Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Vigils Reading - St Anthony
2023-01-17
The Ascetical Discourse of St. Anthony from the Life of Anthony by St Athanasius
All the monks were one day gathered around Anthony so as to hear his words. He said to them with the authority of a prophet: “The Holy Scriptures are sufficient for our instruction; nevertheless it is a good thing to encourage each other mutually in the faith and to urge one another in discourse. You, therefore, in a filial manner, bring what you know to your father, and I, your elder, will transmit to you something of what I have experienced.
In the first place, let us all endeavor together not to become lax after having begun well, and not to be discouraged in the face of difficulties. Let us not say to ourselves: We have been living the ascetical life for a long time. On the contrary, let us increase our ardor every day as if we were just beginning, for a person’s whole life is very short compared with the centuries to come, and the whole of time present is nothing compared with eternal life. Everything in this world is sold at its value, or exchanged for something of the same worth, but the promise of eternal life is bought cheaply. After combating on earth we shall obtain no earthly inheritance but a celestial one, and when we have left this corruptible body we shall receive it again incorruptible. Therefore, dear sons, let us not be discouraged nor find the time long. Let us not believe ourselves doing too much, for ‘The sufferings of this present time cannot be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us.’
For this reason, my sons, let us remain firm in asceticism and flee from sloth. The Lord is working with us, as it is written: ‘God collaborates for good with the one who has chosen what is good.’ In order to avoid negligence we will do well to meditate upon the Apostle’s words: ‘I die every day’. If, in fact, we live as if each day were that of our death, we shall not sin. This means that every day, on waking, we must think that we shall not last until evening; and every night, in falling asleep, we must think that we shall not reawaken.

Having thus begun and walked along the path of virtue, let us press straight on, straining forward. Let no one look back, like Lot’s wife, especially as the Lord has said: ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’ Looking back is nothing else than feeling regret, and renewing a taste for things of the world.
Do not fear, on hearing talk of virtue, that it will remain foreign to you. It is not far from us nor outside of us. It is a work which is taking place within us, and an easy thing if only we wish it. The Greeks leave their country and cross the sea to gain learning, but as for us we have no need to travel to obtain the kingdom of heaven, nor to cross the ocean to become instructed in virtue. The Lord indeed said: ‘The kingdom of God is within you.’ So virtue has need only of our will, as it is in us and finds its source in ourselves. To have a righteous soul is just a matter of keeping one’s soul in conformity with its nature and in the state in which it was created. It is when it deviates and turns away from its nature that one calls it vicious. It is not a difficult thing then if we remain in the state in which we were created, we are in virtuousness; but if, on the contrary, we give ourselves up to evil thoughts we shall be condemned as wicked. If we had to go outside of ourselves to acquire virtue, it would be difficult; but since it is actually within us, let us keep ourselves from evil thoughts and preserve our soul for the Lord as a trust received from him, to the end that he may recognize his handiwork, for it is in the state in which he formed it

The Writings of the Saints: The Holy Monks of the East. Life of St. Anthony by St. Athanasius. A.I.M. Center, St. Louis, Mo.

Jim Finley on zoom
2023-01-16 12:30 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
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Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2023-01-16
THE MOMENT OF DEATH
from the Desert Sayings of Abba Theophilus
Abba Theophilus said: “What fear, what trembling, what uneasiness will there be for us when our soul is separated from the body. Then indeed the force and strength of the adverse powers come against us, the rulers of darkness, those who command the world of evil, the principalities, the powers, the spirits of evil. They accuse our souls as in a lawsuit, bringing before it all the sins it has committed, whether deliberately or through ignorance, from its youth until the time when it has been taken away. So they stand accusing it of all it has done. Furthermore, what anxiety do you suppose the soul will have at that hour, until sentence is pronounced and it gains its liberty. That is its hour of affliction, until it sees what will happen to it. On the other hand, the divine powers stand on the opposite side, and they present the good deeds of the soul. Consider the fear and trembling of the soul standing between them until in judgment it receives the sentence of the righteous judge. If it is judged worthy, the demons will receive their punishment, and it will be carried away by the angels. Then thereafter you will be without disquiet, or rather you will live according to that which is written: ‘Even as the habitation of those who rejoice is in you.’ Then will the Scripture be fulfilled: ‘Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.’
Then your liberated soul will go on to that joy and ineffable glory in which it will be established. But if it is found to have lived carelessly, it will hear that terrible voice: ‘Take away the ungodly, that he may not see the glory of the Lord.’ Then the day of anger, the day of affliction, the day of darkness and shadow seizes upon it. Abandoned to outer darkness and condemned to everlasting fire it will be punished through the ages without end. Where then is the vanity of the world? Where is vainglory? Where is carnal life? Where are enjoyments? Where is imagination?

