Vigils Reading
2023-07-10
RELIGION IN A FREE SOCIETY
By Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel2 ◊◊◊
Little does contemporary religion ask of man. It is ready to offer comfort; it has no courage to challenge. It is ready to offer edification; it has no courage to break the idols, to shatter callousness. The trouble is that religion has become… institution, dogma, ritual. It is no longer an event. Its acceptance involves neither risk nor strain. There is no substitute for faith, no alternative for revelation, no surrogate for commitment. We define self-reliance and call it faith, shrewdness and call it wisdom, anthropology and call it ethics, literature and call it Bible, inner security and call it religion, conscience and call it God. However, nothing counterfeit can endure forever…
It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless. The primary task of religious thinking is to rediscover the questions to which religion is an answer, to develop a degree of sensitivity to the ultimate questions which its ideas and acts are trying to answer…

The most serious obstacle which modern men encounter in entering discussion about the ideas of the Bible, is the absence from man’s consciousness of the problems to which the Bible refers. The Bible is an answer to the question, What does God require of man? But to modern man, this question is suppressed by another one, namely, What does man demand of God? Modern man continues to ponder: What will I get out of life? What escapes his attention is the fundamental, yet often forgotten question, What will life get out of me?
Absorbed in the struggle for the emancipation of the individual we have concentrated our attention upon the idea of human rights and overlooked the importance of human obligations… Oblivious to the fact of his receiving infinitely more than he is able to return, man began to consider his self as the only end… We can ill afford to set up needs, an unknown, variable, vacillating, and eventually degrading factor, as a universal standard, as a supreme, abiding rule or pattern for living. This, indeed, is the purpose of our religious traditions: to keep alive the higher Yes as well as the power of man to say, “Here I am”; to teach our minds to understand the true demand and to teach our conscience to be present… It is an answer to the question: Who needs man? It is an awareness of being needed, of man being a need of God.
It is an inherent weakness of religion not to take offense at the segregation of God, to forget that the true sanctuary has no walls. Religion has suffered from the tendency to become an end in itself, to seclude the holy, to become parochial, self-indulgent, self-seeking; as if the task were not to ennoble human nature but to enhance the power and beauty of its institutions or to enlarge the body of doctrines. It has often done more to canonize prejudices that to wrestle for truth; to petrify the sacred than to sanctify the secular. Yet the task of religion is to challenge the stabilization of – values. Religion is not for religion’s sake but for God’s sake

2 Excerpted and quoted from The Insecurity of Freedom (New York: Schocken Books, 1959, 1960, 1963, 1964,1966), pp.1-23. Accessed online, July 5, 2023.

Vigils Reading - St Benedict
2023-07-11
BENEDICT’S DISCIPLES ARE FOREWARNED OF HIS DEATH
From “The Dialogues” of St Gregory the Great3 ◊◊◊
In the year that was to be his last, the man of God foretold the day of his holy death to a number of his disciples… Some others, however, who were stationed elsewhere he only informed of the special sign they would receive at the time of his death. Six days before he died he gave orders for his tomb to be opened. Almost immediately he was seized with a violent fever that rapidly wasted his remaining strength. Each day his condition grew worse until finally, on the sixth day, he had his disciples carry him into the chapel, where he received the Body and Blood of our Lord to gain strength for his approaching end. Then, supporting his weakened body on the arms of his brethren, he stood with his hands raised to heaven and as he prayed breathed his last.
That day two monks, one of them at the monastery, the other some distance away, received the very same revelation. They both saw a magnificent road covered with rich carpeting and glittering with thousands of lights. From his monastery it stretched eastward in a straight line until it reached up into heaven. And there in the brightness stood a man of majestic appearance, who asked them, ‘Do you know who passed this way?’ ‘No,’ they replied. “This,’ he told them, ‘is the road taken by blessed Benedict, the Lord’s beloved, when he went to heaven.’
Thus, while the brethren who were with Benedict witnessed his death, those who were absent knew about it through the sign he had promised them. His body was laid to rest in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, which he had built to replace the altar of Apollo…

This holy man still works numerous miracles for people who turn to him with faith and confidence. The incident I am going to relate happened only recently. A woman who had completely lost her mind was roaming day and night over hills and valleys, through forests and fields, resting only when she was utterly exhausted. One day, in the course of her aimless wanderings, she strayed into the saint’s cave and rested there without the least idea of where she was. The next morning she woke up entirely cured and left the cave without even a trace of her former affliction. After that she remained free from it for the rest of her life…
There is no doubt… that the holy… can perform countless miracles where their bodies rest… In places where their bodies do not actually lie buried, however, there is danger that those whose faith is weak may doubt their presence and their power to answer prayers. Consequently, it is in these places that they must perform still greater miracles. But one whose faith in God is strong earns all the more merit by his faith, for he realizes that the <saints> are present to hear his prayers even though their bodies happen to be buried elsewhere.
It was precisely to increase the faith of His disciples that the eternal Truth told them, ‘If I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.’… As long as the disciples could see our Lord in His human flesh they would want to keep on seeing Him with their bodily eyes. With good reason, therefore, did He tell them, ‘If I do not go, the Advocate will not come.’ What He really meant was, ‘I cannot teach you spiritual love unless I remove my body from your sight; as long as you continue to see me with your bodily eyes you will never learn to love me spiritually.

3 St Gregory the Great. Dialogues. Trans. Odo John Zimmerman, O.S.B. New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1959. 107-110.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-12
HEAL THE SICK; CAST OUT THE DEMONS
An address by Paul Tillich to his graduating seminarians4 ◊◊◊
People often ask, in passionate despair, why the divine order of things includes sickness, if sickness is one of the things to be healed by divine order. This very natural question, which, for many of us, is the stumbling block of our faith, points to the riddle of evil in the world of God… the mystery of evil. But… evil in the divine order is not only mystery; it is also revelation. It reveals the greatness and danger of life. He who can become sick is greater than he who cannot… He alone who is free is able to surrender to the demonic forces that turn his freedom into bondage. The gift of freedom implies the danger of servitude; and the abundance of life implies the danger of sickness…
When Jesus asks the disciples to heal and to cast out demons, he does not distinguish between bodily and mental or spiritual diseases. But every page of the gospels demonstrates that he means all of them, and many stories show that he sees their interrelationship, their unity. We see this unity today more clearly than many generations just behind us… Illness is a consequence of the estrangement of man’s spirit from the divine Spirit… No sickness can be healed nor any demon cast out without the reunion of the human spirit with the divine Spirit… the healing and demon-conquering power implied in the message of the Christ, the message of forgiveness and of a new reality…
Can you represent the Christian message?… Should you ask me–can we heal without being healed ourselves? —I would answer–you can! For neither the disciples nor you could ever say we are healed, so let us heal others. He who would believe this of himself is least fit to heal others; for he would be separating himself from them. Show them whom you counsel that their predicament is also your predicament.

And should you ask me–can we cast out demons without being liberated from demonic power ourselves? –I would answer–you can! Unless you are aware of the demonic possibility in yourselves, you cannot recognize the demon in others, and cannot do battle against it by knowing its name and thus depriving it of its power. And there will be no period in your life, so long as it remains creative and has healing power, in which demons will not split your souls and produce doubts about your faith, your vocation, your whole being. If they fail to succeed, they may accomplish something else–self-assurance and pride with respect to your power to heal and to cast out demons. Against this pride Jesus warns–“Do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” And “written in heaven” means written in spite of what is written against you in the records of your life…
There is no greater vocation on earth than to be called to heal and to cast out demons. Be joyous in this vocation! Do not be depressed by its burden, nor even by the burden of having to deal with those who do not want to be healed. Rejoice in your calling. In spite of your own sickness, in spite of the demons working within you and your churches, you have a glimpse of what can heal ultimately, of him in Whom God made manifest His power over demons and disease, of him who represents the healing power that is in the world, and sustains the world and lifts it up to God. Rejoice that you are his messengers..

4 Tillich, Paul. The Eternal Now. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1963. 58-65.

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2023-07-13
MAY THE VISION OF YOUR BEAUTY BE MY DEATH
From the Spiritual Canticles of St John of the Cross5 ◊◊◊
The soul is right in daring to say: “may the vision of Your beauty be my death”, since she knows that at the instant she sees this beauty she will be carried away by it, and absorbed in this very beauty, and transformed in this same beauty, and made beautiful like this beauty itself, and enriched and provided for like this very beauty.
David declares, consequently, that the death of the saints is precious in the sight of the Lord. This would not be true if they did not participate in His very grandeurs, for in the sight of God nothing is precious but what God in Himself is.
Accordingly, the soul does not fear death when she loves, rather she desires it. Yet sinners are always fearful of death. They foresee that death will take everything away and bring them all evils. As David says, the death of sinners is very evil. And hence, as the Wise Man says, the remembrance of it is bitter. Since sinners love the life of this world intensely and have little love for that of the other, they have an immense fear of death.
The soul that loves God lives more in the next life than in this, for the soul lives where it loves more than where it gives life, and thus has but little esteem for this temporal life. She says then, “may the vision of Your beauty be my death. For the sickness of love is not cured except by your presence and image.”

