Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading - Christmas Weekday
2023-01-06
He Must Increase and I Must Decrease6
a reading from a sermon by Meister Eckhart
[It says in the Gospel according to St. John that] God has sent his Only-Begotten Son into the world. You must not by this understand the external world in which the Son ate and drank with us, but understand it to apply to the inner world. As truly as the Father in his simple nature gives his Son birth naturally, so truly does he give him birth in the most inward part of the spirit, and that is the inner world. Here God’s ground is my ground, and my ground is God’s ground. Here I live from what is my own, as God lives from what is his own. Whoever has looked for an instant into this ground, to such a one a thousand marks of red, minted gold are no more than a counterfeit penny. It is out of this inner ground that you should perform all your works without asking, “Why?”. I say truly: So long as you perform your works for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, or for God’s sake, or for the sake of your eternal blessedness, and you work them from without, you are going completely astray. You may well be tolerated, but it is not the best. Whoever is seeking God by ways is finding ways and losing God, who in ways is hidden. But whoever seeks for God without ways will find him as he is in himself, and that one will live with the Son, and he is life itself.
Where the creature stops, there God begins to be. Now God wants no more from you than that you should in creaturely fashion go out of yourself and let God be God in you. The smallest creaturely image that ever forms in you is as great as God is great. Why? Because it comes between you and the whole of God. As soon as the image comes in, God and all his divinity has to give way. But as the image goes out, God goes in. God wants you to go out of yourself in creaturely fashion as much as if all his blessedness consisted in it. O my dear one, what harm does it do you to allow God to be God in you? Go completely out of yourself for God’s love, and God comes completely out of himself for love of you. And when these two have gone out, what remains there is a simplified One. In this One the Father brings his Son to birth in the innermost source. Then the Holy Spirit blossoms forth, and then there springs up in God a will that belongs to the soul. So long as the will remains untouched by all created things and by all creation, it is free. Christ says: “No one comes into heaven except him who has come from heaven”. All things are created from nothing; therefore their true origin is nothing, and so far as this noble will inclines toward created things, it flows off with created things toward their nothing. Why do you not stay in yourself and hold on to your own good? After all, you are carrying all truth in you in an essential manner.
That we may so truly remain within, that we may possess all truth, without medium and without distinction, in true blessedness, may God help us to do this.
6 Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises. From the Classics of Western Spirituality. Paulist Press, New York, 1981., p. 183.

Vigils Reading - Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
2023-01-05
In memory of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI:
A Reading from Eschatology[1]
by Joseph Ratzinger

…the confrontation with physical death is actually a confrontation with the basic constitution of human existence. It places before us a choice: to accept either the pattern of love, or the pattern of power. Here we are at the source of the most decisive of all questions…The God who personally died in Jesus Christ fulfilled the pattern of love beyond all expectation, and in so doing justified that human confidence which in the last resort is the only alternative to self-destruction. The Christian dies into the death of Christ himself…The uncontrollable Power that everywhere sets limits to life is not a blind law of nature. It is a love that puts itself at our disposal by dying for us and with us. The Christian is the one who knows that he can unite the constantly experienced dispossession of self with the fundamental attitude of a being created for love, a being that knows itself to be safe precisely when it trusts in the unexacted gift of love. Man’s enemy, death, that would waylay him to steal his life, is conquered at the point where one meets the thievery of death with the attitude of trusting love, and so transforms the theft into increase of life. The sting of death is extinguished in Christ in whom the victory was gained through the plenary power of love unlimited. Death is vanquished where people die with Christ and into him. This is why the Christian attitude must be opposed to the modern wish for instantaneous death, a wish that would turn death into an extensionless moment and banish from life the claims of the metaphysical. Yet it is in the transforming acceptance of death, present time and again to us in this life, that we mature for the real, the eternal, life.

…For man’s own truth is that he passes away, having no abiding existence in his own right. The more he takes a stand on himself, the more he finds himself self suspended over nothing. He falls prey to that nothingness which, taken by himself, he will assuredly enter everlastingly. Only by handing oneself over to truth and rightness does one find that communication which is life. It is intrinsic to my life that I find life only in endless receiving from others, being powerless to achieve it through my own active efforts. It is not works that are vivifying, but faith.

…Such faith and love are simultaneously God’s acceptance of my life and my will to embrace the divine acceptance. And all this is from the God who can be love only as the triune God and who, in thus being love, makes the world bearable after all.

The person who does not confront life refuses his life. Flight from suffering is flight from life. The crisis of the Western world turns not least on a philosophy and program of education which try to redeem man by bypassing the cross. In acting against the cross, they act against the truth. Let us not be misunderstood: the relative value of actions of this kind is undoubted. They become a help to man when they see themselves as part of a greater whole. But taken by themselves, absolutely, they lead into the void. The only sufficient answer to the question of man is a response which discharges the infinite claims of love. Only eternal life corresponds to the question raised by human living and dying on this earth.
[1] Joseph Ratzinger. Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life 2nd Edition. Trans. Michael Waldstein. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988. 96-103.

Vigils Reading - St Elizabeth Ann Seton
2023-01-04
God In Our World4
A Meditation by St Elizabeth Ann Seton
How happy should we be if every morning our eyes were open to this truth – the invisible presence of God – if we saw by faith, with the eyes of our soul everywhere within and without us the three persons of the adorable Trinity with their divine attributes! What would be the dangers and events of this life to us in His presence to whom earth and hell are subjected? We know that when anything most excellent and admirable attracts our sight, the mind is lost in it, and the attention so absorbed that it is difficult for us to draw away from it; every feeling and thought is taken up by the object so admirable.
What is most striking in this is that when we sin, we not only sin in the presence of God, but in God Himself, for since He is the source of motion and life, it follows that the sinner uses the concurrence of God Himself to offend and sin against Him, turning the means of life: health, time, the powers of nature and space to this horrid perversion and abuse against their Almighty giver. This explains to us in some degree the eternity of hell torments, for the truth is undoubted that God sees each one of us as precisely as if we were alone in the wide universe. What a deep thought that God Himself is the very life of our being, that He dwells in the soul of each one of us as in His own element!
Oh, my God, my blindness has been truly great – to have thought of You so little through my life, though living wholly in You. Every word I have uttered has been known to You; every action seen by You, every secret thought before You. Yet, I have thought, acted and spoken as if You neither heard nor saw me – without respect or love for You or remembrance that the soul You have given me was formed only for You and has the power of enjoying You every moment of my life.
4 Sister Marie Celeste, SC. Elizabeth Ann Seton: A Woman of Prayer – Meditations, Reflections, Prayers and Poems Taken From Her Writings. New York: Alba House, 1993. 69-70.

Rule of Benedict: Paused
2023-01-03
Dear Friends in Christ,
Our twice-monthly Rule of Benedict lectio/reflection is paused for further reflection. You are encouraged to continue periodic reading of the Rule, to reflect its central place in monastic life, and apply it to your life as a lay Cistercian.
Blessings and joy.

