Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey

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

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

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

Vigils Reading
2023-04-28
THE SACRAMENT OF LOVE
From the spiritual writings of St Alphonsus de Liguori6
People on their death-bed often make a last bequest of an article of clothing or a ring to their friends as a token of their affection. But you, Jesus, as you were on the point of leaving this world, what was the token of love that you left us? It was not an article of clothing or a ring, but your body and your blood, your soul and divinity, your whole self. As St. John Chrysostom expresses it: “He gave you everything, he left himself nothing.”…According to St. Bernardino of Siena, he was not simply ready to die for us, but before dying was constrained by the excess of his love to give us his own body as food.
This sacrament was rightly called by St. Thomas Aquinas “the sacrament and the pledge of love.”… St. Philip Neri could call Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament by no other name than love. When viaticum was brought to him, he was heard to exclaim, “Here is my love, give me my love.”
…When Jesus revealed to his disciples his intention of leaving us this sacrament, they were unable to believe it and abandoned him, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” and “This saying is hard. Who can accept it?”. The great love of Jesus Christ has conceived and brought about what human beings could not imagine or even believe. What is the food, Savior of the world, which you desired to give us before you died? “This is my body”: This is no earthly food, it is I giving myself to you.

…He encourages us by promising us paradise: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”; “Whoever eats this bread will live forever”. He goes as far as threatening us with exclusion from paradise should we refuse: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you”. All of these invitations, promises, and threats are born of his great desire to come to us in this sacrament.
Here is the reason why Jesus desires so much to come in Holy Communion. According to St. Denis, love always aspires and tends toward union, or as St. Thomas puts it, “Lovers desire that the two become one.” He means that people who are truly in love want to be as close to one another as though they were a single person. God’s great love has so arranged things that he gives himself to us not just in the eternal kingdom, but even here below he allows us to possess him in the greatest intimacy possible, by giving himself to us under the appearance of bread in this sacrament. He is like the lover in the Canticle: “Here he stands behind our wall, / gazing through the windows, / peering through the lattices”. Even though we cannot see him in the Eucharist, he sees us and is really present there. He is present so that we can possess him, but hidden in order that we might desire him.
Until such time as we come to our homeland, Jesus wishes to give himself completely to us and to remain completely united with us. That is why St. Francis de Sales said: “Here the Savior is seen at his most tender and loving. Here, he seems to annihilate himself, and to reduce himself to food in order to enter into our souls, and be united with the hearts of his faithful.” St. John Chrysostom says that it was out of his great love for us that Jesus Christ wished to unite himself to us so much in order that we might become the same thing as he is

6 St Alphonsus de Liguori. Selected Writings. Ed. Frederick M. Jones, C.SS.R. New York: Paulist Press, 1999. 118-121.

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Vigils Reading - St Rafael Arnaiz Baron
2023-04-27
THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
a reflection from St Rafael Arnaiz5
The other day, everything seemed dark to me. My somber life, locked up in the infirmary, no sunshine, no light, or anything else that might help me bear the weight that God has thrown down upon my shoulders… Illness, silence, abandonment… My soul was suffering a great deal. Memories of the world and my freedom overwhelmed me… My thoughts were sad and gloomy. I felt no love for God, and I felt forgotten by human beings, with neither faith nor light. My habit weighed upon me… The darkness of the church saddened me… I looked up at the tabernacle, and it had nothing to say to me. I felt dead though alive, trapped within the monastery like a dead man in his grave… worse than that, because at least there’s rest in the grave…
Such was the state of my soul when I went up to receive the Lord. I had just knelt down and was about to ask Jesus to put my spirit to rest when I felt this very great fervor and immense love for Jesus, and completely forgot about everything I’d been thinking about before, because I remembered these words that I believe Jesus gave me at that moment: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
Why attempt to put my soul’s consolation into words?! I nearly wept for joy, finding myself at the feet of Jesus… My hands gripped the crucifix, and my heart longed for death again, but this time for love of Jesus, for love of true life and true freedom… I wanted to die on my knees, embracing the cross, loving God’s will… loving my illness, my confinement, my silence, my darkness, my loneliness.

Loving my sufferings, which in a moment of light, with a little spark of love for God… are so quickly forgotten.
…And so everything began to fade away in the light of the infinite goodness of a God who would lean down toward me to say, “Why are you suffering?… I am your health… I am the Life… What are you searching for here?” Oh, good Jesus… if only people knew what it means to love You on the cross!… If only they had any idea what it means to renounce everything for Your sake! What a joy it is to live without a will of one’s own. What a great treasure it is to be no one and nothing… to be the very last… What a great treasure Jesus’ cross is, and how wonderful it is to live in its embrace… Lord, I want to love Your cross madly… do not permit me to be parted from it.
This is my life as a Cistercian oblate… to suffer, to endure, and to love with abandon everything that God in His infinite goodness wishes to send me… He is the one who is doing it, and if my consolation comes from Him… so too does my pain… How could we not love the one who does it all for our own good? How could we not go mad with joy upon realizing that God is the one who sends us our cross? How could we not adore that blessed cross until our dying day, knowing that it is our only health, resurrection, and life?… All I can say is that I have found true happiness in loving the cross of Christ. I am happy, completely happy, more than anyone could ever imagine, when I embrace the bloodstained cross and realize that Jesus loves me despite my misery, my negligence, and my sins, as does Mary. But I am of no importance… God alone

5 Saint Rafael Arnaiz. The Collected Works. Ed. Sr. Maria Gonzalo-Garcia, OCSO. Trans. Catherine Addington. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2022. 640-642.

Vigils Reading
2023-04-26
JESUS IN THE HOLY EUCHARIST
From the Spiritual Autobiography of St Charles de Foucauld4
Lord Jesus, you are in the Holy Eucharist. You are there, a yard away in the tabernacle. Your body, your soul, your human nature, your divinity, your whole being is there, in its twofold nature. How close you are, my God, my Saviour, my Jesus, my Brother, my Spouse, my Beloved!
You were not nearer to the Blessed Virgin during the nine months she carried you in her womb than you are to me when you rest on my tongue at Holy Communion. You were no closer to the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph in the caves at Bethlehem or the house at Nazareth or during the flight into Egypt, or at any moment of that divine family life than you are to me at this moment – and so many others – in the tabernacle. St. Mary Magdalene was no closer to you when she sat at your feet at Bethany than I am here at the foot of this altar. You were no nearer to your apostles when you were sitting in the midst of them than you are to me now, my God. How blessed I am!
It is wonderful, my Lord, to be alone in my cell and converse there with you in the silence of the night – and you are there as God, and by your grace. But to stay in my cell when I could be before the Blessed Sacrament – why, it would be as though St. Mary Magdalene had left you on your own when you were at Bethany to go and think about you alone in her room! It is a precious and devout thing, O God, to go and kiss the places you made holy during your life on earth – the stones of Gethsemane and Calvary, the ground along the Way of Sorrows, the waves of the sea of Galilee – but to prefer it to your tabernacle would be to desert the Jesus living beside me, to leave him alone, going away alone to venerate the dead stones in places where he is no longer. It would be to leave… the Jesus living at my side to go into another room to greet his portrait…

Wherever the sacred Host is to be found, there is the living God, there is your Saviour, as really as when he was living and talking in Galilee and Judea, as really as he now is in heaven. Never deliberately miss Holy Communion. Communion is more than life, more than all the good things of this world, more than the whole universe: it is God himself…

