Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading - 22nd Sunday
2024-09-01
THE ESSENCE OF THE LAW
From a commentary by St Irenaeus1
◊◊◊
The Pharisees claimed that the traditions of their elders safeguarded the
Law, but in fact it contravened the Law that Moses had given. By saying: Your
merchants mix water with wine Isaiah shows that the elders mixed their watery
tradition with God’s strict commandment. In other words, they enjoined an
adulterated law which went against the Law, as the Lord also made clear when
he asked them: Why do you transgress God’s commandment for the sake of your
tradition?
By their transgression they not only falsified God’s Law, called to this day
the Pharisaic law. In this their rabbis suppress some of the commandments, add
new ones, and give others their own interpretation, thus making the law serve
their own purposes.
Their desire to justify these traditions kept them from submitting to God’s
Law that taught them about the coming of Christ. Instead, they even found fault
with the Lord for healing on the Sabbath, which was not forbidden by the Law,
for in a sense the Law itself healed by causing circumcision to be performed on
the Sabbath. On the other hand, they found no fault with themselves for
breaking God’s commandment by their tradition and the Pharisaic law just
mentioned, or by lacking the essence of the Law, which is love for God.
That this is the first and greatest commandment, the second being love of
our neighbor, the Lord taught by saying that the whole of the Law and the
prophets depend on these two commandments. He himself taught no greater
commandment than this, but he renewed this same commandment by bidding
his disciples love God with their whole heart, and their neighbor as themselves.3
Paul also says that love is the fulfillment of the Law. When all other
charisms fail, faith, hope and love remain, but the greatest of all is love.
Knowledge is of no avail without the love of God, nor is understanding of
mysteries, faith or prophecy. Without love all are vain and pointless. Love on
the other hand perfects a person, and one who loves God is perfect both in this
world and in the next, for we shall never stop loving God – the longer we gaze
upon Him the more our love for Him will grow.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-02
GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT
By Karl Rahner1
◊◊◊
Are there not people today who, if they are true to their character as willed
by God, are a people of small means, of hard work, of only a few words, of loyalty
of heart and simple sincerity? Certainly, every Christian and every Christian
nation is charged with the entire fullness of Christian perfection as a duty that
is never completed. But every nation and every person has, so to speak, his own
door, his own approach, through which he alone can come nearer to the fullness
of Christianity. Not all of us will find access to the boundless vistas of God’s
world through the great gate of surging rapture and burning ardor. Some must
go through the small gate of quiet loyalty and the ordinary, exact performance
of duty. And it is this fact, I am inclined to think, that can help us to discover a
rapport between earth and heaven, between Christians today and their heavenly
intercessor…
[Joseph] received into his family the One who came to redeem his nation
from their sin, One to whom he himself gave the name of Jesus, a name which
means “Yahweh is Salvation.” Silent and loyal, he served the eternal Word of
the Father, the Word who had become a child of this world. And they called
their Redeemer the son of a carpenter. When the eternal Word was audible in
the world in the message of the gospels, Joseph, having quietly done his duty,
went away without any notice on the part of this world.
But the life of this insignificant man did have significance; it had one
meaning that, in the long run, counts in each one’s life: God and his incarnate
grace. To him it could be said: “Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of
your Lord.” Who can doubt that this man is a good patron for us? This man of
humble, everyday routine, this man of silent performance of duty, of honest5
righteousness and of manly piety, this man who was charged with protecting
the grace of God in its embodied life.
Christians of today might find their way back to what is best in them if the
individuality of this man, their patron, were again producing more stature in
them. Granted, a nation must have greatness of spirit and pioneers who will
lead her towards new goals. Just as much, if not more so, however, a nation
needs men and women of life-long performance of duty, of clear-headed loyalty,
of discipline of heart and body.
A nation needs those who know that true greatness is achieved only in
selfless service to the greater and holy duty that is imposed upon each life; those
of genuine reverence, conquerors of themselves, who hear the word of God and
carry out the inflexible decrees of conscience. It needs those who through their
lives bear the childlike, defenseless grace of God past all those who, like Herod,
attempt to kill this grace. A nation needs those who do not lose confidence in
God’s grace, even when they have to seek it as lost, as Joseph once sought the
divine child. Such as these are urgently needed in every situation and in every
class. We have a good patron, who is suitable for everyone. For he is a patron of
the poor, a patron of working men and women, a patron of exiles, a model for
worshipers, an exemplar of the pure discipline of the heart, a prototype of
fathers who protect in their children the Son of the Father.

Vigils Reading - St Gregory the Great
2024-09-03
THE UNENCOMPASSED LIGHT
By St Gregory the Great1
◊◊◊
There is in contemplation a great effort of the mind, when it raises itself
up to heavenly things, when it fixes its attention on spiritual things, when it tries
to pass over all that is outwardly seen, when it narrows itself that it may be
enlarged. And sometimes indeed it prevails and soars above the resisting
darkness of its blindness, so that it attains to somewhat of the unencompassed
Light by stealth and scantily; but for all that, to itself straightaway beaten back
it returns, and out of that light into which panting it had passed, into the
darkness of its blindness sighing it returns.
In the wrestling of Jacob with the Angel, the Angel symbolizes the Lord,
and Jacob, who contends with the Angel, represents the soul of each perfect
one, who exercises contemplation. Such a soul, when it strives to contemplate
God, as if placed in a wrestle, now comes uppermost, because by understanding
and feeling it tastes somewhat of the unencompassed Light; and now falls
underneath, because in the very tasting it faints away. Therefore, so to say, the
Angel is worsted when by the innermost intellect God is apprehended.
Almighty God, when He is now known through desire and intellect, dries
up in us every fleshly pleasure; and whereas before we seemed to be both
seeking God and cleaving to the world, after the perception of the sweetness of
God, the love of the world grows feeble in us, and the love of God alone waxes
strong; and while there increases in us the strength of inmost love, without
doubt the strength of the flesh is weakened.
The sweetness of contemplation is worthy of love exceedingly, for it
carries away the soul above itself, it opens out things heavenly, and shows that7
things earthly are to be despised; it reveals things spiritual to the eyes of the
mind, and hides things bodily.
But we must know that so long as we live in this mortal flesh no one so
advances in power of contemplation as to fix the mind’s eyes as yet on the
unencompassed ray itself of Light. For the Almighty God is not yet seen in this
brightness, but the soul beholds something beneath it, by which refreshed it
may progress, and hereafter attain to the glory of the sight of Him. When the
mind has made progress in contemplation it does not yet contemplate that
which God, but that which is under Him. But in that contemplation already the
taste of interior quiet is experienced.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-04
PREPARING OURSELVES
TO MEET THE LORD
By Blessed Guerric of Igny1
◊◊◊
“BE PREPARED now Israel to meet the Lord, for he is coming”. And you
too my dear brethren be prepared as well; for the Son of Man will come when
you least expect him. He is coming, nothing is more certain than that; but when
he will arrive—nothing is less certain. Right up to the last moment we will not
know the actual time the Father in his almighty power has appointed. Even the
angels who stand before him have not been given the privilege of knowing that
day or hour. Our last day most certainly must come to us; but it is very uncertain
when it will come, where we will be or whence it will come. All we can say is that
it is knocking at the door for the old, and lies in wait for the young.
O that they would keep careful guard over themselves who see death so
ready to enter, nay rather who see it already entering. For has it not already
entered, at least to some extent, a body grown senile and decrepit Yet in many
who are already half-dead one can see worldly desires still alive. The limbs are
growing cold and the fire of avarice still burns within; life is coming to its end
and ambition still strains ahead. Because our youth or health perhaps appear to
promise some more years ahead of us death is not often before our eyes, but this
is just the very reason why, if we are wise, it should be in our thoughts, lest that
day come like a thief in the night and find us unprepared and unready. It is lying
in wait for us and we should fear it all the more for its being hidden, for we can
neither see it nor get warning of it.
There is therefore only one thing that makes us safe: never to think that
we are safe. For fear makes a careful man always prepared until at length fear
can give way to security and not security to fear. The wise man says: “I shall9
keep myself from my iniquity, seeing that I am powerless in respect to my
death.” He knows that the just man, if he is surprised by death, will be at rest?
In fact that man triumphs over death who was not overcome by iniquity during
his life.