The reason love sickness has no other remedy than the presence and the image of the Beloved is that, since this sickness differs from others, its medicine also differs. In other sicknesses, following sound philosophy, contraries are cured by contraries, but love is incurable except by what is in accord with love. The reason for this is that love of God is the soul’s health, and the soul does not have full health until loves is complete. Sickness is nothing but a want of health, and when the soul has not even a single degree of love, she is dead. but when she possesses some degrees of love of God, no matter how few, she is then alive, yet very weak and infirm because of her little love. In the measure that love increases she will be healthier, and when love is perfect she will have full health.
The soul does well to call imperfect love “sickness.” For just as the sick is too weak for work, so is the soul, feeble in love, too weak to practice heroic virtue. It is also noteworthy that the soul who feels the sickness of love, a lack of love, shows that she has some love, because she is aware of what she lacks through what she has. The soul who does not feel this sickness shows that she either has no love or is perfect in love

5 Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. ICS Publications, 1979, pp. 452-453.

Vigils Reading - St Kateri Tekakwitha
2023-07-14
KATERI TEKAKWITHA
The Mohawk Saint6 ◊◊◊

12

Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, just a few miles west of present-day Auriesville, New York. Her Mohawk name, Tekakwitha, means “she who bumps into things.” Kateri was the daughter of Mohawk Chief Kenneronkwa. Her mother, Tagaskouita, was an Algonquian woman who was

adopted and assimilated by the Mohawk before her marriage… When Kateri was about four years old, her parents and younger brother died in a smallpox outbreak. Kateri survived the illness, but she was left with facial scars, damaged eyesight, and poor health. Kateri was adopted by her aunt…
When Kateri was about 10 years old, her village was attacked by the French. Kateri and her family were forced to flee into the woods. To end the fighting, the Mohawk agreed to allow French Jesuit missionaries into their territory. The missionaries hoped to convert the Mohawk to Catholicism… Kateri’s older cousin had converted and moved away a few years prior, so her uncle forbade her from speaking to the missionaries who visited their village. But Kateri’s uncle could not keep her away from the missionaries for long…
In the spring of 1674, Kateri told a visiting priest that she wanted to learn more about his religion… Kateri was baptized in 1676, at which time she took the name

Kateri in honor of Saint Catherine. After enduring six months of ridicule and accusations of witchcraft from neighbors in her village, Kateri took the advice of her spiritual advisor and moved to the Jesuit settlement of Kahnawake… located just outside of Montreal… a safe haven and spiritual community for Native men and women who had converted to Catholicism… Maria-Thérèse was a young Native

convert about the same age as Kateri, and the two quickly became very close friends. They explored their new faith together, and pushed each other to new extremes in their devotion. Claude Chauchetière was a Jesuit priest who had only just arrived from France… He became Kateri’s closest spiritual advisor.
Kateri, Claude, and Maria-Thérèse pushed their community to new spiritual heights. Claude instructed the two young women in every aspect of their faith, and

Kateri and Maria-Thérèse lead their peers in the enthusiastic adoption of each new practice. They experimented with ritual fasting… self-mortification… and asceticism… all with the intention of bringing themselves closer to God. Kateri was always the most extreme adherent of their new practices, and sometimes Claude had to step in to stop her before she did herself irreversible harm. When the young women learned about nuns, Kateri declared her intention of founding a convent. Claude marveled at her willingness to completely abandon her former life, and held her up as a model for the entire conversion mission in New France.
The extreme punishments Kateri inflicted on herself did not help her already poor health, and within a few years, Kateri’s body had been pushed to its limits. On August 17, 1680, Kateri died with the entire community of Kahnawake collected around her. Everyone who witnessed her death later swore that within minutes her smallpox scars disappeared, and her skin became radiant. They interpreted this as a miracle and a sign that Kateri was a saint, and built a chapel in her honor. Kateri’s story spread, aided by a book of her life written and published by Claude, and pilgrims

began to arrive to pray at her burial site. Some reported miraculous healings, and Kateri’s community of followers grew…. She was officially canonized as the first Native American saint in 2012. Today Kateri’s legacy is divisive. Catholics laud her as a beacon of their religion’s power to transform lives, while members of the Mohawk community see her as a victim of the forces of colonization. Regardless of the interpretation of her story, her life demonstrates the way life changed for Native women after the arrival of European colonists

6 Life Story: Kateri Tekakwitha. Women & the American Story. https://wams.nyhistory.org/early- encounters/french-colonies/kateri-tekakwitha/. Accessed: July 7, 2023.

Vigils Reading - St Bonaventure
2023-07-15
WHEN THROUGH ECSTASY OUR AFFECTION PASSES OVER ENTIRELY INTO GOD
From the writings of St Bonaventure7 ◊◊◊
Christ is the way and the door; Christ is the ladder and the vehicle, like the Mercy Seat placed above the ark of God and the mystery hidden from eternity. Whoever turns his face fully to the Mercy Seat and with faith, hope and love, devotion, admiration, exultation, appreciation, praise and joy beholds him hanging upon the cross, such a one makes the Pasch, that is, the passover, with Christ. By the staff of the cross he passes over the Red Sea,” going from Egypt into the desert, where he will taste the hidden manna; and with Christ he rests in the tomb, as if dead to the outer world, but experiencing, as far as is possible in this wayfarer’s state, what was said on the cross to the thief who adhered to Christ; Today you shall be with me in paradise.
This was shown also to blessed Francis, when in ecstatic contemplation on the height of the mountain… there appeared to him a six-winged Seraph fastened to a cross… There he passed over into God in ecstatic contemplation and became an example of perfect contemplation as he had previously been of action, like another Jacob and Israel, so that through him, more by example than by
word, God might invite all truly spiritual men to this kind of passing over and spiritual ecstasy.
In this passing over, if it is to be perfect, all intellectual activities must be left behind and the height of our affection must be totally transferred and transformed into God. This, however, is mystical and most secret, which no one knows except him who receives it, no one receives except him who desires it, and no one desires except him who is inflamed in his very marrow by the fire of the Holy Spirit whom Christ sent into the world. And therefore the Apostle says

that this mystical wisdom is revealed by the Holy Spirit…
But if you wish to know how these things come about, ask grace not instruction, desire not understanding, the groaning of prayer not diligent reading, the Spouse not the teacher, God not man, darkness not clarity, not light but the fire that totally inflames and carries us into God by ecstatic unctions and burning affections. This fire is God, and his furnace is in Jerusalem; and Christ enkindles it in the heat of his burning passion, which only he truly perceives who says: My soul chooses hanging and my bones death.
Whoever loves this death can see God because it is true beyond doubt that man will not see me and live. Let us, then, die and enter into the darkness; let us impose silence upon our cares, our desires and our imaginings. With Christ crucified let us pass out of this world to the Father so that when the Father is shown to us, we may say with Philip: It is enough for us. Let us hear with
Paul: My grace is sufficient for you. Let us rejoice with David saying: My flesh and my heart have grown faint; You are the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever..

7 St Bonaventure. The Soul’s Journey into God – The Tree of Life – The Life of St. Francis. Trans. Ewert Cousins. New York: Paulist Press, 1978. 111-116.

Skema
2023-07-16
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
15th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
July 16 – 22, 2023

Sun
16
Mon
17
Tue
18
Wed
19
Thu
20
Fri
21
Sat
22

Office
15th Sunday
Weekday
St Camillus de Lellis
Weekday
Weekday
Office for Vocations
St Mary Magdalene

Vigils
Gen 31:25-54
Gen 32:1-22
Gen 32:23-33:20
Gen 34:1-31
Gen 35:1-29
Gen 37:1-20
Exodus 15:1-21

Lauds
Prov 16:21-25
Prov 17:1-5
Prov 17:22-28
Prov 19:17-22
Prov 20:3:7
Prov 20:17-22
Isa 30:18-21

Mass
103
389
390
391
392
393
603

1st
Isa 55:10-11
Exod 1:8-14, 22
Exod 2:1-15a
Exod 3:1-6, 9-12
Exod 3:13-20
Exod 11:10-12:14
Song 3:1-4b

2nd
Rom 8:18-23

Gospel
Matt 13:1-23
Matt 10:34-11:1
Matt 11:20-24
Matt 11:25-27
Matt 11:28-30
Matt 12:1-8
John 20:1-2, 11-18

Vespers
1 Thess 3:6-13
1 Thess 4:1-12
1 Thess 4:13-18
1 Thess 5:1-11
1 Thess 5:12-28
2 Thess 1:1-10
2 Thess 1:11-12

Vigils Reading - 15th Sun ORD
2023-07-16
BRING FORTH FRUIT BY PATIENCE
A commentary by St Gregory the Great1
◊◊◊
Dearly beloved, the reading from the holy gospel about the sower requires no explanation, but only a word of warning. In fact the explanation has been given by Truth himself, and it cannot be disputed by a frail human being. However, there is one point in our Lord’s exposition which you ought to weigh well. It is this. If I told you that the seed represented the word, the field the world, the birds the demons, and the thorns riches, you would perhaps be in two minds as to whether to believe me. Therefore the Lord himself deigned to explain what he had said, so that you would know that a hidden meaning is to be sought also in those passages which he did not wish to interpret himself.
Would anyone have believed me if I had said that thorns stood for riches? After all, thorns are piercing and riches pleasurable. And yet riches are thorns because thoughts of them pierce the mind and torture it. When finally they lure a person into sin, it is as though they were drawing blood from the wound they have inflicted.
According to another evangelist, the Lord spoke in this parable not simply of riches but of deceptive riches, and with good reason. Riches are deceptive because they cannot stay with us for long; they are deceptive because they are incapable of relieving our spiritual poverty. The only true riches are those that make us rich in virtue. Therefore, if you want to be rich, beloved, love true riches. If you aspire to the heights of real honor, strive to reach the kingdom of heaven. If you value rank and renown, hasten to be enrolled in the heavenly court of the angels.