Vigils Reading - St. Mark
2023-04-25
A LIGHT TO THE GENTILES
From St Thomas Aquinas’s Catena Aurea on the Gospel of St. Mark3
…The Lord after His resurrection, that He might fulfil the will of the Father, sent His disciples to preach, saying, Go ye, and teach all nations; some He sent to the Jews, some received the ministry of preaching to the Gentiles. But because it was right that the Gospel should not only be preached for those who then lived, but also be written for those who were to come, the same distinction is observed in the writers of the Gospel.
For Matthew wrote the Gospel to the Jews in Hebrew, and Mark was the first to write a Gospel amongst the Gentiles… to commit to writing those things which he preached by word of mouth, that they might have a perpetual memorial of them, and might continue both at home and abroad in meditations of this sort upon the word…
Mark, when about to finish his Gospel… says, And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature… It goes on: And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents… and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them… They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover… Are we then without faith because we cannot do these signs? Nay, but these things were necessary in the beginning of the Church, for the faith of believers was to be nourished by miracles, that it might increase. Thus we also, when we plant groves, pour water upon them, until we see that they have grown strong in the earth; but when once they have firmly fixed their roots, we leave off irrigating them… For Holy Church does every day in spirit what then the Apostles did in body; for when her Priests by the grace of exorcism lay their hands on believers, and forbid the evil spirits to dwell in their minds, what do they, but cast out devils? And the faithful who have left earthly words, and whose tongues sound forth the Holy Mysteries, speak a new language; they who by their good warnings take way evil from the hearts of others, take up serpents; and when they are hearing words of pestilent persuasion, without being at all drawn aside to evil doing, they drink a deadly thing, but it will never hurt them; whenever they see their neighbours growing weak in good works, and by their good example strengthen their life, they lay their hands on the sick, that they may recover. And all these miracles are greater in proportion as they are spiritual, and by them souls and not bodies are raised…

Grant then, O Christ, that the good words which we speak may be confirmed by works and deeds, so that at last, Thou working with us in word and in deed, we may be perfect, for Thine as is fitting is the glory both of word and deed. Amen

3 St Thomas Aquinas. Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels Collected out of the Works of the Fathers – Volume II: St. Mark. Trans. St John Henry Cardinal Newman of the Oratory. London: The Saint Austin Press, 1999. 2-3; 345-346, 348-349.

Vigils Reading
2023-04-24
THE TRUE BREAD FROM HEAVEN
From Origen’s treatise On Prayer2
[Jesus] says, “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”. The true bread is He who nourishes the true Man, made in the image of God; and the one who has been nourished by it will come to be in the likeness of Him who Created him. And what is more nourishing to the soul than the Word, or what is more honorable than the Wisdom of God to the mind that holds it? What more rightly corresponds to a rational nature than truth?
But if someone objects to this and says that He would not have taught us to ask for “daily bread” if He meant something else, let him hear that even in the Gospel according to John sometimes He speaks about it as though it were something other than Himself, and sometimes as though He were Himself “bread.” An example of the first is, “Moses gave you bread from heaven, not the true bread, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven”. An example of referring it to Himself is what he says to those who said to him, “Give us this bread always”: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst”
Now all food is called “bread” in Scripture, as is clear from what is written about Moses, “For forty days I neither ate bread nor drank water”. How manifold and varying, then, is the nourishing Word, since not everyone can be nourished by the solid and vigorous food of divine teachings. That is why, when He wishes to offer food for an athlete, suitable for the more perfect, He says, “The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh”, and a little further on, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is true food”. This is the “True food”, the “flesh” of Christ, existing as the Word become flesh… And when we eat and drink Him, He also has dwelt in us.

Just as the corporeal bread distributed to the body of the person to be nourished goes into his being, so also “the living bread which came down from heaven” and is distributed to the mind and the soul gives a share in its own power to the person who provides himself food from it. And thus the bread we ask will be “daily” in the sense that it will be “for our being.”… It procures at one time health, vigor, and strength to the soul; and since the Word of God is immortal, it shares its own immortality with the one who eats it

2 Translated by Rowan A Greer, Classics of Western Spirituality series, New York: Paulist Press, 1979, pp. 138-139.

Vigils Reading - 3rd Sun Easter
2023-04-23
THEY RECOGNIZED JESUS AT THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD
From an unknown Twelfth century author1
Their eyes were opened, and they knew him when he broke the bread. When bread is broken, it is in a way diminished, or “emptied.” By breaking understand the virtue of humility, by which Christ – even he who is the bread of life – broke, diminished, and emptied himself. And by emptying himself he gave us knowledge of himself.
The hidden Wisdom of the Father, and a treasure whole and concealed – what use are they? Break your bread for the hungry, Lord, the bread that is yourself, so that human eyes may be opened, and it may not be regarded as a sin for us to long to be like you, knowing good and evil. Let him who from the beginning wished to strive after or grope for you in your undiminished state, know you through the breaking of bread.
Break yourself that we may learn to break our own selves, for you are not known through the breaking of bread. Balaam heard words of God and saw visions of the Almighty, but he fell with open eyes because he did not know the Lord through the breaking of bread. It is the same today: you see many studying the Scriptures, teaching in their words. With words they claim to have a knowledge of God, but with their deeds they deny it, because God cannot be known except through the breaking of bread.
And in fact, the Lord became our bread and we are his bread. He condescended to eat his bread with sweat on his brow, so that we might eat with joy. If you want to know him, break yourself as he did, because anyone who claims to abide in Christ ought to live as he lived. The kingdom of God lies not in words, but in power.

Break yourself, then, by the labor of obedience, by the humiliation of repentance. Bear in your body the marks of Jesus Christ by accepting the condition of a servant, not of a superior. And when you have emptied yourself, you will know the Lord through the breaking of bread. True humility opens our eyes, “breaking” and diminishing the other virtues which might blind us with a spirit of pride, and teaching us that of ourselves we are nothing. And when we humble ourselves by self-contempt, so much the more do we grow in the knowledge of God

1 Translated by Rowan A Greer, Classics of Western Spirituality series, New York: Paulist Press, 1979, pp. 138-139.

Skema
2023-04-23
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
3rd Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
April 23 – 29, 2023

Sun
23
Mon
24
Tue
25
Wed
26
Thu
27
Fri
28
Sat
29

Office
3rd Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
St Mark
Easter Weekday
St Rafael Arnaiz Baron
Easter Weekday
St Catherine of Siena

Vigils
Rev 6:1-17
Rev 7:1-17
Eph 4:1-16
Rev 9:1-12
Rev 9:13-21
Rev 10:1-11
Rev 11:1-19

Lauds
Eph 3:7-13
Eph 3:14-21
Sir 51:13-22
Eph 4:17-24
Eph 4:25-32
Eph 5:1-5
Eph 5:6-14

Mass
46
273
555
275
276
277
278

1st
Acts 2:14, 22-33
Acts 6:8-15
1 Pet 5:5b-14
Acts 8:1b-8
Acts 8:26-40
Acts 9:1-20
Acts 9:31-42

2nd
1 Pet 1:17-21

Gospel
Luke 24:13-35
John 6:22-29
Mark 16:15-20
John 6:35-40
John 6:44-51
John 6:52-59
John 6:60-69

Vespers
Acts 9:1-9
Acts 9:10-19a
2 Tim 4:1-11
Acts 9:23-31
Acts 10:1-8
Acts 10:9-16
Acts 10:17-28

Vigils Reading - Blessed Maria Gabriella
2023-04-22
FROM THE LETTERS OF BLESSED MARIA GABRIELLA
And her abbess Mother Maria Pia7 ◊◊◊
Letter One – Easter, 1939
Dearest Mamma, I write these lines to send you my last thoughts and my last
farewell. The Divine Bridegroom has renewed the invitation, and the longed-for day approaches. I do not say the day of my death, but the day when, loosed from the bands of this miserable flesh, I can finally move on from this life to the happy and blessed life of heaven. The separation from the body is not a death but a transition to real life. Rejoice, oh my Mother, because there will be no more enclosure, and I, although you will not see me, I will come and visit you and hug you so much, as my love for you grows more and more. Be at peace because up there I will be much more useful to you than I could be here; there I will see clearly all your needs, and I will intercede more with the Lord…
I wish indeed that the same day you receive the news, you will all go to Mass and Communion and pray for me and thank the Lord very much for the graces he has given me and for his predilections in my regard… I still recommend that you remain tranquil and happy in the Lord. Pray for me and commend me to the prayers of our relatives and acquaintances to whom I am sending with you my final greeting. One last time I ask everyone for forgiveness for any offenses that I may have caused. I embrace you tightly in the heart of Jesus, together with all the family.
Always your daughter, Sister Maria Gabriella ◊◊◊
Letter Two – Wednesday, April 26, 1939
Dear Mrs. Sagheddu, How much you must have waited for this letter from me!
With it comes the last letter written by your daughter, who wrote it according to my