Vigils Reading - St Teresa of Calcutta
2024-09-05
GENEROSITY
From the book “In My Own Words” by St Mother Teresa1
◊◊◊
Without a spirit of sacrifice, without a life of prayer, without an intimate
attitude of penance, we would not be capable of carrying our work. We feed
ourselves, not to please our senses, but to show our Lord that we want to work
for him and with him, to live a life of sacrifice and reparation…
One night, a man came to our house to tell me that a Hindu family, a
family of eight children, had not eaten anything for days. They had nothing to
eat. I took enough rice for a meal and went to their house. I could see the hungry
faces, the children with their bulging eyes. The sight could not have been more
dramatic! The mother took the rice from my hands, divided it in half and went
out. When she came back a little later, I asked her: “Where did you go? What
did you do?” She answered, “They also are hungry.” “They” were the people next
door, a Muslim family with the same number of children to feed and who did
not have any food either. That mother was aware of the situation. She had the
courage and the love to share her meager portion of rice with others. In spite of
her circumstances, I think she felt very happy to share with her neighbors the
little I had taken her. In order not to take away her happiness, I did not take her
anymore rice that night. I took her some more the following day.
“What is a Christian?” someone asked a Hindu man. He responded, “The
Christian is someone who gives.” I ask you one thing: do not tire of giving, but
do not give your leftovers. Give until it hurts, until you feel the pain. Open your
hearts to the love God instills in them. God loves you tenderly. What he gives
you is not to be kept under lock and key, but to be shared. The more you save,
the less you will be able to give. The less you have, the more you will know how11
to share. Let us ask God, when it comes time to ask him for something, to help
us to be generous.
It was late in the day (around ten at night) when the doorbell rang. I
opened the door and found a man shivering from the cold. “Mother Teresa, I
heard that you just received an important prize. When I heard this I decided to
offer you something too. Here you have it: this is what I collected today.” It was
little, but in his case it was everything. I was moved more than by the Nobel
prize.
One day a young couple came to our house and asked for me. They gave
me a large amount of money. I asked them, “Where did you get so much
money?” They answered, “We got married two days ago. Before we got married
we had decided not to celebrate the wedding, not to buy wedding clothes, not to
have a reception or a honeymoon. We wanted to give you the money I saved.” I
know what such a decision meant, especially for a Hindu family. That is why I
asked them, “But how did you think of such a thing?” “We love each other so
much,” they answered, “that we wanted to share the joy of our love with those
you serve.”
To share: what a beautiful thing! We should learn how to give. If we worry
too much about ourselves, we won’t have time for others.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-06
THE ENCOURAGMENT
OF THE SAINTS
By Bishop John Vaughan1
◊◊◊
We may study learned treatises of ascetical theology; we may know the
theory of sanctity…but such knowledge will never affect us as does the
contemplation of it when reduced to practice, and exhibited in the actual life of
some great servant of God. To lay down the broad principles of holiness is one
thing, but to see these principles carried out and acted upon in real life is
something far more inspiring.
To know what is just, and right, and loyal, and generous is no doubt
important, but such knowledge does not stir us like the concrete example of
some fervent soul whom we can actually watch, step by step, battling with evil
in many a hand-to-hand encounter, and struggling and striving to keep a
foothold on the narrow path of virtue amid the fiercest winds and storms of
temptation.
The very difficulties appeal to us; the falls and the occasional weaknesses
reveal character as well as the difficulties of the way; the courage and
determination to surmount them at any cost, the stern refusal to allow obstacles
or even the most serious disasters to discourage or check the advance of the
onward course infuse fresh courage and hope even into ourselves.
And what adds immensely to our zest is the fact that, in contemplating
the saints, we are contemplating men and women like ourselves. Their nature
is the same as ours, and their innate strength no greater than our own. If they
wrestled successfully with evil, if they beat down every rebellious passion and
passed in safety through fire and water, it was not because they were formed13
from a different clay, but because they had learned the value of prayer and had
trusted in God and not in themselves. For the rest, they were human as we are.

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2024-09-07
MARY IS IN SILENCE
By Pierre de Bérulle1
◊◊◊
It falls to the Virgin to keep silence. It is her condition, her road, her life.
Her life is a life of silence, which adores the eternal Word. Seeing before her
eyes, at her breast, in her arms, this same Word, the substantial Word of the
Father, to be dumb and reduced to silence by the condition of his childhood, she
enters again into a new silence and is transformed by it after the example of the
incarnate Word who is her Son, her God and her sole love. And in that way her
life goes on, from silence to silence, from a silence of adoration to a silence of
transformation.
Mary is in silence, enraptured by the silence of her Son Jesus. One of the
sacred and divine effects of the silence of Jesus is to put the most holy Mother
of Jesus into a life of silence: a silence that is humble, profound, and that adores
the incarnate Wisdom with more holiness and eloquence than the words of
either angels or humans. This silence on the part of the Virgin is not a silence of
one who hesitates in speech or of one who is helpless: it is a silence more
eloquent, in its praise of Jesus, than eloquence itself. And so it is marvelous to
see that, in this condition of the silence and the childhood of Jesus, everyone
speaks and Mary says nothing at all: the silence of Jesus has more power to hold
her in sacred silence than the words of either angels or saints have the power to
bring her in and make her speak of things so worthy of praise, things that
heaven and earth are at one in celebrating and adoring.
The angels speak of these things among themselves and to the shepherds,
and Mary is in silence. The shepherds hurry away and speak, and Mary is in
silence. The kings arrive and speak, and make the whole city, the whole state,
all the sacred synod of Judea, speak: and Mary has withdrawn and is in silence.15
The whole state is moved, and everyone is astonished and speaks of the new
king sought by the kings, and Mary is in her repose and holy silence. Simeon
speaks in the temple, and Anna the prophetess, and all those who await the
salvation of Israel: and Mary offers, gives, receives and brings back her Son in
silence; so powerful and secretly impressive is the silence of Jesus on the spirit
and heart of the Virgin, keeping her powerfully and divinely occupied and
enraptured in silence. For, again, during the time of his childhood, we have
nothing but these words which have been brought to us about the conduct of
the Virgin and about her holiness in regard to her Son and to the things which
are reported of him and accomplished in him: “But Mary kept all these things,
pondering them in her heart”. There we see the condition and occupation of the
Virgin, there are her daily duties and her life in regard to Jesus during his holy
childhood

Skema
2024-09-08
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
23rd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
September 8 – 14, 2024

Sun
8
Mon
9
Tue
10
Wed
11
Thu
12
Fri
13
Sat
14

Office
23rd Sunday
St Peter Claver
Weekday
Office for Vocations
St Peter II Tarentaise
St John Chrysostom
Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Vigils
Ezra 6:1-12
Ezra 6:13-22
Ezra 7:11-28
Ezra 8:21-36
Ezra 9:1-15
Ezra 10:1-17
Isa 52:13-53:12

Lauds
Malachi 1:1-5
Mal 1:6-10
Mal 1:11-14
Mal 2:1-9
Mal 2:10-16
Mal 2:17-3:4
Isa 45:21-25

Mass
128
437
438
439
440
441
638

1st
Isa 35:4-7a
1 Cor 5:1-8
1 Cor 6:1-11
1 Cor 7:25-31
1 Cor 8:1b-7, 11-13
1 Cor 9:16-19, 22b-27
Num 21:4b-9

2nd
Jas 2:1-5

Phil 2:6-11

Gospel
Mark 7:31-37
Luke 6:6-11
Luke 6:12-19
Luke 6:20-26
Luke 6:27-38
Luke 6:39-42
John 3:13-17

Vespers
1 Pet 3:8-12
1 Pet 3:13-17
1 Pet 3:18-22
1 Pet 4:1-6
1 Pet 4:7-11
1 Pet 4:12-19
Gal 6:14-18