Store up in your minds the Lord’s words which you receive through your ears, for the word of the Lord is the nourishment of the mind. When his word is heard but not stored away in the memory, it is like food which has been eaten and then rejected by an upset stomach. A person’s life is despaired of if he cannot retain his food; so if you receive the food of holy exhortations, but fail to store in your memory those words of life which nurture righteousness, you have good reason to fear the danger of everlasting death.
Be careful, then, that the word you have received through your ears remains in your heart. Be careful that the seed does not fall along the path, for fear that the evil spirit may come and take it from your memory. Be careful that the seed is not received in stony ground, so that it produces a harvest of good works without the roots of perseverance. Many people are pleased with what they hear and resolve to undertake some good work, but as soon as difficulties begin to arise and hinder them they leave the work unfinished. The stony ground lacked the necessary moisture for the sprouting seed to yield the fruit of perseverance.
Good earth, on the other hand, brings forth fruit by patience. The reason for this is that nothing we do is good unless we also bear with equanimity the injuries done us by our neighbors. In fact, the more we progress, the more hardships we shall have to endure in this world; for when our love for this present world dies, its sufferings increase. This is why we see many people doing good works and at the same time struggling under a heavy burden of afflictions. They now shun earthly desires, and yet they are tormented by greater sufferings. But, as the Lord said, they bring forth fruit by patience, because, since they humbly endure misfortunes, they are welcomed when these are over into a place of rest in heaven

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press – NY – 1999 – pg 106-107

Compline July 16th at 7:25 pm EST
2023-07-16 19:25 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Compline July 16th 7:25 pm EST
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Vigils Reading
2023-07-17
THE AUTHOR OF ENVY
From the “Conferences” by John Cassian2
◊◊◊
Let us not look for peace outside ourselves and let us not count upon another’s patience to rescue us from our sins of impatience. For just as the kingdom of God is within us so too is it the case that ‘the enemies of a man are of his own household’. No one fights against me more than my own heart, which is surely close to me in my own household. If we are careful, however, we can suffer the minimum harm from the enemies within. When the enemies in our own household are not at war with us, then, in the tranquility of the spirit, the kingdom of God becomes a possession. To put the matter quite clearly to you, I cannot be harmed by the malice of any man if my own unquiet heart does not set me against myself. If I suffer harm it is not from the attack of an outsider but because of the snare of my own impatience…
One needs to know that the disease of envy is harder to cure than any other. I would say that someone stricken by its poison is almost beyond healing. This is the pestilence described figuratively by the prophet: ‘See, I will send you serpents against which there are no incantations and they will bite you’. The bites of envy are quite rightly compared by the prophet to the lethal poison of the basilisk. For it was because of this that the very first to perish and to fall was the one who is the source of everything deadly. He brought about his own downfall long before he poured the virus of death over man, of whom he was jealous. ‘Death came into the world because of the devil’s envy…

“The devil was first to be ruined by this scourge, and he kept at bay the cure of penance and the warmth of healing medicine. And in similar fashion those who have allowed themselves to be gnawed in the same poisonous way have barred all the efforts of the holy exorcist, for they are tormented not by the faults of the one they envy but rather by his good fortune…
“This is the reason why to escape one of the lethal bites of the basilisk, to keep everything alive in us, to have ourselves, so to speak, under the living sway of the Holy Spirit Himself, we must ceaselessly beg for the help of the God to whom nothing is impossible. As regards the poisonous bites of other snakes–and here I mean the sins and the vices of the flesh–human frailty, despite the speed with which it falls into them, is just as readily purged of them. The wounds that they cause leave their own evident marks on the flesh. And although the earthly body swells up most dangerously because of them, yet some very skilled declaimer of the divine words of Scripture can provide an antidote or saving cure of those words and the rampant poison will not bring everlasting death to the soul.
But like the poison spurted out by the snake, the bane of envy shuts out the very life of religion and of faith before the wound can ever be diagnosed in the body. For the fact is that a blasphemer rises up not against a man but against God. He launches his complaints against nothing other than the good fortune of his brother. He criticizes not so much the fault of a man as the judgment of God. Here surely is that ‘root of bitterness cropping up’, raising itself up on high to hurl spite against the One who bestows all that is good upon man… For God is certainly not the author of envy

2 John Cassian. Conferences. Trans. Colm Luibheid. New York: Paulist Press, 1985. 198-201.

Vigils Reading - St Camillus de Lellis
2023-07-18
ST CAMILLUS DE LELLIS
Patron of the sick and of nurses3
◊◊◊
Camillus de Lellis was born in 1550 at Bocchianico in the Abruzzi. When he was seventeen he went off with his father to fight with the Venetians against the Turks. But soon he contracted a painful and repulsive disease in his leg that was to afflict him for the rest of his life. In 1571 he was admitted to the San Giacomo hospital for incurables at Rome, as a patient and servant. After nine months he was dismissed, for his quarrelsomeness among other things. He returned to active service in the Turkish war. Though Camillus habitually referred to himself as a great sinner, his worst disorder was an addiction to gambling that continually reduced him to want and shame. In the autumn of 1574 he gambled away his savings, his arms, everything down to his shirt, which was stripped off his back in the streets of Naples.
The indigence to which he had reduced himself, and the memory of a vow he had made in a fit of remorse to join the Franciscans, caused him to accept work as a laborer in the new Capuchin buildings at Manfredonia, and there a moving exhortation which the guardian of the friars gave him one day, completed his conversion. He… fell on his knees, and with tears deplored his past life, and cried to Heaven for mercy. This happened on Candlemas day in 1575, the 25th of his age. From that time he never departed from his penitential course. He entered the novitiate of the Capuchins, but could not make profession because of the disease in his leg. He therefore returned to the hospital of San Giacomo and devoted himself to the service of the sick. The administrators of the hospital witnessed his charity and ability, and later appointed him superintendent of the hospital…

To make himself more useful in spiritually assisting the sick, he proceeded, with the approval of his confessor, St. Philip Neri, to receive Holy Orders… With two companions he laid the foundations of his congregation. They went every day to the hospital of the Holy Ghost, where they served the sick with such affection and diligence that it was obvious to all who saw them that they considered Christ Himself as lying sick or wounded in His members…
Camillus was afflicted by many illnesses himself: the disease in his leg for forty-six years, a rupture for thirty-eight years, two sores in the sole of his foot, which gave him great pain. Yet under these infirmities, he would not allow anyone to wait on him, but sent all his brethren to serve others. When he was not able to stand, he would creep out of his bed, even at night, and crawl from one patient to another to see if they wanted anything.
Camillus saw the foundation of fifteen houses of his brothers and eight hospitals… He expired on July 14, 1614, being sixty-four years old. St Camillus de Lellis was canonized in 1746, and was, with St. John of God, declared patron of the sick by Pope Leo XIII, and of nurses and nursing associations by Pope Pius XI

