Prayers for today:Hail, Holy Mother! The child to whom
you gave birth is the King of heaven and earth for ever.
or
A
light will shine on us this day, the Lord is born for us: he shall be called
Wonderful, God, Prince of peace, Father of the world to come; and his kingship
will never end.
God
our Father, may we always profit by the prayers of the Virgin Mother Mary, for
you bring us life and salvation through Jesus Christ her Son who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
or
Father, source of light in every age, the virgin conceived and bore your Son who
is called Wonderful God, Prince of Peace. May her prayer, the gift of a
mother’s love, be your people’s joy through all ages. May her response, born of
a humble heart, draw your Spirit to rest on your people. Grant this through
Christ our Lord.
(January 1)Mary,
The Mother of God
Mary’s
divine motherhood broadens the Christmas spotlight. Mary has an important role
to play in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. She
consents to God’s invitation conveyed by the angel (Luke 1:26-38). Elizabeth
proclaims: “Most blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your
womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to
me?” (Luke 1:42-43, emphasis added). Mary’s role as mother of God places her in
a unique position in God’s redemptive plan. Without naming Mary, Paul asserts
that “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4).
Paul’s further statement that “God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying out ‘Abba, Father!’“ helps us realize that Mary is mother to all the
brothers and sisters of Jesus. Some theologians also insist that Mary’s
motherhood of Jesus is an important element in God’s creative plan. God’s
“first” thought in creating was Jesus. Jesus, the incarnate Word, is the one
who could give God perfect love and worship on behalf of all creation. As Jesus
was “first” in God’s mind, Mary was “second” insofar as she was chosen from all
eternity to be his mother. The precise title “Mother of God” goes back at least
to the third or fourth century. In the Greek form Theotokos
(God-bearer), it became the touchstone of the Church’s teaching about the
Incarnation. The Council of Ephesus in 431 insisted that the holy Fathers were
right in calling the holy virgin Theotokos. At the end of this
particular session, crowds of people marched through the street shouting:
“Praised be the Theotokos!” The tradition reaches to our own day. In its
chapter on Mary’s role in the Church, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church calls Mary “Mother of God” 12 times.
So
the shepherds hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying
in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had
been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the
shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered
them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all
the things they had heard
and seen, which were just as they had been told. On
the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name
the angel had given him before he had been conceived. (Luke 2:
16-21)
Mother of God
One of the features of the ancient world — the world of the time of Jesus — was
that it was brimful of religions. From Egypt to Mesopotamia to Greece and to
Rome itself, life swarmed with the tenets of religion. The imagination of the
ancient world was deeply imprinted by religious myth.
But out of Palestine suddenly came a religion that was being announced with
urgency, with persistence and assurance. It allowed for no other religion as
true. Its claim was that a man who had lived and had been executed there when
Pilate was Procurator, was now alive. He was the long-expected Messiah. Many
had heard of this Jewish expectation of a great Messiah. Now many had
identified him, and were spreading the word across the Empire. There was no
disputing that he was an historical man: all knew this. He had actually been
put to death by the civil authority. But what was being claimed was that he had
come forth from the tomb alive, and that he is the only God. So was his
heavenly Father! So was a mysterious third Person. These were not three more
gods for the pantheon of the Roman world, but one only God. It was an exclusive
truth and was judged to be profoundly subversive of the religious fabric of the
Empire, throbbing and heaving as it was in a cauldron of religions. The core of
it all was that this man Jesus, this Messiah, was the one and only God. That,
in essence, is precisely what the Christian celebrates during the season of
Christmas. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the
Word was God. At Christmas we celebrate that the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, and some saw his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. There have been numerous high gods in the religions of
man, and there were high gods in the ancient world. Jupiter was the king of the
gods for the Roman state. His counterpart in Greek religion was Zeus, in
Etruscan religion, Tinia, and in Hindu mythology, Indra. But none of these high
gods compared in height and power with Yahweh, the God of Jewish revelation.
The Christians now had it that this one God became a man, and that he had sent
his followers to convert the world.
One of
the reasons why both Matthew and Luke stress the events of the conception, birth
and infancy of Jesus Christ is to emphasize that the great God did truly become
man. He did not just suddenly appear among men and walk with them as one does
with friends. No, he was truly conceived, but miraculously of a Virgin.
Emphatically he was truly conceived. God began his human course as a child in
the womb. His mother had a name, lived in a certain location and at a very
particular time. How came she to be his mother, while being a virgin
nevertheless? The explanation is provided. It was by a miraculous intervention
of God that this Virgin, by the power of the Holy Spirit, truly conceived this
divine Child. From her he derived his humanity while remaining the God he had
been for all eternity. A divine Person, he now assumed a human nature as well.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin gave to the Word, as would a mother
to her offspring — but without any human father — the human nature he assumed to
his divine Person. In one miraculous moment she gave and he received. Thus
there began in the womb of the virgin the earthly course of God made man. Mary
was not the mere receptacle of the second divine Person become man, the eternal
Word become flesh. The incarnate Son of God now had a human mother. By the
power of God he drew from her his manhood and her DNA passed to him. He was
conceived, nourished in the womb, born in a stable at Bethlehem, cared for as an
infant, grew in nature and grace as a youth, fulfilled all that was good and due
as a young man, and was manifested to the world. The world had a brother and a
Saviour beyond all possible expectation. He began his course with a mother and
he ended his course with a mother. While on the cross he granted this mother to
all his beloved disciples, and this same mother will be his and ours for all
eternity. Thus it is that at the beginning of the year we think of Mary the
mother of God, God the Son made man. The Incarnation is no myth, but a cold,
hard and sober fact. It is part of real history, and the divine motherhood of
the Virgin Mary attests to the historical truth of the Incarnation.
Let every Christian think of the greatness of Christ’s mother.
All generations will call me blessed, she said to her kinswoman Elizabeth.
Blessed are you among women, Elizabeth had said to her. The Almighty has looked
upon his lowly servant, Mary said. She is the mother of Jesus Christ, and
therefore is the mother of God the Son made man. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray
for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death!
(Used again Jan
10)
Prayers for today:
God sent his own Son, born of a woman,
so that we could be adopted as his sons. (Gal 4:
4-5)
All-powerful and ever-living God, you give us a new vision of your glory in the
coming of Christ your Son. He was born of the Virgin Mary and came to share our
life. May we come to share his eternal life in the glory of your kingdom, where
he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
(January 3) St. Genevieve (422-512) St. Genevieve was born about the year 422,
at Nanterre near Paris. She was seven years old when St. Germain of Auxerre came
to her native village on his way to great Britain to combat the heresy of
Pelagius. The child stood in the midst of a crowd gathered around the man of
God, who singled her out and foretold her future sanctity. At her desire the
holy Bishop led her to a church, accompanied by all the faithful, and
consecrated her to God as a virgin.
When Attila was reported to be marching on Paris, the
inhabitants of the city prepared to evacuate, but St. Genevieve persuaded them
to avert the scourge by fasting and prayer, assuring them of the protection of
Heaven. The event verified the prediction, for the barbarian suddenly changed
the course of his march.
The life of St. Genevieve was one of great austerity,
constant prayer, and works of charity. She died in the year 512. She dressed in
a long flowing gown with a mantle covering her shoulders, similar to the type of
garments the Blessed Mother wore. One of the symbols of this saint is a loaf of
bread because she was so generous to those in need. (www.catholic.org)
Click centre arrow to play video
Scripture today:
1 John 2: 22-28; Psalm 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4; John 1: 19-28
Now this was John’s testimony when
the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did
not fail to confess, but confessed freely, I am not the Christ. They asked him,
Then who are you? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the Prophet? He
answered, No. Finally they said, Who are you? Give us an answer to take back
to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? John replied in the
words of Isaiah the prophet, I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make
straight the way for the Lord.’ Now some Pharisees who had been sent questioned
him, Why then do you baptise if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the
Prophet? I baptise with water, John replied, but among you stands one you do
not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am
not worthy to untie. This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the
Jordan, where John was baptising. (John 1: 10-28)
The manifestation of Christ
The dialogue between the priests and Levites from Jerusalem and John the Baptist
shows some of the elements of the expectation which characterized the religion
of the chosen people. The religions of the peoples of the ancient world had
their myths and ritual that accounted for
the beginnings and helped them cope with life, both its blessings and its
threats. One of the several distinguishing features of the Hebrew religion was
its expectation. There was a great Coming which the good Hebrew expected. Not
only did he look back to the past when Yahweh saved his people, but he looked to
the future when through his Messiah, God would come and both save and judge.
With this in mind he prepared accordingly. We remember the elderly Simeon who
had been assured by God that he would not see death until he had laid eyes on
the Messiah. We remember our Lord telling his disciples that prophets and kings
had longed to see what they, his disciples, were now seeing. A distinguishing
trait of the revealed religion of the Hebrews was its expectation. They
expected that God would come to save. They looked to the future. But we also
see that there was great haziness as to the details. Scripture gave pointers
here and pointers there, and much of it was left without its synthesis. Moses
had told the people that the Lord said to him, “I will raise up for them a
prophet like you from among their kinsmen, and will put my words into his mouth;
he shall tell them all that I command him. If any man will not listen to my
words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it”
(Deuteronomy 18:18). So another Moses was
coming, but who would he be? Most especially, a great Messiah was expected, the
Anointed one, the son of David who would sit upon his throne and set his people
free. But who would he be? Elijah too must return (Malachi 4:1-5) to anoint
and manifest the Messiah. So the visitors asked John, was he the Prophet? Was
he the Messiah? Was he Elijah?
These
questions posed by the representatives of the highest religious authority
manifest the uncertainty and confusion which was present in the chosen people of
God. They had much light, but much light was still needed. John denied he was
the Prophet. He denied that he was the Christ. He refused the title of
Elijah. As a matter of fact, he was the Elijah who was to come, as our Lord
made clear to his disciples after his transfiguration. In him the spirit of
Elijah had returned, and in him Elijah anointed and manifested the Messiah. As
it turned out, all the uncertainty in discerning the true meaning of the
Scriptures, all the confusion in interpreting the various figures of the
prophecies — the coming Prophet, the coming Elijah, the coming Son of Man, the
coming Suffering Servant, the coming son of David — all these figures were to
find their synthesis in the person of Jesus Christ. His appearance in the world
resolved the prophecies for those enlightened to grasp this. The whole of the
Old Testament now had its unity, a unity found in the person of Christ. The
word “Epiphany” means manifestation or appearance. The Epiphany of Jesus Christ
— his appearance among men — gives to the world and all of God’s dealings with
men their common meaning. We may regard John the Baptist of our Gospel passage
today as representing the yearning of the Old Testament as it points to the one
who is coming. We may regard him too as representing the human race as it hopes
for a Solution from God. “ I baptise with water, John replied, but among you
stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of
whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (John 1: 10-28).
In one single Person we have everything. As St Paul writes, in Christ is found
every heavenly blessing. As our Lord himself said, All that the Father has is
mine. He who sees me sees the Father. This incomparable Jewel has been
manifested to all, and it is God’s free gift to any who approach him for it. As
we prepare to celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, let us look on Christ as the
Treasure manifested to all.
This every Christian should know. But not all appreciate that
this brings a responsibility to actively manifest Christ to the world of our
everyday life. We must do what John the Baptist does in today’s Gospel. We
must endeavour to manifest Christ more and more to the world. We ought act as
his Epiphany. Let us do so by word and deed, and thus play our part in the
world’s salvation, for salvation is to be found only in Christ. His is the only
name by which men are saved.
(Used
again Jan 10)
Prayers for today:
The Lord and ruler is coming; kingship is his, and government and power. (Mal
3: 1; 1 Chr 19: 12)
Father, you revealed your Son to
the nations by the guidance of a star. Lead us to your glory in heaven by the
light of faith. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,...
or
Father of light, unchanging God,
today you reveal to men of faith the resplendent fact of the Word made flesh.
Your light is strong, your love is near; draw us beyond the limits which this
world imposes, to the life where your Spirit makes all life complete. We ask
this through Christ our Lord.
(January 4)St.
John Damascene
(676?-749)
John spent most of his life in the monastery of St. Sabas,
near Jerusalem, and all of his life under Muslim rule, indeed, protected
by it. He was born in Damascus,
received a classical and theological education, and followed his father in
a government position under the Arabs. After a few years he resigned and went
to the monastery of St. Sabas. He is famous in three areas. First, he is
known for his writings against the iconoclasts, who opposed the veneration
of images. Paradoxically, it was the Eastern Christian emperor Leo who forbade
the practice, and it was because John lived in Muslim territory that his
enemies could not silence him. Second, he is famous for his treatise, Exposition of the Orthodox
Faith, a summary of the Greek Fathers (of which he became the last).
It is said that this book is to Eastern schools what the Summa of Aquinas became
to the West. Thirdly, he is known as a poet, one of the two greatest of the
Eastern Church, the other being Romanus the Melodist. His devotion to the
Blessed Mother and his sermons on her feasts are well known.
John defended the Church’s understanding of the veneration
of images and explained the faith of the Church in several other controversies.
For over 30 years he combined a life of prayer with these defenses and his
other writings. His holiness expressed itself in putting his literary and
preaching talents at the service of the Lord. “The saints must be honored
as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian
and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power
to be made the sons of God....’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life
of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming
of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience
under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their
crowns of glory” (Exposition
of the Orthodox Faith). (AmericanCatholic.org)
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem
in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem
and asked, Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star
in the east and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this he was
disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the
people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ
was to be born. In Bethlehem in Judea, they replied, for this is what the
prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means
least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be
the shepherd of my people Israel.’ Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found
out from them the exact time the star had appeared.
He sent them to Bethlehem
and said, Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him,
report to me, so that I too may go and worship him. After they had heard the
king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead
of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the
star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his
mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their
treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And
having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their
country by another route. (Matthew 2: 1-12)
The star of faith
The word ‘Epiphany’ means manifestation. We celebrate today the manifestation
of our Lord to the first non-Jews who sought out Christ so as to do him homage.
This is our feastday, for those wise men represented us. The star the wise
astrologers from the east followed was an external sign which supported their
faith and led them on to Christ. In our following of Christ we, of course, do
not follow an external star. But there is a star within,
the star of our faith leading us to Christ. This light of our faith is a most
privileged gift of God, of far more value and importance than any signs and
wonders of an external kind. Recall how Jesus used to censure his fellow Jews
when they kept pressing him for signs. Jesus declared that they would be given
only the sign of Jonah, and that was an allusion to his death and resurrection.
