Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

Jim Finley - Zoom
2023-01-23 12:30 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
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Vigils Reading - Weekday
2023-01-23
Simplicity and Openness2
from the Collected Works of Saint Rafael Arnaiz
One must walk so many tortured paths to arrive at simplicity. Complication is such an uncomfortable thing…and we human beings like to complicate everything for ourselves. Often, if we fail to practice virtue, it’s because our complicated nature rejects what is simple. Often, we fail to appreciate the magnificence hidden within an act of simplicity, because we look for greatness in complicated things; we judge the magnificence of things based on their difficulty…I clearly see that what seemed dark and complicated to me before is actually rather simple and straightforward.
Virtue…God…the interior life, how difficult I thought it was to live that! It’s not that I’m virtuous now, or that I have a completely clear knowledge of God and spiritual life, but I’ve realized that you get there without complications or complexities, without clever philosophy, without technical challenges. I’ve come to see that you reach God in precisely the opposite manner. You come to know Him through simplicity of heart and being uncomplicated. There’s nothing difficult about acts of love…What’s truly difficult is wanting to know God by searching out His mysteries. The former leads us to God, and the latter does not…
So, then, why do we lack virtue at times? Because we aren’t simple; because we complicate our desires; because everything we want is made difficult by our weak will, which gets carried away by whatever is pleasing, comfortable, and unnecessary, and often by its passions. We lack virtue not because it is difficult, but because we don’t want it. We lack patience…because we don’t want it. We lack temperance…because we don’t want it. We lack chastity…for the same reason. We would be saints if we wanted to be…it’s much harder to become an engineer than it is to become a saint. If only we had faith!
The interior life…the spiritual life, a life of prayer. “My God! That must be difficult!” But it’s not at all. Get rid of everything in your heart that’s in the way, and you’ll find God there. That’s it. Often we look for things that aren’t there, and on the other hand we’ll walk right by a treasure without seeing it…We look for Him in a whole tangled mess of things, and to us, the more complicated they are, the better. And all the while, we are carrying God around inside of us, yet we don’t look for Him there. Collect yourself within…gaze upon your nothingness, gaze upon the nothingness of the world, place yourself at the foot of the cross, and if you are simple, you will see God.
Behold, the life of prayer. We don’t need to add something that’s already there. Rather, we need to get rid of what is in the way. I say “something that’s already there” because I assume the soul to be in a state of God’s grace, but if God is not present there at times, it’s because we don’t want that. We have such a great big heap of interests, distractions, affinities, vain desires, pretensions…we have so much of the world inside of us that God is driven away…But all we have to do is want Him, and God will fill the soul again in such a way that you’d have to be blind not to see it.
If a soul wants to live according to God’s ways…it must be rid of everything that is not Him…and that is it. It’s quite easy. If we wanted to, and if we asked God with simplicity, we would make great progress in the spiritual life. If we wanted to be saints, we would be…But we’re such fools that we don’t want to…We prefer to waste time on stupid vanities. We’ll regret that someday.
But I am very happy, because I have come to see that everything is simple and straightforward…and this is within my reach. May the Most Blessed Virgin Mary come to my aid. Amen.
2Saint Rafael Arnaiz. The Collected Works. Ed. Sr. Maria Gonzalo-Garcia, OCSO. Trans. Catherine Addington. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2022. 542-544.

