Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Skema - 21st Week
2025-08-24
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
21st Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
August 24 – 30, 2025

Sun
24
Mon
25
Tue
26
Wed
27
Thu
28
Fri
29
Sat
30

Office
21st Sunday
Weekday
Office for Vocations
St Monica
St Augustine
Martyrdom of St John the Baptist
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Esther A:1-17
Est 1:1-22
Est 2:1-11
Est 2:12-23
Est 3:1-13
2 Cor 4:7-5:8
Est B:1-(3:15)

Lauds
Mic 1:10-16
Mic 2:1-7
Mic 2:8-13
Mic 3:1-4
Mic 3:5-8
Wis 3:1-9
Mic 3:9-12

Mass
123
425
426
427
428
634
430

1st
Isa 66:18-21
1 Thess 1:1-5, 8b-10
1 Thess 2:1-8
1 Thess 2:9-13
1 Thess 3:7-13
Jerm 1:17-19
1 Thess 4:9-11

2nd
Heb 12:5-7, 11-13

Gospel
Luke 13:22-30
Matt 23:13-22
Matt 23:23-26
Matt 23:27-32
Matt 24:42-51
Mark 6:17-29
Matt 25:14-30

Vespers
Col 3:12-17
Col 3:18-4:1
Col 4:2-9
Col 4:10-18
1 Thess 1:1-10
Acts 13:16-26
1 Thess 2:1-8

Vigils Reading - 21st Sunday Ord
2025-08-24
THE PRICE OF HEAVEN
From a commentary by St Anselm of Canterbury
◊◊◊
God cries out that the kingdom of heaven is for sale. The glorious bliss of
this kingdom surpasses the power of mortal eye to see, mortal ear to hear,
mortal heart to conceive. If anyone asks the price that must be paid, the answer
is: The One who wishes to bestow a kingdom in heaven has no need of earthly
payment. No one can give God anything he does not possess, because everything
belongs to him. Yet he does not give such a precious gift gratis, for he will not
give it to anyone who lacks love. After all, people do not give away what they
hold dear to those without appreciation. So since God has no need of your
possessions but must not bestow such a precious gift on anyone who disdains to
value it, love is the one thing he asks for; without this he cannot give it. Give
love, then, and receive the kingdom: love and it is yours.
To reign in heaven simply means exercising a single power with God and
all the holy angels and saints through being so united with them in love as to
want only what they want. Love God more than yourself, then, and already you
will begin to have what you desire to possess fully in heaven. Be at one with God
and with other men and women – so long as they are not at variance with God –
and already you will begin to reign with God and all the saints. The desires of
God and all the saints will be the same as yours in heaven, if your desires now
are the same as those of God and other people. So if you want to be a king in
heaven, love God and other people as you should and then you will deserve to
become what you desire.
But you cannot have this perfect love unless you empty your heart of every
other love. That is why those who fill their hearts with love of God and neighbor
desire nothing but the will of God or that of some fellow human being –
provided this is not contrary to God. That is why they devote themselves to
prayer, spiritual conversations, and reflection, for it is a joy to them to long for
God and to speak, hear and think about him whom they dearly love. That is why
they rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, show
compassion to those in distress, and give to the needy, since they love others as
themselves. Hence too their contempt for riches, power, pleasure, honor, and
praise. Those who love these things frequently offend against God and their
neighbor – for the whole law and the prophets depend on these two
commandments. So those who wish to possess the fullness of that love which is
the price of the kingdom of heaven should love contempt, poverty, toil and
subjection, as do the saints.

Vigils Reading
2025-08-25
THE JUDGE’S SENTENCE
From “Rule of Life for a Recluse” by St Aelred of Rievaulx
◊◊◊
Imagine now that you are standing before Christ’s judgment-seat
between these two companies and have not yet been assigned to one or the
other. Turn your eyes to the left of the judge and gaze upon that wretched
multitude. What horror is there, what a stench, what fear, what grief? They
stand there miserable and unhappy, gnashing their teeth, their bare flesh
shaking with fear, dreadful to look upon, their faces distorted, cast down from
shame, in confusion because of their body’s degradation and nakedness. They
want to hide and they are not allowed, they try to flee and it is not granted them.
If they raise their eyes the Judge’s fury bears down upon them from above. If
they lower them they are filled with the horror of hell’s pit. They have no excuse
to offer for their crimes nor is there any chance of claiming that the judgment is
unfair, since whatever is decided their own conscience will recognize as just.
See now how you should love him who has set you apart from this doomed
company by his predestination, separated you by his call, cleansed you by his
justification. Now turn your eyes to the right and look at those among whom he
will place you by glorifying you. What grace is there, what honor, what
happiness, what security. Some take their seat on high to give judgment, some
are resplendent in martyrs’ crowns, some are bearing the white flower of
virginity, some display the fruit of almsgiving, some are illustrious for their
doctrine and their learning, but they are all united by the bond of charity. Jesus’
face shines upon them, not terrible but lovable, not bitter but sweet, not
frightening but attractive.
Now stand in the middle, not knowing to which company the Judge’s
sentence will assign you. O what a dreadful waiting. Fear and trembling have
come upon me and darkness has covered me. If he sends me to join those on the
left I cannot complain of injustice; if he sets me among those on the right it is to
be attributed to his grace, not to my merits. Truly, Lord, life is at your disposal.
You see then how your spirit should be absorbed in his love.
Although in all justice he could have extended to you the sentence passed
on the wicked, he preferred to place you among those who are to be saved.
Now imagine yourself associated with that holy company and hearing his
voice utter the decree: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom
which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world,” while those other
wretched souls hear the harsh words, full of anger and fury: “Depart from me, ye
accursed, into eternal fire.” “Then,” we read, “they will go to eternal
punishment, but the just to eternal life.” What a harsh separation, what a
miserable lot.

Vigils Reading - Office for Vocations
2025-08-26
THE MEANING OF VOCATION
By Pope St John Paul II
◊◊◊
Faith and love are not just words or vague feelings. Believing and loving
God means a consistent life, lived wholly in the light of the Gospel. This is not
easy. It often calls for great courage in going against the trends of fashion and
the opinions of our world. But this is the one requirement for a truly successful
and happy life.
If, in spite of your personal effort to follow Christ you are sometimes weak
and do not live in conformity to the law of love, to the commandments, do not be
discouraged. Christ continues to wait for you. He, Jesus, is the Good Shepherd
who searches for the lost sheep and who tenderly bears it on his shoulder. Christ
is the friend who never lets you down.
In the gospel story we see that the young man, having affirmed that he has
kept the commandments, adds: “What do I still lack?” The young heart, moved
by God’s grace, felt a desire for greater generosity, more commitment, greater
love. This desire for more is characteristic of youth; a heart that is in love does
not calculate, does not begrudge, it wants to give of itself without measure.
“Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, come, follow me.”
To those who entered the path of life by observing the commandments,
the Lord proposes new horizons; the Lord proposes to the means that are loftier
and calls them to commit themselves to his love without reserve. To discover
this call, this vocation, is to realize that Christ is looking on you and inviting you
by his glance to give yourself totally in love. Before this glance, before his love,
the heart opens its doors gradually and is capable of saying yes.
If some of you hear the call to follow Christ more closely, to dedicate your
entire heart to him, like the apostles John and Paul, be generous, do not be
afraid, because you have nothing to fear when the prize that you await is God
Himself, for whom, sometimes without ever knowing it, all young people are
searching.
Young people who are hastening to me, young people who more than
anything else want to know what you must do to gain eternal life, always say yes
to God and he will fill you with his happiness.
“There is one thing you lack, come, follow me”. Is Jesus perhaps repeating
to some of you today: “There is one thing you lack?” Is he perhaps asking for
even more love, more generosity, more sacrifice? Yes, the love of Christ involves
generosity and sacrifice. To follow Christ and to serve the world in his name
requires courage and strength. There is no place for selfishness – and no place
for fear! Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid
when love requires sacrifice.
To each one of you I say, therefore: Heed the call of Christ when you hear
him saying to you: “Follow me!” Walk in my path! Stand by my side! Remain in
my love! There is a choice to be made: a choice for Christ and the way of life, and
his commandment of love.