Our Lord was continually looking for faith and praising it. Faith is a light
from God himself. We remember how, when Simon declared to our Lord that he was
the Christ the Son of God, our Lord said that flesh and blood had not revealed
this to him but the Father in heaven. His faith was a light from God. As we
hear the word of God read and preached each time we go to Mass, we must listen
to the promptings of the Holy Spirit if we are to grow in faith. Faith is the
true light of life, and it comes from God and only from God. It is this light
that leads to God, as we see in the case of the three wise men who clearly had a
form of faith (Matthew 2:1-12). We travel
through life following the light of faith in our minds and the light of love in
our hearts. What the three wise men did is repeated over and over again in
those seeking Christ or seeking to do his will.
But
there is a most important implication in this. Today we are not just thinking
of the fact that Christ has been given to all humanity, and not just to the
Jews. We have a part to play in this. We are called to bring the light of
faith to all men and women, a light which calls them to follow Christ. We have
inherited the role of the wise men who gave a shining example of fidelity in
following this star. Let us notice that the faith of the wise men, lit by their
own holy yearning, revealed the coming of Christ even to some of the Jewish
people, whose faith had dimmed. Some responded wickedly. Others responded with
joy, as did the shepherds, and as did Simeon and Anna following the birth of the
Child. Let each of us be aware that our life ought be a star of faith leading
others to Christ. The faith has been carried throughout the world, not just by
missionaries, but by the movement and the migration of many believers, ordinary
lay men and women. Now, hundreds of millions of these stars of faith shine
around the world, offering the opportunity to many others to come to know the
Redeemer. Let us examine ourselves on this day, the feast of the Epiphany which
brings us near the end of Christmastide, and ask, does the light of my faith
shine brightly? The light of our faith will not be bright if it does not shine
with love and good deeds, especially those good deeds which lead others to
Christ. There are so many ways whereby Christ’s faithful may bring the light of
faith to others. This faith is above all faith in the Eucharistic Jesus, the
Jesus of the sacraments and the Jesus who is the head of the Church his body.
Our treasure is the person of Jesus and our faith in him. Let our life’s work
be to bring this treasure to the world.
Each of us has a star to lead us to Jesus, and it is above all
the star of our faith which is our share in the faith of the Church. It takes
us to Jesus who is head of his body the Church. Not only do we have this star
as God’s gift, we have the calling to be a star for
others, leading them to faith in Christ the Saviour. Let us take up our grand
vocation which is to be a light leading to the Light.
(Used again
Jan 10)
(E.J.Tyler) A second reflection for the feast
of the Epiphany
The Christian mission
We are now in the special liturgical time of Christmas when we think of the gift
to the world of our Redeemer. A Redeemer has come and is now always to be with
us. As we put ourselves back in those first days at Bethlehem, we think of how
the promise of God was now fulfilled. God had promised his chosen people that
he would send to them a Messiah who would shepherd his people. He would be the
good shepherd long predicted. And now the Messiah had come. But there was
something more. This promised Messiah was not only for God’s own chosen
people. He was for all the nations. He was for the world. And this is
powerfully suggested in the events recorded in the Gospel. When our Lord was
born, it was to Jewish shepherds that the angels announced the news. But the
Gospel records that soon after, pagan wise men from the East were led by a star
to the promised king. Both groups represented the two worlds, the Jewish and
the non-Jewish. Both were to be offered the salvation Christ would bring. It
is the whole non-Jewish world, of which all of us are members, that we think of
today. When the angels appeared to the shepherds, the whole night sky was
filled with light. When the star appeared to the wise men from the east there
was less light, but light there was. Both together symbolise the light of the
Gospel shining upon all nations, Jewish and Gentile. The star leading the wise
men to the infant Jesus was only an external sign leading to him. Faith is the
light that enlightens our hearts with the truth of Christ the Redeemer. This
light of faith is a wonderful gift from God which we take for granted all too
easily. It is this light of faith which has gone out to all the nations, and in
most Sunday Mass congregations in Australia, numerous nations are represented.
They have received the light of faith which we celebrate today, the feast of the
Epiphany.
In the second reading, St. Paul,
full of joy, is speaking of the secret, long hidden, that through Christ, the
Chosen People were now to be given many brothers from among the Gentiles.
Through the Gospel, we too share in the blessings of the prophets and the
promises and the Messiah. We are all part of God’s Chosen People on the way to
salvation. The proclamation of the Gospel is the new star shining in the life
of the Church. It is by our faith that we are able to accept it, and it is able
to lead all peoples to Christ and the glory of heaven. This is particularly
relevant for today. We are called to send the light of the Gospel to the whole
world, calling all men and women to follow Christ. We have inherited the role
of the wise men who gave a shining example of fidelity in following the star of
faith. In the Gospel account, the wise men from the East revealed the coming of
Christ even to the Jewish people, whose faith had dimmed. Our life should be
like a star leading others to Christ. The faith has been carried through the
world and through the centuries not just by missionaries, but by the movement
and migration of many peoples. Australia has been greatly enriched by deeply
committed Christians from other countries who have made their home among us. We
must make sure that our star shines brightly in our families and in society.
Let us examine ourselves. Does the light of my faith shine brightly with good
deeds, love and charity? Let us call on our noblest impulses to raise high the
light of our faith to all. We have a duty to Christ our eternal King. Let us
this year make Christian family life shine forth like a star of faith, like the
star shining for the wise men.
Let us think of what the Christ
Child would say to his disciples years later, just before he ascended into
heaven. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go
therefore to the whole world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them and teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. Behold, I am with
you till the end of the world.”
(Used
again Jan 10)
Prayers for today:
A holy day has dawned upon us. Come, you nations, and adore the Lord. Today a
great light has come upon the earth.
Lord, let the light of your glory
shine within us, and lead us through the darkness of this world to the radiant
joy of our eternal home. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, .
(January 5) St. John Neumann (1811-1860)
Perhaps because the United States got
a later start in the history of the world, it has relatively few canonized
saints, but their number is increasing. John Neumann
was born in what is now the Czech Republic. After studying in Prague, he came
to New York at 25 and was ordained a priest. He did missionary work in New
York until he was 29, when he joined the Redemptorists and became its first
member to profess vows in the United States. He continued missionary work
in Maryland, Virginia and Ohio, where he became popular with the Germans.
At 41, as bishop of Philadelphia, he organized the parochial school system
into a diocesan one, increasing the number of pupils almost twenty fold within
a short time. Gifted with outstanding organizing ability, he drew into the
city many teaching communities of sisters and the Christian Brothers. During
his brief assignment as vice provincial for the Redemptorists, he placed
them in the forefront of the parochial movement. Well-known for his holiness
and learning, spiritual writing and preaching, on October 13, 1963, he became
the first American bishop to be beatified. Canonized in 1977, he is buried
in St. Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia.
Neumann took seriously our Lord’s words, “Go and teach
all nations.” From Christ he received his instructions and the power to carry
them out. For Christ does not give a mission without supplying the means
to accomplish it. The Father’s gift in Christ to John Neumann was his exceptional
organizing ability, which he used to spread the Good News.
Today the Church is in dire need of men and women to continue
in our times the teaching of the Good News. The obstacles and inconveniences
are real and costly. Yet when Christians approach Christ, he supplies the
necessary talents to answer today’s needs. The Spirit of Christ continues
his work through the instrumentality of generous Christians. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Click centre arrow to play video
Scripture today:1 John 3:22-4:6; Psalm
2:7bc-8, 10-12a; Matthew 4:12-17.23-25
When Jesus heard that John had been
put in prison, he returned to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, Jesus went and lived
in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali — to
fulfil what was said through the prophet Isaiah: Land of Zebulun and land of
Naphtali, the way to the sea, along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles — the
people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land
of the shadow of death a light has dawned. From that time on Jesus began to
preach, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. Jesus went throughout
Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom,
and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread
all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various
diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having
seizures, and the paralysed, and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.
(Matthew 4:12-17.23-25)
The Light in the darkness
During these weekdays immediately following the Epiphany, or manifestation of
Christ at his infancy, we are given flashes of the later public manifestation of
Christ that will come. This public epiphany began with the sudden eclipse of
John’s ministry when he was imprisoned by Herod.
John had announced to the nation that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. All
were to prepare the way for the Lord by repentance, for the Messiah himself was
nigh. John identified Jesus as being he, and made it known. Soon after, he
denounced Herod to his face for his marital situation, and was gaoled. With
that, John’s public ministry ceased, but the mantle had been handed on to the
Prophet who would far surpass him. Jesus forthwith returns to his native
Galilee and begins. He is shown to be a great light. Matthew makes his point
by recalling the words of the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah we read that “at first
he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he
will honour Galilee by the way of the sea, along the Jordan”
(8:23). The fulfilment of this came with
Jesus. As the prophet had said, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a
great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has dawned”
(9:1). Jesus is the expected Light, and our Lord himself would use this
metaphor. I am the Light of the world, he said. He who follows me walks in the
light, and he who refuses walks in the darkness. St John in his Prologue writes
that in him was life and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in
the darkness, a darkness that cannot master it. So the Epiphany or
manifestation of Christ to the world that occurred in principle at the arrival
of the Wise Men from the East pointed to the great manifestation of Christ
later. This would be firstly to the chosen people in our Gospel passage today
and secondly to the world in the missionary work of the Church. John stayed in
Judea and in certain confined locations. The people came to him. But Jesus
“went throughout Galilee” and “news about him spread all over Syria” and “large
crowds” came to him from all over.
What
is striking is that the end of John’s ministry is like a trumpet sound for the
immediate beginning of another. Christ shows no gradual preparation for his
all-consuming mission. He immediately starts with tremendous intensity and the
light of his person and teaching bursts out with absolute confidence. It is an
immediate manifestation, a great Epiphany. He went “teaching in their
synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease
and sickness among the people.” That is to say, the manifestation of Christ to
the chosen people and to the world was the divine plan from the very beginning.
Christ did not just begin a religious movement and leave the rest to the
unfolding circumstances of history. Christianity is not a world religion by
historical accident. While not tampering with human freedom, God means Christ
and his revelation to be not merely one world religion, but the religion of the
world. From the very beginning, from Christ’s very entry into life, he was
meant to be manifested to every man and woman coming into the world. This is a
pattern we see from the beginning of our Lord’s public life. We see in his
ministry and in the people coming to him an indicator of what is to come — his
relationship with the entire world, just as the visit of the pagan Magi was
symbolic of this too. So, “people brought to him all who were ill with various
diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having
seizures, and the paralysed, and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the
Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him”
(Matthew 4:12-17, 23-25). We have here a
pattern of epiphanies — manifestations. In his first Epiphany, Christ was
manifested to the pagan Magi. He was manifested in his public ministry to the
chosen people. It is the divine intention that he be manifested as the Saviour
to all the nations, to each one of us and to every man and woman in the world.
Such is the divine plan.
What this means is that we have a responsibility to Christ every day. It is a
responsibility, not only for our own personal relationship with him, but for the
manifestation of him to others. We share in Christ’s mission to bring him to
the peoples. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. He is
the first-born from the dead, and the salvation of the world depends on its
recognition of Jesus Christ as the light of every man. Let us strive to bring
this light to all around us.
(Used again
Jan 10)
Prayers for today:
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; the Lord God shines upon us.
(Ps 117: 26-27)
Father, your Son became like us
when he revealed himself in our nature: help us to become more like him, who
lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
(January 6)
St. Gregory Nazianzen (329-390) After his baptism at 30, Gregory gladly
accepted his friend Basil’s invitation to join him in a newly founded monastery.
The solitude was broken when Gregory’s father, a bishop, needed help in
his diocese and estate. It seems that
Gregory was ordained a priest practically by force, and only reluctantly
accepted the responsibility. He skilfully avoided a schism that threatened
when his own father made compromises with Arianism. At 41, Gregory was
chosen suffragan bishop of Caesarea and at once came into conflict with
Valens, the emperor, who supported the Arians. An unfortunate by-product
of the battle was the cooling of the friendship of two saints. Basil, his
archbishop, sent him to a miserable and unhealthy town on the border of
unjustly created divisions in his diocese. Basil reproached Gregory for
not going to his see. When protection for Arianism ended with the death
of Valens, Gregory was called to rebuild the faith in the great see of
Constantinople, which had been under Arian teachers for three decades.
Retiring and sensitive, he dreaded being drawn into the whirlpool of corruption
and violence. He first stayed at a friend’s home, which became the only
orthodox church in the city. In such surroundings, he began giving the
great sermons on the Trinity for which he is famous. In time, Gregory did
rebuild the faith in the city, but at the cost of great suffering, slander,
insults and even personal violence. An interloper even tried to take over
his bishopric. His last days were spent in solitude and austerity. He wrote
religious poetry, some of it autobiographical, of great depth and beauty.
He was acclaimed simply as “the Theologian.”
It may be small comfort, but post-Vatican II
turmoil in the Church is a mild storm compared to the devastation caused
by the Arian heresy, a trauma the Church has never forgotten. Christ did
not promise the kind of peace we would love to have—no problems, no opposition,
no pain. In one way or another, holiness is always the way of the cross.
“God accepts our desires as though they were a great value. He longs ardently
for us to desire and love him. He accepts our petitions for benefits as
though we were doing him a favour. His joy in giving is greater than ours
in receiving. So let us not be apathetic in our asking, nor set too narrow
bounds to our requests; nor ask for frivolous things unworthy of God’s
greatness.” (AmericanCatholic.org)
Click centre arrow to play video
Scripture today:
1 John 4: 7-10; Psalm 72:1-2, 3-4, 7-8; Mark 6: 34-44
When Jesus landed and saw a large
crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a
shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. By this time it was late in
the day, so his disciples came to him. This is a remote place, they said, and
it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the
surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. But
he answered, You give them something to eat. They said to him, That would take
eight months of a man’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and
give it to them to eat? How many loaves do you have? he asked. Go and see.
When they found out, they said, Five— and two fish. Then Jesus directed them to
have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in
groups of hundreds and fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and
looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves.
Then he gave them to
his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them
all. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve
basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had
eaten was five thousand. (Mark 6: 34-44)
Happiness
As we think of the surging sea of humanity as it ebbs and flows from generation
to generation, the great issue of happiness rises before our minds. All living
things aspire to happiness in some sense and according to their measure,
understood as the fulfilment of their nature. The plant “aspires” — if we may
speak in metaphor — to fullness of growth and to produce its fruit and its
flower. The animal unreflectively seeks its happiness in the fulfilment of its
various impulses.