3 Butler’s Lives of Saints, vol. 3, pg. 134, P.J. Kennedy & Sons, New York, 1956.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-19
FOOLS ARE PLEASING TO GOD
From “The Praise of Folly” by Desiderius Erasmus4 ◊◊◊
Our Lord gave thanks that God had concealed the mystery of salvation from the wise, but had revealed it to babes, that is, to fools… It tends to the same effect when in the Gospels He often attacks the scribes and Pharisees and doctors of the law, whereas He faithfully defends the ignorant multitude. For what is “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees” except “Woe unto you that are wise?” But He seems to find most potent delight in little children, women, and fishermen. And even in the class of brute creatures, those which are farthest from a foxlike cunning were best pleasing to Christ. He preferred to ride upon a donkey, though had He chosen He could have mounted the back of a lion without danger. And the Holy Spirit descended in likeness of a dove, not of an eagle… Add to this that Christ calls those who are destined to eternal life by the name “sheep”– and there is no other creature more foolish, as is witnessed by the proverbial phrase… “sheepish temperament,” … commonly used as a taunt against dull-witted and foolish men. And yet Christ avows himself as shepherd of this flock and even delights in the name of Lamb, as when John pointed Him out, “Behold the Lamb of God!”…
What do all these things cry out to us if not this, that mortal men, even the pious, are fools? And that Christ, in order to relieve the folly of mankind, though Himself “the wisdom of the Father,” was willing in some manner to be made a fool when He took upon Himself the nature of a man and was found in fashion as a man? And likewise He was made “to be sin” that He might heal sinners. Nor did He wish to bring healing by any other means than by “the foolishness of the cross,”

and by weak and stupid apostles… Beyond this, He forbade them to be troubled about what they should say before magistrates and He charged that they should not inquire into times and seasons; in a word, they should not trust to their own wisdom but wholly depend upon Him… St. Bernard is following him, I suppose, when he interprets that mountain whereon Lucifer established his headquarters as “the Mount of Knowledge.”…
The Christian religion on the whole seems to have a kinship with some sort of folly, while it has no alliance whatever with wisdom. If you want proofs of this statement, observe first of all how children, old people, women, and fools find pleasure beyond other folk in holy and religious things, and to that end are ever nearest the altars, led no doubt solely by an impulse of nature. Then you will notice that the original founders of religion, admirably laying hold of pure simplicity, were the bitterest foes of literary learning. Lastly, no fools seem to act more foolishly than do the people whom zeal for Christian piety has got possession of; for they pour out their wealth, they overlook wrongs, allow themselves to be cheated, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shun pleasure, glut themselves with hunger, wakefulness, tears, toils, and reproaches; they disdain life and dearly prefer death; in short, they seem to have grown utterly numb to ordinary sensations, quite as if their souls lived elsewhere and not in their bodies. What is this, forsooth, but to be mad?
Yet we see men of this sort predict future events, we see them understand languages and discourse which they have not previously known, and in general manifest something partaking of the divine. No doubt this happens because as the soul is a little more free from the taint of the body, it begins to exert its own native powers… And this truly is the portion of Folly, that “good part” which “shall not be taken away” by the transformation of life, but will be perfected

4 Desiderius Erasmus. The Praise of Folly. Trans. Hoyt Hopewell Hudson. New York: The Modern Library, 1941. 115-116, 118-119, 124

Vigils Reading
2023-07-20
THE SWEET YOKE OF CHARITY
From “The Nature and Dignity of Love” by William of St Thierry5 ◊◊◊
What shall we say about charity? We have heard of it, but we have not known it, we have not seen it. The Apostle knew it. He outdid himself in praising, extolling it as the more excellent way, saying: ‘…If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and do not have charity, I become like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should recognize all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith so complete that I could remove mountains, and do not have charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned and do not have charity, it profits me nothing…’
This is the Lord’s sweet yoke and light burden. This burden bears and lightens the bearer. This light burden of the Gospel is sweet to those to whom the Lord himself says: ‘I will call you no longer servants but my friends.’ The person who had not formerly been able to bear the precepts of the law afterwards finds the precepts of the Gospel light by reason of cooperating grace. The person who could not at first fulfill: ‘You shall not kill,’ afterwards finds it easy to lay down his life for the brothers. And so on for the rest. If, when a heavy burden is placed on a mule and it refuses it as unbearable, a four-wheeled wagon is brought up — which is the Gospel traversing the entire world — the burden that the mule first balked at as too heavy it now carries doubled without effort. So, too, a little bird cannot lift itself up without feathers and wings; but add the weight of feathers and wings, and it soars without effort. So, too, hard, dry bread cannot go down by itself, but soaked in milk or another liquid, it becomes capable of being swallowed.

Consequently, love at first involves effort… For the hand of charity works more easily as the enlightened eye helps it. For we work with our hands first, then we rub our eye with our hand. For this reason it is said: ‘By your commandments I have understood.’ First one begins to understand his own works and to discern his own affections. Then one is so affected by virtues that, just as for God to be is to be good, so now for the righteous and holy soul to be is not to be other than holy and righteous and dutiful. Holy in herself, righteous towards everyone, and dutiful towards God… So it is the Apostle says: ‘Charity never fails.

5 William of St Thierry. The Nature and Dignity of Love. CF 30. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, Publications, Inc., 1981. 68-70.

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2023-07-21
DIRECT YOUR THOUGHTS UTTERLY TO GOD
From “The Form of Living” by Richard Rolle6
◊◊◊
Because you have abandoned the comforts and the pleasures of this world and devoted yourself to the solitary life for the love of God, in order to endure distress and hardship in this life and subsequently to come to [rest and joy in heaven], I believe most sincerely that the consolation of Jesus Christ, and the sweetness of his love, with the fire of the Holy Spirit who cleanses all sin, shall be in you and with you, leading you and instructing you how you are to meditate, how you are to pray, and what you are to do, so that after a few years you shall certainly have more delight in being yourself and speaking with your beloved and your spouse, Jesus Christ…
People suppose that we live in suffering and in a life of” privation, but we have more pleasure and more real delight in one day than they have in worldly things throughout their entire lives. They see our bodies, but they do not see our hearts, where all our comfort lies. If they could see the heart, many of them would abandon all they have in order to follow us. So be heartened and emboldened and do not fear any discomfort or hardship, rather fix your whole desire on Jesus, so that your life may be good and quiet… It is the special goodness of God that he should encourage miraculously those who have no encouragement from the world. If they give their hearts entirely to him and desire nothing, and look for nothing except himself, then he gives himself in sweetness and delight, in the ardor of love… No man can arrive at such revelation and grace on the first day, but through long labor and diligence in loving Jesus Christ…

Direct your thoughts utterly to God, as you have by your outward appearance directed your body. For I don’t want you to think that all those who bear the outward appearance of holiness are holy and not preoccupied by the world; nor that all who concern themselves with worldly affairs are sinful. But those alone are holy, whatever condition or rank they are in, who despise all worldly things, that is to say, who do not cherish the things of the world, but burn in the love of Jesus Christ, whose every desire is directed toward the joy of heaven, and who hate all sin, and never give up doing good, and feel in their heart a sweet savor of the love that never ends.
And all the same, they reckon themselves to be the most despicable of all men, and consider themselves the most contemptible, most insignificant and most abject. This is the lifestyle of the holy: follow it, and be holy… For those who follow Jesus Christ in voluntary poverty, and in humility, in love and in patience, give up exactly the same amount as those want to acquire who do not follow him. And consider how great and how good is the state of mind within you, with which you present your vows before him, because that is what he is looking for, and also whether you are offering your prayers with great yearning love, and strive eagerly, with great fervor, to see him, seeking no earthly consolation except for the taste of heaven, and take your delight in the contemplation of it.
I want you to be constantly climbing toward Jesus, and intensifying your love and your attendance on him… If you apply all your thoughts on how you may love your Jesus Christ more than you have been doing, then I venture to say that your worth is increasing and not diminishing

6 Richard Rolle. The English Writings. Trans. Rosamund S. Allen. New York: Paulist Press, 1988. 157-158, 160-161, 163

Vigils Reading - St Mary Magdalene
2023-07-22
KEEP WATCH FOR CHRIST
From the writings of Blessed Guerric of Igny7 ◊◊◊
Brethren, this is the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and rejoice in it. Let us exult in the hope it brings, that we may see and rejoice in its light. Abraham exulted that he might see the day of Christ and by this token he saw and rejoiced.
You too, if you keep watch daily at the doors of wisdom, steadfast at its threshold, if you stay awake through the night with Magdalen at the entrance of his tomb, if I am not mistaken you will experience with Mary how true are the words we read of the Wisdom which is Christ: “She is easily seen by those who love her and she is found by those who seek her. She anticipates those who desire her and shows herself to them first. He who, as soon as it is light, keeps watch for her will not have to toil, for he will find her seated at his doors.” So did Christ, Wisdom himself, promise in the words: “I love those who love me, and they who from early morning keep watch for me will find me.”
Mary found Jesus in the flesh. For this she was keeping watch. Over his tomb she had come to mount guard while it was still dark. You, who no longer ought to know Jesus according to the flesh but according to the spirit, will be able to find him spiritually if you seek him with a [similar] desire, if he finds you likewise vigilant in prayer. Say then to the Lord Jesus with the desire and the affection of Mary: “My soul has longed for you during the night, my spirit too, deep within me; from early morning I will keep watch for you”. Say with the voice and the mind of the Psalmist: “God, my God, for you as soon as it is light I keep watch, my soul is athirst for you”. And see if it is not your lot to sing with him: “We have been filled early in the morning with your mercy, we have exulted and been delighted.”

