Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Compline
2023-05-21 19:25 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sunday, May 21th at 7:25 pm
Zoom link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/3917499727

Vigils Reading - Ascension of the Lord
2023-05-21
LET THE KING OF GLORY ENTER
A commentary by St Gregory of Nyssa1
The gospel describes the Lord’s life upon earth and his return to heaven. But the sublime prophet David, as though unencumbered by the weight of his body, rose above himself to mingle with the heavenly powers and record for us their words as they accompanied the Master when he came down from heaven. Ordering the angels on earth entrusted with the care of human life to raise the gates, they cried: Lift up your gates, you princes; be lifted up you everlasting doors. Let the King of glory enter.
But because wherever he is he who contains all things in himself makes himself like those who receive him, not only becoming a man among human beings, but also when among angels conforming his nature to theirs, the gatekeepers asked: Who is this King of glory?
He is the strong one, they were told, mighty in battle, the one who is to grapple with and overthrow the captor of the human race who has the power of death. When this last enemy has been destroyed, he will restore us to freedom and peace.
Now the mystery of Christ’s death is fulfilled, victory is won, and the cross, the sign of triumph, is raised on high. He who gives us the noble gifts of life and a kingdom has ascended into heaven, leading captivity captive. Therefore the same command is repeated. Once more the gates of heaven must open for him. Our guardian angels, who have now become his escorts, order them to be flung wide so that he may enter and regain his former glory. But he is not recognized in the soiled garments of our life, in clothes reddened by the winepress of human sin. Again the escorting angels are asked: Who is this King of glory? The answer is no longer, The strong one, mighty in battle but, The lord of hosts, he who has gained power over the whole universe, who has recapitulated all things in himself, who is above all things, who has restored all creation to its former state: He is the King of glory.

You see how much David has added to our joy in this feast and contributed to the gladness of the Church. Therefore as far as we can let us imitate the prophet by our love for God, by gentleness and by patience with those who hate us. Let the prophet’s teaching help us to live in a way pleasing to God in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 68-69.

Skema
2023-05-21
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
7th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
May 21 – 27, 2023

Sun
21
Mon
22
Tue
23
Wed
24
Thu
25
Fri
26
Sat
27

Office
Ascension of the Lord
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
St Bede the Venerable
Easter Weekday
St Augustine of Canterbury

Vigils
Eph 4:1-24
1 Jn 4:1-10
1 Jn 4:11-21
1 Jn 5:1-12
1 Jn 5:13-21
2 Jn 1-13
3 Jn 1-15

Lauds
Dan 7:9-14
2 Tim 3:10-17
2 Tim 4:1-5
2 Tim 4:6-8
Titus 1:1-9
Titus 2:11-15
Titus 3:1-8

Mass
58
297
298
299
300
301
302

1st
Acts 1:1-11
Acts 19:1-8
Acts 20:17-27
Acts 20:28-38
Acts 22:30; 23:6-11
Acts 25:13b-21
Acts 28:16-20, 30-31

2nd
Eph 1:17-23

Gospel
Matt 28:16-20
John 16:29-33
John 17:1-11a
John 17:11b-19
John 17:20-26
John 21:15-19
John 21:20-25

Vespers
Eph 2:1-10
Acts 24:10-16
Acts 25:7-12
Acts 26:24-31
Acts 28:16-23
Acts 28:24-31
Rom 8:9:17

Cleveland LCG Meeting
2023-05-20 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York)
Content is protected.

Easter Weekday
2023-05-20
HOW SHE SAW JESUS STANDING AT THE RIGHT HAND
OF THE POWER OF GOD
From the “The Life of Beatrice of Nazareth”7
◊◊◊
…It happened that the adversary of the human race, with all the vices
assembled in their bands, rushed in upon her ready to fight, and cruelly attacked
her valiant heart with as many assaults of temptation as there are different kinds
of vices. Christ’s soldier, seeing herself in the midst of the sea, rocked and
overwhelmed by stormy waves, and harassed on all sides with heavy storms and
weighty struggles, began to waste away, unnerved by great fear… She did not
fear single combat with any one of them, if it reared up alone, but with all of them
rushing in together and each of them exercising its own wicked activity, such a
need for resistance on all sides arose that, her strength worn out and confidence
all but collapsing, she nearly despaired of God’s mercy.
Beatrice, seeing that faith and hope, that most constant of virtues, were
almost on the point of perishing within her, and that no virtue remained with
which to defend herself in such a crisis, no longer presumed to enter such a
struggle; grief-stricken and worn-out she prepared herself, and rising up fled
quickly to the church, and with a great storm of tears, with bitter groans, sighs,
and weeping she besought the divine clemency to have mercy on her in such a
dangerous crisis…
When Beatrice had poured… forth… the great bitterness of her heart, she
quickly fled to the solace of prayer, and she called upon the divine mercy… The
loving and merciful Lord, who never deserts those who trust in his mercy, who is
close to the troubled of heart and always saves the humble in spirit… did not
refuse to turn the eyes of his mercy on his chosen spouse in the time of her need.
Regarding his faithful fighter and understanding that she was laboring in a
weighty struggle, he put forth his merciful hand to console her, and putting to
flight the insults of the demonic powers and all the troubles caused by the vices,
he with his unspeakable kindness and mercy called her back into the harbor of
tranquility.
…She was caught up beyond herself and saw in ecstasy of mind – with the
eyes of the mind, not of the flesh, – the heavens opened and Jesus standing at the
right hand of the power of God, prepared to help her, leaning over mercifully
toward her to raise her up, console, and snatch her from the attacks of the
opposing powers. When the Lord’s virgin… had gazed on him with longing eyes,
she perceived two things, mercy and love, radiating from him toward her, and
immediately with an enlightened mind she recognized what they meant. In the
ray of mercy she saw, she deserved to be rebuked by the Lord for being so
disturbed in the struggle, so weighed down with fear and sorrow… In the ray of
love she recognized clearly that the Lord was propitious and merciful toward
her, that his kindness was helping her, not beating her down or casting her off
from the divine mercy… but rather exalting her, raising her up and lifting her to
the summit of the virtues.
…She gave thanks to Almighty God with exultation of heart… recognizing
clearly the divine mercy toward her… With the Lord’s help she henceforth
remained stronger in faith, more constant in hope, more valiant in tribulation,
and more spiritual against the opposing powers.
7 The Life of Beatrice of Nazareth. CF 50. Trans. Roger De Ganck. Kalamazoo, MI:
Cistercian Publications, 1991. 175, 177, 179.

Easter Weekday
2023-05-19
EVERYTHING IS OBTAINABLE
FOR SOMEONE WHO PRAYS
From “The Commendation of Faith” by Baldwin of Forde6
◊◊◊
The Lord says to his disciples: ‘Truly, truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of
the Father in my name he will give it to you.’ And in the gospel of Mark:
‘Whatever you ask when you pray, believe that you will receive them and they
will come to you.’ In the gospel of Matthew: ‘If two of you on earth agree about
anything, whatever you ask will be given you by my Father who is in heaven.’
From these passages, note that everything is obtainable for someone who
prays, just as it is said that everything is possible for someone who believes.
Faith and prayer are recognized to have similar power, and one helps the other
in turn… The Lord shows the disciples the power of faith and at once adds the
power of prayer, thereby showing that it is conjoined to [faith] by a kind of
similarity: ‘Have faith in God. Truly I tell you: whoever says to this mountain,
“Get up and throw yourself into the sea”, and does not doubt in his heart, but
believes that what he said will be done, will be done for him’… Consider from
these words how powerful faith is in everything that is said without any doubt
that it will be done, and, equally, how powerful prayer is in everything that is
asked for in the faith that it will come to pass…
But what if someone says: ‘Who can say to this mountain without any
doubt: “Get up, and throw yourself into the sea”? Does it not seem just as
impossible not to doubt this as actually to do it? But if these two things – doing it
and not doubting it – are not possible for us, but only for divine power, then it
can seem unworthy of God to make such a promise. How can he promise that a
mountain will be moved by a simple utterance, provided we have said it without
any doubt, when that very doubt, so far as it is in our power, is as immovably
fixed in our heart as this mountain is in its place?’…
For although the Lord promises us his help in all things, and although he
says that not a hair of our head shall perish and thereby says that he will make us
secure, who is there who is firm in faith at all times and secure in all places? Who
can always stand by himself? Who does not sometimes waver? Who never
doubts? Thus it follows that we, who have only a little faith, need to have our
faith increased and are always bound to offer to God our confession of faith and
to beg him unceasingly to help our unbelief, saying: ‘Lord, I believe: help my
unbelief.’… He helps our weakness when he gives us the capacity to be capable of
little. He helps our unbelief when he makes us believe that we believe little…
This is a wonderful dispensation of God by which he allows those he has chosen
to fall for a time so that they may rise up all the stronger, so that they may be
more cautious, so that they trust less in themselves, so that they recognize their
weakness more perfectly, so that they cling to God more firmly, so that they hold
his grace, without which they can do nothing….
6 Baldwin of Forde. The Commendation of Faith. CF 59. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland
and David N. Bell. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2000. 145-147,151-152, 155