Vigils Reading - Christmas Weekday
2023-01-03
A Reading on the Mystery of Christmas3
by St Edith Stein
God has come to redeem us, to unite us to Himself and to each other, to conform our will to His. He knows our nature. He reckons with it, and has therefore given us every help necessary to reach our goal.
The divine Child has become a teacher and has told us what to do. In order to penetrate a whole human life with the divine life it is not enough to kneel once a year before the crib and let ourselves be captivated by the charm of the holy night. To achieve this, we must be in daily contact with God, listening to the words he has spoken and which have been transmitted to us, and obeying them. We must, above all, pray as the Savior Himself has taught us so insistently, “Ask and it shall be given you”. This is the certain promise of being heard. And if we pray every day with all our heart: “Lord, thy will be done” we may well trust that we shall not fail to do God’s will even when we no longer have subjective certainty.
Christ has not left us orphans. He has sent His Spirit, who teaches us all truth. He has founded his Church which is guided by His Spirit, and has ordained in it His representatives by whose mouth His Spirit speaks to us in human words. In His Church He has united the faithful into one community and wants them to support each other. Thus we are not alone, and if the confidence in our own understanding and even in our own prayer fails us, the power of obedience and intercession will assist us.
“And the word was made flesh”. This became reality in the stable of Bethlehem. But it has also been fulfilled in another form. “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”. The Savior, knowing that we are and remain men who have daily to struggle with our weaknesses, aids our humanity in a manner truly divine. Just as our earthly body needs its daily bread, so the divine life in us must be constantly fed. “This is the living bread that came down from heaven”. If we make it truly our daily bread, the mystery of Christmas, the Incarnation of the Word, will daily be re-enacted in us. And this, it seems, is the surest way to remain in constant union with God, and to grow every day more securely and more deeply into the mystical Body of Christ.
The Christian mysteries are an indivisible whole. If we become immersed in one, we are led to all the others. Thus the way from Bethlehem leads inevitably to Golgotha, from the crib to the Cross. When the blessed Virgin brought the Child to the temple, Simeon prophesied that her soul would be pierced by a sword, that this Child was set for the fall and the resurrection of many, for a sign that would be contradicted. His prophecy announced the Passion, the fight between light and darkness that already showed itself before the crib.
3 St Edith Stein. Writings of Edith Stein. Trans. Hilda Graef. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1956, 28-31.

Vigils Reading - SS Basil and Gregory
2023-01-02
A Letter on the Incarnation2
by St Basil the Great
You have written that there are some among you who are doing away with the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, as much as they are able, and rejecting the grace of the great mystery kept secret from eternity but manifested in His own time, when the Lord, after having gone through all things pertaining to the care of the human race, in addition to all else, bestowed upon us His own sojourn among us. For He aided His own creature, first through the patriarchs, whose lives have been set forth as examples and rules for those desiring to follow in the footsteps of the saints and through a zeal like theirs to arrive at the perfection of good deeds. Then, He gave a law for our assistance, delivering it by angels through Moses; then Prophets, who proclaimed beforehand the salvation that was to be; judges, kings and just men, who performed mighty works with hidden hand. After all these, in the last days, He Himself was manifested in the flesh, “born of a woman, born under the Law, that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive adoption”.
If, therefore, the sojourn of the Lord in the flesh did not take place, the Redeemer did not pay the price for us, and He did not by His own power destroy the dominion of death. For, if that which is subject to death were one thing, and that which was assumed by the Lord were another, then death would not have ceased performing its own works, nor would the sufferings of the God-bearing flesh have become our gain; He would not have destroyed sin in the flesh; we who had died in Adam would not have been made to live in Christ; that which had fallen asunder would not have been restored; that which was shattered would not have been repaired; that which had been estranged through the deceit of the serpent would not have been again made God’s own. For, all these things are done away with by those who say that the Lord made His sojourn with a heavenly body. And what was the need of the blessed Virgin, if the God-bearing flesh was not to be assumed from the substance of Adam? But who is so bold as now to revive once more through sophistic words and the testimony, as they pretend, of the Scriptures the teaching of Valentinus which was silenced long ago? This impiety of the “appearance”, in fact, is not something new, but it was begun long ago by the weak-minded Valentinus, who, taking a few detached phrases of the Apostle, constructed the impious fiction for himself, saying that He had taken on “the nature of a slave”, and not the slave himself, and that the Lord had been made “in the form”, but that humanity itself had not been assumed by Him.
It is evident that the Lord took on the natural feelings for a confirmation of the true Incarnation and not of one according to the appearance, but rejected as unworthy of the undefiled Godhead the feelings arising from vice which soil the purity of our souls. For this reason it is said that He was “made in the likeness of sinful flesh”, not, indeed, in the likeness of flesh, as these men think, but in the likeness of sinful flesh. Accordingly He took our flesh with its natural feelings, but He “did not sin”. Yet even as death in the flesh, which was handed down to us through Adam, was swallowed up by the Godhead, so also sin was utterly destroyed by the justice which is in Jesus Christ, so that in the resurrection we resume our flesh, which is neither liable to death nor subject to sin.
2 The Fathers of the Church – Letters of St Basil, vol. II, pg. 232 – New York – Fathers of the Church, Inc. – 1955.

Vigils Reading - Mary, Mother of God
2023-01-01
The Eleventh Homily in Praise of God’s Holy Mother1
by Ogier of Locedio
Let all who desire to come to our Emmanuel, the Word of the Most High Father who became flesh and dwelled among us, bind themselves to the Virgin who bore him with bonds of utter love. She is the gate of heaven, the doorway to Paradise. She is the way to life, the straight path to eternal glory. All who yearn for the supreme happiness that is Christ will obtain it, if so long as they live they burn with love for his most holy mother with all their being.
For when nine months had run their course, our divine Virgin, who conceived of the Holy Spirit, gave birth to our Redeemer…O marvel, O wonder! It is God who gives life, and God to whom human life is given! Mary gives birth to him who from nothing made all that is. The Virgin, without the aid of a man, gives birth to God and man.
What came to pass? The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. The Only-begotten of God the Father became the first-born of the Virgin Mary…Oh what amazing honor – but oh, what a loving and unheard-of emptying! He who is before all time takes his place in time; he who created everything is born of a woman. Immensity becomes brief, the lofty is made lowly, the Maker something made, the Creator a creature. In being born of a mother, he became a creature who is the eternal Creator, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
…He was born in a stable – of you, blessed glory of maidens, Mary – because there was no house of cedar, no bed of ivory, where you might give birth to our Creator and Redeemer. Thus like an exiled pilgrim, you gave birth to the Lord of the world in a stranger’s home, and like a pauper’s wife wrapped, not in silks but in coarse swaddling, and laid him in a manger: the child from the moment of whose birth you worshipped as your Lord and God. O fortunate stable, O blessed manger, in which Christ is born and the God of all is laid! There the angels served as midwife; there millions upon millions of angels rejoiced. In the stable the child began to whimper; in heaven a multitude of the heavenly host sang out…The angels rejoice, but Mary quakes to have become the Mother of God. The angels rejoice in solemn dance before Christ, before whom his mother stands in dread and awe…She bears the Bearer, she nurses the Nurse and feeds the Feeder, not only of herself, but of all in whom there breathes the breath of life.
…What sanctity was yours we can only imagine, when, created and fashioned in the image of God, your flesh so pleased your Creator that from it he should fashion himself a mantle of praise and a breastplate of victory, and that through it he should triumph over the author of death and ransom humankind. Blessed is your womb, from which our Valiant One fashioned himself a sword to slay the foe of our salvation, and free his people from perpetual bondage!…Virgin most blessed, you bore him in heart and in womb. You bore him in your arms, you nursed him at your sacred breasts, held him in the embrace of your love. You bent to kiss him as often as you wished. Oh bliss beyond reckoning: Jesus himself you held in your power to do with however you thought best! He was completely yours: he was your Son!

1 Ogier of Locedio. Ogier of Locedio: Homilies. CF 70. Trans. D. Martin Jenni. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications,2006. 136-141.