Where is ease? Where is boasting? Riches? Nobility? Father, mother, brother? Who could take the soul out of its pains when it is burning in the fire, and remove it from bitter torments?
Since this is so, in what manner ought we not to give ourselves to holy and devout works? What love ought we to acquire? What manner of life? What virtues? What speed? What diligence? What prayer? What prudence? Scripture says: ‘In this waiting, let us make every effort to be found blameless and without reproach in peace.’ In this way, we shall be worthy to hear it said: ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
THE SAYINGS OF THE DESERT FATHERS, trans. by Benedicta Ward, SLG (Cistercian Publ. USA, 1984) pp. 81-82.

Compline - 7 25 pm Eastern
2023-01-15 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
Topic: LCG Compline – January 2023
Time: Jan 15, 2023 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

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Vigils Reading - 2nd Sun ORD
2023-01-15
A Commentary on the Gospel of John1 by Cyril of Alexandria
When he saw Jesus coming toward him, John said: Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” No longer does he say: Prepare. That would be out of place now that at last he who was prepared for is seen, is before our very eyes. The nature of the case now calls for a different type of homily. An explanation is needed of who is present, and why he has come down to us from heaven. So John says: Behold the Lamb of God, of whom the prophet Isaiah told us in the words: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before his shearer he opened not his mouth. In past ages he was typified by the law of Moses, but because the law was merely a figure and a foreshadowing, its salvation was only partial; its mercy did not reach out to embrace the whole world. But now the true lamb, the victim without blemish obscurely prefigured in the former times, is led to the slaughter for all to banish sin from the world, to overthrow the world’s destroyer, to abolish death by dying for the entire human race, and to release us from the curse: Dust you are and to dust you shall return. He will become the second Adam who is not of earth but of heaven, and will be for us the source of every blessing. He will deliver us from the corruptibility foreign to our nature; he will secure eternal life for us, reconcile us with God, teach us to revere God and to live upright lives, and be our way to the kingdom of heaven.
Our Lamb died for all to restore the whole flock on earth to God the Father; one died for all to make all subject to God; one died for all to gain all so that all might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them.
Because our many sins had made us subject to death and corruption, the Father gave his son as our redemption, one for all, since we all were in him and he

was greater than all. One died for all so that all of us might live in him. Death swallowed the Lamb who was sacrificed for all, and then disgorging him, disgorged all of us in him and with him; for we were all in Christ who died and rose for us.
Once sin had been destroyed how could death, which was caused by sin, fail to be wholly annihilated? What power will death have over us now that sin has been blotted out? And so, rejoicing in the sacrifice of the Lamb let us cry out: O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting? All wickedness shall hold its tongue, as the Psalmist sings somewhere. Henceforth it will be unable to denounce sinners for their weakness, for God is the one who acquits us. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for our sake, so that we might escape the curse brought down on us by sin.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year A – New City Press – 1992 – pg 80.

Skema
2023-01-15
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
2nd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
January 15 – 21, 2023

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

Office
2nd Sunday
Office for the Dead
St Anthony
Weekday
Weekday
Bl Cyprian Tansi
St Agnes

Vigils
Judg 4:1-24
Judg 5:1-31
Judg 6:1-18
Judg 6:19-40
Judg 7:1-22
Judg 7:23-8:21
Judg 8:22-35

Lauds
Zech 3:1-7
Zech 3:8-4:5
Zech 4:6-10a
Zech 4:10b-5:4
Zech 5:5-11
Zech 6:1-8
Zech 6:9-15

Mass
64
311
312
313
314
315
316

1st
Isa 49:3, 5-6
Heb 5:1-10
Heb 6:10-20
Heb 7:1-3, 15-17
Heb 7:25-8:6
Heb 8:6-13
Heb 9:2-3, 11-14

2nd
1 Cor 1:1-3

Gospel
John 1:29-34
Mark 2:18-22
Mark 2:23-28
Mark 3:1-6
Mark 3:7-12
Mark 3:13-19
Mark 3:20-21

