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women
and children are most tragic, may be signs of hope, thanks to their
courageous testimony to the Gospel of solidarity and love".----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday of the fifth week in Lent
(April 1) St. Hugh of Grenoble (1052-1132)
Today’s saint could be a patron for those of us who feel so overwhelmed by
all the problems in the world that we don’t know where to begin. Hugh, who
served as a bishop in France for 52 years, had his work cut out for him from
the start. Corruption seemed to loom in every direction: the buying and
selling of Church offices, violations of clerical celibacy, lay control of
Church property, religious indifference and/or ignorance. After serving as
bishop for two years, he’d had his fill. He tried disappearing to a
monastery, but the pope called him back to continue the work of reform.
Ironically, Hugh was reasonably effective in the role of reformer — surely
because of his devotion to the Church but also because of his strong
character. In conflicts between Church and state he was an unflinching
defender of the Church. He fearlessly supported the papacy. He was eloquent
as a preacher. He restored his own cathedral, made civic improvements in the
town and weathered a brief exile. Hugh may be best known as patron and
benefactor of St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusian Order. Hugh died in 1132.
He was canonized only two years later. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Daniel 3:14-20,
91-92, 95; Daniel 3:52-56; John 8:31-42
To the Jews who had believed him,
Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then
you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him,
We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can
you say that we shall be set free? Jesus replied, I tell you the truth,
everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in
the family, but a son belongs to it for ever. So if the Son sets you free,
you will be free indeed. I know you are Abraham's descendants. Yet you are
ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you
what I have seen in the Father's presence, and you do what you have heard
from your father. Abraham is our father, they answered. If you were
Abraham's children, said Jesus, then you would do the things Abraham did. As
it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that
I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things
your own father does. We are not illegitimate children, they protested. The
only Father we have is God himself. Jesus said to them, If God were your
Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not
come on my own; but he sent me. (John 8:31-42)
There have been moments in history
when the course of events has been in the hands of evil men and a flood of
misfortunes have poured from their hands over great numbers of innocent
individuals. Nothing seemed able to stop the river of sadness, and it took a
great loss of life to confront and overcome it. An obvious instance of this
was the rise of Nazism in Germany and its upshot in the Second World War.
There was the bombing and conquest of Poland. There was the holocaust of
Jews in the gas chambers and the
destruction of so much human life. Or
again, consider the brutality of the armies of Japan not only during the
war, but before it when they invaded and ravaged China. It was an evil day
and a new day dawned only gradually, leaving much of the world at the time
in ruins with so many young lives snuffed out. To many it seemed that there
was at work in the world a greater than human force. The demonic was
intensely active, causing fire and hail and conflagrations all over the work
of God’s hands. The very scale of the harm being done suggests that Satan
and his minions were having a field day. That Satan himself has a world
perspective is suggested by the temptation he insinuated to our Lord in the
desert following our Lord’s baptism by John in the river Jordan. Satan
tempted our Lord by promising him dominion over the whole world. It would be
his gift, on the condition that he, Jesus, acknowledged and worshipped him.
Our Lord summarily dismissed him from his presence, but the point to be
noted here is that Satan spoke of the world as his possession. Time and
again we read of writers in the past who lamented that things in their day
had come to the pass they had. Each age has its measure of evil and good.
Satan has been active across the face of the world since the dawn of human
history, and is active in every generation. His reach is considerable, and
history bears witness to his domination of certain individuals and courses
of events. Of course, the power of this black prince is as nothing when set
before the power of Christ the Redeemer.
This fact of the influence of Satan
in history and over individuals is alluded to by our Lord in our passage
today. Our Lord refers to the influence of Satan very bluntly. He assures
his hearers that he is telling them what he has seen of the Father, whereas
they do what they have heard from their father. Their father is Satan. They
are stark words, and they are a warning to all who read them. Our Lord’s
hearers did not know that Satan was influencing them. When our Lord
announced the doctrine of the Eucharist in the synagogue of Capernaum, many
of his disciples left him. What he had told them — that in real truth they
must eat his flesh and drink his blood if they were to live — was too much.