advice, and she agreed that I would send it to you after her passage to the heavenly kingdom.
For Thursday the twentieth, Mother Maria Gabriella had a significant worsening. Already since Easter we were keeping vigil with her at night, even though she did not want to disturb us… Her body of twenty-five years and two months fought with strong resistance. But she was suffering with such docility and resignation. Consenting to acts of acceptance, love, and offering that we suggested to her, Saturday night seemed to be her last, but she was fully conscious. She asked with that small voice that was soon clear, “Communion, if possible, if possible.” It was brought to her again as Viaticum. She recovered a bit… But we remained all night, the nurse, two sisters, and I… and the Father Chaplain, who wanted to stay, despite his advanced age, not wishing to leave her without accompanying her to the last breath… That Saturday…all during the night she suffered greatly, indeed, like a lamb…
At half past five, very tranquilly, she ceased to breathe. She lowered her eyelids – as when she was unable to speak, to say, “Yes.” Then she raised her eyelids again. She was already with her Lord, whom she loved so much that she offered the sacrifice of her young life for the union of the separated churches. It was GoodShepherd Sunday, and the gospel spoke thus: “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also.” Signora, cry pure tears: you are her Mother. But give thanks, give thanks to the Lord. Yesterday we had the burial ceremony… Now she rests in the tomb of the monastery, which is located under the presbytery, and her coffin is place just below the altar… I will send you a rosary that when she was sick, I put into her hands, saying that I would later send it to her mother. “Thank you,” she replied gratefully…
May Jesus bless you… Sister Maria Pia, o.c.r

7 Blessed Gabriella Sagheddu. The Letters of Blessed Maria Gabriella: With the Notebooks of Mother Pia Gullini. MW 57. Trans. David Lavich, OCSO. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2019. 132-135.

Vigils Reading - St Anselm
2023-04-21
THE ENTOMBMENT AND RESURRECTION
From the meditations of St Anselm6 ◊◊◊
… Leave not Mary Magdalene, but court her society, help her to prepare the spices, and come with her betimes to the Lord’s sepulchre. O, may you merit to see with the eye of the soul, as she did by bodily vision, now an angel sitting on the stone which he had rolled away from the door of the monument; and now again, within the monument, two, one at the head, and one at the feet, preaching the Resurrection and its glories; and yet again Jesus Himself, refreshing the sad and tearful Magdalene with eyes so gentle, and saying with voice so sweet, ‘Mary.’ At this word all the cataracts of her soul are broken loose, and tears are distilled from her very marrow, and sighs and sobs from her heart’s inmost recess. ‘Mary.’ O happy thou! What were thy thoughts, thy heart, thy soul, when, in answer to this word, flinging thyself at His Feet, and greeting Him in return, thou sayest ‘Rabboni!’ What were the emotions, what the yearnings, what the ardours of thy soul, when thou sayest ‘Rabboni’? Tears prevent more, emotion chokes thy voice, and excess of love absorbs every sense of mind and body.
But why, my dear Jesus, dost Thou drive me, loving Thee as I do, from Thy sacred and so longed-for Feet? ‘Touch Me not,’ Thou sayest. Why, O Lord, why? Why may I not touch those all-desired Feet of Thine, that were burrowed through with nails and drenched with Blood? Why may I not touch them, and caress them with a thousand kisses? What! Is He less my Friend now that He is more glorious? See, I will not let Thee go; I will not leave Thee; I will not spare my tears; my heart shall break with sighs and sobs unless I touch Thee. But He says, ‘Touch Me not.’ This blessing shall not be refused thee, though it be delayed; go only, and tell My brethren that I have risen again. She ran quickly, wishing to return quickly; she returns, but not alone; there are other women with her. And Jesus goes to meet them, and with gentlest greeting raises them from their dejection and consoles their sorrow. And see; what was deferred before is granted now. For ‘they came up, and took hold of His Feet, and worshipped Him’. Linger here, virgin, as long as you can, and neither let sleep break in upon your joys, nor any exterior distraction interrupt it

6 St Anselm. Book of Meditations and Prayers. Trans. M.R. London: Burns and Oates, 1872. 217-220.

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Vigils Reading
2023-04-20
THE FIRSTBORN OF THE DEAD
By Geoffrey of Auxerre5 ◊◊◊
He arose from the dead, the first fruits of those who sleep, so that death may no longer have dominion over him who is the first to pass through death to immortality. And he is the firstborn among many brethren, who, dead to the world and dead to sin, by adoption are born to God… By his godhead he is the only-begotten; in his humanity he deigned to become the firstborn, giving to those who receive him the power to become children of God that they may be heirs of God and joint heirs with himself…
He loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood. My brothers, we should listen closely to these words, and pay careful attention, because they concern the mystery of our redemption and of our welfare. We must diligently study four matters: the source, the work, the cause, and the means they commend. The source: God and man; the work: our cleansing from our sins; the cause: love; the means: by his own blood. The source’s divinity commends glory, his humanity increases our affection. His divinity draws our attentive souls upward; devout consideration of his humanity spreads to all people everywhere so that a person may communicate it to all his fellow humans for whom the God-man deigned to give himself up.
The work is the abolition of our sins, a work possible only to him. The greatest sinners used to say of it: ‘ Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ A difficult work, but of no little effect; a great work, and greatly needed for everyone touched by the stain of sin. Moreover, unless people receive complete forgiveness of their sins while still alive, so that after death they can be expiated by others, unforgiven faults and indelible stains will produce undying worms, so that the unquenchable fire can neither cleanse the stains nor destroy the worms…

During the first years of my conversion, a lay brother named Yves, who was very devout, lay dying at the monastery of Clairvaux. To a brother who was visiting him, one who is still alive today and can bear witness today, he said: ‘An angel of the Lord appeared to me, showing me his beautiful and joyful countenance as I lay here in my weakness. And he said, “You humans do well to desire the sight and presence of the Lord. If you knew how much he loves you, how much he wants you, with what longing he waits for you, you would hurry to him with far more fervent affection.”’ These were his last words, to which his serene summons, which immediately followed, bore sufficiently trustworthy testimony. But if you do not believe the word of an angel, or the words of a man soon to go to God, believe the works of the Lord, believe the condescension by which the Word became flesh for your sakes. God became a human for the sake of humans. Believe the bloodshed of the New Testament, believe him suffering, believe him dying and descending into hell, ‘for love is strong as death, and jealousy as hard as hell’. No greater human love exists than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends… So that you may realize how exceedingly he loves you, look, he gives a gift you can appreciate deeply, a gift he purchases with the great price of his blood, his death, his cross.
What a marvelous thing, beloved, if we can only keep thus firmly in mind the source, the work, the cause, and the means of our salvation, that this more than threefold cord may not be broken in us without difficulty. If only these thoughts can draw, can entice, can firmly fasten and indissolubly bind and inseparably bind us to our Saviour

5 Geoffrey of Auxerre: On the Apocalypse. CF 42. Trans. Joseph Gibbons, CSSP. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2000. 37-41.

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Vigils Reading
2023-04-19
ROOTED IN LOVE
From the spiritual writings of the 13th century anchoress Ancrene Wisse4 ◊◊◊
God has earned our love in every kind of way… He gave us all the world in Adam our first father… He did even more… “Christ,” says St. Paul, “so loved his beloved that he paid for her the price of himself.” Pay close attention, my dear sisters, to why one ought to love him: first, as a man who woos, like a king who loved a noble poor lady of a far land… Hereby hangs a tale, a parable with a hidden meaning.
A lady was completely surrounded by her enemies, her land all ruined, and she completely destitute, inside an earthen castle. Nevertheless, the love of a mighty king was turned to her so passionately that by way of courtship he sent his messengers, one after the other, often many together. He sent her many beautiful presents, provisions to keep her alive, the help of his noble army to hold her castle. She received it all like one who did not care, and was so hard-hearted that he could never come any nearer to her love… He came himself in the end… spoke so sweetly, and such happy words they could raise the dead to life again. He worked miracles, and performed many acts of power before her eyes, revealed to her his might, told her of his kingdom, asked to make her queen of all he had. All this was no use. Is this contempt not strange? For she was never worthy to be his handmaiden. But in his graciousness love had so overcome him that in the end he said:
“Lady, you are beleaguered, and your enemies are so strong that you can in no way escape from their hands without my help. So that they do not put you to shameful death after all your grief, for the love of you I will take this fight upon myself, and rid you of those who seek your death. Yet I know it to be true that I will receive from them my death-wound – and I wish it with all my heart, to win your heart. Now then, I beseech you, for the love I show you, that you love me at least after this deed, dead, when you would not living.”