Above all, man — the crown of visible creation — seeks to be happy. This too
involves his fulfilment — the fulfilment of the various needs and aspirations of
his rational and physical nature. He instinctively aspires to be happy, and yet
the course of life never brings all the happiness for which he mysteriously
longs. It brings a certain fulfilment but never its completion, and often —
with this or that individual — life is profoundly frustrating. So constant is
this issue in the life of man, that many thinkers have considered that the
attainment of what is deemed to make one happy is the entire purpose of life.
It is insisted that man must be free to choose what will be most conducive to
his happiness. Certain philosophers have reduced morality to that which is most
useful in bringing the most happiness. Such a position is philosophically very
questionable, and there are difficulties with it even from the merely practical
point of view. How difficult it is to calculate what will bring him the most
happiness! So many factors are constantly at work favouring or undermining, as
the case may be, the shifting sands of happiness. A young royal marries a fine
girl and the nation is filled with joy at the prospects ahead. Then gradually,
one tragedy follows upon another and the marriage becomes not bliss but an
ongoing test of heroic fidelity. It was impossible to have foreseen or even
avoided this. Simply aiming to be happy cannot be the formal goal of life, nor
can it be the foundation of duty.
In our
Gospel today, “when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on
them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Is not the crowd a
picture in minuscule of mankind searching for happiness? The crowd hurries to
Jesus with its sick, its burdens and its worries. There is so much that tears
at its heart and weighs it down. Jesus, they think, will give us relief. At
the sight of this crowd our Lord is filled with compassion, and this is the
attitude of the Son of God made man to each and every man and woman in human
history, including you and me. But notice, he does not answer all their needs.
How great and varied must have been the needs of such a concourse of people!
Instead, he set himself to teach them many things and at some length. He was
teaching them what God above all wanted them to have — a share in his kingdom,
which was none other than union with his Son Jesus Christ. At the end of his
discourse, and the implication is that our Lord’s teaching was lengthy, he did
proceed to work a spectacular miracle. He fed the crowds as much as they wanted
with a mere handful of food. Their physical needs were satisfied to the extent
that was necessary. But he did not answer all their needs. Filled with
compassion for them as he was, Christ knew that their true happiness would come
from a different source. It would come from receiving into their hearts with
faith and obedience that about which he was teaching in his discourse. All this
is to say that the Gospel scene of today (Mark 6:
34-44) is yet another reminder of what is the true source of
happiness for man. Man’s happiness comes not from loaves but from the Word, the
Word of God made flesh for our salvation. We can make loaves the goal of our
life, or we can accept Christ as our life. God can give us loaves if he judges
it to be in our best interest, but loaves cannot of themselves be our
happiness. The ever-present danger for man is that he will seek his happiness
in loaves and fishes. But no. His true happiness is to be found in fulfilling
his duty of union with God, and this is found in union with and obedience to
Christ.
Let us come to God with all our needs — for, after all, this is
what the crowd did in our Gospel today, and Christ was full of compassion for
them. Let us learn from the passage, though, that our deepest need is for
Christ and his teaching. It is in this that our happiness will be found. Where
is Christ? He is present above all and in all his fullness in the Holy
Eucharist. To this too, the miracle of the loaves and fishes points. Let us
make him our life, for as St Paul writes, now not I but Christ lives in me.
(Used again
Jan 10)
Prayers for today:
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; on those who lived in
the shadow of death, light has shone.
God, light of all nations, give us
the joy of lasting peace, and fill us with your radiance as you filled the
hearts of our fathers. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, .
(January 7)St Raymond
of Penyafort (1175-1275)
(Picture to right: tomb of St
Raymond, Barcelona)
Since Raymond lived into his hundredth year, he had a
chance to do many things. As a member of the Spanish nobility, he had the
resources and the education to get a good start in life. By the time he was
20, he was teaching philosophy. In his early 30s he earned a doctorate in
both canon and civil law. At 41 he became a Dominican. Pope Gregory IX called
him to Rome to work
for him and to be his confessor. One of the things the pope asked him to
do was to gather together all the decrees of popes and councils that had been
made in 80 years since a similar collection by Gratian. Raymond compiled
five books called the Decretals. They were
looked upon as one of the best organized collections of Church law until
the 1917 codification of canon law. Earlier, Raymond had written for confessors
a book of cases. It was called Summa de casibus poenitentiae. More than just
a list of sins and penances, it discussed pertinent doctrines and laws of
the Church that pertained to the problem or case brought to the confessor.
At the age of 60, Raymond was appointed archbishop of Tarragona, the capital
of Aragon. He didn’t like the honour at all and ended up getting sick and
resigning in two years. He didn’t get to enjoy his peace long, however, because
when he was 63 he was elected by his fellow Dominicans to be the head of
the whole Order, the successor of St. Dominic. Raymond worked hard, visited
on foot all the Dominicans, reorganized their constitutions and managed to
put through a provision that a master general be allowed to resign. When
the new constitutions were accepted, Raymond, then 65, resigned. He still
had 35 years to oppose heresy and work for the conversion of the Moors in
Spain. He convinced St. Thomas Aquinas to write his work Against the Gentiles.
In his100th year the Lord let Raymond retire.
Raymond was a lawyer, a canonist. Legalism is one of the
things that the Church tried to rid herself of at Vatican II. It is too great
a preoccupation with the letter of the law to the neglect of the spirit and
purpose of the law. The law can become an end in itself, so that the value
the law was intended to promote is overlooked. But we must guard against
going to the opposite extreme and seeing law as useless or something to be
lightly regarded. Laws ideally state those things that are for the best interests
of everyone and make sure the rights of all are safeguarded. From Raymond,
we can learn a respect for law as a means of serving the common good.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Click centre arrow to play video
Scripture today:
1 John 4: 11-18; Psalm 72:1-2, 10, 12-13; Mark 6: 45-52
Immediately Jesus made his
disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he
dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.
When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on
land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against
them. About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the
lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake,
they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were
terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, Take courage! It is I.
Don’t be afraid. Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died
down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the
loaves; their hearts were hardened. (Mark 6: 45-52)
Signs of his glory
One of the many notable characteristics of the modern secular era is its
many-sided scepticism in respect to miracles. It is one aspect of the modern
scientific interest in the laws of the material world. There is a good side to
this inasmuch as it is unlikely that, at least in the public and civil
domain,
spurious religious claims of miraculous events will be accepted. There is a
sense in which scepticism is healthy. What the scepticism characteristic of
modern secularism amounts to, though, is a deep reluctance to admit any claim to
miracles. It can spring from a presumption that the visible world is all there
is. Alternatively, those who admit a supernatural realm and who allow for a
Supreme Being, may still be resistant to anything miraculous because of an
assumption that this great Being only acts in and through the natural laws of
his creation. Again, they tend to regard miracles as being, in any case,
trivial in significance. Miracles are somewhat like tricks and in a certain
sense lack substance. They are not given weight — and the public attitude to
the requirement of miracles by the Church to complete the process of
beatification and canonization is an instance of this. What I am saying is that
a culture that is strongly predisposed in this direction needs to be aware of
its prejudice so as to take proper account of the action of God in, say,
Scripture and in particular in the Gospels. Christ worked many miracles, and
the secular denomination of him as a “miracle-worker” often has a dismissive
character. By contrast, the period prior to the age of modern science and
technology expected that God would act miraculously — which is to say, outside
the normal laws of nature. Each age has its tendency, and each age must take
account of its prejudices in considering the objective facts and their
significance for life. We of the modern period will tend to disregard miracles
as being, with some probability, spurious or trivial. In respect to Scripture,
and in particular the Gospels, we will tend not to contemplate their
significance enough.
That
having been said, let us turn to our Gospel passage today
(Mark 6: 45-52). Let us place ourselves not in
the position of modern secular man, skeptical as he tends to be in respect to
the reality and value of miracles, but in the position of the Apostles in the
boat out in the midst of the storm. It has been a long and busy day, with large
crowds, Jesus teaching them at some length, and finally a striking miracle of
Christ feeding them all with a handful of food. The Apostles were doubtlessly
weary and — at our Lord’s direction — immediately at the end of it they had set
out across the Sea of Tiberius. But it was not to be the end of the long day,
for all night they had to row with the wind against them. The Greek reads that
they were in distress. But lo! Jesus, seeing them in their plight, took to the
water himself. He strode steadily on its surface, amid the contrary wind and
the heaving waves. Calmly he moved on, rising and falling with the surface,
sprays of water beating against him, his garments and hair responding to the
gusts that swirled about him. Strength and tranquillity glowed in his features,
and his stride was steady. Power and kindness rippled across his figure.
Perhaps the moon lit up the vast and powerful Lake and the disciples saw coming
towards them a living figure on its surface. It was a phantom, a spirit of the
underworld, a menacing spectre coming to do them harm! The busy day had become
a nightmare and the Master was not with them. They were alone before the
terrible elements and now a dark ogre of the sea was coming at them. They
yelled in terror, and with that they heard the figure speak. Unbelievable — it
was the Lord. “Be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid.” A deep astonishment
descended upon them all. Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind
died down. The Master had come to them in the midst of their difficulty and had
resolved it. Notice the words our Lord had used: It is I. Ego emi!
They are directly reminiscent of the words Yahweh had used when Moses asked for
his name: I am who am (Septuagint, Exodus 3:14, ego emi ho On). Our Lord
used them deliberately, perhaps with that long past event in mind of which he,
as God, had been the saving Protagonist. It is I, Yahweh, who am with you to
save you. I shall be with you.
Let us take seriously the miracles and all the deeds of Jesus
Christ as recorded in the Gospels. As St John chooses to regard them, they are
signs of his glory. We saw his glory, St John writes, glory as of the
Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Let us contemplate the
wondrous person of Jesus Christ our brother, our Saviour and our God. Let us
make room for him in the boat that is our life, knowing that if we take our
stand with him, all will be well.
(Used
again Jan 10)
Prayers today:
In the beginning, before all ages, the Word was God; that Word was born a man to
save the world. (Jn 1: 1)
God our Father, through Christ your
Son the hope of eternal life dawned on our world. Give to us the light of faith
that we may always acknowledge him as our Redeemer and come to the glory of his
kingdom, where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for
ever and ever.
(January 8)
Blessed Angela of Foligno
(1248-1309) Some saints show marks of holiness
very early. Not Angela! Born of a leading family in Foligno, she became immersed
in the quest for wealth and social position. As a wife and mother, she
continued this life of distraction. Around the age of 40 she recognized the
emptiness of her life and sought God’s help in the Sacrament of Penance.
Her Franciscan confessor helped Angela to seek God’s pardon for her previous
life and to dedicate herself to prayer and the works of charity. Shortly
after her conversion, her husband and children died. Selling most of her
possessions, she entered the Secular Franciscan Order. She was alternately
absorbed by meditating on the crucified Christ and by serving the poor of
Foligno as a nurse and beggar for their needs. Other women joined her in
a religious community. At her confessor’s advice, Angela wrote her Book of
Visions and Instructions. In it she recalls some of the temptations she suffered
after her conversion; she also expresses her thanks to God for the Incarnation
of Jesus. This book and her life earned for Angela the title "Teacher of Theologians."
She was beatified in 1693.
People who live in the United States today can understand
Blessed Angela’s temptation to increase her sense of self-worth by accumulating
money, fame or power. Striving to possess more and more, she became more
and more self-centred. When she realized she was priceless because she was
created and loved by God, she became very penitential and very charitable
to the poor. What had seemed foolish early in her life now became very important.
The path of self-emptying she followed is the path all holy men and women
must follow. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Click centre arrow to play video
Scripture today:
1 John 4:19-5:4; Psalm 72:1-2, 14 and 15bc, 17; Luke 4: 14-22
Jesus returned to Galilee in the
power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.
He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth,
where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue,
as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah
was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: The
Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to
the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of
sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the
Lord’s favour. Then he rolled up the scroll,
gave it back to the attendant and
sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he
began by saying to them, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. All
spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his
lips. Isn’t this Joseph’s son? they asked. (Luke 4: 14-22)
Jesus Christ
In the Imitation of Christ (Book 1, chapter 1) we read that our
chief effort ought be to study the life of Jesus Christ. The author, though,
writes that “there are many who hear the Gospel often but care little for it
because they have not the spirit of Christ.” If we wish “to understand fully the
words of Christ,” we
must try to model our whole lives on his. So the Gospels will reveal the figure
of Christ to those who wish to follow him. The Gospels were written for the
spiritual benefit of those who have faith in Jesus and who love him. In our
Gospel today we read of our Lord’s return to his hometown where he spoke in the
Synagogue. I have always found this passage of the Gospel to be especially
intriguing and winning because of its vivid description of the person of Jesus
speaking in the Synagogue. He went to Nazareth and undoubtedly stayed in his
former dwelling, back now with his widowed and most holy mother. Think of the
conversation between them over those few days and of Christ sharing with her his
account of his public ministry now begun. He mixes with relatives and past
acquaintances, and the Sabbath arrives. He enters “the Synagogue as was his
custom.” This time he stood up to read. Imagine Christ rising from his chair,
his mother in the Synagogue as well — perhaps knowing that he would be
announcing to the congregation that in him the prophecies were being fulfilled.
He stood, showing his desire to read and the Synagogue official, seeing him
ready, signals to him to come forward. He reached the official and received
from him the scroll which he unrolled to the prophet Isaiah. He read the
passage he had sought, rolled up the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and
sat down. It is all quite detailed in its description. Jesus then began to
speak and he proceeded to deliver a profoundly impressive and moving address,
the gist of which was that his hearers were, at that very moment, seeing and
hearing exactly what Isaiah had been referring to in his prophecy. The
townspeople of Nazareth were amazed. Never had they expected such beautiful
rhetoric from this one who was of their own.
It is
a Gospel scene (Luke 4: 14-22) in which the
real Jesus of Nazareth is vividly brought before the reader. But consider the
wonder of what is being described. The people gaze on one of their own.
Impressive as is his discourse — presumably the most impressive ever given in
the long and fitful history of the tiny settlement of Nazareth — still, all they
had before them was the Jesus they had known since his infancy. This was the
young man who all along blended with his townsmen and clan. He was indeed so
good a person, and yet he was one of themselves. They had no inkling of the
fact that this very person they had known all along, this young man whose very
infancy many would remember, was — yes! — God himself. This man, limited as
was his humanity, was the unlimited God. Pure Being was present before them in
a limited human nature. He stood with a certain posture and moved with a
certain gait. He was of a certain height and a certain weight. He had certain
features, certain lines of countenance, a certain way of looking and speaking,
his voice had a certain timbre and modulation. His person was manifested within
definite limitations. Now this person, defined in his human characteristics,
was the great God himself. A divine person with his divine nature, he had taken
to himself a truly human nature, such that in gazing on this man they were
gazing on God — God the Son become this man. It can only be described as an
unending wonder that God had become man, and those who saw him and spoke to him
were in familiar relations with the infinite God. God utterly and absolutely
transcends his creation. How could it be otherwise with a Being that sustains
out of nothing all that is? He transcends all, while being unimaginably close
to all that he sustains. But by his power he has become, not a creature, but
one with a created, finite and limited nature, while retaining his eternal and
infinite divine nature. God made man now had a mother, he lived as brother to
men, and he suffered and died just as does each of us. Those in the Synagogue
that Sabbath morning were gazing on a townsman who was and is God himself.