Vigils Reading - St Monica
2025-08-27
MONICA AND AUGUSTINE
From the “Confessions” of St Augustine
◊◊◊
We were alone, my mother and I, we stood leaning in a certain window
from which the garden of the house we occupied at Ostia could be seen. Here in
this place, removed from the crowd, we were resting ourselves for the voyage
after the fatigues of a long journey. We were conversing alone, very pleasantly
and “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.”
We were in the present—and in the presence of Truth, which God is —
discussing together what is the nature of the eternal life of the saints: “What no
eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived…”
What we said went something like this: “If to anyone the tumult of the
flesh were silenced; and the phantoms of earth and waters and air were
silenced; and the poles were silent as well; indeed, if the very soul grew silent to
herself, and went beyond herself by not thinking of herself; if fancies and
imaginary revelations were silenced; if every tongue and every sign and every
transient thing—for actually if anyone could hear them, all these would say, ‘We
did not create ourselves, but were created by Him who abides forever’. And if,
having uttered this, they too should be silent, having stirred our ears to hear
Him who created them; and if then He alone spoke, not through them but by
Himself, that we might hear His word, not in fleshly tongue or angelic voice, nor
sound of thunder, nor the obscurity of a parable, but might hear Him, Him for
whose sake we love these things—if we could hear Him without these, as we two
now strained ourselves to do, we then with rapid thought might touch on that
Eternal Wisdom which abides over all. And if this could be sustained, and other
visions of a far different kind be taken away, and this one should so ravish and
absorb and envelop its beholder in these inward joys that his life might be
eternally like that one moment of knowledge which we now sighed after—would
not this be the reality of the saying, “Enter into the joy of your Lord”? But when
shall such a thing be? Shall it not be “when we shall all rise again,” and shall it
not be that “we shall all be changed”?
Then my mother said, “Son, for myself I have no longer any pleasure in
anything in this life. Now that my hopes in this world are satisfied, I do not know
what more I want here or why I am here. There was indeed one thing for which I
wished to tarry a little in this life, and that was that I might see you a Catholic
Christian before I died. My God has answered this more than abundantly,
inasmuch as I see you now, having spurned earthly felicity, become His servant.
What more am I to do here?”

Vigils Reading - St Augustine
2025-08-28
THE IMMORTALITY
OF WISDOM
From the “Confessions” of St Augustine
◊◊◊
My studies which were deemed respectable had the objective of leading
me to distinction as an advocate in the law courts, where one’s reputation is high
in proportion to one’s success in deceiving people… I wanted to distinguish
myself as an orator for a damnable and conceited purpose, namely delight in
human vanity. Following the usual curriculum I had already come across a book
by a certain Cicero, whose language (but not his heart) almost everyone
admires. That book of his contains an exhortation to study philosophy and is
entitled Hortensius. The book changed my feelings. It altered my prayers, Lord,
to be towards you yourself. It gave me different values and priorities. Suddenly
every vain hope became empty to me, and I longed for the immortality of
wisdom with an incredible ardour in my heart. I began to rise up to return to
you. For I did not read the book for a sharpening of my style, which was what I
was buying with my mother’s financial support now that I was 18 years old and
my father had been dead for two years. I was impressed not by the book’s
refining effect on my style and literary expression but by the content.
My God, how I burned, how I burned with longing to leave earthly things
and fly back to you. I did not know what you were doing with me. For with you
is wisdom.
‘Love of wisdom’ is the meaning of the Greek word philosophia. This
book kindled my love for it. There are some people who use philosophy to lead
people astray. They lend color to their errors and paint over them by using a
great and acceptable and honorable name. Almost all those who in the author’s
times and earlier behaved in this way are noted in that book and refuted. That
text is a clear demonstration of the salutary admonition given by your Spirit
through your good and devoted servant Paul: See that none deceives you by
philosophy and vain deduction following human tradition; following the
elements of this world and not following Christ; in him dwells all the fullness of
divinity in bodily form.
At that time, as you know, light of my heart, I did not yet know these
words of the apostle. Nevertheless, the one thing that delighted me in Cicero’s
exhortation was the advice ‘not to study one particular sect but to love and seek
and pursue and hold fast and strongly embrace wisdom itself, wherever found.’
One thing alone put a brake on my intense enthusiasm – that the name of Christ
was not contained in the book. This name, by your mercy Lord, this name of my
Saviour your Son, my infant heart had piously drunk in with my mother’s milk,
and at a deep level I retained the memory. Any book which lacked this name,
however well written or polished or true, could not entirely grip me.

Vigils Reading - Martyrdom of St John the Baptist
2025-08-29
HOW JOHN THE BAPTIST
REBUKED SIN
From a sermon by St John Henry Newman
◊◊◊
St John the Baptist has a most difficult office to fulfill; that of rebuking a
king… The Holy Baptist rebuked Herod without making him angry; therefore he
must have rebuked him with gravity, temper, sincerity, and an evident good-will
towards him. On the other hand, he spoke so firmly, sharply, and faithfully, that
his rebuke cost him his life…
Now, if it be asked, what rules can be given for rebuking vice? – I observe,
that, as on the one hand to perform the office of a censor requires a maturity and
consistency of principle seen and acknowledged, so is it also the necessary result
of possessing it. They who reprove with the greatest propriety, from their weight
of character, are generally the very ones who are also best qualified for
reproving. To rebuke well is a gift which grows with the need of exercising it. Not
that any one will gain it without an effort on his part; he must overcome false
shame, timidity, and undue delicacy, and learn to be prompt and collected in
withstanding evil; but after all, his mode of doing it will depend mainly on his
general character. The more his habitual temper is formed after the law of
Christ, the more discreet, unexceptionable, and graceful will be his censures,
the more difficult to escape or to resist.
What I mean is this: cultivate…a cheerful, honest, virile temper; and you
will find fault well, because you will do so in a natural way. Aim at viewing all
things in a plain and candid light, and at calling them by their right names. Be
frank, do not keep your notions of right and wrong to yourselves, nor, on some
conceit that the world is too bad to be taught the Truth, suffer it to sin in word or
deed without rebuke. Do not allow friend or stranger…to advance false
opinions, nor shrink from stating your own, and do this in singleness of mind
and love.
Persons are to be found, who tell their neighbors of their faults in a
strangely solemn way, with a great parade, as if they were doing something
extraordinary; and such persons not only offend those whom they wish to set
right, but also foster in themselves a spirit of self-complacency. Such a mode of
finding fault is inseparably connected with a notion that they themselves are far
better than the parties they blame; whereas the single-hearted Christian will
find fault, not austerely or gloomily, but in love; not stiffly, but naturally, gently,
and as a matter of course, just as he would tell his friend of some obstacle in his
path which was likely to throw him down, but without any absurd feeling of
superiority over him, because he was able to do so. His feeling is, “I have done a
good office to you, and you must in turn serve me.”
And though his advice be not always taken as he meant it, yet he will not
dwell on the pain occasioned to himself by such a result of his interference;
being conscious, that in truth there ever is much to correct in his mode of doing
his duty, knowing that his intention was good, and being determined any how to
make light of his failure, except so far as to be more cautious in the future
against even the appearance of rudeness or intemperance in his manner.

