Pope Benedict XVI's general
prayer intention for March is: "That
young people, who are looking for the meaning of life, be understood,
respected and supported with patience and love." March 2006
Pope Benedict XVI's general
prayer intention for March is: "That
young people, who are looking for the meaning of life, be understood,
respected and supported with patience and love."
The Pope's mission
intention for March is:
"That Catholics grow in mission awareness and
offer support and collaboration to missionary work."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(March 1) Today let us think of St David (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture: Joel 2: 12-18; Psalm 51: 3-6, 12-14, 17; 2 Corinthians 5:20 - 6:2; Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18.
We
are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through
us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who
had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of
God. As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For
he says, “In the time of my favour I heard you,
and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s
favour, now is the day of salvation.
(2 Corinthians 5:20 - 6:2
NIV)
On Ash
Wednesday the Church places before us the stark appeal of St Paul and makes it
her own: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as
though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf:
Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2).
Were it not for what God has done
in sending us his Son, such an appeal would be
impossible. We would be able to do nothing about such a call, for we would be
enslaved by our sins. But Christ has broken the power of sin and we are able to
live a new life, the life of God. Now, that being granted, what must we do in
order to be reconciled to God? To begin with, we should meditate on who God is
and on what he is like: “he is all tenderness and compassion”
(Joel 2: 12-18). Were we simply to go on our
own natural sense of things, we would hardly be encouraged to draw near to God,
for the thought of our sins would give to our thought of God a great foreboding.
There would be little reason for confidence in approaching an all-holy God. But
God has revealed his face in the face of Christ, a face of one who is full of
love and compassion, the face of the one who has expiated for our sins.
The grace of the liturgical season of Lent is the grace of being more deeply reconciled with God. A great good awaits us during Lent. It is the good of repenting of our sins and, in union with Christ, of making up for them and for the sins of others. Let us, in the clear light of what the Church tells us of the season of Lent, resolve to make of Lent a time of true renewal. Apart from relying on the grace of God for this, we must draw up a plan of action on our part, an agenda involving prayer, self-denial and works of mercy (Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18). It will mean more fervent prayer and possibly more time at prayer if we are not giving sufficient time to it. If we are giving sufficient time to it, we can certainly resolve to pray with greater fervour. It will mean more self-denial, possibly in little unnoticed ways, especially the inner self-denial that is involved in overcoming intractable secret faults, but supported by physical mortification as well. Why not cut out television except for a certain amount of necessary news bulletin? And very importantly, there is almsgiving and works of mercy.
Let us resolve with the help of God’s grace to make this year’s Lent a time of genuine spiritual advance.(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forty days that lead us to baptism
into the death and resurrection of Christ
Comment from St Maxim of
Turin (? –– around 420), Bishop (Sermon 28)
“In a time of favour I answer you, on the day of salvation I help you.”
(Isa 49:8) After quoting this, the apostle Paul continues with the
words: “Now is the acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation!” (2
Cor 6:2). I in turn call upon you to witness that now the days of
redemption have come, now has come in a sense the moment of spiritual
healing. We can take care of all of the stains from our vices, all the
wounds from our sins, if we pray constantly to the doctor of our souls,
if ……we do not neglect any of his prescriptions……
The doctor is our Lord Jesus who said: “It is I who bring forth both
death and life.” (Deut 32:39). The Lord first brings forth death, and
then he gives back life. Through baptism, he destroys in us adulteries,
homicides, murders and theft; then he brings us back to life as new
persons in eternal immortality. We die to our sins, of course through
baptism, we return to life in the Spirit of life…… Let us surrender to
our doctor with patience in order to regain health. Everything that he
will have detected in us that is unworthy, soiled through sin, eaten by
ulcers, he will trim, he will cut it, he will take it away, so that,
once all the wounds inflicted by the demon have been eliminated, only
what belongs to God will remain.
This is his first prescription: to consecrate forty days to fasting, to
prayer, to vigils. Fasting heals flabbiness, prayer nourishes the
reverent soul, vigils reject the devil’s traps. After this period of
time given to all these observances, the soul that is purified and
exhausted from so many practices, comes to baptism. It regains strength
by plunging into the waters of the Spirit: everything that had been
burnt in the flames of illness is born again in the dew of heaven’s
grace…… By means of a new birth, we are born again changed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our lives can effectively co-redeem, in an eternal way, only if we act
with humility, passing unnoticed, so that others can discover Him.
(The Forge,
no.669)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 2) Today let us think of St Chad (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Deuteronomy 30: 15-20; Psalm 1: 1-4 and 6; Luke 9: 22-25.
See, I
set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command
you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his
commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your
God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart
turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to
other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly
be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to
enter and possess. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you
that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose
life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your
God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and
he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers,
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20
NIV)
It has been well said that we are born into this world in order to work. The next great truth to apprehend is, what we are meant to be working for. The danger is that in the daily busy-ness of a life immersed in work, we can easily lose sight of what we are ultimately meant to be living and working for. That is to say, we can easily be led to live and work for things other than those that are truly necessary.
Lent
is a time that comes around each year when we can take stock of the
fundamentals. The Church asks us to consider the basic choices to be made in
life, and what these choices will lead to. Accordingly today she places before
us in the first reading our passage from the book of
Deuteronomy. It is Moses’ inspired statement of the two stark
alternatives of life (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).
The first is: “See, I set before you today life and
prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your
God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you
will live and increase” The second is both stark and frightening
“But if your heart turns away … you will
certainly be destroyed.”
The season of Lent is a valuable opportunity to return to these basics, and, with a renewed vision of the real and eternal issues, to choose for God and his holy will: “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 30:15-20). It is impossible to have a great desire for something and the capacity to devote all our energies to it unless we have great clarity of vision. The average person lacks clarity of vision in respect to the last and final thing, which is the judgment of God on which our eternity will hang. From that judgment will flow the life or death that the words of Moses ultimately refer to. It will all depend on how well we have prepared for that divine judgment. Today let us pray for the grace to see clearly the choices to be made, and the generosity to act in daily life accordingly.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Let him take up his cross each day
and follow in my steps” (Luke 9: 22-25)
Commentary from the Oriental
Liturgy (Office of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross)
Hail, life-giving cross, invincible trophy of piety, door to Paradise,
comfort of those who believe, ramparts of the Church. Through you,
corruption was annihilated, the power of death was swallowed up and
abolished, and we have been raised up from the earth to heavenly
things. You are the invincible weapon, the demons’ adversary, the
martyrs’ glory, the saints’ true ornament, the gate to salvation……
Hail, cross of the Lord, by which humankind has been delivered from the
curse. You are the sign of true joy. When you are raised up, you crash
our enemies to the ground. We venerate you. You are our help, the
strength of kings, the assurance of the righteous, the dignity of
sinners……
Hail, precious cross, guide to the blind, doctor for the sick,
resurrection for all who have died. You lifted us up when we had become
stained. Through you, corruption was brought to an end and immortality
blossomed; through you, we who are mortal were divinized and the demon
was entirely brought down.
O Christ, today we who are sinners venerate your precious cross with
our unworthy lips. We sing to you who wanted to be attached to that
cross. And like the thief, we cry out to you: “Make us worthy of your
Kingdom!”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the children of God act in their apostolate, they have to be like
those great lighting systems which fill the world with light, but the
lamp is not seen.
(The Forge,
no.670)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 3) Today let us think of St. Cunegundes and St. Katherine Drexel (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Isaiah 58: 1-9; Psalm 51: 3-6, 18-19; Matthew 9: 14-15.
Then
John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the
bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom
will be taken from them; then they will fast.” (Matthew
9: 14-15
NIV)
During these early days of Lent the Church places before us our Gospel scene of today in which John’s disciples come to Jesus puzzled that he does not insist that his disciples fast, in the way they and the Pharisees did. After all, fasting was a perennial means of spiritual growth and life. Our Lord replied, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast” (Matthew 9: 14-15).
What
are we to make of our Lord’s answer? To begin with, our Lord’s reply surely
shows his kindness, his flexibility, his willingness to wait — all qualities
which are in evidence in his dealings with each one of us. Our Lord was forming
his disciples and had still a long way to go with them. Even after his
resurrection
they had much distance to travel in understanding. They were made
up of different personalities, different backgrounds, and with only the haziest
notions of what our Lord himself as the Messiah had come to do — some of their
expectations were entirely mistaken. He allowed them to find their feet, to
become his friends, to enjoy his company, and to begin to learn from him, the
Master. His work and goals were of a radically different order from that of the
Pharisees, and even from that of John — for we remember how he contrasted John
with those ‘in the kingdom of heaven.’ So our Lord was allowing his disciples
simply to be with him, the Bridegroom, with all the joy and the newness that
this involved. Our Lord was kindly, flexible and patient with them as he is with
each of us too, as we work our way towards spiritual maturity.
But, as our Lord explained to John’s disciples, the time for seriousness and spiritual struggle in his disciples would come. He would be taken away from them, and another Advocate would come to be with them forever. And then indeed they would fast, and take the Kingdom by constant struggle unto death. With these words of our Lord before us, and with the assurance of the help of the Holy Spirit ahead of us, let us use this Lenten period to set in place in our lives a pattern of true self-denial and spiritual struggle, following in the footsteps of the Bridegroom who has been taken away from our sight — but who is present intimately to us, giving us the grace to follow after him. Let us renounce all mediocrity and all tendency simply to coast along. We must be disciples with a great desire to follow the Bridegroom whithersoever he goes. Let us begin this concretely, in practical terms, by aiming higher in prayer, in self-denial, and in service and assistance to others.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Then they will fast” (Matthew 9:
14-15) Comment by John Paul II (Angelus on
March 10, 1996)
Among the penitential practices that the Church suggests to us above
all during this Lenten time is fasting. It consists in a special
sobriety in the food we eat, while ensuring care for the needs of our
body. This is a traditional form of penance, which has lost none of its
significance, and which we perhaps need to rediscover, above all in
that part of the world and in the milieus where food not only abounds,
but where we at times encounter illnesses due to overeating.
Obviously, penitential fasting is very different from therapeutic
diets. But as it is, we can see in it a therapy for the soul. For when
it is practised as a sign of conversion, it facilitates the interior
effort to make oneself available to listening to God. To fast is to
reaffirm for oneself what Jesus replied to Satan, when the latter
tempted him at the end of forty days of fasting in the desert: “Not on
bread alone is man to live but on every utterance that comes from the
mouth of God.” (Mt 4:4) Today, especially in our well-to-do societies,
it is difficult for us to understand the meaning of this word of the
gospel. Instead of pacifying our needs, the consumer society creates
ever new ones, even engendering disproportionate activism... Among
other meanings, penitential fasting has precisely the aim of helping us
to recover interiority.
The effort towards moderation in food also extends to other things that
are not necessary, and it greatly aids the life of the spirit.
Sobriety, recollection and prayer go together. This principle can be
appropriately applied to our use of the mass media. They are
unquestionably useful, but they must not become the “masters” over our
life. In so many families, the television seems to replace rather than
facilitate dialogue among the persons! A certain “fasting” in this area
can be salutary, either so as to give more time to reflection and
prayer or to cultivate human relations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jesus says: “He who hears you hears me.” Do you still think it is your
words that convince people? Don’t forget either that the Holy Spirit
can carry out his plans with the most useless instrument.
(The
Forge, no.671)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 4) Saint Casimir (1458-1484) The son of the King of Poland, he practised the Christian virtues especially chastity and love of the poor. He was conspicuous for a firm faith and for his veneration of the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He died of phthisis. (Saints)
Scripture today: Isaiah 58: 9-14; Psalm 86: 1-6; Luke 5: 27-32
After
this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his
tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and
followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large
crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and
the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples,
“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” Jesus answered
them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke
5: 27-32
NIV)
If God
had not deigned to reveal himself to us, what would we have known of him?
How
likely would it have been that mankind would sense that the Creator actually
loves us? Suffice it to point to the
vast array of religions and philosophies of
man to show how meagre and contradictory would be our common knowledge of him.
Whatever of that general observation, one of the most surprising and consoling
of the divine attributes revealed by the Son of God made man is the love of God
for those who offend him by sin. God loves the sinner and calls on him
continually to repent. Christ assures us that there is more joy in heaven over
one repentant sinner than over the ninety nine, as it were, who have no need of
repentance. That is to say, precisely because God loves the sinner, his
repentance from sin brings joy to God.
Of course, it is not as if only one in a hundred needs to repent. Every man and woman needs to embark on a daily process of repentance. In our Gospel today (Luke 5: 27-32) our Lord calls on Levi the tax collector to follow him, and Levi immediately leaves everything to follow him. What is behind this immediacy of response? Perhaps Levi knew he was a sinner and Christ’s invitation expressed to him in wondrous fashion God’s loving mercy and pardon. It was a stunning invitation to friendship with God, despite his sins. Levi, being a tax collector, was regarded as “a sinner” and was by this fact made conscious of his sinful condition. The same applied to his colleagues, the other tax collectors. Our passage tells us that when Levi held a great reception for our Lord and his disciples in his house, there was with them “a large gathering of tax collectors and others”. They were regarded by the Pharisees as “sinners.” These sinners felt welcomed, loved and honoured by our Lord’s presence. In large measure they were open to the love of God in Christ because of the sense they had of their own sinfulness.
It has often been pointed out — as it was by Pope Pius XII — that the sin of our time is the loss of the sense of sin. Let us pray for the grace of a personal sense of sin. If we lack this we will be out of touch with our true condition and feel little need for the Saviour who came to take away the sin of the world. Let us resolve then to be like the Publican of our Lord’s parable who beat his breast in the presence of God saying, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” It was he who went home justified, not the Pharisee.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Leaving everything behind, he stood
up and became his follower” (Luke 5: 27-32)
Comment by John Paul II
(Message to youth in preparation for the 20th WYD) (August 6, 2004)
Listening to Christ and adoring him leads to courageous choices, to
decisions that are at times heroic. Jesus makes demands, because he
wants us to be authentically happy. He calls certain people to leave
everything in order to follow him in a life as a priest or in a
consecrated life. May those who hear this invitation not be afraid to
answer “yes”, and may they generously follow him. But aside from
particular vocations to a consecrated life, there is the vocation of
every baptized person. It also is a vocation to that “high degree” of
ordinary Christian life, which finds its expression in sanctity (cf. Novo millenio ineunte,
At the beginning of the new millennium, 31).
So many of our contemporaries do not yet know God’s love or are trying
to fill their heart with insignificant substitutes. It is thus urgent
to be witnesses of the love contemplated in Christ…… The Church needs
authentic witnesses for the new evangelization: men and women whose
lives have been transformed through their encounter with Jesus, men and
women who are able to communicate this experience to others. The Church
needs saints. We are all called to sanctity, and only the saints can
renew humankind.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saint Ambrose has some words that fit the children of God
marvellously well. He is speaking of the ass’s colt, tethered to its
dam, which Jesus needed for his triumph: “Only an order of the Lord
could untie it”, he says. “It was set loose by the hands of the
Apostles. To do such a deed, one needs a special way of living and a
special grace. You too must be an apostle, to set free those who are
captive.”