Vigils Reading - 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
2023-01-22
He Went to Capernaum, that the Prophecy of Isaiah Might be Fulfilled1
A Commentary by John Justus Landsberg
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Everyone knows that we were all born in darkness, and once lived in darkness. But now that the Sun of Righteousness has risen for us, let us see that we no longer remain in darkness.
Christ came to enlighten those who lived in darkness, overshadowed by death, and to guide their feet into the way of peace. Do you ask what darkness? Whatever is present in our intellect, in our will, or in our memory that is not God, or which has not its source in God; that is to say, whatever in us is not for God’s sake, is a barrier between God and the soul – it is darkness.
In himself Christ brought us light which would enable us to see our sins, and hate our darkness. His freely chosen poverty, when there was no place for him in the inn, is for us a light by which we can now learn that the poor in spirit, to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs, are blessed.
The love with which Christ offered himself to instruct us, and to endure for us injuries, ostracism, persecution, lashes, and death upon a cross; the love finally which made him pray for those who crucified him – that love is for us a light by which we may learn to love our enemies.
The humility with which he emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave, and with which he scorned the glory of the world, and willed to be born, not in a palace but in a stable, and to die ignominiously on a gibbet – that humility is for us a light showing us what a detestable crime it is for clay, that is to say, for poor weak creatures, to be proud, to exalt themselves, or to refuse submission, when the infinite God was humbled, despised, and subject to human beings.
The meekness with which Christ endured hunger, thirst, cold, harsh words, lashes, and wounds, when he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before his shearer opened not his mouth – that meekness is for us a light. By it we see how useless it is to be angry, how useless to threaten. By it we accept our own suffering, and do not serve Christ merely from routine. By it we learn how much is required of us, and that when suffering comes our way we should bewail our sins in silent submission, since he endured affliction with such patience and long-suffering, not for his own sins, but for ours.
Reflect then, beloved, on all the virtues which Christ taught us by his example, which he recommends by his counsel, and which he enables us to imitate by the assistance of his grace.
1 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, O.S.B. New York: New City Press, 1992. 82-83.

SKEMA
2023-01-22
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
3rd Week in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
January 22 – 28, 2023

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

Office
3rd Sunday
Weekday
St Francis de Sales
Conversion of St Paul
SS Robert, Alberic, & Stephen
SS Timothy & Titus
St Thomas Aquinas

Vigils
Judg 9:1-21
Judg 9:22-41
Judg 9:42-57
Acts 26:1-23
Lev 26:3-13
Judg 10:6-18
Judg 11:1-11

Lauds
Zech 7:1-7
Zech 7:8-14
Zech 8:1-6
Sir 39:1-10
Sir 2:1-11
Zech 8:7-11
Zech 8:12-17

Mass
67
317
318
519
606, 322, 815.8
520, 321
322

1st
Isa 8:23b-9:3
Heb 9:15, 24-28
Heb 10:1-10
Acts 22:3-16
Sir 44:1,10-15
2 Tim 1:1-8
Heb 11:1-2, 8-19

2nd
1 Cor 1:10-13, 17

Heb 11:1-2, 8-16

Gospel
Matt 4:12-23
Mark 3:22-30
Mark 3:31-35
Mark 16:15-18
Mark 10:24b-30
Mark 4:26-34
Mark 4:35-41

Vespers
Eph 5:1-5
Eph 5:6-14
Eph 5:15-20
Eph 4:1-6
1 Jn 4:13-21
Eph 6:1-9
Eph 6:10-17

Cleveland LCG Monthly Meeting
2023-01-21 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York)

Vigils Reading - St Agnes
2023-01-21
St Agnes, Virgin and Martyr From Butler’s Lives of the Saints
Rome was the scene of [St Agnes’s] triumph…She suffered perhaps not long after the beginning of the persecution of Diocletian, whose cruel edicts were published in March in the year 303. We learn from St Ambrose and St Augustine that she was only thirteen years of age at the time of her glorious death. Her riches and beauty excited the young noblemen of the first families in Rome to contend as rivals for her hand. Agnes answered them all that she had consecrated her virginity to a heavenly husband, who could not be beheld by mortal eyes. Her suitors, finding her resolution unshakable, accused her to the governor as a Christian, not doubting that threats and torments would prove more effective with one of her tender years on whom allurements could make no impression. The judge at first employed the mildest expressions and most seductive promises, to which Agnes paid no regard, repeating always that she could have no other spouse but Jesus Christ. He then made use of threats, but found her endowed with a masculine courage, and even eager to suffer torment and death. At last terrible fires were made, and iron hooks, racks and other instruments of torture displayed before her, with threats of immediate execution. The heroic child surveyed them undismayed, and made good cheer in the presence of the fierce and cruel executioners…
The governor, seeing his measures ineffectual, said he would send her to a house of prostitution, where what she prized so highly should be exposed to the insults of the brutal and licentious youth of Rome. Agnes answered that Jesus Christ was too jealous of the purity of His chosen ones to suffer it to be violated in such a manner… “You may…stain your sword with my blood, but you will never be able to profane my body, consecrated to Christ.” The governor was so incensed at this that he ordered her to be immediately led to the place of shame…Many young profligates ran thither, full of wicked desires, but were seized with such awe at the sight of the saint that they durst not approach her; one only excepted, who…was… by a flash, as it were of lightning from Heaven, struck blind, and fell trembling to the ground. His companions, terrified, took him up and carried him to Agnes, who was singing hymns of praise to Christ, her protector. The virgin by prayer restored his sight and his health.

