Introit: If your sins are as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; if they are as crimson, I will make them white as wool, says the Lord.
Brothers,
The Devil is good salesman,
Sin is an easy sell.
Let us be sorry for the times we bought into Sin,
offended God and our neighbor.
I confess, etc.
The Gospel Mark 12:28-34
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,
“Which is the first of all the commandments?”
Jesus replied, “The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher.
You are right in saying,
He is One and there is no other than he.
And to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,
he said to him,
“You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”
And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
After the Gospel:
“Remember, brothers, that when you die, someone will be relieved.”
Words of Basil Hume, a Benedictine monk at Ampleforth in England,
Abbot of Ampleforth for thirteen years
before being called to be Archbishop of Westminster.
Later he was made a Cardinal, the only Benedictine in the College of Cardinals.
Even though Cardinal Hume chose not to live in Rome,
he was so well-liked, he gained such a high profile,
that when Pope John Paul II looked particularly ill, a Hume papacy seemed a real possibility.
But going back to his days as Abbot of Ampleforth,
he did what Abbots do: taught by word and by example.
He gave the monks good reason to see and serve Christ,
not only in the Abbot, the poor and the sick,
but especially in their fellow monks with whom they came in close contact.
After all, he believed, wasn’t the monastery their workshop, where they practiced love,
tried to get it perfect before the final exam, the judgement on how they treated others,
on how their love of God showed up as love of neighbor?
Wasn’t the goal: “Behold how good and how pleasant, where brethren dwell in unity…”?
Wasn’t their guide The Rule of Benedict, especially Chapter 4, where Benedict puts “love of neighbor” second among 72 tools that monks use as Good Works?
While Abbot, he could easily bring up the importance of Love, which has to be the basis of community life, the art of relating to one another as brothers.
Because monks are social animals, yes, but they walk around wounded creatures, vessels of clay.
It’s one thing to live with a group of men of the same mind and outlook, with whom we have a natural affinity,
it’s quite another to live and work with men we would not normally choose as obvious companions.
And he would manage to include: “Remember, brothers, that when you die, someone will be relieved.”
Basil Hume actually lived the Love and Tolerance and Patience that are indispensable virtues for every monk. When he died in 1999, one newspaper ended its obituary by quoting him:
“As Abbot of Ampleforth, he liked to repeat to his monks the words of his predecessor: ‘Remember, brothers, that when you die, someone will be relieved.’
But today, for Basil Hume, you will have to look pretty far to find such a person.”