SKEMA
2023-01-01
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
Christmas Season

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
January 1 – 7, 2023

Sun
1
Mon
2
Tue
3
Wed
4
Thu
5
Fri
6
Sat
7

Office
Mary, Mother of God
SS Basil & Gregory
Christmas Weekday
St Elizabeth Ann Seton
St John Neumann
Christmas Weekday
Christmas Weekday

Vigils
Sir 24:1-12, 19-22
Col 2:16-3:4
Col 3:5-16
Col 3:17-4:1
Col 4:2-18
Isa 42:1-9
Isa 61:1-11

Lauds
Wis 7:7-12
Isa 54:1-5
Isa 54:6-10
Isa 55:1-5
Isa 56:1-8
Isa 57:14-19
Isa 59:14-21

Mass
18
205
206
207
208
209
210

1st
Num 6:22-27
1 John 2:22-28
1 John 2:29-3:6
1 John 3:7-10
1 John 3:11-21
1 John 5:5-13
1 John 5:14-21

2nd
Gal 4:4-7

Gospel
Luke 2:16-21
John 1:19-28
John 1:29-34
John 1:35-42
John 1:43-51
Mark 1:7-11
John 2:1-11

Vespers
Heb 2:10-18
Eph 1:15-23
Eph 2:1-10
Eph 2:11-18
Eph 3:1-12
Eph 3:14-21
2 Tim 1:6-14

Vigils Reading
2022-12-31 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
Mother and Child6
from the writing of St Mechthild of Magdeburg
When the time had come, when other women are sad and move about with difficulty, Mary was agile and cheerful. And yet her body was quite swollen because she had within it the fully developed Son of God. Mary did not know in advance when God wanted to be born of her until she saw him in her lap on the road on that night in Bethlehem – in a strange town where she herself was a poor homeless guest. The almighty Father with his wisdom, the eternal Son with his human truth, the Holy Spirit with his delicate sweetness passes through the intact wall of Mary’s body with blissful ease and without any effort. It had happened just as quickly as when the sun in loving calm sends forth its light upon the sweet dew.
When Mary gazed at her fair child, she inclined her head to his face and said: “Welcome, my innocent Child and mighty Lord, all things are yours.” At the conception of our Lord, while his mother was expecting, at his birth, and while he was on the lap of his mother before being placed in the crib, the power of the Holy Trinity and the blissful celestial fire in Mary were so intense that the spirit of hell, which travels about the whole world and knows everything that happens to all things, was not able to approach closely enough to the land and place where Mary was to learn of the miraculous way the Child had gotten there.
Mary took a coarse blanket from Joseph’s saddle – one that the donkey had on his back under the saddle…The delicate virgin wrapped the hardy Savior in this blanket and laid him in the crib. Then he immediately began to cry like a newborn child. As long as babies are unable to speak, they never cry except to express a real need. This is just what our Lord did when, despite his noble nature, he was put to bed in a cowshed because of base sin. He wept for all humankind, hiding all his happiness and all his power. The virgin was sad, and the Child was hungry and cold.

Then the mother had to nurse her Son. This was his Father’s will and the Holy Spirit’s pleasure. In maternal love, with maidenly bearing, the virgin bent down to her afflicted child and offered him her youthful breast. Now hear of the marvel! The bright blossoming of her fair eyes, the spiritual beauty of her maidenly countenance, the sweetness flowing from her pure heart, and the delightful sparkle of her noble soul: these four things drew together according to the will of the Father, the need of the Son, and the delight of the Holy Spirit in her maidenly breast. And sweet milk flowed forth from her pure heart without any pain. The Child suckled like a human child and his mother rejoiced in a holy manner. The angels sang to God a hymn of praise. The shepherds came and found for all to see our true pledge of redemption in a crib belonging to another.
Then I asked Mary where Joseph was. She said: “He had gone into town and is buying us some small fish and plain bread.” Water is what they drank. Then I said: “Lady, you should be eating the very best bread and drinking the finest wine.” “No,” she said, “that is the food of rich people. We don’t have any of that in this poor life.

6 Mechthild of Magdeburg. The Flowing Light of the Godhead. Classics of Western spirituality #91. Mahwah, NJ, 1998. 198-200.

Vigils Reading - Holy Family
2022-12-30
The Duties of Each Moment5
An excerpt from the writing of Jean-Pierre de Caussade
There are remarkably few extraordinary characteristics in the outward events of the life of the most holy Virgin, at least there are none recorded in holy Scripture. Her exterior life is represented as very ordinary and simple. She did and suffered the same things that anyone in a similar state of life might do or suffer. She goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth as her other relatives did. She took shelter in a stable in consequence of her poverty. She returned to Nazareth from whence she had been driven by the persecution of Herod, and lived there with Jesus and Joseph, supporting themselves by the work of their hands. It was in this way that the holy family gained their daily bread. But what a divine nourishment Mary and Joseph received from this daily bread for the strengthening of their faith! It is like a sacrament to sanctify all their moments. What treasures of grace lie concealed in these moments filled, apparently, by the most ordinary events. That which is visible might happen to anyone, but the invisible, discerned by faith, is no less than God operating very great things. O Bread of Angels! heavenly manna! pearl of the Gospel! Sacrament of the present moment! Thou givest God under as lowly a form as the manger, the hay, or the straw. And to whom dost thou give Him?…God reveals Himself to the humble under the most lowly forms, but the proud, attaching themselves entirely to that which is extrinsic, do not discover Him hidden beneath, and are sent empty away.
He who knows that a certain person in disguise is the king, behaves towards him very differently to another who, only perceiving an ordinary man, treats him accordingly. In the same way the soul that recognises the will of God in every smallest event, and also in those that are most distressing and direful, receives all with an equal joy, pleasure and respect. It throws open all its doors to receive with honour what others fear and fly from with horror. The outward appearance may be mean and contemptible, but beneath this abject garb the heart discovers and honours the majesty of the king. The deeper the abasement of his entry in such a guise and in secret the more does the heart become filled with love. Ah! how the sight of God, poor and humble, lodged in a stable, lying on straw, weeping and trembling, pierced the loving heart of Mary! Ask the inhabitants of Bethlehem what they thought of the Child. You know what answer they gave, and how they would have paid court to Him had He been lodged in a palace surrounded by the state due to princes.

Then ask Mary and Joseph, the Magi and the Shepherds. They will tell you that they found in this extreme poverty an indescribable tenderness, and an infinite dignity worthy of the majesty of God. Faith is strengthened, increased and enriched by those things that escape the senses; the less there is to see, the more there is to believe. To adore Jesus on Thabor, to accept the will of God in extraordinary circumstances does not indicate a life animated by such great faith as to love the will of God in ordinary things and to adore Jesus on the Cross; for faith cannot be said to be real, living faith until it is tried, and has triumphed over every effort for its destruction. War with the senses enables faith to obtain a more glorious victory. To consider God equally good in things that are petty and ordinary as in those that are great and uncommon is to have a faith that is not ordinary, but great and extraordinary.
Those souls that have this disposition adore God with redoubled love and respect in each consecutive humiliating condition; nothing can hide Him from the piercing eye of faith. The louder the senses proclaim that in this, or that, there is no God; the more firmly do these souls clasp and embrace their “bundle of myrrh.” Nothing daunts them, nothing disgusts them. Mary, when the apostles fled, remained steadfast at the foot of the Cross. She owned Jesus as her Son when He was disfigured with wounds, and covered with mud and spittle. The wounds that disfigured Him made Him only more lovable and adorable in the eyes of this tender Mother. The more awful were the blasphemies uttered against Him, so much the deeper became her veneration and respect

5 Jean-Pierre de Caussade. Abandonment to Divine Providence. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2001. 7, 17.

Vigils Reading
2022-12-29
On the Nativity of Christ4 by St Gregory of Nazianzus
Christ is born, give glory; Christ is from the heavens, go to meet him; Christ is on earth, be lifted up. “Sing to the Lord, all the earth,” and, to say both together, “Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice,” for the heavenly one is now earthly. Christ is in the flesh, exult with trembling and joy; trembling because of sin, joy because of hope…Who would not worship the one “from the beginning”? Who would not glorify “the Last”?
Again the darkness is dissolved, again the light is established…Let the people sitting in the darkness of ignorance see a great light of knowledge. “The old things have passed; behold, all things have become new.” The letter withdraws, the spirit advances; the shadows have been surpassed, the truth has entered after them…The laws of nature are dissolved. The world above must be filled. Christ commands, let us not resist. “All nations, clap your hands,” “for to us a child is born, and to us a son is given, the power is on his shoulder,” for he is lifted up along with the cross, and he is called by the name “angel of great counsel,” that of the Father. Let John proclaim, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” I myself will proclaim the power of this day. The fleshless one takes flesh, the Word is made coarse, the invisible one is seen, the impalpable one is touched, the timeless one makes a beginning, the Son of God becomes Son of Man, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and for the ages.”
This is our festival, this is the feast we celebrate… in which God comes to live with human beings, that we may journey toward God, or return – for to speak thus is more exact – that laying aside the old human being we may be clothed with the new, and that as in Adam we have died so we may live in Christ, born with Christ and crucified with him, buried with him and rising with him. For it is necessary for me to undergo the good turnaround, and as painful things came from more pleasant things, so out of painful things more pleasant things must return. “For where sin abounded, grace superabounded,” and if the taste [offorbidden fruit] condemned, how much more does the Passion of Christ justify? Therefore we celebrate the feast not like a pagan festival but in a godly manner, not in a worldly way but in a manner above the world. We celebrate not our own concerns but the one who is ours, or rather what concerns our Master, things pertaining not to sickness but to healing, not to the first molding, but to the remolding.