Let me comment on this text for you once more. How often,
upon a word from Jesus, will we have to loosen souls from their bonds,
because he needs them for his triumph! May our hands be apostles’
hands, and our actions, and our lives also. Then God will give us an
apostle’s grace, too, to break the fetters of those who are enchained.
(The Forge,
no.672)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 5) Today let us think of St Kieran (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Genesis 9:8-15; Psalm 25: 4-9; 1 Peter 3: 18-22; Mark 1: 12-15
“Jesus, at the Sight of the Crowds, Was Moved With Pity” (Matthew 9:36)
Pope Benedict XVI's Message for Lent 2006
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
Lent
is a privileged time of
interior pilgrimage towards Him Who is the fount of
mercy. It is a pilgrimage in which He Himself
accompanies us through the desert of our poverty, sustaining us on our way
towards the intense joy of Easter. Even in the “valley of darkness” of which the
Psalmist speaks (Psalm 23:4), while the tempter prompts us to despair or to
place
a vain hope in the work of our own hands, God is there to guard us and sustain
us. Yes, even today the Lord hears the cry of the multitudes longing for joy,
peace, and love. As in every age, they feel abandoned. Yet, even in the
desolation of misery, loneliness, violence and hunger that indiscriminately
afflict children, adults, and the elderly, God does not allow darkness to
prevail. In fact, in the words of my beloved Predecessor, Pope John Paul II,
there is a “divine limit imposed upon evil,” namely, mercy (Memory and
Identity, pp. 19ff.). It is with these thoughts in mind that I have chosen
as my theme for this Message the Gospel text: “Jesus, at the sight of the
crowds, was moved with pity” (Matthew 9:36).
In this light, I would like to pause and reflect upon an issue much debated today: the question of development. Even now, the compassionate “gaze” of Christ continues to fall upon individuals and peoples. He watches them, knowing that the divine “plan” includes their call to salvation. Jesus knows the perils that put this plan at risk, and He is moved with pity for the crowds. He chooses to defend them from the wolves even at the cost of His own life. The gaze of Jesus embraces individuals and multitudes, and he brings them all before the Father, offering Himself as a sacrifice of expiation.
Enlightened by this Paschal truth, the Church knows that if we are to promote development in its fullness, our own “gaze” upon mankind has to be measured against that of Christ. In fact, it is quite impossible to separate the response to people’s material and social needs from the fulfilment of the profound desires of their hearts. This has to be emphasized all the more in today’s rapidly changing world, in which our responsibility towards the poor emerges with ever greater clarity and urgency. My venerable Predecessor, Pope Paul VI, accurately described the scandal of underdevelopment as an outrage against humanity. In this sense, in the Encyclical Populorum Progressio, he denounced “the lack of material necessities for those who are without the minimum essential for life, the moral deficiencies of those who are mutilated by selfishness” and “oppressive social structures, whether due to the abuses of ownership or to the abuses of power, to the exploitation of workers or to unjust transactions” (ibid., 21).
As the antidote to such evil, Pope Paul VI suggested not only “increased esteem for the dignity of others, the turning towards the spirit of poverty, cooperation for the common good, the will and desire for peace,” but also “the acknowledgment by man of supreme values, and of God, their source and their finality” (ibid.). In this vein, the Pope went on to propose that, finally and above all, there is “faith, a gift of God accepted by the good will of man, and unity in the charity of Christ” (ibid.). Thus, the “gaze” of Christ upon the crowd impels us to affirm the true content of this “complete humanism” that, according to Paul VI, consists in the “fully-rounded development of the whole man and of all men” (ibid., 42). For this reason, the primary contribution that the Church offers to the development of mankind and peoples does not consist merely in material means or technical solutions. Rather, it involves the proclamation of the truth of Christ, Who educates consciences and teaches the authentic dignity of the person and of work; it means the promotion of a culture that truly responds to all the questions of humanity.
In the face of the terrible challenge of poverty afflicting so much of the world’s population, indifference and self-centred isolation stand in stark contrast to the “gaze” of Christ. Fasting and almsgiving, which, together with prayer, the Church proposes in a special way during the Lenten Season, are suitable means for us to become conformed to this “gaze.” The examples of the saints and the long history of the Church’s missionary activity provide invaluable indications of the most effective ways to support development. Even in this era of global interdependence, it is clear that no economic, social, or political project can replace that gift of self to another through which charity is expressed. Those who act according to the logic of the Gospel live the faith as friendship with God Incarnate and, like Him, bear the burden of the material and spiritual needs of their neighbours. They see it as an inexhaustible mystery, worthy of infinite care and attention. They know that he who does not give God gives too little; as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta frequently observed, the worst poverty is not to know Christ. Therefore, we must help others to find God in the merciful face of Christ. Without this perspective, civilization lacks a solid foundation.
Thanks to men and women obedient to the Holy Spirit, many forms of charitable work intended to promote development have arisen in the Church: hospitals, universities, professional formation schools, and small businesses. Such initiatives demonstrate the genuine humanitarian concern of those moved by the Gospel message, far in advance of other forms of social welfare. These charitable activities point out the way to achieve a globalization that is focused upon the true good of mankind and, hence, the path towards authentic peace. Moved like Jesus with compassion for the crowds, the Church today considers it her duty to ask political leaders and those with economic and financial power to promote development based on respect for the dignity of every man and woman. An important litmus test for the success of their efforts is religious liberty, understood not simply as the freedom to proclaim and celebrate Christ, but also the opportunity to contribute to the building of a world enlivened by charity. These efforts have to include a recognition of the central role of authentic religious values in responding to man’s deepest concerns, and in supplying the ethical motivation for his personal and social responsibilities. These are the criteria by which Christians should assess the political programs of their leaders.
We cannot ignore the fact that many mistakes have been made in the course of history by those who claimed to be disciples of Jesus. Very often, when having to address grave problems, they have thought that they should first improve this world and only afterwards turn their minds to the next. The temptation was to believe that, in the face of urgent needs, the first imperative was to change external structures. The consequence, for some, was that Christianity became a kind of moralism, “believing” was replaced with “doing.”
Rightly, therefore, my Predecessor, Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory, observed: “The temptation today is to reduce Christianity to merely human wisdom, a pseudo-science of well-being. In our heavily secularized world, a ‘gradual secularization of salvation’ has taken place, so that people strive for the good of man, but man who is truncated. ……We know, however, that Jesus came to bring integral salvation” (Redemptoris Missio, 11).
It is this integral salvation that Lent puts before us, pointing towards the victory of Christ over every evil that oppresses us. In turning to the Divine Master, in being converted to Him, in experiencing His mercy through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we will discover a “gaze” that searches us profoundly and gives new life to the crowds and to each one of us. It restores trust to those who do not succumb to skepticism, opening up before them the perspective of eternal beatitude. Throughout history, even when hate seems to prevail, the luminous testimony of His love is never lacking. To Mary, “the living fount of hope” (Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, XXXIII, 12), we entrust our Lenten journey, so that she may lead us to her Son. I commend to her in particular the multitudes who suffer poverty and cry out for help, support, and understanding. With these sentiments, I cordially impart to all of you a special Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, 29 September 2005
Pope Benedict XVI
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“He stayed in the desert for forty
days.” (Mark 1: 12-15)
Comment by Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI] (Retreat
preached at the Vatican in 1983)
When he went into the desert, Jesus inserted himself into his people’s
history of salvation, that of the chosen people. This history begins
after the exodus from Egypt, with the people’s wandering in the desert
for forty years. At the centre of those forty years were the days of
face to face encounter with God: the forty days which Moses spent on
the mountain, in absolute fasting, far from his people, in the solitude
of the cloud, at the top of the mountain (Ex 24:18). The spring of
revelation sprang forth from the heart of those days. We again find a
duration of forty days in the life of Elijah: persecuted by King Ahab,
he wandered in the desert for forty days, thus returning to the place
where the covenant had its origin, to the voice of God, in order to
begin a new stage in the history of salvation (1 Kings 19:8).
Jesus entered into this history. He lived again his people’s
temptations, the temptations of Moses. Like Moses, he offered a sacred
exchange: to be wiped out from the book of life in order to save his
people (Ex 32:32). Thus Jesus became the Lamb of God who carries the
sins of the world; he became the true Moses who is truly “at the
Father’s side” (Jn 1:18), face to face with him so as to reveal him. In
the deserts of the world, he is truly the source of living water (Jn
7:38), he who is not content with speaking, but who is himself the word
of life: the way, the truth, and the life (Jn14:6). From the height of
the cross, he gave us the new covenant. By his resurrection, he entered
into the promised land as the true Moses, the land to which Moses was
refused access and to which he opens the door to us by means of the key
of the cross.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We can never attribute to ourselves the power of Jesus who is passing
by amongst us. Our Lord is passing by: and he transforms souls when we
come close to him with one heart, one feeling, one desire: to be good
Christians. But it is he who does it: not you nor I. It is Christ who
is passing by! And then he stays in our hearts — in yours and in mine — and in our tabernacles. Jesus is passing by, and Jesus comes to stay.
He stays in you, in each one of you, and in me.
(The Forge,
no.673)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Monday of the first week of Lent
(March 6) Today let us think of St. Colette (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Leviticus 19: 1-2.11-18; Psalm 19: 8-10, 15; Matthew 25: 31-46
The
LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: Be
holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.… Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not
deceive one another. Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of
your God. I am the LORD. Do not defraud your neighbour
or rob him. Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight. Do not curse
the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am
the LORD. Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or
favouritism to the great, but judge your
neighbour fairly. Do not go about spreading
slander among your people. Do not do anything that endangers your
neighbour’s life. I am the LORD. Do not hate
your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbour
frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge
against one of your people, but love your neighbour
as yourself. I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19: 1-2.11-18
NIV)
It has
been said that one of the notable differences between the average Protestant and
the average Catholic for quite a period of time in the past was that the
Protestant delved into the Old Testament
and quoted it far more than the New,
and it was the reverse for the Catholic. Whether this was true is a further
question, but at least it highlights the lack of familiarity
with, and use of the Old Testament by great
numbers of Catholics. Catholics are at home with the New Testament, and in
particular with the Gospels — and that is a great good. The Gospels are the
centrepiece of the New Testament and therefore of the entire Bible because the
living Jesus stands forth from the pages of the Gospels more sharply than in any
other of the inspired books. However, we ought cultivate an enormous veneration
for every part of the Scriptures, including the Old Testament. Our first reading
today, taken from one of the more neglected books of the Old Testament
(Leviticus), gives us a passage of great beauty and immense spiritual relevance.
Why is this? Its opening verse brings us to the heart of divine revelation with a momentous sentence: The Lord spoke to Moses; he said: ‘Speak to the whole community of the sons of Israel and say to them: “Be holy, for I the LORD your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19: 1-2). Man’s condition is a sinful one. The moral goodness to which his conscience summons him is beyond his natural reach because of the burden of sin which he knows afflicts him. God in revealing himself to man commands him to seek holiness: “Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.” Perhaps the most distinctive note of the Judaeo-Christian revelation is that its purpose is to bring to man the gift of a share in God’s holiness. That is to say, together with this command to be holy comes the promise of redemption from the sin that makes holiness impossible. God so loved the world that he sent his Son to take away the sin of the world, and by the gift of his Holy Spirit, to make man’s transformation entirely possible. “This is the will of God, your sanctification,” St Paul writes.
During these weeks of Lent, let us hear again the call to holiness, and let us dispose ourselves (by prayer, self-denial and concern for others) to walk in its path by the grace of God, a path marked especially by justice and charity to our fellow man (Leviticus 19: 1-2.11-18 and Matthew 25: 31-46).
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Come. You have my Father’s blessing!
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you” (Matt. 25: 31-46)
Comment by Saint Cesarius of Arles
(470-543), Monk and Bishop (Sermon 26,5)
Christ, that is to say, heavenly mercy, comes to the door of your house
every day, not only spiritually to the door of your soul, but also
materially to the door of your house. For every time a poor person
approaches your house, it is without any doubt Christ who is coming, he
who said: “As often as you did it for one of these little ones, you did
it for me.” So don’t harden you heart; give a little money to Christ,
from whom you want to receive the Kingdom. Give a piece of bread to
him, from whom you hope to receive life. Welcome him into your home, so
that he might welcome you into his paradise. Give him alms, so that in
return he might give you eternal life.
What audacity to want to reign in heaven with him to whom you refuse to
give alms in this world! If you receive him during this earthly
journey, he will welcome you into his heavenly happiness; if you
despise him here in your homeland, he will turn his eyes away from you
in his glory. A Psalm says: “In your city, Lord, you despise their
image.” (Ps 72:20 Vulg.) If we despise those who are made in the image
of God (Gen 1:26) in our city, that is to say, in this life, we must
fear being rejected in his eternal city. So be merciful here below……
Thanks to your generosity, you will hear that wonderful word said to
you: “Come. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Lord wants to make us co-redeemers with him. That is why to help us
understand this marvel, he moves the evangelists to tell us of so many
great wonders. He could have produced bread from anything ... but he
doesn’t! He looks for human co-operation: he “needs” a child, a boy, a
few pieces of bread and some fish. He needs you and me: and he is God!
This should move us to be generous in our corresponding with his grace.
(The Forge,
no.674)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Tuesday of the first week of Lent
(March 7) Saint Perpetua and Saint Felicity, martyrs. Perpetua was a young mother of Carthaginian nobility and Felicity was a slave girl. These two martyrs were thrown to the wild beasts in the persecution of Septimus Severus in the year 203 at Carthage. Perpetua was still nursing her newly born baby boy. There is an impressive narrative of their martyrdom in existence, partially written by the saints themselves and partly by a contemporary writer. (Saints)
Scripture today: Isaiah 55: 10-11; Psalm 34: 4-7, 16-19; Matthew 6:7-15
And
when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be
heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows
what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our
Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on
earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their
sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.’ (Matthew
6:7-15
NIV)
To
have received guidance on how to pray from the Son of God himself is a very
precious thing. Our Gospel passage today tells us how God wants us to pray: we
call it the Lord’s Prayer. Now, the first thing we
surely notice about this
Prayer taught to us by the Lord is its simplicity. And that is exactly what our
Lord states in his preamble: “And when you pray, do
not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of
their many words” (Matthew 6:7-15).
When two very good friends are together, or, say, two such as mother and son,
their communication is simple and direct in character and in their words. So it
is with our prayer to God. As we read this very simple prayer that our Lord
teaches us to pray, we also gain a glimpse of his own prayer to his heavenly
Father. Obviously, it too was simple and direct. Why is this? It is surely
because the Father is very near to Jesus, near beyond our imagining. So too with
us. There is no need to strain, as it were, to be understood by the Father. He
is not some distance away. He is very near, and he loves us. This
too, is revealed by the Lord’s Prayer.