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2025-08-30
THE MOTHER
OF THE REDEEMER
From a homily by Amadeus of Lausanne
◊◊◊
Escorted amid such praises, she herself could not refrain from praising,
for she saw the Son of God, born of her, sitting on the right hand of his Father’s
majesty, receiving her with glory. ‘You have held she says, ‘my right hand, and ,̓
have led me according to your will and received me with glory’. And again: ‘He is
at my right hand lest I be moved. Therefore my heart has rejoiced and my
tongue has exulted. Still more my flesh shall rest in hope. Since you did not
abandon me in the world nor did you give your Mother’s body to see corruption.
But why do I linger over these things? To sum up much in a few words:
there was with the most glorious lady a word simple yet complex, a word
understandable, containing all the words of praise with which she herself
honored the Lord and Son with praise unutterable.
Exalted therefore with cries of exultation and praise, she is placed in her
seat of glory first after God, above all the company of heaven. There, having
taken again the substance of her flesh (for it is not lawful to believe that her body
saw corruption) and clothed with a double robe, she looks upon God and man in
his two natures with a gaze clearer than all others, inasmuch as it is more
burning than all, with the eyes of her soul and body.
Then coming down to the human race in ineffable charity and turning
upon us those eyes of pity with which heaven is brightened, she lifts her prayer
alike for clergy, for all men and women, for the living and for the departed. Here
from heaven is the glorious Virgin most powerful in prayer, driving away every
hurtful thing and bestowing what is good, and she grants to all who pray to her
from the heart her protection for this present life and for that to come.
For remembering for what purpose she was made the Mother of the
Redeemer, most willingly she gathers up the sinner’s prayers and pleads with
her Son for all the guilt of those who are penitent. Surely she will gain what she
wishes, the dear Mother through whose chaste womb the Word of God came to
us, the sin offering of the world, to wash away with his own blood the bond of
original sin, Jesus Christ Our Lord, who lives and reigns with God the Father in
the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.

Skema
2025-08-31
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
22nd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
Aug. 31 – Sept. 6, 2025

Sun
31
Mon
1
Tue
2
Wed
3
Thu
4
Fri
5
Sat
6

Office
22nd Sunday
Weekday
Weekday
St Gregory the Great
Weekday
St Teresa of Calcutta
Memorial of the BVM

Vigils
Est 4:1-17
Est C:1-11
Est C:12-30
Est D:1-16, 5:3-5a
Est 5:5b-14
Est 6:1-14
Est 7:1-8:2

Lauds
Mic 4:1-5
Mic 4:6-8
Mic 4:9-14
Mic 5:1-5
Mic 5:6-8
Mic 5:9-14
Mic 6:1-8

Mass
126
431, 559
432
433
434
435
436

1st
Sir 3:17-18, 20, 28-29
1 Thess 4:13-18
1 Thess 5:1-6, 9-11
Col 1:1-8
Col 1:9-14
Col 1:15-20
Col 1:21-23

2nd
Heb 12:18-19, 22-24a

Gospel
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Matt 13:54-58
Luke 4:31-37
Luke 4:38-44
Luke 5:1-11
Luke 5:33-39
Luke 6:1-5

Vespers
1 Thess 2:9-12

1 Thess 2:13-16
1 Thess 2:17-3:5
1 Thess 3:6-13
1 Thess 4:1-12
1 Thess 4:13-18

Vigils Reading - 22nd Sunday Ordinary time
2025-08-31
HUMILITY AND HOLINESS
From a commentary by St Bruno of Segni
◊◊◊
Invited to a wedding feast, the Lord looked around and noticed how all
were choosing the first and most honorable places, each person wanting to take
precedence over the others and to be raised above them. He told them this
parable, which even taken literally is most useful and appropriate for all who
like to be honored, and fear being put to shame. To those of lower station it
accords courtesy, and to those of higher condition respect. However, since it is
called a parable, it must have some other interpretation besides the literal one.
Let us see then what this wedding feast is, and who are the people invited to it.
This wedding feast takes place in the Church every day. Every day the
Lord makes a wedding feast, for every day he unites faithful souls to himself,
some coming to be baptized, others leaving this world for the kingdom of
heaven. We are all invited to this wedding feast – all of us who have received
faith in Christ and the seal of baptism. This table set before us is that of which it
is said: You have prepared a table before me in the sight of those who trouble
me. Here is the showbread, here the fatted calf, here the lamb who takes away
the sins of the world. Here is the living bread come down from heaven, here
placed before us is the chalice of the New Covenant, here are the gospels and the
letters of the apostles, here the books of Moses and the prophets. It is as though
a dish containing every delight was brought and set before us. What more can
we desire? What reason is there for choosing the first seats? There is plenty for
all no matter where we sit. There is nothing we shall lack.
But whoever you may be who still desire the first place here – go and sit in
the last place. Do not be lifted up by pride, inflated by knowledge, elated by
nobility, but the greater you are the more you must humble yourself in every
way, and you will find grace with God. In his own time he will say to you: Friend,
go up higher, and then you will be honored by all who sit at table with you.
Moses sat in the last place whenever he had the choice. When the Lord wishing
to send him to the Israelites, invited him to take a higher place, his answer was:
I beg you, Lord, send someone else. I am not a good speaker. It was the same as
saying: “I am not worthy of so great an office.” Saul, too, was of small account in
his own eyes when the Lord made him king. And Jeremiah, similarly, was afraid
of rising to the first place: Ah, Lord, God, he said, look, I cannot speak – I am
only a child.
In the church, then, the first seat, or the highest place, is to be sought not
by ambition but by humility; not by money but by holiness.

Vigils Reading
2025-09-01
THROUGH GOD’S EYES
By Hans Urs von Balthasar
◊◊◊
Christians live with their involvement in the involvement of God for the
freedom of the world. They know that each one has been chosen by God and
called by name to assist in his work of liberation. In this work…Christians must,
first of all, learn to see fellow human beings and all created things through the
eyes of God. This does not mean that the human being seen in this light, ceases
to be a profound mystery. Just the opposite. If it is true that God has made the
human being in his own image and likeness, then this ought rather to mean that
something of the uniqueness and unfathomableness of God shines in the
human person, so much more clearly to the beholder when God, in choosing
him and acting in and for him, sheds upon him God’s own mysterious light.
To look through God’s eyes at the human world means enduring both the
openness and contradictions of humans.., bringing everything under the unity
of God’s plan. Whoever can see more truth than someone else when they look, is
in the right. This means first that the human being exists centrally as a person: a
person intended by God, loved by God, and for whom God dies in order to
rescue and draw him to God. Hence all that has the status of a thing, all that is
not personal in this world, has value only in so far as it serves the purposes of the
person, and is harmful when it betrays the person into the hands of the
impersonal, reducing him to slavery and to the status of a thing. This
determines the Christian’s attitude towards technology. Our battle with the
universe will always remain something of a struggle and perhaps even a violent
war, but such a war will be just and permissible only so long as its normative aim
remains the humanization of the human being.
As a fellow human being, the Christian is of course committed to taking
part in the total effort of humanity towards the humanizing of the world, the
perduring problematic and indeed tragic nature of which we have already
indicated. The Christian, however, has no clear-cut recipes or solutions to offer
to this problem, and like others must wrestle with the deciphering of the riddles
of nature and of history. In this pursuit Christians are at one with their fellows.
But from their knowledge of God’s involvement for the world, they have a wider
horizon which embraces the problematic and tragic, without eliminating it, and
from which there falls on the world the only light that is truly illuminating and
helpful. They must bear witness to this light not just abstractly – by professions
of faith – but concretely in their professional and human involvement.