Vespers
Eph 3:1-7
Eph 3:8-13
Eph 3:14-21
Eph 4:1-6
Eph 4:7-16
Eph 4:17-24
Eph 4:25-32

LCG Chicago Monthly Meeting 9 am CST
2023-01-14 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago)
Read: Story of a Soul by Therese of Lisieux
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Memorial of BVM
2023-01-14
On the Mother of God
A Meditation by St Silouan the Athonite
When the soul abides in the love of God – how good and gracious and festive
all things are! But even with God’s love, sorrows continue and the greater the love,
the greater the sorrow. Never by a single thought did the Mother of God sin, nor did
she ever lose grace, yet vast were her sorrows; when she stood at the foot of the Cross
her grief was as boundless as the ocean and her soul knew torment incomparably
worse than Adam’s when he was driven from paradise, in that the measure of her
love was beyond compare greater than the love which Adam felt when he was in
paradise. That she remained alive was only because the Lord’s might sustained her,
for it was His desire that she should behold His Resurrection, and live on after His
Ascension to be the comfort and joy of the Apostles and the new Christian peoples.
We cannot attain to the full the love of the Mother of God, and so we cannot
thoroughly comprehend her grief. Her love was complete. She had an illimitable
love for God and her Son but she loved the people, too, with a great love. What,
then, must she have felt when those same people whom she loved so dearly, and
whose salvation she desired with all her being, crucified her beloved Son?
We cannot fathom such things, since there is little love in us for God and man.
Just as the love of the Mother of God is boundless and passes our
understanding, so is her grief boundless and beyond our understanding.
Oh holy Virgin Mary, tell us, thy children,
of thy love on earth for thy Son and God.
Tell us how thy spirit rejoiced in God thy Saviour.
Tell us of how thou didst look upon His fair countenance,
and reflect that this was He
Whom all the heavenly hosts wait upon in awe and love…
Tell us of thine agony
when the Lord was delivered up to be crucified,
and lay dying on the Cross.
Tell us what joy was thine over the Resurrection…
Once when I was a young novice I was praying before an ikon of the Mother of
God, and the Jesus Prayer entered into my heart and there began to repeat itself of
its own accord. And another time in church I was listening to a reading from the
prophet Isaiah and at the words, ‘Wash you, make you clean,’ I reflected, ‘Maybe the
Mother of God sinned at one time or another, if only in thought.’ And, marvellous to
relate, in unison with my prayer a voice sounded in my heart, saying clearly, ‘The
Mother of God never sinned even in thought.’ Thus did the Holy Spirit bear witness
in my heart to her purity. But during her earthly life even she was not quite perfect
and complete – she did make some mistakes that did not involve sin. We can see
this from the Gospel when on the return from Jerusalem she did not know where her
Son was, and together with Joseph sought Him for three days…
The Mother of God committed to writing neither her thoughts nor her love for
God and her Son, nor her soul’s suffering at the Crucifixion, because in any case we
could not have understood, for her love for God is stronger and more ardent than the
love of the Seraphim and Cherubim, and all the hosts of angels and archangels
marvel at her.
And though the life of the Mother of God is hidden, as it were in a holy
silence…she embraces the whole world in this love of hers, and in the Holy Spirit
sees all the peoples of the earth, and like her Son pities all men and has compassion
on them…
And this most pure Mother of His, the Lord has bestowed on us. She is our
joy and our expectation. She is our Mother in the spirit, and kin to us by nature, as a
human being, and every Christian soul leaps to her in love.
Archimandrite Sophrony. Saint Silouan the Athonite. Trans. Rosemary Edmonds. Crestwood, NY: St
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999. 390-393