Keep watch then, brethren, intent in prayer; keep watch and carefully guard your actions; especially since the morning of that day which has no sunset has already shone upon us. For already eternal light has come back to us from the nether regions, more serene and more pleasing, and the morning has given its welcome to the newly restored Sun. Indeed it is time now for us to arise from sleep; the night has passed away, while the day has drawn near. Keep watch, I say, that the morning light may rise for you, that is Christ, whose coming forth has been made ready like the dawn, ready to renew often the mystery of the morning of his resurrection in those who keep watch for him. Then you will sing with jubilant heart: “God the Lord has shone upon us. This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it”. For then he will give you a glimpse of the light which he has hidden in his hands, telling his friend that it is his possession and he can attain to it

7 Third Sermon for Easter, Liturgical Sermons, vol 2 (CF 32), Spencer: MA: Cistercian Publications, 1971, pp. 93.

Vigils Reading - 16th Sun ORD
2023-07-23
WEEDS AMONG THE WHEAT
A commentary by St Gregory Palamas1
◊◊◊
Now as the Lord himself explains, the darnel is the offering of the evil one. They bear his mark because they behave the way he does; they are seeds of his sowing, and his children by adoption. Harvest time will be the end of the world, for although it began long since and continues now through death, only then will all things come to an end.
The reapers are the angels, for they are, and will be especially at that time, the servants of the King of heaven. As Scripture says: Just as the darnel is collected and burnt in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of Man, who is the son of the Father Most High, will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all evil doers and every cause of sin.
And so the Lord’s servants, the angels of God, seeing the darnel in the field, that is, the wicked and impious folk living among the good people, and that even within the Church, said to the Lord: Do you wish us to go and gather it up? In other words: “Shall we kill them, to remove them from the earth?” But the Lord’s reply was: No, for fear that in collecting the darnel you may also uproot the wheat.
How then would the wheat, the good people, be uprooted as well if the angels gathered up the darnel, cutting off the wicked by death to separate them from the just? The fact is that many godless sinners who live among people who are upright and devout repent in time and are converted, and learning new habits of piety and virtue they cease to be darnel and become wheat. And so some wheat would be uprooted in the gathering of the darnel if the angels snatched the wicked away before they repented. Moreover, many while living evil lives produce children of good disposition, or they may have other rightly disposed descendants. This is why he who sees everything before it comes into being would not permit the darnel to be uprooted until the appointed time. But he says: At harvest time I will say to the reapers: “First collect the darnel and bind it into bundles to be burnt, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Those therefore who wish to be saved from eternal punishment and to inherit the everlasting kingdom of God must be not darnel but wheat. They must avoid saying or doing anything evil or useless, and practice the opposite virtues, thus bringing forth the fruits of repentance. In this way they will become worthy of the heavenly granary; they will be called children of the Father Most High, and as heirs will enter his kingdom rejoicing, resplendent with divine glory. To this may we all attain through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ. To whom with his eternal Father and the most holy, good and life-giving Spirit belongs glory now and always and for endless ages. Amen

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press – NY – 1999 – pg 108-109

Skema
2023-07-23
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
16th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
July 23 – 29, 2023

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

Office
16th Sunday
Weekday
St James
SS Joachim & Ann
Weekday
Weekday
SS Martha, Mary & Lazarus

Vigils
Gen 37:21-36
Gen 38:1-30
Jerm 26:1-15
Gen 39:1-23
Gen 40:1-23
Gen 41:1-32
Gen 41:33-57

Lauds
Prov 21:2-8
Prov 22:1-5
Jerm 16:14-21
Hos 1:1-9
Hos 2:1-6
Hos 2:7-12
Hos 2:13-17

Mass
106
395
605
397
398
399
400, 607

1st
Wis 12:13, 16-19
Exod 14:5-18
2 Cor 4:7-15
Exod 16:1-5, 9-15
Exod 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20b
Exod 20:1-17
Exod 24:3-8

2nd
Rom 8:26-27

Gospel
Matt 13:24-43
Matt 12:38-42
Matt 20:20-28
Matt 13:1-9
Matt 13:10-17
Matt 13:18-23
John 11:19-27

Vespers
2 Thess 2:1-10
2 Thess 2:11-17
Acts 11:27-12:5
2 Thess 3:1-10
2 Thess 3:11-18
1 Tim 1:1-11
1 Tim 1:12-20

Vigils Reading
2023-07-24
UNIFORMITY IN ALL THINGS
From the writing of St Alphonsus de Ligouri2
◊◊◊
The essence of perfection is to embrace the will of God in all things, prosperous or adverse. In prosperity, even sinners find it easy to unite themselves to the divine will; but it takes saints to unite themselves to God’s will when things go wrong and are painful to self-love. Our conduct in such instances is the measure of our love of God. St. John of Avila used to say: “One ‘Blessed be God’ in times of adversity, is worth more than a thousand acts of gratitude in times of prosperity.”
Furthermore, we must unite ourselves to God’s will not only in things that come to us directly from his hands, such as sickness, desolation, poverty, death of relatives, but likewise in those we suffer from man — for example, contempt, injustice, loss of reputation, loss of temporal goods and all kinds of persecution. On these occasions we must remember that whilst God does not will the sin, he does will our humiliation, our poverty, or our mortification, as the case may be. It is certain and of faith, that whatever happens, happens by the will of God: “I am the Lord forming the light and creating the darkness, making peace and creating evil.” From God come all things, good as well as evil. We call adversities evil; actually they are good and meritorious, when we receive them as coming from God’s hands: “Shall there be evil in a city which the Lord hath not done?” “Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches are from God.”… And our Lord himself told St. Peter that his sacred passion came not so much from man as from his Father: “The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?”…

Cesarius points up what we have been saying by offering this incident in the life of a certain monk: Externally his religious observance was the same as that of the other monks, but he had attained such sanctity that the mere touch of his garments healed the sick. Marveling at these deeds, since his life was no more exemplary than the lives of the other monks, the superior asked him one day what was the cause of these miracles. He replied that he too was mystified and was at a loss how to account for such happenings. “What devotions do you practice?” asked the abbot. He answered that there was little or nothing special that he did beyond making a great deal of willing only what God willed, and that God had given him the grace of abandoning his will totally to the will of God.
“Prosperity does not lift me up, nor adversity cast me down,” added the monk. “I direct all my prayers to the end that God’s will may be done fully in me and by me.” “That raid that our enemies made against the monastery the other day, in which our stores were plundered, our granaries put to the torch and our cattle driven off — did not this misfortune cause you any resentment?” queried the abbot.
“No, Father,” came the reply. “On the contrary, I returned thanks to God — as is my custom in such circumstances — fully persuaded that God does all things, or permits all that happens, for his glory and for our greater good; thus I am always at peace, no matter what happens.” Seeing such uniformity with the will of God, the abbot no longer wondered why the monk worked so many miracles

2 St Alphonsus de Liguori. Uniformity with God’s Will. Trans. Thomas W. Tobin, C. SS. R., Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1977. 8-10.

Vigils Reading - St James
2023-07-25
CAN YOU DRINK THE CUP
A homily by St John Chrysostom3
◊◊◊
The sons of Zebedee press Christ: “Promise that one may sit at your right side and the other at your left”. What does he do? He wants to show them that it is not a spiritual gift for which they are asking, and that if they knew what their request involved, they would never dare make it. So he says: “You do not know what you are asking”, that is, what a great and splendid thing it is and how much beyond the reach even of heavenly powers. Then he continues: “Can you drink the cup which I must drink and be baptized with the baptism which I must undergo?” He is saying: “You talk of sharing honors and rewards with me, but I must talk of struggle and toil. Now is not the time for rewards or the time for my glory to be revealed. Earthly life is the time for bloodshed, war, and danger.”
Consider how by his manner of questioning he exhorts and draws them. He does not say: “Can you face being slaughtered? Can you shed your blood?” How does he put his question? “Can you drink the cup?” Then he makes it attractive by adding: “which I must drink”, so that the prospect of sharing it with him may make them more eager. He also calls his suffering a baptism, to show that it will affect a great cleansing of the entire world. The disciples answer him: “We can!” Fervor makes them answer promptly, though they do not know what they are saying but still think they will receive what they ask for.
How does Christ reply? “You will indeed drink my cup and be baptized with my baptism”. He is really prophesying a great blessing for them, since he is telling them:” You will be found worthy of martyrdom; you will suffer what I suffer and end your life with a violent death, thus sharing all with me. ‘But seats at my right and left side are not mine to give; they belong to those for whom the Father has prepared them.’” Thus after lifting their minds to higher goals and preparing them to meet and overcome all that will make them desolate, he sets them straight on their request.