This simplicity in prayer is what our Lord emphasises in his introduction. In his conclusion he emphasises something else which is also surprising and demanding. It is that we must forgive others their failings. If we do not, our request to be forgiven ours will not be granted: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:7-15). So Christian prayer involves not only a trusting and simple attitude to God our Father, but also a forgiving attitude to our neighbour. We can go through life never forgiving this or that person from the heart. If this amounts to a deliberate refusal to forgive, our eternity can be at stake, because God has told us that his forgiveness of our trespasses will depend on our forgiveness of the trespasses of others. So then, every time we think of someone who has hurt us in the past in any way, let us resolve to pray for that person there and then, and to do so from the heart. If we have offended another, let us pray for that person too. Let us pray for the grace to forgive genuinely from the heart, everyone who has caused us any injury of any kind.
Let us reflect on the preamble and on the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer as Matthew presents it to us. The preamble directs us to be simple, trusting and immediate in our prayer to God. The conclusion asks us to forgive others, so as to be able to ask God for forgiveness for our sins.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The "Our Father": The prayer of the
children of God (Matthew 6:7-15)
Comment by Blessed Teresa of
Calcutta (1910-1997), Foundress of the Missionary Sisters of
Charity
In order for prayer to be fruitful, it must come from the heart and be
able to touch God’s heart. See how Jesus taught his disciples to pray.
Every time we say the “Our Father”, I believe that God looks at his
hands, at the place where he has engraved us: “Upon the palms of my
hands I have written your name.” (Isa 49:16) God contemplates his
hands, and he sees us there, nestling in them. How marvellous is God’s
tenderness!
Let us pray, let us say the “Our Father”. Let us live it and then we
will be saints. Everything is there: God, myself, my neighbour. If I
forgive, I can be holy, I can pray. Everything comes from a humble
heart; when we have such a heart, we will know how to love God, how to
love ourselves, and how to love our neighbour (Mt 22:37f.). That is
nothing complicated, and yet we complicate our lives so much and make
them heavy with so many extra loads. Only one thing counts: to be
humble and to pray. The more you pray, the better you will pray.
A child encounters no difficulty in expressing its ingenuous
understanding in simple words that say a lot. Didn’t Jesus give
Nicodemus to understand that we must become like a small child (Jn
3:3)? If we pray according to the Gospel, we will allow Christ to grow
in us. So pray with love, the way children do, with the ardent desire
to love much and to make beloved the person who is not loved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you help him, even with a trifle, as the Apostles did, He is ready
to work miracles; to multiply the bread, to reform wills, to give light
to the most benighted minds, to enable those who have never been
upright to be so, with an extraordinary grace. All this he will do ....
and more, if you will help him with what you have.
(The Forge,
no.675)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Wednesday of the first week of Lent
(March 8) St John of God, religious (1495-1550). He heeded the word of God when he was already forty years old and from then on lived at the service of the sick in Granada (Spain). Before that, he was successively a farmer, a soldier, and merchant. He founded his Order of Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, devoting themselves to the infirm in body and soul. (Saints)
Scripture today: Jonah 3: 1-10; Psalm 51: 3-4, 12-13, 18-19; Luke 11: 29-32
Then
the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of
Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the
LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city — a visit
required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He
proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” The Ninevites
believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the
least, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from
his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat
down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of
the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste
anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with
sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways
and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from
his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how
they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them
the destruction he had threatened. (Jonah 3: 1-10
NIV)
When
we consider the saints, the striking thing about them is their great spiritual
progress. Spiritually they continued improving day by day. What then is the
secret to this pattern of great progress in their life, in contrast to the
little progress made in the lives of so many others? The secret, the key to it
was that they knew how to repent. That is to say, their daily lives were marked
by a pattern of repentance from faults and sins
which they
combated and renounced and rid
from their lives. They identified their sins
and faults — which is to say they came to know themselves — and then with the
example of Christ before them they renounced these sins and faults. If we are to
make similar spiritual progress we must do the same. We must set in place a
practice of daily examination of conscience, and then each day identify what is
preventing spiritual progress and renounce those moral obstacles. The repentance
of a Christian is not a one-off event, but rather a daily and life-long pattern.
If we are attempting this genuinely every day we are preparing well for the hour
of our death, when we must renounce all and accept the will of God.
In our first reading of today the prophet Jonah is sent to the pagan city of Nineveh (Jonah 3: 1-10). The inspired author develops his story to bring out the climax of repentance. The pagan people of Nineveh repented of their sins. That they repented was due to the mercy of God in sending a (reluctant and not very obedient) preacher of repentance, but they also had the readiness to respond to the warning that was preached to them. They were disposed to do what God wanted. The Church during these days of Lent preaches repentance to us too, and invites us to take heed of what the pagan people did in the story of Jonah. If they can do it, so can we — even more so for we have the Spirit of God to sustain the promptings of our conscience. So then, let us heed the call to repent. Our Lord replies in the Gospel (Luke 11: 29-32) to those who were demanding a sign: “On Judgment Day the men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation and condemn it, because when Jonah preached they repented; and there is something greater than Jonah here.”
So then, now I begin! Let us make our goal this Lent putting repentance at the centre of our life. Any genuine spiritual progress will be impossible unless we do.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“No sign will be given it except the
sign of Jonah.” (Luke 11: 29-32)
Comment by Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI] (Retreat preached at the Vatican
in 1983)
“This generation seeks a sign.” We also wait for a demonstration, a
sign of success, in the history of the world as much as in our personal
life. Consequently, we wonder whether Christianity has transformed the
world, whether it has produced that sign of bread and of security that
the devil spoke about in the desert (Mt 4:3f.). Following Karl Marx’s
argumentation, Christianity has had enough time to establish the proof
of its principles, to give a proof of its success, to demonstrate that
it has created the earthly paradise. According to Marx, after all this
time, it would thus be necessary from now on to base oneself on other
principles.
This argumentation does not fail to impress many Christians, and many
think that it is at least necessary to invent a very different
Christianity, one that renounces the luxury of interiority, of a
spiritual life. But that is precisely how they prevent the true
transformation of the world, which has its origin in a new heart, a
vigilant heart, a heart that is open to the truth and to love, a heart
that is liberated and free.
Selfishness, the impurity of a heart that expects nothing from God
except personal success and help in affirming the absoluteness of self,
is at the root of that corrupt demand for a sign. This form of
religiosity is a fundamental refusal of conversion. But how often do we
ourselves not depend on a sign of success! How often do we not demand a
sign and refuse conversion!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jesus has died. He is a corpse. Those holy women had no expectations.
They had seen how he had been abused, and how he had been crucified.
How vivid in their minds was the violence of the Passion he had
undergone! They knew too that the soldiers were keeping watch over the
place. They knew that the tomb was sealed shut. “Who will roll away the
stone for us from the door?” they ask themselves, for it was a massive
slab. But all the same, in spite of everything, they went to be with
him.
Look: difficulties, large and small, can be seen at once. But if
there is love, one pays no heed to those obstacles: one goes ahead with
daring, with conviction, with courage. Don’t you have to confess your
shame when you contemplate the drive, he daring and the courage of
these women?
(The
Forge, no.676)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Thursday of the first week of Lent
(March 9) St Frances of Rome, religious (1384-1440). A married woman, she brought up her three children in the love and fear of God. She was zealous in the performance of every household duty, saying, “A married woman must often love God at the altar to find him in her household care.” She founded an Order of Oblates. (Saints)
Scripture today: Esther 14: 1, 3-5, 12-14; Psalm 138: 1-3, 7-8; Matthew 7: 7-12
Queen
Esther also, fearing the danger that was at hand, had recourse to the Lord. ….
And she prayed to the Lord the God of Israel, saying: O my Lord, who alone art
our king, help me a desolate woman, and who have no other helper but thee. My
danger is in my hands. I have heard of my father that thou, O Lord, didst take
Israel from among all nations, and our fathers from all their predecessors, to
possess them as an everlasting inheritance, and thou hast done to them as thou
hast promised. ….. Remember, O Lord, and show thyself to us in the time of our
tribulation, and give me boldness, O Lord, king of gods, and of all power: Give
me a well ordered speech in my mouth in the presence of the lion, and turn his
heart to the hatred of our enemy, that both he himself may perish, and the rest
that consent to him. But deliver us by thy hand, and help me, who have no other
helper, but thee, O Lord, who hast the knowledge of all things.
(Esther 14: 1, 3-5, 12-14
Douay-Rheims)
I have
often thought that the moments of prayer that are most memorable in our lives
are those occasioned by some very great need. It could be the threat of some
life-threatening disease or illness of
some kind. It could be an imminent threat
to our employment, or some threat to a loved one. Whatever be the need, it
prompts us to ardent prayer and brings to the fore our faith which otherwise
might operate at a real but not notably vivid level. Faced with this profound
need, we find ourselves praying with faith and
perseverance. Indeed, we might never forget the experience, especially so
if later on we notice that our heartfelt prayer has in some surprising way been
answered.
In today’s first reading from the Old Testament book of Esther, Queen Esther prays her heartfelt prayer. Its earnest and genuine character is evident throughout the text. It is a model of a direct and piercing prayer to God, and the Book of Esther is the story of how the prayer was heard. But let us notice what occasioned it. The beginning of the passage tells us that “Queen Esther also, fearing the danger that was at hand, had recourse to the Lord” (Esther 14: 1). It was her peril that evoked this admirable prayer to God. Many other examples of this pattern of prayer inspired by some peril could be cited from the Old Testament. What it suggests is that our prayer to God for what we need should be earnest, genuine, heartfelt. It must not be half-hearted, if we want it to be answered.
Our Gospel passage (Matthew 7: 7-12) gives us our Lord’s guarantee as to petitions we place before the throne of God. Our Lord says that they will be heard: “Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.” Yet so often we hear the complaint that prayer is useless, with the implication that God does not hear our prayer. Rather, we ought consider whether we have been asking as God wants us to ask, and also whether we really have been asking for it. Have we asked, genuinely, in true and heartfelt fashion, and in the presence of God? Or rather has our petition been only half-hearted and scarcely a petition at all? This consideration takes us to the further point about such prayers of petition, which is that, when at prayer, we ought strive to be truly conscious of our condition, of our need, and indeed of our peril, were it not for the supporting hand of God. A profound consciousness of our need — such as is evident in the prayer of Esther — will give to our petitions to God a real urgency and a heartfelt character.
Whenever we pray to God for anything, let us bring to our prayer an awareness of who we are and of who God is. We are utterly dependent and contingent. God is unlimited and all-powerful in his being.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Ask, and you will receive…… Knock,
and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7: 7-12)
Comment by an anonymous 4th century homily (wrongly attributed to St.
John Chrysostom)
“Hearken to my words, O Lord.” (Ps 5:2) You came not only to have mercy
on your people Israel, but to save all the nations……, not only to
restore a part of the earth, but to renew the whole world. Therefore,
“hearken to my words, O Lord.”…… Do not reject my supplication as being
unworthy; do not dismiss my prayer. I am not asking for gold or
riches…… It is with the desire for love and respect that I constantly
cry out: “Hearken to my words, O Lord.”
Israel enjoys your goods; I also want to experience your kindness. You
led Israel out of Egypt; pull me out of error. You redeemed Israel from
Pharaoh; deliver me from the author of evil. You led Israel through the
Red Sea; lead me through the water of baptism. You guided Israel by
means of the pillar of fire; enlighten me by means of your Holy Spirit.
Israel ate the bread of angels in the desert; give me your most holy
Body. Israel drank water from the rock; quench my thirst with the Blood
from your side. Israel received the tables of your Law; inscribe your
Gospel in my heart……
“Hearken to my words, O Lord, attend to my sighing.” Thanks to this
sighing, Moses had creation as your people’s ally [at the Red Sea].
Thanks to this clamour, Joshua stopped the sun’s course (Josh 10:12).
Thanks to this cry, Elijah made the clouds of heaven sterile (1 Kings
17:1). Thanks to this moaning, against all hope, Hannah gave birth to a
child (1 Sam 1:10f.). “So Lord, attend to my sighing.”
I proclaim the Father’s absolute power and the Son’s mediation, his
being sent into the world and his obedience. The Father is eternally
enthroned and you “inclined the heavens and came down.” (Ps 29:10;
18:10)…… You received his testimony in the Jordan. In calling Lazarus
to come out of the tomb, you gave thanks to your Father…… In
multiplying the loaves in the desert, you raised your eyes to heaven
and you said the blessing. When you were hanged on the cross, it was he
who received your spirit. When you were laid in the tomb, it was he who
raised you on the third day. All of that is what I cry out in my
prayer; that is what I proclaim throughout the ages.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary, your Mother, will bring you to the Love of Jesus. There you will
be with joy and peace. And you will be always “brought”, because on
your own you would fall and get covered in mud: you will be brought
onward, brought to believe, to love and to suffer.
(The Forge,
no.677)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Friday of the first week of Lent
(March 10) Today let us think of St. Macarius (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Ezechiel 18: 21-28; Psalm 130: 1-8; Matthew 5: 20-26
“But
if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my
decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die.
None of the offences he has committed will be
remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will
live. Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign
LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? “But if
a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin and does the same
detestable things the wicked man does, will he live? None of the righteous
things he has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness he is
guilty of and because of the sins he has committed, he will die. “Yet you say,
‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is
it not your ways that are unjust? If a righteous man turns from his
righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has
committed he will die. But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has
committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life. Because he
considers all the offences he has committed and
turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die.
(Ezechiel 18: 21-28
NIV)
Ultimately there are two stark alternatives that face every living thing, especially man. The alternatives are life or death. Even if there is no direct and immediate threat to life, still, what is at stake for us is life — a fulfilled life, or a life that has wasted its promise. For the human being to exist means life, and so the alternative before him is life involving great promise, or death.
Now,
God has revealed to us the key which unlocks the door to each
of these
opposites, and our first reading from the Prophet Ezechiel sets before us this
key (Ezechiel 18: 21-28). On the one hand,
“if a
wicked man turns away from all the sins he has
committed….he will not die.” On the other, “If a righteous man turns from his
righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has
committed he will die.” So life or death in its ultimate sense depends on
whether or not we renounce sin and obey God. It is as simple and as difficult as
that. St Paul writes that the wages of sin are death. During this season of Lent
the Church puts before us in all its clarity what God has revealed about the
importance of repentance from sin. Our Lord has told us that he came to bring us
life, life in abundance. The key to this will be to repent. For this reason we
read in the Gospel that our Lord began his public ministry by calling on all to
repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.
If we are to renounce the sins we are guilty of, especially those which are constantly recurring and impeding real progress in holiness, we have to become aware of them. Let us begin by renewing our sense of vocation, our calling to belong to Jesus entirely. The Father has called us to live in Christ, to live in his company and in his friendship and to make his work our own. Let us then identify the sins that are impeding this identification with Jesus and transformation into his likeness. Lent is the time to do this in earnest. Our Gospel passage (Matthew 5: 20-26) gives us our Lord’s words on a particularly important spiritual matter: reconciliation with those from whom in any sense we have become estranged. This is a particularly difficult spiritual challenge, but as our Lord makes clear, real spiritual progress is out of the question unless we face up to it. We need to pray earnestly and persistently for the grace and the moral courage to renounce grudges and refusals to forgive.