They did not accept his word. After they had gone, our Lord turned to the
Twelve and asked if they were going too. No, they would not, replied Simon
Peter, for he, Jesus spoke the word of life, and they believed. Then our
Lord said, have I not chosen you, and yet one of you is a devil! Satan
already had a presence within the circle of the Twelve, in our Lord’s own
camp, in his very household. Satan was beginning to dominate the heart of Judas
Iscariot. Obviously Judas too was among those who did not really believe.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to say that it was the doctrine of the
Eucharist that triggered the defection of Judas, not his love for money. In
our passage today our Lord says this: “You are ready to kill me, because you
have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father's
presence, and you do what you have heard from your father”
(John 8:31-42). Satan refused to accept
the word of God in heaven. It was in heaven that he became a devil and was
immediately expelled. He induced Adam and Eve to refuse the word of God
at the dawn of human history. He drew Judas Iscariot after him in refusing
the word of Christ. Our Lord is telling his hearers today that in their
refusal to accept his word they are taking their lead from their father, the
Devil. All this means that far more is involved and far more is at stake in
our response to Christ and to what is good than merely our personal
judgment. Satan is near at hand.
Behind the universe is the
sustaining hand of God. God is the Absolute, the Ultimate. His human face is
Christ, God the Son made man, crucified for our sins and risen from the dead
for our redemption. His standard is held aloft across the world. But there
is another too, far his inferior and utterly dependent on him for his entire
existence. That other is the Enemy par excellence of all that is. He hates
God and wishes to ruin everything. On the one hand there is God, and on the
other there is Satan. Let us make sure that our whole life is nothing other
than a complete affirmation of Christ and a complete renunciation of Satan.
For God and for Christ, then!
(E.J.Tyler)
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For 'others', death is a stumbling block, a
source of terror. For us, death — Life — is an encouragement and a stimulus.
For them it is the end: for us, the beginning.
(The Way, no.738)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The
Eighth Chapter
The Intimate Friendship of Jesus
Jesus Christ must be loved alone with a special love for He alone, of all
friends, is good and faithful. For Him and in Him you must love friends and
foes alike, and pray to Him that all may know and love Him.
Never desire special praise or love, for that belongs to God alone Who has
no equal. Never wish that anyone's affection be centred in you, nor let
yourself be taken up with the love of anyone, but let Jesus be in you and in
every good man. Be pure and free within, unentangled with any creature.
(Continuing)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Thursday of the fifth week in Lent
(April 2) St. Francis of Paola (1416-1507)
Francis of Paola was a man who deeply loved contemplative solitude and
wished only to be the "least in the household of God." Yet, when the Church
called him to active service in the world, he became a miracle-worker and
influenced the course of nations. After accompanying his parents on a
pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi, he began to live as a contemplative hermit in
a remote cave near Paola, on Italy's southern seacoast. Before he was 20, he
received the first followers who had come to imitate his way of life.
Seventeen years later, when his disciples had grown in number, Francis
established a Rule for his austere community and sought Church approval.
This was the founding of the Hermits of St. Francis of Assisi, who were
approved by the Holy See in 1474. In 1492, Francis changed the name of his
community to "Minims" because he wanted them to be known as the least
(minimi) in the household of God. Humility was to be the hallmark of the
brothers as it had been in Francis's personal life. Besides the vows of
poverty, chastity and obedience, Francis enjoined upon his followers the
fourth obligation of a perpetual Lenten fast. He felt that heroic
mortification was necessary as a means for spiritual growth. It was
Francis's desire to be a contemplative hermit, yet he believed that God was
calling him to the apostolic life. He began to use the gifts he had
received, such as the gifts of miracles and prophecy, to minister to the
people of God. A defender of the poor and oppressed, Francis incurred the
wrath of King Ferdinand of Naples for the admonitions he directed towards
the king and his sons. Following the request of Pope Sixtus IV, Francis
travelled to Paris to help Louis XI of France prepare for his death. While
ministering to the king, Francis was able to influence the course of
national politics. He helped to restore peace between France and Brittany by
advising a marriage between the ruling families, and between France and
Spain by persuading Louis XI to return some disputed land. Francis died
while at the French court.