Vigils Reading - 23rd Sunday
2024-09-08
CHRIST HAS DONE
ALL THINGS WELL
From a commentary by St Lawrence of Brandisi1
◊◊◊
Just as the divine law says that when God created the world, he saw all
that he had made and it was very good, so the gospel, speaking of our
redemption and re-creation, affirms: He has done all things well. A good tree
bears good fruit; no good tree can bear bad fruit. As fire can give out nothing
but heat and is incapable of giving out cold; and as the sun gives out nothing
but light and is incapable of giving out darkness, so God is incapable of doing
anything but good, for He is infinite goodness and light. He is a sun giving out
endless light, a fire producing endless warmth. He has done all things well.
And so today we must wholeheartedly unite with that holy throng in
saying: He has done all things well. He has made the deaf hear and the dumb
speak. Like Balaam’s ass. This crowd certainly spoke under the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit who said through its mouth: He has done all things well; in other
words, he is truly God, because making the deaf hear and the dumb speak are
things that only God can do. There is a transition here from the particular to the
general. This man has worked a miracle that only God could work; therefore, he
is God. Who has done all things well.
He has done all things well. The law says that all God did was good; the
gospel says that he has done all things well. Doing a good deed is not quite the
same as doing it well. Many do good deeds but fail to do them well. The deeds
of hypocrites, for example, are good, but they are done in the wrong spirit, with
a perverse and defective intention. Everything God does, however, is not only
good, but done well. The Lord is just in all his ways and holy in all his deeds.3
With wisdom you have done them all: that is to say, most wisely and well. So,
he has done all things well, they say.
Now if God has done all his good works and done them well for our sake,
knowing that we take pleasure in goodness, why I ask do we not endeavor to
make our works good and to do them well, knowing that such works are pleasing
to God?
If you ask what we should do in order to enjoy the divine blessings forever,
I will tell you in a word. Since the Church is called the bride of Christ and of
God, we must do what a good wife does for her husband. Then God will treat us
as a good husband treats a dearly loved wife. This is what the Lord says through
Hosea: I will betroth you to myself with justice and integrity, with tenderness
and compassion; I will betroth you to myself with faithfulness, and you shall
know that I am the Lord. So even in this present life we shall be happy, this
world will be an earthly paradise for us, with the Hebrews we shall feast on
heavenly manna in the desert of this life, if only we follow Christ’s example by
striving to do everything well, so that he has done all things well may be said of
each one of us.

Vigils Reading - St Peter Claver
2024-09-09
ST PETER CLAVER
THE SLAVE OF THE NEGROES
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints1
◊◊◊
He was born in Catalonia, about 1581… He graduated with distinction
[and entered] the Society of Jesus. He left Spain forever in April 1610, and was
ordained priest at Cartagena, in what is now the republic of Colombia. By the
time of his ordination the slave trade had been established in the Americas for
nearly a hundred years, and the port of Cartagena was one of its principal
centers…
At this time the leader of the work among the Negroes was Father Alfonso
de Sandoval, a great Jesuit missionary who spent forty years in the service of
the slaves, and after working under him Peter Claver declared himself “the slave
of the Negroes forever”. Although by nature shy and without self-confidence he
threw himself into the work with method and organization. He enlisted bands
of assistants, and as soon as a slave-ship entered the port… St. Peter Claver
plunged, with medicines and food, bread, brandy, lemons, tobacco to distribute
among the Negroes, some of whom were too frightened, others too ill, to accept
them. “We must speak to them with our hands, before we try to speak to them
with our lips”, Claver would say. When he came upon any who were dying, he
baptized them, and then sought out all babies born on the voyage that he might
baptize them. He had a band of seven interpreters, one of whom spoke four
Negro dialects, and with their help he taught the slaves and prepared them for
baptism, not only in groups but individually. He made use of pictures, showing
our Lord suffering on the cross; above all he tried to instill in them… some idea
that as redeemed human beings they had dignity and worth, even if as slaves…5
It is estimated that in forty years St. Peter Claver instructed and baptized
over 300,000 slaves… He took the same trouble to teach them how properly to
use the sacrament of penance, and in one year is said to have heard the
confessions of more than five thousand. Many of the stories both of the heroism
and of the miraculous powers of St. Peter Claver concern his nursing of sick and
diseased Negroes, in circumstances often that no one else, black or white, could
face.
In 1650… sickness attacked his emaciated and weakened body, and he
was recalled to the Jesuit residence at Cartagena. But here a virulent epidemic
had begun to show itself, and one of the first to be attacked among the Jesuits
was the debilitated missionary… After receiving the last sacraments, he
recovered, but he was a broken man…
On September 6, 1654 he was taken very ill and became comatose. The
rumor of his approaching end spread round the city, everyone suddenly
remembered the saint again, and numbers came to kiss his hands before it was
too late. His cell was stripped of everything that could be carried off as a relic.
St. Peter Claver never fully recovered consciousness, and died two days later on
the birthday of our Lady. The civil authorities who had looked askance at his
solicitude for mere Negro slaves, and the clergy, who had called his zeal
indiscreet and his energy wasted, now vied with one another to honor his
memory… He was canonized in 1888 and was declared by Pope Leo XIII patron
of all missionary enterprises among Negroes.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-10
MARY’S BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD
From a homily by Ogier of Locedio1
◊◊◊
This most holy Virgin Mary was of royal lineage: Joachim was her father,
and Anne her mother. She is that mighty woman presaged by the Lord when,
at the time of Eve’s undoing, he told the serpent, ‘You shall lie in wait for her
heel, and she shall trample your head.’ She is that mighty Virgin who trampled
the head of the dragon by her power… Through her the Lord delivered our first
parents, Adam and Eve, from everlasting death… She is that valiant woman,
endowed with strength and choicest virtue, of whom Solomon spoke: Who shall
find a valiant woman? Hers is a prize far beyond all bounds. Indeed, her prize
was none other than the Son of God the Father, who from far beyond all
bounds… marvelously and ineffably entered the enclosure of the virginal
womb…
How greatly God’s angels rejoiced when thus the restoration of
humankind was secured! The whole world leapt for joy, heaven thundered with
praise, the earth danced for delight, her song of joy soon joined by the skies
above and the seas below… so the whole universe took on its pristine glory as
that most blessed daughter was told: Virgin Mother of God, your birth is news
of joy to all the world! If therefore all the orders of angels rejoice in the birth
of Mary the Mother of God, let all orders of monks rejoice therein as well. If
heaven and earth rejoice, then all Christ’s consecrated virgins also. Let
everyone rejoice… with great joy, for the birth of Mary the sacred Virgin spells
joy for the whole of heaven and earth.
Thus Mary, the morning star that drives away all darkness, came forth
from her mother’s womb beautiful as the moon, sought-out as the sun, dreadful
as a well-armed camp, the glorious light that came forth from the darkness,7
within whose womb Light itself would shine. From Jesse’s root there came the
Virgin who would bear the flower. It is she who says, I am the flower of the
field and the lily of the valleys’. Before that fragrant flower all other flowers lose
the sweetness of their scent… By means of Anna and Joachim God created that
remedy whereby humankind would be freed from everlasting death. Through…
blessed Mary, the Lord gives light to the blind, heals the sick, raises the dead,
frees us from sin, justifies us through grace, and crowns us with his glory.
Let therefore all the just rejoice at the birth of her through whom they
have been justified. Let the blessed rejoice who through her have been made
blessed… Let them approach the blessed child, the sublime Queen on high. Let
them embrace her, let them cradle her in the arms of perfect love. Let them
bear her in their hearts, her praises ever on their tongues, so as to possess her
with their love. For this is no woman to be slighted, this is no ordinary mother:
this is blessed Mary, wholly sweet and lovable…
She is the sweetness of myrrh, the absence of all bitterness. She who was
never to dwell in the bitterness of sin is rightly named Mary. She never sinned
nor ever wished to sin, in thought or word or deed. Wholly beautiful, there was
no blemish in her; only thus could she become the Mother of the Lord…

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2024-09-11
THE CALL OF GOD
By Hans Urs von Balthasar1
◊◊◊
Every call of God is a proclamation of the eternal election by which he
“chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blemish in his sight in love”; by which he “predestined us to be
adopted through Jesus Christ as his sons”. It is an act of love, and its goal is the
holiness that is always a form of love. Because it has been formed and shaped
by the laws of love, it can be comprehended only in terms of love.
It follows that God can issue the commandment of love, which is the
essential content of every genuine call, in varying degrees of urgency and clarity.
For many, its sound is dissipated; they regard it as something to be taken for
granted, as something that does not require their special attention. Of course,
God demands love; of course there is such a thing as a first and greatest
commandment; of course every Christian is called to obey it, whether well or
badly, to the best of his ability. And God will help our weakness, and, we hope,
forgive our failings. So far as its content is concerned, the commandment of love
sounds plainly enough, but it strikes no answering chord in the one who hears
it. It compels him to no conclusions that could force him out of the rut he is in.
The call to love God boundlessly is always, at the same time, God’s
offering of his own love to the one thus called. Because this is so, the call bears
in itself the possibility not only of understanding, but also of responding to the
love to which it calls. Indeed every special form of the divine call contains also
the special grace of the response. All forms of God’s special call are forms of love
and, for that reason, different from the mere command that a master might
issue to his servant… The manner and the very sound of God’s voice can be9
different depending on…the personal love of God that is reflected in the
invitation to personal discipleship.