Let us take to heart during Lent the fundamental necessity to repent, to renounce sin. If we do, the path to life is before us. The refusal to repent takes us down the path to death.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“If you recall that your brother has
anything against you” (Matthew 5: 20-26)
Comment by St Augustine (354-430),
Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church (Sermon 357)
“God’s sun rises on the bad and the good, he rains on the just and the
unjust.” (Mt 5:45) God shows his patience; he does not yet unfold his
power as the Almighty. You too…… renounce provocative activity, do not
increase the discomfort of swollen eyes. Are you a friend of peace?
Remain quiet within yourself…… Leave aside quarrels and turn to prayer.
Do not begin to fight with anyone or even to defend our faith by
arguing with a person who blasphemes. Do not respond to injury with
injury, but rather, pray for that person.
You want to talk to him against himself: speak to God for him. I am not
saying you should remain silent. Choose the appropriate place and see
Him to whom you are speaking in silence, through a cry of the heart. In
the very place where your adversary does not see you, be good to him.
You who are a friend of peace respond to this adversary of peace, to
this friend of dispute, saying: “Say whatever you want, whatever your
hostility might be, you are my brother.”……
“No matter how much you hate and reject me, you are my brother!
Recognize in yourself the sign of my Father; it is our Father’s Word.
Fighter brother, you are my brother, for like me, you also say: ‘Our
Father, who art in heaven.’ Our language is one. Why aren’t we one? I
beg you to recognize what you say together with me and to disown what
you do against me…… We have only one voice before the Father. Why
should we not enjoy one single peace with one another?”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Saint Paul’s teaching we know that we have to renew the world in
the spirit of Jesus Christ, that we have to place Our Lord at the
summit and at the heart of all things. Do you think you are carrying
this out in your work, in your professional work?
(The Forge,
no.678)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Saturday of the first week of Lent
(March 11) Today let us think of St Oengus (Saints)
Scripture today: Deuteronomy 26: 16-19; Psalm 119: 1-2, 4-5, 7-8; Matthew 5: 43-48
The
LORD your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully
observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared this
day that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in his ways, that you will
keep his decrees, commands and laws, and that you will obey him. And the LORD
has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he
promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. He has declared that he
will set you in praise, fame and honour high
above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the LORD
your God, as he promised. (Deuteronomy 26:16-19
NIV)
To
most people it is fairly obvious that the fulfilment of one’s duty is a key
to
the living of a truly human life. It is not material and financial success, nor
the attainment of social status, nor a pleasure-filled life that makes a person
a real human being. It is being one who is committed to the doing of one’s duty,
of
fulfilling one’s responsibilities. Even
if one has little money, or is relatively unnoticed in a social sense, if one
fulfils one’s duty in
life, one will have lived successfully in a true and ultimate sense.
Furthermore, the fulfilment of one’s duty involves knowing one’s duty, so “doing
one’s duty” is more than simply “following one’s conscience”
because one’s conscience can be entirely mistaken and could accordingly lead one
to do harm. Few would respect a person who “followed his conscience” in doing
needless and unjustified harm to others. Rather, it is a matter of knowing what
really is one’s objective duty and responsibilities, and having the sense of
responsibility and perseverance to fulfil it.
We are
reminded of all this in today’s first reading
(Deuteronomy 26:16-19) from the book of Deuteronomy which makes it
clear that one must obey God’s commands. But there is a detail which we could
miss, and which provides a key to the attainment not only of a truly human life
by the fulfilment of one’s duty, but to the attainment of sanctity. The key is
to do God’s will, to do one’s duty, with all one’s heart and soul. Our first
reading tells us that we must “carefully observe them
(God’s commands) with all your heart and with all your soul.”
A similar point occurs in today’s psalm: “You have commanded that your
precepts be diligently kept”
(Psalm 119: 1-2, 4-5).
This surely means that in all the little duties of everyday
life, in all our daily work that goes to the fulfilling of our God-given
responsibilities, we ought aim to do things thoroughly and for God: “with all
your heart and with all your soul.” The saints
have taught that we should try to sanctify our daily work and our daily duties
by fulfilling them as perfectly as possible out of love for God. Pope Benedict
XV in the second decade of the nineteenth century taught that sanctity involved
as perfect a fulfilment of one’s duties of state for the love of God as
possible. So let us resolve to do all our daily work thoroughly, and for God.
Let us apply this to today’s Gospel (Matthew 5: 43-48), in which our Lord teaches us that we are to love our enemies. Let us put our mind to how we can do this “with all our heart and with all our soul” and not half-heartedly. For this we need divine aid and the constant example of Christ before us.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Love your enemies, pray for your
persecutors.” (Matthew 5: 43-48)
Comment by St Ignatius of
Antioch (? – 110), Bishop and Martyr (Letter to the Ephesians,
10-14)
“Never cease praying” (1 Thess 5:17) for the others. We can hope for
their repentance and that they will come to God. But at least may your
example show them the way. Counter their anger with your gentleness;
their arrogance with your humility; their blasphemies with your
prayers; their errors with the firmness of your faith; their violence
with your serenity, without seeking to do anything as they do. Through
our kindness, let us show them that we are their brothers. Let us try
to become “imitators of the Lord” (1 Thess 1:6). Who suffered injustice
more than he? Who was stripped and rejected? May it be impossible to
find the devil’s weeds among you (cf. Mt 13:25). In perfect purity and
temperance of the flesh and the mind, remain in Jesus Christ.
The last times have come…… Only in Christ do we enter into true life.
Outside of him, nothing is worthwhile! ... Nothing surpasses peace; it
triumphs over all the assaults from our enemies, whether they be
heavenly or earthly…… Today, it is no longer enough to profess our
faith; we have to show to the end the strength with which it fills us.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why don’t you try converting your whole life into the service of God
— your work and your rest, your tears and your smiles? You can .... and
you must!
(The Forge,
no.679)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 12) Today let us think of St Maximilian (Saints)
Scripture: Genesis 22:1-2.9.10-13.15-18; Psalm 116: 10, 15-19; Romans 8:31-34; Mark 9:2-10.
After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters — one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant. (Mark 9: 2-10 NIV)
Consider the several passages for this Sunday (set out above) from Sacred Scripture, the inspired word of God. Scripture consists of numerous small books written at various times under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by various authors over many centuries. The meaning of those sacred writings has been interpreted in radically different ways by different individuals and peoples. The Jewish people, whose religion is that of the Old Testament, makes use of the Old Testament alone because they do not consider that the Messiah has yet come. Their religion is a revealed religion but — as the Christian believes — it does not include all of what God has revealed, nor the key to it. Islam accepts that the religion of the Old Testament is revealed, but — as the Christian believes — it is even more mistaken because it considers Mahomet to be the greatest of the prophets. Mahomet was not one of the line of biblical prophets. Rather he was a founder of a world religion whose thought was influenced by Judaism and Christianity, while retaining his own teachings. The point I am making here is that in order to perceive the true meaning of the Scriptures we need the divine key to unlock that meaning. What is the key to unlock the meaning of all that God has revealed, whether it be the Old Testament or the New? There is a key and each one of us has it. That key enables us to read both the Old Testament and the New, knowing that both are inspired by the Holy Spirit, both are the word of God, and both have a common focus or point. The key to the entire religion revealed by God is suggested in the event of the Transfiguration described in today’s Gospel. Let us place ourselves in the midst of our Gospel scene (Mark 9: 2-10).
There we see Peter, James and John whom in later years St Paul would call the pillars of the infant Church. They are gazing on our Lord, transfigured in a glorious and radiant beauty. Moses and Elijah appear speaking with him, the two who represent the Law and the Prophets, the entire Old Testament. The voice of the Father is heard. Peter, James and John are present, the pillars of the coming Church, and Peter will be its rock. Peter and John will both be inspired authors of books in the New Testament. We could therefore regard them as representing the New Testament and the Church which Christ would found, and of which we are members. Speaking to our Lord are Moses and Elijah, representing the Old Testament, and the Church of the Old Testament. Both Old and New are present in our scene. But now, who is there at the centre of this scene? It is the person of Jesus. He is the promised Messiah, the redeemer of man, the centre and the key to the entire revelation of God, be it Old or New. And the Father makes his voice heard to confirm this. He says to all present: “This is my Son whom I love. Listen to him.” The person of Christ is the key to the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments. He is the key to the revealed religion prior to him (and this is symbolized by Moses and Elijah talking with him). He is also the key and the heart of the religion and the Church he founded, which was the fulfilment of what had come before. In fact, the person of Jesus is the key to the meaning of all of human history and of the history of the religions of man. Everything ought be considered in the light of the person of Christ. On the mountain, our Lord in glory is manifested as the centre and focus of the scene. He is the centre and focus of everything.
So then, we ought read the Old Testament with confidence, knowing that we have the key to it. That is to say, when we read some passage of the Old Testament we ought have before us the figure of Jesus, and ask ourselves what light Christ throws on that passage, and what light that passage throws on the person of Jesus. For instance, let us take the first reading today from the book of Genesis in which Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac as an offering to him (Genesis 22:1-2.9.10-13.15-18). It is a pointer to the coming sacrifice of the Son of God, which, unlike the sacrifice of Isaac, would be accepted as an offering, and as a result of which, blessings as many as the stars of heaven and as the grains of sand on the seashore have flowed to humanity. Both the Old Testament and the New should be read in the light of Christ. Christ is the reference point of everything. The important thing, what brings eternal life to us, is the knowledge and the love of Jesus. Jesus is the word and the utterance of God. We must learn to live by that word. As St Paul writes, for me, to live is Christ.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 101-108; 131-133.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Jesus enjoined them not to tell
anyone what they had seen, before the Son of Man had risen from the
dead.” (Mark 9: 2-10)
By St Leo the Great (? ––
461), Pope and Doctor of the Church (Homily 51/38 on the Transfiguration)
Jesus wanted to arm his apostles with great strength of soul and with a
constancy that would allow them to take up their own cross without
fear, in spite of its harshness. Nor did he want them to blush over his
death or that they consider a shame the patience with which he had to
undergo such a cruel passion, without in any way losing the glory of
his power. So “Jesus took Peter, James, and John …… and led them up a
high mountain,” and there he showed them the brilliance of his glory.
Even if they had understood that divine majesty was in him, they did
not yet know the power that was contained in this body, which concealed
the divinity……
Thus the Lord revealed his glory in the presence of the witnesses he
had chosen, and he spread such splendour over his body, which was like
all other bodies, that “his face became as dazzling as the sun, his
clothes as radiant as light.” Without doubt, the aim of this
transfiguration was above all to remove the scandal of the cross from
the heart of his disciples, not to overwhelm their faith by the
humility of his voluntary passion……, but this revelation also gave
foundation in his Church to the hope that was to uphold it. All the
members of the Church, his Body, would thus understand what
transformation would be worked in them one day, since the members have
been promised that they will participate in the honour that shone forth
in the head. When speaking of the majesty of his coming, the Lord
himself had said: “Then the saints will shine like the sun in their
Father’s kingdom.” (Mt 13:43) And the apostle Paul in turn affirmed: “I
consider the sufferings of the present to be as nothing compared with
the glory to be revealed in us.” (Rom 8:18) …… It is also written: “You
have died! Your life is hidden now with Christ in God. When Christ our
life appears, then you shall appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:3-4)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Each and every creature, each and every
event of this life, without
exception, must be steps which take you to God, which move you to know
him and love him, to give him thanks, and to strive to make everyone
else know and love him.
(The Forge,
no.680)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Monday of the second week of Lent
(March 13) Today let us think of St Euphrasia (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Daniel 9:4-10; Psalm 79: 8, 9, 11 and 13; Luke 6:36-38
“Be
merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be
judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be
forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down,
shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the
measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke
6:36-38
NIV)
One of
the very intriguing and attractive characteristics of childhood is its imitative
character. That is to say, the child naturally imitates his parents in so many
ways, and others immediately around him.
Take
the child’s accent, for example. If the parents have a notably cultured
Australian accent, often the child in his earliest years will pick up that very
cultured accent, while perhaps losing it when he begins to mix with others at
school or in other environments. Or if the parents speak English with an accent
characteristic of say, the Filipino, that accent could persist in the child for
many years even though the child may go to a local Australian school. And so it
is in so many other aspects of a child’s early development. This obvious
imitative characteristic, incidentally, ought remind the parents that it is very
important that the child see in his parents and those around him in the family
an example of a profoundly religious life. This will give the child an excellent
foundation in life, and to which he will be able to return were he subsequently
to wander from that religious upbringing.
Now our true parent, of course, is God our heavenly Father. He it is we should be imitating in everything. Our Lord places the Father before us for our imitation, just as he himself imitates the Father: “He who sees me sees the Father.” In our Gospel passage today our Lord places before us the Father as our inspiration and model for all our dealings with our neighbour. “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves’” (Luke 6:36-38). So then, our faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit ought have a direct effect on how we treat others. Our model is to be the Father. For this reason we ought steep our daily lives in the contemplation of the three divine Persons, living in their presence, coming to know them well, and modelling our entire behaviour on them. The closer we draw to the Father (in the Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit) the more will our behaviour tend to be like that of the Father — just as, we noticed above, a child tends to imitate his parents.
One of the dangers of any religious life is to allow a separation between religion and life. Our religion ought be intimately part and parcel of every aspect of our lives, especially our attitude to and treatment of our neighbour. Let us make this very much part of our living of Lent.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Be compassionate, as your Father is
compassionate.” (Luke 6:36)
Comment by St Isaac the Syrian (7th
century), Monk in Ninive, near Mosul in present-day Iraq
(Discourse,
1st series, no. 34)
I recommend this to you, Brother: may compassion always have the upper
hand on your scales until you feel in yourself the compassion which God
feels for the world. May this state become the mirror in which we see
in ourselves the true “image and likeness” of God’s nature and being
(Gen 1:26). It is by means of these and other similar things that we
receive the light and that a clear resolution makes us imitate God. A
heart that is hard and without pity will never be pure (Mt 5:8). But
the compassionate person is that soul’s doctor; as with a violent wind,
that person chases the darkness of trouble out of himself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are under an obligation to work, and to work conscientiously, with a
sense of responsibility, with love and perseverance, without any
shirking or frivolity. Because work is a command from God, and God is
to be obeyed, as the Psalmist says, joyfully!
(The Forge,
no.681)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Tuesday of the second week of Lent
(March 14) Today let us think of St Leobinus and St Matilde (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Isaiah 1: 10.16-20; Psalm 50: 8-9, 16-17, 21 and 23; Matthew 23: 1-12
Then
Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the
Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell
you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They
tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not
willing to lift a finger to move them. “Everything they do is done for men to
see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long;
they love the place of honour at banquets and
the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the
marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’ But you are not to be called
‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call
anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are
you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest
among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and
whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (Matthew 23:
1-12
NIV)
Among
the most popular forms of television viewing are nature documentaries,
and in particular documentaries of wild life. One pattern we notice across the
animal kingdom is the quest for dominance. Various apes want to dominate, so do
lions, tigers, camels and so on. Among household pets the common dog wants to be
the ‘top dog’. But this feature is not just confined to animals. It is a feature
of human history too.