The king did everything just so: he rid her of all her enemies and was himself cruelly abused and finally killed – yet through a miracle he arose from death to life. Would not this same lady be of an evil sort of nature if she did not love him ever after over all things?
This king is Jesus, God’s Son, who in just this way wooed our souls, which the devil had surrounded; and he, like a noble wooer, after many messengers and many presents, came to prove his love, and showed through chivalry that he was worthy of love, as knights were at one time accustomed to do… And for love of his love had his shield pierced on every side in the fight, like a brave knight. His shield, which covered his Godhead, was his beloved body which was spread on the cross, broad like a shield above in his stretched arms, and narrow beneath where the one foot…was set upon the other.
“But Lord,” you say, “why? Could he not have delivered us with less pain?” Yes indeed, very easily, but he would not… A thing little loved is easily bought. He bought us with his heart’s blood – never was a price dearer – to draw out our love toward him, that cost him so bitterly… After a brave knight’s death, his shield ishung high in church in his memory. So is this shield, that is, the crucifix, set high in church in such a place where it is soonest seen, to bring to mind Jesus Christ’s chivalry, which he performed on the cross. His beloved should see by it how he bought her love, letting his shield be pierced, his side opened to show her his heart, to show her openly how deeply he loved her, and to draw out her heart.

Vigils Reading
2023-04-18
VICTORY AS THE FRUIT OF SACRIFICE
from a book by Fr. Yves Congar3 ◊◊◊
The victory of the Lamb springs from its sacrifice. This is proclaimed in the canticles of both the elders and the angels: “Worthy are you to take the book and break its seals, for you have been slain and by your blood have purchased for God men from every tribe and tongue, and people and nation.” “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing”.
The Apocalypse in this instance expresses the unanimous theology of the books of the New Testament which unite Christ’s triumph and glory with his humiliation and Passion. The Son of man had to be lifted up as the serpent was lifted up in the desert in order that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “He humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal. That is why God has now lifted him so high and has given him the name beyond all names”. But no words more aptly express the connection between the cross and glory than those in the story of the disciples of Emmaus on the evening of Easter Day: “Was it not fated that the Christ should suffer thus, and then should come into his glory?”.
The factor that is common to these passages is the affirmation of a conjunction between the cross and the self-sacrifice on the one hand, and the power of communicating life on the other… between Good Friday and Easter Day. Thus in our “new creation”, the cross … becomes the true and new tree of life…

This connection between sacrifice and victory, death and life, seems to me to express a kind of inner law that is natural to life “in Christ.” I have been amazed at the constant recurrence of life springing from death, at the foot of the cross, and the cross alone destroys the pride of life in us and releases the energies of that life which is hidden with Christ in God. Trial is the condition of renewal and progress. “For your sake we are killed all the day long; we were accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we win an overwhelming victory through him who has proved his love for us”

3 The Revelation of God, New York-London, 1968, pp. 105-106.

Vigils reading
2023-04-17
THE FAITH THAT OVERCOMES THE WORLD
from a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux2 ◊◊◊
…“All that is born of God triumphs over the world.” For the world hates both Christ and those who belong to Christ, but it is also overcome by them with Christ’s help… The truth of Paul’s words thus becomes perfectly clear: “All those whom he (God the Father) has known from the first, he has destined to be shaped to theimage of his son”. Notice the “shaping.” It is after Christ that they are adopted, so that he is the first-born of many brothers: it is after Christ that the world hates them: it is after Christ that the world is conquered by them.
It is right, then, to say that what is born of God triumphs over the world, and thus the proof of our heavenly birth is victory over temptation. Just as the natural son triumphed over the world and its prince, so we also who are sons by adoption emerge as victors. Yes, victors, but only in him who strengthens us an in whom wecan do all things. For “our faith is the victory which prevails over the world.”
For it is by faith that we are adopted among the sons of God: it is our faith that the world, submerged in wickedness, hates and prosecutes: and it is by faith that the world is conquered. As the Scripture says, “Saints have conquered kingdoms by faith”. Surely our victory is to be attributed to faith, for faith owns our very life: “The just man lives by faith”. So each time that you resist temptation, each time you prevail over evil, do not attribute it to your own strength. Congratulate not yourself but the Lord. For in what circumstances would the armed and brace prince yield before your weakness? In short, listen to the warning of the shepherd appointed to tend the Lord’s fold: “Your enemy the devil goes around like a raging lion seeking someone to devour. Bravely resist him by your faith”. You see how all these evidences of the truth are in harmony. Paul says that the saints have conquered kingdoms by faith. Peter says that we must resist the prince of this world by faith. And John says: “Our faith is the victory which prevails over the world.”

Next we read: “For who can conquer the world except him who believes that Jesus is the son of God”? Any person, brethren, who does not believe in the Son of God is undoubtedly both conquered and judged through this disbelief. For without faith we cannot please God… If a man is not terrified by Christ’s threats nor attracted by his promises, if a man does not obey his commands nor fall in with his designs, does he really believe that Jesus is the Son of God? In fact, even if he proclaims that he knows God, he denies it by his actions. Besides, faith without works is dead. It can hardly seem surprising if such a man fails to conquer, for he is not even alive.
You ask what is a lively and victorious faith. It is undoubtedly the faith through which Christ lives in our hearts. For Christ is our strength and our life. Paul says: “When Christ your life appears, you too will appear in glory with him”. The source of that glory will surely be our victory. We shall appear with him because our victory is won in him. In short, the power to become sons of God is given only to those who acknowledge Christ, and to these only must we apply the words “Every man who is born of God triumphs over the world.

2 Sermo in Octava Paschae 1. – PL 83, 291-294. Trans. in The Way 4 (1964), 66-67.

Compline
2023-04-16 19:25 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Sunday, April 16, 7:25 pm
Zoom Link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/3917499727

Vigils Reading - 2nd Sun Easter
2023-04-16
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN, YET BELIEVE
From the writings of Fr. Romano Guardini1 ◊◊◊
And Jesus said to Thomas, “You have learned to believe, Thomas, because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have learned to believe!” Such words as these are really extraordinary! Thomas believed because he saw. But Our Lord did not call him blessed. He had been allowed to “see,” to see the hands and the side, and to touch the blessed wounds, yet he was not blessed!
Perhaps Thomas had a narrow escape from a great danger. He wanted proofs, wanted to see and touch; but then, too, it might have been rebellion deep within him, the vainglory of an intelligence that would not surrender, a sluggishness and coldness of heart. He got what he asked for: a look and a touch. But it must have been a concession he deplored having received, when he thought on it afterwards. He could have believed and been saved, not because he got what he demanded; he could have believed because God’s mercy had touched his heart and given him the grace of interior vision, the gift of the opening of the heart, and of its surrender.
God could also have let him stay with the words he had spoken: in that state of unbelief which cuts itself off from everything, that insists on human evidence to become convinced. In that case he would have remained an unbeliever and gone on his way. In that state, external seeing and touching would not have helped him at all, he simply would have called it delusion. Nothing that comes from God, even the greatest miracle, proves out like 2 x 2.