Vigils Reading - St Peter of Tarentaise
2024-09-12
SAINT PETER II,
ARCHBISHOP OF TARENTAISE
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints1
◊◊◊
St Peter of Tarentaise was born near Vienne in the French province of the
Dauphine. He early displayed a remarkable memory, coupled with great
inclination for religious studies, and at the age of twenty he entered the abbey
of Bonnevaux. After a time, his father and the other two sons followed Peter to
Bonnevaux, while his mother, with the only daughter, entered a neighboring
nunnery.
He was not quite thirty when he was chosen superior of a new house built
at Tamie, in the desert mountains of Tarentaise. It over looked the pass which
was then the chief route from Geneva to Savoy, and the monks were able to be
of great use to travellers. There, with the help of Amadeus III, Count of Savoy,
who held him in high esteem, he founded a hospice for the sick and for
strangers, in which he was wont to wait upon his guests with his own hands.
In 1142 came his election to the archbishopric of Tarentaise, and Peter
was compelled by St Bernard and the general chapter of his order, though much
against the grain, to accept the office. He found the diocese in a deplorable state,
due mainly to the mismanagement of his predecessor, an unworthy man who
had eventually to be deposed. In place of the cathedral clergy whom he found
lax and careless; St Peter substituted canons regular of St Augustine. He
undertook the constant visitation of his diocese; recovered property which had
been alienated; appointed good priests to various parishes; made excellent
foundations for the education of the young and relief of the poor; and
everywhere provided for the due celebration of the services of the Church..11
In 1155, after he had administered the diocese for thirteen years, Peter
suddenly disappeared. Actually, he had made his way to a remote Cistercian
abbey in Switzerland, where, he was accepted as a lay-brother. Not until a year
later was he discovered. His identity having been revealed to his new superiors,
Peter was obliged to leave and return to his see, where he was greeted with great
joy. He took up his duties more zealously than ever. He rebuilt the hospice of
the Little St Bernard and founded other similar refuges for travellers in the
Alps…
It was not granted to the saint to die among his mountain flock. His
reputation as a peacemaker led Alexander III to send him in 1174 to try effect a
reconciliation between King Louis VII of France and Henry II of England. St
Peter, though he was old, set out at once, preaching everywhere on his way. As
he approached Chaumont in the Vexin, where the French court was being held,
he was met by King Louis and by Prince Henry, the rebellious heir to the English
throne. The latter, alighting from his horse to receive the archbishop’s blessing,
asked for the saint’s old cloak, which he reverently kissed. Both at Chaumont
and at Gisors where he interviewed the English king, St Peter was treated with
utmost honor, but the reconciliation for which he labored did not take place
until after his death. As he was returning to his diocese he was taken ill on the
road near Besancon, and died as he was being carried into the abbey of
Bellevaux. This St Peter was canonized in 1191.

Vigils Reading - St John Chrysostom
2024-09-13
ST CHRYSOSTOM’S CHARM
From “Historical Sketches” by St John Henry Newman1
◊◊◊
Whence this devotion to St. John Chrysostom, which leads me to dwell
upon the thought of him, and makes me kindle at his name, when so many other
great Saints command indeed my veneration, but exert no personal claim upon
my heart? Many holy people have died in exile, many holy people have been
successful preachers; and what more can we write upon St. Chrysostom’s
monument than this, that he was eloquent and that he suffered persecution? He
is not an Athanasius, expounding a sacred dogma with a luminousness which is
almost an inspiration. Nor, except by the contrast, does he remind us of that
Ambrose who kept his ground obstinately in an imperial city, and fortified
himself against the heresy of a court by the living rampart of a devoted
population. Nor is he Gregory or Basil, rich in the literature and philosophy of
Greece, and embellishing the Church with the spoils of heathenism. Nor is he a
Jerome, so dead to the world that he can imitate the point and wit of its writers
without danger to himself or scandal to his brethren. He has not trampled upon
heresy, nor smitten emperors, nor beautified the house or the service of God,
nor knit together the portions of Christendom, nor founded a religious order,
nor built up the framework of doctrine, nor expounded the science of the Saints;
yet I love him, as I love David or St. Paul.
How am I to account for it? I consider St. Chrysostom’s charm to lie in his
intimate sympathy and compassionateness for the whole world, not only in its
strength, but in its weakness; in the lively regard with which he views everything
that comes before him, taken in the concrete, whether as made after its own
kind or as gifted with a nature higher than its own. It is the interest which he
takes in all things, not so far as God has made them alike, but as he has made
them different from each other…13
I speak of the kindly spirit and the genial temper with which he looks
round at all things which this wonderful world contains; of the graphic fidelity
with which he notes them down upon the tablets of his mind, and of the
promptitude and propriety with which he calls them up as arguments or
illustrations in the course of his teaching as the occasion requires. Possessed
though he be by the fire of ardent charity, he has not lost one fibre, he does not
miss one vibration, of the complicated whole of human sentiment and affection;
like the miraculous bush in the desert, which for all the flame that wrapt it
round, was not thereby consumed.
That loving scrutiny, with which he follows the Apostles as they reveal
themselves to us in their writings, he practices in various ways towards all
people, living and dead, high and low, those whom he admires and those whom
he weeps over. He writes as one who was ever looking out with sharp but kind
eyes upon the world of humans and their history; and hence he has always
something to produce about them, new or old, to the purpose of his argument,
whether from books or from the experience of life… This is why his manner of
writing is so rare and special; and why, when once a student enters into it, he
will ever recognize him, wherever he meets with extracts from him.

Vigils Reading - Exaltation of the Holy Cross
2024-09-14
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS
From a treatise by St John Chrysostom1
◊◊◊
Isaiah made it clear that Christ will raise up all men when he said: “The
dead shall be raised up again, even those in the tombs shall be raised up. For
the dew from you is healing for them.” That was not all. After his cross, after his
slaughter, his glory will shine forth more brightly; after his resurrection, he will
advance the message of his Gospel still more.
He was bound, betrayed by an apostle, spat upon, outraged with insults,
scourged, nailed to the cross, and, as far as the Jews were concerned, he did not
deserve to be buried in a tomb. His executioners divided his garments. They
suspected that he aspired to be a king, and he died for it. “For everyone who
makes himself king, sets himself against Caesar.” They suspected him of
blasphemy, and he died for it. “Behold, you have heard his blasphemy.”
Even though he would undergo all these torments, he roused up those
who would listen, he stirred them to courage by saying: “Do not be afraid
because of these things which they did to me. I was crucified, I was scourged, I
was outraged and insulted by robbers, I was arrested on suspicion of blasphemy
and of being a king. But after my death and resurrection, people will look on my
sufferings in such a way that no one will say that they were not filled with
abundant value and honor.”
Certainly, this did come to pass. And a prophet predicted it long
beforehand when he said: “There shall be the root of Jesse, even he who rises
up to rule nations. In him nations will put their trust, and his resting place shall
be glorious.” This kind of death is more glorious than a crown. Certainly, kings
have laid aside their crowns and taken up the cross, the symbol of his death. On15
their purple robes is the cross, on their crowns is the cross, at their public
prayers is the cross, on their weapons is the cross, on the sacred table of their
altar is the cross. Everywhere in the world, the cross shines forth more brightly
than the sun. “And his resting place shall be glorious.”