All through history we see personalities imposing themselves on others and on
their peoples for little reason other than to dominate. Such persons — generals,
rulers, economic leaders — have wished to exalt themselves, and this desire has
at various times reached the absurdity of rulers wishing even to be regarded as
gods. It is an absurdity, but it shows the tendency of pride. Even from a human
point of view pride can be seen to be harmful to the individual and to society,
and to tend to absurdities.
Our Lord in our gospel today points out those who were exalting themselves. They included the scribes and the Pharisees: “Everything they do is done to attract attention, like wearing broader phylacteries and longer tassels, like wanting to take the place of honour at banquets and the front seats in the synagogues, being greeted obsequiously in the marked squares and having people call them Rabbi.” This desire to be exalted is the tendency of fallen man, and it was the temptation placed before Eve at the dawn of history, when the Tempter said that if she ate of the fruit of the tree she would be like God. We must recognise it in ourselves and embrace the opposite. The opposite is embodied in the person of Christ who, as St Paul tells us, did not cling to his equality with God but became as men are, and humbler still. In our Gospel today our Lord tells us that “the greatest among you will be your servant” (Matthew 23: 1-12). Christ humbled himself and was exalted. So too with the one who strives to be like him: “Whoever who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
During Lent let us decide on concrete ways in which we will follow the path of humility, the path of choosing to lower ourselves, rather than exalting ourselves. If we do this with Christ, with him we shall be exalted.(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Whoever humbles himself shall be
exalted.” (Matthew 23: 1-12)
Comment by Saint [Padre] Pio de Pietrelcina
(1887-1968), Capuchin (T. 54)
Do not cease to do acts of humility and love towards God and human
beings. For God speaks to the person who keeps his heart humble before
him, and God enriches him with his gifts.
If God has the sufferings of his Son in store for you and wants to let
you touch with your finger your own weakness, it is better to make an
act of humility than to lose courage. Let a prayer of surrender and
hope rise up to God when your fragility causes you to fall, and thank
the Lord for all the graces with which he enriches you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have to conquer for Christ every noble human value.
(The Forge,
no.682)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Wednesday of the second week of Lent
(March 15) Today let us think of St. Louise de Marcillac (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Jeremiah 18: 18-20; Psalm 31: 5-6, 14-16; Matthew 20: 17-28
Now
as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said
to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to
the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death
and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.
On the third day he will be raised to life! “Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons
came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a
favour of him. “What is it you want?” he asked.
She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and
the other at your left in your kingdom.” “You don’t know what you are asking,”
Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” “We can,” they
answered. Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at
my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom
they have been prepared by my Father.” When the ten heard about this, they were
indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said, “You know
that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials
exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become
great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your
slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20: 17-28
NIV)
I
remember reading one leading British anthropologist (Evans-Pritchard) whose
speciality was
primal religions. In one of his articles reviewing theories about primal
religions he proposed that a key to the understanding, assessment and comparison
of such religions is the way they deal with and theorize about evil and
suffering. Evans-Pritchard’s point reminds us that suffering is a pivotal issue
in the history of man. In the course of history and in his religious life man
has grappled with its explanation, its presence and with the means of overcoming
and avoiding it. Suffering seems to be such a negative phenomenon, especially
inasmuch as its ultimate term appears to be death and destruction. On the face
of it, it seems that suffering simply must somehow he eliminated — and to the
extent that it is, to that extent is life successful.
But no. It has been revealed by God that while suffering and death entered the world because of man’s sin, its meaning has been transformed from being the path to death to being the pre-eminent path to life. Christ has shown us the way to life, life in abundance, life eternal, and that way is the way of suffering accepted in a spirit of obedience to God. We ought pray for the grace to look on suffering and death as Christ looked on it. In our Gospel passage today (Matthew 20: 17-28) we find our Lord taking the Twelve aside and with great deliberation teaching them what would be his end. He was making his way to Jerusalem to accomplish this divinely appointed goal, to suffer and to die, and then to rise again. His two disciples (future pillars of the infant Church) and their mother came to him to ask for places in his glory, and our Lord made it clear that the only path to a share in his glory would be to share in his suffering.
Our Lord promised his two disciples that they would indeed drink his cup of suffering — a beautiful promise! Let us pray for the grace to be maturely eager to share in the Cross of Christ so as to co-redeem the world with him. Our Lord tells us it is the only way. To understand this we need light from the Holy Spirit and then his grace to live according to is. This is the sure way to sanctity.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“We are going up to Jerusalem now and
the Son of Man will be handed over.” (Matt. 20:
17-28)
Comment by St Augustine (354-430),
Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Commentary on Psalm 126)
“It is vain for you to rise early.” (Ps 127:2 –– LXX Ps 126:2) What
does that mean? …… Christ, our Day, has risen. It is good for you to
rise after Christ and not before him. Who are those who rise before
Christ? …… Those who want to be raised up here below, where he was
humble. So may they be humble in this world, if they want to be raised
up where Christ is raised up. For he said of those who adhered to him
by faith –– and we are among them: “Father, all those you gave me I
would have in my company where I am.” (Jn 17:24) A magnificent gift, a
great grace, a glorious promise…… Do you want to be where he is raised
up? Be humble where he was humble.
“No pupil outranks his teacher.” (Mt 10:24)…… And yet, before
undergoing humiliation in conformity with the Lord’s Passion, the sons
of Zebedee had already chosen their places, one at his right side, the
other at his left. They wanted to “rise early”. That is why they were
walking in vain. The Lord called them back to humility by asking them:
“Can you drink the chalice that I must drink? I came to be humble, and
you want to be raised up before me? Follow me on the path where I am
going, he said. For if you want to go by a path where I am not going,
it is in vain.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When a person really lives charity, there is no time left for
self-seeking. There is no room left for pride. We will not find
occasion for anything but service!
(The Forge,
no.683)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Thursday of the second week of Lent
(March 16) Today let us think of St Finnian, St Agapito (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: 1 Jeremiah 17: 5-10; Psalm 1: 1-4 and 6; Luke 16: 19-31
“There
was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury
every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and
longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and
licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him
to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was
in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So
he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the
tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this
fire.’ But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received
your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted
here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great
chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor
can anyone cross over from there to us.’ He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father,
send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them,
so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied,
‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, father
Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will
repent.’ “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they
will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ “
(Luke 16: 19-31
NIV)
In a
feature article in the Sydney Morning Herald (March 13, 2006, p.9) a
columnist
discussed what he called “the world’s great cultural fault line.” He went on to
quote Philip Jenkins who writes
in his book The Next
Christendom (2002) that “the critical political frontiers around the world
are not decided by attitudes towards class or dialectical materialism, but by
rival concepts of God.” Whatever about the truth of that observation, it at
least highlights the fundamental significance of concepts of God not only for
the individual but for society and the world. The impact of various images and
concepts of God are far- reaching indeed. Pope Benedict in his very first
Encyclical reaffirms at depth and with great lucidity the Christian concept of
God, a concept that is, of course, revealed. It is that God is love. It has
direct implications for our treatment of our neighbour and for all those in
need. Our treatment of them ought reflect God’s attitude: love.
In our Gospel passage today (Luke 16: 19-31) our Lord tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the poor man. Let us notice that our Lord tells this to the Pharisees. It is as if our Lord is directing this to the religious leaders of the people, to those who were setting a benchmark of religious life and zeal. Their concept and image of God was wrong. The Pharisees’ concept of God was not of a God of love and compassion for those who were in need. Our Lord goes on to portray the seriousness of neglecting those in need, for it would seem that the rich man’s great sin was one of omission, of neglect, rather than of actively harming the poor man. He allowed the poor man outside his gate to continue in his misery when he could easily have helped him. And how serious were the consequences! “The rich man also died and was buried. In Hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.” The result of his neglect of Lazarus was that he was buried in Hell, from which there was to be no return and no relief. There was no excuse for him because he knew, and “Moses and the prophets” had made it clear, that God wanted love and mercy extended to those in need.
Let us bear in mind and nourish constantly in our religious imagination just who God is. He is love. Let this be the concept of God that we bring to every aspect of our lives and to all society.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Happy the man who is gracious and
lends…who gives to the poor; his generosity shall endure forever.” (Ps
112) Comment by St Basil (330 – 379), Monk,
Bishop, Doctor of the Church (Homily 6 on wealth)
What will you answer the sovereign
judge, you who cover your walls and do not cover the one who resembles
you? You who decorate your horses and don’t even look at your brother
who is in distress? …… You who bury your gold and do not come to the
aid of the oppressed? ……
Tell me, what belongs to you? From
whom did you receive everything that you carry through this life? ……
Did you not come out of your mother’s womb naked? And won’t you also
return to the earth naked? (Job 1:21) From whom did you get your
present goods? If you answer: by chance, you are an ungodly person who
refuses to know his creator and to thank his benefactor. If you agree
that you got them from God, then tell me why you received them.
Is God unjust in sharing out
unequally the goods that are necessary for life? Why do you have an
abundance and that person there is destitute? Is it not solely so that
one day you might receive the reward for your kindness and your
disinterested management, while the poor person will attain the crown
promised to patience?... The bread that you are keeping belongs to the
person who is starving; the coat that you are concealing in your trunks
belongs to the person who is naked…… Thus, you are committing as many
injustices as there are people whom you could help.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every activity — be it of great human importance or not
— must become
for you a means to serve Our Lord and your fellow men. That is the true
measure of its importance.
(The Forge,
no.684)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Friday of the second week of Lent
Scripture for Friday: Genesis 37: 3-4.12-13.17-28; Psalm 105: 16-21; Matthew 21: 33-43.45-46
(March 17) St Patrick, bishop (about 385-361) Born in Great Britain (or perhaps Scotland), as a youth he was taken captive to Ireland as a slave and worked as a herdsman. After making his escape he wished to become a priest and after being made Bishop for Ireland he was untiring in preaching the Gospel and he converted many to the Catholic Faith. In addition he organized the Church throughout Ireland. It is believed that he died in 461, and was buried at Downpatrick. He would have been a contemporary of Pope Leo the Great. (Saints)
Listen
to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall
around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the
vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When the harvest time
approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. The
tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.
Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants
treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will
respect my son,’ he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each
other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So
they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when
the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? “He will
bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, and he will rent the
vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest
time. Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the
builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is
marvellous in our eyes?’ Therefore I tell you
that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who
will produce its fruit.…..” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard
Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to
arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he
was a prophet. (Matthew 21: 33-43.45-46
NIV)
Sin is
a very great mystery. In defending the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception of
Mary
the Mother of God Cardinal Newman wrote that the
real puzzle is the doctrine of Original Sin. How is it that
sin has spread through the whole human
race just because one man sinned, and with sin death too has spread through the
whole human race? After all, mankind came from the hand of an all-good God. But
such is the fact, and really, it is not hard to accept the fact of the
universality of sin because there is so much direct evidence for it. But how
this has happened and how it happened because of an original sin is a great
mystery. Connected with this is the mystery how powerful and deep sin is.
Consider the treatment meted out to the Son of God made man. The parable told by
our Lord in the Gospel for this Friday of the second week of Lent
(Matthew 21: 33-43.45-46) describes it
figuratively. “So they took him and threw him
out of the vineyard and killed him.” Sin led people to put to death God the Son
made Man!
The answer to the universal presence of sin is the announcement of the Gospel and the acceptance of it by sinful man. Today we celebrate the feast of St Patrick. Our Gospel for this feast presents us with Peter acknowledging his own sinfulness (Luke 10: 1-12, 17-20) and in doing this he represents man with a sense of sin. Christ is the answer to his sinful predicament. He is the answer to Peter’s need and he is the answer to the need of humanity, for Christ immediately calls Peter to follow him and to become a fisher of men. Peter and his companions heard the call of Christ and followed him, and thus began the Church’s mission of bringing the forgiveness of sins and salvation to mankind. Patrick was an outstanding successor of the Apostles in bringing Christ and salvation from sin to Ireland. The thought of Patrick ought inspire each of us to follow Christ generously and to do what we can in our everyday life to bring him to others.
The power and the scale of sin is indeed a mystery and its solution is far beyond the resources of mere man. Christ has come as the solution, and it is up to us to accept him and to bring him to others. It is the greatest service we could render to our fellow man.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Work always and in everything with
sacrifice in order to put Christ at the summit of all human activities.
(The Forge,
no.685)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Saturday of the second week of Lent
(March 18) St Cyril of Jerusalem, bishop and doctor of the Church (315-386). He is mainly known for his Catecheses. His instructions, which are still extant, show conclusively that Catholic doctrine is the same then as now. Arian heretics exiled him three times. (Saints)
Scripture today: Micah 7: 14-15.18-20; Psalm 103: 1-4, 9-12; Luke 15: 1-3.11-32
Now
the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the
Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and
eats with them.” Then Jesus told them this parable: …….”There was a man who had
two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the
estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the
younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there
squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a
severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and
hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to
feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were
eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How
many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to
death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have
sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your
son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with
compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am
no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants,
‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and
sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and
celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is
found.’ So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field.
When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the
servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied,
‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and
sound.’ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went
out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years
I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me
even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of
yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the
fattened calf for him!’ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and
everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this
brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’
(Luke 15: 1-3.11-32
NIV)
There
is a famous and classic definition of man: it defines man as a rational animal.
Of
course, man can indeed be distinguished from the rest of the animal kingdom by
setting forth his rationality.
But we could also broadly
distinguish man from the rest of the animal kingdom by highlighting his
religious life. Man could be defined (broadly) as a religious animal. If we
view societies in general and in the context of human history, man is
distinguished by his religious life. A notable exception to this is the modern
Western age which is marked by its secularism. Be that as it may, as we look on
the panorama of human history and see the immense variety of religious life, we
can surely say it represents the yearning of man to be embraced by God. Man
desires to know God and be known by him, and the revelation that God is actually
a loving Father is surely the fulfilment of man’s religious strivings. The task,
of course, is to bring this revelation convincingly to the world.
Now, in respect to the profound desire of man to be embraced by God, what does Christ our Lord have to say about God’s readiness to embrace us? Let us look at our Lord’s teaching in today’s Gospel. The context is given at the beginning when the Pharisees and the scribes complain of our Lord welcoming sinners and dining with them. To explain his activity before his critics our Lord proceeds to tell the story of the loving and indulgent father and the prodigal son (Luke 15: 1-3.11-32). Who did the indulgent father embrace? He embraced the son who had squandered all his father’s gifts to him, and now he was back admitting his sin and asking acceptance in his father’s household as a mere employee. What it means is that the way to attain the embrace of God is through humbly acknowledging one’s sin and asking for mercy. That is the person whom God embraces, and who is the successful seeker after God. The holy man is the humble and contrite man who, with the help of the God who embraces him, puts away his sins and lives a life of obedience.