Vigils Reading
2025-09-02
ON WORK AND PRAYER
From “The Divine Milieu” by Fr Teilhard de Chardin
◊◊◊
Our work appears to us, in the main, as a way of earning our daily bread.
But its essential virtue is of a higher order: through it we complete in ourselves
the subject of the divine union; and through it again we augment in some sense,
in relation to ourselves, the divine end of that union, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hence whatever our human function may be…we can, if we are Christians,
speed towards the object of our work as though towards an outlet open on the
supreme fulfillment of our beings.
We ought to accustom ourselves to this basic truth till we are steeped in it,
until it becomes as familiar to us as the perception of relief or the reading of
words. God…is waiting for us at every moment in our action, in our work of the
moment…
I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that nine out of ten practicing
Christians feel that work is always at the level of a ‘spiritual encumbrance.’ In
spite of the practice of right intentions, and the day offered every morning to
God, the general run of the faithful dimly feel that time spent at the office or the
studio, in the fields or in the factory, is time diverted from prayer and adoration.
On the contrary, try, with God’s help, to perceive the connection even
physical and natural which binds your labor with the building of the Kingdom of
Heaven; try to realize that heaven itself smiles upon you and, through your
works, draws you to itself; then…you will remain with only one feeling, that of
continuing to immerse yourself in God. If your work is dull or exhausting, take
refuge in the inexhaustible and becalming interest of progressing in the divine
life. If your work enthralls you, then allow the spiritual impulse which matter
communicates to you to enter into your taste for God whom you know better
and desire more under the veil of His works. Never, at any time, “whether eating
or drinking,” consent to do anything without first of all realizing its significance
and constructive value in Christ Jesus, and pursuing it with all your might… For
what is sanctity in a creature if not to cleave to God with the maximum of his
strength?…
May the time come when men, having been awakened to a sense of the
close bond linking all the movements of this world in the unique work of the
Incarnation, shall be unable to give themselves to a single one of their tasks
without illuminating it with the clear vision that their work – however
elementary it may be – is received and made use of by a Center of the universe.

Vigils Reading - St Gregory the Great
2025-09-03
TELL THE BRETHREN
From the treatise “Pastoral Care” by St Gregory the Great
◊◊◊
There are those who are gifted with virtues in a high degree and who are
exalted by great endowments for the training of others; men who are unspotted
in their zeal for chastity, strong in the vigor of their abstinence, replete with
feasts of knowledge, humble in their long-suffering patience, erect in the
fortitude of authority, gentle in the grace of loving-kindness, strict and
unbending in justice. Such, indeed in declining to undertake supreme rule when
invited to do so, deprive themselves, for the most part, of the gifts which they
have received not for their own sakes only, but for the sake of others also.
When these regard their own personal advantage, not that of others, they
lose such advantages in wishing to retain them for themselves, Hence it was that
the Truth said to the disciples: “A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid,
neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick,
that it may shine to all that are in the house”.
[For this reason] He said to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
And when Simon replied at once that he loved Him, he was told: “If you love
me, feed my sheep”. If, then, the care of feeding is a testimony of love, he who,
abounding in virtues, refuses to feed the flock of God, is convicted of having no
love for the Supreme Shepherd. [It is because of this that] Paul says: “If Christ
died for all, then all were dead. And if He died for all, it remains that they also
who live, may not now live only for themselves, but for Him who died for them
and rose again”. Thus, Moses says that the surviving brother must take the wife
of his brother who died without children, and raise up children for his brother’s
name; and should he refuse to take her, she shall spit in his face…9
Now, the deceased brother is [the Lord] who, appearing after the glory of
the Resurrection, said: “Go, tell my brethren;” for He died, as it were, without
sons, because He had not yet filled up the number of the elect. The surviving
brother is ordered to take the wife, because it is fitting that the care of Holy
[Mother] Church should be assigned to him who is best fitted to rule it well. If he
proves unwilling, the woman spits in his face, because, whosoever does not care
to assist others by the favors which he has received, is reprobated by Holy
Church also for the good he has, and as it were, she casts spittle in his face….
So, there are those who, endowed, as we have said, with great gifts, in
their eagerness for the pursuit of contemplation only, decline to be of service to
the neighbor by preaching; they love to withdraw in quietude and desire to be
alone for meditation. Now, if they are judged strictly on their conduct, they are
certainly guilty in proportion to the public service which they were able to
afford. Indeed, what disposition of mind is revealed in him, who could perform
conspicuous public benefit on coming to his task, but prefers his own privacy to
the benefit of others, seeing that the Only-Begotten of the Supreme Father came
forth from the bosom of His Father into our midst, that He might benefit many?

Vigils Reading
2025-09-04
THE BODY OF CHRIST
From the writing of St John Henry Newman
◊◊◊
That all Christians are, in some sense or other, one, in our Lord’s eyes is
plain, from various parts of the New Testament. In his mediatorial prayer for
them to the Almighty Father, before His Passion, He expressed His purpose that
they should be one. St Paul, in like manner, writing to the Corinthians, says, “As
the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body,
being many, are one body, so also is Christ… Now you are the Body of Christ,
and members in particular.” To the Ephesians, he says, “There is one Body, and
one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God and Father of all.”
And, further, it is to this one Body, regarded as one, that the special
privileges of the Gospel are given. It is not that this person receives the blessing,
and that one, but one and all, the whole body, as one being, one new spiritual
reality, with one accord, seeks and gains it. The Holy Church throughout the
world, “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife,” is one, not many, and the elect souls are all
elected in her, not in isolation. For instance: “He is our peace who has made
both (Jews and Gentiles) one,… to make in himself one new humanity.” In the
same epistle, it is said, that all nations are “fellow-heirs, and of the same body
and fellow-partakers of His promise in Christ;” and that we must “one and all
come,” or converge, “in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, unto a perfect creation, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ;” that as “the husband is the head of the wife,” so “Christ is the Head of
the Church,” having “loved her and given Himself for her, that He might
sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word.”
These are a few out of many passages which connect Gospel privileges
with the circumstance or condition of unity in those who receive them; the
image of Christ and token of their acceptance being stamped upon them then, at
that moment, when they are considered as one; so that henceforth the whole
multitude, no longer viewed as mere individuals, become portions or members
of the indivisible Body of Christ Mystical, so knit together in Him by Divine
Grace, that all have what He has, and each has what all have.
The same great truth is taught us in such texts as speak of all Christians
forming one spiritual building, of which the Jewish Temple was the type. They
are temples one by one, simply as being portions of that one Temple which is the
Church. “You are built up,” says St Peter, “a spiritual house, a holy priesthood,
to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” Hence the word
“edification”, which properly means this building up of all Christians in one, has
come to stand for individual improvement; for it is by being incorporated into
the one Body, that we have the promise of life; by becoming members of Christ,
we have the gift of His Spirit.