Skema
2024-09-15
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
24th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
September 15 – 21, 2024

Sun
15
Mon
16
Tue
17
Wed
18
Thu
19
Fri
20
Sat
21

Office
24th Sunday
SS Cornelius & Cyprian
St Hildegard of Bingen
Weekday
Weekday
St Andrew Kim & Companions
St Matthew

Vigils
Tob 1:1-15
Tob 1:16-2:8
Tob 2:9-3:6
Tob 3:7-17
Tob 4:1-21
Tob 5:1-8
Job 28:1-28

Lauds
Mal 3:6-12
Mal 3:13-21
Hos 1:1-9
Hos 2:1-6
Hos 2:7-12
Hos 2:13-17
Prov 15:27-33

Mass
131
443
444
445
446
447
643

1st
Isa 50:4-9a
1 Cor 11:17-26, 33
1 Cor 12:12-14, 27-31a
1 Cor 12:31-13:13
1 Cor 15:1-11
1 Cor 15:12-20
Eph 4:1-7, 11-13

2nd
Jas 2:14-18

Gospel
Mark 8:27-35
Luke 7:1-10
Luke 7:11-17
Luke 7:31-35
Luke 7:36-50
Luke 8:1-3
Matt 9:9-13

Vespers
1 Pet 5:1-7
1 Pet 5:8-14
2 Pet 1:1-9
2 Pet 1:10-15
2 Pet 1:16-19
2 Pet 1:20-2:3
2 Pet 2:4-10a

Vigils Reading - 24th Sunday
2024-09-15
FOLLOWING CHRIST
From a commentary by Caesarius of Arles1
◊◊◊
When the Lord tells us in the gospel that anyone who wants to be his
follower must renounce himself, the injunction seems harsh; we think he is
imposing a burden on us. But an order is no burden when it is given by one who
helps in carrying it out.
To what place are we to follow Christ if not where he has already gone?
We know that he has risen and ascended into heaven: there, then, we must
follow him. There is no cause for despair – by ourselves we can do nothing, but
we have Christ’s promise. Heaven was beyond our reach before our Head
ascended there, but now, if we are his members, why should we despair of
arriving there ourselves? Is there any reason? True, many fears and afflictions
confront us in this world, but if we follow Christ, we shall reach a place of perfect
happiness, perfect peace, and everlasting freedom from fear.
Yet let me warn anyone bent on following Christ to listen to Saint Paul:
One who claims to abide in Christ ought to walk as he walked. Then be humble
as he was humble, do not scorn his lowliness if you want to reach his exaltation.
Human sin made the road rough but Christ’s resurrection leveled it; by passing
over it himself he transformed the narrowest of tracks into a royal highway.
Two feet are needed to run along this highway; they are humility and
charity. Everyone wants to get to the top – well, the first step to take is humility.
Why take strides that are too big for you – do you want to fall instead of going
up? Begin with the first step, humility, and you will already be climbing.3
As well as telling us to renounce ourselves, our Lord and Savior said that
we must take up the cross and follow him. What does it mean to take up one’s
cross? Bearing every annoyance patiently. That is following Christ. When
someone begins to follow his way of life and his commandments, that person
will meet resistance on every side. He or she will be opposed, mocked, even
persecuted, and this not only by unbelievers, but also by people who to all
appearances belong to the body of Christ, though they are really excluded from
it by their wickedness people who, being Christians in name only, never stop
persecuting true Christians.
If you want to follow Christ, then take up his cross without delay. Endure
injuries, do not be overcome by them. If we would fulfill the Lord’s command:
If anyone wants to be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me; we
must strive with God’s help to do as the Apostle says: As long as we have food
and clothing, let this content us. Otherwise, if we seek more material goods than
we need and desire to become rich, we may fall prey to temptation. The devil
may trick us into wanting the many useless and harmful things that plunge
people into ruin and destruction. May we be free from this temptation through
the protection of our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy
Spirit for ever and ever.

Vigils Reading - SS Cornelius & Cyprian
2024-09-16
A LETTER FROM ST CYPRIAN
TO ST CORNELIUS
◊◊◊
My very dear brother, we have heard of the glorious witness given by your
courageous faith. On learning of the honor you had won by your witness, we
were filled with such joy that we felt ourselves sharers and companions in your
praiseworthy achievements. After all, we have the same Church, the same mind.
The same unbroken harmony. Why then should a priest not take pride in the
praise given to a fellow priest as though it were given to him? What brotherhood
fails to rejoice in the happiness of its brothers wherever they are?
Words cannot express how great was the exaltation and delight here when
we heard of your good fortune and brave deeds: how you stood out as a leader
of your brothers in their declaration of faith, while the leader’s confession was
enhanced as they declared their faith. You led the way to glory, but you gained
many companions in that glory; being foremost in your readiness to bear
witness on behalf of all, you prevailed on your people to become a single
witness. We cannot decide which we ought to praise, your own ready and
unshaken faith or the love of your brothers who would not leave you. While the
courage of the bishop who thus led the way has been demonstrated, at the same
time the unity of the brotherhood who followed has been manifested. Since you
have one heart and one voice, it is the Roman Church as a whole that has thus
borne witness.
Dearest brother, bright and shining is the faith which the blessed Apostle
praised in your community. He foresaw in the spirit the praise your courage
deserves and the strength that could not be broke; he was heralding the future
when he testified to your achievements; his praise of the fathers was a challenge5
to the sons. Your unity, your strength have become shining examples of these
virtues to the rest of the brethren.
Divine providence has now prepared us. God’s merciful design has
warned us that the day of our own struggle, our own contest, is at hand. By that
shared love which binds us closely together, we are doing all we can to exhort
our congregation, to give ourselves unceasingly to fastings, vigils and prayers in
common. These are the heavenly weapons which give us strength to stand firm
and endure; they are the spiritual defenses, the God-given armaments that
protect us.
Let us then remember one another, united in mind and heart. Let us pray
without ceasing, you for us, we for you; by the love we share we shall thus relieve
the strain of these great trial