Let us pray for the grace to know our true fallen condition, our sinful state. Let us pray for the grace to approach Christ with confidence in his love and with the intention to plead for mercy. He will embrace us as did the indulgent father his prodigal son.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Correspondence to grace is to be found also in the ordinary little
things of each day, which seem unimportant and yet have the over-riding
importance of Love.
(The Forge,
no.686)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 19) Today the Church would normally celebrate St. Joseph but because it is a Sunday today, the feast of St Joseph will be celebrated tomorrow.(Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Exodus 20:1-17 or Exodus 20:1-3, 7-8, 12-17; Psalm 19:8-11; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25
When
it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the
temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting
at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from
the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money
changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get
these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” His
disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove
your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I
will raise it again in three days.” The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six
years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But
the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his
disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the
words that Jesus had spoken. Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover
Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his
name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did
not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.
(John 2:13-25
NIV)
One of
our most constant spiritual challenges is to bear in mind the unseen realities
of our Faith. It is a challenge of faith because those realities are unseen.
Above all, I am referring to the very presence of God. In our Gospel today our
Lord comes to the Temple as he had every year since his youth. Doubtless he had
seen the same spectacle year after year, and now he sees it again. In the Temple
of his heavenly Father there were sheep and cattle, buying and selling, talk and
shouting. God’s presence had been forgotten, that divine presence
which
filled the mind, the heart and the soul of Jesus his divine Son. So, as St John
writes, with zeal for his Father’s house consuming
him, he drove them all out saying that his Father’s house must be treated
as a house of prayer and not a den of thieves. The Temple
then was for prayers and sacrifices to God who
was present there, and it was precisely because God was there and because the
Temple was the place to offer him sacrifice and prayer, that Christ had cleansed
the Temple. When confronted by the leaders of the people over what he had just
done, our Lord said, “Destroy this temple, and I will
raise it again in three days” (John 2:13-25).
He was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when he rose from the
dead his disciples remembered that he had said this. The true sanctuary of the
living God was, then, the person of Jesus, his body and soul, his humanity and
his divinity. Our Lord was here saying that he was the one, he is the one, who
offers up to God the Father a continual perfect sacrifice and a constant prayer.
He is the new Temple of God and by being baptized into him the Christian lives
in him. We are in Jesus, and he is in us. This is to be our life, a life in
Jesus. Being in Jesus, he is our Temple in whom we offer continual prayer and
sacrifice to the Father.
His greatest self-offering, his greatest sacrifice offered on our behalf, and therefore which he offered as the high priest of all mankind, was the sacrifice of himself at Calvary. This he did by the power of the Holy Spirit, as we are told in the Letter to the Hebrews. Christ was our Priest, and our Victim. His body was the Temple in which this sacrifice was offered, and it was the Holy Spirit who was the life and energy of his self-offering. Now, all this is made present to us at Mass. The offering, the gift of himself, the victim and the high priest, are made present at Mass, and this is done once again by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it is by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit at Mass that we are drawn into that sacrifice and are able to make it our own. But we must make sure that we are not like the buyers and the sellers whom our Lord cast out of the Temple. Our entire attitude to the person of Jesus and to his sacrifice on Calvary ought be one full of faith and appreciation. We must not have a casual attitude to Jesus and to what he did for us. Very importantly, we must not in any way be like the buyers and the sellers during Mass, forgetting what is really happening because we can’t actually see Calvary. We must be full of reverence during Mass, endeavouring to participate in it with all our heart and mind and soul. We ought leave the church after Mass profoundly united to our Lord in his offering of himself to the Father. He is the true Temple of God in which the perfect sacrifice is offered to the Father.
There is more than even this to the mystery of Christ. Christ is the head of his body the Church. The Church of which we are all members is the mystical body of Christ. Just as our Lord in the Gospel speaks of his body as the coming Temple of God where God dwells in all his fullness, so too is the Church the Temple of God. God dwells in all his fullness in the midst of the Church and in her life. This happens by the power of the Holy Spirit whom St Augustine called the soul of the Church. Christ is the head of the Church and we can call the Holy Spirit her soul. So then, as members of the Church we are all called to be a holy priesthood, offering up the spiritual sacrifice of a holy life, a life of obedience to the Father. Just as our Lord insisted on a profound reverence for the Temple of his Father, so we should maintain a profound reverence for the person of Jesus the new Temple, for his sacrifice at Calvary on our behalf, for the Mass which makes present Christ offering this sacrifice of himself, and for the Church which lives in union with Christ her head, the constant universal Temple of God here on earth. Our attitude to the Church and to her teaching, her life, her sacraments, her divine character, ought be one of profound reverence, a reverence rooted in the recognition of the presence of God in her midst.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.583-586, 797-798.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You cannot forget that any worthy, noble and honest work at the human
level can — and should! — be raised to the supernatural level,
becoming a divine task.
(The Forge,
no.687)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Feast of St Joseph the husband of Mary
(March 20) St Joseph is
considered as the second greatest saint, next to the blessed Virgin
Mary, because of his humility and his closeness to Jesus as the foster
father of our Lord. Scripture tells us that Joseph was just, pure,
gentle, prudent and unfailingly obedient to the divine will. He died in
the presence of Jesus and Mary. We wish to imitate him by renewing our
desire to be faithful. We know that the only meaning of our life is to
be faithful to the Lord till the last as Joseph was. Pope Pius IX
named him as Patron of the Universal Church and Pope John XXIII
included his name in the Roman Canon. Each year his feast is
celebrated on March 19, but this year it is celebrated today
because
yesterday
was a Sunday.
Today let us also
think of
St Cuthbert (Saints)
Scripture today: Samuel 7:4-5.12-14.16; Psalm 89; Romans 4:13.16-18.22; Matthew 1:16.18-21.24 or Luke 2: 41-51
This
is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be
married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child
through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did
not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her
quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him
in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as
your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will
give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will
save his people from their sins.” All this took place to
fulfil what the Lord had said through the
prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they
will call him Immanuel” — which means, “God with us.” When Joseph woke up, he
did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
(Matthew 1:16.18-21.24
NIV)
Had
the husband of Mary not been mentioned in the Gospels in the way he is — which
is to say, had he not received the unique though hidden vocation that was his —
he would have come and gone
utterly
unknown to history. His life was passed in obscurity as an ordinary (though very
good) artisan in a tiny village that had a poor reputation anyway. That his
village had a poor reputation we know from the remark of Nathanael when he was
told of Jesus. Joseph was married to Mary and was a carpenter-builder in the
town of Nazareth. Their family included one child, Jesus. There was nothing
notable about the kinds of things Joseph spent his life doing, except that he
did them very well and with an extraordinary love for God. He lived an ordinary
life, but lived with immense holiness and an unparalled intimacy with Jesus the
Son of God and with Mary the Mother of God. He is the shining instance in
history of the grandeur of the ordinary life. One saint used to refer to the
donkey at the wheel. All day every day the donkey went round and round
pulling, and the water supply of
the entire village kept coming as a result. The
whole village depended on that donkey and its humdrum activity.
We learn from the life of Joseph the possibilities of the common lot of what we might call Everyman. You and I and most of us is an Everyman. Our daily round is usually fairly repetitive, and when one looks at the mere detail in our everyday life that detail seems to be very unimportant. The temptation is to think that a life filled with seemingly unimportant detail is an unimportant life, a life that is “commonplace” and therefore insignificant. But the life of Joseph, the husband of Mary, shows us that this is not so. There is no need to be aspiring for and dreaming of a life that is on a par with that of the widely known person, or the person possessing power or wealth. Such people gain fame and their daily round is spoken of, and is therefore considered significant. It may be significant, but so is the life of the one who is unknown and regarded as of little importance by society. The point is, that whatever be the set of circumstances the providence of God places us in, however “ordinary” it seems, it can be transformed into something grand in the sight of God. It will be a life of grandeur if it is characterised by a loving commitment to one’s daily duty and work, a commitment lived out by a careful attention to the detail in one’s God-given responsibilities. Joseph is the model for Everyman.
Let us today cultivate a devotion to St Joseph the husband of Mary. “Go to Joseph” was the advice of one saint. Let us ask our Lord and our Lady for a share in their love for Joseph. He is the protector of the universal Church, and therefore our protector too.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Jesus, who is our Lord and Model, grows in and lives as one of us,
he reveals to us that human life — your life — and its humdrum,
ordinary business, have a meaning which is divine, which belongs to
eternity.
(The Forge,
no.688)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Tuesday of the third week of Lent
(March 21) Today let us think of St Euda (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Daniel 3:25.34-43; Psalm 25: 4-9; Matthew 18: 21-35
Then
Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother
when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not
seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like
a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the
settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he
was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children
and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. “The servant fell on his knees
before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’
The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled
the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his
fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to
choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. His fellow servant fell to
his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he
refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could
pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly
distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the
master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I
cancelled all that debt of yours because you
begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had
on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured,
until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat
each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.
(Matthew 18: 21-35
NIV)
One of
the deepest problems of man is spiritual blindness. That is to say, he so very
often is oblivious as to his real spiritual condition, and its seriousness. Of
course, this state is not confined to the
spiritual
life — he can likewise be oblivious as to his real physical condition. Life will
bring its hurts and sorrows,
many of them inflicted by
other human beings including those very close to us. As a person looks back on
the years he can very easily find himself nursing unresolved painful memories
that leave him in continual bitterness. He finds, perhaps, that he cannot
forgive. Now, it is one thing to admit helplessness before the prospect of
forgiving certain people, it is another to
think that the refusal to forgive is justified. In the case of all too many
persons they are utterly convinced they are perfectly justified in not
forgiving, and that . vengeance must be exacted
if justice is to be found. This is their attitude. If we look on things with the
mind of Christ we shall realize that this attitude involves a great spiritual
blindness. Our Lord is absolutely insistent that whatever be the injury, we must
forgive from the heart.
That is not to say that for the sake of justice, good order and the vindication of morality, crime ought not be punished and that injuries not be compensated. But the spiritual problem is that all too often we who belong to Christ repeatedly and even throughout life refuse to forgive, and that we regard this as being justified, especially if there is no punishment or compensation forthcoming. Our Lord assures us that if we refuse to forgive from the heart, God will refuse to forgive us. Our parable in today’s Gospel (Matthew 18: 21-35) provides us with an aspect of this situation which could help us to forgive. It is the thought of all that we owe to God and all our transgressions against him which he so readily has forgiven. The servant left the master’s presence after having been forgiven such a vast debt, and proceeded to be unyielding with another servant who owed him a significant enough debt, but one which could not be compared with the debt he had owed to his master. Nothing that others owe to us can compare with what we owe to God. Nothing which we are called upon to forgive in others can compare with what God has forgiven in us.
Let us pray for the grace to see clearly the necessity to forgive from the heart, and to see that nothing could compare with what God in his goodness has forgiven of us. Let us resolve at the end of every day to forgive all injuries. In this way by the grace of God and our own spiritual efforts we can be freed from the resentments and rancour which will prevent our attainment of holiness.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You should be full of wonder at the
goodness of our Father God. Are you
not filled with joy to knhow that your home, your family, your country,
which you love so much, are the raw material which you must sanctify?
(The Forge, no.689)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Wednesday of the third week of Lent
(March 22) Today let us think of St Nicholas Owen and St Lea (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Deuteronomy 4:1.5-9; Psalm 147: 12-13, 15-16, 19-20; Matthew 5: 17-19
Do
not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come
to abolish them but to fulfil them. I tell you
the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the
least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything
is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and
teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but
whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom
of heaven. (Matthew 5: 17-19
NIV)
A very
frequent temptation in living the Christian life is that of rationalizing away
one’s duty. That is to say, we are often tempted to think of reasons for doing
what we want, considering it perfectly justified,
and then calling it our duty. Thus we allow our real duty to fade from our
conscience. Many examples could be thought of. The Church lays down the
observance of Sunday as a necessary part of our Christian life. We are obliged
to make it the Lord’s Day by participating in Mass and avoiding servile work
unless it is necessary. Yes, we get to Mass on a Sunday, but do we make it the
Day of religious rest the Church means it to be, and avoid unnecessary servile
work? Or, on the contrary, do we take whatever employment we can get on a Sunday
to get the extra cash, saying to ourselves that it is “necessary” that we have
the money. Many other examples could be given of avoiding our duty to observe
God’s commandments, and rationalizing the non-observance of that duty by having
recourse to what is really a pretext in order to get what we want.
Cardinal Newman once wrote that religion is essentially a matter of authority and obedience. That is to say, its bedrock element is obeying the will of God and thus recognising his divine authority. Our Lord made the same point about the Christian life of personal love for him when he said that he who loves me keeps my commandments. In our Gospel today (Matthew 5: 17-19) our Lord insists on it. He himself came to fulfil and complete God’s Law as revealed in the Old Testament, and he tells us in our passage that “the man who infringes even one of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven.” So then, we ought be very careful indeed when it comes to keeping the law of God, which is interpreted and explained to us by the Church. As Pope Benedict once said, the teaching Church is the face of Christ, and so in obeying the precepts and spiritual and moral guidance of the Church we are obeying Christ. If we wish to love God, we must make it our business to know God’s commandments, and put them assiduously into practice.
Let us resolve to centre our life on the will and the law of God and on its fulfilment in all its detail. The bedrock of our life ought be learning what is our duty as expressed in the law of God and the Church, and then carefully putting it into practice out of love for him.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My daughter, you have set up a home. I like to remind you that you
women — as you well know — have a great strength, which you know how to
enfold within a special gentleness, so that it is not noticed. With
that strength, you can make your husband and children instruments of
God, or demons. You will always make them instruments of God: he is
counting on your help.
(The Forge,
no.690)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Thursday of the third week of Lent
(March 23) Saint Turibio of Mongrovejo, bishop (1538-1606). Born in Leon, Spain. He studied law in Salamanca and in 1580 was chosen to be Bishop of Lima and went to South America. He was on fire with apostolic zeal and called together synods and councils for the purpose of reforming religion in the whole country. He strenuously defended the rights of the Church and looked after the flock committed to his care by going among them on visitation, as well as spending much time and labour for the good of the native Indian population. St Rose of Lima, St Francis Solano and St Martin de Porres were his contemporaries in Lima. (Saints)
Scripture today: Jeremiah 7: 23-28; Psalm 95: 1-2, 6-9; Luke 11: 14-23
Jesus
was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been
mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. But some of them said, “By Beelzebub, the
prince of demons, he is driving out demons.” Others tested him by asking for a
sign from heaven. Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: “Any kingdom
divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will
fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this
because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub. Now if I drive out
demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they
will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the
kingdom of God has come to you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own
house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and
overpowers him, he takes away the armour in
which the man trusted and divides up the spoils. He who is not with me is
against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.”
(Luke 11:14-23
NIV)
Many
people viewed the movie “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.”