The life of Francis of Paola speaks plainly to an
overactive world. He was a contemplative man called to active ministry and
must have felt keenly the tension between prayer and service. Yet in
Francis's life it was a productive tension, for he clearly utilized the
fruits of contemplation in his ministry, which came to involve the workings
of nations. He responded so readily and so well to the call of the Church
from a solid foundation in prayer and mortification. When he went out to the
world, it was not he who worked but Christ working through him—"the least in
the household of God." (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Genesis 17:3-9; Psalm
105:4-9; John 8:51-59
I tell you the truth, if anyone
keeps my word, he will never see death. At this the Jews exclaimed, Now we
know that you are demon-possessed!
Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps
your word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father
Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?
Jesus replied, If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father,
whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do
not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like
you, but I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced
at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad. You are not
yet fifty years old, the Jews said to him, and you have seen Abraham! I
tell you the truth, Jesus answered, before Abraham was born, I am! At
this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself,
slipping away from the temple grounds. (John 8:51-59)
It was long the practice of the
Hebrew religion not to pronounce the divine name of YHWH in liturgical
settings, out of respect for this holy Name. Of course, there was
uncertainty over how this Name was to be pronounced anyway because of the
issue of Hebrew vowels, but apart from this philological reason, there was
the reason of profound respect for the infinite greatness and goodness of
God. An alternative name was used in the reading of this sacred name: 'Adonai,'
which means 'Lord'". Similarly, Greek translations of 
the Bible used the
word "Kyrios" and Latin scholars translated it to "Dominus"; both also mean
Lord. In 2008 the Holy See directed that the recent popular practice of
pronouncing the divine name of Yahweh in the reading of the Lectionary and
in hymns and prayers must cease in settings of Catholic worship. The
traditional practice of using the word “Lord” had to be resumed. I mention
all this to illustrate the sacredness of the name God revealed to Moses as
being his. What is your name, Moses asked him at the Burning Bush. God
revealed it as, I am, and the consonants of the word are to be found in the
inspired text. It is a name full of meaning and, I think I can safely say,
unique in the history of the world. No other deity among the religions of
man was given that name, and as the centuries passed not only did this name
receive the utmost respect from those who accepted divine revelation, but it
was the spur to profound philosophical reflection on the nature of God. We
could say that this reflection reached its apogee in the thought of Thomas
Aquinas who saw in it a revelation of God as pure and simple Being. No other
could claim or be allowed this name, and it reflected the unique
transcendence of God and the discounting of any gods other than he. The God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Moses and the prophets, is the one
and only God. The first of the Ten Commandments is that he alone be
acknowledged as God. You shall have no other gods apart from me. It is the
linchpin of revealed religion, and it marks a watershed in the history of
man’s religions.
Not only could no other god or being
claim such a name, but of course no one did. But here we have in our Gospel
passage today the man Jesus stating in the presence of his very enemies,
those who were bent on catching him out in what he said, that, and I quote,
“I am.” Its significance was unmistakable. He had already said, to the
amazement of his audience, that “I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my
word, he will never see death.” What prophet ever claimed such a thing? The
prophets readily said that life comes to the one who keeps the word of God,
and they themselves proclaimed the word of God. But here was Jesus stating
that his own word gives life to the one who keeps it. His hearers replied,
“Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets.
Who do you make yourself out to be?” That is the question of the ages: Who
is Christ, and who does he claim to be? Elsewhere in the Gospels we read
that our Lord asked the Twelve who men said he was. They told him of the
various opinions held by the people — basically that he was a great man, a
great prophet, one of the greatest come back again among them. But who do
you say I am, he asked? Here in our passage today, our Lord’s hearers ask
him who he says he is. We remember during the trial of Christ before the
Sanhedrin, he was solemnly asked, and was abjured under oath, who he claimed
to be. Was he or was he not, the Messiah, the Son of the living God? He
said, yes indeed I am, and you will see me coming at the right hand of God
on the clouds of heaven. It sealed his condemnation, and our Lord went
freely to his death bearing witness to the truth about himself and by
this means redeemed the world. In our Gospel passage today
(John 8: 51-59), his hearers ask him
virtually the same question: who do you make yourself out to be? Our Lord
gave them his answer: “I tell you the truth, Jesus answered, before Abraham
was born, I am!” Our Lord claimed to be God himself, but not the Father. “If
I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your
God, is the one who glorifies me.” Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Let us place ourselves before the
person of Jesus Christ, living now and risen from the dead. He is the Man of
the ages, incomparable in his person and in his teaching. No one claimed to
be what he claimed to be and he vindicated his claims by his life, his
holiness and his works. He is the object of our worship, our adoration, our
love and our service. We were made to know, love and serve him here on earth
and so to be with him forever in heaven. Let us bring this fact to the world
around us.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Don't be afraid of death. Accept it from now on, generously... when God
wills it, where God wills it, as God wills it. Don't doubt what I say: it
will come in the moment, in the place and in the way that are best: sent by
your Father-God. Welcome be our sister death!