Weekday
2023-01-13
The Promises of Our Lord
A Discourse by Symeon the New Theologian
What then are the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son Himself,
on which he hangs? Listen intelligently to that which He promises us. “…there
will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents”, and again, “Him who comes
to Me…I will by no means cast out”… Elsewhere He says, “Draw near to Me and I
will draw near to you”, and “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest…And He says, “If you who are evil men know how to give good
gifts to your children, will not your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those
who ask Him?”
He who ceaselessly keeps all these things in mind, and others like them,
and occupies himself with them day and night, and thinks of them with mind and
sense and puts them zealously into practice, will gradually be separated from
memory of the world, of secular affairs, of possessions, and of his own family and
friends, and correspondingly draw nearer to spiritual things. As he daily
advances he will notice how the thoughts of the passions to which he is prone are
gradually withdrawing, then how these passions themselves diminish, and how
the heart is softened and comes to humility; then in turn how the heart gives rise
to thoughts that bring about humbleness of mind…Nevertheless he arrives at this
through many tribulations and the more he is humbled the more he feels
compunction. Humiliation brings about affliction, but affliction feels the
humility that is its source and makes it grow. This activity, which is exercised by
the fulfilling of the commandments, washes away – what a marvel! – every stain
from the soul. It expels every passion and every evil lust, by which I mean not
only those of the body but also of the world. Thus a man will be set free in soul
from every earthly desire, and that not only from physical bonds – it is as when
one puts off a garment and is completely stripped. Rightly so, for the soul is
stripped of its insensitivity, which God’s apostle calls a “veil,” that “lies on the
hearts” of the unbelieving…Then, just as he who has been physically stripped
naked sees the wounds of his body, so he who has been stripped spiritually may
clearly see the passions that cling to his soul… So he applies the commandments
to them as medicines, and trials as cautery, and is humbled and sorrowful, and
fervently seeks God’s help. He clearly sees the grace of the Holy Spirit coming to
him and tearing all these [passions] away from him one after the other and
eliminating them until it has entirely freed his soul from them all. The coming of
the Paraclete grants freedom to the soul, not merely in part, but completely and
totally…Thus it renews and restores a man both spiritually and physically, so that
such a person seems to be clothed, not with a corruptible and gross body, but
with one that is spiritual and immaterial and even now ready for the rapture…For
whenever the mind is united to the objects of intellect it finds itself entirely
beyond the realm of sense, even though it appears to be looking at sensible
objects.
Symeon The New Theologian. The Discourses. The Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist
Press, 1980. 187-189.

St. Aelred of Rievaulx
2023-01-12
From Homily 26 on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah
by St Aelred of Rievaulx
Wishing to make his soldiers lightly armed for this spiritual war, our
leader says, Those who do not renounce all their possessions cannot be my
disciples. And again, Those who do not hate their father and mother and wife
and children, and even their own soul, cannot be my disciples. And so the
lightly armed soldiers…are those who disentangle themselves from all this
world’s affairs and riches, from all their longings and even from their own will.
They can thus safely resist the Moabite vices into which they had fallen and
nakedly follow the naked Christ.
When these lightly armed soldiers feel themselves attacked by natural
provocations, demonic suggestions, or their own thoughts, they send forth to God
a loud wail of the heart and a wretched lamentation of voice with tears and sighs,
saying with the prophet, I am terribly afflicted and lowly; I roared out my
complaint from my heart.
…Thanks be to you, good Jesus! Truly, your compassion is over all your
works! If inwardly where God sees, a person’s heart turns to God and is crushed,
then God’s heart will soon turn to that person. God’s heart expresses his
goodness and compassion. My heart will cry out to Moab. Moab wails in
repentance; Christ cries out in mercy. Moab wails in fear; Christ cries out by
showing pity. Moab wails in confession; Christ cries out with forgiveness. Moab
seeing the strong wind coming, fears and wails; Christ, stretching out his hand
and crying out, rebukes the hesitating, trembling one, saying You of little faith,
why did you doubt? The cry thus answers the wail, desire answers desire, mercy
answers the wretched one; the doctor, the sick one; compassion, the one laboring
and in pain.
Further…the depths of Scripture…are opened to us when the Lord cries out
in our hearts…The more outer persecution or inner disturbance saddens us, the
more does divine consolation from the sacred writings cheer us. For whatever
has been written was written for our instruction, so that we might have hope
through the patience and consolation of the Scriptures. I say to you, brothers,
nothing adverse can happen, nothing so sad or so bitter can take place, which
does not quickly vanish or is not more easily endured as soon as the sacred page
is opened to us. This is the field to which Isaac went to meditate when the day
was already drawing to a close; Rebecca met him there and relieved his pain with
her sweetness.
How often does day give way to evening for me, good Jesus! How often
does unbearable pain take the place of what little consolation I have, just as the
dark of night succeeds daylight. All things turn to boredom, and everything that I
see is a burden. If someone speaks, I barely hear; if someone knocks, I barely
perceive it. My heart grows as hard as a rock, my tongue clings to my palate, and
my eyes dry up. What then? I go out, of course, to the field to meditate, I reflect
on the sacred book, and I fix my meditations in wax. Then suddenly, Rebecca
comes to meet me. In other words, your grace, good Jesus, scatters the darkness
with your light, drives away boredom, and breaks up the hardness. Soon tears
follow sighs, and heavenly joy accompanies tears. Unhappy are those who do not
enter this field and rejoice in this way when some sadness disturbs them!
Aelred of Rievaulx. Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah. CF 83. Trans. Lewis White.
Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2018. 256-265.