One of the surprising twists of the movie comes near the end when the Virgin
Mary makes herself known to Emily and asks her if she would like
to
be taken from her burdensome life to heaven, or instead if she would accept the
work of enduring the possession of the devils. The purpose of continuing to
endure this was, Mary told her, to bear witness in an agnostic and materialistic
culture to the reality of Satan and the supernatural, and in this way to be
instrumental in prompting people to turn to God. Her possession was being
allowed by God for the spiritual enlightenment of others, and in the
process, for the sanctification of Emily
herself. Emily chooses to stay with the possession to the end. For this reason
the priest declares in court his belief that some day she will be canonized. The
movie is a fictional story with a remote basis in fact (in
Bavaria in the 1970s). Many elements are
plausible and it certainly conveys well (though in exaggerated fashion) the
reality of Satan, the spiritual effectiveness of the Church in her combat with
Satan, and the overarching purposes of God in saving the world.
In our Gospel today (Luke 11:14-23) our Lord effortlessly casts out a devil and is then accused of colluding with Satan. Our Lord’s reply makes reference to the kingdom and the household of Satan. Throughout the Gospels our Lord refers to the kingdom of God, and St Paul refers to the household of the Church. So there are two kingdoms revealed to us, two households. St Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises has a famous meditation on The Two Standards. There is the Standard of Christ with Christ’s weapons, and the Standard of Satan with his. We must make a choice under which standard we are going to get to work in life. Let us every make that choice, a clear choice for Christ with a commitment to fight the kingdom of Satan with Christ’s weapons and in Christ’s company. The fundamental weapon is that of obedience to the Father in union with Christ, and then following the way of Christ, the way of humility, poverty in spirit, bearing willingly our daily cross. These are the weapons that bring the victory.
Taking our stand with Christ and living by that stand will enable us to conquer. We have Christ’s word for it in our Gospel today: “He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters.”
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am moved that the Apostle should call Christian marriage a great
sacrament. From this, too, I deduce the enormous importance of the task
of parents. You share in the creative power of God: that is why human
love is holy, good and noble. It is a gladness of heart which God — in
his loving providence — wants others freely to give up. Each child that
God grants you is a wonderful blessing from him: don’t be afraid of
children!
(The Forge,
no.691)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Friday of the third week of Lent
(March 24) Today let us think of St. Catherine of Sweden (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Hosea 14:2-10; Psalm 81: 6-11, 14 and 17; Mark 12: 28-34
Take
words with you and return to the LORD. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and
receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria cannot
save us; we will not mount war-horses. We will never again say ‘Our gods’ to
what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.” “I
will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away
from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a
cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots; his young shoots will grow. His
splendour will be like an olive tree, his
fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon. Men will dwell again in his shade. He will
flourish like the grain. He will blossom like a vine, and his fame will be like
the wine from Lebanon. O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols? I will
answer him and care for him. I am like a green pine tree; your fruitfulness
comes from me.” Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He
will understand them. The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in
them, but the rebellious stumble in them. (Hosea
14:2-10
NIV)
I once
read a study of the Virgin Mary which saw in the prophets of the Old
Testament
the main nourishment of her spirituality. She was nurtured especially on them.
In our first reading today
we have a beautiful
passage from the prophet Hosea (Hosea 14:2-10)
in which a stereotype of the God of the Old Testament is shown to be invalid.
That stereotype portrays God as a God of anger and punishment, in contrast to
the God of the New Testament who is one of mercy and love. But how different the
reality is! The God of the Old Testament is the same as that of the New, one who
is holy, who hates sin, but who is love and compassion and who yearns for the
return of the sinner to his love. In our first reading today the Lord appeals to
his people to return, telling them that “your iniquity was the cause of your
downfall.” He is the “one in whom orphans find compassion.”
Love and tenderness is expressed in image after image in our passage, but the
one thing that can prevent this from flowing into the life of the people is sin.
What can help us learn that God is love is to dwell over and over on these prophetic texts. It is a very plausible proposition that the Virgin Mary became filled with the thought of the love of Yahweh from dwelling and pondering on the prophetic texts such as this one today from Hosea. “I am like a cypress ever green, all your fruitfulness comes from me. Let the wise man understand these words” the prophet tells us. It is in texts such as these that we learn that God loves us with all his heart. If we come to know the love of God that has been revealed in the face of Christ, this will be the basis of our observance of the first commandment that our Lord speaks of in today’s Gospel (Mark 12: 28-34), quoting as he does from the Old Testament. “Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Let us resolve to set out on the path of love, knowing that God loves us with all his heart, and resolving to return that love with all our heart. This twofold and interconnected objective — to know the love of God and to return it — is the goal of life. Let us pray for the grace to know the God of Revelation, and to respond as he asks.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In conversations I have had with so many married couples, I tell them
often that while both they and their children are alive, they should
help them to be saints, while being well aware that none of us will be
a saint on earth. All we will do is struggle, struggle, struggle. And I
also tell them: you Christian mothers and fathers are a great spiritual
motor, sending the strength of God to your own ones, strength for that
struggle, strength to win, strength to be saints. Don’t let them down!
(The Forge,
no.692)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 25) The Annunciation was the moment when Gabriel the Archangel communicated to Mary that in God’s plan she was to be the Mother of the Son of God. He came to ask her consent. Mary gave her “Fiat” (be it done) by which she conceived the Saviour by the Working of the Holy Spirit. In the dialogue between her and the angel she appears so great and yet so humble. Through her consent she participated in the redemptive work of her Son, Jesus. (Saints)
Scripture: Isaiah 7:10-14; 8:10; Psalm 40: 7-11; Hebrews 10:4-10; Luke 1:26-38
In
the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a
virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The
virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are
highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” Mary
was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might
be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found
favour with God. You will be with child and
give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great
and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the
throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever;
his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I
am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be
called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in
her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For
nothing is impossible with God.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May
it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
(Luke 1: 26-38
NIV)
The
Gospel scene we place ourselves in today is one of the most simple and obscure,
and yet one of the most momentous in the entire sweep of Scripture. It marks the
culmination of the hope of Israel
for
the coming Messiah: it relates his coming. With the consent of the Virgin and
the departure of the angel, the Messiah has arrived. Many aspects of this event
we could dwell on at length, but let us take our note from those words of the
archangel to the Virgin which describe her. He addresses her as full of grace,
as highly favoured, telling her that “the Lord is with you!”
(Luke 1: 26-38) Mary is filled with the life of
God and the implication is that she is without sin. What a marvel! Here we have
a mortal like ourselves who by the grace of God and her own cooperation is
without sin. The Lord is with her. Contemplating this spectre of holiness in
such an ordinary and obscure setting, our thoughts turn to the angel who is
himself holy, filled too with grace. He, though, speaks to Mary as to one who is
much greater than he in grace. So in that room we find ourselves in the presence
of holiness.
Let us now listen to the words of the angel which speak of the Messiah. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are acting upon and within the Virgin and so the room is filled with the holiness of God. The fruit of the divine action and the humble consent of Mary most holy is the holy child: “the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” Holiness is enveloping the locale of this interchange and the result will be that the gift of holiness will be brought to a sinful and broken world. This annunciation marks the entry into a fallen world of the all-holy God in order that the world and each of us who live in it might share in his life, just as holy Mary shared in it to such utter perfection. Let us then on this feast day hear in our hearts the call to live a holy life by living in Jesus together with the Virgin who is our Mother and his Mother. Our feast is a feast of holiness.
“Be holy, for I am holy!” Yahweh says in the Old Testament. The annunciation marks the grand entry of our saviour God to make this possible for us all. Let us give thanks and praise.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don’t be afraid of loving others,
for His sake: and don’t worry about loving your own people even more,
provided that no matter how much you love them, you love Him a million
times more.
(The Forge,
no.693)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 26) Today let us think of St. Margaret Clitherow (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture: 2 Chronicles 36:14-16.19-23; Psalm 137: 1-6; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21
Just
as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the
world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not
perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is
not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he
has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict:
Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because
their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come
into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the
truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done
has been done through God.” (John 3: 14-21
NIV)
I
remember hearing of a couple who went on a picnic with their small child at a
riverside.
For
a brief moment the parents had to leave the child to attend to something and out
came a crocodile which made
straight for the child.
The family dog immediately attacked the crocodile in defence of the child, and
the dog was taken instead. The child was left unharmed. The dog was acting
simply on instinct, and while that animal instinct could not be called love,
it served to reflect the human love which protects. Indeed it reflected the love
of God who gave the dog its being. I remember seeing a nature documentary film
of a cat with its baby kittens. Out came a snake from the bushes and began
making for the kittens. At danger to itself the cat defended its kittens from
the snake, attacking the snake and dodging its lunges. At length the snake made
off. The cat was acting purely on instinct, but that instinct to protect was a
reflection of love, the love that is God the Creator.
Knowing that God is love (because he has revealed this to be so), we can see many reflections of God in the world. Everywhere in the realm of living things, one living thing lives on another. Small fish are devoured by larger fish. Plants are devoured by various animals. One animal preys on another, and man lives by harvesting living plants, and by consuming the animals he kills. That is to say, one thing is given up for the sake of another. One living thing loses its life that another might gain. One thing is sacrificed that another may have life. While one person observing this sees only unnecessary savagery and anything but the imprint of a loving God, the other person who knows love is the foundation of the universe sees in it a glimmer of that unseen foundation. While within the non-human realm the overtaking of one thing by and for the sake of another is just a matter of unthinking instinct, inasmuch as it comes from the hand of God, it speaks of God. In this sense Nature is the voice of its Creator. Let the observer of Nature notice the imprint of the Creator’s love, for this pattern of being given up for the sake of another is surely a reflection of sacrificial love, the love that is behind the universe, the love of God the Creator. This is not to speak of the love that is very evident in mankind, a love that is so often sacrificial. Far more does this reflects the love of God.
But while the world shows the imprint of God, what really reveals the love of God is the person and the redemptive work of Jesus our Lord. In our Gospel today (John 3: 14-21) our Lord tells Nicodemus that “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.” Imagine the sacrifice this was to the Father! The Father and the Son had given themselves to one another in the Holy Spirit for all eternity in a communion of love utterly beyond our imagining. But the Father loved us so much that he sent his Son to save us from our sins. The Son for his part did not cling to his heavenly state but gave it up to assume the lowly condition of man, and as man became lowlier still out of love for us, by dying on a cross. It was God’s sacrifice for our redemption. All our life we ought be contemplating what our Lord and the Father did for each of us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ died not for himself, but for each of us. In some mysterious way he united himself to every man and woman in history, and assumed the burden of their disobedience to God and made up for it by his obedience in the midst of unimaginable sufferings. It was done out of love. By his death on the Cross our Lord atoned for the sins of all mankind, and in doing this broke the power of sin that holds all of us in its power, and opened up for each of us the prospect of holiness.
God’s loving redemption of man from sin is a specifically Christian doctrine. Islam, for instance, has no doctrine of an original sin handed on to all and into which we are born, and from which we need to be redeemed. It certainly does not look on Christ as man’s Redeemer, let alone as God made man. Christ is simply an inspired teacher like, but less than, Mahomet. It is very important that we see the beauty and necessity of Christ and the Christian religion, revealed by God and necessary for man. What is at stake is redemption from sin and personal sanctification. Every man and woman needs the person of Christ, absolutely needs him because only Christ has brought about our redemption. Only Christ can make us holy. Christ has died for each, for each person in the world, including Mahomet and every one of his followers, every Hindu, every agnostic, every atheist. Let us embrace the person and the work of Christ ourselves, and bring this good news of God’s love in Christ to every person, and invite that person to know, love and follow Jesus who is the embodiment and the revelation of the love of God.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church No.595-605
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jesus began to do and then to preach. You and I have to bear witness
with our example, because we cannot live a double life. We cannot
preach what we do not practise. In other words, we have to teach what
we are at least struggling to put into practice.
(The Forge,
no.694)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Monday of the fourth week of Lent
(March 27) Today let us think of St. Rupert of Salzburg (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Isaiah 65:17-21; Psalm 30: 2 and 4, 5-6, 11-13; John 4:43-54
After
the two days he left for Galilee. (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a
prophet has no honour in his own country.)
When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that
he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, for they also had been there.
Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine.
And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When
this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and
begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. “Unless you people
see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” The
royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus replied, “You
may go. Your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While
he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was
living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to
him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.” Then the father
realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son
will live.” So he and all his household believed. This was the second miraculous
sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee.
(John 4: 43-54
NIV)
Once
again we have in today’s Gospel scene a point of the most fundamental importance
and which recurs time and again across the pages of the Gospel. Our Lord asks
for faith in his person. If one has
faith
in his person and in his word, there seems to be little that Christ will refuse
him. Upon re-entering Cana in Galilee a court
official went and asked our Lord to come and cure his son who was at the point
of death. What was our Lord’s reaction? He responded with a challenge, a
question: “Unless you people see miraculous signs and
wonders, you will never believe.” (John 4:
43-54) The man had come for a miracle, but our Lord wanted a faith
that was not dependent on miracles. In the Gospel of St John from which this
passage is drawn, our Lord’s miracles were “signs” of who he really was and what
he came to do, rather than “proofs” for the sceptical enquirer (such as those
who asked for “a sign” to test him). They required, therefore, a positive
disposition of the will, an openness to the person of Jesus and a readiness to
believe him because of what the signs revealed of him.
Our faith in Jesus involves above all a coming to know him as a real and living person through sustained and prayerful contemplation of him, especially as revealed in the Gospels and the Scriptures. It requires a continued focus on his very person, of which his miracles are signs. We remember how in this very Gospel St John relates how the two disciples of John stayed with Jesus the rest of that day, and came back knowing he was the Messiah. They came to know him. The more we come to know him as a person through prayer and spiritual reading, supported by a good life, the more we shall have the dispositions necessary for the full and heartfelt acceptance of the Church’s testimony about him. Faith in Jesus is not primarily dependent on his “mighty works” (as they are referred to in the Acts of the Apostles) but on knowing Jesus more and more deeply as a person. The miracles then will be seen as “signs” of who he really is, and will support what one has come to know of him rather than prove it to the one who is sceptical about him. A faith springing from knowledge of his person is what will survive whatever comes during life, including suffering and the lack of “signs and wonders.”
Our Lord’s great desire as evidenced in our passage today is that we have faith in him, a full faith that, yes, leads us to ask him to hear our prayers, but especially a faith that is focussed on his person.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Christian: you have the obligation of being an example in everything
you do: including being an example as a citizen, in your fulfilment of
the laws directed to the common good.