“Then the other ten became angry at the two brothers”. See how imperfect they all are: the two who tried to get ahead of the other ten, and the ten who were jealous of the two! But… show them to me at a later date in their lives, and you will see that all these impulses and feelings have disappeared. Read how John, the very man who here asks for the first place, will always yield to Peter when it comes to preaching and performing miracles in the Acts of the Apostles. James, for his part, was not to live very much longer; for from the beginning he was inspired by great fervor and, setting aside all purely human goals, rose to such splendid heights that he straightway suffered martyrdom

3 The Liturgy of the Hours – vol. III – Catholic Publishing Co. – New York – 1975 – pg 1551.

Vigils Reading - SS Joachim and Ann
2023-07-26
SHE CALLED HER MARY
From the Protoevangelium of James4
◊◊◊
In the records of the twelve tribes of Israel was Joachim, a man rich exceedingly… And he searched, and found that all the righteous had raised up seed in Israel. And he called to mind the patriarch Abraham, that in the last day God gave him a son Isaac. And Joachim was exceedingly grieved, and did not come into the presence of his wife; but he retired to the desert, and there pitched his tent, and fasted forty days and forty nights, saying in himself: I will not go down either for food or for drink until the Lord my God shall look upon me…
And his wife Anna… went down to the garden to walk. And she saw a laurel, and sat under it, and prayed to the Lord, saying: O God of our fathers, bless me and hear my prayer, as You blessed the womb of Sarah, and gave her a son Isaac.
And gazing towards the heaven, she saw a sparrow’s nest in the laurel, and made a lamentation in herself, saying: Alas! Who begot me? And what womb produced me?… Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like these waters, because even these waters are productive before You, O Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like this earth, because even the earth brings forth its fruits in season, and blesses You, O Lord.
And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by, saying: Anna, Anna, the Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth; and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world. And Anna said: As the Lord my God lives, if I beget either male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God; and it shall minister to Him in holy things all the days of its life. And, behold, two angels came, saying to her: Behold, Joachim your husband is coming with his flocks. For an angel of the Lord went down to him, saying: Joachim, Joachim, the Lord God has heard your prayer. Go down hence; for, behold, your wife Anna shall conceive. And Joachim went down and called his shepherds, saying: Bring me hither ten she- lambs without spot or blemish, and they shall be for the Lord my God; and bring me twelve tender calves, and they shall be for the priests and the elders; and a hundred goats for all the people. And, behold, Joachim came with his flocks; and Anna… saw Joachim coming, and she ran and hung upon his neck, saying: Now I know that the Lord God has blessed me exceedingly; for, behold… I the childless shall conceive…

And Joachim brought his offerings, and… when he went up to the altar of the Lord… he saw no sin in himself. And Joachim said: Now I know that the Lord has been gracious unto me, and has remitted all my sins. And he went down from the temple of the Lord justified, and departed to his own house… And in the ninth month Anna brought forth. And she said to the midwife: What have I brought forth? And she said: A girl. And said Anna: My soul has been magnified this day. And she laid her down. And the days having been fulfilled, Anna was purified, and gave the breast to the child, and called her…Mary

4 Protoevangelium of James. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0847.htm Accessed July 18, 2023.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-27
PERFECT SIMPLICITY
An Excerpt from “The Spirit of Simplicity”5 ◊◊◊
The union of wills, making us one Spirit with God, is the highest and purest and most intimate union that can possibly be achieved by two individuals remaining essentially distinct. This is the culminating ideal of Cistercian simplicity! The paradox is, that the soul itself is more perfectly simple when absorbed in this union than it could ever be outside of it. The soul is never so truly itself as it is when it is lost in God and it is never so unlike itself as when it is completely separated from God and left entirely to itself. The reason for this paradox is in the fact that it is of the very essence of the soul to be like God and therefore it is most truly itself when it becomes, as nearly as is possible to a creature, identified with Him.
In this perfect identification of the soul with God the soul is rightly said to lose itself in God: not in the sense of losing its substance, but in the sense of losing its own will in a perfect union of love with God’s will that makes them truly one will, one spirit. In such a state, the soul has completely forgotten itself and its own interests and desires for the simple reason that it no longer has any interests or desires other than those of God. It no longer has anything whatever of its own… The soul in this perfection of simplicity now loves itself exactly as God loves it, in the same degree, in the same manner — indeed, with the very same love. Even self- love is at last vindicated in this ultimate beatification of the soul!…
St. Bernard describes this union in the tenth chapter of “On Loving God”… “I should call that man holy and blessed, to whom it may be granted to experience such love, even were it only rarely, or but once, and that in a brief flash which might pass and be all over in an instant. For to lose yourself, in a manner of speaking, and to become as though you did not exist, and to lose absolutely all consciousness of yourself, and to go forth from yourself, and to be practically annihilated, all that belongs to heaven. and is utterly above natural human love.”

“However, since Holy Scripture says that God made all things for Himself the creature must surely at some time conform itself to its Creator. Some day, then, we must attain to the same love that God has for us… We shall then delight, not in the fact that all our needs have been satisfied, and all our happiness carried to the ultimate consummation but in the fact that His will in us and for us will then be seen to be completely accomplished and carried out. And this is what we daily ask for in our prayers when we say: Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Oh holy and chaste love! Oh sweet and delightful affection! Oh pure, utterly clean intention of the will, all the cleaner and more pure because no admixture of self remains therein; all the sweeter and more delightful in that what we feel is entirely divine. To love like this is to become a god.”
This, then, is the ultimate limit of Cistercian simplicity: the simplicity of God Himself, belonging to the soul, purified of all admixture of self-love, admitted to a participation in the Divine Nature, and becoming one Spirit with the God of infinite love

5 The Spirit of Simplicity: Characteristic of the Cistercian Order. Trappist, KY: The Joseph Berning Printing Co., 1948. 131-135.

Vigils Reading
2023-07-28
THE REMEMBRANCE OF GOD’S PRESENCE AND THE GUARDING OF THE HEART
From the writings of Nil Sorsky6
◊◊◊
By fighting against the first appearance of the thought… we cut off all that would follow. Such a person who battles in so wise a manner turns away the mother of evil, namely, the wicked assault. And he ought to strive to make his mind deaf and speechless in prayer…
However, if you cannot pray without thoughts in a silenced heart, but you find the thoughts multiplying, do not become discouraged, but remain in prayer. It is a well- known experience, as blessed Gregory of Sinai insists, that we who are laden by passions are aware that no beginner can control his mind and drive away thoughts that attack him unless God supports him and helps him to dispel such thoughts. It is the prerogative of the strong to hold the mind in check and drive away all thoughts, but even these do not turn away all thoughts by themselves, but they are supported in their struggles by God, who arms them with his grace and all his defenses.
If you see, Gregory says, the impurity of evil spirits in the thoughts that are presented in your mind, do not be frightened and do not wonder, even if such thoughts seem good to you. Do not give any attention to them, but… enclose your mind in your heart, as you arm yourself by calling on the Lord Jesus. Appeal to him, as often and consciously as possible, and the thoughts will dissolve as they are burnt up by the fiery, invisible rays radiating from your calling on the divine Name…

If you find yourself becoming a bit slothful and fatigued, then call on God for help and force yourself to continue praying as best you can, never giving up on praying. Then all such thoughts will depart from you, as they are driven out by God’s help. When you calm the mind from such phantasms, then enter into your heart and pray the prayer of the heart… For even though there are many good works, their value is only a partial good. The prayer of the heart is the source of all good and is likened to gardens that are refreshed by water, so does this prayer of the heart refresh the soul…
The attaining of this work, namely, the pushing of the mind down into the heart, which becomes freed of all thoughts, is difficult to accomplish, not only for beginners, but also for well-advanced persons in this work, if the latter have not yet received and maintained the sweetness of prayer in their hearts through the workings of grace. And we know from experience that for weak persons this work is very difficult and not very agreeable. However, when any person has obtained grace, then he prays without difficulty and lovingly, since he is comforted by grace. “And when the action of the prayer takes over,” Gregory of Sinai says, “then truly the mind lives within the heart and brings joy and freedom to the person from all enslavement.”..

6 Nil Sorsky. The Complete Writings. Trans. George A. Maloney, S.J. New York: Paulist Press, 2003. 53-56.

Vigils Reading - SS Martha, Mary & Lazarus
2023-07-29
OF THE FOUR DAYS OF LAZARUS
A sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux7
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He who is our life hastens to a tomb to lead out of the tomb someone four days dead. He seeks Lazarus so he might be sought and found by him. In this is charity, not that we loved him, but that he first loved us. Come then, Lord, seek him whom you love, that you may make him love and seek you. Ask where they have laid him, for he lies captive, bound, and burdened…
But what of this: Lord, he now stinks, for it is the fourth day? Maybe someone doesn’t immediately get the meaning of this stinking and of these four days. I think the first day is the day of fear. By its brilliance in our hearts we die to sin and, as it were, are buried in our conscience. The second day, if I am not mistaken, is spent in strife. It is usually true that in the first stages of conversion, temptation to bad habits rises up more fiercely, and the fiery darts of the devil cannot easily be extinguished. The third seems to be one of grief, when a person looks back upon his life in bitterness of soul and does not so much work for a change of direction in the future as bewail a lamentable past.
Are you surprised that I call these days? But such as these are destined for the grave, days of mist and darkness, days of grief and bitterness. There follows a day of shame, not unlike the other three, when the pitiful soul is covered in dreadful confusion while it looks unceasingly at its sins, considering their nature and magnitude, and under the gaze of the heart it keeps mulling over the disgraceful images of its sins. A soul of this kind doesn’t dissemble but judges; it piles up everything…

Therefore, Lazarus, come forth. Deep calls to deep, the deep of light and pity, the deep of misery and darkness. His goodness is greater than your iniquity, and where there is abundance of sin, he gives abundance of grace. Lazarus, come forth, he says. And if he were to speak more openly, he would say “How long will the darkness of your conscience hold you back? How long will you weep in your bed with a heavy heart? Come forth, advance, breathe freely of the light of my pity.” This is what you read in the prophet: For my praise I restrained my mouth from you, lest you perish. Another prophet spoke of himself more clearly: My soul is troubled within me; therefore I will remember you.”…
The prophet sings more plainly in the Psalms about this raising of Lazarus, you will not leave my soul in hell, because, as I remember I said on the second day of the observance of this feast, the consciousness of a guilty mind is an imprisoning hell. You will not leave your holy one — not a holiness that is his own, obviously, but yours, the one you yourself make holy — to see corruption. Indeed the fourth day is near to corruption, for he began to stink.
He was approaching complete decay and entering the abyss of evil where the impious reviles. But when the powerful voice comes and he is brought back to life by it, he gives thanks, saying, you have shown me the path of life, you have filled me with joy in your presence. You have called me to contemplate it; you have led my soul out of the depths while my spirit within me was troubled by seeing the dreadful face of my conscience. He called with a loud voice, says the gospel, Lazarus, come forth: in a loud voice surely filled not so much with sound as with piety and great strength

7 St Bernard of Clairvaux. Sermons for the Autumn Season. CF 54. Trans. Irene Edmonds, OCSO. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2016. 33-37.

