they were to have no aim or
activity apart from proclaiming the Good News in a spirit of brotherly love.
When they arrived at a house they were to say: Peace be to this house. This
greeting was no mere formula; being filled with peace themselves, the apostles
spread it abroad, proclaiming peace and at the same time possessing it.
Consequently when one of them, fully at peace with himself, pronounced the
blessing: Peace be to this house, then if a lover of peace were in that house, the
apostle’s peace would rest upon him.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-07
A THRONE
FOR THE MOST HIGH
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny
◊◊◊
[Christ the Lord] is to be not merely invited but drawn into the guest
chamber of our heart by the violence of our prayers and the vehemence of our
fervor. [But] sometimes he makes as though he would go farther on; he does so
for no other reason than that he may prove the zeal of your love.
But what does it mean, you say, that Jesus makes as though he would go
further? What else than what Ecclesiastes tells us of himself: “I have said, I will
be wise, and [wisdom] departed farther from me.” The Spouse speaks more
explicitly when, giving voice to our daily complaint, she says: “I rose up to open
to my beloved, but he had turned aside and was gone. I sought him, and found
him not, I called, and he did not answer me,” just as he did not answer the
Canaanite woman either. You too are wont to call on the Spirit of wisdom, you
are accustomed to seek the Spirit of grace in prayer. If it seems that he draws
farther away from you, do not despair but be more importunate in your pleading
until you hear him answer you: “Great is your faith, be it done to you as you
will.”
But when you invite Jesus take care that you do not invite the God of
majesty into an unclean and unworthy dwelling where a wrangling [spouse] or
clouds of smoke or a dripping roof would not allow even yourself to dwell in
peace. For his place is in peace and nowhere else. Right and justice are the
pillars of his throne.
“Now they seek me,” he says, “from day to day, and desire to know my
ways as a nation that has done justice and has not forsaken the will of their
God.” “Right,” he says, “and justice are the pillars of his throne.” Do not plead
that it is a lavish dwelling you have to prepare for so great and so powerful a
guest and that it is beyond the limits of your poverty. You have the means at
hand. I speak in human terms because of the infirmity of your flesh, or rather
because of the narrowness of your mind. Make a perfect confession of your past
life, have a good will in respect to all else (for there is peace to men of good will),
and in this way you will have prepared with right and justice a throne for the
Most High.

Vigils Reading - Bl Eugene III
2025-07-08
FROM THE TREATISE “ON
CONSIDERATION”
By St Bernard of Clairvaux for Pope Eugenius III
◊◊◊
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.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-09
BE PERFECT,
AS YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER
From a treatise by St Cyprian
◊◊◊
Dearly Beloved in the Lord, let us try to understand more fully that
patience is an attribute of God and that whoever is gentle, patient, and meek is
an imitator of God the Father. The Lord Jesus said as much in his Gospel
teaching. For when he was giving out precepts unto salvation, and he was
instructing his disciples unto perfection with holy advice, he said thus: You
have heard that it was said:
‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of
your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the
good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who
love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others?
Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your
heavenly Father is perfect.’
He said that it is in this way that the children of God are made perfect; He
showed that it is in this way that we reach our consummation, and he taught
that we are restored by a heavenly birth, if the patience of God the Father abide
in us, and if the divine likeness which our first parents lost by sin be manifested
and shine in our actions. What glory it is to become like God! What wonderful
and what great happiness it is to possess in virtues what can be put on the same
level with the divine praises.
Jesus Christ, Our Lord and God, did not teach this by words only, but He
also fulfilled it by His deeds. For He said that He came down for this purpose,
namely, to do the will of His Father. By other miracles of virtue, He gave proof
of his divine majesty. But he also preserved and exemplified His Father’s
patience by His own habitual forbearance.