Weekday
2023-01-11
The Meaning of the Incarnation in Ordinary Time
A Meditation by Dom Augustin Guillerand
Instead of attempting to free ourselves from the things of the senses, or
abstracting from them, we should try to probe deeper into them; not stopping at
their external appearance, which changes, but seeking what is hidden deep in
their substance: their being, in a word. For God is Being. And thus we shall find
him beneath the veil of the senses.
This is the meaning of the Incarnation. God became tangible, in order to
teach us to find him in all that we touch and see and feel; for we are necessarily
bound to the senses in this life. Jesus did not do away with these external
contacts; what he taught us is not to stop at them. He taught us to find His
Father in everything: in the flowers, in the lilies of the field, in the birds, in
sorrow – in everything, because everything comes from his love, and must return
to it. That while we acknowledge him as God seen by men, we may be drawn by
him to the love of things unseen.
We must endeavour, therefore, to cultivate this spiritual ‘second sight’. It
is the secret of the saints, for whom this world is not an obstacle between their
souls and God, but a living image, a resplendent mirror of his goodness and
beauty. It is this great Reality, so utterly beyond our conception, that the
Incarnation made possible: that by loving and imitating Jesus incarnate, we love
and imitate God himself.
Dom Augustin Guillerand. Where Silence is Praise. Trans. A Monk of Parkminster. London: Darton,
Longman & Todd, 1960. 121-122.

St.William of Bourges
2023-01-10
St. William of Bourges
from Butler’s Lives of the Saints
Guillaume de Donjeon came from a distinguished family of Nevers on the
river Loire in central France. He was educated by his uncle Peter, who was
archdeacon of Soissons north-east of Paris. At an early age he was appointed
canon on Soissons and then of Paris. He felt the call to the solitary life, however,
and retired to Grandmont Abbey. A dispute there disturbed his peace, and he
joined the stricter Cistercian Order, being clothed at the abbey of Pontigny. He
was elected abbot of two smaller abbeys dependent on Pontigny, first Fontaine-Jean then Chalis, near Senlis.
When Henri de Sully, archbishop of Bourges, died, a successor was sought
from among the Cistercian Abbots. William was elected by a process of drawing
the first of three names from slips placed on the altar by Henri’s brother Eudes,
bishop of Paris, a choice that confirmed the vote of the clergy. William would
have refused the appointment had he not received direct orders to take it up both
from Pope Innocent III and from his religious superior, the Abbot of Citeaux. He
proved to be a model bishop, austere in private life, wearing a hair shirt and
abstaining from red meat, and full of pastoral care for the spiritual and material
welfare of the poor, whom he saw as his first responsibility. He defended the
rights of his church, including its lands, against threatened encroachment by the
civil powers, arguing his case successfully even against the king.
The Albigensians were numerous in France at this time, and he was active
in crusading against them, making many converts. He was preparing a mission to
them when his final illness came upon him. He preached a last sermon to his
people, which brought on a high fever and hastened his end. At his request he
was laid on a bed of ashes, and he died with the first two words of the Nocturns
on his lips, just after midnight on January 10, 1209. His body was interred in the
cathedral of Bourges, and many miracles were attributed to him. A shrine was
accordingly built in 1217, and he was canonized by Pope Honorius III the
following year.
Butler’s Lives of the Saints – New Full Edition – Burns & Oates – The Liturgical Press – Collegeville,
MN – 1998 – pg 70

Jim Finley
2023-01-09 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)