Now welcome for me his conception and leap for joy, if not indeed like John in the womb, then like David when the ark came to rest. Be awed at the census record through which you have been recorded in heaven, and revere the birth through which you have been released from the bonds of birth, and honor little Bethlehem, which has brought you back to paradise

4 St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Festal Orations. Trans. Nonna Verna Harrison. Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998. 61-77.

Vigils Reading - Holy Innocents
2022-12-28
A Reading about the Three Kinds of Martyrdom3 from a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux
Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord: the Lord is God, and he has shone upon us. Blessed be his glorious name for he is holy. It was not in vain that Holiness Itself was born of the Virgin Mary since it has spread both the name and the grace of sanctity so widely. Unquestionably, it is because of this grace that Stephen is holy, John is holy and the young Innocents are holy. It is therefore by a profitable disposition that these three feasts accompany the birth of our Lord, not only in order that our devotion may be kept alive by so many feasts, but also in order that we should see the fruit of the birth of our Lord more clearly in them as an effect and a consequence of the nativity. We can notice in these three feasts, three different types of sanctity… In blessed Stephen we have both the will and the act of martyrdom; in blessed John we have the will only; in the Holy Innocents we have the act only. All of these drank the chalice of salvation, either in the body and the spirit, or in the spirit alone or in the body alone.
My chalice indeed you shall drink, said the Lord to James and John, and undoubtedly he was speaking of the chalice of his passion. Then when he said to Peter, Follow me, evidently calling him to imitate his passion, Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, not so much with physical steps as with an unwavering love of ready devotion. Therefore John also drank the chalice of salvation and like Peter followed the Lord, although not like Peter in every way. For that he should remain like this and not follow the Lord in his physical suffering accorded with the divine plan, for the Lord himself said: I wish him to remain till I come. As if he had said: he indeed wishes to follow me but I wish him to remain.

Who can be in doubt as to whether the Holy Innocents received the martyr’s crown?…For how could that Child who was born for us, not against us, permit that those children, born at the same time as himself, should be killed, when he could prevent it by one act of his will, unless he had something better prepared for them? Therefore we may presume that the martyrdom they underwent for him was sufficient for their sanctification just as, for the other infants of that time, circumcision was sufficient for salvation without any use of their own will, and just as baptism is sufficient nowadays. And do you think that Herod’s wickedness is greater than Christ’s love, that the former should be able to kill such innocents and Christ should not be able to crown the children who were killed for his sake?
Let Stephen be a martyr before human beings, then. That his suffering was voluntary appears especially clearly in this, that at the very moment of death he showed more concern for his persecutors than for himself. The emotion of inner compassion overcame in him the sensation of physical passion, so that he wept more for their crime than for his own wounds. We may say that John was a martyr in the eyes of the angels, to whom as spiritual creatures the spiritual signs of his devotion were more clearly evident. But the Holy Innocents are most especially Your martyrs, Lord, because in them, in whom neither humans nor angels found any merit, You have clearly manifested the prerogatives of Your grace. Out of the mouth of infants and babes you have perfected praise, and the angels declare Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to all those of good will

3 For the Feast of the Holy Innocents, from St. Bernard: The Nativity; Chicago – Dublin – London 1959, pp. 95-97.

Vigils Reading - St John
2022-12-27
The Heartbeats of the Lord Jesus2 by St Gertrud the Great
When she saw others hurrying off to a sermon, she plaintively said to the Lord: ‘You know, most loving one, that right now I would be heartily glad to hear a sermon, if I were not prevented by sickness’. The Lord replied: ‘Do you wish me to preach to you, dearest?’ She replied, ‘Very, very much’. Then the Lord let her lie on his Heart, so that the heart of her soul was placed next to his divine Heart. When her soul had taken sweet rest there for a while, she felt in the Lord’s Heart two wonderful and intensely delightful beats. The Lord said to her: ‘Each of those two heartbeats works human salvation in three ways. The first beat works the salvation of sinners; the second, of the righteous. For by the first beat in the first way I continuously address God the Father, winning his favor for sinners and inclining him to mercy. Secondly, I address all my saints, excusing a sinner in their eyes with brotherly faithfulness and inspiring them to pray for a sinner. Thirdly, I address the sinner himself, mercifully recalling him to penitence and awaiting with unspeakable desire his conversion.’
‘With the second beat in the first way I address God the Father so that he must rejoice with me that the ransom of my blood was paid out so profitably for the redemption of the righteous, in whose hearts I now delight to take such varied pleasure. Secondly, I address all the heavenly host so that we may together praise the praiseworthy way of life of the righteous and that they must thank me for all the blessings that have been given and will from now on be given. Thirdly, I address the righteous themselves, coaxing them to salvation in many different ways and faithfully urging them that they may go forward from day to day, from hour to hour. And just as the human heartbeat is not hindered from constantly beating by sight or hearing or any manual labor, so the government and

disposition of heaven, of earth, or of the whole universe can never, even a little, slow or modify or hinder in any way these two beats in my divine Heart, even unto the end of the world

2 Gertrud the Great. The Herald of God’s Loving-Kindness: Book Three. CF 63. Trans, Alexandra Barratt. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1999. 159-160.

Vigils Reading - St Stephen
2022-12-26
A Reading from the Third Sermon
of St Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe1
Yesterday we celebrated the birth in time of our eternal king; today we celebrate the triumphant suffering of a soldier. For yesterday our king, nobly arrayed in flesh, proceeding from the chaste womb of the Virgin Mary, deigned to visit this world; today a soldier, leaving the confines of the body, made his way in triumph to heaven.
Our king, though he is the Most High, for our sake came in humility; yet he could not come empty-handed. It was indeed a generous gift that he brought for us, one by which he not only abundantly enriched us but gave us the strength to do battle and never be vanquished. What he brought was the gift of love, which was to lead us to become sharers in the godhead. He brought it only to expend it, without in any way diminishing his own store; while turning the poverty of his followers into riches he remained himself, as by a miracle, fully possessed of his own inexhaustible treasury.
Love then, the same love that brought Christ down from heaven to earth, raised Stephen from earth to heaven; the same love shown first in the king was reproduced in its splendor in the warrior.
And so Stephen, in order to earn his right to the crown his name signifies, armed himself with love, and by that same love won every battle. It was love of God that made him yield not an inch, love of his neighbor that led him to intercede for those who stoned him. It was through love that he was able to expose those in error so that they might change their ways; through love that he prayed for those who

stoned him so that they should not be punished. Trusting only in love, he overcame Saul’s cruel rage, and the very man who had been his persecutor on earth he won as his companion in heaven. That same holy and untiring love longed to win over by prayer those whom it could not convert by persuasion…
Love is therefore the source and origin of every good, an unrivalled protection, the road that leads to heaven. Those who walk in love can be neither lost nor afraid; love is the guide and protector, and brings them to the end of their journey. For this reason, beloved, since Christ has set up a stairway of love by which every Christian can mount up to heaven, keep a firm hold on love alone; love one another, and by growing in love climb together up to heaven

1Sermon 3,1-3,5-6: CCL 91A, 905-909. cf. A Word in Season, I (1st series) p132f.