(The Way, no.739)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The Eighth Chapter
The Intimate Friendship of Jesus
You
must bring to God a clean and open heart if you wish to attend and see how
sweet the Lord is. Truly you will never attain this happiness unless His
grace prepares you and draws you on so that you may forsake all things to be
united with Him alone.
When the grace of God comes to a man he can do all things, but when it
leaves him he becomes poor and weak, abandoned, as it were, to affliction.
Yet, in this condition he should not become dejected or despair. On the
contrary, he should calmly await the will of God and bear whatever befalls
him in praise of Jesus Christ, for after winter comes summer, after night,
the day, and after the storm, a great calm.
(Concluded)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Friday of the fifth week in Lent
(April 3) St. Benedict the African (1526-1589)
Benedict held important posts in the
Franciscan Order and gracefully adjusted to other work when his terms of
office were up. His parents were slaves brought from Africa to Messina,
Sicily. Freed at 18, Benedict did farm work for a wage and soon saved enough
to buy a pair of oxen. He was very proud of those animals. In time he joined
a group of hermits around Palermo and was eventually recognized as their
leader. Because these hermits followed the Rule of St. Francis, Pope Pius IV
ordered them to join the First Order. Benedict was eventually novice master
and then guardian of the friars in Palermo— positions rarely held in those
days by a brother. In fact, Benedict was forced to accept his election as
guardian. And when his term ended he happily returned to his work in the
friary kitchen. Benedict corrected the friars with humility and charity.
Once he corrected a novice and assigned him a penance only to learn that the
novice was not the guilty party. Benedict immediately knelt down before the
novice and asked his pardon. In later life Benedict was not possessive of
the few things he used. He never referred to them as "mine" but always
called them "ours." His gifts for prayer and the guidance of souls earned
him throughout Sicily a reputation for holiness. Following the example of
St. Francis, Benedict kept seven 40-day fasts throughout the year; he also
slept only a few hours each night. After Benedict’s death, King Philip III
of Spain paid for a special tomb for this holy friar. Canonized in 1807, he
is honoured as a patron saint by African-Americans.
"I did not come to be served but to serve (see
Matthew 20:28), says the Lord. Those who are placed over others should glory
in such an office only as much as they would were they assigned the task of
washing the feet of the brothers. And the more they are upset about their
office being taken from them than they would be over the loss of the office
of [washing] feet, so much the more do they store up treasures to the peril
of their souls (see John 12:6)" (Francis of Assisi, Admonition IV). (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Jeremiah 20:10-13;
Psalm 18:2-7; John 10:31-42
Again the Jews picked up stones to
stone him, but Jesus said to them, I have shown you many great miracles from
the Father. For which of these do you stone me? We are not stoning you for
any of these, replied the Jews, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man,
claim to be God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your Law, 'I have
said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods', to whom the word of God came—
and the Scripture cannot be broken— what about the one whom the Father set
apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of
blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? Do not believe me unless I do
what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me,
believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in
me, and I in the Father. Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their
grasp. Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had
been baptising in the early days. Here he stayed and many people came to
him. They said, Though John never performed a miraculous sign, all that John
said about this man was true. And in that place many believed in Jesus.
(John 10:31-42)
Our Gospel passage today
(John 10:31-42) opens with the leaders
of the Jews taking action in order to put Jesus to death there and then. It was going
to be a lynching, a stoning to death despite the presence of the Roman
administration. When Jesus was eventually arrested the priests took him to
Pilate and said, by way of introduction, that they had no power to put
anyone to death. For that reason they had come to him to secure his
execution. Here, however, John reports that “the Jews” attempted to stone Jesus, and
it was not the first time. The context was what our Lord had just claimed.