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2025-07-10
LIVING FOR GOD ALONE
From “The Spiritual Exercises” of St Gertrud the Great
◊◊◊
Earnestly wish with the cherished one to become inebriated with the wine
of love and in union with God to become unconscious to the world; in the
embrace of the cherished one to expire from yourself into God; and already
almost totally stripped of your humanness, to go pleasantly to sleep on the
breast of Jesus. Thus, dying daily to yourself in love and living for God alone,
you may, at the hour of death, trustfully run up to death, looking on it as the end
of your exile, the door of the kingdom, and the gate of heaven. And say this with
prayer and verse:
Hide me, most loving Jesus, in the hiding-place of your face from all
those plotting crafty devices against me, and let my soul not be confounded
when it speaks with its enemies at the gate; but fill it full of gladness with your
mellifluous face.
O God, love, you are the consummation and the end of all good: to the
very end, you cherish what you choose; whatever comes into your hand, you do
not toss out but preserve most diligently for yourself. Ah! By right of possession
make all my being and my consummation’s end your own forever. Spare me
now no longer, but wound my heart to the spirit’s very marrow until you leave
no spark of life within me. Rather, take away with you my entire life, reserving
for yourself my soul in you.
Who will grant me to be consummated in you, O charity, and to be
delivered by your death from the prison of this body and to be freed from this
sojourn? How good, O love, to see you, have you, and possess you for eternity.
On the day I depart this life, may you yourself be present, regardful of
great consolation, and may you bless me then in the beautiful dawn of the
manifest contemplation of you. Now, O love, I here leave you behind and
commend to you my life and, at the same time, my soul: allow me, allow me now
to rest and fall asleep in you in peace.

Vigils Reading - St Benedict
2025-07-11
THE TABERNACLE OF GOD
From a sermon by St Aelred of Rievaulx
◊◊◊
Benedict was filled not only with the spirit of Moses, he was also
somehow, as someone has said, filled with the spirit of all the just. He built a
spiritual tabernacle from the offerings of the children of Israel. In his Rule
sparkles the god of blessed Augustine, the silver of Jerome, the double-dyed
purple of Gregory, not to mention the jewel-like sayings of the holy fathers; with
all these this heavenly edifice is embellished. You, my brothers, are the
tabernacle of God; you are the temple of God. As the apostle says: Holy is the
temple of God, which you are. A temple, because the Lord will reign forever in
you. Yet still a tabernacle, because he is on pilgrimage in you, he hungers in you,
he thirsts in you…
This, my brothers, is what a tabernacle puts up with as long as it is being
carried through the desert of this world, until it is taken into the Land of
Promise and becomes a temple instead of a tabernacle. Then a twofold stole will
be given to each – immortality for the body, blessedness for the soul. Yet even
now, brothers, let each of us make our own offering for the construction of this
tabernacle.
For each one of us has his unique gift from God, one this but another that.
One person can make an offering of more work; another, more vigils; another,
more fasting; another, more prayer; and another more lectio or meditation.
From all these offerings let one tabernacle be made, so that, as our legislator
commands: No one may presume that anything is his own but al things are
common to all. This is to be understood, brothers, not only of cowls or robes but
far more of our strengths and spiritual gifts.
No one therefore should boast on his own about any grace given by God as
if it were exclusively his own. No one should envy his brother because of some
grace, as if it were exclusively his. Whatever he has, he should consider the
property of all his brothers, and whatever his brother has, he should never
doubt is also his. For in his caring way…he causes each person to need the other
and to have in this other what one does not possess in oneself. Thus humility is
preserved, charity increased and unity recognized. Therefore each belongs to all
and all belong to each.
If, then, we are buried with Jesus, like him in his death, we shall be his
companions also in the resurrection, walking in newness of life. When Christ
our life appears, we, too, shall appear with him in glory. Through the merits and
prayers of our blessed Father Benedict may this be granted to us by our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself who with the Father and Holy Spirit, lives and reigns God
through all the ages of ages.

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2025-07-12
CRUCIFIED BY LOVE
By St Elizabeth of the Trinity
◊◊◊
No one has penetrated the depths of the mystery of Christ except the
Blessed Virgin. John and Mary Magdalene penetrated deeply this mystery; St P
aul often speaks of “the understanding of it which was given to him“; and yet,
how all the saints remain in the shadows when we look at the Blessed Virgin’s
light!
This is the unspeakable “secret” that she kept in mind and pondered in
her heart” which no tongue can tell or pen describe!… “The Virgin kept all these
things in her heart“: her whole history can be summed up in these few words! It
was within her heart that she lived, and at such a depth that no human eye can
follow her. When I read in the Gospel “that Mary went in haste to the hill
country of Judea” to perform her loving service for her cousin Elizabeth, I
imagine her passing by so beautiful, so calm and so majestic, so absorbed in
recollection of the Word of God within her. Like Him, her prayer was always
this: “Ecce, here I am!”… “The servant of the Lord,” the lowliest of His creatures
: she, His Mother! Her humility was so real for she was always forgetful,
unaware, freed from self. And she could sing: “The Almighty has done great
things for me, henceforth all peoples will call me blessed.“
This Queen of virgins is also Queen of martyrs; but again it was in her
heart that the sword pierced, for with her everything took place within!… Oh!
How beautiful she is to contemplate during her long martyrdom, so serene,
enveloped in a kind of majesty that radiates both strength and gentleness… She
learned from the Word Himself how those must suffer whom the Father has
chosen as victims, those whom He has decided to associate with Himself in the
great work of redemption, those whom He “has foreknown and predestined to
be conformed to His Christ,” crucified by love.
She is there at the foot of the Cross, standing, full of strength and courage
, and here My Master says to me: “Behold your mother”. He gives her to me for
my Mother… And now that He has returned to the Father and has substituted
me for Himself on the Cross so that “I may suffer in my body what is lacking in
His passion for the sake of His body, which is the Church,” the Blessed Virgin i
s again there to teach me to suffer as He did, to tell me, to make me hear those
last songs of His soul which no one else but she, His Mother, could overhear.