Let us
stand there astonished at the marvel of the Incarnation. As we raise our eyes
and gaze at the heavens, at the clouds, the moon and the stars, as we think of
the unspeakable vastness of visible creation and the lofty grandeur of its
Creator and Sustainer, let us think of the greatest of all displays of divine
power. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. There were those of us who
saw his glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth. From him has come grace upon grace, and the power to become children of
God. He, Jesus Christ, is the treasure beyond treasures, the pearl of great
price. Let us, as it were, sell all we own to gain that pearl.
(Used
again Jan 10)
Prayers for today:
The Lord is a light in darkness to the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and
just. (Ps 3: 4)
All-powerful Father, you have made
known the birth of the Saviour by the light of a star. May he continue to guide
us with his light, for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever.
(January 9)
St. Adrian of Canterbury
(d. 710)
Though St. Adrian turned down a papal request to become
Archbishop of Canterbury, England, Pope St. Vitalian accepted the rejection
on the condition that Adrian serve as the Holy Father’s assistant and adviser.
Adrian accepted, but ended up spending most of his life and doing most of
his work in Canterbury. Born in Africa, Adrian was serving as an abbot in
Italy when the new Archbishop of Canterbury appointed him abbot of the monastery
of Sts. Peter and Paul in Canterbury. Thanks to his leadership skills, the
facility became one of the most important centres of learning. The school
attracted many outstanding scholars from far and wide and produced numerous
future bishops and archbishops. Students reportedly learned Greek and Latin
and spoke Latin as well as their own native languages. Adrian taught at the
school for 40 years. He died there, probably in the year 710, and was buried
in the monastery. Several hundred years later, when reconstruction was being
done, Adrian’s body was discovered in an incorrupt state. As word spread,
people flocked to his tomb, which became famous for miracles. Rumour had
it that young schoolboys in trouble with their masters made regular visits
there. (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today:
1 John 5:5-13; Psalm
147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20; Luke 5:12-16
While Jesus was in one of the
towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he
fell with his face to the ground and begged him, Lord, if you are willing, you
can make me clean. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. I am
willing, he said. Be clean! And immediately the leprosy left him. Then Jesus
ordered him, Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer
the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.
Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to
hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to
lonely places and prayed. (Luke 5: 12-16)
The true way
Consider the extraordinary power displayed by Christ in our Gospel scene today.
From ancient times the mysterious disease known as leprosy was a horror to
society and a terrible affliction to the sufferer. Little could be done except
to impose a strict separation of the leper from contact with society. In the
book of the Leviticus we read that lepers will wear torn clothes, dishevelled
hair and covered mouth, and will shout: “Impure, impure!”, adding that while the
leprosy lasts they will be impure.
They
will live isolated and will live outside the camp. It seems that in the Middle
Ages all those who suffered the disease had to express their condition through
sign language. What could life have amounted to for the leper! Engulfed in his
debility and decay he was cut off from human contacts except for his fellow
sufferers. It is not hard to imagine the anguish of spirit with which the poor
leper of our Gospel today approached Jesus. We read that “he fell with his face
to the ground and begged him. Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus was his only hope, and Jesus was hope enough. He and he alone could
deliver him from this immense and intractable malady which, like a sea-monster
holding its unfortunate prey in its vice-like teeth, was dragging him down into
the depths. Undoubtedly the demonic world added its due strength to the hold of
the leprosy. But Christ, full of compassion, at a single word felled the power
that held the man. What power and what love! I ask you — can you think of any
one in history who at a single word and by his own power drove out the leprosy
“immediately” from a man who was “covered” with it? In a word, Christ was
all-loving and almighty. Now, consider this. Is it not to be wondered at that
this man who had such extraordinary powers and who lived in God his Father
continually, did not himself step forth beyond the chosen people to conquer the
world? It is clear that his plan was to make disciples of all the nations, but
this he left to his disciples. What did he do? Instead of choosing himself to
conquer the world for God with his great powers, he chose to die.
Christ
repeatedly showed that he could resist and extricate himself from danger at
will. In his home town he was hustled out of town and brought to an edge from
which the people intended to throw him. But he passed through the crowd and
went on his way. Repeatedly he eluded the Pharisees and religious leaders when
they attempted to apprehend him, including when they attempted to stone him.
His hour had not yet come. At the very commencement of his Passion when, led by
Judas, the temple guard came upon him in the Garden of Gethsemane, at his word
they fell back to the ground (John 18:6).
He told his disciples that at a word he could summon from his heavenly Father
twelve legions of angels. But he chose not to exercise this power, a power the
demons themselves had no means of resisting. Rather, he chose to submit himself
to the power of his enemies and be put to death. This is incomprehensible to
the world. The Cross is madness and folly. Islam, for instance, denies the
crucifixion and (therefore the) resurrection of Jesus. Muslims think that God
rescued Jesus from the schemes of the unbelievers and raised him to heaven.
Apart from the gratuitousness of this denial of the plain facts of history, it
also shows how contrary are the ways of God to human expectations. The fact is
that the path of obedient suffering and death is revealed by Christ’s own course
to be the most fruitful source of good. That is the path God intended his
Messiah to take. That is the path Jesus Christ, for all his power and winning
goodness, chose as the means to redeem the world. Obedience to the will of God
amid suffering has the power of hosts, hosts upon hosts. Christ could have
called to his aid legions upon legions of angels. He could have resisted kings
and armies. He could have ruled empires — could he not? After all, what is
there that he could not have done? Recognizing his prowess, Satan offered him
the empires of the world if he would but worship him. But no. Christ, the new
Adam, chose the path of obedience unto death. It is this that led to the
world’s salvation. It was by his cross and resurrection that he redeemed the
world.
If only the average Christian could think with the mind of
Christ! Let this mind be in you, St Paul writes, that was in Christ Jesus. If
we wish our lives to be truly fruitful in an enduring and even eternal sense,
then we must follow Christ. That means we must take up our cross every day and
follow in his footsteps. It means the careful and loving fulfilment of our
everyday duties for love of Jesus and following his way voluntarily according as
taught to us by his Church. It is not by might and not by armies that the world
was saved, but by being crowned with thorns, scourged with whips and nailed to a
cross. Let us pray for the grace to follow Christ in his way to glory.
(Used again
Jan 10)
Prayers today:
God sent his own Son, born of a woman, so that we could be adopted as his sons
(Gal 4: 4-5).
God our Father, through your Son
you made us a new creation. He shared our nature and became one of us; with his
help, may we become more like him, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
(January 10)
St. Gregory of Nyssa (c.
330-395)
The son of two saints, Basil and Emmilia, young Gregory
was raised by his older brother, St. Basil the Great, and his sister, Macrina,
in modern-day Turkey. Gregory's success in his studies suggested great things
were ahead for him. After becoming a professor of rhetoric, he was persuaded
to devote his learning and efforts to the Church. By then married, Gregory
went on to study for the priesthood and become ordained (this at a time when
celibacy was not a matter of law for priests). He was elected Bishop of Nyssa
(in Lower Armenia) in 372, a period of great tension over the Arian heresy,
which denied the divinity of Christ. Briefly arrested after being falsely
accused of embezzling Church funds, Gregory was restored to his see in 378,
an act met with great joy by his people. It was after the death of his beloved
brother, Basil, that Gregory really came into his own. He wrote with great
effectiveness against Arianism and other questionable doctrines, gaining
a reputation as a defender of orthodoxy. He was sent on missions to counter
other heresies and held a position of prominence at the Council of Constantinople.
His fine reputation stayed with him for the remainder of his life, but over
the centuries it gradually declined as the authorship of his writings became
less and less certain. But, thanks to the work of scholars in the 20th century,
his stature is once again appreciated. Indeed, St. Gregory of Nyssa is seen
not simply as a pillar of orthodoxy but as one of the great contributors
to the mystical tradition in Christian spirituality and to monasticism itself.
Orthodoxy is a word that raises red flags in our minds.
It connotes rigid attitudes that make no room for honest differences of opinion.
But it might just as well suggest something else: faith that has settled
deep in one’s bones. Gregory’s faith was like that. So deeply imbedded was
his faith in Jesus that he knew the divinity that Arianism denied. When we
resist something offered as truth without knowing exactly why, it may be
because our faith has settled in our bones. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today:
1 John 5: 14-21; Psalm 149:1-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b; John 3:22-30
After this, Jesus and his disciples
went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and
baptised. Now John also was baptising at Aenon near Salim, because there was
plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptised. (This was
before John was put in prison.) An argument developed between some of John’s
disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to
John and said to him, Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the
Jordan— the one you testified about—
well, he is baptising, and everyone is
going to him. To this John replied, A man can receive only what is given him
from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but
am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who
attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he
hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He
must become greater; I must become less. (John 3: 22-30)
The Bridegroom
There are certain details about the early stage of our Lord’s public ministry
that are mentioned in John’s Gospel, and not in the others. John tells us, as
do the others, that after his baptism he returned to Galilee where he began his
public ministry (2:11). According to the
text of John — although John may not mean to insist on a strict chronological
order of events — having begun in Galilee, Jesus returned to Judaea for the
Passover (2:13).
Having cleansed the Temple and encountered the religious leaders, he “spent some
time” with his disciples “baptizing there (3:22).
John too was baptizing near Aenon near Salim where water was plentiful, and
people kept coming to be baptized” (3:23).
This was before John’s arrest. So John was still engaged in his prophetic and
baptizing ministry during the early stages of our Lord’s public ministry. Our
Lord — at least when in Judaea where John was still active — had his disciples
also baptizing. This may have been to build on John’s ministry and to show the
profound continuity between his own mission and that of John. We also see how
effortlessly our Lord was eclipsing John. We read that John’s disciples came to
John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the
Jordan — the one you testified about — well, he is baptizing, and everyone is
going to him” (3:26). Our Lord did not put
himself at the forefront in his ministry of baptism. John the Evangelist tells
us that it was our Lord’s disciples who did the baptizing, not he
(4:2). Still, the people were flocking to
him — “everyone is going to him,” John’s disciples said. This was becoming
known, for as St John tells us “the Pharisees had heard that he (Jesus) was
winning over and baptizing more disciples than John”
(4:1). A greater star had suddenly risen, and he was the very one
John had pointed to. There is not an exact parallel of this in the Scriptures
before Christ. Elijah had passed his mantle on to Elisha, but Elisha’s star
rose only after Elijah had gone. Here, the new prophet had been indicated by
the older, and the new was outshining all others, including his immediate
predecessor.
Let us
recognize the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. The course of our Lord’s ministry
quickly manifested his uniqueness, and John the Baptist was the first to
recognize it. When the facts of the case were brought to his attention — that
all were now going to Jesus — John rejoiced. He told his disciples that his joy
was now complete. “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You
yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of
him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the
bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the
bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become
greater; I must become less” (John 3: 22-30).
John’s words show the immense respect he had for his kinsman Jesus, whom God had
revealed to him as the long awaited Messiah. But John also mysteriously refers
to him as the bridegroom. Jesus of Nazareth is the bridegroom of the chosen
people of God. It is a cause of great joy that “everyone is going to him.” The
holy and ascetic John applies the metaphor of a bridegroom, a metaphor which was
profoundly rooted in Scripture. It is one which God himself had used to
describe himself and his relationship with his people. Yahweh God was the
Bridegroom of his people. The prophets had spoken of the people as the spouse —
an all-too often unfaithful spouse — of a Husband who was always faithful. This
denoting of Jesus as the bridegroom of God’s chosen people bespeaks a unique
relationship between Yahweh and Jesus, suggesting an identification. According
to the better Greek manuscripts, John had earlier testified to his disciples
that Jesus is “God’s Son” (1:34), or alternatively “God’s Chosen One” —
probably a reference to the Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah (42:1). All this is to
point to the transcendent uniqueness of Jesus Christ, far outstripping John in
personal holiness and power of ministry. John rejoices that such a One has now
come, and he now must become less.
Let us ask for the grace to contemplate the person of Jesus
Christ with the holy and admiring gaze of John the Baptist. His whole work was
to set forth before the people the figure of Jesus Christ. Let us so live and
work that Jesus Christ will be honoured and glorified in the hearts of others
and in the life of society. The more this is done, the more we ought rejoice.
Our principal joy in life ought be to see this happen in our families and
wherever the providence of God places us. Let the Bridegroom come to the hearts
of his people, and let us find our greatest joy therein.
(Used
again Jan 10)
Prayers today:
When the Lord had been baptized, the heavens opened, and the Spirit came down
like a dove to rest on him. Then the voice of the Father thundered: This is my
beloved Son, with him I am well pleased. (Mt 3: 16-17)
Almighty, eternal God, when the
Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan, you revealed him as
your own beloved Son. Keep us, your children born of water and the Spirit,
faithful to our calling. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your
Son,...
or
Father in heaven you revealed
Christ as your Son by the voice that spoke over the waters of the Jordan. May
all who share in the sonship of Christ follow in his path of service to man, and
reflect the glory of his kingdom even to the ends of the earth, for he is Lord
for ever and ever.
(January 11)
Blessed William Carter (d.
1584)
Born in London, William Carter entered the printing business
at an early age. For many years he served as apprentice to well-known Catholic
printers, one of whom served a prison sentence for persisting in the Catholic
faith. William himself served time in prison following his arrest for "printing
lewd [i.e., Catholic] pamphlets" as well as possessing books upholding Catholicism.
But even more, he offended public officials by publishing works that aimed
to keep Catholics firm in their faith. Officials who searched his house found
various vestments and suspect books, and even managed to extract information
from William's distraught wife. Over the next 18 months William remained
in prison, suffering torture and learning of his wife's death.
He was eventually charged with printing and publishing the Treatise of Schisme,
which allegedly incited violence by Catholics and which was said to have
been written by a traitor and addressed to traitors. While William calmly
placed his trust in God, the jury met for only 15 minutes before reaching
a verdict of "guilty." William, who made his final confession to a priest
who was being tried alongside him, was hanged, drawn and quartered the following
day: January 11, 1584. He was beatified in 1987.