Vigils Reading - St Theresa of Calcutta
2025-09-05
GENEROSITY
From the book “In My Own Words” by St Mother Teresa
◊◊◊
Without a spirit of sacrifice, without a life of prayer, without an intimate
attitude of penance, we would not be capable of carrying our work. We feed
ourselves, not to please our senses, but to show our Lord that we want to work for
him and with him, to live a life of sacrifice and reparation…
One night, a man came to our house to tell me that a Hindu family, a family
of eight children, had not eaten anything for days. They had nothing to eat. I took
enough rice for a meal and went to their house. I could see the hungry faces, the
children with their bulging eyes. The sight could not have been more dramatic!
The mother took the rice from my hands, divided it in half and went out. When
she came back a little later, I asked her: “Where did you go? What did you do?”
She answered, “They also are hungry.” “They” were the people next door, a Muslim
family with the same number of children to feed and who did not have any food
either. That mother was aware of the situation. She had the courage and the love
to share her meager portion of rice with others. In spite of her circumstances, I
think she felt very happy to share with her neighbors the little I had taken her. In
order not to take away her happiness, I did not take her anymore rice that night. I
took her some more the following day.
“What is a Christian?” someone asked a Hindu man. He responded, “The
Christian is someone who gives.” I ask you one thing: do not tire of giving, but do
not give your leftovers. Give until it hurts, until you feel the pain. Open your hearts
to the love God instills in them. God loves you tenderly. What he gives you is not
to be kept under lock and key, but to be shared. The more you save, the less you
will be able to give. The less you have, the more you will know how to share. Let
us ask God, when it comes time to ask him for something, to help us to be generous.
It was late in the day (around ten at night) when the doorbell rang. I opened
the door and found a man shivering from the cold. “Mother Teresa, I heard that
you just received an important prize. When I heard this I decided to offer you
something too. Here you have it: this is what I collected today.” It was little, but
in his case it was everything. I was moved more than by the Nobel prize.
One day a young couple came to our house and asked for me. They gave me
a large amount of money. I asked them, “Where did you get so much money?”
They answered, “We got married two days ago. Before we got married we had
decided not to celebrate the wedding, not to buy wedding clothes, not to have a
reception or a honeymoon. We wanted to give you the money I saved.” I know
what such a decision meant, especially for a Hindu family. That is why I asked
them, “But how did you think of such a thing?” “We love each other so much,” they
answered, “that we wanted to share the joy of our love with those you serve.”
To share: what a beautiful thing! We should learn how to give. If we worry
too much about ourselves, we won’t have time for others.

Vigils Reading - Memorial of BVM
2025-09-06
A COMMUNITY IN
NATURE AND IN GRACE
By Fr Karl Rahner
◊◊◊
Mariology is not merely a piece of the private life-story of Jesus of
Nazareth, of no real ultimate significance for our salvation, but an affirmation of
faith itself concerning a reality of the faith, without which there is no salvation.
We human beings are important for one another. We mean something to
one another, not only in the everyday things of life, not only because (since we
exist) we have parents, not only because, in the biological sphere, in the external
life of the civil community, of art and learning, we are always dependent on a
great human community. That is not the only reason for our importance for one
another. Even in our salvation we are also similarly dependent on other human
beings. That goes without saying, as a matter of course, yet it is difficult to
grasp. One might think we were only important to one another for this life, for
external things, or at most in the domain of the spirit here on earth.
Or one might think that when it is a question of how God stands to me and
I to God, of the ultimate decision about my eternity, of how I shall fare one day,
when through the inexorable loneliness of my death, I stand utterly alone before
the face of God, that then, in all that, I am absolutely alone and isolated. Then,
surely, there is only the one God, and myself, his love and mercy, and my
irreplaceable freedom in guilt and grace. Yet it is not so, for all that. All that has
been said is true, but it is not the whole truth. For we still belong to one another,
even then.
6 The Practice of Faith, Cp.32, Devotion to Mary. Crossroads 1983. p.161-215
Each has their own, inalienable, unique freedom, from which they cannot
escape, which they cannot shuffle off on to someone else. But for all that, it is
not a lonely isolated freedom, not even when it is deciding the eternal destiny of
a human being, or making the fundamental choice of a human life. For the
eternal Son, the eternal Word of the Father, was made flesh, born of the Virgin
Mary. In our family, out of our race that stretches from the first human being,
Adam, to the last, the Word of the Father was made flesh.
There is, therefore, a community in nature and in grace which takes effect
in a community of sin and guilt, of the mercy of God and his grace, a community
of origin and goal. But guilt and grace, origin and end, are God’s concerns.
Consequently the community of humanity extends into the domain of our
eternal salvation with God. It is a community in eternal welfare or loss, a vast
community which acts out as a whole, and not only in individual human beings,
the great drama of history before the eyes of God, and which brings to light what
God’s thought about humanity was.

Skema
2025-09-07
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
23rd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
September 7 – 13, 2025

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

Office
23rd Sunday
Nativity of the BVM
St Peter Claver
Bl Ogler
Office for the Dead
Weekday
St John Chrysostom

Vigils
Est 8:3-12
Gen 3:8-20
Est E:1-16
Est E:17-(8:17)
Est 9:1-17
Est 9:18-32
Est 10:1-F:10

Lauds
Mic 6:9-16
Zech 8:1-8
Mic 7:1-6
Mic 7:7-13
Mic 7:14-20
Nahum 1:1-8
Nahum 1:9-2:1

Mass
129
636
438
439
440
441
442

1st
Wis 9:13-18b
Micah 5:1-4a
Col 2:6-15
Col 3:1-11
Col 3:12-17
1 Tim 1:1-2, 12-14
1 Tim 1:15-17

2nd
Phlm 9-10, 12-17

Gospel
Luke 14:25-33
Matt 1:18-23
Luke 6:12-19
Luke 6:20-26
Luke 6:27-38
Luke 6:39-42
Luke 6:43-49

Vespers
1 Thess 5:1-11
Rom 8:28-39
1 Thess 5:12-28
2 Thess 1:1-7, 11-12
2 Thess 2:1-10
2 Thess 2:11-17
1 Cor 1:18-25

Vigils Reading - 23rd Sunday
2025-09-07
THE THREE RENUNCIATIONS
By John Cassian
◊◊◊
The tradition of the Fathers and the authority of holy scriptures both
affirm that there are three renunciations which every one of us must strive to
practice. To these let us turn our attention.
First, on the material level, we have to despise all worldly wealth and
possessions; secondly, we must reject our former way of life with its vices and
attachments, both physical and spiritual; and thirdly, we should withdraw our
mind from all that is transitory and visible to contemplate solely what lies in the
future and to desire what is unseen.
We read that the Lord commended Abraham to make all three
renunciations at once when he said to him: Leave your country and your
kindred and your father’s house. First he said your country, meaning worldly
wealth and possessions; secondly your kindred, that is our former way of living,
with its habits and vices which have grown up with us and are as familiar to us as
kith and kin; thirdly your father’s house, in other words every secular memory
aroused by what you see.
This forgetfulness will be achieved when, dead with Christ to the
elemental spirits of this world, we contemplate as the apostle says not the things
that are seen, for what is seen is temporal but what is unseen is eternal. It will
be achieved when in our hearts we leave this temporal and visible house and
turn the eyes of our mind toward that in which we shall live for ever; when,
though living in the world, we cease to follow the spirit of the world in order to
fight for the Lord, proclaiming by our holy way of life that, as the apostle says,
our homeland is in heaven.
It avails little to undertake the first of these renunciations, even with
wholehearted devotion inspired by faith, unless we carry out the second with the
same zeal and fervor. Then having accomplished this as well we shall be able to
go on to the third, whereby we leave the house of our former father, of him who
fathered us as members of a fallen race, children of wrath like everyone else,
and turn our inward gaze solely toward heavenly things.
We shall attain to the perfection of this third renunciation when our
mind, no longer dulled by contact with a pampered body, has been cleansed by
the most searching refinement from every worldly sentiment and attitude, and
raised by constant meditation on divine things and spiritual contemplation to
the realm of the invisible. It will then lose all awareness of the frail body
enclosing it or the place it occupies, so absorbed will it be by things divine and
spiritual.