He had just said in the sentence prior to this passage, publicly and in the
presence of his very enemies, that he and the Father were one. Of course, a
reader of this text could assert that Jesus was meaning no more than that he
and the Father were of one mind and will — in the sense that Jesus himself
“always did what pleased him.” But this was not the clear meaning that was
conveyed. There was no doubt in the minds of the leaders who had just heard
our Lord that he meant one thing: he was claiming to be one in being with
the Father of whom he had just been speaking. It was an amazing assertion
and it had no precedent in all of Israel’s history. It was blasphemy, they
immediately decided, and it was the chance they had been seeking. At their
violent reaction our Lord did not take back what he had just said, nor did
he deny their general interpretation of it. He did ask them to think much
more carefully of his claim. The “Son of God” was not in itself a
blasphemous title, for in the psalm (81:6) the judges of God’s people were
called “sons of God” and even “gods”. How much more was this title
applicable to him whom God had “sent into the world.” Consider my
credentials, our Lord insisted. Do not my deeds of mercy performed in your
presence manifest the Father’s approval of what I am claiming? Would God my
heavenly Father enable me to do these things were I blaspheming him?
Our Lord’s logic made no impression
because their hearts were hardened against him. Earlier in the same Gospel
Nicodemus, one of the leaders of the Jews (and his case shows that our
Lord’s rejection cannot be attributed to all the leaders of the Jews)
visited our Lord by night. Nicodemus told our Lord that no one could perform
the works he was doing unless God were with him (3:2). The people, seeing
his works, understood very clearly that in Jesus God had visited his people,
and that a great prophet had arisen among them. When our Lord’s disciples,
out in the midst of the storm, saw him at a word quell the winds and the
sea, they bowed down before him and acknowledged him to be the Son of God.
The very devils did this. This was no ordinary prophet, nor was he merely a
great prophet. He was claiming God to be his very own father in a sense that
was unique. He spoke of God as his natural Father and of himself as God’s
natural Son. He never spoke of himself as being the Father, nor of himself
as being the Holy Spirit — both of whom he often referred to. No, he was the
Father’s Son, the only Son of the eternal Father and was one with the Father.
No other human being could possibly claim this, no prophet or holy man.
Elsewhere in the Gospel of St John our Lord said, in justification of his
healing on the Sabbath, that since his Father was working, so he too worked.
At this, John writes, they were more determined than ever to put an end to
him because, not content with breaking the Sabbath, he called God his own
Father and so made himself equal to God (John 5:18). Again, on another
occasion, he told them that “before Abraham ever came to be, I am” (John
9:58). At this they took up stones with which to stone him but he escaped.
Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel ask that, in respect to the divine claim
he has just made — that he and the Father are one (John 10:30) — they
consider his uniqueness when compared with those of whom the Scriptures call
“sons of God” and “gods”. He asked that they also consider the divine sanction his
miracles confer on all that he is saying of himself.
The evidence
for Christ is very powerful, but it requires a disposition that is open to
it. The starting point of one’s mind, heart and soul has to be truly open to
where that evidence points. The seed requires good soil. Christ’s holiness,
the beauty of his person, his almighty power, his works of mercy, the
loftiness and grandeur of his teaching — all these things and more cannot
penetrate a will that is simply indisposed to admit or allow him. Indeed,
such a will can rise up against him and attempt to do away with him as did our Lord’s enemies in
today’s Gospel. Taking note of this, for our part let us take our stand with
Jesus and follow him to the end.
(E.J.Tyler)
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What part of the world would collapse if I were missing, if I were to die?
(The Way, no.740)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The Ninth Chapter
WANTING NO SHARE IN COMFORT
IT
IS not hard to spurn human consolation when we have the divine. It is,
however, a very great thing indeed to be able to live without either divine
or human comforting and for the honour of God willingly to endure this exile
of heart, not to seek oneself in anything, and to think nothing of one's own
merit.
Does it matter much, if at the coming of grace, you are cheerful and devout?
This is an hour desired by all, for he whom the grace of God sustains
travels easily enough. What wonder if he feel no burden when borne up by the
Almighty and led on by the Supreme Guide! For we are always glad to have
something to comfort us, and only with difficulty does a man divest himself
of self
(Continuing)
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When [Christ] spoke, it was literally God speaking; when He
suffered, it was God suffering.