Easter Weekday
2023-05-18
EVERYONE GIVING BIRTH WILL SUFFER
From the “Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah” by St Aelred of Rievaulx5
◊◊◊
Oh brothers, there is no pain as of one giving birth. But there is a physical
birth, a spiritual birth, and a punitive birth. And certainly, a woman is sad when
she is in labor, because her hour has come. Pain takes hold of her members; death,
her eyes; and fear, her conscience. She does not know how it will turn out.
A spiritual birth takes place when the holy ones give birth to spiritual
children by instruction and care. One such holy person said, My little children,
with whom I am again in labor. And this birth is not without pain. For such a
person must rejoice with those rejoicing, weep with those weeping, be weak with
the weak, burn with the scandalized, and much more. It is also a spiritual birth
when the barren and unfruitful soul conceives by fear of the Lord. Turned toward
the Lord, such a soul gives birth to the beginnings of good works. And what pain
lies in this birth when the flesh resists the spirit and habit resists the will! One
moment, the mind desires good works, and the next it does not; one moment it
fears, and the next it trusts; one moment, desire for the good impels it, and the
next, the pleasure of evil pulls it back!
A harmful birth takes place when a person conceives pain and gives birth
to iniquity, when it conceives from a desire to acquire and gives birth by carrying
out that desire. This is why the Lord said in the gospel, Woe to you who are
pregnant or nursing! Woe indeed to those conceiving and giving birth in this
way. Even if now they exult when they do evil and rejoice in wicked things, as
though giving birth they will suffer pain when death draws near. For just as a
woman who conceives in pleasure suffers great pain when she is in labor, so too
the soul, corrupted by pleasures and vices, is crushed by sadness and pain when
the wages of corruption begin to appear at death. When the soul’s belated
repentance is turned back on itself, it will begin to feel what is written: Walk in
the light of your fire and in the flame that you lit for yourselves.
We can call a birth punitive when someone dies in a condition of
punishment as though giving birth. The dead receive the punishment they
conceived by sinning, as though giving birth to a most unhappy progeny. How
much more happily does a person conceive repentance for sins from the fear of
God and give birth to conversion of life! This birth, although not without pain,
prepares joy in tranquility of conscience, because when she gives birth to the
child, she does not remember her distress anymore on account of her joy, and
whoever sows tearfully will reap joyfully, and Blessed are those who mourn, for
they will be consoled. Therefore, everyone who abandoned the faith – whether
overcome by torture during persecution or corrupted by vice during peacetime –
as though giving birth will suffer pain, either by profitably repenting or unhappily
dying.
5 St Aelred of Rievaulx. Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah. CF 83. Trans.
Lewis White. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2018. 86-87.

Easter Weekday
2023-05-17
THE SACRAMENT OF POVERTY
From “The Starved and the Silent” by Fr Aloysius Schwartz4
◊◊◊
Christ lives on in the world today and exerts his influence upon it in three
ways: 1) the Eucharist, 2) the inspired word of Scripture, and 3) the person of the
poor. He who made us dwells among us. He can be found not only in the silence
of our tabernacles and in the solemn language of our sacred books, but also on
our streets and in our marketplaces. The living Christ is as close to us as the
nearest poor person…
Down through the history of the Church, the saints, with that penetrating
insight and clairvoyance which characterized them, always saw Christ in the
person of the poor… A typical story is that related in the life of St. Martin of
Tours. Of a cold wintry night Martin of Tours was returning to Amiens on
horseback. A beggar, half-frozen from the cold, asks for alms in the name of
Christ. Martin has nothing except his weapons and his clothes, so he rents his
cloak in two, gives one half to the beggar, and continues on his way. The
following night Christ appears to Martin, clothed in the half-cloak which he gave
the beggar, and speaks these words: “Martin, catechumen, has covered me with
his garment.”…
It requires faith of the deepest kind to see God present in the person of the
poor. It requires the faith of the centurion… who could look up at the crushed
figure of Christ upon the cross, a figure in whom there was neither beauty nor
comeliness… an object of scorn and ridicule… and say: “Indeed this was the Son
of God.”…
The Son of God could have cast himself down unhurt from the pinnacle of
the temple and in a blaze of spectacular circus glory forced the belief of all
onlookers in the divinity of his person. He also could have fed the crowds with
loaves and fishes not once or twice, but every day in order to buy their love. But
God did not want to force belief nor to buy love. He wanted it given in humility
and lowliness or he wanted it not at all…
So it is that the Infinite God chooses to reveal himself to man through the
most finite of finite things: the commonplace, everyday elements of bread and
wine, the simple words of human language, a child born in a stable and later
nailed to a tree, and the teeming masses of the poor who will always be with us.
Man’s eyes must be washed with truth and his heart cleansed with humility if he
is to come to God on these lowly terms…
The poor have been… anointed by poverty and suffering to become
mediators between man and God. Through them, men are permitted to sacrifice
themselves to God, and in turn, God gives himself to men. Christ’s presence in
the poor marvelously complements his presence in the Eucharist. In the
Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Son of God gives himself to us in the form of
bread; and we approach the table of communion as spiritual beggars – with
outstretched hand and hungry heart. In the “sacrament of poverty,” the roles are
mysteriously reversed: Christ is now the beggar, and he humbly approaches us
and pleads with us to give him bread… Although the mode, manner, and means
may differ, there is a great similarity between Christ dwelling in the Eucharist
and Christ dwelling in the person of the poor. In one case the presence is
sacramental, in the other social or mystical. In both cases the presence is real.
4 Schwartz, Aloysius. The Starved and the Silent. Garden City, NY: Doubleday &
Company, INC., 1966. 156-159, 161.

Easter Weekday
2023-05-16
WE SCARCELY KNOW OURSELVES
From the writings of Servant of God Dorothy Day 3
◊◊◊
Much as we want to, we do not really know ourselves. Do we really want
to see ourselves as God sees us, or even as our fellow human beings see us?
Could we bear it, weak as we are?… We do not want to be given that clear inward
vision which discloses to us our most secret faults. In the Psalms there is that
prayer “Deliver me from my secret sins.”… They were what I read most when I
was in jail… I read with a sense of coming back to something that I had lost.
There was an echoing in my heart. And how can anyone who has known human
sorrow and human joy fail to respond to these words?
Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. Let thy
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. If thou, O Lord, wilt mark
iniquities: Lord who shall stand it. For with thee there is merciful forgiveness…
All through those weary first days in jail when I was in solitary
confinement, the only thoughts that brought comfort to my soul were those lines
in the Psalms that expressed the terror and misery of man suddenly stricken and
abandoned. Solitude and hunger and weariness of spirit – these sharpened my
perceptions so that I suffered not only my own sorrow but the sorrows of those
about me. I was no longer myself. I was mankind… The sorrows of the world
encompassed me. I was like one gone down into the pit. Hope had forsaken me…
And yet if it were not the Holy Spirit that comforted me, how could I have been
comforted, how could I have endured, how could I have lived in hope?…
“What glorious hope!” Mauriac writes. “There are all those who will
discover that their neighbor is Jesus himself, although they belong to the mass of
those who do not know Christ or who have forgotten Him… Even some of those
who think they hate Him have consecrated their lives to Him; for Jesus is
disguised and masked in the midst of men, hidden among the poor, among the
sick, among prisoners, among strangers. Many who serve Him officially have
never known who He was, and many who do not even know His name will hear
on the last day the words that open to them the gates of joy. ‘Those children
were I, and I those working men. I wept on the hospital bed. I was that murderer
in his cell whom you consoled.’”
But always the glimpses of God came most when I was alone. Objectors
cannot say that it was fear of loneliness and solitude and pain that made me turn
to Him. It was in those few years when I was alone and most happy that I found
Him. I found Him at last through joy and thanksgiving, not through sorrow. Yet
how can I say that either? Better let it be said that I found Him through His poor,
and in a moment of joy I turned to Him… If Christ established His Church on
earth with Peter as its rock, that faulty one who denied Him three times, who fled
from Him when he was in trouble, then I, too, wanted a share in that tender
compassionate love that is so great…
The experiences that I have had are more or less universal. Suffering,
sadness, repentance, love, we all have known these. They are easiest to bear
when one remembers their universality, when we remember that we are all
members or potential members of the Mystical Body of Christ. A conversion is a
lonely experience. We do not know what is going on in the depths of the heart
and soul of another. We scarcely know ourselves.
3 Day, Dorothy. By Little and By Little – The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day. Ed.
Robert Ellsberg. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983. 4-7, 9.