Vigils Reading - Sun, Nativity of the Lord
2022-12-25

Skema
2022-12-25
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
Christmas Octave

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
December 25 – 31, 2022

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

Office
Nativity of the Lord
St Stephen
St John
Holy Innocents
5th Day in Christmas Octave
Holy Family
7th Day in Christmas Octave

Vigils
*vigil and midnight mass
Acts 6:1-15
Wis 7:21-8:1
Exod 1:6-22
Col 1:1-14
Eph 5:21-6:4
Col 2:4-15

Lauds
Baruch 3:36-4:4
Wis 4:7-15
Prov 8:22-30
Jer 31:15-20
Isa 43:14-21
Sir 26:1-4, 13-16
Isa 44:6-8, 21-23

Mass
16
696
697
698
202
17
204

1st
Isa 52:7-10
Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59
1 John 1:1-4
1 John 1:5-2:2
1 John 2:3-11
Col 3:12-21
1 John 2:18-21

2nd
Heb 1:1-6

Gospel
John 1:1-18
Matt 10:17-22
John 20:1a, 2-8
Matt 2:13-18
Luke 2:22-35
Matt 2:13-15, 19-23
John 1:1-18

Vespers
Acts 13:16-26
Gal 2:15-21
Acts 4:13-20
1 Pet 4:12-19
Eph 1:1-10
Phil 2:1-11
Rev 11:19-12:6

*Mass during the Night: 1) Isa 9:1-6 2) Titus 2:11-14 Gospel) Luke 2:1-14

Vigils Reading
2022-12-24
Christmas Eve In Algeria
An excerpt from The Last Monk of Tibhirine
Christmas Eve arrived. Jean-Pierre was in the sacristy getting the liturgical instruments and the vestures ready for midnight Mass, while the prior was in his office; Michel was in the kitchen preparing hot cocoa… Suddenly Jean-Pierre heard strange whispering sounds. He assumed it was Celestin, whose health was delicate…but then he saw that Celestin was threatened by a young man in military uniform who was squatting on the ground armed with a Kalashnikov rifle. Christophe and Philippe fled into the cellar. The armed man had the order to round up the brothers in the guesthouse. Luc, the medical doctor, slept exceptionally well that night and did not notice a thing. When Jean-Pierre saw how they led Michel away, who was a particularly sensitive man, the following words from the Bible came to mind: “Like a sheep you led me to the slaughter.”
In the front yard of the guesthouse there he was…Syad-Attia, the dreaded boss of the gang. Jean-Pierre heard a member of the flying squad talking in Arabic to the priest and the two students: “We won’t harm you. We are fighting against the government.” Yet Sayad demanded in a sharp voice: “I want to see the pope of this corner here.” Paul hurried to call Christian, who was in his cell, but the latter answered in unbelievable calmness: “I am not in a hurry.” When he went down the staircase, he said in a voice so everyone could hear him: “One does not come to this place in arms. If you want to have a dialogue, then the weapons have to go. This is a house of peace, or we will discuss it outside the gate.” Basically, his words were quite audacious, but Sayad followed him to an area beyond the chapel and related his conditions.

First he demanded that Luc should accompany him into the mountains in order to tend to a wounded man. The prior refused because this could have been interpreted as partisanship for the GIA [the Groupe Islamique Armé – Armed Islamic Group]. Then the terrorist leader asked for medication, but Christian pointed out that Luc suffered from asthma and could not leave the ward. He added that no matter who came to ask him for help would be treated, and that the medication supply was only enough for the population of the village. Finally, Sayad demanded money. Christian emphasized that the monastery was not wealthy and lived off the toil of their hands. “But I know that you are rich,” Sayad interrupted him. Yet he received the following answer: “We live off what we have and still give to the poor.”
Then the prior dared to ask a counter question that could have cost him his life: “Are you aware on what day you appear before us? We are getting ready for tonight’s celebration of the arrival of our Prince of Peace, Sidna-Aissa.” “We did not know this,” Sayad answered, “but we will return.” Sayad extended his hand to the prior, who hesitated to shake it because it was smudged with the blood of the Croatians, but then returned the gesture.
Jean-Pierre was deeply impressed by the courage his prior had shown by starting a discussion with a terrorist in such a precarious situation. Christian had looked in Sayad’s eyes both with determination and gentleness. He believed in the power that such an encounter at eye level could have. Soon after, he wrote his testament in which he described it as “VISUALIZING.” When Amedee…woke up Luc…and told him that the GIA had shown up…the latter just shrugged his shoulders

7 Derwahl, Freddy. The Last Monk of Tibhirine: A True Story of Martyrdom, Faith, and Survival. Trans. Andreas Kiryakakis. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2013. 74-76.

Vigils Reading
2022-12-23
Hope – A meditation by St Charles de Foucauld
O God, tell me about hope! How can hopeful thoughts originate in this poor world? Are they not bound to come from heaven? Everything we see, all we experience, all we are only proves our nothingness to us. How can we realize we were created to be Jesus’ brothers and co-heirs, and your children, unless you tell us so? Mother of Beautiful Love and Sacred Hope, pray to your Son Jesus for me and inspire in me the thoughts I should have.
The hope of being one day in heaven, at your feet, my Lord, in the company of the holy Virgin and the saints, gazing on you, loving you, possessing you for all eternity, with nothing able ever to separate me from you for a single moment, my Good and my All – what a vision that is! A vision of true peace, of heavenly peace indeed. It is a hope far above our dreams and raises us far above our normal selves. Yet you not only permit us to have it, you tell us we must have it. Could you possibly have given us a pleasanter commandment? O God, how good you are!
Hope is symbolized by an anchor – and how secure that anchor is! However wicked I may be, however great a sinner, I must hope that I shall go to heaven. You forbid me to despair. However ungrateful or lukewarm or cowardly I may be, however much I may misuse your graces, O God, you make it my dutyto hope to live eternally at your feet in love and holiness. You forbid me ever to be discouraged by my shortcomings, or to say to myself, “I can go no further. The road is too bad. I must go back – right back to the bottom.” You forbid me to say to myself at the prospect of the sins I renew daily, the sins I ask you daily to forgive and continually fall back into: “I can never correct myself; holiness is not for me; heaven and I have nothing in common and I am too unworthy to go there.” Even when I think of the infinite graces you have heaped on me and the unworthiness of my present life, you forbid me to say to myself, “I have gone too far in misusing my graces; I ought to be a saint, but I am a sinner; I cannot correct myself, it is too difficult; I am nothing but wretchedness and pride; after everything God has done, there is still no good in me; I shall never go to heaven.”

In spite of everything, you want me to hope, to hope always that I shall receive enough grace to be converted and attain glory. What is there in common between heaven and me – between its perfection and my wretchedness? There is your Heart, O Lord Jesus. It forms a link between these two so dissimilar things. There is the love of the Father who so loved the world he gave his only Son. I must always hope, because you have commanded me to, and because I must always believe both in your love, the love you have so firmly promised, and in your power. Yes indeed, remembering what you have done for me, I must always have such confidence in your love that, however ungrateful and unworthy I may seem to myself to be, I can still have hope in it, still count on it, still remain convinced that you are ready to accept me as the father accepted his prodigal son – and even more ready – and still remain convinced too that you will not stop calling me to your feet, inviting me to come to them and giving me the means to do so

6 St. Charles de Foucauld. Spiritual Autobiography of Charles de Foucauld. Ed. Jean-Franҫois Six. Trans. J. Holland Smith. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1964. 71-72.

Vigils Reading
2022-12-22
Sermon 87 on the Advent of the Lord
by Aelred of Rievaulx
Let us live soberly and piously <and justly> in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God. Christ our Savior, whose advent we celebrate and whose approaching birth we await, is a lover and rewarder of virtue.
For our sake he came from the Father’s bosom into the Virgin’s womb, and he humbled himself, taking the form of a servant. So let us also be humbled under his mighty hand so that he may exalt us in the time of visitation…All virtues are necessary for us to imitate the Savior, but especially these three: sobriety, piety, and justice. Sobriety is assigned to us, piety to God, justice to a neighbor.
Let us live soberly so that we turn aside neither to the right nor to the left,
because sobriety holds the middle place, and <in> the middle you may walk most safely. Let us live soberly lest we be broken by adversity or puffed up by prosperity. <Let us live> soberly lest we hope excessively or succumb to fear.
Stupid people who love their own flesh are not uncommon. Such people are made more bold in committing sin as they contrive hope for themselves by considering God’s multitudinous mercies… Just as he rewards the chosen through mercy, so through justice he punishes the condemned…Just aspresumption is dangerous, so despair is similarly dangerous, born from a heap of sin and indiscriminate fear.