The governor…condemned her to be beheaded. Agnes, filled with joy on hearing this sentence, “went to the place of execution more cheerfully…then others go to their wedding”. The executioner had instructions to use all means to induce her to give way, but Agnes remained constant; and having made a short prayer, bowed down her neck loaded with fetters, and offering herself fearlessly to the sword of the executioner, who with trembling hand cut off her head at one stroke.
…modern authorities incline to the view that little reliance can be placed on the details of the story. They point out that the “acts” of St Agnes, attributed unwarrantably to St Ambrose, can hardly be older than A.D. 415, and that these seem to represent an attempt to harmonize and embroider the discordant datafound in the then surviving traditions…
…however, there can be no possible doubt of the fact that St Agnes was martyred, and that she was buried beside the Via Nomentana in the cemetery afterwards called by her name. Here a basilica was erected in her honour before 354 by Constantina, daughter of Constantine and wife of Gallus; and the terms of the acrostic inscription set up in the apse are still preserved…it tells us…she was “a virgin” and “victorious”.

6 Butler’s Lives of the Saints – Complete Edition: Volume 1. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1956. 133-135.

Vigils Reading - Bl Cyrian Tansi
2023-01-20
A Reading on BLESSED CYPRIAN TANSI
Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi, the first blessed of Nigeria, was born in 1903 in Igboezunu…At the age of nine, he was baptized and was given the name of Michael. He felt the call of God to the priestly life, and in 1925, at the age of 22, resolutely overcoming the opposition of family members, entered the newly established St. Paul Seminary in Igbariam, becoming the first indigenous vocation of the area. On December 19, 1937, he was ordained a priest by the missionary Bishop Charles Heerey, in the Cathedral of Onitsha.
Michael demonstrated his exceptional gifts throughout the first twelve years of his priesthood… personal asceticism, great capacity for commitment and physical resistance, goodness towards the sick and the poor, concern for the sanctity of marriage and the spiritual formation of women, as well as personal charisma…
Amid the whirlwind of pastoral activities, he perceived the beauty of the contemplative life. During a retreat day with the clergy, Archbishop Charles Heerey expressed the wish that a few of his priests embrace a monastic experience, in order to bring the seed of contemplative life into the diocese. Father Tansi, without hesitating,declared himself ready to put his bishop’s proposal into action, along with the assistant priest at his parish, Fr. Clement Ulogu. In July 1949, contacts were made with the Cistercian Abbey of Mount Saint Bernard in Leicester, England, which agreed to welcome the two priests. Michael arrived at Mount Saint Bernard on July 3, 1950, accompanied by Archbishop Heerey.
Under the action of the Spirit, the man who had been an authentic pioneer and “manager” in the young missionary church of the diocese of Onitsha made himself a humble and docile monk in his new way of life. He embraced the austerity and silence of everyday Trappist life, where no one except the novice master, Fr. Gregory Wareing, had any idea of the magnificent work he had done as a priest…