Vigils Reading - Nativity of the BVM
2025-09-08
THE NEW MOTHER
From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny
◊◊◊
As the vine I have brought forth a pleasant odor. Today we celebrate the
birthday of the blessed Virgin Mother from whom the Life of all things took his
birth. Today is the birthday of that Virgin from whom the Savior of all men
willed to be born in order that he might give to all who were born to death the
power to be reborn to life. Today is the birthday of that new Mother who has
destroyed the curse brought by the first mother, so that all those who through
the fault of the first had been born under the yoke of eternal condemnation
might instead, through her, inherit a blessing.
She is indeed the new Mother, for she has brought new life to her children
already hardening with age and has healed the defect of both inborn and
acquired senility… She is the new Mother, who by an unheard of miracle has
given birth in such a way that, becoming a mother, she has not ceased to be a
Virgin. And she has given birth to the Child who created all things, even the
Mother herself.
It is indeed a wonderful new thing, this fruitful virginity, but far more
wonderful is the novelty of the Child born of it. No one who admits that the
Child was God, finds any difficulty in believing his Mother remained a Virgin.
His birth in no way could injure the physical integrity of his Mother, this Child
who went about making even the diseased whole. Nor could the reality of the
body he assumed be thought to limit the power of the Creator as if he could not
retain for himself what he gives to many of his creatures. For you find not a few
creatures that are born without any harm to the integrity of the parents. In their
own way all these bear witness to their Creator’s own immaculate birth.
But the Mother herself, who was quite aware of the mystery surrounding
her, has spoken and taught us how and what she brought forth. She speaks
however not in contemporary or recent arguments but in the ancient oracles of
prophecy, because, as the Apostle Peter tells us, the word of prophecy is a
stronger witness than miracles. Indeed what is less open to deceit or suspect of
falsity than the testimony from heaven about one not yet born?
Long before her birth therefore the Spirit, who would later make his
abode in her, borrowed Mary’s voice to defend both the divinity of the Child and
the integrity of the Mother – all his own handiwork – against the blasphemies of
unbelievers. In her person…he uttered the words: As the vine, I have brought
forth a pleasant odor.

Vigils Reading - St Peter Claver
2025-09-09
ST PETER CLAVER
THE SLAVE OF THE NEGROES
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints
◊◊◊
He was born in Catalonia, about 1581… He graduated with distinction
[and entered] the Society of Jesus. He left Spain forever in April 1610, and was
ordained priest at Cartagena, in what is now the republic of Colombia. By the
time of his ordination the slave trade had been established in the Americas for
nearly a hundred years, and the port of Cartagena was one of its principal
centers…
At this time the leader of the work among the Negroes was Father Alfonso
de Sandoval, a great Jesuit missionary who spent forty years in the service of the
slaves, and after working under him Peter Claver declared himself “the slave of
the Negroes forever”. Although by nature shy and without self-confidence he
threw himself into the work with method and organization. He enlisted bands
of assistants, and as soon as a slave-ship entered the port… St. Peter Claver
plunged, with medicines and food, bread, brandy, lemons, tobacco to distribute
among the Negroes, some of whom were too frightened, others too ill, to accept
them. “We must speak to them with our hands, before we try to speak to them
with our lips”, Claver would say.
When he came upon any who were dying, he baptized them, and then
sought out all babies born on the voyage that he might baptize them. He had a
band of seven interpreters, one of whom spoke four Negro dialects, and with
their help he taught the slaves and prepared them for baptism, not only in
groups but individually. He made use of pictures, showing our Lord suffering
on the cross; above all he tried to instill in them… some idea that as redeemed
human beings they had dignity and worth, even if as slaves…
It is estimated that in forty years St Peter Claver instructed and baptized
over 300,000 slaves… He took the same trouble to teach them how properly to
use the sacrament of penance, and in one year is said to have heard the
confessions of more than five thousand. Many of the stories both of the heroism
and of the miraculous powers of St Peter Claver concern his nursing of sick and
diseased Negroes, in circumstances often that no one else, black or white, could
face.
In 1650… sickness attacked his emaciated and weakened body, and he
was recalled to the Jesuit residence at Cartagena. But here a virulent epidemic
had begun to show itself, and one of the first to be attacked among the Jesuits
was the debilitated missionary… After receiving the last sacraments, he
recovered, but he was a broken man…
On September 6, 1654 he was taken very ill and became comatose. The rumor of
his approaching end spread round the city, everyone suddenly remembered the
saint again, and numbers came to kiss his hands before it was too late. His cell
was stripped of everything that could be carried off as a relic. St Peter Claver
never fully recovered consciousness, and died two days later on the birthday of
our Lady. The civil authorities who had looked askance at his solicitude for mere
Negro slaves, and the clergy, who had called his zeal indiscreet and his energy
wasted, now vied with one another to honor his memory… He was canonized in
1888 and was declared by Pope Leo XIII patron of all missionary enterprises
among Negroes.

Vigils Reading - Bl Ogier of Locedio
2025-09-10
THE CONTAINER
OF ALL VIRTUES
From a sermon by Blessed Ogier of Locedio
◊◊◊
For a long time I have been impelled by a work of love: it was the desire to
create a work on the Word of God. I realize that I am thoroughly unworthy of
this, and yet I find that I am filled with the sweetness of the heavenly honey
which the heavens dropped down from the face of God on Sinai. And behold in
order to be able to fulfill my desires, I am presented with this exquisite vase, this
container of all virtues, this vessel of election, wherein the fullness of the
divinity came to dwell. Yes, this is the golden vessel, the solid vessel, adorned
with all precious jewels, charged with life, with eternal blessedness, filled with
myrrh, aloes and balm and every possible scent; a vessel adorned with ivory and
gems of sapphire, containing Him Who is both the Alpha and the Omega, the
Beginning and the End.
I wish to speak of that beautiful Virgin who gave to the world its Creator.
She is worthy of being praised by every mouth even though they are not worthy
to praise her. But I must acknowledge to all who may take up my writings that I
am not worthy to praise her, and even unworthy to pronounce her name.
Nevertheless even this realization does not stop me, for the ardor of heart
springs forth to compensate and it neither can nor should restrain from praising
her whom the angels and archangels and all the heavenly choirs praise as being
the one who gave to the world its Creator, the author of all things, by becoming
His mother.
For charity draws me to this, love finds satiety, and the benefit which will
come to myself impels me. Let my tongue cleave to my pallet if I do not
remember her; if I do not place her immediately after her Son as the source of
my joy; in order that she may be mindful of me on the day of Jerusalem, that she
may become my repose in the time of tribulation, and that I may be borne to the
people in those arms which held her own Son. For this reason with praise I am
going to praise her all the days of my life; I am going to sing her praises as long
as I live. May my words be pleasing to her and in her I will take my delight.
May He enable me to accomplish this which He has inspired in me, Jesus
Christ her Son, our Lord, Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy
Spirit through all ages.

Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
2025-09-11
IN THE SLEEP
OF FINAL REST
By St Ephrem the Syrian
◊◊◊
In that night when all sound, all human activity shall be silent, when the
voices of all peoples and nations are still, may my soul through its good works
shine out in You, O Jesus, Light of the Just. In that hour when darkness like a
cloak shall be spread over all things may your grace, O Lord, shine on us in place
of the earthy sun. In that night which brings to an end the course of this world
and all its activities, may our souls behold your wonders in that quiet which is
more than silence. In that hour, refreshing the weary through the sleep that lies
over all, may our minds be inebriated with your delights, O Delight of all the
Saints! In that time of dark night, may a New Sun arise for us. Then let us take
wing in that hope which was laid up for us in your Resurrection.
Grant us O Lord, to imitate the watchfulness of those who waited for your
Resurrection, so that day and night O Lord, we may be turned towards you. In
that hour when we shall be separated from others and from the business of the
world, be to us O Lord, a Giver of good things, bringing joy to our sadness. When
confiding in your grace we have gone forth from this world, so that we are alone,
may we behold O Lord, clearly and in deed the power of your help. Pour your
peace into our hearts, and give your rest to all our striving that the darkness of
that night may be to us as the day.
In that hour when we shall have been deprived of life, and night has
hidden us in its darkness and we have been separated from others, may our
consolation in you O Lord, increase. In that place that is empty of all things,
where the voice of comfort is no more heard, awaken in our souls O Lord, a
watchfulness free of all distraction. In that time when we lie in the sleep of final
rest, may our minds not be sunk in the sleep of evil desires.
Grant us by your graces O Lord, that like the wise virgins who were ready
by their good works, our way of life shall also be watchful, that we shall not sit in
darkness with darkened souls, in darkness of mind, but that through prayer we
may look for ever on the shining splendor of your grace. Expel, O Lord, by the
daily light of your knowledge the nocturnal darkness of our mind, that being
enlightened it may serve you in the purity of its regeneration.
Grant us with the just to watch by night in prayer, that in your revelations
our lamps may burn brightly before your sun. In that time of night give
consolation to our need, for the gloom of the night darkens us; through you may
we be comforted in our sadness. Grant that our minds may labor in the
remembrance of your revelations, while our souls burn in the fire of your love.
In that hour when the Saints were wont to give themselves to prayer; grant us, O
Lord, to share in their watchfulness.

Vigils Reading
2025-09-12
PERFECTION IN WEAKNESS
By Fr Hugh Rahner
◊◊◊
The Catholic Church is a house full of glory extending far and wide into
every land of this our terrestrial world. We sing her praises because we love her.
For she is the hidden queen of human history.…
All this would be, however, only “boasting according to the flesh” and not
“glory in the cross of Christ” – all would be counterfeit, falsified, and therefore
filled with that furtive disappointment that we so often experience after
ecclesiastical ceremonies, if we did not also speak of the incomprehensible
mystery of Christian existence which Paul describes with the words: “If I must
boast, I will boast of the things that concern my weakness.” The Apostle is
speaking here of his own wretchedness.
However, one of the principle truths of the revelation of the New
Testament, as sketched by Paul, is that the strength of God reveals itself in
human weakness. The salvific work of the Father, which was contained in love
before the very foundation of the universe, reveals itself to us in the Word which
became flesh, and will be completed through the instrument of the Church in
the power of grace victorious up to its blessed conclusion in weakness. For as
Scripture tells us: “The power of God reaches its perfection in weakness”. Let us
leave these words as they stand. Indeed let us keep the expression in the
shocking bluntness of the Greek words: “The dynamis of God reaches perfec-
tion in asthenia.”
The force of these words can be vaguely perceived from what technology
has to say today about dynamics, and from what medicine has to say about
asthenia. So, let us read: the power of God reaches its goal in asthenia, in
stunted asthenic growth, in frailty, therefore in all that is in contrast to what is
big, strong, healthy, well formed, humane, rational. So, and only so, does the
explosive power of the Father’s salvific love reveal itself, passionately driving
onward to victory in the mystical Christ. “For the foolishness of God is wiser
than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men…and the base things
of the world and the despised has God chosen…lest any flesh should pride itself
before him. So that, just as it is written: ‘Let him who takes pride, take pride in
the Lord’”.

Vigils Reading - St John Chrysostom
2025-09-13
ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
From “The Fathers of the Church” by Pope Benedict XVI
◊◊◊
St John Chrysostom was born in Antioch, Syria, in 344. His father died
when he was an infant and his mother raised him. He studied with the most
famous rhetorician of the day, Libanus. Baptized as a young adult in 368, John
undertook an ascetic life for four years, living alone on the neighboring Mount
Silpius. He extended his stay for a further two years, living alone in a cave under
the guidance of an old hermit.
Having fallen ill, he found it impossible to care for himself and returned to
the city and was ordained a deacon and then a priest. From 386 to 397 he
preached in the cathedral at Antioch, perhaps the most satisfying and happiest
years of his life. There he delivered courses of sermons on books of the Bible.
John was nicknamed “Chrysostom”, that is, “golden mouthed”, because of his
eloquence.
In 397 he was taken, almost by force, to Constantinople, ordained bishop,
and made patriarch of the capitol city. He lived ascetically and showed deep
concern for the poor and the sick. But his style of life offended some powerful
people, including the Empress Eudoxia. Theophilus, the patriarch of
Alexandria, was also among his enemies, and in 403 Theophilus presided at a
synod near Constantinople that deposed John.
John was banished twice, the first time for only a short while. But during
the second exile he died on September 14, 407 while being forced to travel in
harsh weather.
John is known for a large corpus of homilies, most of them on Scripture.
Among his best known and most read books are the six books On the
Priesthood.

LCG Chicago Monthly Meeting 9:00 am CDT
2025-09-13 09:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York)
All are welcome on Zoom:
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9:00 Gather for Opening prayer.

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:
Br. Thomas Richards
Br. Gregory Escardo
Br. Maximilian Pickerill
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Robert Johnson.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is Contemplation by Nemeck and Coombs.
10:45 Housekeeping. Volunteer to lead lectio next month? Selection our next reading . Chicago Report on LCG Advisory Council activity. Planning transport for LCG Fall Retreat (10/12/25). Follow-up on events at the international lay Cistercian meeting.
11:00 Update. Share how the Holy Spirt has entered our lives as lay Cistercians since our last meeting.
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.)
Our next meeting: October 11, 2025???

Skema
2025-09-14
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
24th Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (C), Weekdays (I)
September 14 – 20, 2025

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

Office
Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Our Lady of Sorrows
SS Cornelius & Cyprian
St Martin of Finojosa
Weekday
Weekday
St Andrew Kim & Companions

Vigils
Isa 52:13-53:12
2 Macc 7:20-41
Song 1:1-17
Song 2:1-17
Song 3:1-11
Song 4:1-5:1
Song 5:2-6:3

Lauds
Isa 45:21-25
Baruch 4:9b-20
Nahum 2:2-8
Nahum 2:9-14
Nahum 3:1-7
Nahum 3:8-13
Nahum 3:14-19

Mass
638
639
444
445
446
447
448

1st
Num 21:4b-9
Heb 5:7-9
1 Tim 3:1-13
1 Tim 3:14-16
1 Tim 4:12-16
1 Tim 6:2c-12
1 Tim 6:13-16

2nd
Phil 2:6-11

Gospel
John 3:13-17
John 19:25-27
Luke 7:11-17
Luke 7:31-35
Luke 7:36-50
Luke 8:1-3
Luke 8:4-15

Vespers
Gal 6:14-18
1 Pet 4:12-16
2 Thess 3:1-10
2 Thess 3:11-18
1 Tim 1:1-11
1 Tim 1:12-20
1 Tim 2:1-8

Vigils Reading - Exaltation of the Holy Cross
2025-09-14
THE VICTORY
OF THE CROSS
By St Chromatius of Aquileia
◊◊◊
The Cross of Christ is our victory, because it has obtained victory for us.
Who among us are so fortunate as to deserve to bear in themselves the cross of
Christ? They bear the cross of Christ in themselves who die to the world and are
nailed with Christ to the Cross. Listen to what the Apostle says: “With Christ I
am crucified; I live, yet it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Those therefore who are free from the vices of the flesh and worldly desires are,
as the Apostle says, crucified with Christ. Those on the other hand who are given
over to vices of the flesh and worldly desires cannot say: “I am crucified with
Christ”, for they do not live the way that Christ did, but according to the fashion
of the world and the will of the devil.
The cross of Christ is the salvation of the world and the triumphal sign of
heaven’s victory. In times past, when great kings had won a brilliant victory over
vanquished nations, they used to set up a trophy of their victory in the form of a
cross and hang spoils taken from the enemy upon it as a permanent reminder.
The victory won by Christ’s cross is far different. The victory of those kings
meant the extermination of peoples, the destruction of cities, the sacking of
provinces. The victory of the cross means nations ransomed, cities saved,
provinces liberated, the entire world made safe. Nothing is destroyed but the
power of the devil, no one taken captive but the demons, for the cross of Christ
redeemed the world and took the demons prisoner. It is spoils taken from the
demons that are hung on the triumphal cross of Christ. Today the demons hang
on the cross of Christ which has become their torment and torture; they are held
captive by faith in the cross, by the sign of the passion.
Christ suffered evil and repaid it with good; he suffered death and gave
life. Not without reason was he crucified on the spot where Adam’s body is said
to have been buried; Christ was crucified where Adam was buried in order that
life might thus rise out of death. Death came through Adam, life through Christ,
who deigned to be crucified and to die precisely in order to destroy through the
tree of the cross the sin that had been caused by a tree, and by the mystery of his
death to put an end to the punishment of death.