Baptism of the Lord
2023-01-09
Disclosing the Mystery of Christ’s Baptism A homily by St Gregory Palamas
“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”
Great and exalted…is the mystery of Christ’s baptism contained in these
few words. It is both difficult to contemplate and hard to interpret, and no less
difficult to comprehend. But since it pertains especially to our salvation, we are
persuaded by Him who urges us to search the Scriptures, and take courage to
investigate the power of the mystery, as far as it is accessible to us. Just as in the
beginning, after God had said, “Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness”…so now that our nature was being re-made in Christ, when the Holy
Spirit was revealed through His descent from the supracelestial regions upon the
Lord being baptized in the Jordan, He disclosed the mystery of the most sublime
and all-accomplishing Trinity, which is able to save reasonable creatures.
…Man is the only creature who, in the image of the tri-hypostatic Being,
has a mind, reason, and a spirit which gives life to his body, inasmuch as he also
has a body which needs to be infused with life. When our nature was re-made in
the Jordan, the most sublime and all-accomplishing Trinity was made manifest,
as the archetype of the image in our soul.
“And lo”, it says, when He had just risen up from under the water, before
He had stepped out, “the heavens were opened unto him”. Please make a mental
effort, brethren, and focus your minds on what I am saying with the utmost care,
that you may understand the power of the mystery of Christian baptism. For the
time of His baptism, foreshadowed His descent into Hades; and, accordingly, His
coming up from under the water prefigured His resurrection from the dead.
As a fitting consequence, when He came up from the water the heavens
were immediately opened to Him. For at the time of His descent into Hades, He
went under the earth for our sake, and on returning thence, He opened all things
both to Himself and to us, not just things on or around the earth, but highest
heaven itself, to which afterwards He ascended bodily…Just as He foreshowed
the saving passion through the mystical bread and cup, and then handed on this
mystery to the faithful to perform for their salvation, so He mystically foretold
His descent into Hades and His ascent from there through this baptism of His,
and afterwards passed on this sacrament to believers to perform that they may be
saved. He allowed Himself suffering right from the start through these painless
means, causing us, according to the apostle, to be “planted together in the
likeness of his death”, that in due time we might also be vouchsafed the promised
resurrection.
“The heavens were opened unto him”, that He might be manifestly shown
to be the one who existed before the heavens, or rather, who was before anything
existed, as being with God, as the Word and Son of God, whose Father was not
born before Him, and as having a name with the Father, “Which is above every
name” and all speech. For when all those earthly and heavenly things which
appeared to be between Him and His Father in heaven were torn asunder and
thrown to each side, He alone was shown to be united with the Father and the
Spirit, as He existed with Them before anything was made.
2 Saint Gregory Palamas. Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies. Trans. Christopher Veniamin.
Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009, 493-497.

Ephiphany of the Lord
2023-01-08
Selections from a Hymn by St Ephrem the Syrian
The Magi used to worship [fire]…
They left it and worshiped its Lord; Fire they exchanged for fire.
Blessed is He Who baptized us in His light!
Instead of the foolish fire that eats its own body itself,
the Magi worshipped the Fire Who gave His body to those who eat.
The coal drew near to sanctify unclean lips.
Blessed is He Who has mixed His fire with us!
Error blinded humankind that we should worship creatures.
Fellow-servants were worshipped, and the Lord of the universe was denied.
The Worshipful came down to birth and gathered worship to Himself.
Blessed is He Who is worshipped by all!
The All-Knowing saw that we worshipped creatures.
He put on a created body to catch us by our habit,
to draw us by a created body toward the Creator.
Blessed is He Who contrived to draw us [to Him].
The evil one knew [how] to harm us; with the luminaries he blinded us.
With possessions he maimed us, by gold he made us poor.
With graven images he made us a heart of stone.
Blessed is He who came to soften it!
They carved stones and set them up that humankind might stumble on them.
They did not put them on the road that the blind should stumble on them.
They named them gods that on them the seeing might stumble.
Blessed is He Who unmasks false gods!
Sin spread its wings to cover everything
So that no one could see the truth from above it.
Truth came down to the womb, emerged [and] rolled away error.
Blessed is He Who dispelled [sin] by His birth!
Frankincense that [had] served demons worshipped Your birth.
It was gloomy in its vapor; it rejoiced to see its Lord.
Instead of the incense of error, [Your birth] was offered to God.
Blessed is Your birth that is worshipped!
Myrrh worshipped You on its own behalf and for similar sweet spices…
Blessed is Your scent that made us smell sweet!
Gold, that had been worshipped, worshipped You as the Magi approached…
Come all you mouths, pour out and become a type
Of water and wells of voices; let the Spirit of truth come!
Let Her sing praise in all of us to the Father Who redeemed us by His child.
Most blessed of all is His birth!
1 Ephrem the Syrian. Classics of Western Spirituality – Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns. Trans. Kathleen E.
McVey. New York: Paulist Press, 1989. 181-186.