St. Pachomius
2023-05-15
CLOTHED IN THE MONK’S HABIT
An excerpt from “The Life of St Pachomius” 2
There was a man called Pachomius, who was… born of pagan parents in the Thebaid. He received the great mercy of becoming a Christian… Moved by the love of God, he sought to become a monk. When he was told of an anchorite called Palamon, he went to him to share his anchorite life. When he arrived, he knocked on the door. The old man looked down from above and said, ‘What do you want?’ – for he was abrupt in speech. He replied, ‘I ask you, father, make me a monk.’ He said to him, ‘You cannot. This work of God is not so simple; for many have come but have not persevered.’ Pachomius said, ‘Put me to the test at it and see’. The old man spoke again, ‘First try yourself out for a while, then come here again’… When the youth heard the old man say this, he was still more strengthened in spirit to endure every hardship with him. ‘I believe,’ he said to him, ‘that with the help of God and your prayers, I will endure…’ Then opening the door, [the old man] let him in and clothed him in the monk’s habit…
Once, journeying through that desert a considerable distance, he came to a deserted village called Tabennesi. There he prayed to express his love of God. And as he protracted his prayer a voice… said to him, ‘Stay here and build a monastery; for many will come to you to become monks’. When he heard this and in purity of heart discerned according to the Scriptures that the voice was holy, he returned to his father and told him about it. He had to use great persuasion, for his father was greatly grieved, because he held him as his true son… Then the old man said, ‘Since I believe this has come to you from God, let us make a covenant between us, that we shall visit each other in turn, you and I, so as not to be separated from each other….’ This they did as long as Palamon, the true athlete of Christ, lived…
<Pachomius’s> brother according to the flesh, who was called John, heard [about him] and came to him… Remembering the promise he had made to God, Pachomius began with his brother to build a larger monastery, to receive those who would come to this life… After this, he went with to an island to cut rushes for mats. And as he was keeping vigil alone, praying to be taught the whole will of God, an angel appeared to him from the Lord, just as one appeared to Manoah and his wife about the birth of Samson. The angel said to him, ‘The will of God is to minister to the race of men in order to reconcile them to himself.’ He said this three times and went away.
He thought about the voice which he had heard and was reassured. Then he began to receive those who came to him. After appropriately testing them and their parents, he clothed them in the monks’ habit. He introduced them to the life gradually. First, they had to renounce all the world, their parents, and themselves, and follow the Saviour who taught doing so, for this is to carry the Cross. Being well taught by him according to the Scriptures, they bore fruits worthy of their vocation.
2 Pachomian Koinonia: Volume One – The Life of Saint Pachomius and his disciples. CF 45. Trans. Armand Veilleux. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications Inc., 1980. 299, 301-302, 305-308, 311-312.

6th Sunday of Easter
2023-05-14
I WILL ASK THE FATHER
A commentary by St John Chrysostom 1
◊◊◊
If you love me, said Christ, keep my commandments. I have commanded you
to love one another and to treat one another as I have treated you. To love me is
to obey these commands, to submit to me your beloved. And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Counselor. This promise shows once again Christ’s
consideration. Because his disciples did not yet know who he was, it was likely
that they would greatly miss his companionship, his teaching, his actual physical
presence, and be completely disconsolate when he had gone. Therefore he said: I
will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, meaning another like
himself.
They received the Spirit after Christ had purified them by his sacrifice. The
Spirit did not come down on them while Christ was still with them, because this
sacrifice had not yet been offered. But when sin had been blotted out and the
disciples, sent out to face danger, were preparing themselves for the battle, they
needed the Holy Spirit’s coming to encourage them. If you ask why the Spirit did
not come immediately after the resurrection, this was in order to increase their
gratitude for receiving him by increasing their desire. They were troubled by
nothing as long as Christ was with them, but when his departure had left them
desolate and very much afraid, they would be most eager to receive the Spirit.
He will remain with you, Christ said, meaning his presence with you will not
be ended by death. But since there was a danger that hearing of a Counselor
might lead them to expect another incarnation and to think they would be able to
see the Holy Spirit, he corrected this idea by saying: The world cannot receive him
because it does not see him. For he will not be with you in the same way as I am,
but will dwell in your very souls, He will be in you.
Christ called him the Spirit of truth because the Spirit would help them to
understand the types of the old law. By He will be with you he meant, He will be
with you as I am with you, but he also hinted at the difference between them,
namely, that the spirit would not suffer as he had done, nor would he ever
depart.

The world cannot receive him because it does not see him. Does this imply
that the Spirit is visible? By no means; Christ is speaking here of knowledge, for
he adds: or knows him. Sight being the sense by which we perceive things most
distinctly, he habitually used this sense to signify knowledge. By the world he
means here the wicked, thus giving his disciples the consolation of receiving a
special gift. He said that the Spirit was another like himself, that he would not
leave them, that he would come to them just as he himself had come, and that he
would remain in them. Yet even this did not drive away their sadness, for they
still wanted Christ himself and his companionship. So to satisfy them he said: I
will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you. Do not be afraid, for when I
promised to send you another counselor I did not mean that I was going to
abandon you for ever, nor by saying that he would remain with you did I mean
that I would not see you again. Of course I also will come to you; I will not leave
you orphans.
1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith
Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 66-67.

Skema: Easter 6th Week
2023-05-14
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
6th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
May 14 – 20, 2023

Sun
14
Mon
15
Tue
16
Wed
17
Thu
18
Fri
19
Sat
20

Office
6th Sunday of Easter
St Pachomius
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
1 Jn 1:1-10
1 Jn 2:1-11
1 Jn 2:12-17
1 Jn 2:18-29
1 Jn 3:1-10
1 Jn 3:11-17
1 Jn 3:18-24

Lauds
1 Tim 4:11-16
1 Tim 6:11-16
2 Tim 1:1-8
2 Tim 1:9-14
2 Tim 2:1-7
2 Tim 2:8-13
2 Tim 2:20-26

Mass
55
291
292
293
294
295
296

1st
Acts 8:5-8, 14-17
Acts 16:11-15
Acts 16:22-34
Acts 17:15, 22-18:1
Acts 18:1-8
Acts 18:9-18
Acts 18:23-28

2nd
1 Pet 3:15-18

Gospel
John 14:15-21
John 15:26-16:4a
John 16:5-11
John 16:12-15
John 16:16-20
John 16:20-23
John 16:23b-28

Vespers
Acts 19:23-30
Acts 20:7-12
Acts 21:7-14
Acts 21:27-34
Acts 22:23-30
Acts 23:12-16
Col 3:1-11

LCG Chicago 9:00 am CDT
2023-05-13 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago)
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+13126266799,,85220595622# US (Chicago)

9:00 Gather for Opening prayer and lighting of the candles illuminating the Theotokos icon of Blessed Mother Mary and the baby Jesus.
We also pray for all our lay Cistercian sisters and brothers in the US and around the world. Specially we pray for our Gethsemani monks. Finally, we pray this month specially for these Gethsemani monks:
Br. Aaron Schulte
Br. Gaetan Blanchette
Fr. Peter Tong
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Robert Johnson.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is The Divine Dance by Richard Rohr (through Part I, page 117)
10:45 Housekeeping. Volunteer to lead lectio next month? Is Chicago an on-line community? Report on LCG Advisory Council activity, Chicago representative(s); host October LCG retreat, theme?
11:00 Update. Share how the Holy Spirt has entered our lives as lay Cistercians since our last meeting. How goes our Lenten experience?
11:45 Closing worship and prayer. We will pray the liturgical hour of None as with our Gethsemani monks (identical Psalms as done today at Gethsemani Abbey.)