(John Henry Newman, from his sermon ‘The Incarnate Son, a Sufferer and
Sacrifice’ (1836) )
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Saturday of the fifth week in Lent
(April 4) St. Isidore of Seville (560?-636)
The 76 years of Isidore's life were a time of conflict and growth for the
Church in Spain. The Visigoths had invaded the land a century and a half
earlier and shortly before Isidore's birth they set up their own capital.
They were Arians—Christians who said Christ was not God. Thus Spain was
split in two: One people (Catholic Romans) struggled with another (Arian
Goths). Isidore reunited Spain, making it a center of culture and learning,
a teacher and guide for other European countries whose culture was also
threatened by barbarian invaders. Born in Cartagena of a family that
included three other saints, he was educated (severely) by his elder
brother, whom he succeeded as bishop of Seville. An amazingly learned man,
he was sometimes called "The Schoolmaster of the Middle Ages" because the
encyclopedia he wrote was used as a textbook for nine centuries. He required
seminaries to be built in every diocese, wrote a Rule for religious orders
and founded schools that taught every branch of learning. Isidore wrote
numerous books, including a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a history of Goths
and a history of the world—beginning with creation! He completed the
Mozarabic liturgy, which is still in use in Toledo, Spain. For all these
reasons Isidore (as well as several other saints) has been suggested as
patron of the Internet. He continued his austerities even as he approached
80. During the last six months of his life, he increased his charities so
much that his house was crowded from morning till night with the poor of the
countryside. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Ezechiel 37:21-28;
Jeremiah 31:10-13; John 11:45-56
Therefore many of the Jews who had
come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. But
some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then
the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. What
are we accomplishing? they asked. Here is this man performing many
miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in
him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our
nation. Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year,
spoke up, You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for
you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. He
did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that
Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also
for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.
So from that day on they plotted to take his life. Therefore Jesus no longer
moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew to a region near
the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the
country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover.
They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked
one another, What do you think? Isn't he coming to the Feast at all?
(John 11:45-56)
The Gospel scene today takes us into
the gathering of the Sanhedrin. In his account of these
scenes John the author of the Gospel shows a familiarity with discussions in the highest circles
before and during Christ’s passion. He tells us (ch. 18:15) that he was known
to the high priest and so was able to enter “with Jesus into the court of
the high priest.” He was able to speak to the woman at the door and so let
Simon Peter in. Perhaps John was a witness of part of the interrogation of
Jesus during his passion. In any case he had connections with the ruling
class and it must have been these connections that were the source of his information.
There were also secret believers among them, such as Nicodemus and Joseph of
Arimathea. He
narrates, for instance, not only the course of the trial of Jesus by the
Sanhedrin, but the conversation between Pilate and Jesus and Pilate’s
publicly stated conviction that Jesus was entirely innocent. In our Gospel today John
reports the business of a crucial meeting of the Sanhedrin. The chief
priests and the Pharisees called the meeting, and the question was, what to
do about Jesus? They were fumbling for some justification for doing away
with him. He is going from strength to strength in his miracles, they said,
and — notice the hypocritical pretext they latched on to — the Romans will
intervene. It seems that in formal discussion they presented themselves to
one another as concerned for the security of the nation. This growing talk
of a “messiah” will bring the power of Rome down upon everyone. It was an
idea that hid their jealousy — a jealousy which Pilate himself spotted as
being behind it all. It was the high priest who resolved their
insincere dilemma and maintained the respectability of their consciences.
“You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that
one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” Ah, of
course! Jesus just has to go. He must be sacrificed for the sake of the
nation — otherwise the nation is doomed.