It touches one; it is only seen and grasped when the heart is open and the spirit is purged of self. Then it awakens faith…
Thomas was standing a hair’s breadth away from obduracy and perdition. He was not at all blessed.
Blessed indeed are “those who have not seen, and yet have learned to believe!” Those who ask for no miracles, demand nothing out of the ordinary, but who find God’s message in everyday life. Those who require no compelling proofs, but who know that everything coming from God must remain in a certain ultimate suspense, so that faith may never cease to require daring. Those who know that the heart is not overcome by faith, that there is no force or violence there, compelling belief by rigid certitudes. What comes from God touches gently, comes quietly; does not disturb freedom; leads to quiet, profound, peaceful resolve within the heart. And those are called blessed who make the effort to remain openhearted. Who seek to cleanse their hearts of all self-righteousness, obstinacy, presumption, inclination to “know better.” Who are quick to heart, humble, free-spirited… Blessed are those who can see the Lord in all these things

1 Jesus Christus, Chicago 1959, 101-104.

2023-04-16
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
2nd Week of Easter

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
April 16 – 22, 2023

Sun
16
Mon
17
Tue
18
Wed
19
Thu
20
Fri
21
Sat
22

Office
2nd Sunday of Easter
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
Easter Weekday
St Anselm
Bl Maria Gabriella

Vigils
Col 3:1-17
Rev 1:1-20
Rev 2:1-11
Rev 2:12-29
Rev 3:1-22
Rev 4:1-11
Rev 5:1-14

Lauds
Eph 1:1-10
Eph 1:11-14
Eph 1:15-23
Eph 2:1-10
Eph 2:11-18
Eph 2:19-22
Eph 3:1-6

Mass
43
267
268
269
270
271
272

1st
Acts 2:42-47
Acts 4:23-31
Acts 4:32-37
Acts 5:17-26
Acts 5:27-33
Acts 5:34-42
Acts 6:1-7

2nd
1 Pet 1:3-9

Gospel
John 20:19-31
John 3:1-8
John 3:7b-15
John 3:16-21
John 3:31-36
John 6:1-15
John 6:16-21

Vespers
Acts 5:12-16
Acts 5:27-32
Acts 6:8-15
Acts 7:51-60
Acts 8:1b-8
Acts 8:9-13
Acts 8:14-25

Cleveland LCG Meeting
2023-04-15 15:00 - 16:30
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Chicago community 9:00 am CDT. Zoom
2023-04-15 09:00 - 12:00
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9:00 Gather for Opening prayer and lighting of the candles illuminating the Theotokos icon of Blessed Mother Mary and the baby Jesus.
We also pray for all our lay Cistercian sisters and brothers in the US and around the world. Specially we pray for our Gethsemani monks. Finally, we pray this month specially for these Gethsemani monks:
Fr. Elias Dietz
Br. John Zuber
Fr. Anton Rusnak
9:10 Lectio. Our lectio piece will be led by Mary Ann Dier-Zimmermann.
9:50 Reading. Our reading this month is More Than You Could Ever Imagine by Bernie Owens, SJ.
10:45 Housekeeping. Volunteer to lead lectio next month? Report on LCG Advisory Council activity; host October LCG retreat (Gethsemani 175th Anniversary—involve the monastic community?). Select reading for May.
11:00 Update. Share how the Holy Spirt has entered our lives as lay Cistercians since our last meeting. How goes our Lenten experience?
11:45 Closing worship and prayer. We will pray the liturgical hour of None as with our Gethsemani monks (identical Psalms as done today at Gethsemani Abbey.)

Vigils Reading - Easter Saturday
2023-04-15
Death is Swallowed Up in Victory7
A sermon by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
…We do not like to speak of victories in our lives. It is too large a word for us. We have suffered too many defeats in our lives. Too many hours of weakness and too many crude sins have reduced victory to nothing. But, isn’t it true, the spirit within us longs for this word, yearns for the final victory over sin, over the anxious fear of death in our lives. And now God’s word does not speak to us about our victory. It does not promise us that from now on we will be victorious over sin and death. It does say with all power, however, that someone has won this victory, and that this one will also win the victory over us when we have him as our Lord. It is not we who are victorious but Jesus.
Today, we proclaim and believe this, against everything that we see around us, against the graves of our loved ones, against the dying nature outdoors, against the death that the war casts over us once again. We see the reign of death, but we preach and believe in the victory of Jesus Christ over death. Death is swallowed up in victory. Jesus is victor, resurrection of the dead, and eternal life.
…Death and sin puff themselves up and instill fear in humankind, as if they were still the rulers of the world. But it is only an illusion. They have long since lost their power. Jesus has taken it from them… Hell no longer has any power over us who are with Jesus. They are powerless. They still rage like a vicious dog on a chain, but they cannot get at us, because Jesus holds them fast. He remains the victor.
But, we ask ourselves, if that is the case, why does it appear so completely different in our life? Why does one see so little of this victory? Why do sin and death rule so terribly over us? Indeed, this very question is God’s question to you: I have done all this for you, and you live as if nothing has happened! You submit yourselves to sin and fear of death as if they could still enslave you! Why is there so little victory in your life? Because you do not want to believe that Jesus is the victor over death and sin, over your lives. Your unbelief brings about your defeat. But now the victory of Jesus is proclaimed again to you today in the Lord’s Supper: the victory over sin and death for you, too whoever you may be. Seize it in faith… Sin need not rule over you any longer. Jesus will rule over you, and he is stronger than every temptation. Jesus will be victorious in the hour of your trial and fear of death, and you will confess: Jesus has become the victor over my sin, over my death. Whenever you abandon this belief, you will have to sink and succumb, sin and die. Whenever you seize this belief, Jesus will keep the victory.

…Do we believe in the power of death and sin, or do we believe in the power of Jesus Christ? There can be only one of these two beliefs. In the past century, there was a man of God who during his life had often preached the victory of Jesus Christ and done wonderful things in his name. As he lay in great torment and distress on his deathbed, his son bent over toward his ear and called to the dying man, “Father, victory is won.” When dark hours and when the darkest hour comes over us, then we want to hear the voice of Jesus Christ calling in our ear: victory is won. Death is swallowed up in victory. Take comfort. And may God grant that then we will be able to say: I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. It is in this faith that we want to live and die..

7 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ed. Isabel Best. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012. 208-210.

Easter Friday
2023-04-14
A Sermon for Easter6
by St Aelred of Rievaulx
As our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to be born for us, to be tempted for us, to be beaten for us, and to die for us, so also did he deign to rise for us. Yet his temptation, scourging, death and entombment belong to our redemption; his resurrection strengthens our hope. For by the former he paid for us what we owed, by the latter he showed us what to hope for. Just as by the death of his flesh he freed our soul from death, so by the scourging he took he freed us from the scourging of our soul. For without a doubt, we were in the scourging and we were in the tomb, and whatever he himself suffered in the body is what we have suffered in the soul.
Let us now consider the order of the passion and thereby arrive at the glory of the resurrection. First Judas betrayed him with a kiss… Listen to the kiss: Taste and you will be like gods. This kiss had sweetness and delight on the outside, but poison lay concealed within. After this kiss we were bound. How? Without doubt, by our own inordinate desires. For as Scripture says. The woman, seeing that the tree was beautiful to see and sweet to eat, took and ate from it. At first, therefore, she was as if seduced by a kind of sweet kiss – certainly it tasted sweet to the soul to be like gods. But afterwards she was so bound by her inordinate desires that she could not restrain herself, even if she hoped for no other advantage from it.
Thus bound, humanity was handed over to Caiaphas, that is, to cupidity, whose servants and attendants veiled his face. For who are the servants of cupidity except the vices themselves, which veiled humans’ face so that they could not perceive the true sun, true justice? They were veiled as it were by two bonds, that of ignorance and that of inordinate desire. For these two make a human being totally blind…