We look forward to our continuing LCG Chicago journey at our next meeting: June 10, 2023.

Vigils Reading - Our Lady of Fatima
2023-05-13
THE 13TH OF MAY, 1917
From the memoirs of Sister Lucia7
High up on the slope in the Cova da Iria, I was playing with Jacinta and Francisco at building a little stone wall around a clump of furze. Suddenly we saw what seemed to be a flash of lightning. “We’d better go home,” I said to my cousins, “that’s lightning; we may have a thunderstorm.” “Yes, indeed!” they answered.
We began to go down the slope, hurrying the sheep along towards the road. We were more or less half-way down the slope, and almost level with a large Holm oak tree that stood there, when we saw another flash of lightning. We had only gone a few steps further when, there before us on a small Holm oak, we beheld a Lady all dressed in white. She was more brilliant than the sun, and radiated a light more clear and intense than a crystal glass filled with sparkling water, when the rays of the burning sun shine through it. We stopped, astounded, before the Apparition. We were so close, just a few feet from her, that we were bathed in the light which surrounded her, or rather, which radiated from her.
Then Our Lady spoke to us: “Do not be afraid. I will do you no harm.” “Where are you from?” “I am from Heaven.” “What do you want of me?” “I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession, on the 13th day, at this same hour. Later on, I will tell you who I am and what I want. Afterwards, I will return here yet a seventh time.” “Shall I go to Heaven too?” “Yes, you will.” “And Jacinta?” “She will go also.” “And Francisco?” “He will go there too, but he must say many Rosaries.” Then I remembered to ask about two girls who had died recently. They were friends of mine and used to come to my home to learn weaving with my eldest sister. “Is Maria das Neves in Heaven?” “Yes, she is.”… “And Amélia?” “She will be in purgatory until the end of the world.”

“Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?” “Yes, we are willing.” “Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort.” As she pronounced these last words “…the grace of God will be your comfort”, Our Lady opened her hands for the first time, communicating to us a light so intense that, as it streamed from her hands, its rays penetrated our hearts and the innermost depths of our souls, making us see ourselves in God, Who was that light, more clearly than we see ourselves in the best of mirrors. Then, moved by an interior impulse that was also communicated to us, we fell on our knees, repeating in our hearts: “O most Holy Trinity, I adore You! My God, my God, I love You in the most Blessed Sacrament!”
After a few moments, Our Lady spoke again: “Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war.” Then she began to rise serenely, going up towards the east, until she disappeared in the immensity of space

7 Fatima is Lucia’s Own Words – Sister Lucia’s Memoirs. Ed. Fr. Louis Kondor, SVD. Trans. Dominican Nuns of Perpetual Rosary. Fatima, Portugal: Secretariado Dos Pastorinhos, 2007, 174-176.

Vigils Reading
2023-05-12
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
a homily by St Gregory the Great6
Since all of our Lord’s sacred utterances contain commandments, why does he say about love as if it were a special commandment: This is my commandment, that you love one another? It is because every commandment is about love, and they all add up to one commandment because whatever is commanded is founded on love alone. As a tree’s many branches come from one root, so do many virtues come forth from love alone. The branch which is our good works has no sap unless it remains attached to the root of love. Our Lord’s commandments are then both many and one: many through the variety of the works, one in their root which is love. He himself instructs us to love our friends in him, and our enemies for his sake. That person truly possesses love who loves his friend in God and his enemy for God’s sake.
There are some people who love their neighbors, drawn by blood relationship or by natural affection, and Scripture does not oppose this kind of love. But what we give freely and naturally is one thing, and the obedience we owe to the Lord’s commandments out of love is another. Those I’ve mentioned indisputably love their neighbors, yet they don’t attain love’s sublime rewards since their love does not come from spiritual but from natural motives.
Therefore when the Lord said: This is my commandment, that you love one another, he added immediately: Just as I have loved you, meaning, ‘You must love for the same reason that I have loved you.’ Dearly beloved, we must consider this carefully. When our ancient enemy draws our hearts to delight in temporal things, he is stirring up a weaker neighbor against us. This neighbor may be plotting to take away the very things we love. In doing this our ancient enemy is not concerned to do away with our earthly possessions; he wants to destroy our lives. Suddenly we are set on fire with hatred, and while we desire to be outwardly unconquerable, inwardly we are gravely wounded. When we defend our small outer possession, we lose our great inner one, since when we love something temporal we lose our true love. Everyone who takes away our possessions is an enemy. But if we begin to hate our enemy, our loss is of something internal. When then we suffer something external from a neighbor, we must be on our guard against a hidden ravager within. This one is never better overcome then when we love the one who ravages us from without. The unique, the highest proof of love is this, to love the person who is against us. This is why Truth himself bore the suffering of the cross and yet bestowed his love on his persecutors, saying: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Why should we wonder that his living disciples loved their enemies, when their dying master loved his. He expressed the depth of his love when he said: No one has greater love than this, than that he lay down his life for his friends. The Lord had come to die even for his enemies, and yet he said he would lay down his life for his friends to show us that when we are able to win over our enemies by loving them even our persecutors are our friends.
But no one is persecuting us to the point of death. How then can we prove that we love our friends?… John the Baptist says: Let him who has two tunics give to him who has none. Will a person, then, who will not give up his tunic for the sake of God during quiet times give up his life during a persecution? Cultivate the virtue of love in tranquil times by showing mercy, then, so that it will be unconquerable in times of disorder. Learn first to give up your possession for almighty God, and then yourself

6 Gregory the Great. Forty Gospel Homilies. CS 193. Trans. Dom David Hurst. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990. 212-214.

Vigils Reading - Holy Abbots of Cluny
2023-05-11
FROM THE LIFE OF ST. ODO OF CLUNY
By John of Salerno5

It was about the feast of St. Martin, which feast we are accustomed to celebrate with an octave, and at the end of Lauds on the octave day, before it was light, and when all had retired to their beds to rest rather than to sleep, our father <Odo> used to relate that this vision was granted to a certain poor old man. He saw a venerable figure with white hair, wearing a splendid stole and acope, with a bishop’s crozier in his hand. Coming nearer, the figure began to inspect closely the structure of the monastery. When asked who he was and why he was inspecting the building, he said: “I am the one whose octave day the brethren are celebrating, and I have come to visit them. Tell them not to give up, but to carry on with the work they have begun.”… The brethren, therefore, delighted and feeling secure in the promise of such a one, began to give thanks to God with joyous hearts. Who the person was, who saw this vision, it is not for me to say, because it was our father’s custom deliberately never to describe his own person. But if anything had appeared to him, great or small, he described what he had seen in this way – one of our brethren, or a certain poor old man, saw this or that.
…Odo sometimes confessed that his means always sufficed both to feed the brethren and to give alms to the poor. Never did a poor man turn away empty from the bosom of his mercy. Whenever I went out with him he was always careful to ask if we had something for the poor, and if we had all that was necessary, he went on his way happily and without hesitation. And because he gave to all who asked of him, by the power of God all things were supplied to him.