(The Forge,
no.695)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Tuesday of the fourth week of Lent
(March 28) Today let us think of St. Guntramnus (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Ezechiel 47:1-9.12; Psalm 46: 2-3, 5-6, 8-9; John 5:1-16
Some
time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in
Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and
which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled
people used to lie — the blind, the lame, the
paralysed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been in this condition for a
long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied,
“I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am
trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him,
“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his
mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews
said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to
carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up
your mat and walk.’ So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick
it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had
slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple
and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may
happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had
made him well. So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews
persecuted him. (John 5:1-16
NIV)
Our
Gospel text tells us that the sick man’s illness had lasted for thirty eight
years, which is to say since before our Lord was born, and that Jesus “knew
(Greek: gnous) he had been in this condition for
a
long time.” Perhaps our Lord had seen him
during many of his annual journeys to Jerusalem to visit the Temple since his
youth. Perhaps on seeing him our Lord saw all of sick humanity, not only
physically sick but morally and spiritually sick as well. Mankind “had been in
this condition for a long time.” The sick man
said in reply to our Lord’s question, “I have no one to put me into the pool”
(John 5:1-16), and in this he spoke for all
mankind: man is of himself helpless, quite unable to deliver himself from his
fallen condition. There is much in our scene today that is symbolic and full of
evocative signals. There stands the Redeemer, and before him lies the sick man,
lying prostrate where he has been for a long time. The Redeemer of man has
arrived to bring new life to fallen mankind through the water of life. The water
of life flows from the Temple, as we read in our first reading
(Ezechiel 47:1-9.12), and the new Temple is
Christ, as our Lord explained earlier in the Gospel of St John.
But there is more to it than this. Our Lord asks a most illuminating question. He asks, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:1-16). Perhaps, just perhaps, the sick man was more or less content to remain in his condition or at least had long become somewhat used to it and scarcely yearned any more for a change. At least our Lord was challenging him to desire something more because our Lord would not have wanted to impose his healing. That question is one our Lord directs to each one of us because we too are helpless in our sins if we do not rely on his help and grace. Our Lord plans our full spiritual restoration, a profound sanctification — but he will not impose it. We must want it and ask for what God wants for us, which is to say the water of divine life coming to us from the gift of the Holy Spirit who has been poured into our hearts like life-giving water. The sick man had to go to the pool of water. The pool is now within us. As our Lord says elsewhere in this same Gospel of St John, it is a pool within us welling up to eternal life. That pool is the Holy Spirit whom Christ has given to us through the ministry and the sacraments of the Church.
Let us ask our Lord to give us a profound desire to be sanctified and to cooperate with his action. Let us see ourselves in that sick man, with Christ before us. He asks, “Do you want to get well?” Let us say a firm yes, asking him to enable us to partake deeply of the life-giving water of the Holy Spirit who flows from the new Temple, Christ. As St Paul would write, “This is the will of God, your sanctification.”
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You are very demanding. You want everyone else, including those who
work in the public service, to carry out their obligations. “It is
their duty!” you say. Have you then ever thought about whether you
respect your own timetable, whether you carry it out conscientiously?
(The Forge,
no.696)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent
(March 29) Today let us think of St. Joseph of Arimathea (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Isaiah 49:8-15; Psalm 145: 8-9, 13-14, 17-18; John 5:17-30
Jesus
said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am
working.” For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only
was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making
himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the
Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing,
because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son
and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater
things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life,
even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the
Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may
honour the Son just as they
honour the Father. He who does not
honour the Son does not
honour the Father, who sent him. I tell you the
truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and
will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the
truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of
the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in
himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him
authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, for a
time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out
— those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will
rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my
judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
(John 5: 17-30
NIV)
There
are various instances in history, especially in classical times, of rulers
seeking and claiming divine honours. Alexander the Great expected this at least
towards the end of his short career,
and
various of the Roman emperors expected this recognition from their subjects. But
of course they were pagans
and lived in a belief
system that included numerous gods. A god was a very limited being with some
natural and supernatural influence. But the God of Israel had no rival. He was
one and unique and the sole creator of all. All things looked to him for their
being and their life. He alone was to be worshipped. Now, consider how Christ
spoke of the one God. He spoke of him as his very own father, in a sense that
gave the impression that no one else had the same relationship. As Son, he
shared his heavenly Father’s life. No other holy figure or prophet of the Old
Testament spoke of his relationship with the living God in the way Jesus did.
The leaders of the Jews (“the Jews”) saw the point clearly. St John tells us
(John 5: 17-30) that they
“tried all the harder to kill him; not
only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father,
making himself equal with God.”
Jesus Christ made himself “equal with God.” As we read these words in St John’s Gospel expressing not only our Lord’s revelation of himself but also the unmistakable impression conveyed even to his enemies, let us contemplate the Lord Jesus Christ! He is man — which was very evident to all — and yet God, of the same nature as the Father. He is the same as the Father in his nature as God, yet as the Father’s Son he is distinct in his Person from the Person of the Father. We ought be filled more and more with praise of Jesus Christ for who he is. He stands in history as one unique in fullness and beauty of his humanity and in the grandeur of his divinity. He is humble before his heavenly Father, acknowledging that he has received all from the Father: “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself” (John 5: 17-30). Very importantly, our Lord tells us in simple terms what he has come to do for us. He “gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.” Elsewhere our Lord tells us that he has come that we may have life and have it in abundance. Christ the Son of God receives life from the Father and he in turn gives this divine life to us.
Let us never take the person of our Lord for granted, but on the contrary let us be constantly appreciating anew who he really is, approaching him in prayer daily (especially in the Eucharist) with love and reverence.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“They were determined to kill him
because …he was speaking of God as his own Father.”
(John 5: 17-30)
Commentary from the Letter of Diogenes
(around 200) Ch. 9
Until this time, which is the last, God allowed us to let ourselves be
carried away according to our disordered tendencies, drawn by pleasures
and passions. Not that he was the least pleased by our sins; he only
tolerated that time of iniquity, without consenting to it. He was
preparing the present time of righteousness, so that we, convinced of
the fact that we were unworthy of life during that period because of
our faults, might now become worthy of it through the effectiveness of
divine kindness……
He did not hate us; he did not reject us…… He had mercy on us and
burdened himself with our faults, and he surrendered his own Son as a
ransom for us: the holy one for the ungodly, the innocent one for the
wicked, “the just man for the sake of the unjust” (1 Pet 3:18), the
incorruptible one for those who are corrupted, the immortal one for
those who are mortal. What other than his own justice could have
covered over our sins? In whom could we be justified…… if not through
the only Son of God? Sweet exchange, unfathomable work, unexpected
kindness! The crime of a great number of people was covered over by the
righteousness of a single person, and the righteousness of one single
person justifies many who are guilty. In the past, he convinced our
nature of its inability to attain life; now he shows us the Saviour who
is able to save what could not be saved. In these two ways, he wanted
to give us faith in his kindness and to let us see in him the nutrient,
the father, the teacher, the counsellor, the doctor, understanding,
light, honour, glory, strength and life
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carry out all your duties as a citizen. Do not try to get out of any of
your obligations. Exercise all your rights, too, for the good of
society, without making any rash exceptions. You must give Christian
witness in that also.
(The Forge,
no.697)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Thursday of the fourth week of Lent
(March 30) Today let us think of St. John Climacus (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Exodus 32: 7-14; Psalm 106: 19-23; John 5: 31-47
“If
I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid. There is another who
testifies in my favour, and I know that his
testimony about me is valid. You have sent to John and he has testified to the
truth. Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be
saved. John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to
enjoy his light. I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work
that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the
Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning
me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in
you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You diligently study the Scriptures
because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the
Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I
do not accept praise from men, but I know you. I know that you do not have the
love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not
accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How
can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to
obtain the praise that comes from the only God? But do not think I will accuse
you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you
believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do
not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?
(John 5: 31-47
NIV)
What
was it that filled the heart of Jesus Christ? It was his heavenly Father. If we
search
the Gospels to know “what made him (Jesus) tick” (as we might say), we see
plenty of evidence that it was
his knowledge and love of
his Father. From his early years he showed this, even to his earthly parents.
The earliest words recorded of him are those he used in reply to his parents
when they found him in the Temple. “Did you not know that I must be in my
Father’s house?” or, alternatively, “Did you not know that I must be about my
Father’s business?” It was his heavenly Father who filled his heart and his
life, and in his Father he loved his parents and us too. During his public
ministry this closeness to his Father was what distinguished his inner life, and
it was what he said about his relationship to his Father which aroused such
opposition from the leaders of the Jews. He spoke of God as his Father, making
himself equal to God.
In our passage today, we have further light into our Lord’s relationship with his Father. He accuses his critics of never hearing his Father’s voice, of never having “seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you” (John 5:31-47). Consider our Lord’s words here, and how he himself has heard the Father’s “voice” and seen his “form”. Our Lord knows the Father face to face, knows exactly what he is like and hears him constantly. Our Lord’s contact with the Father Almighty is immediate, intimate, constant, and ineffable. At his baptism the Father made his voice heard, as he did at the Transfiguration. The Father had sent him, and he had come in the name of his Father. Why did our Lord come? It was in order that we may have life. Our Lord’s enemies “refuse to come to me for life.” Let us contemplate the person of Jesus and his relationship to the Father, and how a share in the life of God is made available to us by coming to him. He is the Saviour of the world.
Let us meditate on the beautiful text of today’s Gospel in which our Lord speaks of his relationship with the Father, and how life for us is to be found in him.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“If you believed in Moses you would
then believe me, for it was about me that he wrote.”
(John 5:
31-47) Saint
Jerome (347-420), Priest, Translator of the Bible, Doctor of the
Church
(Letter 53 to Saint Paulinus, Bishop of Nola)
There is a “wisdom of God, mysterious and hidden, which God decided in
advance, before the ages.” This wisdom of God is Christ. He is “the
power of God and the wisdom of God”…… For in the Son “all treasures of
wisdom and of knowledge are hidden.” Hidden in mystery, decided in
advance, before the ages, he was predestined and prefigured in the Law
and the Prophets.
That is why the prophets were called “seers”; they saw him who was
hidden and unknown to others. Abraham also “saw his day and rejoiced.”
For Ezekiel, the heavens opened while the sinful people remained
ignorant. David said: “Remove the veil from my eyes, and I will
contemplate the marvels of your law.” For the law is spiritual, and to
understand it, the veil must be lifted and “the glory of God must be
contemplated with unveiled vision.”
In the Book of Revelation, a sealed book with seven seals is shown……
How many people today who claim to be educated hold a sealed Book in
their hands! And they are incapable of opening it unless it is opened
by “him who has the key of David; if he opens, no one will close, and
if he closes, no one will open.” In the Acts of the Apostles, the
eunuch was reading the prophet Isaiah…… However, without knowing him,
he was ignorant of him whom he was venerating in that book. Philip came
and showed him Jesus hidden under the letter…… So understand that you
cannot get involved in Holy Scripture without a guide who will show you
the way.
(Biblical References: 1 Cor 2:7; 1 Cor 1:24; Col 2:31; 1 Sam 9:9; Jn
8:56; Ps 118:18; 2 Cor 3:16-18; Rev 5:1; Rev 3:7; Acts 8:26ff.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If we really want to sanctify our work, we have inescapably to fulfil
the first condition: that of working, and working well, with human and
supernatural seriousness.
(The Forge,
no.698)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Friday of the fourth week of Lent
(March 31) Today let us think of St. Benjamin (Saints) See also this Website's Details of Saints for Any Particular Day
Scripture today: Wisdom 2: 1.12-22; Psalm 34: 17-21 and 23; John 7: 1-2.10.25-30
After
this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because
the Jews there were waiting to take his life. But when the Jewish Feast of
Tabernacles was near. ….. However, after his brothers had left for the Feast, he
went also, not publicly, but in secret. Now at the Feast the Jews were watching
for him and asking, “Where is that man?” …….At that point some of the people of
Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? Here he is,
speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities
really concluded that he is the Christ? But we know where this man is from; when
the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.” Then Jesus, still teaching
in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am
from. I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him,
but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.” At this they tried to
seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come.
(John 7:1-2.10.25-30
NIV)
Our
Gospel today tells us of Christ’s witness to the truth about himself amid the
closing
around
him of his enemies’ hostility. He “went around in
Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the
Jews there were waiting to take his life.” Then after he had gone up to
Jerusalem and borne public witness to his knowing the Father and having come
from him, we are told that “At this they tried to
seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come”
(John 7:1-2.10.25-30). That is to say, the
hand of God was over all. Our Lord had been sent to
fulfil a mission, and this he did to perfection. He met with opposition,
difficulty and betrayal. But nothing could frustrate, dominate or negate the
all-powerful and loving providence of God. The machinations of the enemies of
the Truth were all-encompassed by God’s foresight and saving plan. For this
reason nothing would happen to our Lord till the time appointed had come.
St Paul in one of his letters urges us “to let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Part of entering into the mind of Christ and of living in union with him is to have a Christ-like conviction of the providence of God our heavenly Father. “Because his time had not yet come no one laid a hand on him.” We each of us have been given life and placed by God in a particular situation and circumstance, with certain responsibilities and duties. All of this together makes up our mission in life, a mission derived from our baptism. It is to be fulfilled in Jesus, by following his path which includes the path of the Cross. But fundamental to our completing our path in Jesus will be that we have a profound sense of the providence of God our Father. All things are in his hands including and most especially everything that makes up the Cross we are called to carry. Everything that frustrates our plans and hopes for doing good is encompassed in the providential plan of God in our regard.
If we love God and try each day to obey his will, offering up difficulties and frustrations, all things will somehow come together for the good which God intends — as they did pre-eminently in the life and person of his Son. Let us pray for the faith that entrusts all we do and all that life brings to the providential care of God while we valiantly and with good humour fulfil our God-given work in life.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“No one laid a finger on him because
his hour had not yet come.”
(John 7:1-2.10.25-30)
Comment by Origen (185 – 253), Priest
and Theologian (Commentary
on Saint John, 19,12)
To seek Jesus is often something good, for it is the same as to seek
the Word, the truth and wisdom. But you will say that the words “to
seek Jesus” are sometimes said about those who want to harm him. For
example: “They tried to seize him, but no one laid a finger on him
because his hour had not yet come.” …… He knows from whom he distances
himself and with whom he remains without being found yet, so that if
someone seeks him, that person will find him at the favourable time.
The apostle Paul said to those who did not yet possess Jesus in this
way and who did not contemplate him: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who
shall go up into heaven?’ (that is to bring Christ down), or ‘Who shall
go down into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
What is it he does say? ‘The word is near you, on your lips and in your
heart.’” (Rom 6:6-8)
When in his love for humankind the Saviour said: “You will look for
me,” (Jn 8:21) he let us glimpse the things pertaining to the reign of
God, so that those who look for him do not do so outside of themselves
saying: “'Here, he is here', or ‘he is there’.” The Gospel tells them:
“The reign of God is already in your midst.” (Lk 17:21) So long as we
keep the seed of truth that has been placed in our soul, and his
commandments, the Word will not distance himself from us. But if evil
spreads in us to corrupt us, Jesus will tell us: “I am going away. You
will look for me but you will die in your sins.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your charity should be likeable. Without neglecting prudence and
naturalness, try to have a smile on your lips for everyone at all
times, though you may be weeping inside. The service you give to others
should be unstinting too.
(The Forge,
no.699)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------