After this he was handed over to Pilate, that is, to the devil, prince of this world. In a marvelous way the demons themselves ridiculed the human species in their midst when a man being mocked by one devil was handed over to another for mockery… Mocked by unclean spirits, people have been led to such perversity that they enjoy it when they do evil and exult in the worst things… He was thus crowned with thorns, because <man’s> glory and honor were in his own iniquities. For the more prone <man> was to perverse and crude things, and the more he leaned toward all vices, the more he appeared to glory in himself…
At last he died and was buried. He died because he was separated from God. He was buried because he had reached a point of contempt for God. Even if people are vicious and sinful, inasmuch as they confess and recognize their sin, they are not punished by death. When, however, they advance so far in their evil life that they neither recognize nor confess their sin, then they are dead from deep within. As it is written, confession is as far from death as if it were not. Moreover they go so far as to be oblivious of God and hold him in contempt, even despairing of his mercy, they are buried. About this point Scripture says. The impious man when he came into the depths of evil was contemptuous.
Because we had suffered all these things in the soul, our Lord Jesus Christ wished to suffer all of them in his body and, through the sufferings of his body, to cure the sufferings of our soul. And because Christ suffered all these things for us, so that he then rose from the dead, without a doubt where he rose we too have risen. If therefore you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above… And who are those who rise with Christ except those who share in all that Christ has suffered

6 Aelred of Rievaulx – Kiturgical SZermons – Liturgical Press – Collegeville, MN – 2016 – pg 102

Easter Thursday
2023-04-13
Christ’s New Birth from the Tomb5
From “The Names of Christ” by Luis de León
…There was no natural force that could give heat and life to a cold body enclosed in a grave, nor was there any normal way to bring blood back to His veins, humors to His body. It was only the wonderful powers of God that could bring heat where ice was, fullness where emptiness reigned, tie together what had been set apart and broken. Christ’s soul was full of God’s essence, which helped God’s movement toward Christ: Christ’s soul became full to the brim with God’s presence, warmth, and glory, penetrated every pore of Christ’s body and made both body and soul shine with His glory to the point that they outshone the sun’s rays, the sun’s golden light… For God’s infinite light reverberated in Christ’s soul,and the soul shed its light into the body, and the body then became a beacon of God’s ever-expanding light.
And we read that Christ was born then ‘in adornment of holiness,’ because when He was thus born out of His tomb He was not the only one born, as had happened when He was born out of Mary, but rather with Him and in Him many other people resplendent in life, glory, and holiness were also born. He brought into a wider horizon of light and freedom many people who were imprisoned in the old law of Abraham and… managed to gather together all His friends and disciples in a spiritual embrace, and He gathered all of them into Himself in such a way that in the death that His mortal flesh was to suffer all the evil and sinful part of their flesh would also die. Condemned to die, it was to be reborn into glory and justice… This is why in a beautiful metaphor and paradox Christ says about Himself and His new birth, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit’. Because when a grain has been sowed, if it becomes full of soil’s humidity and the juices of the earth, it becomes pregnant, rots, and out of its womb come a thousand others seeds, a whole ear of corn or of wheat…

We see then that when Christ rose like the sun from His sepulcher this meant that it was not only a ray of sunlight that was arising and shining at that moment, but rather many rays, many shining splendors, life itself, and the very future of the world, being embraced and enhanced by Christ. Joy, birth, a new birth for all of us: a wonderful birth in which we were all reborn, and moreover one that overcame death, anguish, despair. By contrast with darkness light shines brighter. The anguishing hours before such a birth, hours of despair and death, enhance such a birth, since out of suffering, misery, grief, came out victory and life. A paradox: By falling down Christ rose up, out of death life arose and conquered the heavens. In such a manner, we conclude that the deeper the roots, the higher the plant that grows out of such roots, and in a parallel way out of an experience, so deep and poignant, of agony and despair, Christ came to know an existence of bliss

5 Luis de León. The Names of Christ. Trans. Manuel Durán and William Kluback. New York: Paulist Press, 1984. 293-295.

Easter Wednesday
2023-04-12
An Easter Reflection4
by a Carthusian
He is there, the Lord, beside us, the same and yet different. He takes part in our usual activities, he watches the fishing, he eats with us around the fire, he walks with us along the road, he explains the Scriptures to us, he shares our bread. But he has changed, and at first we do not recognize him. Then, a familiar continuity with Jesus of Nazareth. He bears the marks of the nails in his hands, but he is Lord and God; to him all power in heaven and on earth is given.
We hesitate, we hang on to the familiar contours of the sadness that followed the ruination of our hopes. It is painful, but it is within our reach, ‘we are well-versed in it’… Why disturb [us] with your light that is too pure, your life that is too strong, your love that is too demanding? If we agree to believe – again! – to what suffering, to what disappointment are we opening the door? We will be changed, everything will have to be begun again, we will be obliged to open our heart, to throw ourselves into a life of love, and suffering lies in wait on the road… A dead Christ leaves the world to us – a world that does not amount to much, but is within our reach. A living Christ, present – that changes everything… It opens onto an abyss from all sides. We are no longer sufficient to ourselves…
The Lord Speaks
Do not be afraid! I love you exactly as you are. I have taken your weaknesses upon myself, I shared them, all except your sin… Your weaknesses remain, so that my power in you may appear as coming from me and your pride may not appropriate it. The effort, the risk, the responsibility of your freedom remain, so that… you may come to me of your own accord. I want you to have a share in my entire mystery, not only in my glory, but in my laboriously lived love and in my death. In that way, life will pass through you to your brothers. Your powerlessness to love truly with all your heart, that will also remain, but only to the extent that you must learn to climb the road of love… not to count on your own strength to love, so that you let me love in you.

For that is the ultimate answer to all your doubts. What I bring you is the gift of my risen life, my light which sees the Father face to face, my love which is the love of the Father in me and my love in the Father; a love which is the bond of communion in the Trinity of God, and between you and all your brothers in my body, the Church. You have only to open up by faith so that the divine power of this light-life-love may unfold freely in you…
The meaning of life, the meaning of time, is to strain towards that final victory, not to realise it fully in your life… A poor man, rich in love, in my love for you. I give you my poverty: be my love. Love! That is the substance of eternal life. It is already present, because I am present, to the extent of your faith and your love

4 From Advent to Pentecost: Carthusian Novice Conferences. CS 188. Trans. Carmel Brett. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1999. 142-145.

Easter Tuesday
2023-04-11
The Self-Revelation of the Risen Christ3
from the writings of Caryl Houselander
In the five recorded incidents of Christ appearing in his Risen Body, he allowed each of those to whom he showed himself to discover that it was he in their own way, through their own medium. His approach to them, always exquisite in courtesy, miraculous in humility, was in each case one that showed his intimate knowledge of each one individually. He knew which would be the most natural way for that particular person to respond to his love, and what each needed to lift his or her heart from the sorrow or shame which was crushing it and restore it to the joy that would enable it to enter into communion with him.
To Mary Magdalene the revelation was a word of tenderness, and at the same time of restraint, followed immediately by entrusting her with the news of his Resurrection to give to his apostles.
A woman whose experience had been the opposite to Magdalene’s — one who had lived a sheltered, protected life, a life of virtue, who had always been esteemed by her contemporaries, who could not even imagine what it is like to be held in contempt, to hold oneself in contempt, to be regarded even by those who love one as being capable only of emotionalism and instability — simply could not have understood the sheer glory it must have been to Magdalene to be asked by Christ for the pure, supernatural love implied by his words, following that intimate utterance of her name -“Mary”: “Do not cling to me thus; I have not yet gone up to my Father’s side”. And then, to be given a commission which could only be entrusted to one whom he knew to be levelheaded and wholly trustworthy, and which was the final message of Christ’s Incarnation and Resurrection to the whole world. “Return to my brethren, and tell them this, I am going up to him who is my Father and your Father, who is my God and your God”.