Vigils Reading - St Hildegard of Bingen
2024-09-17
ST HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints1
◊◊◊
Hildegard of Bingen would have been remarkable in any century. In her
own century her achievements and her influence, particularly as a woman, were
extraordinary. She was born at Bermersheim…in the summer of 1098. Apart
from the fact that her father, Hildebert of Bermersheim, was a nobleman and
possibly in the service of the bishop of Speyer, little is known of her family
background. When she was only eight years old, she was sent to be educated by
a recluse, Blessed Jutta, who was living at Disbodenberg in an anchorhold. Over
the years girls came to join her and Jutta gave them the Rule of St Benedict.
Hildegard was a delicate child, but…her inner life was far from ordinary.
From the age of three she experienced visions or revelations that in the early
stages caused her pain and embarrassment. The revelations continued into her
adult life, and she experienced chronic ill health.
In 1136 Jutta died, and Hildegard became abbess in her place. Her
revelations and visions were still causing her anxiety. Her writings were
submitted to the archbishop of Mainz. The archbishop and his theologians
concluded that her visions were “from God”. Over the years with the help of a
young monk named Volmar and others she produced her principal work, “Know
the Ways of the Lord”.
In 1147 the archbishop of Mainz passed Hildegard’s work to the pope,
Blessed Eugenius III. With the advice of his close advisors, including St Bernard
of Clairvaux, the pope told her to live with her sisters faithfully observing the
Rule.
Hildegard and eighteen nuns moved to the Rupertsberg sometime
between 1147 and 1150. She found time to research and write on subjects that
fascinated her – a book on natural history, another on medicine. There was also
her voluminous correspondence, a substantial part of which has survived.
People from all walks of life came to consult her, but at the same time there were
others who denounced her as fraudulent, mad or worse.
Heidegard continued to the end of her life to stand her ground against
what she saw as the wrong use of authority. When over eighty she was frail
physically but continued to write, advise, instruct her nuns and encourage all
who came to her for help, until she died peacefully at St Rupert’s on September
17th, 1179. Miracles, which had also been recorded during her life, were
immediately reported at her tomb. In 1324 Pope John XXII gave permission for
public veneration, and she appears in local martyrologies from the fifteenth
century. Her relics, which were taken to Eibingen during the Thirty Years War,
were recognized in 1489 and again in 1498. Although she has never been
formally canonized, she is named as a saint in the Roman Martyrology, and
several German dioceses commemorate her on this day.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-18
THE CHURCH AND ITS MINISTERS
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux1
◊◊◊
“Our bed is covered with flowers; the beams of our houses are of cedar,
the paneling of cypress.” She is singing her marriage-song, describing in
beautiful language the marriage bed and bridal suite. She invites the
bridegroom to repose: for the better thing is to remain at ease and be with
Christ; but necessity drives one forth to help those who are to be saved. So now
when she feels that the opportunity presents itself, she announces that the
bridal suite has been furnished, and pointing to the bed with her finger she
invited…the Beloved to rest there. Like the disciples on the way to Emmaus she
cannot contain the ardor in her heart, but entices him to be the guest of her soul,
compels him to spend the night with her. With Peter she says: “Lord it is good
for us to be here.”
Let us now seek the spiritual content of these words. And indeed, in the
Church the ‘bed’ where one reposes is, in my opinion, the cloisters and
monasteries, where one lives undisturbed by the cares of the world and the
anxieties of life. This bed is seen to be adorned with flowers when the conduct
and life of the brothers brightly reflect the examples and rules of the Fathers, as
if strewn with sweet smelling flowers. By ‘houses’ understand the ordinary
communities of Christians. Those who enjoy high office, the Christian leaders
of both orders, strongly bind them together with laws justly imposed, as beams
bind the walls, lest living by their own law and will, they should fall apart from
each other like tilting walls and tottering fences, and thus the whole building
fall to the ground and be destroyed. The paneling however, which is firmly
attached to the beams, and impressively adds to the beauty of the house, seems
to me to designate the courteous and disciplined behavior of a well-trained
clergy, who carry out their duties correctly. For how shall the clerical orders9
stand and fulfill their duties unless they are sustained, as by beams, by the
beneficence and munificence of those who govern and protect by their power?
Since the beams are described as cedar and the paneling as cypress, these
timbers must possess natural properties that liken them to the aforesaid orders.
The cedar, an incorruptible and fragrant wood of great height, sufficiently
indicates the qualities of the men who ought to be selected for the role of beams.
Hence it is necessary that those who are appointed over others should be strong
and reliable, tenacious in hope, their mind directed to supernatural truths,
radiating everywhere the good odor of their faith and conduct. With the Apostle
they can say: We are the incense offered by Christ to God in every place. The
cypress too, a wood that is equally incorruptible and fragrant, shows that every
cleric ought to be of unblemished life and faith, that he may be seen as an
ornamental paneling for the beauty of the house. For it is written: “Holiness
befits your house, O Lord, for evermore,” which expresses both the beauty of
virtue and the constancy of unfailing grace. It is necessary therefore that the
man who is chosen for the adornment and beauty of the house should have an
excellent moral character, and though living always within, nevertheless be well
thought of by those outside.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-19
PREPARING A THRONE
FOR THE MOST HIGH
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny1
◊◊◊
[Christ the Lord] is to be not merely invited but drawn into the guest
chamber of our heart by the violence of our prayers and the vehemence of our
fervor. [But] sometimes he makes as though he would go farther on; he does so
for no other reason than that he may prove the zeal of your love.
But what does it mean, you say, that Jesus makes as though he would go
further? What else than what Ecclesiastes tells us of himself: “I have said, I will
be wise, and [wisdom] departed farther from me.” The Spouse speaks more
explicitly when, giving voice to our daily complaint, she says: “I rose up to open
to my beloved, but he had turned aside and was gone. I sought him, and found
him not, I called, and he did not answer me,” just as he did not answer the
Canaanite woman either. You too are wont to call on the Spirit of wisdom, you
are accustomed to seek the Spirit of grace in prayer. If it seems that he draws
farther away from you, do not despair but be more importunate in your pleading
until you hear him answer you: “Great is your faith, be it done to you as you
will.”
But when you invite Jesus take care that you do not invite the God of
majesty into an unclean and unworthy dwelling where a wrangling [spouse] or
clouds of smoke or a dripping roof would not allow even yourself to dwell in
peace. For his place is in peace and nowhere else. Right and justice are the
pillars of his throne. “Now they seek me,” he says, “from day to day, and desire
to know my ways as a nation that has done justice and has not forsaken the will
of their God.” “Right,” he says, “and justice are the pillars of his throne.” Do not
plead that it is a lavish dwelling you have to prepare for so great and so powerful11
a guest and that it is beyond the limits of your poverty. You have the means at
hand. I speak in human terms because of the infirmity of your flesh, or rather
because of the narrowness of your mind. Make a perfect confession of your past
life, have a good will in respect to all else (for there is peace to men of good will),
and in this way you will have prepared with right and justice a throne for the
Most High.

Vigils Reading - St Andrew Kim & Companions
2024-09-20
THE KOREAN MARTYRS
A reading from Butler’s Lives of the Saints1
◊◊◊
Christianity came late to Korea, for it was the policy of that country’s
rulers to keep it isolated from foreign influence. Not until the late eighteenth
century, more than two hundred years after Francis Xavier had reached Japan,
did the Church begin very slowly to take root. The earliest missionaries were
lay people who had been converted outside their country. Pietro Yi was baptized
at Pechino in 1784: he was the first Korean to be received into the church, but
he was also the first to apostatize, when persecution broke out in 1791.
Through the last years of the eighteenth-century persecution was
sporadic and localized, but in 1801 it was extended to the whole of the country.
One Chinese priest, who had succeeded in entering Korea, offered himself for
martyrdom in the hope that his death would bring the sufferings of his fellow
Christians to an end. He was beheaded on May 31, 1801, and the persecution
went on.
Yet these early martyrs were not among those canonized by Pope John
Paul II in the cathedral of Seoul, where the relics of so many of them lie… Of
the many thousand – perhaps more than 8,000 not counting those who died of
cold or starvation as they fled the tortures of the persecutors – 103 were chosen
by name as representatives of the rest. They were selected from those who died
in the persecutions which began in 1839 and lasted until 1846, and those which
lasted from 1861 to the beginning of 1866.
By the time of the renewed persecution – brought about both in 1839 and
1861 by the return to power of the conservative faction of the Korean ruling class
– there was a small number of missionaries in the country, two French priests13
and a bishop, all three died by beheading on September 21, 1839. On September
16, 1846 there died Andrew Kim, the first and at that time only, Korean-born-
priest. Two more bishops, and a number of other French missionaries died in
the later persecution.
These were the clergy, but by far the greatest number of those named as
saints by the pope near the spot where so many of them had died by beheading
or strangulation, were ordinary lay people. Some of them were of high rank,
but most were ordinary men and women, often linked by family ties as well as
by the bonds of faith, mothers and their children, wives and their husbands. For
several their crime was that they had worked as catechist in spreading the faith
which, until 1881, was referred to in official documents as “the perverse
doctrine”.
The persecution…lasted until 1866. Religious liberty was conceded in
1886, and today the Church flourishes. Though the 103 whose sanctity was
formally recognized were canonized together, they had been beatified in two
groups: those of the earlier persecution by Pius XI in July 1925, those of the
later one by Paul VI in October 1968.