He always had in mind that precept of Tobias: See that you turn not your face away from that time, and give to all who ask of you…
When he was on a journey he used to make any boys that he found on the road sing something and as though to pay their performance he would order them to be given a present… He used to speak in this way that we might be encouraged by their cheerfulness, and that they might profit by his mercy. For his words were full of joy and his speech used to make us laugh with delight. But always holding the reins of moderation in his hand, he would quote that chapter of the Rule which says, not to love much or violent laughter… So he restrained us while his spiritual joy filled our hearts with inward rejoicing. But what can one such as I say that is worthy of him, or what can I relate of such great happiness?… He was like a cornerstone with four faces, angelic and human, bountiful and pleasing, so that that seemed to be fulfilled in him daily which we read in the psalm: Acceptable is the man that showeth mercy and lendeth, and again as the Apostle Paul says: God loveth a cheerful giver

5 St. Odo of Cluny. Trans. Dom Gerard Sitwell, O.S.B. London: Sheed and Ward, 1958. 41-46.

Vigils Reading - St Damien De Veuster
2023-05-10
THE SPIRIT OF ST DAMIEN
The Leper Priest of Molokai, Hawaii4
<Fr Damien De Veuster> landed at the leprosy colony of Molokai on Saturday, May 10, 1873… Damien had entered a house of death. From the moment he arrived at the leprosy settlement, his faith and his intellect intuitively knew that this was the challenge for which his huge missionary’s heart was longing… “They are repugnant to look at, but they also have a soul redeemed at the price of the precious blood of our Divine Savior… If I cannot heal them, as he could, at least I can offer them comfort.” That was Damien’s choice: to look at the lepers with the loving eyes of Jesus…
Damien not only cared for the sick; he also gave them back their human dignity and self-respect by pointing out their own responsibility… Together with his sick companions, Damien entered the battle against meaninglessness, emptiness, and despair. He made sure that they did not waste their lives… If necessary, he could become angry. But he also offered them alternatives… He reconciled them, not only with one another, but with God. Through his pastoral work, his sermons, the liturgies at which he presided, and the sacraments he administered, he taught his flock that each one of them was valuable in the eyes of God…
Damien lived among the lepers for sixteen years. Those years made an enormous difference to the settlement… The condition he found in 1873 among the eight hundred lepers was one of great lawlessness and unrestrained behavior… The greatest gift he gave them was to succeed in transforming an orderless throng into a living community around Christ, where they learned to care for one another… The rare visitors to the island were often surprised by the music and the joyfulness… in the settlement.

Each week, he visited every house. From the beginning he learned to adapt his words to the situation… “In almost every house I have to change my tone. Sometimes I use soft words in order to console. Sometimes I add some vinegar, in order to make them understand the situation they are in. From time to time a real storm breaks loose. Then I threaten them with terrible punishments, whenever they would not change their heart.”… The lepers felt that the Belgian missionary, in his angry outbursts, was genuinely concerned about them. After all, he gratuitously and voluntarily gave his life for them. Many converted to Catholicism because of him. “Our two churches are very busy”, he recorded with satisfaction in 1879. “Last year we baptized 110… The great majority of the patients are not Catholic when they arrive, but they dieCatholic.”…
After it was determined with certainty that Damien had contracted leprosy, he lived nearly five years with what he called the “terrible disease”… In the fall of 1888 Damien felt his physical strength quickly fading… Monday, April 15, was the first day of Holy Week. Damien knew his hour had come. “The Lord is calling me to celebrate Easter with him.”… He… died in the arms of Father Conrardy and Brother Sinnett… “I have never seen a happier death”, Sinnett wrote… All the marks of leprosy had disappeared from his face…. Damien was buried, according to his long-expressed wish, near his church, on the spot where he had spent his first nights on Molokai, under the shade of his beloved pandanus tree

4 De Volder, Jan. The Spirit of Father Damien: The Leper Priest – A Saint for Our Times. Trans. John Steffen. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010. 33, 45-47, 51, 59-60, 108, 138, 154.

Vigils Reading
2023-05-09
NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES PEACE
From a homily by St Oscar Romero3

…Justice is not enough; love also is necessary… We have said that the power of the Christian is love, and we repeat it: the power of the church is love.
Love enables us to feel that we are sisters and brothers to one and all… As long as we do not reach that strength of love, we cannot be true peacemakers. Those whose hearts are filled with resentment, violence, and hatred cannot be forgers of peace. We have to know how to love like Jesus, who loved even those who crucified him: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do… If they knew you, they would love you… Give them love also, Lord.” How much good the powerful would do if they truly loved and were not selfish and envious! How beautiful the world would be… if we all were to expand this power of love!
Here the Second Vatican Council was careful to define two kinds of peace, and we should pay close attention to this. One kind of peace is that which Christ reserved for his closest friends, those who understood the redemption and the need to root out sin from themselves. As long as there is sin in the heart, there can be no truly divine peace, such as the peace Christ achieved when he reconciled us with the Father by dying on the cross and bearing the sins of all of us in his body. For us Christians and Catholics, this is the culmination of peace: peace in the grace of God, the peace of those who have left sin and controlled their passions, the peace of holy souls. This is the peace that Christ spoke of: “I leave you peace; my peace I give to you, not as the world gives peace.”

Here we distinguish another kind of peace, the peace that the church shares with the world, the peace that non-Christians can also possess, the peace of people of good will that we sing about in the Gloria of the Mass… Here is meant this other peace, the peace that proceeds from natural love. It is the peace of those who, even though they do not know God, are able to discover the intense power of being in solidarity with those who suffer. It is the peace that enables people to bring a little comfort to the grief-stricken and to denounce injustices… This is the peace that all people can possess…
The problem of peace is immense, and it needs many peacemakers: priests, men and women religious, laity… the call goes out to all… Let each one of us, according to our means, nurture this vocation to become instruments of peace… Those whose hearts feel the need for God, those who find the joy of life in the cross and sacrifice, those who have learned the true secret of peace in the crucified One. This secret consists of loving God to the extreme of letting oneself be killed for him and of loving one’s neighbors to the point of being crucified for them. This is the love of the modern redeemers, the love of Christ, this love that endures forever. Let us promise this to the Lord while we proceed to proclaim our faith in him

3 St Oscar Arnulfo Romero. A Prophetic Bishop Speaks to His People – The Complete Homilies of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero Vol. 1 (of 6). Trans. Joseph Owens, SJ. Miami: Convivium Press, 2015. 181-184.

Vigils Reading - Bl Christian de Cherge
2023-05-08
THE FINAL TESTIMONY
of Bl Christian de Chergé2
If the day comes, and it could be today, that I am a victim of the terrorism that seems to be engulfing all foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, and my family to remember that I have dedicated my life to God and Algeria.
That they accept that the Lord of all life was not a stranger to this savage kind of departure; that they pray for me, wondering how I found myself worthy of such a sacrifice; that they link in their memory this death of mine with all the other deaths equally violent but forgotten in their anonymity.
My life is not worth more than any other – not less, not more. Nor am I an innocent child. I have lived long enough to know that I, too, am an accomplice of the evil that seems to prevail in the world around, even that which might lash out blindly at me. If the moment comes, I would hope to have the presence of mind, and the time, to ask for God’s pardon and for that of my fellowman, and, at the same time, to pardon in all sincerity he who would attack me.
I would not welcome such a death. It is important for me to say this. I do not see how I could rejoice when this people whom I love will be accused, indiscriminately, of my death. The price is too high, this so-called grace of the martyr, if I owe it to an Algerian who kills me in the name of what he thinks is Islam.