The original idea with which the two Nigerians had entered the community was to receive formation in monastic life, with the aim of then bringing it to Nigeria, but the difficulty of making a foundation with only two people soon became clear. Eventually they freely asked to be admitted to profession at Mount Saint Bernard and to wait until the community was able to send a group. In 1963, the monastic community decided to establish a foundation in Africa, but in Cameroon rather than Nigeria…
When the group for the foundation in Cameroon was appointed, Fr. [Tansi] was chosen as the novice master… The first four founders left Mount Saint Bernard on October 28, 1963, to prepare the buildings for the rest of the group’s arrival, scheduled for the spring of the following year. But God’s plan for Fr. [Tansi] was different, and it was made manifest in a very short time.
In January 1964, he was struck with acute pain in one of his legs, which swelled enormously…Urgently admitted to the Royal Infirmary in Leicester, he was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm. During the night he got worse, and on the morning of January 20, 1964, in a spirit of total poverty and detachment, Fr. Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi took the last step of his long journey of faith and love in silence.
On January 22, 1986, twenty-two years after his death, with great solemnity before a gathering of faithful from all parts of Nigeria, the process of his canonization was opened in the Cathedral of Onitsha. By that time, a few monastic communities of contemplative life had already begun to flourish in the area. The remains of Fr. Michael were exhumed in 1988 and returned to Onitsha. During the reburial Mass, a miracle occurred when the bishop allowed seventeen-year-old Philomina Emeka, who had been suffering from inoperable tumors, to approach and touch Fr. Michael’s coffin, and she was immediately healed. The miracle led to his beatification celebrated by Pope St. John Paul II on March 22, 1998

Baptized and Sent: October 2019. Diocese of St. Louis.https://www.archstl.org/Portals/0/Documents/Mission_Office/EMM%20Mission%20Testimonies/11)%20 Bl.%20Cyprian%20Michael%20Iwene%20Tansi.pdf?ver=2019-04-11-155650-950. Accessed Jan. 12, 2023.

Vigils Reading
2023-01-19
Faith, Hope and Charity Operating in the Soul
by William of St Thierry
A man begins at faith. During the time while we pilgrimage far from the Lord, the Apostle who says that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith does not deceive us. Yet hope is also necessary for our journey. This it is that consoles us along the way. Take away from a traveler the hope of arriving, and his courage to go on is broken. When we have arrived at where we are headed, faith will no longer exist. Will anyone ask us: do you believe? No, indeed! For we will see God and contemplate him. Nor will hope be necessary when this comes about. For when someone sees, what does he hope for? Yet faith and hope will not vanish but will pass over into their objects when what was believed will be seen and what was hoped for will be possessed. Charity will not only be present, it will be perfected, since what we love in this present life by believing in and hoping for it we will then love by seeing and possessing it. In the meanwhile, it is easy to see how really necessary are these powers for the person who desires to move toward that uncircumscribed light.
…For if one does not believe that he will see what cannot as yet be shown to a sick soul (for only a healthy soul can see) he will make no effort to recover. But what if one believes he possesses this faith…and is able to see what can be seen, and still despairs of being able himself to be healed? Is he not utterly casting himself out and contemning himself? Does he not especially follow the doctor’s ordersbecause as a sick man he feels these prescriptions are necessarily harsh? Consequently, hope must be added to faith.
What if one believes that he has all things and hopes that he can be healed, yet does not love, that light which is promised him? And what if he meanwhile believes he ought to be content with the darkness which is now, because of its familiarity, usually agreeable for him? Isn’t he still spurning the physician?Therefore, a third thing is necessary: charity – and there is nothing so necessary!