Vigils Reading - St Matthew
2024-09-21
ST MATTHEW,
APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST
From “The Saints” by John Coulson1
◊◊◊
Few people love the tax collector… Much more was this so in the Palestine
of the first century, when it was in his interests to bully and harry and falsify.
But even the mild and honest tax collector was not acceptable to official
Judaism: he did business with the gentile and handled his money; he was legally
impure, socially outcast. A Jewish Rabbi would be bold indeed to invite him to
join his inner circle of disciples: it would be a gesture of defiance to the
established prejudice. And so, the formula ‘publicans and sinners’ slipped even
into the phrase book of the evangelist and, quaintly enough, into the Gospel of
Matthew the publican. This term ‘publican’…does not accurately describe
Matthew’s profession but flatters it. The Pharisees might despise it, but the
trade was a profitable one and much sought after: whether it be pursued
honestly or dishonestly would depend on the character of the officer.
“And Jesus passed further on, he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at
work in the customs-house and said to him, “Follow me”; and he rose and
followed him. That this was a call to the apostolate there is no doubt – its terms
too closely match those of the call of Simon and Andrew to be otherwise. Yet
‘Levi’ does not appear in any list of the Twelve. Now the vocation of the tax
collector is reported in the first Gospel too, but there he is called ‘Matthew’, thus
identifying him with the Matthew who appears in all the apostolic lists. The
widely accepted and most natural explanation is that Matthew and Levi are one
person with two Semitic names. It may be that our Lord himself gave him the
name Matthew (Mattai, ‘gift of God’, in Aramaic) as he gave Kepha to Simon.15
This Matthew then got up from his registers… The change destroyed all
Matthew’s worldly prospects: Simon and Andrew might return to their fish, but
Matthew had thrown over a coveted business and could never recover it. He
left it gladly…and completely. It was not he but Judas who kept the accounts
for the apostolic group…
When the need for a written gospel record began to be felt, upon which of
the Apostles would the choice fall? Upon one who used the pen, no doubt. Poor
Matthew was back where he started, but this time with an eager will and high
purpose. In Palestine, sometime between the years 40 and 50, this ex-civil
servant produced not the lively and artless Gospel of St. Mark but the orderly,
almost ledger like, treatise, which we know as ‘The Gospel according to St.
Matthew.’
And so, Matthew’s old trade entered a new service; the accountant
became an evangelist. It is not surprising that he alone records his Master’s
words; “Every scholar whose learning is of the kingdom of heaven…knows how
to bring both new and old things out of his treasure house. For there is no poor
tool of ours that God’s service will not perfect and dignify.
It is commonly but not unanimously affirmed he died a martyr’s death;
but we know for certain that he lived a martyr’s life – and that is enough. And
for us he will always be the man who knew what money was and what it was
not.

Skema
2024-09-22
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
25th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (B), Weekdays (II)
September 22 – 28, 2024

Sun
22
Mon
23
Tue
24
Wed
25
Thu
26
Fri
27
Sat
28

Office
25th Sunday
St Pius of Pietrelcina
Weekday
Office for the Dead
Weekday
St Vincent de Paul
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Tob 5:9-6:1
Tob 6:2-18
Tob 7:1-17
Tob 8:1-21
Tob 9:1-6
Tob 10:1-13
Tob 11:1-18

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
134
449
450
451
452
453
454

1st
Wis 2:12, 17-20
Prov 3:27-34
Prov 21:1-6, 10-13
Prov 30:5-9
Eccl 1:2-11
Eccl 3:1-11
Eccl 11:9-12:8

2nd
Jas 3:16-4:3

Gospel
Mark 9:30-37
Luke 8:16-18
Luke 8:19-21
Luke 9:1-6
Luke 9:7-9
Luke 9:18-22
Luke 9:43b-45

Vespers
2 Pet 2:10b-16
2 Pet 2:17-22
2 Pet 3:1-7
2 Pet 3:8-13
2 Pet 3:14-18
1 John 1:1-4
1 John 1:5-10

Vigils Reading - 25th Sunday
2024-09-22
THE MOST ESTEEMED BY CHRIST
From a commentary by Theophylact of Ohrid1
◊◊◊
As he was teaching his disciples the Lord said to them: “The Son of man
will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will put him to death, but
after his death, on the third day, he will rise again.”
The Lord always alternated prophecies of his passion with the
performance of miracles, so that he should not be thought to have suffered
through lack of power. Therefore, after imparting the grievous news that men
would kill him, he added the joyful tidings that on the third day he would rise
again. This was to teach us that joy always follows sorrow, and that we should
not be uselessly distressed by painful events, but should rather have a hope that
better times will come.
He came to Capernaum, and after entering the house he questioned the
disciples: “What were you arguing about on the way?” Now the disciples still
saw things from a very human point of view, and they had been quarrelling
amongst themselves about which of them was the greatest and the most
esteemed by Christ. Yet the Lord did not restrain their desire for preeminent
honor, indeed he wishes us to aspire to the most exalted rank. He does not
however wish us to seize the first place, but rather to win the highest honor by
humility.
He stood a child among them because he wants us to become childlike. A
child has no desire for honor; it is not jealous, and does not remember injuries.
And he said: “If you become like that, you will receive great reward, and if,
moreover, for my sake you honor others who are like that, you will receive the3
kingdom of heaven, for you will be receiving me, and in receiving me you will
receive the one who sent me.
You see then what great things humility, together with simplicity and
guilelessness, can accomplish. It causes both the Son and the Father to dwell in
us, and with them of course comes the Holy Spirit.

Vigils Reading - St Pius of Pietrelcina
2024-09-23
ST PIO OF PIETRELCINA
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints1
◊◊◊
The most famous stigmatist since St Francis of Assisi was born into a
family of agricultural laborers in Pietrelcina, northeast of Naples, on May 25,
1887. In 1903 he received the capuchin habit, taking the name of Fra. Pio. Seven
years later he was ordained to the priesthood. Not long after this he began to
experience pains in his hands and feet, and on September 11, 1911 he confessed
to his spiritual director that he had had invisible stigmata for over a year. He
also suffered the pains of Christ’s crown of thorns and scourging.
On august 5, 1918 he underwent the further mystical experience of
“transverberation” (piercing with the lance), which left him with a wound in his
side that bled continually. A month later the stigmata in his hands and feet
became visible and remained so until the final day of his life. The Capuchins
made no attempt to conceal Padre Pio’s condition, which soon became known
all over Italy and was the main cause of both his celebrity and the controversy
that surrounded him. As people started flocking to his convent in their
thousands, the Vatican, cautious as ever when faced with “private” favors and
revelations, had him examined by a succession of doctors. The physical
manifestations were undeniable. But were they from God, the psychosomatic
effect of a disturbed personality, or even a fraudulent attempt on his part of that
of the convent to achieve notoriety?
Huge crowds attended his Masses, during which he went into ecstatic
states that could last for two hours or more. In July 1923 he received an order
to say Mass in private, but so real was the threat of a violent popular reaction
that it was rescinded the following day. Padre Pio himself made no comment on5
his condition other than that he was “a mystery to himself” but his gifts should
produce benefits for others.
His community was able to ensure that they were so used when money
offerings started coming in from his penitents and admirers. In January 1925,
he opened a twenty-bed hospital that was named after St. Francis and remained
in operation for thirteen years…
In 1940, with the particular support of Maria Pyle, a wealthy American
woman to whose mother he had ministered as she was dying in 1929, Padre Pio
was in a position to undertake a more ambitious hospital project. Medical and
administrative committees were set up, but the Second World War delayed
further implementation of the project until 1946, when a limited company was
formed to carry the work forward…
In 1959 Padre Pio’s own health deteriorated. Then in August he
recovered, apparently miraculously, when a statue of Our Lady of Fatima was
brought into the hospital for two days. He died on September 23, 1968, and
doctors who examined his body found his hands and feet unmarked and “fresh
as those of a child”. He was beatified and later canonized by Pope John Paul II.
In his address the Pope spoke not so much of Padre Pio’s extraordinary
experiences but of the long hours the friar would spend in the confessional and
of his extraordinary charity, which, he said, “was poured like balm on the
sufferings of his brothers and sisters.”