Skema
2023-07-30
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
17th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
July 30 – August 5, 2023

Sun
30
Mon
31
Tue
1
Wed
2
Thu
3
Fri
4
Sat
5

Office
17th Sunday
St Ignatius Loyola
St Alphonsus Ligouri
Weekday
Office for the Dead
St John Vianney
Dedication St Mary Major

Vigils
Gen 42:1-17
Gen 42:18-38
Gen 43:1-34
Gen 44:1-34
Gen 45:1-28
Gen 46:1-7, 26-34
Gen 47:1-26

Lauds
Hos 2:18-25
Hos 3:1-5
Hos 4:1-6
Hos 4:7-12
Hos 4:13-19
Hos 5:1-7
Hos 5:8-15

Mass
109
401
402
403
404
405
406

1st
1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12
Exod 32:15-24, 30-34
Exod 33:7-11; 34:5b-9, 28
Exod 34:29-35
Exod 40:16-21, 34-38
Lev 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37
Lev 25:1, 8-17

2nd
Rom 8:28-30

Gospel
Matt 13:44-52
Matt 13:31-35
Matt 13:36-43
Matt 13:44-46
Matt 13:47-53
Matt 13:54-58
Matt 14:1-12

Vespers
1 Tim 2:1-8
1 Tim 2:9-15
1 Tim 3:1-7
1 Tim 3:8-13
1 Tim 3:14-4:5
1 Tim 4:6-10
Heb 12:18-29

Vigils Reading - 17th Sun ORD
2023-07-30
SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND
A Commentary by Origen 1
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To the seeker after the fine pearls may be applied the words: Seek and you shall find, and Everyone who seeks will find. If you ask what is to be sought, and what will be found by everyone who seeks for it, I say with confidence: pearls – especially that pearl which will be acquired for those who give their all, who sacrifice everything for it, the pearl Paul meant when he said: I have accepted the loss of everything in order to gain Christ. Everything means beautiful pearls; to gain Christ refers to the one pearl of great price.
Admittedly, a lamp is precious to people in darkness, and they need it until sunrise. Precious too was the radiance on the face of Moses – and I believe on the faces of the other prophets also. It was a sight of beauty leading to the point of being able to see the glory of Christ, to whom the Father bore witness in the words: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. But compared with this surpassing glory, what formerly was glory now seems to have no glory at all. We need at first a glory destined to be outshone by an all-surpassing glory, just as we need the partial knowledge which will be superseded when that which is perfect has come.
Thus everyone beginning to live a spiritual life and growing toward maturity needs tutors, guardians, and trustees until the fullness of time arrives for him, so that after all this, he who at first was no different from a slave although he owned the whole estate, may on his emancipation receive his patrimony from his tutor, guardians, and trustees.

This patrimony is the pearl of great price, and the coming of what is perfect to supersede what is imperfect when, after acquiring the forms of knowledge, if we may call them so, which are inferior to knowledge of Christ, one becomes able to understand the supreme value of knowing Christ. The law and the prophets fully comprehended are the preparation for the full comprehension of the gospel and the complete understanding of the acts and words of Christ Jesus

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press, NY – 1984 – pg 110-111.

Vigils Reading - St Ignatius Loyola
2023-07-31
CONSOLATION AND DESOLATION
From the “Spiritual Exercises” of St Ignatius of Loyola2
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In the case of those who go from one mortal sin to another, the enemy is generally wont to set before them apparent pleasures, causing them to imagine sensual gratifications and pleasures, in order to keep them fast and to plunge them deeper in their vices and sins. Towards such persons the good spirit acts in a contrary way, pricking and stinging with remorse their conscience by the judgment of reason.
In those who are striving earnestly to purify themselves from their sins, and to advance from good to better in the service of God our Lord, the contrary to what is noted in the first rule takes place; for then it is the way of the evil spirit to cause anxiety and sadness, and to place obstacles in the way, disquieting the soul by false reasonings, in order to stop its progress; and it is the property of the good spirit to give courage and strength, consolation, tears, inspirations, and peace, making things easy, and removing every hindrance, in order that the soul may make further progress in good works.
I call it consolation when an interior movement is aroused in the soul, by which it is inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord, and as a consequence, can love no creature on the face of the earth for its own sake, but only in the Creator of them all. It is likewise consolation when one sheds tears that move to the love of God, whether it be because of sorrow for sins, or because of the sufferings of Christ our Lord, or for any other reason that is immediately directed to the praise and service of God. Finally, I call consolation every increase of faith, hope, and love, and all interior joy that invites and attracts to what is heavenly and to the salvation of one’s soul by filling it with peace and quiet in its Creator and Lord.

I call it desolation what is entirely the opposite of what is described above, as darkness of soul, turmoil of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love. The soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord. For just as consolation is the opposite of desolation, so the thoughts that spring from consolation are the opposite of those that spring from desolation.
In time of desolation we should never make any change, but remain firm and constant in the resolution and decision which guided us the day before the desolation, or in the decision to which we adhered in the preceding consolation. For just as in consolation the good spirit guides and counsels us, so in desolation the evil spirit guides and counsels. Following his counsels we can never find the way to a right decision. Though in desolation we must never change our former resolutions, it will be very advantageous to intensify our activity against the desolation. We can insist more upon prayer, upon meditation, and on much examination of ourselves. We can make an effort in a suitable way to do some penance.
When we are in desolation, we should be mindful that God has left us to our natural powers to resist the different agitations and temptations of the enemy in order to try us. We can resist with the help of God, which always remains, though we may not clearly perceive it. For though God has taken from us the abundance of fervor and overflowing love and the intensity of His favors, nevertheless, we have sufficient grace for eternal salvation

2 Trans., Louis J Puhl SJ, Loyola Chicago, 316. 3. pp 142-143.

Vigils Reading - St Alphonsus Ligouri
2023-08-01
THOSE WHO LOVE GOD ARE ALWAYS HAPPY
From the writing of St Alphonsus de Ligouri 3
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Alphonsus the Great, King of Aragon, being asked one day whom he considered the happiest person in the world, answered: “He who abandons himself to the will of God and accepts all things, prosperous and adverse, as coming from his hands.” “To those that love God, all things work together unto good.” Those who love God are always happy, because their whole happiness is to fulfill, even in adversity, the will of God. Afflictions do not mar their serenity, because by accepting misfortune, they know they give pleasure to their beloved Lord: “Whatever shall befall the just man, it shall not make him sad. Indeed, what can be more satisfactory to a person than to experience the fulfillment of all his desires? This is the happy lot of the man who wills only what God wills, because everything that happens, save sin, happens through the will of God.
There is a story to this effect in the “Lives of the Fathers” about a farmer whose crops were more plentiful than those of his neighbors. On being asked how this happened with such unvarying regularity, he said he was not surprised because he always had the kind of weather he wanted. He was asked to explain. He said: “It is so because I want whatever kind of weather God wants, and because I do, he gives me the harvests I want.” If souls resigned to God’s will are humiliated, says Salvian, they want to be humiliated; if they are poor, they want to be poor; in short, whatever happens is acceptable to them, hence they are truly at peace in this life. In cold and heat, in rain and wind, the soul united to God says: “I want it to be warm, to be cold, windy, to rain, because God wills it.’…

The fool, that is, the sinner, is as changeable as the moon, which today waxes and tomorrow wanes; today he laughs, tomorrow he cries; today he is meek as a lamb, tomorrow cross as a bear. Why? Because his peace of mind depends on the prosperity or the adversity he meets; he changes with the changes in the things that happen to him. The just man is like the sun, constant in his serenity, no matter what betides him. His calmness of soul is founded on his union with the will of God; hence he enjoys unruffled peace. This is the peace promised by the angel of the Nativity: “And on earth, peace to men of good will.”…
The devout Father John Tauler relates this personal experience: For years he had prayed God to send him someone who would teach him the real spiritual life. One day, at prayer, he heard a voice saying: “Go to such and such a church and you will have the answer to your prayers.” He went and at the door of the church he found a beggar, barefooted and in rags. He greeted the mendicant saying: “Good day, my friend.” “Thank you, sir, for your kind wishes, but I do not recall ever having had a ‘bad’ day.” “Then God has certainly given you a very happy life.” “That is very true, sir. I have never been unhappy. In saying this I am not making any rash statement either. This is the reason: When I have nothing to eat, I give thanks to God; when it rains or snows, I bless God’s providence; when someone insults me, drives me away, or otherwise mistreats me, I give glory to God. I said I’ve never had an unhappy day, and it’s the truth, because I am accustomed to will unreservedly what God wills. Whatever happens to me, sweet or bitter, I gladly receive from his hands as what is best for me. Hence my unvarying happiness.”…
Union with God brought this poor beggar to the very heights of perfection. In his poverty he was richer than the mightiest monarch; in his sufferings, he was vastly happier than worldlings amid their worldly delights

3 St Alphonsus de Liguori. Uniformity with God’s Will. Trans. Thomas W. Tobin, C. SS. R., Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1977. 11-13.