John observes that this utterance
from the high priest was a prophecy. There were plenty of instances of bad
and false prophets in the Old Testament. John is saying here that
though the high priest was wicked, despite himself he was uttering a true
prophecy. He was moved to say what he did without his realizing the true
import of his words. Moreover, in saying what he did, and in uttering what
in fact was a prophecy without his realizing the true meaning of his own
words, he was acting not in a purely personal capacity but precisely as high
priest of the nation. It was, as it were, his office that was pronouncing on
the death of Jesus Christ. It was as if the Jewish nation, in the person of
its religious leader and precisely in its capacity as the chosen and
worshipping people of God, was giving voice to the meaning of the death of
Jesus Christ. Jesus was giving his life for the people of God, the chosen
people of Israel and all those who would become the new family of God, his
scattered children. John is pointing to the Hand of the living God at work
behind the course of events that were leading to the death of his only Son
made man. Despite what Satan was orchestrating, despite the scheming and
hypocritical pretexts of the leaders gathered in Council, despite the base,
unworthy and ruthless machinations of the powers of the time, God’s purposes
were being worked out. The very high priest, unbeknown to himself, was
announcing to the nation’s highest council, what was in fact about to
happen. Jesus would lay down his life in order that God’s chosen people
would not perish. As John the Baptist had said at the start of our Lord’s
public ministry, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Many years before that, the Angel had said to Joseph that the Child to be
born of his wife would save his people from their sins (Matt 1:21). The
words of the high priest were like a solemn toll of a bell sounding from heaven
in the ears of the leaders
(John 11:45-56). The countdown to
mankind’s redemption had arrived.
Two events in
history are unique in the annals of the world. The first is the Incarnation
when God became man. A man walked the earth who was divine. He was the Son
of God made man. The second is the passion and death of this man. It is the
Atonement for man’s sins and it brought life and salvation. The words of the
high priest were God’s way of placing his seal on what was about to happen.
Christ would die that God’s children may live. Let us live in Christ, then,
and never allow ourselves to be separated from him.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Do you see how the corpse of the loved one disintegrates in foul and reeking
liquids? That, then, is the body beautiful! Contemplate it and draw your own
conclusions.
(The Way, no.741)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The Ninth Chapter
WANTING NO SHARE IN COMFORT
The
holy martyr, Lawrence, with his priest, conquered the world because he
despised everything in it that seemed pleasing to him, and for love of
Christ patiently suffered the great high priest of God, Sixtus, whom he
loved dearly, to be taken from him. Thus, by his love for the Creator he
overcame the love of man, and chose instead of human consolation the good
pleasure of God. So you, too, must learn to part with an intimate and
much-needed friend for the love of God. Do not take it to heart when you are
deserted by a friend, knowing that in the end we must all be parted from one
another.
A man must fight long and bravely against himself before he learns to master
himself fully and to direct all his affections toward God. When he trusts in
himself, he easily takes to human consolation. The true lover of Christ,
however, who sincerely pursues virtue, does not fall back upon consolations
nor seek such pleasures of sense, but prefers severe trials and hard labours
for the sake of Christ.
(Continuing)
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All
the works of God are in a beautiful harmony; they are carried on to the end as
they begin.
(John Henry Newman, from his discourse ‘On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary’, 1849)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion B
Prayers this week: Six days before
the solemn Passover the Lord came to Jerusalem, and children waving palm
branches ran out to welcome him. They loudly praised the Lord: Hosanna in
the highest. Blessed are you who have come to us so rich in love and mercy.
Almighty and
ever living God, you have given the human race Jesus Christ our Saviour as a
model of humility. He fulfilled your will by becoming man and giving his
life on the cross. Help us to bear witness to you by following his example
of suffering and make us worthy to share in his resurrection.
We ask
this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy
Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
(April 5) St. Vincent Ferrer (1350?-1419)
The polarization in the Church today is a mild breeze compared with the
tornado that ripped the Church apart during the lifetime of this saint. If
any saint is a patron of reconciliation, Vincent Ferrer is. Despite parental
opposition, he entered the Dominican Order in his native Spain at 19. After
brilliant studies, he was ordained a priest by Cardinal Peter de Luna—who
would figure tragically in his life. Of a very ardent nature, Vincent
practiced the austerities of his Order with great energy. He was chosen
prior of the Dominican house in Valencia shortly after his ordination. The
Western Schism divided Christianity first between two, then three, popes.
Clement VII lived at Avignon in France, Urban VI in Rome. Vincent was
convinced the election of Urban was invalid (though Catherine of Siena was
just as devoted a supporter of the Roman pope). In the service of Cardinal
de Luna, he worked to persuade Spaniards to follow Clement. When Clement
died, Cardinal de Luna was elected at Avignon and became Benedict XIII.