It often happens that people when considering their sins and crimes abhor their own lives in <examining> their evils, unwisely fearing God’s wrath, judging themselves unworthy of his mercy, and despairing their own lives, doing what is inappropriate, and even desiring, if it were possible, to be hidden from God’s face… Therefore, let us live soberly, so that we not be enveloped in danger by either of these extremes.
We are also ordered to live piously in this world so that we honor God with our whole life, so that we fear and love him above all. For God, who has made all things, must be loved with our whole <soul>, whole strength, and all our powers. Worship of God is the supreme piety, for fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…Let us live piously, so that having compassion for one another, we bear one another’s burdens, and thus let us fulfill the law of Christ.
Let us live justly so that we give back to all what is <their own>, according to the Lord’s precept: To Caesar, things that <are> Caesar’s, and to God, things that are God’s. We owe body and soul to God because he has created both, he has redeemed both, he will glorify both. In the faith and love of Christ, we owe love and consideration to our neighbors. Therefore one loves justly who loves God according to his own power and does nothing to his neighbor that he would hate to have done to himself.
So let us live soberly <and justly and lovingly> in this world, looking for the blessed hope of eternal blessedness that we will receive on the Day of Judgment, when our Judge and Redeemer says to us, Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
5 Aelred of Rievaulx. The Liturgical Sermons: The Reading-Cluny Collection, 1 of 2, Sermons 85-133. CF81. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2021. 15-19.

Vigils Reading - Mass for 175 years
2022-12-21
An excerpt from Gethsemani Abbey: Its Foundation
by Dom Eutropius Proust
We left Louisville on the twentieth of December, and were to arrive that evening at Bardstown. Here we were to call on the Jesuit Fathers, who conducted the College of St. Joseph, and to whom we had a letter of introduction from Mgr. Flaget. We should arrive by daylight at Bardstown, which was twelve miles from Gethsemani; but the unfavorable weather delayed us very much, and we were yet nine miles from the town, when a dark and dreary night set in. We did not stop to take any nourishment by the wayside, but refreshed ourselves as best we could, in the wagons, with bread, cheese and fruit. The good God supplied the drink. The rain did not cease to fall abundantly the entire day, so that, alighting from the wagons, we resembled water rats that came out of the river.
We arrived at eleven o’clock. The streets were so full of water and mud that we were knee-deep therein. We went directly to St. Joseph’s College…Our difficulty was to find the entrance, for one could not see a yard ahead. Taking with me two Irish religious, we made a circuit of the house to find the entrance…We kept on seeking and groping until we succeeded in finding the door. We knocked again and again, but no answer. Not knowing what to do, we called aloud together the word “Trappist.” In this we were successful. As soon as the good fathers heard that word they opened the windows. I told them who we were, where we were going, and that I had a letter of introduction to them from Mgr. Flaget, asking them to give us lodging for the night. In an instant three or four of the fathers arose, with as many brothers, and the doors were opened for us. A good fire was made in the hall, and the brothers prepared for us something to eat. At the end of half an hour we were led into the refectory, where we took at the same time our breakfast, dinner and supper.

The following day, having heard Holy Mass and received Holy Communion, our conductors arrived, with a new wagon, borrowed by them at Bardstown. After thanking our hosts for their kind hospitality, we installed ourselves in the wagons and pursued our way to Gethsemani. About two o’clock in the afternoon, we arrived at the entrance of a large forest, after passing the little village of New Haven on the Nashville Railroad. We were informed that this was the beginning of our property. It is difficult to express the feelings that this announcement produced in our souls. I had the wagons stop. Falling on ourknees we recited a “Pater and Ave” to salute the good guardian angels of Gethsemani; and we kissed the earth soon to be watered by our sweat and even by our tears. We re-entered our wagons and continued our journey through the woods for three-quarters of an hour. Our hearts swelled with emotion. With what feelings of joy and admiration, did we not contemplate these magnificent woods. We were astonished in finding ourselves so rich, after having made the vow of poverty…We climbed a hill on which are situated wooden cottages, declining with age. We were going to find at last the crib of our Divine Saviour at Bethlehem. Such, too, were the thoughts of all our religious. They were in transports of joy in beholding these ten or twelve cottages, thrown here and there on the sloping hillside, facing the sun. These composed the entire monastery of Gethsemani.
We arrived at Gethsemani on the twenty-first of December, at two P.M., feast of St. Thomas, Apostle. The cold was excessive, and all we could do the first days was to gather firewood in the forest with which to warm ourselves. We also collected or shucked a field of corn that had remained…Such were ouroccupations during these first days.
4 Dom Eutropius Proust. Gethsemani Abbey: Its Foundation. Messenger Magazine, 1898. (Complete manuscript available in CSQ 2021).

Rule of Benedict: Reflections. 7 pm CT
2022-12-20 19:00 - 19:30 (America/Chicago)
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our selection:
Chapter 64 (beginning): On Constituting an Abbess 1-6
In the constituting of an Abbess let this plan always be followed, that the office be conferred on the one who is chosen either by the whole community unanimously in the fear of God or else by a part of the community, however small, if its counsel is more wholesome.
Merit of life and wisdom of doctrine should determine the choice of the one to be constituted, even if she be the last of the order of the community. But if (which God forbid) the whole community should agree to choose a person who will acquiesce in their vices, and if those vices somehow become known to the Bishop to whose diocese the place belongs, or to the Abbots, Abbesses or the faithful of the vicinity, let them prevent the success of this conspiracy of the wicked, and set a worthy steward over the house of God. They may be sure that they will receive a good reward for this action if they do it with a pure intention and out of zeal for God; as, on the contrary, they will sin if they fail to do it.

Vigils Reading
2022-12-20
From the Fourth and Fifth Meditations of the Blessed and Ever Glorious Virgin Mary
by Stephen of Sawley
God the Father, in his exceeding love, sent us his only begotten Son in the flesh. The Son, in his unspeakable mercy, took upon himself our weaknesses, our labors and sorrows and all the burdens of our misery, with the exception of sin. The Holy Spirit, lovingly overshadowed the Virgin with a tenderness indescribable and set her alight and ablaze so that, absolutely beautiful in body and soul, her whole being was aflame with love, like red hot gold in a red hot furnace. Once the surging flood of divine power had placidly entered her virginal womb, she no longer thought the thoughts of man. Gone from her was every carnal thought; all she experienced was grace in its fullness.
Enchanted with the sweetness, think in your ecstasy and jubilation of the singular intervention of the Holy Spirit, when our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was conceived in this virginal womb. Think how the Holy One was conceived from the stainless Virgin, the one and only Son from the one and only Virgin.
…bear in mind that the more exalted the blessed Virgin became as the Mother of the only-begotten Son of God, the queen of heaven and the mistress of the world, the more she humbled herself. She crossed the mountain [of Judaea] to greet and serve Elizabeth in greatest humility. This is why Elizabeth, filledwith the Holy Spirit, cried out, ‘Who am I that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?’

Visualize the nature and greatness of this joy when upon the mere salutation of the Virgin the mother [of John] began to prophesy, the Precursor, still enclosed in her womb, leapt for joy, and the soul of the sweet Virgin magnified the Lord.
In the sanctuary of her most holy body, the source of all creatures, the glory and splendor of the Father, true light from true light, chose to dwell for nine months. How happy is she who experienced fully within herself what the whole world could not understand. Who can fully measure the joy and the love, the loving thoughts, and the pure ecstasy of the blessed Virgin when she felt the movement of her beloved Son in her virginal womb? Or her delight that the fountain of sweetness deigned to be a guest in her womb over a nine month period? In her dwelt – so to say, corporeally, – ‘the fullness of deity’. Thoughtssuch as these will place you in a joyful disposition.
3 Stephen of Sawley. Treatises. CF 36. Trans. Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1984. 33-37.