There was no proof needed for Magdalene other than the stirring of life in her own heart in response to the illimitable courtesy of Christ’s love for her; but it was otherwise with the apostles. Those amazingly incredulous men, who had been warned, who had had the prophecies that were to be fulfilled pointed out to them, who had been told that Christ would rise on the third day, who had actually seen him raise another man from the dead, were still unconvinced, they frankly disbelieved Magdalene and, as men are so apt to do when faced by the courage of a woman’s love, they thought that she was, at least temporarily, insane. They were frightened, trembling for their own lives, bewildered by what had happened and by what might be going to happen, and they locked themselves up “for fear of the Jews.”
Christ knew their need — their need for reassurance, for courage; that they must be calmed like frightened children: he knew the turmoil within them, like the tossing waves of the sea which he had once calmed with a word; so he came secretly yet wonderfully through the doors, and his first word was “Peace!” He knew too the smarting humiliation of their failure through weakness in his hour of need, and once again the genius of his human love shines out; they are given the power to forgive, to absolve sin, to strengthen and comfort the weak, and to reunite the scattered, frightened world of sinners to himself. “With that, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. When you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven, when you hold them bound, they are held bound’”.

3 The Risen Christ, New York 1958; pp. 39-45.

Easter Monday
2023-04-10
On the Resurrection2
From the “Songs for the Fast and Pascha” by St Ephrem the Syrian
See the cheerful feast day… Voices with voices woven, and all of them have risen up to reach heaven… Blessed are the silent who have thundered forth through him!
See how the earth has thundered forth below, and above, heaven has thundered forth! / April has mixed voices with voices: exalted ones with low ones, / voices of the sanctified church mixed with the thunder of divinity, / and amidst the glow of its lamps are mixed flashes of lightning. / With the rain, the passion’s weeping, and with the field, the fast of Pascha.
In the same way, on the ark, every voice shouted joyfully from every mouth. / Outside were terrible waves, but inside were beautiful voices… Glory to the Lord of the ark!
At this feast, when each has brought his victorious deeds as his offerings, / I lamented for myself, my master, for I saw that I stand [here] meagerly. / My intellect, moistened by your dew, became an April anew… Blessed is the cloud that has poured down upon me!…
Exquisite, eloquent flowers did the children scatter before the king: / the donkey was crowned with them, the road was full of them. / Praises did they scatter like flowers, and melodies like lilies. / Now, too, in [this] feast, / the assembly of children scatters for you, my Lord, / Hallelujahs like blossoms. Blessed is he who was praised by the young!…

Let us summon and call the victorious martyrs, apostles, and prophets, / whose blossoms are like them: victorious are their flowers, / and rich are their roses, the sweet fragrance of their lilies / they gather from the garden of delights, and bring lovely flowers / to crown our beautiful feast. Glory to you from [all] the blessed!
The crowns of kings are impoverished before the richness of your crown, / in which purity is plaited, in which faith shines, / in which humility gleams, in which holiness is woven. / in which great love glimmers. See how perfect is the beauty of your crown…
Our King, receive our offering, and give us salvation in its stead! / Bring peace to the lands which were ruined, build up the churches which were burned, / so that when there is great peace [again], we may plait for you a great crown, / as blossoms and those who plait them come in from all sides, / that the Lord of peace might be crowned. Blessed is he who has acted and can act

2 St. Ephrem the Syrian. The Fathers of the Church: Songs for the Fast and Pascha. Trans. Joshua Falconer, Blake Hartung, and J. Edward Walters. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. 195-199.

Easter Sunday
2023-04-09
He is Risen1
From the writings of Thomas Merton
The risen life is not easy; it is also a dying life. The presence of the Resurrection in our lives means the presence of the Cross, for we do not rise with Christ unless we also first die with him. It is by the Cross that we enter the dynamism of creative transformation, the dynamism of resurrection and renewal, the dynamism of love. The teaching of St. Paul is centered entirely on the Resurrection. How many Christians really understand what St. Paul is talking about when he tells us that we have “died to the Law” in order to rise with Christ? How many Christians dare to believe that whoever is risen with Christ enjoys the liberty of the sons and daughters of God and is not bound by the restrictions and taboos of human prejudice?
To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law – the law of grace and love – but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism. Read the Epistle to the Galatians again sometime. Read it in the light of the Church’s summons to complete renewal.
The Christian must have the courage to follow Christ. The Christian who is risen in Christ must dare to be like Christ: one must dare to follow conscience even in unpopular causes. One must, if necessary, be able to disagree with the majority and make decisions one knows to be according to the Gospel and teaching of Christ, even when others do not understand why the person is acting this way.
“The followers of Christ are called by God not according to their accomplishments, but according to God’s own purpose and grace.” This statement from the Constitution on the Church of Vatican II effectively disposes of a Christian inferiority complex which makes people think that because they never have amounted to anything in the eyes of others, they can never amount to anything in the eyes of God. Here again we see another aspect of St. Paul’s teaching on freedom. Too many Christians are not free because they submit to the domination of other people’s ideas. They submit passively to the opinions of the crowd. For self-protection they hide in the crowd, and run along with the crowd – even when it turns into a lynch mob. They are afraid of the aloneness, the moral nakedness, which they feel apart from the crowd.

But the Christian in whom Christ is risen dares to think and act differently from the crowd. He has ideas of his own, not because he is arrogant, but because he has the humility to stand alone and pay attention to the purpose and the grace of God, which are often quite contrary to the purposes and the plans of an established human power structure. If we have risen with Christ then we must dare to stand by him in the loneliness of his Passion, when the entire establishment, both religious and civil, turned against him as a modern state would turn against a dangerous radical. In fact, there were “dangerous radicals” among the Apostles. If we study the trial and execution of Jesus we find that he was condemned on the charge that he was a revolutionary, a subversive radical, fighting for the overthrow of legitimate government. This was not true in the political sense. Jesus stood entirely outside of all Jewish politics, because his Kingdom was not of this world. And yet he was a “freedom fighter” in a different way. His death and resurrection were the culminating battle in his fight to liberate us from all forms of tyranny, all forms of domination by anything or anyone except the Spirit, the Law of Love, the “purpose and grace” of God.

1He is Risen. Thomas Merton. Argus Communications. 1975. p.18

Skema
2023-04-09
Biblical Readings for Office and Mass
Easter Octave

Mass Readings: Sunday (A), Weekdays (I)
April 9 – 15, 2023

Sun
9
Mon
10
Tue
11
Wed
12
Thu
13
Fri
14
Sat
15

Office
Easter Sunday
Easter Monday
Easter Tuesday
Easter Wednesday
Easter Thursday
Easter Friday
Easter Saturday

Vigils
* Easter Vigil
1 Pt 1:1-21
1 Pt 1:22-2:10
1 Pt 2:11-25
1 Pt 3:1-17
1 Pt 3:18-4:11
1 Pt 4:12-5:14

Lauds
Acts 13:28-33
1 Cor 15:1-11
1 Cor 15:12-19
1 Cor 15:20-28
1 Cor 15:35-41
1 Cor 15:42-49
1 Cor 15:50-58

Mass
42
261
262
263
264
265
266

1st
Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Acts 2:14, 22-33
Acts 2:36-41
Acts 3:1-10
Acts 3:11-26
Acts 4:1-12
Acts 4:13-21

2nd
Col 3:1-4

Gospel
John 20:1-9
Matt 28:8-15
John 20:11-18
Luke 24:13-35
Luke 24:35-48
John 21:1-14
Mark 16:9-15

Vespers
Rev 1:12-18
Acts 1:1-5
Acts 1:12-14
Acts 1:15-26
Acts 2:42-47
Acts 4:32-37
Acts 5:1-11

Easter Vigil Readings* 1) Gen 1:1-2:2 2) Gen 22:1-18 3) Exod 14:15-15:1 4) Isa 54:5-14 5) Isa 55:1-11 6) Bar 3:9-15,32-4:4
7) Ezek 36:16-17a,18-28 Epistle Rom 6:3-11 Gospel Matt 28:1-10