Vigils Reading
2023-08-02
THE PARADISE OF THE HEART
From the spiritual writings of John Comenius 4
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I walked between the rows of coffins until I came to the end of the world and the light. There people closed their eyes and blindly threw their dead into the abyss. Throwing off the glasses of delusion and rubbing my eyes, I proceeded as far as I was able… I beheld fearful darkness and gloom of which neither the bottom nor the end could be fathomed by human reason… I was terrified and fell swooning to the ground… I cried out dolefully “…Oh God… if you are God, have mercy on me, a wretched man!” When I stopped speaking but was still trembling all over with horror, I heard behind me a soft voice saying, “Return!” I lifted my head, and I looked around… but I saw nothing…
Then the voice sounded again: “Return!” Not knowing where to return or how to get out of the darkness, I began to grieve. But then the voice called out a third time: “Return whence you came, to the home of your heart, and shut the door behind you!” I obeyed this counsel as far as I understood it… Then, collecting my thoughts as well as I could and closing my eyes, ears, mouth, nostrils, and all external passages, I entered into my heart and found that it was dark… Then behold, a bright light burst forth from above. Raising my eyes toward it, I saw the upper window full of brilliance, out of which a man came down to me…
“Welcome, welcome, my dear son and brother.”… Seeing me so overwhelmed with joy, he spoke further to me: “Where have you been, my son?… What have you been seeking in the world? Happiness? And where should you have sought it but in God? And where should you have sought God but in his temple? And what is the temple of the living God but the living temple that he has prepared for himself, your own heart? I have watched, my son, while you wandered, but I did not want to see you stray any longer. I have led you to myself by leading you into yourself, for here I have chosen a palace for my dwelling. If you wish to dwell here with me, you will find here what you sought in vain in the world — rest, happiness, glory, and an abundance of everything. I promise you, my son, that here you will not be disappointed as you were there.”

Hearing this speech and realizing that this was my Savior, Jesus Christ, of whom I had heard some mention even in the world, I clasped my hands, not with fear and doubt as in the world, but with full joy and complete trust. Reaching out to him, I said, “Here I am, my Lord Jesus, take me to yourself. I wish to be yours and to remain yours forever… May I be nothing that you alone may be everything.”
I receive that from you, my son,” he said. “Stand firm in this: be mine, call yourself mine, and remain my own. Indeed, from eternity you were and are mine, but you did not know this before… I have led you to myself along strange paths, through circuitous and winding ways that you did not know… But I was with you everywhere, and that is why I led you through these roundabout ways, that in the end I might bring you closer to myself… I will teach you everything. I will enrich you. I will satisfy you.
This only I ask of you, that you transfer and turn over to me whatever you have seen in the world, whatever human efforts you have witnessed for the sake of earthly goods… Let the highest point of your learning be to search for me in my deeds, to see how wonderfully I guide you and all things… Thus ridding yourself of all created beings and denying and renouncing even your own self, I promise that you will find me, and in me the fullness of peace.

4 Comenius, John. The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart. Trans. Howard Louthan and Andrea Sterk. New York: Paulist Press, 1998. 186-191, 194-195.

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2023-08-03
THE LAST STAGE OF LOVE
From “Purgation and Purgatory” by St Catherine of Genoa 5
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In its creation the soul was endowed with all the means necessary for coming to its perfection, for living as it ought to, for not contaminating itself by sin. Once sullied by sin, original and actual, it loses those gifts and dies. It can be brought back to life only by God. The inclination to evil still remains in the soul revivified by Baptism, and unless it is strenuously fought leads back to death.
Afterwards, God revivifies the soul with a special grace of His. In no other way could the soul renounce its self-centeredness or return to the pristine state of its creation; and as the soul makes its way to its first state,its ardor in transforming itself into God is its purgatory, the passionate instinct to overcome its impediments. The last stage of love is that which comes about and does its work without man’s doing. If man were to be aware of the many hidden flaws in him he would despair. These flaws are burned away in the last stage of love. God then shows that weakness to man, so that the soul might see the workings of God, of that flaming love.
Things man considers perfect leave much to be desired in the eyes of God, for all the things of man that are perfect in appearance — what he seeks, feels, knows –contaminate him. If we are to become perfect, the change must be brought about in us and without us; that is, the change is to be the work not of man but of God. This, the last stage of love, is the pure and intense love of God alone. In this transformation, the action of God in penetrating the soul is so fierce

that it seems to set the body on fire and to keep it burning until death. The overwhelming love of God gives it a joy beyond words.
Yet this joy does not do away with one bit of pain in the suffering of the souls in purgatory. As the soul grows in its perfection, so does it suffer more because of what impedes the final consummation, the end for which God made it; so that in purgatory great joy and great suffering do not exclude one another. If contrition could purge it, the soul would turn to it in an instant and forthwith pay its debt; and it would do so impetuously, since it has a clear appreciation of the meaning of that impediment in its way…
The soul, for its part, no longer has a choice of its own. It can seek only what God wills, nor would it want otherwise; and that too is in keeping with God’s decree. Andifthelivingweretoofferalmsforthebenefitofthesoulsinpurgatory, to shorten the assigned time of their purgation, still those souls could not turn with affection to watch, but would leave all things to God, who is paid as He wishes. If those souls could, in gratitude, turn their attention, that would be a self-seeking act that would distract them from the contemplation of the divine will — and that distraction would be hell. The souls in purgatory attend to all that God gives them, injoyandsuffering; norcantheyhaveanyfurtherconcernforthelesserselfsince they have been radically transformed by the will of God.
What He wills for them is what gives them joy. Were a soul to appear in the presence of God with one hour of purgation still due, that would be to do it great harm. It would then suffer more than if it were cast into ten purgatories, for it could not endure the justice and pure goodness of God, nor would it be fitting on the part of God. That soul, aware that complete satisfaction was not as yet fully rendered to God, even if the time lacking were but the twinkling of an eye, would prefer to submit to a thousand hells rather than so appear in God’s presence

5 St Catherine of Genoa. Purgation and Purgatory – The Spiritual Dialogue. Trans. Serge Hughes. New York: Paulist Press, 1979. 80-83.

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Vigils Reading - St John Vianney
2023-08-04
THE CROSS IS THE LADDER TO HEAVEN
From the writings of St. John Vianney 6
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You must love while you’re suffering and suffer while you’re loving. On the road to the cross, it’s only the first few yards that hurt. Souls who give themselves completely to God in their suffering feel an extraordinary contentment. Vinegar will always be vinegar, but oil softens its sharpness so that you scarcely taste it.
There was a little boy, quite near here, in one of the neighboring parishes, who was lying in his bed a mass of sores, very sick and in great pain. I said to him: ‘My poor boy, you must be suffering!’ He replied: ‘No, Monsieur le Curé, today I don’t feel my pain of yesterday, and tomorrow I shan’t feel my pain of today.’ ‘But surely you’d like to get well?’ ‘No, I was bad before I was ill and I might become bad again. I’m all right as I am.’ There was vinegar there, sure enough, but the oil had drowned the taste of it…We don’t understand that, because we’re too earthly. Children in whom the Holy Spirit takes up His Home put us to shame.
The cross is the ladder to heaven. The crosses we meet on the road to heaven are like a fine stone bridge on which you can cross a river. Christians who don’t suffer cross this river on a shaky bridge that’s always in danger of giving way under their feet. Once they’ve been transformed in the flames of love, crosses are like a bundle of hawthorn that you throw on the fire and that the fire reduces to ashes. The hawthorn is thorny, but the ashes are soft. The hawthorn exudes balm and the cross exudes sweetness. But you’ve got to press the thorns in your hands and clasp the cross to your heart if you want them to distil the essence they contain.

Put a good bunch of grapes under the winepress, and a delicious juice will come out. Under the winepress of the cross our soul produces a juice which feeds and strengthens it. When we haven’t got any crosses, we are dry: if we carry them with resignation, what happiness, what sweetness we feel! The cross is the gift God makes to his friends. Contrarieties bring us to the foot of the cross and the cross to the gate of heaven

6 Translated from L’Esprit du Curé d’Ars, by A. Monnin in The Curé D’Ars, F. Trochu, Westminster MD, 1955 pp 101-102.