It didn’t pay to be Catholic in Elizabeth I’s realm. In
an age when religious diversity did not yet seem possible, it was high treason,
and practicing the faith was dangerous. William gave his life for his efforts
to encourage his brothers and sisters to keep up the struggle. These days,
our brothers and sisters also need encouragement—not because their lives
are at risk, but because many other factors besiege their faith. They look
to us. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today:
Isaiah 42:1-4.6-7; Psalm 29:1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10; Acts of the Apostles 10:34-38;
Luke 3:15-16.21-22
The people were waiting expectantly
and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ.
John answered them all, I baptise you with water.
But one more powerful than I
will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will
baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. When all the people were being
baptised, Jesus was baptised too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and
the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came
from heaven: You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
(Luke
3:15-16.21-22)
The coming of the Spirit
Our Lord spent the first thirty years of his life in the obscurity of
Nazareth. Almost 90% of his life was lived in Nazareth as an unknown
carpenter with his foster father, and Mary his mother. In the plan of God that
stage would pass, for our Lord had a great and public ministry ahead of him,
crowned with redemptive suffering, rejection and death. What a difference there
was between life at Nazareth, and his life thereafter! The turning point was
his baptism in the river Jordan, which we contemplate today. He came quietly to
John, asking to be baptised as if he were just another sinner, though being
without sin. Baptised with water, as if repenting and being cleansed from sin,
he was then baptised by his heavenly Father with a new outpouring of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit came down upon Him (Luke
3:15-16, 21-22) to launch him on his public mission. Henceforth the
Holy Spirit was working in him with a new power and effect. By the power of the
Holy Spirit he cast out devils, cured the sick, forgave sinners, proclaimed and
explained God’s kingdom, instituted the Eucharist. By the power of the Holy
Spirit he offered himself as a perfect victim on the cross. By the power of the
Spirit he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven to rejoin his Father.
The
Holy Spirit had been at work in various great figures and prophets of the Old
Testament, but in the case of our Lord, his action was without parallel in its
saving effectiveness. All this began in earnest at our Lord’s baptism. No
other person had been or would be such a saving instrument of the Holy Spirit as
our Lord was from the moment of his baptism. His baptism signalled a new and
unique entry of the Holy Spirit as a protagonist in the world. Then when this
same Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son at Pentecost, this marked
the sharing by the Church — the mystical body of Christ — in the evangelizing
and sanctifying ministry of Christ. The Holy Spirit then became the Church’s
sanctifier and inspiration. Christ, the head, was now at work in his body,
reaching out to all nations. And again, this was by the power of the Holy
Spirit. At our Baptism, and again at our Confirmation, this same Holy Spirit
enters into our own individual lives. He works with effect on our minds and
hearts, and through our daily work and life he works on the lives of others. He
enables each of us to become another Christ, and to be truly apostolic, drawing
others to him.
Let us resolve always to love the Holy Spirit, and resolve to
live constantly by His guidance. For this reason the feast of the Baptism of
Christ, marking the end of Christmastide and the beginning of the Ordinary Time
of the Church’s Year, ought be a day of special celebration for each of us.
Just as the Spirit came upon Jesus, so he has come upon each of us his members.
Just as his coming launched Christ’s public mission of bearing witness, so his
coming to us has launched our mission of bearing witness to Jesus. Let us rely
on the Holy Spirit to help us fulfil this, our mission in life.
(Used again
Jan 10)
God's KingdomWe read many references to ‘the Kingdom of God’ in the Gospels.
The Kingdom of God embodied the hopes, the promises and prophecies of
the Old Testament. Now, what does our Lord say at the beginning of his
public ministry? What is the content of his first preaching? Let us
read what St Mark reports of it.
After John had been arrested, Jesus went into Galilee. There he
proclaimed the Good News from God. “The time has come,” he said “and
the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good
News.” (Mark 1:14)
All the blessings promised from heaven were near at hand. Where
would they be found? They were found in Jesus. As St Paul says, every heavenly blessing is in
Christ. For this reason we next read in St Mark our Lord’s invitation:
“Follow me, and I will make you into fishers of men.” To follow him, to
have him, to give oneself to him, to belong to him, is to have all that
God has promised.
However, all that Jesus himself has to offer us was near,
but not yet given. It was given when he gave the Holy Spirit, the Gift of the
Father and of the Son.
PrayerTime and again people are in very desperate situations. No one can
seem to be able to help them, except God. We are surely reminded of the
feelings of Hanna the mother of Samuel in the Old Testament. She
desperately wanted a child. Let us listen to what she said of herself
in the first book of Samuel (1:9-20):
"..Hanna rose and took her stand before the Lord, while Eli the
priest was sitting on his seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. In the bitterness of her soul
she prayed to the Lord with many tears and made a vow, saying, 'Lord of
hosts! If you will take notice of the distress of your servant, and
bear me in mind and not forget your servant and give her a man-child, I
will give him to the Lord'...."
No one could help her, only God. But that help of God is what
ultimately matters and it is available through prayer. When a person is desperate
— you, if ever you are — pray, and pray repeatedly, never losing heart. The prayer will be answered unless you give up on
God should he in his wisdom delay. He will know how best to answer the
prayer, and what the answer should be. It may come unnoticed, and when
looking back, surprisingly. Hanna's prayer was heard, and wonderfully.
(E.J.Tyler)
Being disposed to obey God's call
What dispositions do we need to come to know the Lord, and for
God's plan for our sanctification to come to effect in our life? Consider the famous event in the Old
Testament, when Samuel in his childhood had his first experience of God.
"The boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of
Eli; it was rare for the Lord to speak in those days; visions were
uncommon. .... The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was
lying in the sanctuary of the Lord where the ark of God was, when the
Lord called, 'Samuel! Samuel!' He answered, 'Here I am.' Then he ran to
Eli and said, 'Here I am, since you called me.'(1Sam 3:1-20).
I invite you to read the whole of this passage.
What was there in the boy Samuel's disposition that opened the way
to a personal knowledge of God and His word? It was his readiness to
obey. Hearing the call, he said, 'Here I am, since you called me.' This
disposition to obey was part and parcel of a readiness to believe and
to trust the One who had authority over him. This disposition of
readiness would appear to have been the hidden starting point of his
whole life and of all he did.
'The Lord then came and stood by, calling as he had done before,
'Samuel! Samuel!' Samuel answered, 'Speak, Lord, your servant is
listening.' Samuel grew up and the Lord was with him and let no word of
his fall to the ground.'
St Thomas Aquinas says somewhere that the holy person is always
ready (disposed) to do God's will. Our Lord tells of the seed falling
into good soil, and that good soil is the one who hears the word of God
and accepts it. That disposition or readiness to hear and obey God is
the starting point of sanctity.
(E.J.Tyler)
'A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: "If you want to"
he said "you can cure me." Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. "Of
course I want to!" he said. "Be cured!" And the leprosy left him..'
(Mark 1:40)
The problem of Evil Cardinal Newman wrote in his Apologia of the immense scale of evil
and suffering in the world. If God is present (if he exists, that is),
does he want to do anything about this? If he does want to do
something, it would seem that he cannot — he does not have the power,
and so he is not God. If he does not want to do something, he is not
God. "If you want to, you can cure me."
So why does not God our Lord speak and act in the same way
with all suffering and evil as he spoke and acted with respect to this
leper who appealed to him? We do not know. But he has revealed that all
he does in inspired by an infinite holy love. If he permits evil, it is
so that somehow, mysteriously, God will be glorified the more by what
he will do.
And consider this. If you are suffering without respite, and if
your faith in God's power and love remains unabated, what glory and
honour this gives to God. The test to one's faith involved in enduring
evil offers the opportunity for a magnificent manifestation of
faith in God, an opportunity greater than if there were no suffering.
Suffering is the time to show to God our faith in his power and love,
and it is the time to bear witness to it before others.
There have been countless heroic Christians in the past century
who have borne witness to their belief in an all loving and all
powerful God precisely in their unabaited and continued sufferings unto
death.
(E.J.Tyler)
It is a wonderful act of charity to bring others into the presence
of Jesus, in whom, as St Paul says, there dwells the fulness of the
Godhead bodily. Consider the event described in Mark 2: 1-12
'..He was preaching the word to them when some people came
bringing him a paralytic carried by four men, but as th e crowd made it
impossible to get the man to him, they stripped the roof over the place
wheere Jesus was; and when they had made an opening, they lowered the
stretcher on which the paralytic lay. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to
the paralytic, "My child, your sins are forgiven." ....- he said
to the paralytic — "I order you: get up, pick up your stretcher and go
off home." And the man got up'
Those who brought the paralytic to Jesus went to considerable
trouble to present their sick friend before the Lord. They had faith in
Jesus ('seeing their faith'), and Jesus knew it and proceeded to reward
it. The first surprise they and the sick person received was the
forgiveness of the paralytic's sins, followed up by the miracle of the
physical healing. But clearly our Lord regarded the forgiveness of sins
as the greater gift, though unasked.
We are called to bring others constantly into the presence of
Jesus. We do so in our prayer, and the more people we bring before the
Lord in our prayer, the more good we will do for them. We will be
surprised by what Jesus will do for them as a result of our faith and
our concern. We do so also by exercising a daily apostolate in the
midst of our life, trying in discreet yet effective ways to bring
others into the presence of Jesus such that they themselves will tell
Jesus their needs, and Jesus will gradually reveal to them what he
plans for them.
Let us resolve to be like those people in the Gospel who brought
their friend into the presence of Jesus.
Now I begin!Each of us has real promise, promise springing from the calling
from God inherent in our baptism. There are many figures in Scripture
that showed real promise, a promise stemming from their calling from
God. But in the case of some, it had a tragic sequel. Consider the Old
Testament figure of Saul, chosen by God to be king of the chosen
people. Everything about him as described in 1 Samuel chapter 9 shows a
man full of promise, one chosen by God and anointed to save his people
from their enemies. He could have become a type of the future Messiah,
as his successor King David would be.
'Among the men of Benjamin there was a man named Kish... He had a
son named Saul, a handsome man in the prime of life. Of all the
Israelites there was no one more handsome than he; he stood head and
shoulders taller than the rest of the people..... When Samuel saw Saul,
the Lord told him, "That is the man of whom I told you; he shall rule
my people.' .... Samuel took a phial of oil and poured it on Saul's
head; then he kissed him, saying, "Has not the Lord anointed you prince
over his people Israel? You are the man who must rule the Lord's
people, and who must save them from the power of the enemies
surrounding them." (1 Samuel 9:1-10:1).
Samuel had immense promise, but he failed miserably due to sin.
Each of us has great promise in the sight of God. Let us not fail due
to sin. Let us fight sin daily, ever repenting and seeking the grace of
God in the sacraments, always starting again.
“There was a wedding at Cana in
Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had
also been invited.”(John 2:1-11)
One of the many benefits of studying the religions of man is that
by
comparing the religions of man with revealed religion one
can appreciate the distinctive character of the religion that God has
revealed, and
what he has told us of himself and his plans. The biggest surprise is
that our great and infinite God intends to be our loving friend,
sharing his life with us. God defines himself as love. To convey this
central point, God repeatedly uses the image of marriage. He wishes to
wed us. In the first reading today (Isaiah 62:1-5)
speaking through the prophet Isaiah, God says to his people, “You shall
be called ‘My Delight’ and your land shall be called ‘The Wedded’.” God
is using the language of marriage. He continues, “Like a young man
marrying a virgin, so with the one who built you wed you, and as the
bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so will your God rejoice in
you.” In the mind and plan of God, the married love between a
husband and wife is a sign of the relationship God intends to have with
us. This is the teaching of many of the prophets: God is the bridegroom
and we are his bride — and often an unfaithful bride. Marriage in God’s
plan is meant to remind us of our vocation to be unfailingly united to
God, faithful to him as he is faithful to us. Those who are married
should be aware of their vocation to be this sign, and strive daily to
fulfill it for the good of the Church.
In today’s Gospel (John 2:1-11) our
Lord is present precisely at a wedding, reminding us of his constant
presence in every marriage of those who live in his grace by baptism.
He is in them, they are in him — and this not only by virtue of
baptism, but in a special way by virtue of their marriage. Why? Because
the marriage of two who are baptised is not simply a mutual agreement
ratified and witnessed by society. It has been raised by God to be a
sacrament. It is a human reality, yes, but it manifests and conveys
something higher, something divine which is present and at work in it.
This divine reality present in the marriage is Christ himself who as
the bridegroom is wedded to us his Church. We are his ‘delight.’ By his
presence at the wedding feast of Cana Christ shows his presence in
every Christian marriage. And by his miracle changing the water into
wine he reminds us of his action in each Christian marriage, changing
the water of human love into the wine of a share in divine love. The
married love of Christians, imbued with the love which Christ has for
them and for us, is a sign conveying this greater and higher love to
themselves and to others.
In this age, let all married Christians live this vocation to show
forth and to convey the spousal love of Christ for his Church. Let them
know that by doing this their faithful love contributes greatly to the
salvation of mankind.
(E.J.Tyler)
A second
comment on the readings of the second Sunday of Ordinary Time
“There was a wedding at Cana in
Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had
also been invited.”(John 2:1-11)
Scripture scholars agree that when St John wrote his Gospel
he
saw in the events he reported a deep significance. They were signs. An
example of this is our Lord's presence and action at the wedding feast
of Cana, narrated in the Gospel of today (John 2:1-11).
In the New Testament our Lord is described as the Bridegroom of the
Church. The Bridegroom of the Church blessed the wedding at Cana with
his presence and actively helped and supported it by miraculously
providing wine for the guests. In Christ God manifested his profound
concern for and interest in marriage.
Marriage and its enduring character has lost much of the
protection and esteem of society. The great danger lies in spouses
silently and unconsciously embracing the values of
society and allowing them to affect adversely their marriage. To
counter this danger the married couple ought reflect long and
prayerfully on marriage as God intended it to be and as taught by the
Catholic Faith. The married couple witness to God before their
children, and psychological studies show how much children learn about
God through their parents. Loving parents awaken their children to
faith in God, while parents who fail to do so undermine trust in Him.
When the members of a family are one in love and faith, their faith and
love help their marriage to be a sign of God to others, especially to
their children.
Marriage is also, as Isaiah describes (Isaiah
62:1-5), an image of the bond between God and his
people. A good marriage manifests undying love and joy, ongoing
devotion, forgiveness and perpetual renewal, and a caring for one
another. Couples who forgive when a partner fails make us hope God will
forgive us when we fail. Married love tells us something of God’s love
for His people. If a Christian aspires to bear witness to the world on
behalf of God, let him build up his marriage.