I know the contempt that some people have for Algerians as a whole. I also know the caricatures of Islam that a certain (Islamist) ideology promotes. It is too easy for such people to dismiss, in good conscience, this religion as something hateful by associating it with violent extremists. For me, Algeria and Islam are quite different from the commonly held opinion. They are body and soul. I have said enough, I believe, about all the good things I have received here, finding so often the meaning of the Gospels, running like some gold thread through my life, and which began first at my mother’s knee, my very first church, here in Algeria, where I learned respect for the Muslims.
Obviously, my death will justify the opinion of all those who dismissed me as naïve or idealistic: “Let him tell us what he thinks now.” But such people should know my death will satisfy my most burning curiosity. At last, I will be able – if God pleases – to see the children of Islam as He sees them, illuminated in the glory of Christ, sharing in the gift of God’s Passion and of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to bring forth our common humanity amidst our differences.
I give thanks to God for this life, completely mine yet completely theirs, too, to God, who wanted it for joy against, and in spite of, all odds. In this Thank You – which says everything about my life – I include you, my friends past and present, and those friends who will be here at the side of my mother and father, of my sisters and brothers – thank you a thousandfold.
And to you, too, my friend of the last moment, who will not know what you are doing. Yes, for you, too, I wish this thank-you, this “A-Dieu,” who image is in you also, that we may meet in heaven, like happy thieves, if it pleases God, our common Father. Amen! Insha Allah

2 Reprinted in: Kiser, John W. The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2002. 244-246.

Vigils Readings
2023-05-07
IT IS THE WAY THAT LEADS US
a commentary by St Ambrose1
Let us march forward intrepidly to meet our Redeemer, Jesus, pursuing our onward course without swerving until we come to the assembly of the saints and are welcomed by the company of the just. It is to join our Christian forebears that we are journeying, to those who taught us our faith – that faith which comes to our aid and safeguards our heritage for us even when we have no good works to show. In the place we are making for the Lord will be everyone’s light; the true light which enlightens every human person will shine upon all. In the house where we are going the Lord Jesus has prepared many dwelling-places for his servants, so that where he is we also may be, for this was his desire. Hear his own words about them: In my Father’s house are many dwelling-places, and about his desire: I will come again, he says, and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.
“But he was speaking only to his disciples” you say, “and so it was to them alone that the many dwelling-places were promised.” Do you really suppose it was only for the eleven disciples they were prepared? And what of the saying about people coming from all the corners of the earth to sit at table in the kingdom of heaven? Do we doubt that the divine will will be accomplished? But for Christ, to will is to do! Accordingly he has shown us both the way and the place: You know where I am going, he said, and you know the way. The place is where the Father is; the way is Christ, according to his own declaration: I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. Let us set out on this way, let us hold fast to truth, let us follow life. It is the way that leads us, the truth that strengthens us, the life that is restored to us through him.

To make sure that we really understand his will, Christ prays later on:
Father, it is my desire that those whom you have given me may be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory. How graciously he asks for what he had already promised! The promise came first and then the request, not the other way around. Conscious of his authority and knowing the gift was at his own disposal, he made the promise; then, as if to show his filial submission, he asked his Father to grant it. He promised first to make us aware of his power; he asked afterwards to show us his loving deference to his Father.
Yes, Lord Jesus, we do follow you, but we can only come at your bidding. No one can make the ascent without you, for you are our way, our truth, our life, our strength, our confidence, our reward. Be the way that receives us, the truth that strengthens us, the life that invigorates us

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 64-65.

Skema
2023-05-07
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
5th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
May 7 – 13, 2023

Sun
7
Mon
8
Tue
9
Wed
10
Thu
11
Fri
12
Sat
13

Office
5th Sunday of Easter
Bl Christian de Cherge
Easter Weekday
St Damien de Veuster
Holy Abbots of Cluny
Easter Weekday
Our Lady of Fatima

Vigils
Rev 18:21-19:10
Rev 19:11-21
Rev 20:1-15
Rev 21:1-8
Rev 21:9-27
Rev 22:1-9
Rev 22:10-21

Lauds
Col 2:9-15
Col 3:1-11
Col 3:12-17
1 Tim 1:1-7
1 Tim 1:12-17
1 Tim 2:1-7
1 Tim 4:6-10

Mass
52
285
286
287
288
289
290

1st
Acts 6:1-7
Acts 14:5-18
Acts 14:19-28
Acts 15:1-6
Acts 15:7-21
Acts 15:22-31
Acts 16:1-10

2nd
1 Pet 2:4-9

Gospel
John 14:1-12
John 14:21-26
John 14:27-31a
John 15:1-8
John 15:9-11
John 15:12-17
John 15:18-21

Vespers
Acts 16:35-40
Acts 17:1-5a
Acts 17:10-15
Acts 17:16-23
Acts 18:18-23
Acts 19:8-12
Acts 19:13-20

Vigils Reading
2023-05-06
WHATSOEVER YOU SHALL ASK
From a treatise by St. Augustine7

The Lord, by His promise, gave those whose hopes were resting on Himself a special ground of confidence, when He said, For I go to the Father; and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, I will do it. His proceeding, therefore, to the Father, was not with any view of abandoning the needy, but of hearing and answering their petitions. But

what is to be made of the words, Whatsoever you shall ask, when we behold His faithful ones so often asking and not receiving? Is it, shall we say, for no other reason but that they ask amiss? For the Apostle James made this a ground of reproach when he said, You ask and receive not, because <you> ask amiss… What one, therefore, wishes to receive, in order to turn to an improper use, God in His mercy rather refuses to bestow…
Do we not see how the Israelites got to their own hurt what their guilty lusting craved? For while it was raining manna on them from heaven, they desired to have flesh to eat. They disdained what they had, and shamelessly sought what they had not… For when evil becomes our delight, and what is good the reverse, we ought to be entreating God rather to win us back to the love of the good, than to grant us the evil… But to let us know that the wrong lies not with any creature of God, but with obstinate disobedience and inordinate desire, it was not in swine’s flesh that the first man found death, but in an apple; and it was not for a fowl, but for a dish of pottage, that Esau lost his birthright.

Accordingly, when we wish Him to do whatsoever we ask, let it not be in any way, but in His name… of the Saviour, that we present our petition… For He who condescends to be the Saviour of the faithful, is also a Judge to condemn the ungodly. Whatsoever, therefore, any one that believes in Him shall ask in that name which He bears to those

who believe in Him, He will do it; for He will do it as the Saviour… On that account, not only as the Saviour, but also as the good Master, He taught us, in the very prayer He gave us, what we should ask, in order that, whatsoever we shall ask, He may do it; and that we, too, might thereby understand that we cannot be asking in the Master’s name anything that is inconsistent with the rule of His own instructions.
In no respect, therefore, does the Son act without the Father, since He so acts for

the very purpose that in Him the Father may be glorified. The Father, therefore, acts in the Son, that the Son may be glorified in the Father: and the Son acts in the Father, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; for the Father and the Son are one.

7 St Augustine. The Fathers of the Church: St. Augustine – Tractates on the Gospel of John. Tractate 67. https://sites.google.com/site/aquinasstudybible/home/gospel-of-john-commentary/st-augustine-on- john/augustine-on-john-14

Vigils Reading
2023-05-05
HE WHO IS THE WAY
From a Sermon by St Isaac of Stella6
…Who does not want to be happy? Why do men universally quarrel and fight, bargain, resort to flattery, and inflict injuries on one another? Is it not simply in order to obtain, by fair means or foul, what seems good to them, something that promises to make them happy? For everyone imagines himself the happier the more he obtains what he desires.
Men agree, then in their desire for happiness, but their conceptions of it differ widely. For one it consists in physical pleasure and fleeting enjoyment, for another in strength of character, for yet another in knowledge of truth…
So he who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”, he who corrects, guides and welcomes, begins with the words: “Happy are the poor in spirit”. The false wisdom of this world, which is true stupidity… relates to wealth that may fail, and to peace that is no peace, and to empty gladness. In direct contradiction, the Wisdom of God, the Right Hand of the Father, his own Son, the Mouth that speaks truth, declares that the happy people are the poor, they will be the kings of a kingdom that is everlasting.
As if he were to say: “You seek happiness but it is not where you think it is. You are running hard, but off the track. Here is the right road, here is the way to happiness. Poverty is the way, poverty willingly embraced for my sake. Happiness is the kingdom of heaven in me. You run energetically but not profitably, for the faster you run, the further you are from the track. Poverty is the way to happiness. Keep to the way and you will arrive.”