Vigils Reading
2024-09-24
BE READY TO MEET THE LORD
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny1
◊◊◊
By comparison with the evil of damnation, it is a good thing to be saved
by fire; without any doubt it is much better to be made perfect by the mere
cleansing of fear; and best of all not to be even disturbed by fear.
For that reason, be ready, O true Israel, to meet the Lord, so that you may
not only open to him when he comes and knocks, but may run to meet him,
eager and joyful, while he is still far off, and, confident about the day of
judgment, pray earnestly that his kingdom may come. If you want to be found
ready then, take the advice of Wisdom and prepare justice for yourself before
the judgment. May you be prepared to do every good work and no less prepared
to suffer every evil so that your lips may sing without any reproach from your
heart: “My heart is ready, Lord, my heart is ready, ready with your help to do
good, ready to suffer ill, and so ready for both that I will sing and give praise in
my glory that is, I will rejoice and glory whichever comes.”
And at once the just man rouses himself in this matter, saying: “Arise
psaltery and harp,” that is, my heart and my body, to rejoice in the living God.
The heart is meant on account of its spiritual activity, the body because of its
passions. For the heart relishing the things that are above is a psaltery giving
forth heavenly music; the body suffering things of earth is a lyre producing
worldly music. So it is that elsewhere David, offering his devoted service to God,
says: “I am ready to keep your commandments, and so ready that I am not
troubled when temptation breaks in on me and persecution rages. Let my rival
pursue me, my servant curse me, my own son seek my life, even so I am not
troubled about not keeping the commandments of evangelical perfection. I will
render good for evil to those who return evil for good; will be solicitous for the7
safety of those who persecute me, mourning their death; will bear with the
reproaches of my servant, not permitting my honor to be vindicated by a
friend.”… And because he was so prepared he went confidently to meet his Lord.
“Without iniquity,” he says, “have I run, and directed whatever was perverse in
me so far as I was able.”
Therefore, do rise up to meet me coming to meet you, for I cannot reach
your heights unless, stooping low to the work of your hands, you stretch out
your right hand. Rise up to meet me and see if there be in me the way of iniquity.
And if you do find it there unknown to me, remove it from me, and, having
compassion on me with regard to your law, lead me in the eternal way, which is
Christ. He is the way by which we journey, the eternity at the journey’s end; he
is the spotless way, the blessed dwelling place.

Vigils Reading - Office of the Dead
2024-09-25
A THEOLOGY OF DEATH
By Karl Rahner1
◊◊◊
The ultimate act of freedom, in which we decide our own fate totally and
irrevocably, is the act in which we either willingly accept or definitively rebel
against our own utter impotence, in which we are utterly subject to the control
of a mystery which cannot be expressed – that mystery which we call God. In
death a human being is totally withdrawn from self. Every power, down to the
last vestige of a possibility, of autonomously controlling its own destiny is taken
away.
Thus the exercise of freedom taken as a whole is summed up at this point
on one single decision: whether we yield everything up or whether everything is
taken from us by force, whether we respond to this radical deprivation of all
power by uttering our assent in faith and hope to the nameless mystery which
we call God, or whether even at this point we seek to cling on to our own
autonomy, protest against this fall into helplessness, and, because of our
disbelief, suppose that we are falling into the abyss of nothingness when in
reality we are falling into the unfathomable depths of God.
On the basis of this it is possible for us to realize that death can be either
an act of faith or a mortal sin. In order rightly to understand this we must
consider (and perhaps it would have been clearer to make this point right from
the first) that the actual act of dying does not necessarily occur at that point in
time in the physical order at which doctors suppose it to take place, and at which
it is considered to take place in the popular estimation when we speak of the
final departure and of death as coming at the end of life. In reality we are dying
all our lives through right up to this, the final point in the process of dying…9
Now this death in life or living death, as it may be called, can become one
of two things: it can be made into an enduring act of faith in the fact that our
lives and destinies are being directed and controlled by another and that this
direction is right; the willing acceptance of our destiny, the ultimate act of self-
commitment to that destiny, a renunciation which we make in anticipation of
our final end because in the end we must renounce all things; also because we
believe that it is only by this poverty entailed in freely accepting our own destiny
that we can free ourselves for the hand of God in God’s unfathomable power
and grace to dispose of us as God wills.
Alternatively, this death in the midst of life can become an act of
desperately clinging on by main force to that which is destined to fall away from
us, a protest, whether silent or expressed, against this death in life, the despair
of one who is avid for life and who imagines that by sinning happiness is
obtained by force. The death that is accomplished in life, therefore, must be
really the act of that loving and therefore trustful faith which gives us courage
to allow ourselves to be taken up by another. Otherwise, it will become the
mortal sin which consists in the pride of seeking one’s own absolute autonomy,
anxiety (Angst) and despair all in one.

Vigils Reading
2024-09-26
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL CHARACTER
OF THE PILGRIM CHURCH
From the encyclical Lumen Gentium1
◊◊◊
The Church, to which we are called in Christ Jesus, and in which by the
grace of God we acquire holiness, will receive its perfection only in the glory of
heaven, when the time comes for the renewal of all things, and the whole
universe, as well as the human race, is completely united in Christ. For the
universe has an intimate connection with us, and through us it reaches its
destined end.
Lifted up from the earth, Christ has drawn all to himself; rising from the
dead, he has sent his life-giving Spirit upon his disciples; through the Spirit he
has established his Body, which is the Church, as the universal sacrament of
salvation. Sitting at the right hand of the Father, he is unceasingly at work in
the world to bring men and women to the Church, to join them more closely to
himself through her, and to give them a share in his glorious life by feeding them
on his own Body and Blood.
The promised restoration to which we look forward has already had its
beginning in Christ. It receives impetus from the sending of the Holy Spirit and
through him continues in the Church, where we also receive instruction, by
faith, in the significance of our earthly life. Meanwhile, in expectation of a good
future, we are bringing to completion the work in the world entrusted to us by
the Father, and are working out our salvation.
The end of the ages has already reached us, and the world is irrevocably
set on the renewal which is anticipated in a real way in this life. Already the
Church is marked on earth by a genuine, if imperfect, holiness. The Church is11
on pilgrimage until the coming of the new heavens and the new earth in which
righteousness dwells. In her sacraments and organization, which belong to this
life, she carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her
place among the creatures who groan in travail as they wait for the revealing of
the children of God.

Vigils Reading - St Vincent de Paul
2024-09-27
GOD LOVES THE POOR
From the writing of St Vincent de Paul1
◊◊◊
Even though the poor are often rough and unrefined, we must not judge
them from external appearances nor from the mental gifts they seem to have
received. On the contrary, if you consider the poor in the light of faith, then you
will observe that they are taking the place of the Son of God who chose to be
poor. Although in his passion he almost lost the appearance of a man and was
considered a fool by the Gentiles and a stumbling block by the Jews, he showed
that his mission was to preach to the poor… We also ought to have this same
spirit and imitate Christ’s actions, that is, we must take care of the poor, console
them, help them, support their cause.
Since Christ willed to be born poor, he chose for himself disciples who
were poor. He made himself the servant of the poor and shared their poverty.
He went so far as to say that he would consider every deed which either helps
or harms the poor as done for or against himself. Since God surely loves the
poor, he also loves those who love the poor. For when one person holds another
dear, he also includes in his affection anyone who loves or serves the one he
loves. That is why we hope that God will love us for the sake of the poor. So,
when we visit the poor and needy, we try to be understanding where they are
concerned. We sympathize with them so fully that we can echo Paul’s words: I
have become all things to all people. Therefore, we must try to be stirred by
our neighbor’s worries and distress. We must beg God to pour into our hearts
sentiments of pity and compassion and to fill them again and again with these
dispositions.13
It is our duty to prefer the service of the poor to everything else and to
offer such service as quickly as possible. If a needy person requires medicine or
other help during prayer time, do whatever has to be done with peace of mind.
Offer the deed to God as your prayer. Do not become upset or feel guilty because
you interrupted your prayer to serve the poor. God is not neglected if you leave
him for such service. One of God’s works is merely interrupted so that another
can be carried out. So, when you leave prayer to serve some poor person,
remember that this service is performed for God. Charity is certainly greater
than any rule. Moreover, all rules must lead to charity. Since she is a noble
mistress, we must do whatever she commands. With renewed devotion, then,
we must serve the poor, especially beggars and outcasts. They have been given
to us as our masters and patrons.