Chicago Monthly Meeting 9:00 am CDT
2025-07-12 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago)
All are invited:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86028356465
Meeting ID: 860 2835 6465
One tap mobile
+13126266799,,86028356465# US (Chicago)
+13092053325,,86028356465# US

Skema - 15th Week Ord
2025-07-13
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
15th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
July 13 – 19, 2025

Sun
13
Mon
14
Tue
15
Wed
16
Thu
17
Fri
18
Sat
19

Office
15th Sunday
St Kateri Tekakwitha
St Bonaventure
Our Lady of Mt Carmel
Weekday
Weekday
Weekday

Vigils
Gen 24:1-27
Gen 24:28-49
Gen 24:50-67
Gen 25:1-18
Gen 25:19-34
Gen 26:1-22
Gen 26:23-35

Lauds
Eccles 10:1-10
Eccles 10:11-20
Eccles 11:1-10
Eccles 12:1-8
Eccles 12:9-14
Hosea 1:1-9
Hos 2:1-6

Mass
105
389
390
391
392
393
394

1st
Deut 30:10-14
Exod 1:8-14, 22
Exod 2:1-15a
Exod 3:1-6, 9-12
Exod 3:13-20
Exod 11:10-12:14
Exod 12:37-42

2nd
Col 1:15-20

Gospel
Luke 10:25-37
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
Eph 2:1-10
Eph 2:11-22
Eph 3:1-7
Eph 3:8-13
Eph 3:14-21
Eph 4:1-6
Eph 4:7-16

Vigils Reading - 15th Sunday Ord
2025-07-13
THE PARABLE OF
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
From a commentary by Origen of Alexandria
◊◊◊
To interpret the parable of the Good Samaritan, one of the elders used to
say that the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho was Adam. He said
Jerusalem was paradise, Jericho was the world, and the brigands were enemy
powers. The priest was the law, the Levite the prophets, and the Samaritan
Christ. Adam’s wounds were his disobedience, the animal that carried him was
the body of the Lord, and the “inn”, open to all who wished to enter, was the
Church. The two denarii represented the Father and the Son, and the innkeeper
was the head of the Church, who was entrusted with its administration. The
promised return of the Samaritan was a figure of the second coming of the
Savior.
The Samaritan was carrying oil – oil to make his face shine as Scripture
says, referring surely to the face of the man he cared for. He cleansed the man’s
wounds with oil to soothe the inflammation and with wine that made them
smart, and then placed him on his own mount, that is, on his own body, since he
had condescended to assume our humanity. This Samaritan bore our sins and
suffered on our behalf; he carried the half dead man to the inn which takes in
everyone, denying no one its help; in other words, to the Church. To this inn
Jesus invites all when he says: Come to me, all who labor and are
overburdened, and I will give you new strength.
After bringing in the man half dead the Samaritan did not immediately
depart, but remained and dressed his wounds by night as well as by day,
showing his concern and doing everything he could for him. In the morning
when he wished to set out again he took from his own purse silver coins, from
his own sterling money, two denarii to pay the innkeeper – clearly the angel of
the Church – and ordered him to nurse with all diligence and restore to health
the man whom for a short time he himself had personally tended.
I think the two denarii stand for knowledge of the Father and the Son in
the Father. This was given to the angel as a recompense, so that he would care
more diligently for the man entrusted to him. He was also promised that
whatever he spent of his own in healing him would be repaid.
This guardian of souls who showed mercy to the man who fell into the
hands of robbers was a better neighbor to him than were either the law or the
prophets, and he proved this more by deeds than by words. Now the saying: Be
imitators of me as I am of Christ makes it clear that we can imitate Christ by
showing mercy to those who have fallen into the hands of brigands. We can go to
them, bandage their wounds after pouring in oil and wine, place them on our
own mount, and bear their burdens. And so the Son of God exhorts us to do
these things, in words addressed not only to the teacher of the law but to all of
us: Go and do likewise. If we do, we shall gain eternal life in Christ Jesus, to
whom belongs glory and power for ever and ever.