The young St. Therese of Lisieux used to meditate on
her
relationship to Jesus in the light of her married sister’s love. How
sad for us all when broken marriages fail to witness to Christ’s
enduring
love for his Church. The Christ-like quality of marriage comes from
the grace of the sacrament of matrimony. A sacrament is a sign
instituted by Christ
to signify and to give grace. It is a visible religious mystery.
The sacrament of matrimony enables the couple to show forth that which
is beyond and
greater than themselves, and makes their marriage participate in and
share the blessing of that greater reality.
That greater reality is Jesus and his mystical body
of
which the couple are both a part and an image. As an image of it, they
show
forth what is present in part, what is to come in full, and what they
and all of us await. Christian marriage will find the fulfilment
of what
it signifies in the eternal riches of heaven. The Christian marriage,
then, points beyond this world to a higher fulfilment hereafter. For
the couple who hope to find all happiness here on earth, marriage will
be a disappointment which could threaten the future of their marriage.
The Mass is a kind of marriage feast between
God
and his people. As a husband and wife make endless sacrifices of love
for one another, so Christ perpetually renews in the Mass his sacrifice
on
Calvary. At Cana Mary showed her concern for marriage in all its
details, and is eager to help every family. So let those who are
married rely constantly on her
intercession.
(E.J.Tyler)
A
third
comment on the readings of the second Sunday of Ordinary Time
“There was a wedding at Cana in
Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had
also been invited.”(John 2:1-11)
In today’s Gospel scene (John 2:1-11)
our Lord participates in a wedding celebration, surely reminding us of
how in the Old Testament God describes himself as the husband of his
people Israel. It reminds us to of John the Baptist’s reference to our
Lord as the bridegroom, and himself as th e friend of the bridegroom.
Elsewhere in the Gospel our Lord describes himself as the bridegroom of
the Church, and in today’s Gospel this great bridegroom of the Church
graces with his presence a married couple at the wedding feast of Cana.
And so we are led to think of marriage.
The bond between husband and wife is a sacred one for it is
established by God. Many agreements are made in life, and marriage is
one of them. The husband and wife formally agree to belong to one
another as husband and wife till death. But this bond is no ordinary
agreement which they themselves create and which they are entitled to
agree to neglect or even terminate. For God himself has established
this bond for his purposes, and it is to be governed by his laws. God’s
laws are not to be disobeyed, and if they are, the results are terrible
for the happiness of the couple depends on those laws being respected.
We just have to observe the suffering resulting from divorce,
separation, and contraception to appreciate this. Furthermore, if a
married couple respects the laws of God and the sacredness of their
marital bond with one another, they will go a long way towards doing
the work in life which God intends for them.
The couple will bear witness to the reality and the nature of a
loving
and good God, the God who created their marriage bond, a bond which
they constantly try to respect. In a religiously sceptical world,
their marriage will bear witness to God. Furthermore, in God’s plan
marriage is an image of the bond between God and his people. A good
marriage involves and manifests undying love and devotion, and in this
it is an image of God’s love and devotion to us his children. Couples
who forgive when a partner fails leads us to trust that God will
forgive us. We Christians know that marriage is an image of the bond
between Christ and his Church. This dimension of a Christian marriage
comes from its being a sacrament, which is to say a sign instituted by
Christ to give grace. It is a means whereby Christ makes himself
present and active. In a Christian marriage Christ is present and
active in the home. The sacrament of matrimony makes of the Christian
husband and wife a sacrament or channel of Christ’s love and grace for
one another, for the parish, and for the Church. The home should be a
domestic church.
The ideal Christian marriage, then, involves something out
of
this world, because it involves God himself. He is present in the
married life and love of the couple. One of the very greatest things a
married couple can do for the Church and for society and for the parish
is to live their married life as something sacred and involving
obedience to God and his will. Their love for one another is the pearl
of great price to be sought and obtained and cherished, not only for
their own sake but for the sake of many others, including the parish.
At the beginning of each new year, let every married couple resolve to
make the year a year of growth in their married love and life. Let
their task be to make of their marriage a great sign symbolizing and
making present the love of God in Christ.
(E.J.Tyler)
(January 20) St Fabian, pope and
martyr.
St Fabian was Pope from 236 to 250 AD. He promoted the consolidation
and advancement of the Church. He divided Rome into seven diaconates
for the purpose of extending aid to the poor. The papacy acquired such
prestige during this time that he incurred the anger of the Emperor
Decius, and so he was martyred. St Sebastian,
martyr.
St Sebastian, a native of Milan, was an officer in Diocletian's
imperial guard. He became a Christian and suffered martyrdom upon
orders of the Emperor.
(1 Samuel:
1-13)
It is a commonplace observation to say that the path to goodness lies
in genuinely following the dictates of the conscience, and not avoiding
them. The path to Christian holiness lies in following the guidance of
the Holy Spirit, who works in and through the conscience — which itself
must be properly guided. Now, what can thwart this process of following
the promptings of the conscience? Many things, but one is the tendency
to explain away what the conscience dictates by trying to justify what
we want to do. We provide ourselves with reasons for avoiding what the
conscience imposes, and these reasons ‘justify’ what we then do. It is
a rationalisation of what we want to do. This happens so often, and
gradually the voice of conscience is dimmed because ignored. However,
it does not lessen the guilt, nor the consequences.
Consider the tragic example of Saul in today’s first reading. “Samuel
said to Saul, .... ‘Why then did you not obey the voice of the
Lord? Why did you fall on the booty and do what is displeasing to the
Lord?’ Saul replied to Samuel, ‘But I did obey the voice of the Lord. I
went on the mission which the Lord gave me ... From the booty the
people took the best sheep and oxen of what was under the ban to
sacrifice them to the Lord your God in Gilgal.’..” Saul knew that the
booty too was under the ban. But he wanted it, and rationalised away
his disobedience. Then came the terrible consequence from Samuel:
‘Since you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as
king.’
We must be ever on the alert for the tendency to avoid what our
conscience dictates to us in the presence of God. There is the tendency
in little matters to justify to ourselves what in our heart of hearts
we know is disobedience. We must strive never to commit a deliberate
venial sin, and never justify such a course to ourselves. The
consequences will be serious. And whenever we commit a deliberate
venial sin, we must repent of it in the full light of conscience.
(E.J.Tyler)
The Son of Man is master of the Sabbath(Mark
2:23-28)
Of course the Pharisees were appealing to the received rules of
observance of the Sabbath as a challenge to what Christ was permitting
in his disciples. Our Lord said in response that he was the lord
(kurios, dominus) of the Sabbath, with full authority over it as over all (‘the
Son of Man is lord also of the Sabbath’ — kai (Greek), etiam
(Latin)). He
also pointed out in the process his own conformity with the Scriptures
(‘Have you never read what David did..’).
But taking the point a step further, is Jesus the Son of Man the Lord
of the Sabbath as we observe it? Do we make of the Sunday the Day of
the Lord Jesus, the Day of Jesus who is the Lord of the Sabbath? Or do
we take a very perfunctory attitude to Sunday, being content with
Sunday Mass and little else? Yes, perhaps we participate in our Sunday
Mass devoutly (but do we?), but what happens after that during the rest
of the day? Perhaps we live out the day in much the same way as we do
every other day of the week. Perhaps we even carry on our
salary-earning work without it being absolutely necessary. We ought ask
ourselves if we are making of our Sunday the Day of the Lord, if we are
allowing Jesus to be the Lord of the Sabbath in our lives. If we do
this our Sundays will bring us great spiritual blessings.
The Church means us and our family to make a point of ensuring that
Sunday is the Lord’s Day.
We are children of God, bearers of the
only flame that can light up the paths of the earth for souls, of the
only brightness which can never be darkened, dimmed or
overshadowed. The Lord uses us as torches, to make that light
shine out. Much depends on us; if we respond many people will remain in
darkness no longer, but will walk instead along paths that lead to
eternal life.
(The Forge,
no.1)
(January 21) St Agnes, virgin and
martyr. St
Agnes came from a noble Roman family. She was about thirteen years old
when she suffered martyrdom (about 304 AD). She was tortured. Her name
is included in the Roman (first) Eucharistic Prayer. Pope Damasus wrote
a celebrated epitaph about her.
"Then, grieved to find them so
obstinate, he looked angrily round at them"(Mark 3:1-6)
At times one gets the impression that people think that God, being love
(as he is), has an accepting and benevolent attitude to us no matter
what we do. After all, he is a loving Father. We hear a strong contrast
made between the angry and punishing God of the Old Testament and the
God of love of the New. The result is that sin is not taken seriously,
and the thought of offending God by it makes little enduring
impression. Indeed, the sense of sin can be gradually lost, and behind
it can be a certain image of God, a God who is not profoundly offended
by sin.
But in fact, it is clear from the inspired Scriptures that while God
goes lovingly after the sinner, it is to reclaim him from his sin, for
God hates deliberate sin. It grieves and angers him. It offends him.
This is abundantly clear in the Gospels. Our Lord said that he who has
seen him has seen the Father (John 14:9). Well, what do we see of Jesus
in the face of obstinate sin?
‘Jesus went into a synagogue, and there was a man there who had a
withered hand. And they were watching him to see if he would cure him
on the sabbath day, hoping for something to use against him. He said to
the man with the withered hand, “Stand up out in the middle!” Then he
said to them, “Is it against the law on the sabbath day to do good or
to do evil; to save life, or to kill?” But they said nothing. Then,
grieved to find them so obstinate, he looked angrily round at them, and
said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his
hand was better.’
In the face of such wilful and sinful obstinacy, our Lord was grieved,
a grief that showed itself in a holy anger. St Paul tells us in one of
his letters not to make the Holy Spirit sad by sin, and here we see
Christ grieved and angry in the face of obstinate, unrepentant sin. Let
us beware lest due to secret obstinacy in the face of grace, we cause
sadness to the Holy Spirit, grief and anger in the Son, and wrath in
God.
Let us strive daily to repent, to repent of venial sin. Repentance is
the delight of God.
(E.J.Tyler)
God is my Father! If you meditate on it, you will never let go of this
consoling thought.
Jesus is my dear Friend who loves me with all the divine madness of His
Heart.
(The Forge,
no 2).
(January 22) St Vincent, deacon
and martyr.
Vincent, born in Huesca, Spain, was a deacon of the Church of
Saragossa. He suffered terrible tortures and died the death of a martyr
at Valencia, in Spain, during the persecution of Diocletian. Veneration
for him spread quickly throughout the Church. He was one of the
greatest deacons of the Church.
Sam 18:6-9;
19:1-7 Mark 3: 7-12
Great crowds followed Jesus from a wide area. The devils knew who he
was, but he forbad them to make him known. Why was this? Because people
would seek him for the wrong reasons, and never come to know not only
his true mission, but who he really was. They would look on him simply
as a wonder worker who would bring them the material benefits they
needed and wanted. But our Lord came to take away the sin of the world,
to give men the power to be children of God, to give them the gift of
holiness.
“....... For he had cured so many that all who were afflicted in any
way were crowding forward to touch him. And the unclean spirits,
whenever they saw him, would fall down before him and shout, ‘You are
the Son of God!” But he warned them strongly not to make him known.’
Mark 3: 7-12.
The problem with the vast crowds seeking out our Lord was that they
desired not freedom from sin and sanctity, but other things. Our Lord
could provide those other things — he healed, cast out devils, raised
the dead — but these miracles were a sign of something far greater he
wished to give. He had to bring them to desire the far greater and to
work for it.
Do we wish to be freed and cleansed from sin? Do we wish to be good? Do
we wish to be holy? Are we prepared to take the means to attain
holiness, and to put the effort in? If we are not, then we do not
really desire it. If we desire it, Christ will enable us to attain it
with the gift of his grace which comes with the presence and action of
the Holy Spirit.
Let us pray for a great desire for holiness, and for the guidance of
the Holy Spirit in attaining it.
(E.J.Tyler)
David was one of the very greatest of the Old Testament figures, and in
so many respects as a father and king of his people, a forerunner of
his descendant the Messiah. His kingdom in some sense would never have
an end. But let us ask, in what did his greatness consist — do we have
some key to it? There are many aspects to his greatness, but clearly a
central feature of the grandeur of David was his reverence and
submission to God. Now this reverence and submission to God was
manifested in his reverence and submission towards God’s
representatives, even if they were unworthy. David could recognise
where the hand of God was present, and he knew that when God had
anointed an individual as prophet or king, to reverence that person and
to submit to him in matters due to him was to reverence and to submit
to God.
“David’s men said to him, ‘Today is the day of which the Lord said to
you, “I will deliver your enemy into your power, do what you like with
him.” David stood up and, unobserved, cut off the border of Saul’s
cloak. Afterwards David reproached himself for having cut off the
border of Saul’s cloak. He said to his men, “The Lord preserve me from
doing such a thing to my lord and raising my hand against him, for he
is the anointed of the Lord.” David gave his men strict instructions,
forbidding them to attack Saul.’
David reverenced and obeyed God, and extended this religious submission
to the ones who represented him. He also was disposed to repent, and
this we see in him on other occasions. It also accounts for his
greatness. In both these outstanding qualities we have a model. Our
submission to Christ our Lord is to be shown — if it is real at all — in our attitude to those who represent him, the pastors of the Church
— particularly the chief pastor. If we fail in this (as did David here)
we should repent.
(Used
again Jan 10)
My Father
— talk to him like that, confidently — who art in heaven,
look upon me with compassionate Love, and make me respond to your love.
Melt and enkindle my hardened heart, burn and purify my unmortified
flesh, fill my mind with supernatural light, make my tongue proclaim
the Love and Glory of Christ.
(The Forge, no.3)
(January 24) St
Francis de Sales, bishop and doctor of the Church
(1567-1622) Born in Thorens, Savoy (France). With
apostolic zeal, St Francis de
Sales fought Calvinism. He was Bishop of Geneva. With St Frances de
Chantal, he founded the Order of the Visitation. He wrote the
Introduction to the Devout Life, a classic of spiritual direction. He
died in Lyons and was canonised in 1655. In 1877 Blessed Pius IX
proclaimed him Doctor of the Church. He also declared him Patron Saint
of Journalists and Other Writers. St John Bosco named his Order after
him (the Salesians).
(Mark
3: 20-21)
A striking feature of God’s plan to save us was the very extent of the
Incarnation. God became man and accepted the limitations inherent in
being one of us and in sharing our lot. We see an instance of this in
today’s Gospel. “Jesus went home, and such a crowd collected that they
could not even have a meal. When his relatives heard of this, they set
out to take charge of him, convinced he was out of his mind” (Mark 3: 20-21).