Courage, then, brothers; it is for us who are poor to listen to the Poor Man commending poverty to the poor. Someone speaking from experience is to be believed; Christ was born poor, lived poor and died poor. He willed to die; certainly he did not will to become rich. Let us believe Truth when he tells us of the way to life. If it is hard, it is brief, while happiness is eternal. It is narrow but it leads to life and brings us out into freedom; it will “set our feet in an open place”. It is steep, of course it is, for it goes uphill, it reaches to heaven! So we must be lightly equipped, not heavily encumbered, for the climb

6 Isaac of Stella. Sermons of the Christian Year: Volume One. CF 11. Trans. Hugh McCaffery. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979. 6-8.

Vigils Reading
2023-05-04
WHOEVER RECEIVES ME
A Meditation on the Gospel of John by Adrienne von Speyr5
When the Lord wanted to institute his Eucharist in the form of a meal, he had to take hunger and satiation into consideration. They are very simple concepts, taken from everyday life, to which the Lord, in his self-giving, imparts a new, infinite, spiritual sense. He wants to express his whole relationship to us in these two concepts. Hunger, then, would be everything that we have to bring to him, and satiation, everything that he gives us. In the end, everyone experiences hunger in one way or another, and one cannot say from the outset that the bad experience either more or less hunger than the good. And, likewise, everyone is sated, for his sacrifice exists not only for a few elect individuals, but for all… Even the one who betrays him… Thus, the hunger of the world and its satiation by the Lord complement each other.
Food is expected to fulfill its purpose of stilling mankind’s hunger. This applies also to the Eucharist, except that in its case no limits can be given to satiation. Nor can one say when satiety from one Communion ends and hunger for a new Communion begins, for both are simultaneous. Both… bring the receiver nearer to the Lord. From him stem both desire and its satisfaction. The kind of satiation varies… But the Eucharist, as related either to hunger or to satiation, is always an expression of a still greater love…
Whoever receives me, receives him who sent me. One can receive the Lord as Martha and Mary received him: as the human friend and master, who then gradually reveals himself as our divine Lord. One can also receive him in the sacramental form of the Eucharist, which the Lord himself has predetermined and to which we must adapt ourselves…

Whoever receives the Lord in one of these forms, receives God. It is not possible to stop at one of these forms, to be content with the Lord’s humanity without going further to God. Whether one is Martha or Mary, whether one receives the Lord in the Eucharist or in faith, one always receives something greater than one was prepared to receive or capable of receiving on one’s own. No one knows what he receives when he receives the Lord. He cannot imagine the infinitude that visits him, for it will always be God whom he receives, and God will always be the transcendent One. Our mission in life will always be greater than our life itself. This is because he whom we receive and who sends us grows beyond himself into the Father, and through his humanity introduces his divinity, and thus the Father, into us

5 Adrienne von Speyr. John: The Farewell Discourses – Meditations on John 13-17. Trans. E.A. Nelson. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987. 38-42.

Vigils Reading - SS Philip and James
2023-05-03
SAINTS PHILIP AND JAMES
From the writings of Alban Butler4
Jesus, we are told, “found Philip” and said to him, “Follow me”… Though his knowledge was imperfect, so much so that he describes Jesus as “the son of Joseph of Nazareth”, he goes at once to find his friend Nathanael… and tells him, “We have found him of whom Moses, in the law and the prophets did write”, being plainly satisfied that this was in truth the <Messiah>. At the same time Philip gives proof of a sober discretion in his missionary zeal… When Nathanael objects, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” his answer is… “Come and see”… Another glimpse is afforded us… when on the evening before the Passion our Lord announced, “No man cometh to the Father but by me.”… Philip saith to Him: “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us”. Jesus saith to him: “Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou: Show us the Father?”
Apart from the fact that St Philip is named with the other apostles who spent ten days in the upper room awaiting the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, this is all we know about him with any degree of certainty…
The apostle St James – the Less, or the younger – here associated with St Philip, is most commonly held to be the same individual who is variously designated “James, the son of Alpheus” and “James, the brother of the Lord”… Although no prominence is given to this James in the gospel narrative, we learn from St Paul that he was favoured with a special appearing of our Lord before the Ascension…

The story of his martyrdom… has been preserved by Eusebius, and runs as follows… There was an uproar among the Jews and scribes and pharisees, for they said: “There is danger that the whole people should expect Jesus as the Christ”. Coming together, therefore, they said to James: “We beseech thee, restrain the people, for they are gone astray unto Jesus, imagining that he is the Christ… Persuade the multitude that they go not astray… The scribes and pharisees set James upon the pinnacle of the temple…
And he replied with a loud voice: “Why ask ye me concerning the Son of Man, since He sitteth in Heaven on the right hand of the Mighty Power, and shall come on the clouds of Heaven?” And when many were fully persuaded and gave glory at the testimony of James and said: “Hosanna to the son of David”, then once more the same scribes and pharisees said among themselves: “We do ill in affording such a testimony to Jesus. Let us rather go up and cast him down, that being affrighted they may not believe him.”… Going up therefore they cast the Just One down… And they began to stone him, for the fall did not kill him. But turning he kneeled down and said: “I beseech thee, O Lord God, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. And while they thus were stoning him, one of the priests… cried aloud, saying: “Cease ye; what do ye? The Just One is praying on your behalf.” And one of them, a fuller, took the stick with which he beat out the clothes, and brough it down on the Just One’s head. Thus he was martyred

4 Butler’s Lives of the Saints: Complete Edition – Volume II. Ed. Herbert Thurston, S.J. New York, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1956. 203-206.

Vigils Reading - St Athanasius
2023-05-02
AS BRIGHTNESS FROM LIGHT
From the Expositio Fidei by St Athanasius 3
We believe in one Unbegotten God, Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, that has His being from Himself. And in one Only- begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and eternally; word not pronounced… nor an effluence of the Perfect, nor a dividing of the impassible Essence, nor an issue; but absolutely perfect Son, living and powerful, the true Image of the Father, equal in honour and glory. For this, he says, ‘is the will of the Father, that as they honour the Father, so they may honour the Son also’: very God of very God… For all things which the Father rules and sways, the Son rules and sways likewise: wholly from the Whole, being like the Father as the Lord says, ‘he that has seen Me has seen the Father’.
But He was begotten ineffably and incomprehensibly, for ‘who shall declare his generation?’… no one can. Who, when at the consummation of the ages, He had descended from the bosom of the Father, took from the undefiled Virgin Mary our humanity… delivered of His own will to suffer for us, as the Lord saith: ‘No man takes My life from Me. I have power to lay it down, and have power to take it again’… He was crucified and died for us, and rose from the dead, and was taken up into the heavens, having been created as the beginning of ways for us, when on earth He showed us light from out of darkness, salvation from error, life from the dead, an entrance to paradise, from which Adam was cast out, and into which he again entered by means of the thief, as the Lord said, ‘This day shall you be with Me in paradise’…

We believe, likewise, also in the Holy Spirit that searches all things, even the deep things of God… But the Holy Spirit, being that which proceeds from the Father, is ever in the hands of the Father Who sends and of the Son Who conveys Him, by Whose means He filled all things. The Father, possessing His existence from Himself, begot the Son… and did not create Him, as a river from a well and as a branch from a root, and as brightness from a light, things which nature knows to be indivisible; through whom to the Father be glory and power and greatness before all ages, and unto all the ages of the ages. Amen

3 Translated by Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing
Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2821.htm>.