Vigils Reading - St Kateri Tekakwitha
2025-07-14
THE VIRGINITY OF
KATERI TEKAKWITHA
From the writings of Fr Francis Xavier Weiser
◊◊◊
Tekakwitha was seventeen and still without a boyfriend to whom, like the
other Indian girls, she might have given her love and affection. In her
surroundings this was unusual, for the Indian girls started quite early “playing
the field.” Most of them married at the age of eighteen or nineteen.
Despite the urgings of her aunts she refused to meet the young men of the
village or dance with them. Was it natural shyness, due to her weak sight and
her pockmarked face? In any case, she had no inclination to fall in love.
Something deep down in her soul seemed to hold her back with unexplainable,
quiet force. She was a normal happy girl and knew how natural it was for a
young Indian maiden to find, as soon as possible, a good hunter or warrior who
would take her as co-worker and companion in the heavy toil that marriage
imposed on husband and wife. The family, the village, the whole tribe took it for
granted that girls should enter an early marriage and assume the many duties of
their calling.
She had not the slightest idea of celibate life among women, nor had she
ever seen or heard anything concerning the voluntary state of virginity such as
the Catholic nuns observed it. The Mohawks knew, of course, that the black-
robes lived without marriage and woman’s love for the sake of their priestly
vocation; this was for them a source of constant marvel and admiration. They
did not know, however, that such an ideal was also practiced by women. Even
the Christian Indians had no inkling of it, for the Jesuits never mentioned this
fact; it was a hard enough task for them to raise their spiritual children to the
level of a sound, morally good married life according to the demands of the
sacrament of matrimony.
Thus, Tekakwitha, who had no instruction at all in Christianity, followed
the path of a splendid Christian ideal without being aware of it. All she knew
was that an inner force, a strange spirit in the depth of her heart drove her with
constant, quiet urgings to keep herself free from the bonds of human love that
led to marriage. Gladly and willingly she obeyed her parents in everything; but
on this point she remained adamant and rather followed the guidance of that
mysterious voice in her soul. Had she only known that it was the grace of…the
true God, directing her on this path, how happy would she have been!

Vigils Reading - St Bonaventure
2025-07-15
THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE
From “The Tree of Life” by St Bonaventure
◊◊◊
You, soul devoted to God, whoever you are, run with living desire to this
Fountain of life and light and with the innermost power of your heart cry out to
him: “O inaccessible beauty of the most high God and the pure brightness of
the eternal light, life vivifying all life, light illumining every light, and keeping
in perpetual splendour a thousand times a thousand lights brilliantly shining
before the throne of your Divinity since the primeval dawn! O eternal and
inaccessible, clear and sweet stream from the fountain hidden from the eyes of
all mortals, whose depth is without bottom, whose height is without limit,
whose breadth cannot be bounded, whose purity cannot be disturbed.“
From this Fountain flows the stream of the oil of gladness, which
gladdens the city of God, and the powerful fiery torrent, the torrent, I say, of the
pleasure of God, from which the guests at the heavenly banquet drink to joyful
inebriation and sing without ceasing hymns of jubilation.
Anoint us with this sacred oil and refresh with the longed-for waters of
this torrent the thirsting throat of our parched hearts so that amid shouts of joy
and thanksgiving we may sing to you a canticle of praise, proving by experience
that with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we will see light…
Believing, hoping and loving with my whole heart, with my whole mind
and with my whole strength, may I be carried to you, beloved Jesus, as to the
goal of all things, because you alone are sufficient, you alone are good and
pleasing to those who seek you and love your name. “For you, my good Jesus,
are the redeemer of the lost, the Saviour of the redeemed, the hope of exiles, the
strength of laborers, the sweet solace of anguished spirits, the crown and
imperial dignity of the triumphant, the unique reward and joy of all the
citizens of heaven, the renowned offspring of the supreme God and the sublime
fruit of the virginal womb, the abundant fountain of all graces, of whose
fullness we have all received.“