Our Lord’s wider family beyond Mary and Joseph included many who hardly
realised who they were dealing with. They tried to push him around and
treated him as if he were deluded. And our Lord accepted this treatment
(without being governed by it) with meekness and humility. Learn from
me, he would say, for I am meek and humble of heart. Perhaps this
humility and meekness of Christ is especially to be learnt and
practised within the family. It is there that we are especially called
to be Christ to others.
(E.J.Tyler)
Christ ascended the Cross with his arms wide open, with the
all-embracing gesture of the Eternal Priest. Now he counts on us — who
are nothing! — to bring the fruits of his Redemption to all men.
(The Forge, no.4)
“Then he began to speak to them.
‘This
text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.” (Lk 1:21)
Today’s Gospel describes our Lord beginning the great work of his
life,
which would be his public ministry culminating in his Passion and
Death, and the inauguration of his Church. “Jesus, with the power of
the Spirit in him, returned to Galilee; and his reputation spread
throughout the countryside. He taught in their synagogues and everyone
praised him.” (Luke 1:1-4;
4:14-21) The work of the redemption of the world from its
deepest and worst bonds had begun. In the synagogue at Nazareth our
Lord quoted the prophet Isaiah, “The spirit of the Lord has been given
to me for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the
poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and to the blind new sight, to
set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.” Our
Lord says he was sent, sent by God, and filled with the Spirit who
empowered and worked in him to bring fruitfulness to His work. Let us
contemplate the Lord Jesus! He looks at each one of us, and says,
follow me, and share in my work of redeeming the world, redeeming your
world, the world of your family, your everyday work, acquaintances,
your parish.
At our Baptism he endowed us with a share in his Holy Spirit, the
same
divine Spirit who utterly filled him. He thus placed us in his company,
calling each of us his friend, giving us a share in his own divine life
and making us children of God his Father. At our Confirmation he
endowed us again with his Spirit, associating us this time in his
mission. So every day each of us, whatever be our vocation, has a great
share in his work ahead of us. We will actively share in his work by
doing well and for him and his glory the work he in his providence has
given us to do. And consider this. If all in the Church share in the
mission of our Lord to redeem the world; and if the majority of the
Church is made up of the laity, we must assume then that the fulfilment
of Christ’s mission to the world depends greatly on the laity and on
the work that is characteristic of the laity.
Furthermore, insofar as the laity’s role is mainly, though not
exclusively, in the temporal order, and being engaged in temporal and
secular tasks, then this means that, mysteriously, the fulfilment of
our Lord’s redemptive mission here and now depends very much on the
laity fulfilling well and in union with Christ their work in the world.
Their everyday work in the world of family and workplace and of every
day life is the arena in which our Lord will be working, and working of
course in them, and with the power of the Spirit in them. The lay
faithful should bring excellence into their everyday work, doing it in
union with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, doing it as a constant service to
God, while looking for opportunities to bear witness to Jesus and his
will before others. Thus does our Lord bring redemption to the world — very much through the laity and their lay work. But they must become
acutely aware of this responsibility of theirs. To be witnesses to
Jesus and to his love, the lay person ought assiduously seek and
receive from the Church grace and instruction so as to be spiritually
equipped to bring Christ to the world.
Let us resolve every day to take part in the mission of Jesus, the
beginning of which is portrayed in our Gospel scene today.
(E.J.Tyler)
A
further
reflection on the Gospel of the third Sunday of Ordinary Time C
"He came to Nazareth, where he
had
been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day as he
usually did. He stood up to read, ..."(Luke
1:1-4;4:14-21)
A question which often recurs in the living of one’s
Christian
life, and in the life of a parish relates to Sunday Mass and every
Mass. The Eucharist is the high point of our Christian life and its
source. It ought be, then, a time of peace, joy, and real devotion. How
can we attain this? Perhaps we can learn the way to participate in our
Sunday Mass with real joy and devotion, by thinking of the example of
our Lord in Scripture such as we have just heard.
Consider the Gospel of today. St Luke records that Jesus
entered
the Nazareth synagogue “As he usually did” (Luke
1:1-4;4:14-21). More than anyone else in Israel, our
Lord kept the ten commandments to perfection, and so we can scarcely
imagine how well he would have kept the third commandment, which is to
“Keep holy the Sabbath Day. He would have revered the Sabbath Day as
the Day given over to God his heavenly Father, as would Mary and
Joseph. Especially central to his week and that of the holy family
would have been going to the synagogue at Nazareth, as he usually did.
So when we are coming to Mass each Sunday, and better still, perhaps
each day, we ought think of Jesus, Mary and Joseph going to the
Synagogue. We could think of how prayerful they would have been in the
Synagogue during the reading from the Scriptures, during the homily,
and during the other prayers that would have been part of the Synagogue
service. We ought have Christ as our model in everything, including in
the way we participate at Mass.
And so we are reminded of the teaching of the Church
regarding our observance of the Lord’s Day, Sunday. We are seriously
obliged to participate in Sunday Mass, and to make the Sunday a day of
rest from our daily programme of work so that we can recuperate our
resources and give proper worship to God. We can be sure that this is
just what our Lord and the holy family would have done. It should be
the spirit of every Sunday. Sunday should be the Lord’s Day.
What should be our approach, our spiritual approach,
when
we come to Mass to worship God? First of all, it should involve a
prayerful and attentive reverence. Consider the attitude of the people
in the First Reading as they listened to the Scriptures being read by
the priest. They assembled together and listened while the priest Ezra
read and interpreted the Scriptures from dawn to midday. When he began,
the people gave a happy “Amen”, but when he read the laws and
requirements of God, they broke into weeping. Then Ezra reminded them
of their chosen status and calling and privilege, and told them that
the day was holy and so they should be joyful. They responded to all
that they heard because they listened with prayerful and attentive
reverence.
We too when we come to Mass should come with the
resolution to attend with deep reverence, taking to heart everything we
hear, and meaning everything we say. Imagine the deep and attentive
reverence with which our Lord and the holy family would have listened
to the word of God being read out in the Synagogue: it was the word of
his heavenly Father. Very wonderful things will happen in our lives if
we bring this attitude with us into Mass. We shall gain light and
strength. Time and again the Holy Spirit will enlighten our minds with
understanding and give us the spiritual impulse to live according to
that light. But we must give ourselves over in a reverent and prayerful
attention to the Word of God as it comes to us in the readings from
Scripture and in the Homily.
But then there is the other and more important part of the
Mass.
The Mass consists of the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of the
Eucharist made up of the preparation at the Offertory, the Eucharistic
Prayer, and then there is the Communion rite. In the Liturgy of the
Word our Lord is present speaking to us, just as he spoke to the
Synagogue congregation in the Gospel we have just heard. But in the
Liturgy of the Eucharist he makes himself present what he did at
Calvary. Calvary is made present during the Liturgy of the Eucharist,
only in different circumstances. We are granted the gift of being able
to be present at Calvary in a sacramental manner. Just as Mary was
present at Calvary offering herself in union with her Son for the
redemption of the world, so we are able to unite ourselves with Jesus
too. We ought do so in union with Mary, as it were next to her side as
was the beloved disciple. What a privilege and an extraordinary
opportunity this is.
Our Lord’s public life was divided into two great
parts.
There was his public teaching ministry, and there was his Passion and
Death and Resurrection. At Mass the risen Jesus, in his full human and
divine reality, body, blood, soul and divinity, makes himself present
doing what he did then: teaching us in the Liturgy of the Word, and
offering himself for us as he did at Calvary during the Liturgy of the
Eucharist.
There is nothing that happens in the world that is as
important
as the Mass, for it is the moment when the same Jesus is present doing
in our midst what he once did and which we read of in the Gospels. We
ought strive to realize as vividly as we can that it is a living acting
person, the person of Jesus, who is the protagonist at Mass. He is
there among us, in the person of the priest, in his word, and in the
Eucharist. We must enter into Mass with a truly lively faith in the
real presence of Jesus, open to the gifts of the Spirit He wishes to
give to us to help us on our path to holiness and heaven.
So let us resolve to entrust ourselves to Jesus at
Mass,
to make of it the great event of the Sunday and of the week, and to
ensure that it is ever the summit and source of our life.
(E.J.Tyler)
(January 26) St Timothy
was the son of a pagan father and a
Hebrew-Christian mother, Eunice. He was a disciple of St Paul and
accompanied him in the evangelisation of many cities. St Paul
consecrated him bishop of Ephesus. According to a fourth century story,
he was beaten to death by a mob when he opposed the observance of a
pagan festival. St Titus was also a friend and disciple of St Paul who
ordained him bishop of Crete. St Paul wrote to these two disciples
three pastoral letters which gave glimpses of the future structure of
the Church.
Samuel 5:
1-7.10; Mark 3:22-30
Among the many keys to understanding the ultimate issues of life and
reality, one is that there is an ultimate conflict going on. Many
philosophers and thinkers have resorted to the category of conflict to
understand reality. For instance, Karl Marx said that conflict was the
ultimate dynamic, and it was a conflict between classes in society, to
be resolved with the victory of one. Christ has revealed the true
conflict that is going on. It is the conflict between Good — and God is
the Good — and Evil.
From the first in his public ministry, Christ was at war with Satan,
and Satan at war with him. Christ drove out devils, and the Devil
marshalled all forces for the destruction of Christ. When misrepresented
by his enemies as being in league with Satan, our Lord described Satan
in an interesting way. He described him as being a kingdom and a
household, and one that is not divided.
“So Jesus called them to him and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can
Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that
kingdom cannot last. And if a household is divided against itself, that
household can never stand. Now if Satan has rebelled against himself
and is divided, he cannot stand either — it is the end of him. But no
one can make his way into a strong man’s house and burgle his property
unless he has tied up the strong man first. Only then can he burgle his
house.’ Mark:3:24
Inasmuch as our Lord was proclaiming and establishing the Kingdom of
God (as found in him), there are, then, two kingdoms, each with its own
standard and weapons. Let us make a choice and renew it daily. Let us
fight with Christ to gain dominion over Evil, using the weapon of
Christ, the Cross.
(E.J.Tyler)
Do not be afraid. Do not be alarmed or surprised. Do not allow
yourself to be overcome by false prudence. The call to fulfil God’s
will — this goes for vocation too — is sudden, as it was for the
Apostles: a meeting with Christ and his call is followed. None of them
doubted. Meeting Christ and following him was all one.
(The
Forge, no.6)
Today's
Scripture readings: 2 Samuel 6:
12-19; Psalm 23; Mark 3:
31-35
(January 27) St Angela Merici,
virgin (1470-1540). St Angela was
born in northern Italy. In 1516 she founded the Order of Ursulines, the
first teaching order for women approved by the Church. Italy then was
rife with violence and immorality. St Angela believed that the
formation of Christian women is society's greatest need.
Being
a true brother or sister of Jesus
One of the great dangers in the spiritual life is complacency. We are
Christians, Catholics, members of the Church who live (perhaps) fairly
good lives by comparison with many others. We are members of God's
family and of his household. But consider that event in the Gospel in
which our Lord, while speaking to a circle of his disciples, was
informed that his mother and relatives were asking for him.
"The mother and brothers of Jesus arrived and, standing outside, sent
in a message asking for him. A crowd was sitting round him at the
time the message was passed to him. 'Your mother and brothers and
sisters are outside asking for you.' He replied, 'Who are my mother and
my brothers?' And looking round at those sitting in a circle about
him, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who
does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.'
" (Mark 3: 31-35)
Our Lord is making it clear that those closest to his heart are not
those who are simply and solely
members of his family and household — and we are such by virtue of our
baptism — but those who like him strive actively to do the will of his
Father in heaven. Jesus loved the Father and wished to see him
glorified in the fulfilment of his will. Those who do this are most
dear to him — they are his true brothers.
We are indeed privileged to be children of God, and we are that by his
free gift. But we must not be
complacent. More than anything we must live in a manner consistent with
this privileged status. In this we have the sweet and powerful example
of the mother of Jesus — his mother in the flesh, yes, yet even more
his mother in the spirit. For like her son and in imitation of him she
always did what pleased God.
(E.J.Tyler)
The day of salvation, of eternity, has come for us. Once again the call
of the Divine Shepherd can be heard, those affectionate words: I have
called you by your name. Just like our mother, he calls us by our name,
by the name we're fondly called at home, by our nickname. There, in the
depths of our soul, he calls us and we just have to answer: here I am,
for you have called me, and this time I'm determined not to let time
flow by like water over the pebbly bed of a stream, leaving no trace
behind.
(The Forge,
no.7)
(January 28) St Thomas Aquinas,
priest and doctor of the Church
(1224-1274). He was educated at the Abbey fo Monte Cassino and
at the
University of Naples. About the year 1244 he joined the Dominicans.
Considered one of the greatest philosophers and theologians of all
times, St Thomas gained the title of ‘Angelic Doctor.’ He had an
undisputed mastery of scholastic theology and a profound holiness of
life. Pope Leo XIII declared him Patron of Catholic Schools. His
monumental work, the Summa Theologica, was still unfinished when he
died.
2 Samuel 7: 4-17 Mark 4: 1-20
Cardinal Newman once made the point that generally people are fairly
logical. The decisive matter in their thinking is not so much their
logic as their starting points. It is a person’s starting points, often
very hidden to himself even, that account for mistaken thinking and for
the profound differences between people. Now one of these starting
points, a fundamental one, in our religious life, is our image or
impression of God’s nature or character: what he is like. So important
is it that God intervened in history to reveal to man what he is like.
Read what God says to David in the second book of Samuel, 7: 4-17. The
context of these words is that David wished to build God a house more
worthy of him. But through the prophet Nathan, God refused, saying that
all along He himself had been the source of blessings and gifts to
David, and that is how it would be in David’s lifetime. David was one
of the greatest figures of the Old Testament, and despite serious
lapses, a worthy forerunner of the Messiah who was to come, his
ancestor. The words of God in this passage make it clear that the whole
of his personal history was the product of God’s free initiative. It
was the result of God’s power and love. David’s own history showed what
God is like, and that is how God intended it to remain.
“Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus the Lord speaks: Are you the man
to build me a house to live in? .... I took you from the pasture, from
following the sheep, to be leader of my people Israel; I have been with
you on all your expeditions; I have cut off all your enemies before
you. I will give you fame as great as the fame of the greatest on
earth.... The Lord will make you great; the Lord will make you a House.
.... Your House and your sovereignty will always stand secure before me
and your throne be established for ever.’..” (2 Samuel 7: 4-16)
What is God like? He is love, and he is power and might, a might that
shows itself in mercy.
Live your life close to Christ. You should be another character in the
Gospel, side by side with Peter, and John, and Andrew. For Christ is
also living now: Jesus Christ lives! Today, as yesterday, he is the
same, for ever and ever.