Without these three, no soul is so healed it can see, which means ‘understand’, God. Therefore, when one shall finally have healthy eyes, he has only to gaze; as reason is the soul’s gaze…That gaze cannot as yet, although it would like to, turn healthy eyes to the light unless these three remain: faith whereby the gaze must be turned toward the reality which one believes he shall possess, which once seen, will make him happy; hope whereby, when one has looked hard, he assumes that he will be able to see; charity whereby one desires to see and enjoy forever.
The vision of God follows upon this gaze. The purpose of the gaze is this: not that it cease to exist but that it no longer need anything to orient itself in this direction. This is truly perfect power: reason attaining its purpose, which attends the happy life.
This vision is that very understanding, which is in the soul, since it was the soul’s function to understand…to see God. Since the upright man lives by faith, then, these three [powers] remain to form the life of the faithful…
Perfection in this life is nothing other than forgetting entirely, by means of faith, hope and charity, those things that are behind and pushing on to those that are ahead. For the Apostle says: May as many as are perfect know this. Anyone who truly seeks the Triune God therefore must strive to have the trinity of these powers in himself and must eagerly study to conform himself to their teaching.

Vigils Reading
2023-01-18
A Reading on the Path to Christian Discipleship by Isaac of Stella
We were enemies of God, “slaves of sin, rightdoing had no claims upon us.” The Son set us free, so that we are really “free from the claims of sin” and from the devil, and have become “slaves of rightdoing”. This is the first stage, the one the Psalmist craves and calls for in the words: “Save me, Lord.” Once his prayer has been granted he rejoices thus: “O Lord, you have freed me from peril, I, your servant and the son, not yet of you, but of your handmaid.” You have broken the chains that bound me.” The chains, he means, with which the devil had controlled him as though he were no better than a four-footed beast. Kept from doing and from moving as he should, man was no longer the “man who went abroad to toil and drudge”.
Set free, man can use his feet, is able to, at least, stretch out his withered hand. The crooked has come straight, the enemy has become a willing servant. Though utterly worthless he would be of service to him who had “no need of his services.” The service of God is profitable to such as would “earn salvation in anxious fears,” to those who remembered the words, “And you, when you have done all that was commanded you, are to say, we are servants and worthless.” One who does evil with a bad intention or good with an evil intention is reckoned an enemy. One who does everything with a good intention ranks as a servant, but not yet as a friend.
It is for a servant of God to do good, to perform the works of virtue, of justice and of mercy; to know his plans and be involved in his secrets is for God’s friends. They had reached this second stage, those one-time enemies of God become his servants, to whom were addressed the words “I do not speak of you anymore as my servants but as my friends.” Is there a further stage? Yes, none other than the third stage where Christ’s friends become his brothers, become children of God and thereby finally his heirs, for if we are his children then we are also made his heirs”. “Blessed,” says our Lord, “are the peacemakers! They shall be counted the children of God.” In other words, the clean of heart have through contemplation, come to know all that the Son has heard from the Father, and because they are pacified they are counted the children of God.

For the love of Christ tell me, my dear brothers, I beg you, tell me what is this satisfying peace, so worth loving and desiring, so precious that it ranks higher than all the virtues, is beyond all deserving, surpasses all else, obtains the highest and greatest happiness? Let us question our fellowmen, let us question those companions and intercessors of awe, the holy angels. Let us especially ask God for this wisdom we need so much, for “he gives freely and ungrudgingly”.
Let us seek it through prayer, meditation and reading, and never be discouraged. If only our seeking is in good earnest, the gift will be ours; the truth itself that we seek has guaranteed it to me in the words, “Seek and you shall find”. This is the treasure hidden in the field, the rare pearl that repays the most unwearied search. Cheap at any price, no miser could hoard it too closely. This is that highest of mountains upon which the Son alone had access to the Father as a natural right. Yet having no mind to be the Father’s only heir, he freely chose to have adopted brothers. We should, you will agree, spare no effort to achieve whatever is necessary to become brothers of Christ and sons of God, “heirs of God and coheirs with Christ”

Isaac of Stella. Sermons of the Christian Year: Volume One. CF 11. Trans. Hugh McCaffery. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979, 38-39.

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

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

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

Jim Finley on zoom
2023-01-16 12:30 - 13:00 (America/New_York)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mass
64
311
312
313
314
315
316

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

2nd
1 Cor 1:1-3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mass
20
21
306
307
308
309
310

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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