Vigils Reading - St Joseph the Worker
2023-05-01
THE VIRTUES OF ST JOSEPH
From the Spiritual Conferences of St Francis de Sales2
The just shall flourish like the palm-tree… The palm has a strength, courage, and even constancy far beyond all other trees… The palm shows its strength in this, that the more it is laden, the more it shoots up and the higher it grows; which is quite unlike all other trees… for the more heavily they are laden, the more they bow down to the earth. The palm, however, shows its strength and constancy, never bending down, whatever load is placed upon it… Certainly St. Joseph is most justly said to resemble the palm, for he was always constant, persevering, strong, and valiant…
As regards his constancy, did he not display it wonderfully when, seeing Our Lady with child, and not knowing how that could be, his mind was tossed with distress, perplexity, and trouble? Yet, in spite of all, he never complained, he was never harsh or ungracious towards his holy Spouse, but remained just as gentle and respectful in his demeanour as he had ever been. But what valour and strength did he not display in the victor which he gained over the two greatest enemies of man, the devil and the world? And that by the practice of a most perfect humility… throughout the whole course of his life… We may, therefore, well say: “Valiant and strong is the man who, like St. Joseph, perseveres in humility; he will be conqueror at once of the devil and of the world, which is full of ambition, vanity, and pride.”
As regards perseverance, which overcomes that secret enemy of our souls, weariness and dejection under the continued assaults of humbling, painful circumstances… how greatly was the Saint tried in this way by God and man in his journey into Egypt! The Angel commanded him to set forth immediately and to take Our Lady and the Holy Child into that country. Instantly, without a moment’s delay, without even a word, he obeys. He does not ask: “Where shall I go? What road shall I take? How shall we be fed?… With his tools on his back, so that he may earn his poor livelihood and that of his family in the sweat of his brow, he sets forth on his journey…

God wills that he should be always poor… And what poverty – despised, rejected, needy poverty! That voluntary poverty which is one of the vows of Religious is very mild… forbidding and depriving them only of superfluities. But the poverty of St. Joseph, of Our Lord and of Our Lady, was not like this, for although it too was voluntary, and although they loved it dearly, it was nevertheless abject, mean, despised, and most needy; for every one looked upon this Saint as a poor carpenter. Though he toiled with the most affectionate zeal for the support of his little family, yet he could not earn enough to prevent their wanting many necessary things. Then, as the years went on, and his poverty and abjection continued, he still submitted always most humbly to the will of God. He never allowed himself to be conquered or subdued by dejection of mind, which yet, no doubt, constantly attacked him, but always increased and grew in moreperfect submission as in all other virtues…
St. Joseph is, then, undoubtedly in heaven in body and soul… If we have confidence in him, he will obtain for us growth in all virtues, but especially in those which, as we have seen, he possesses in a higher degree than any other man. These are great purity of body and mind, humility, constancy, courage, and perseverance. These virtues will make us victorious in this life over our enemies, and through them we shall merit the grace to enjoy… eternal life

2 St Francis de Sales. The Spiritual Conferences of St. Francis de Sales. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Bookshop, 1945. 364-385.

4

Vigils Reading - 4th Sun Easter
2023-04-30
THE SHEPHERD OF THE SHEEP
From a commentary by St Clement of Alexandria1
In our sickness we need a savior, in our wanderings a guide, in our blindness someone to show us the light, in our thirst the fountain of living water which quenches for ever the thirst of those who drink from it. We dead people need life, we sheep need a shepherd, we children need a teacher, the whole world needs Jesus!
If we would understand the profound wisdom of the most holy shepherd and teacher, the ruler of the universe and the Word of the Father, when using an allegory he calls himself the shepherd of the sheep, we can do so for he is also the teacher of little ones.
Speaking at some length through Ezekiel to the Jewish elders, he gives them a salutary example of true solicitude. I will bind up the injured, he says; I will heal the sick; I will bring back the strays and pasture them on my holy mountain. These are the promises of the Good Shepherd.
Pasture us children like sheep, Lord. Fill us with your own food, the food of righteousness. As our guide we pray you to lead us to your holy mountain, the Church on high, touching the heavens.
I will be their shepherd, he says, and I will be close to them, like their own clothing. He desires to save my flesh by clothing it in the robe of immortality and he has anointed my body. They shall call on me, he says, and I will answer, “Here I am.” Lord, you have heard me more quickly than I ever hoped! And if they pass over they shall not fall says the Lord, meaning that we who are passing over into immortality shall not fall into corruption, for he will preserve us. He has said he would and to do so is his own wish. Such is our Teacher, both good and just. He said he had not come to be served but to serve, and so the gospel shows him tired out, he who labored for our sake and promised to give his life as ransom for many, a thing which, as he said, only the Good Shepherd will do.

How bountiful the giver who for our sake gives his most precious possession, his own life! He is a real benefactor and friend, who desired to be our brother when he might have been our Lord, and who in his goodness even went so far as to die for us

1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB. New York: New City Press, 1992. 62-63.

Skema
2023-04-30
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
4th Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
April 30 – May 6, 2023

Sun
30
Mon
1
Tue
2
Wed
3
Thu
4
Fri
5
Sat
6

Office
4th Sunday of Easter
St Joseph the Worker
St Athanasius
SS Philip & James
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday

Vigils
Rev 12:1-18
Rev 13:1-18
Rev 14:1-13
1 Cor 12:1-13
Rev 15:5-16:21
Rev 17:1-18
Rev 18:1-20

Lauds
Eph 5:15-20
Eph 6:10-17
Col 1:1-8
2 Thess 2:13-3:5
Col 1:15-23
Col 1:24-29
Col 2:1-8

Mass
49
279, 559
280
561
282
283
284

1st
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Acts 11:1-18
Acts 11:19-26
1 Cor 15:1-8
Acts 13:13-25
Acts 13:26-33
Acts 13:44-52

2nd
1 Pet 2:20b-25

Gospel
John 10:1-10
Matt 13:54-58
John 10:22-30
John 14:6-14
John 13:16-20
John 14:1-6
John 14:7-14

Vespers
Acts 10:34-43
Acts 10:44-49
Acts 12:1-5
2 Cor 4:1-6
Acts 13:6-12
Acts 14:1-7
Acts 16:16-24

Vigils Reading - St Catherine of Siena
2023-04-29
THE SOUL WHO RECEIVES THIS BREAD OF LIFE
From the mystical Dialogue between God and St Catherine of Siena7
…Open wide your mind’s eye and look into the abyss of my charity. There is not a person whose heart would not melt in love to see, among all the other blessings I have given you, the blessing you receive in this sacrament. And how, dearest daughter, should you and others look upon this mystery and touch it? Not only with your bodily eyes and feeling, for here they would fail you. You know that all your eyes see is this white bit of bread; this is all your hand can touch and all your tongue can taste, so that your dull bodily senses are deceived. But the soul’s sensitivity cannot be deceived, unless she so chooses by extinguishing the light of holy faith by infidelity.
What tastes and sees and touches this sacrament? The soul’s sensitivity. How does she see it? With her mind’s eye, so long as it has the pupil of holy faith. This eye sees in that whiteness the divine nature joined with the human; wholly God, wholly human; the body, soul, and blood of Christ, his soul united with his body and his body and soul united with my divine nature, never straying from me… So the spiritual must be the principal vision, because it cannot be deceived. It is with this eye, then, that you must contemplate this sacrament.
How is this sacrament touched? With the hand of love. This hand it is that touches what the eye has seen and known in this sacrament. The hand of love touches through faith, confirming as it were what the soul sees and knows spiritually through faith. How is this sacrament tasted? With holy desire. The body tastes only the flavor of bread, but the soul tastes me, God and human. So you see, the body’s senses can be deceived, but not the soul’s… What she has seen she touches in love and faith. And she tastes it with her spiritual sense of holy desire, that is, she tastes the burning, unspeakable charity with which I have made her worthy to receive the tremendous mystery of this sacrament and its grace. So you see, you must receive this sacrament not only with your bodily senses but with your spiritual sensitivity, by disposing your soul to see and receive and taste this sacrament with affectionate love.

Dearest daughter, contemplate the marvelous state of the soul who receives this bread of life, this food of angels, as she ought. When she receives this sacrament she lives in me and I in her. Just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish, so am I in the soul and the soul in me, the sea of peace. Grace lives in such a soul because, having received this bread of life in grace, she lives in grace. When this appearance of bread has been consumed, I leave behind the imprint of my grace, just as a seal that is pressed into warm wax leaves its imprint when it is lifted off.
Thus does the power of this sacrament remain there in the soul; that is, the warmth of my divine charity, the mercy of the Holy Spirit, remains there. The light of my only-begotten Son’s wisdom remains there, enlightening the mind’s eye. [The soul] is left strong, sharing in my strength and power, which make her strong and powerful against her selfish sensuality and against the devil and the world… See, then, how bound and obliged you are to love me in return, since I have loved you so much, and because I am supreme eternal Goodness, deserving to be loved by you

7 St Catherine of Siena. The Dialogue. Trans. Suzanne Noffke, O.P. New York: Paulist Press, 1980. 209- 212.