Vigils Reading - Our Lady of Mt Carmel
2025-07-16
THE SCAPULAR OF
THE VIRGIN OF CARMEL
From the writings of Fr Lawrence Lovasik
◊◊◊
The feast of the scapular is that of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The
Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the best known, most celebrated, and
most widespread of the small scapulars.…
[The word scapular is derived from the Latin, and means the shoulder
blade, or … the shoulders. As a garment, it is a broad piece of cloth, with an
opening in it for the head, and which hangs down in front and in back almost to
the ground, as may be seen in the habits of the Carmelites, the Benedictines, and
some other religious Orders. The scapular worn by the faithful is but a symbol of
that worn by the religious of the Order of Mount Carmel.]
According to tradition, a number of men who embraced the Christian
faith on Pentecost Day [as recounted in the book of Acts] erected a church to the
Blessed Virgin on Mount Carmel. They were called Brethren of Blessed Mary of
Mount Carmel. These religious came to Europe in the thirteenth century, when
Mary appeared to their General, Simon Stock, at Cambridge, England, on
Sunday, July 16, 1251. In answer to his appeal for help for his oppressed order,
she appeared to him with a scapular in her hand and said, “Take, beloved son,
this scapular of thy order as a badge of my confraternity; and for thee and all
Carmelites a special sign of grace; whoever dies in this garment, will not
suffer everlasting fire. It is the sign of salvation, a safeguard in dangers, a
pledge of peace and of the covenant.” Indirectly, the promise is extended to all
who from devotion to the Mother of God wear her habit until death and are
thus…affiliated with the Carmelite Order…
The Scapular Devotion is one of the oldest devotions to Our Lady. It has
been widespread in the Church for nearly seven centuries… [Pope] Leo XIII
wrote: “Its nobility of origin, its venerable antiquity, its extraordinary spread
in the Church, the spiritualizing effects produced by it and the outstanding
miracles worked in virtue of it, render the Scapular of Carmel commendable
to a wondrous degree.” And [Pope] Benedict XV wrote: “Let all of you have a
common language and a common armor; the language, the sayings of the
Gospel; the common armor, the Scapular of the Virgin of Carmel, which you
all ought to wear and which enjoys the singular privilege of protection even
after death.”
The scapular is the sign of being devoted to the Blessed Virgin, just as the
carrying of your mother’s picture would be a sign of your being devoted to her.
Do you wear a scapular…? It should remind you that you belong entirely to her
and that through her you can best give yourself to God.

Vigils Reading
2025-07-17
THE PROOF OF
CHRIST’S DIVINE POWER
From a treatise by St John Chrysostom
◊◊◊
[The success of the Church in to have converted so many nations, to have
won over so many peoples,] is a great thing, truly a great thing. Rather, it
surpasses greatness and provides a proof of [Christ’s] divine power. Let us
suppose that many men were disposed to work together, and no one was
inclined to oppose them. Even under such ideal circumstances, it would have
been a great thing that a world as large as this could suddenly be set free from
the wicked ways which had preoccupied it for so long a time; it would have been
miraculous that it could change over to another and far more difficult way of life.
For two tyrannical factors opposed this change: habit and pleasure. For
many years their fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, their ancestors,
their philosophers, and public speakers had given them a certain way of life. Yet
people were persuaded to reject this, even though it was a difficult thing to do.
They were also persuaded to accept a strange and very hard way of life which
was introduced to replace their old ways. And this was a still more difficult
thing to do.
The new way drove them from luxurious living and led them to fasting; it
drove them from the love of money and led them to poverty; it drove them from
wanton ways and led them to temperance; it drove them away from anger and
led them to mildness; it drove them away from envy and led them to kindliness;
it drove them from the broad way and the wide street and led them onto a way
which was narrow, strait, and steep, despite the fact that they were used to the
wide road.
For the Church did not take a different kind of human being who lived
outside this world and its ways. It took those very men who had grown rotten
here and who had become softer than mud; it told them to travel on the strait
and narrow, the rough road of austerity. And it won them over to this way of life.
How many did the Church win over? Not two, or ten, or twenty, or a
hundred, but almost every man living under the sun. With whose help did it win
them over? With the help of eleven men. And these men are unlettered,
ignorant, ineloquent, undistinguished, and poor. They could not rely on the
fame of their homelands, on any abundance of wealth, or strength of body, or
glorious reputation, or illustrious ancestry. They were neither forceful nor
clever in speech; they could make no parade of knowledge. They were
fishermen and tentmakers, men of a foreign tongue. They did not speak the
same language as those whom they won over to the faith. Their speech – I mean
Hebrew – was strange and different from all others. But it was with the help of
these men that Christ founded this Church which reaches from one end of the
world to the other.