Vigils Reading - Holy Saturday
2023-04-08
A Flash in the Darkness7
From the writings of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
There is a loneliness in us that hears. When the soul parts from the company of the ego and its retinue of petty conceits; when we cease to exploit all things but instead pray the world’s cry, the world’s sigh, our loneliness may hear the living grace beyond all power. We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light…When ignorance and confusion blot out all thoughts, the light of God may suddenly bust forth in the mind like a rainbow in the sky. Our understanding of the greatness of God comes about as an act of illumination… “like a lightning that all of a sudden illumines the whole world, God illumines the mind of man, enabling him to understand the greatness of our Creator.” This is what is meant by the words of the Psalmist: “He sent out His arrows and scattered [the clouds]; He shot forth lightnings and discomfited them.” The darkness retreats, “The channels of water appeared, the foundations of the world were laid bare”.
…Reminders of what has been disclosed to us are hanging over our souls like stars, remote and of mind-surpassing grandeur. They shine through dark and dangerous ages, and their reflection can be seen in the lives of those who guard the path of conscience and memory in the wilderness of careless living. Since those perennial reminders have moved into our minds, wonder has never left us. Heedfully we stare through the telescope of ancient rites lest we lose the perpetual brightness beckoning to our souls. Our mind has not kindled the flame, has not produced these principles. Still our thoughts glow with their light…

Every one of us stood at the foot of Sinai and beheld the voice that proclaimed, I am the Lord thy God. Every one of us participated in saying, We shall do and we shall hear…Then the startling moment occurred: God appeared to Moses “in a flame of fire out of the bush; and he looked, and lo, the bush wasburning, yet it was not consumed”. In the face of that startling fact, Moses said: “I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.”… A new element was brought into being: fire that burns but does not consume. It indicated a new order in God’s relation to man, namely, that to reveal He must conceal, that to impart His wisdom He must hide His power. It made revelation possible…
Unless we learn how to appreciate and distinguish moments of time as we do things of space, unless we become sensitive to the uniqueness of individual events, the meaning of revelation will remain obscure… Two stones, two things in space may be alike; two hours in a person’s life or two ages in human history are never alike… Absurd it must be to all those who have no sense for the uniqueness that is in time, for the uniqueness of what happens in time. Why indeed, should one hour out of an infinite number of hours be of particular importance to the history of man?…
The lack of realism, the insistence upon generalizations at the price of a total disregard of the particular and concrete is something which would be alien to prophetic thinking… Theirs is not a timeless, abstract message; it always refers to an actual situation. The general is given in the particular, and the verification of the abstract is in the concrete

7 Heschel, Abraham Joshua. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. New York: Meridian Books, Inc, 1960. 140-141, 191, 202-204.

Vigils Reading - Good Friday
2023-04-07
Living United to Your Cross 6
A Meditation by St Rafael Arnaiz
Today, at Holy Communion, I felt the consolation of being close to You when it seems that everything else has abandoned me. Lord, I wanted to nail to Your heart the words I say every day: “Lord, do not permit me to be parted from You.” May I remain, Lord, in the shadow of the stark wood of the cross forever. Put my cell and my bed at Your feet… There may I find all my delight, Lord, and my rest amid my suffering too… Water the ground at Calvary with my tears… There, at the foot of the cross, may I pray and examine my conscience… “Lord, do not permit me to be parted from You.”
What a great joy it is to be able to live at the foot of the cross. There I find Mary, and Saint John, and all those who love You. There is no pain there because, looking up at Your own, Lord, who would dare to suffer? There everything is forgotten. No one desires joy, no one thinks of suffering… Upon seeing Your wounds, Lord, only one thought reigns in the soul…love…yes, love, to wipe away Your sweat; love, to tend Your wounds; love, to relieve such great and immense pain. Lord, do no permit me to be parted from You.
Let me live at the foot of your cross without thinking of myself, or wanting or desiring anything other than gazing wildly upon the divine blood that is pouring down upon the earth… Let me weep, Lord, but weep for how little I can do for You, and how much I have offended You while I was far away from Yourcross… Let me weep for the forgetfulness that humanity shows You, even those who are good… Let me live at the foot of Your cross, Lord… day and night, at work and at rest, in prayer and study, while eating and sleeping…always… always.

I only came to know the gentleness of Christ’s ways such a short time ago, but I have always found consolation in the cross. What little I know, I have learned from the cross… I have always done my prayer and meditation at the cross… In truth, I don’t know a better place, and I’m not going looking for one… so stay still, then. Therefore, Lord, as I consider the divine school of your cross, as I consider that it is only on Calvary, at Mary’s side where I can learn to be better, to love You, and to forget and disregard myself: “Do not permit me to be parted from You.”
God is so good to me. I truly don’t have the words for it. He forcibly removes me from the world. He sends me a cross, and draws me near to His own… and so all I have to do is wait, wait with faith and love, wait, embracing His cross… Therefore, Lord, clinging to the cross with all my strength, uniting mytears to Your blood, shouting, wailing, howling… wanting to go mad… mad for Your most holy cross… Hear me, O Lord! Listen to my supplications, and od not spurn them… With the water pouring from Your side, wash away my great sins, my faults, and my ingratitude; fill my heart with Your divine blood, and give rest to my soul as it unceasingly cries out, “Lord, let me live united to Your cross, and do not permit me to be parted from it.”
Virgin Mary, Mother of Sorrows, when you gaze upon Your Son, bleeding on Calvary, let me humbly tend to Your great sorrow, and unworthy though I am, allow me to wipe away Your tears.

6 Saint Rafael Arnaiz. The Collected Works. Ed. Sr. Maria Gonzalo-Garcia, OCSO. Trans. Catherine Addington. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2022. 629-631.

Vigils Reading - Holy Thursday
2023-04-06
On the Lord’s Words to His Disciples at the Last Supper5
by Ogier of Locedio
When the Lord Jesus began to wash the disciples’ feet, he came first to Simon Peter, the first among his disciples. That God should wash a man’s feet filled Peter with terror and dread; he could not bear to see the Lord so humbled. He had watched him pour the water into the basin and wrap himself in the towel; perhaps he wondered what Jesus meant to do. But then he saw him come before him with the vessel, watched him kneel in preparation, and his apprehension was more than words can tell. Terrified, Peter groaned and cried out, ‘Lord! You – wash my feet?’ Was the Lord about the serve his servant, the Master his disciple? Would God so humble himself before a man, the Creator before his creature, He who from nothing made all things – before one who was made of clay? Get up, Lord, my God! What are you doing? It is too much, I cannot bear it!… Do not do what I see you mean to do! Never shall you wash my feet, Lord!’
At this, Jesus replied, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand. Do not be terrified, Peter. This is to be sure a great gesture of humility, but you will soon see greater and limitless evidence… It is an object- lesson I mean to leave you with as I go to the Father; do not prevent me from doing as I will… ‘I am the water that washes, I am the water that sanctifies: if I do not wash you, you can have no share with me.’ Hearing these latter words, Peter shudders profoundly. ‘What does it mean when you say, “You can have no share with me”? No share with you? What bitter words! You are my life, my sweetness, all my hope, my well-being, my every desire!’ Then, no longer contradicting the Master, he offers to be washed not only his feet but himself entirely: ‘Here I am, Lord. Do with me what you will! Wash my feet – and not only my feet: wash my hands, my head!’

If it is true, Lord Jesus, that no one you have not first washed can have a share with you, then have mercy on me, have mercy!… Do not despise me, O God my saviour! God , be merciful to me, a sinner! Wash what is filthy, wash what is befouled! Wash my feet, my hands, my head, my whole body! Wash my mind, wash my soul; wash me within and without… Who but you, Lord Jesus, will grant it to me to come into my heart and inebriate me with your water, so that I can forget all my former evil and… embrace you, that Life that shall never die? My sinful soul awaits the inspiration of your grace, that I might sufficiently repent and worthily live.
…O blessed Peter, O fortunate apostles, before whose feet knelt in all humility the creator of the angels!… O unhappy Judas! You eat the Lord’s bread and lift up your heel against him…
You therefore, my brothers, disciples of Christ, reflect on Judas’s deed… Judas lifted up his heel against Christ; you must prostrate yourselves, body and soul, before him. Judas turned away and left him; you must follow him. Judas sold him out to the authorities; you must sell all you possess – yourselves as well– for love of that pearl of such beauty. Exert yourselves to the limit in pleasing him, and him alone. Then you and I may be able to attain those joys that last forever, which are Christ Jesus himself..

5 Ogier of Locedio. Ogier of Locedio: Homilies. CF 70. Trans. D. Martin Jenni. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2006. 184-192.