Vigils Reading
2022-12-19
A Letter from Blessed Maria Gabriella to her Mother
Dearest Mamma,
For a long time I thought that I would have already gone to Paradise, but on the contrary it seems the Lord has decided to extend my pilgrimage. May he always be praised in everything.
I am doing well with this illness, but we must always be prepared for death…Don’t worry about anything, but pray that when the Lord comes he will find me prepared.
I look forward to the feast of Christmas, and I hope to spend it well with the Child Jesus, because this year I am more especially united to him through the cross. I wish that the celestial Infant will bring you and the whole family joy, peace, and holy gladness. I hope that the angels will sing around you as they sang at the holy manger: glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will.
This Infant God teaches us many lessons that we will not perhaps ever understand fully. He, the Creator of the universe, God, humbles himself to be born in a poor stable, a place for animals where he is unknown to all. See how we are quite the opposite. We’re nearly ashamed to be poor, and sometimes wewould almost hide this poverty because it seems to humiliate us, and we don’t recognize that this is a privilege from the Lord to make us more like him. Who would dare to rebel, thinking of the humiliation and suffering of the man-God?
My wish, my dear Mother, is for you and for all that the Divine Infant would grant you the virtues of his own cradle, gentleness, humility, and love. May this be for you a feast of holy joy and gladness in accord with him.

May the Lord grant you to advance more and more in holiness and in love for him in the new year. I don’t want you to become rich or to be increasingly better off, but that you become more and more holy and abandoned to the will of God, and so I always pray the Lord to give you the graces necessary for your state in life. I also wish that you will always desire this for me: to become increasingly holy and grow continuously in love with the divine Bridegroom, from whom I received so many graces and predilections, and that you will pray for this.
At the cradle of the infant Jesus I’ll be united with you in thought and soul, and through him, I greet and embrace you all.
Once again I write farewell to you all and ask you to bless me. Always your daughter,
Sister Maria Gabriella
2 Bl. Gabriella Sagheddu. The Letters of Blessed Maria Gabriella with the Notebooks of Mother Pia Gullini. MW 57. Trans. David Lavich, OCSO. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2019. 124-126.

Compline
2022-12-18 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
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Vigils Reading - 4th Sun Advent
2022-12-18
A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew by St Bede
Matthew the evangelist gives us an account of the way in which the eternal Son of God, begotten before the world began, appeared in time as the Son of Man. His description is brief but absolutely true. By tracing the ancestry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through the male line he brings it down from Abraham to Joseph, the husband of Mary. It is indeed fitting in every respect that when God decided to become incarnate for the sake of the whole human race, none but a virgin should be his mother, and that, since a virgin was privileged to bring him into the world, she should bear no other son but the son who is God.
Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and he shall be called Emmanuel, a name which means God with us. The name God-with-us, given to our Savior by the prophet, signifies that two natures are united in his one person. Before time began he was God, born of the Father, but in the fullness of time he became Emmanuel, God with us, in the womb of his mother, because when the Word was made flesh and lived among us he deigned to unite our frail human nature to his own person. Without ceasing to be what he had always been, he began in a wonderful fashion to be what we are, assuming our nature in such a way that he did not lose his own.
And so Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, the child of her own flesh and blood. She brought forth the God who had been born of God before creation began, and who, in his created humanity, rightfully surpassed the whole of creation. And Scripture says she named him Jesus.
Jesus, then, is the name of the Virgin’s son. According to the angel’s explanation, it means one who is to save his people from their sins. In doing so he will also deliver them from any defilement of mind and body they have incurred on account of their sins.

But the title “Christ” implies a priestly or royal dignity. In the Old Testament it was given to both priests and kings on account of the anointing with chrism or holy oil which they received. They prefigured the true king and high priest who, on coming into this world, was anointed with the oil of gladness above all his peers. From this anointing or chrismation he received the name of Christ, and those who share in the anointing which he himself bestows, that is the grace of the Spirit, are called Christians.
May Jesus Christ fulfill his saving task by saving us from our sins; may he discharge his priestly office by reconciling us to God the Father, and may he exercise his royal power by admitting us to his Father’s kingdom, for he is our Lord and God, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen
1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press – 1992 = pg 22

Skema
2022-12-18
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
4th Week of Advent

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
December 18 – 24, 2022

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

Office
4th Sunday of Advent
Advent Weekday
Advent Weekday
Mass for 175 Years
Advent Weekday
Advent Weekday
Advent Weekday

Vigils
Isa 46:1-13
Isa 47:1-15
Isa 48:1-11
Isa 48:12-22
Isa 49:8-26
Isa 51:1-11
Isa 51:17-52:10

Lauds
Isa 40:6-11
Isa 40:25-31
Isa 41:1-10
Isa 41:11-16
Isa 41:17-20
Isa 43:9-13
Isa 63:15-19

Mass
10
195
196
701.1, 702.4, 706.3
198
199
200

1st
Isa 7:10-14
Judg 13:2-7, 24-25a
Isa 7:10-14
1 Kings 8:22-23, 27-30
1 Sam 1:24-28
Mal 3:1-4, 23-24
2 Sam 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16

2nd
Rom 1:1-7

1 Peter 2:4-9

Gospel
Matt 1:18-24
Luke 1:5-25
Luke 1:26-38
John 2:13-22
Luke 1:46-56
Luke 1:57-66
Luke 1:67-79

Vespers
Phil 1:3-11
Phil 3:17-21
Phil 4:4-9
1 Cor 1:1-9
1 Cor 4:1-5
Jas 5:7-11
2 Pet 3:8-14

Vigils Reading
2022-12-17
WHAT WAS THE REASON FOR THE WORD OF GOD TO BECOME MAN?
an excerpt from the writings of St Irenaeus of Lyons7
We have clearly shown that in the beginning the Word was with God, and that through Him all things were made, that He was also always with the human race, and that, according to the time preordained by the Father, even in these latter days, this same one was united with His handiwork and became man, capable of suffering. Consequently, every objection of those who say, “If therefore Christ was born, then He did not exist before,” is rejected. For we have shown that the Son of God did not begin to exist then, having been always with the Father; but when He became incarnate and was made man, He recapitulated in Himself the long unfolding of humankind, granting salvation by way of compendium, that in Christ Jesus we might receive what we had lost in Adam, namely, to be according to the image and likeness of God.
In fact, it was not possible for humankind, which had once been conquered and had been dashed to pieces by its disobedience, to refashion itself and obtain the prize of victory. Again, it was not possible for the human race, which had fallen under sin, to receive salvation. And so the Son, Word of God that He is, accomplished both, by coming down from the Father and becoming incarnate, and descending even to death, and bringing the economy of our salvation to completion.
This same one was announced by Paul: For I delivered to you, he said, as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures. So it is evident that Paul did not know another Christ besides Him alone who suffered and was buried and rose again, who was also born, whom he also called man. For, when he had said, Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, he continued, giving the reason for His incarnation, for as by man came death, by a man has come also resurrection from the dead. And whenever he speaks of the passion of our Lord, and of His human nature and death, he uses the name of Christ. For example, Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died; again, But now in Christ…you, who were once afar off, have been brought near through the bloodof Christ.