Vigils Reading - Our Lady of Sorrows
2025-09-15
TEARS OF LOVE
From the Sequence “Stabat Mater” attributed to Jacopo da Todi
◊◊◊
The sorrowful mother was standing in tears beside the cross on which her
Son was hanging. Her soul was full of grief and anguish and sorrow, for the
sword of prophecy pierced it.
How sad now and how unhappy at the fate of her only Son was that
mother, once called blessed; how the faithful mother grieved and lamented as
she saw her glorious Son so shamefully treated.
Who is there who would not weep, were he to see Christ’s mother in such
great suffering? Or who could help feeling sympathy with the mother, were he to
think of her sorrowing with her Son?
Yet she actually saw Jesus in agony and broken by the scourging – and
this because of the sins of her own people. She saw her dear Son all the time he
was dying and abandoned until he yielded up his soul.
Come then, mother, from whom all love springs, make me understand the
meaning of your sorrow that I may mourn with you. Make my heart burn with
love of Christ, my God, that he may look on me with favor.
Holy mother, do this for me. Pierce my heart once and forever with the
wounds of your crucified Son. Let me share with you the pain of your Son’s
wounds, for he thought it right to bear such sufferings for me.
Grant that my tears of love may mingle with yours and that, as long as I
live, I may feel the pains of my crucified Lord. To stand with you beside the cross
and be your companion in grief is my own wish.
Virgin without equal among virgins, do not now turn down my request;
grant that I may mourn with you. Grant that I carry about the dying state of
Christ; grant that I be a sharer of his passion; grant that I relive his wounds.
Grant that I be wounded with his wounds; grant that I drink to my soul’s content
of the chalice of his cross and blood. Be a defense to me, virgin Mary, on the
judgment day, and I will not burn and be consumed in the fires of hell.
When it is time, Lord Christ, for me to leave this world, give me through
your mother’s prayers the palm of victory. When my body is dead, grant that my
soul be given the glory of paradise.

Vigils Reading - SS Cornelius & Cyprian
2025-09-16
A LETTER FROM ST CYPRIAN
TO ST CORNELIUS
◊◊◊
My very dear brother, we have heard of the glorious witness given by your
courageous faith. On learning of the honor you had won by your witness, we
were filled with such joy that we felt ourselves sharers and companions in your
praiseworthy achievements. After all, we have the same Church, the same mind.
The same unbroken harmony. Why then should a priest not take pride in the
praise given to a fellow priest as though it were given to him? What brotherhood
fails to rejoice in the happiness of its brothers wherever they are?
Words cannot express how great was the exaltation and delight here when
we heard of your good fortune and brave deeds: how you stood out as a leader of
your brothers in their declaration of faith, while the leader’s confession was
enhanced as they declared their faith. You led the way to glory, but you gained
many companions in that glory; being foremost in your readiness to bear
witness on behalf of all, you prevailed on your people to become a single
witness. We cannot decide which we ought to praise, your own ready and
unshaken faith or the love of your brothers who would not leave you. While the
courage of the bishop who thus led the way has been demonstrated, at the same
time the unity of the brotherhood who followed has been manifested. Since you
have one heart and one voice, it is the Roman Church as a whole that has thus
borne witness.
Dearest brother, bright and shining is the faith which the blessed Apostle
praised in your community. He foresaw in the spirit the praise your courage
deserves and the strength that could not be broke; he was heralding the future
when he testified to your achievements; his praise of the fathers was a challenge7
to the sons. Your unity, your strength have become shining examples of these
virtues to the rest of the brethren.
Divine providence has now prepared us. God’s merciful design has
warned us that the day of our own struggle, our own contest, is at hand. By that
shared love which binds us closely together, we are doing all we can to exhort
our congregation, to give ourselves unceasingly to fastings, vigils and prayers in
common. These are the heavenly weapons which give us strength to stand firm
and endure; they are the spiritual defenses, the God-given armaments that
protect us.
Let us then remember one another, united in mind and heart. Let us pray
without ceasing, you for us, we for you; by the love we share we shall thus relieve
the strain of these great trials.

Vigils Reading - St Martin of Finojosa
2025-09-17
SAINT MARTIN OF FINOJOSA
By Thomas Merton
◊◊◊
Saint Martin Sacerdos of Finojosa, Abbot of Huerta, Bishop of Siguenza,
Spain, was born in the year 1139 and grew up under the care of a most loving and
pious Christian mother with his brother, a courtier and knight, and his two
sisters Theresa and Eve. Instead of following the usual aspirations to
knighthood, Martin was fonder of books and meditation and solitude, and this
bent of his was definitely turned into a vocation to the cloister when his father
died. The shock of this loss fixed his mind on eternity, and despising all that the
world had to offer, he made known his intentions to his mother and brother. He
was then twenty years old.
At first he met with nothing but opposition. However, when they saw that
he was firm in his purpose, his family did not have the impiety to resist him
further, and his mother made a most generous and willing sacrifice of him,
taking him to the Abbey of Cantavos and there leaving him with all the
ceremonies prescribed by Saint Benedict for presenting the children of the rich
to the monastery. Martin, meanwhile, took the Mother of God in exchange for
his earthly mother and adopted as his motto for the novitiate: “What you begin,
begin perfectly”…
Although he was only twenty-six, Sacerdos was elected by the monks to
succeed the abbot… <His history as abbot> comes to us through official
documents which tell us less of his virtues than of the fame of them and the
effects of that fame. We read everywhere of the veneration in which he was held
by the royalty and nobility of all Spain…
It was with the greatest distaste that Saint Sacerdos learned, in 1186, that
he had been elected bishop of Siguenza. He only accepted this position under
orders from Rome… In 1194, however, Saint Sacerdos persuaded the Pope to
accept his resignation and was able to return to the peace and tranquility of
Huerta, where he could fill his soul with the infinite sweetness of the presence of
God and hide himself in the secret of His face, of whom the psalmist said: “Thou
dost protect them in Thy tabernacle against the contradiction of tongues.”
And that Face, of which we read in the same Psalm…is nothing else but
the divine Essence, in which we lose ourselves in the luminous darkness of faith,
which covers us and makes us invisible to our enemies – and sometimes to
ourselves. And so, in these years, Saint Sacerdos was often rapt out of himself in
the ecstasy of divine contemplation.
Death finally overtook him in 1210 when he was on a visitation of his
monastery of Óvila. He felt the end approaching and set out for Huerta but did
not complete his journey, for he died on the way. His venerated body was
received with great circumstance by his grieving children and buried in the great
church of the abbey.
In 1558 his body was found completely uncorrupted, along with the
clothing and crozier with which he had been buried. He was formally beatified
with the title of saint and inscribed in the Roman Martyrology in 1584.