(The Forge, no.8)
There is much in life that we take notice of : it depends
largely on what our interest is. If we are interested we will take
notice of what we are seeing and hearing. And there is much in life
that we see and hear which we take little notice of. If we take little
notice of something, we will scarcely remember much of it, nor will it
play much part in our life. Our having seen or heard will bring little
profit. Our Lord has told us that we are to take notice of what we hear
from him. We can hear his words and see him (as it were) by means
of the teaching and preaching of the Church, but do we take notice?
“He also said to them, ‘Take notice of what you are hearing...
for the man who has will be given more; from the man who has not, even
what he has will be taken away.’..” (Mark 4: 24-25)
On another occasion our Lord told the parable of the sower going out to
sow. The seed that fell on the good soil are those who hear the word of
God and accept it (Mark 4: 20). But to accept it, one must take notice
of it. If we are to take notice of it, we must be genuinely interested,
committed to God and his word.
This is a crucial matter because our Lord says that ‘the man who
has will be given more; from the man who has not, even what he has will
be taken away.’
(Used
again Jan 10)
(E.J.Tyler)
Lord, may your children be like red hot coals, but without flames to be
seen from afar. Let them be burning embers that will set alight each
heart they come into contact with. You will make that first spark turn
into a burning fire, for your angels are very skilled at blowing on the
embers in our hearts. I know, I have seen it. And a heart cleared of
dead ashes cannot but be yours.
(The Forge, no. 9)
Hope in God's power
One of the most persistent problems for any one who wishes to live an
earnest Christian life is recurring discouragement. All too often it
seems to such a one that there is little progress, despite all his
efforts. Nor does there seem to be much progress in the lives of
others, despite his efforts to do good and to advance God's Kingdom.
Putting it differently, one of the greatest needs is for hope, undying
hope. What does this hope have to depend on, if it is to endure? It has
to be hope in the power of God, based on faith, faith in God’s word and
in his promises.
Now, our Lord tells us that God's kingdom has its own inner dynamism
and power for growth.
Jesus said to the crowds: ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. A
man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is
awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know. Of its
own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the
full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, he loses no time: he
starts to reap because the harvest has come.’ (Mark 4: 26-29)
Christ mysteriously depends on us to put all our energy to the task of
extending God’s reign in our own life and in the lives of others. At
the same time, and much more importantly, we can confidently depend on
the inherent power of God’s grace. In respect to the Kingdom of God,
which our Lord said is within us, we are dealing with a divine reality
that has its own life and growth — like the seed a man throws on the
ground, or again like a small mustard seed that grows to something
great.
We work hard to promote the growth of God's kingdom, but our hope is in
its own inner dynamism.
"The Lord is not a remote sovereign, enclosed in his golden world, but
a vigilant Presence aligned on the side of good and justice," Pope John
Paul II has said. "He sees and provides, intervening with his word and
action."
“Think about what the Holy Spirit says, and let yourself be filled with
awe and gratitude: God chose us before the foundation of the world that
we might be holy in his presence. To be holy isn’t easy, but it isn’t
difficult either. To be holy is to be a good Christian, to resemble
Christ. The more closely a person resembles Christ, the more Christian
he is, the more he belongs to Christ, the holier he is.
And what means do we have? The same means the early faithful
had, when they saw Jesus directly or caught a glimpse of him in the
accounts the Apostles and Evangelists gave of him.”
(The Forge, no.10)
(January 31) St John Bosco,
priest (1815-1888) St John Bosco
founded the Salesian Order, named in honour of St Francis de Sales, and
the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. His lifework was the welfare
of young boys and girls, hence his title “Apostle of Youth”. He had no
formal system or theory of education. His methods centred on
persuasion, authentic religiosity, and love of young people. He was a
very great educator and innovator, and marvelous teacher of sanctity to
the young
2
Samuel 12: 1-17 Psalm 50 Mark
4: 35-41
The presence of God in suffering There can be a tendency in persons with a conscience, and so with a
sense of personal sinfulness, to think that if things go wrong, it is
their fault and that perhaps they are being punished. Also, when
suffering or some evil persists, persons can imagine that they are
abandoned by God, and that God does not care. Conversely, a person who
is suffering or in some peril can wonder why they are suffering if in
fact they are not at fault. It is the problem of evil: does not the
fact of evil indicate that God is not a reality?
Let us consider that passage in the Gospel in which our Lord and
his disciples were caught in the storm. “With the coming of evening
that same day, Jesus said to the disciples, ‘Let us cross over to the
other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind they took him, just as he
was, in the boat, and there were other boats with him. Then it began to
blow a gale and the waves were breaking into the boat so that it was
almost swamped. But he was in the stern, his head on the cushion,
asleep. They woke him and said to him, ‘Master, do you not care? We are
going down!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea,
‘Quiet now! Be calm!’ And the wind dropped, and all was calm again.
Then he said to them, ‘Why are you so frightened? How is it that you
have no faith?’ They were filled with awe and said to one another, ‘Who
can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.’ (Mark 4: 35-41)
The plight of our Lord’s disciples was very great: they were almost
swamped. But notice why they were in this situation. It was because our
Lord himself had asked them to go across the lake. They had been doing
what God wanted them to do, and this was why they were in this
frightening peril. They were suffering because they were doing Christ's
will. Moreover, they felt abandoned (‘Master, do you not care?’). But
they were not, for though our Lord was asleep he was there. He rebuked
them for their lack of faith. So despite appearances, they were indeed
in his care. Jesus was silent, but present.
Their situation was not due to their fault. On the contrary, it was due
to their fulfilling Christ's directive. Nor did it involve being
abandoned. Moreover, many benefits flowed from their being in this
peril. They were led to appeal to Jesus, and seeing his power in
response to their petition, they came to know our Lord better than
before.
As a result of their suffering and peril, God was glorified.
(Used
again Jan 10)
“You owe such a great debt to your Father-God! He has given you life,
intelligence, will.. He has given you his grace — the Holy Spirit;
Jesus, in the Sacred Host; divine sonship; the Blessed Virgin, the
Mother of God and our Mother. He has given you the possibility of
taking part in the Holy Mass; and he grants you forgiveness for your
sins. He forgives you so many times. He has given you countless gifts,
some of them quite extraordinary....... Tell me, how have you
corresponded so far to this generosity? How are you corresponding now?”
(The Forge, no.11)
Mary’s
divine motherhood broadens the Christmas spotlight. Mary has an important role
to play in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. She
consents to God’s invitation conveyed by the angel (Luke 1:26-38). Elizabeth
proclaims: “Most blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your
womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to
me?” (Luke 1:42-43, emphasis added). Mary’s role as mother of God places her in
a unique position in God’s redemptive plan. Without naming Mary, Paul asserts
that “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4).
Paul’s further statement that “God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying out ‘Abba, Father!’“ helps us realize that Mary is mother to all the
brothers and sisters of Jesus. Some theologians also insist that Mary’s
motherhood of Jesus is an important element in God’s creative plan. God’s
“first” thought in creating was Jesus. Jesus, the incarnate Word, is the one
who could give God perfect love and worship on behalf of all creation. As Jesus
was “first” in God’s mind, Mary was “second” insofar as she was chosen from all
eternity to be his mother. The precise title “Mother of God” goes back at least
to the third or fourth century. In the Greek form Theotokos
(God-bearer), it became the touchstone of the Church’s teaching about the
Incarnation. The Council of Ephesus in 431 insisted that the holy Fathers were
right in calling the holy virgin Theotokos. At the end of this
particular session, crowds of people marched through the street shouting:
“Praised be the Theotokos!” The tradition reaches to our own day. In its
chapter on Mary’s role in the Church, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church calls Mary “Mother of God” 12 times.
So
the shepherds hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying
in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had
been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the
shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered
them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all
the things they had heard 
But out of Palestine suddenly came a religion that was being announced with
urgency, with persistence and assurance. It allowed for no other religion as
true. Its claim was that a man who had lived and had been executed there when
Pilate was Procurator, was now alive. He was the long-expected Messiah. Many
had heard of this Jewish expectation of a great Messiah. Now many had
identified him, and were spreading the word across the Empire. There was no
disputing that he was an historical man: all knew this. He had actually been
put to death by the civil authority. But what was being claimed was that he had
come forth from the tomb alive, and that he is the only God. So was his
heavenly Father! So was a mysterious third Person. These were not three more
gods for the pantheon of the Roman world, but one only God. It was an exclusive
truth and was judged to be profoundly subversive of the religious fabric of the
Empire, throbbing and heaving as it was in a cauldron of religions. The core of
it all was that this man Jesus, this Messiah, was the one and only God. That,
in essence, is precisely what the Christian celebrates during the season of
Christmas. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the
Word was God. At Christmas we celebrate that the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, and some saw his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. There have been numerous high gods in the religions of
man, and there were high gods in the ancient world. Jupiter was the king of the
gods for the Roman state. His counterpart in Greek religion was Zeus, in
Etruscan religion, Tinia, and in Hindu mythology, Indra. But none of these high
gods compared in height and power with Yahweh, the God of Jewish revelation.
The Christians now had it that this one God became a man, and that he had sent
his followers to convert the world.
the beginnings and helped them cope with life, both its blessings and its
threats. One of the several distinguishing features of the Hebrew religion was
its expectation. There was a great Coming which the good Hebrew expected. Not
only did he look back to the past when Yahweh saved his people, but he looked to
the future when through his Messiah, God would come and both save and judge.
With this in mind he prepared accordingly. We remember the elderly Simeon who
had been assured by God that he would not see death until he had laid eyes on
the Messiah. We remember our Lord telling his disciples that prophets and kings
had longed to see what they, his disciples, were now seeing. A distinguishing
trait of the revealed religion of the Hebrews was its expectation. They
expected that God would come to save. They looked to the future. But we also
see that there was great haziness as to the details. Scripture gave pointers
here and pointers there, and much of it was left without its synthesis. Moses
had told the people that the Lord said to him, “I will raise up for them a
prophet like you from among their kinsmen, and will put my words into his mouth;
he shall tell them all that I command him. If any man will not listen to my
words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it”
(Deuteronomy 18:18). So another Moses was
coming, but who would he be? Most especially, a great Messiah was expected, the
Anointed one, the son of David who would sit upon his throne and set his people
free. But who would he be? Elijah too must return (Malachi 4:1-5) to anoint
and manifest the Messiah. So the visitors asked John, was he the Prophet? Was
he the Messiah? Was he Elijah?
received a classical and theological education, and followed his father in
a government position under the Arabs. After a few years he resigned and went
to the monastery of St. Sabas. He is famous in three areas. First, he is
known for his writings against the iconoclasts, who opposed the veneration
of images. Paradoxically, it was the Eastern Christian emperor Leo who forbade
the practice, and it was because John lived in Muslim territory that his
enemies could not silence him. Second, he is famous for his treatise, 
was born in what is now the Czech Republic. After studying in Prague, he came
to New York at 25 and was ordained a priest. He did missionary work in New
York until he was 29, when he joined the Redemptorists and became its first
member to profess vows in the United States. He continued missionary work
in Maryland, Virginia and Ohio, where he became popular with the Germans.
At 41, as bishop of Philadelphia, he organized the parochial school system
into a diocesan one, increasing the number of pupils almost twenty fold within
a short time. Gifted with outstanding organizing ability, he drew into the
city many teaching communities of sisters and the Christian Brothers. During
his brief assignment as vice provincial for the Redemptorists, he placed
them in the forefront of the parochial movement. Well-known for his holiness
and learning, spiritual writing and preaching, on October 13, 1963, he became
the first American bishop to be beatified. Canonized in 1977, he is buried
in St. Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia.
Gregory was ordained a priest practically by force, and only reluctantly
accepted the responsibility. He skilfully avoided a schism that threatened
when his own father made compromises with Arianism. At 41, Gregory was
chosen suffragan bishop of Caesarea and at once came into conflict with
Valens, the emperor, who supported the Arians. An unfortunate by-product
of the battle was the cooling of the friendship of two saints. Basil, his
archbishop, sent him to a miserable and unhealthy town on the border of
unjustly created divisions in his diocese. Basil reproached Gregory for
not going to his see. When protection for Arianism ended with the death
of Valens, Gregory was called to rebuild the faith in the great see of
Constantinople, which had been under Arian teachers for three decades.
Retiring and sensitive, he dreaded being drawn into the whirlpool of corruption
and violence. He first stayed at a friend’s home, which became the only
orthodox church in the city. In such surroundings, he began giving the
great sermons on the Trinity for which he is famous. In time, Gregory did
rebuild the faith in the city, but at the cost of great suffering, slander,
insults and even personal violence. An interloper even tried to take over
his bishopric. His last days were spent in solitude and austerity. He wrote
religious poetry, some of it autobiographical, of great depth and beauty.
He was acclaimed simply as “the Theologian.”
Since Raymond lived into his hundredth year, he had a
chance to do many things. As a member of the Spanish nobility, he had the
resources and the education to get a good start in life. By the time he was
20, he was teaching philosophy. In his early 30s he earned a doctorate in
both canon and civil law. At 41 he became a Dominican. Pope Gregory IX called
him to Rome to work 
for him and to be his confessor. One of the things the pope asked him to
do was to gather together all the decrees of popes and councils that had been
made in 80 years since a similar collection by Gratian. Raymond compiled
five books called the 
Some saints show marks of holiness
very early. Not Angela! Born of a leading family in Foligno, she became immersed
in the quest for wealth and social position. As a wife and mother, she
continued this life of distraction. Around the age of 40 she recognized the
emptiness of her life and sought God’s help in the Sacrament of Penance.
Her Franciscan confessor helped Angela to seek God’s pardon for her previous
life and to dedicate herself to prayer and the works of charity. Shortly
after her conversion, her husband and children died. Selling most of her
possessions, she entered the Secular Franciscan Order. She was alternately
absorbed by meditating on the crucified Christ and by serving the poor of
Foligno as a nurse and beggar for their needs. Other women joined her in
a religious community. At her confessor’s advice, Angela wrote her Book of
Visions and Instructions. In it she recalls some of the temptations she suffered
after her conversion; she also expresses her thanks to God for the Incarnation
of Jesus. This book and her life earned for Angela the title "Teacher of Theologians."
She was beatified in 1693.
We are children of God, bearers of the
only flame that can light up the paths of the earth for souls, of the
only brightness which can never be darkened, dimmed or
overshadowed. The Lord uses us as torches, to make that light
shine out. Much depends on us; if we respond many people will remain in
darkness no longer, but will walk instead along paths that lead to
eternal life.