The Lord Himself makes it plain who suffered. When He asked the disciples, Who do men say that the Son of Man is? And when Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, and when he was praised by Him, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to him, but the Father who is in heaven,then He made it plain that this Son of Man is Christ the Son of the living God.
He destroyed disobedience, because He bound the strong one and loosed the weak ones and gave salvation to His handiwork by destroying sin. For the Lord is most kind and merciful and loves humankind.
Therefore…He caused humanity to adhere to and to be united with God. For if humankind had not overcome the enemy of humankind, the enemy would not justly have been overcome. Again, unless God had given salvation, we would not possess it securely; and unless the human race had been united with God, it would not be partaker of imperishability. For it behooved the Mediator of God and humanity, by His kinship to both, to lead them back to friendship and concord, and to bring it about that God would take humankind to Himself, and that humankind would give itself to God

7 St. Irenaeus of Lyons. Ancient Christian Writers: Against the Heresies (Book 3). Trans. Dominic J. Unger, OFM Cap. New York: The Newman Press, 2012. 87-91.

Vigils Reading
2022-12-16
An Excerpt from Sermon Eighty-Three on the Song of Songs6 by John of Ford
From the moment that ‘the Word was made flesh’, the Lord Jesus bore his cross, truly from then on ‘a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief’. In fact, we hold that the evangelist intended to reveal this by saying that ‘the Word was made flesh’, the word ‘flesh’ standing deliberately for his capacity to suffer and feel compassion. If you think of it, what in all creation is weaker than human flesh, or more tender? Weakness implies suffering and tenderness implies compassion, the two factors form which, as from two bars of wood, the cross of Christ was fashioned. We have the word of St Gregory that the real cross of Christ is to suffer and to feel compassion, by which he means pain of body and sympathy of soul. Of course, the necessary condition is that a cross like this is carried for Christ’s sake and in his dispositions.
It is clear enough that Christ bore a cross of this kind from his very entrance into his mother’s body, where he suffered the constriction of her virginal womb. Probably he suffered more than other babies, in that he who had come to learn suffering from experience, could not be without the sense of pain. From his very beginning, he was full of grace, but he was also pre-eminently full of knowledge and truth. So even when in the womb ‘he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows,’ and he did this all the more truly because he did it with full knowledge and consent. But other babies pass through this experience in what one might call the sleep of ignorance.
Here, within the narrowness of the womb, narrow indeed, he sought and found what long ago in paradise, Adam sought, and could not find its hiding place. Here he seized hold of the urge to sin, which the serpent had struck the first man, and drew it out with his hands. He saw his task through to the end, working now ‘ salvation in the midst of the earth’, and diligently and vigorously purging out all stain from human conception. Yes, it was there that the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world, it was there he did penance for our wickedness, enduring nine months of weariness and constantly interceding with the Father on our behalf.

For it was his choice not to anticipate the hour of his birth, but to go patiently through the normal stages of being formed. He awaited the ordinary period of being brought forth by his mother, for he had come to be all things for all men, and he wanted to be, also, a child for all children. In only one respect he evaded the laws that govern other infants when he entered his mother’s womb, he did not desecrate its sanctity; he caused no inconvenience while he lived within it; he did not tear it when he left. The Lord Jesus is the only infant who was truly innocent, for he made his mother’s virginity fruitful by his own conception, he sanctified it by his growth within her, and he gave her great joy by his actual birth

6 John of Ford. Sermons on the Final Verses of the Song of Songs. Trans. Wendy Mary Beckett. CF 46. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1984. 2-4.

Vigils Reading
2022-12-15
A Letter from PADRE PIO to his Spiritual Child5
May the divine Spirit come down into your heart and fill it entirely with heavenly charisms. How good our God is who lavished so many graces upon us and loves us so dearly although we do not deserve it. May He be for ever blessed by all creatures.
At the opening of the sacred novena in honour of the holy Child Jesus I felt my soul being born, as it were, to a new life. My heart felt too small to contain the heavenly favours and my soul seemed to disintegrate in the presence of this God who took human flesh for our sake. How can we help loving Him more and more ardently? Oh, let us draw near to the Child Jesus with hearts free from sin, that we may discover how sweet and delightful it is to love Him.
Do not fail to send up your supplications…especially during these days when heaven is open more than ever to send down divine graces upon us.
Pray, then, and do sweet violence to the little heart of this tender Infant who is filled with deep affection for us.
Take care, moreover, not to lose the presence of God by any action whatsoever. Never undertake any work or any action without first raising your mind to God and directing to Him with a pure intention the action you are about to perform. You should do likewise at the end of every action. Examine yourself as to whether you have done everything with the right intention you had at the beginning and if you find you have been at fault, then ask pardon of the Lord with humility while making a firm resolution to correct your faulty conduct.

You must not be discouraged or let yourself become dejected if your actions have not succeeded as perfectly as you intended. What do you expect? We are made of clay and not every soil yields the fruits expected by the one who tills it. But let us always humble ourselves and acknowledge that we are nothing if we lack the divine assistance.
To be worried because something we have done has not turned out in accordance with our pure intention shows a lack of humility. This is a clear sign that the person concerned has not entrusted the success of his action to the divine assistance but has depended too much on his own strength.
May the ever-present grace of the Lord invariably prevent you from being a prey to this evil spirit even to the slightest extent. It is never a small matter when a soul espoused to the Son of God succumbs to the wiles of this dreadful monster even in little things.
Never lie down to sleep without having first examined your conscience on the way you have spent the day and without first turning your thoughts to God. Then offer and consecrate your whole person and that of every Christian, especially my wretched self, to God, just as I do for you

5 Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Letters Vol. II: Correspondence with Raffaelina Cerase, Noblewoman. Ed. Melchiorre of Pobladura and Alessandro of Ripabottoni. Trans. Fr. Gerardo Di Flumeri. Foggia, Italy: Edizioni, 1975. 288-294.

Vigils Readings - St John of the Cross
2022-12-14
COUNSELS TO A RELIGIOUS ON HOW TO REACH PERFECTION by St John of the Cross4
He who wishes to be a true religious and fulfill the promises which by his state he has professed, advance in virtue, and enjoy the consolations and the delights of the Holy Spirit, will be unable to do so if he does not try to practice with the greatest diligence the four following counsels concerning resignation, mortification, the practice of virtue, and bodily and spiritual solitude.
In order to practice the first counsel, concerning resignation, you should live in the monastery as though no one else were in it. And thus you should never, by word or by thought, meddle in things that happen in the community, nor with individuals in it, desiring not to notice their good or bad qualities or their conduct. And in order to preserve your tranquility of soul, even if the whole world crumbles, you should not desire to advert to this or interfere, remembering Lot’s wife who was changed into hard stone because she turned her head to look at those who in the midst of much clamor and noise were perishing.
To practice the second counsel, which concerns mortification, and profit by it, you should engrave this truth upon your heart. And it is that you have not come to the monastery for any other reason than to be worked and tried in virtue, that you are like the stone which must be chiseled and fashioned before being used in the building.
Thus you should understand that those who are in the monastery are craftsmen placed there by God to mortify you by working and chiseling at you. Some will chisel with words, telling you what you would rather not hear; others by deed, doing against you what you would rather not endure; others by their temperament, being in their person and in their actions a bother and annoyance to you; and other by their thoughts, neither esteeming nor feeling love for you.

Trials will never be lacking in religious life, nor does God want them to be. Since He brings souls there to be proved and purified, like gold, with the hammer and the fire, it is fitting that they encounter trials and temptations from men and from devils, and the fire of anguish and affliction.
To practice the third counsel, which concerns the practice of virtue, you should be constant in your religious observance and in obedience, without any concern for the world, but only for God. In order to achieve this and avoid being deceived, you should never set your eyes upon the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the work at hand as a motive for doing it or failing to do it, but upon doing it for God. Thus you must undertake all things, agreeable or disagreeable, for the sole purpose of pleasing God through them.
To practice the fourth counsel, which concerns solitude, you should deem everything in the world as finished. Thus, when (for not being able to avoid it) you have to deal with some matter, do so in as detached a way as you would if it did not exist…Do not desire to know anything in any way except how better to serve God and keep the observance of your institute.
If Your Charity observes these four counsels with care, you will reach perfection in a very short time. These counsels are so interdependent that if you are lacking in one of them, you will begin to lost the profit and gain you have form practicing the others

4 St. John of the Cross. The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1979. 662-665.