Skema Wk 1 Ordinary Time
2023-01-08
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
1st Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
January 8 – 14, 2023

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

Office
Epiphany of the Lord
Baptism of the Lord
St William of Bourges
Weekday
St Aelred
Weekday
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Isa 60:1-22
Isa 42:1-9, 49:1-9
Judg 1:1-21
Judg 1:22-36
Judg 2:1-23
Judg 3:1-11
Judg 3:12-31

Lauds
Baruch 4:36-5:9
Acts 19:1-7
Zech 1:1-6
Zech 1:7-13
Zech 1:14-17
Zech 2:1-9
Zech 2:10-17

Mass
20
21
306
307
308
309
310

1st
Isa 60:1-6
Acts 10:34-38
Heb 2:5-12
Heb 2:14-18
Heb 3:7-14
Heb 4:1-5, 11
Heb 4:12-16

2nd
Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6

Gospel
Matt 2:1-12
Matt 3:13-17
Mark 1:21-28
Mark 1:29-39
Mark 1:40-45
Mark 2:1-12
Mark 2:13-17

Vespers
Rev 21:22-27
Col 2:8-15
Eph 1:1-10
Eph 1:11-14
Eph 1:15-23
Eph 2:1-10
Eph 2:11-22

Vigils Reading - Christmas Weekday
2023-01-07
Look to Mary, Your Star7
from the Letters of Adam of Perseigne
You, Lady, are my all. In your hands has been stored for me the fullness of all good. With you have been hidden the unfailing treasures of truth and grace, of peace and pity, of salvation and wisdom, of glory and of honor. You are my anchor amid the billows, port in shipwreck, support in tribulation, comfort in grief. You are, for those who are yours, aid in oppression, help in time of crisis, temperance in prosperity, joy in time of waiting, refreshment in toil…
When you conceive the sun of righteousness, you like the moon are illumined by the good office of the blazing sun. The moon borrows from the sun the light which the nature of its gross body denies it. Therefore whatever beauty it possesses it has through the gift of its borrowed splendor. When you bring forth the sun of righteousness, you are compared to the sun because of the close likeness. Just as the body of the sun is not injured or diminished when it puts forth its rays, so the bringing forth of the holy birth does not violate the mother. And what, you who are glorious as the sun, what is your offspring but the eternal splendor of a certain sun?…
Therefore, dear friend, all our confidence lies in the childbearing of our Virgin and though I may be unworthy I shall not cease to dwell upon her praises. If you stand in need of mercy, it is found in full measure in the heart of the Virgin. If you reverence the truth, give thanks to the Virgin, since from the ground of her virgin flesh the truth which you worship has arisen. No less give thanks to the Virgin if you follow after peace, since from her is born for you the peace which passes all understanding. If you pursue justice, see that you are not ungrateful to the Virgin, for at the opening of her womb justice looked forth from heaven. If your faith is shaken by some assault from an enemy, turn your eyes upon the Virgin and that in which was wavering will be firmly fixed. If the lust of the flesh delights you, turn your gaze upon the Virgin, and the danger to your chastity is removed. If pride disturbs your spirit, turn your gaze upon the Virgin, and by the merit of her unsullied humility your swelling spirit will subside. If you are set on fire by anger’s torches, lift your eyes to the Virgin and you will grow gentle through her calm. If ignorance or error have led you astray from the way of life, look to Mary, star of the sea, and in her light you will be led back to the path of truth. If the vice of avarice commands your idolatrous worship, call to mind the generosity of the Virgin and with a love of poverty there will come to you the goodness of openhandedness. In every peril the goodness of the Virgin comes to succor, and powerful is it to succor. Give thank for her childbearing; from her fullness the sum total of graces has flowed. For us the Virgin brought forth, ours is the birth, for us the child was born and to us the son was given.
7 Adam of Perseigne. The Letters of Adam of Perseigne. CF 21. Trans. Grace Perigo. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, INC, 1976, 72-75.

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.