Vincent worked for him as apostolic penitentiary and Master of the Sacred
Palace. But the new pope did not resign as all candidates in the conclave
had sworn to do. He remained stubborn despite being deserted by the French
king and nearly all of the cardinals. Vincent became disillusioned and very
ill, but finally took up the work of simply "going through the world
preaching Christ," though he felt that any renewal in the Church depended on
healing the schism. An eloquent and fiery preacher, he spent the last 20
years of his life spreading the Good News in Spain, France, Switzerland, the
Low Countries and Lombardy, stressing the need of repentance and the fear of
coming judgment. (He became known as the "Angel of the Judgment.") He tried,
unsuccessfully, in 1408 and 1415, to persuade his former friend to resign.
He finally concluded that Benedict was not the true pope. Though very ill,
he mounted the pulpit before an assembly over which Benedict himself was
presiding and thundered his denunciation of the man who had ordained him a
priest. Benedict fled for his life, abandoned by those who had formerly
supported him. Strangely, Vincent had no part in the Council of Constance,
which ended the schism.
The split in the Church at the time of Vincent Ferrer should have been
fatal—36 long years of having two "heads." We cannot imagine what condition
the Church today would be in if, for that length of time, half the world had
followed a succession of popes in Rome, and half, an equally "official"
number of popes in, say, Rio de Janeiro. It is an ongoing miracle that the
Church has not long since been shipwrecked on the rocks of pride and
ignorance, greed and ambition. Contrary to Lowell's words, "Truth forever on
the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne," we believe that "truth is
mighty, and it shall prevail"—but it sometimes takes a long time.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Readings during the Mass Isaiah 50:4-7; Ps 22:8-9,
17-20, 23-24; Phil 2:6-11; Mark 14:1—15:47
Gospel at the Procession with Palms: Mark 11:1-10
or John 12:12-16
When the great crowd that had come
to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm
branches and went out to meet him, and cried out: "Hosanna! "Blessed is he
who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel." Jesus found an ass
and sat upon it, as is written: Fear no more, O daughter Zion; see, your
king comes, seated upon an ass's colt. His disciples did not understand this
at first, but when Jesus had been glorified they remembered that these
things were written about him and that they had done this for him.
(John 12:12-16)
Let our minds drift back to the
crossing of the Rubicon by Julius Caesar and his victorious entry into the
city of Rome. It led to his dictatorship, and that in turn was the beginning
of the end of Rome as a Republic. Consider, centuries before, the triumphant
entry of Alexander the Great into the cities he conquered, or Mahomet’s
triumphant entry centuries later into Mecca, or the entry centuries much
later of Napoleon into Prussia after its defeat. The course of human history
has seen triumphant entries come and go and the rise and fall of kingdoms
and dynasties. Against this backdrop let our minds rest in the events
portrayed in our Gospel scene today, the triumphant entry of Jesus of
Nazareth into the holy city of Jerusalem. There he proceeds, slowly towards
the gates of the great and venerable city, the city he loved so much, the
city over which he had wept. It was the city which had been the scene of the
gradual growth of God’s chosen people, and therein stood the Temple, the
House of his heavenly Father. He proceeds not on the horse of a warrior, but
humbly on an ass, to the acclaim of the people. After he had been glorified
his disciples would remember that in this entry he was fulfilling the
ancient prophecies. He was indeed a King, the King whom God had long
promised he would send. He was entering the city for a showdown, as it were,
with the leaders of the nation. The showdown would consist of his formal
witness before them to the truth of who he was. They had been hounding him,
seeking him out, and scheming against him precisely because of who he was
claiming to be. His ultimate message had been that faith in him would bring
life eternal because he was the Son of the Eternal Father. He and the Father
were one. Before Abraham ever was, he had said, I am. He had made himself
God’s equal, God himself. He, a man, claimed to be God — though not the
Father. The point had arrived and he was entering the city to make his
formal attestation before the highest bodies of the nation. It would mean
his death, and his death would be both the summit of his witness to the
truth and the means whereby he would redeem the human race from its sin.
Let us place ourselves in the crowd
as it surges along in front, beside and behind the calm and solemn figure
riding on the ass. The crowd cast palm branches on the road and held them
aloft (John 12:12-16). They did not
understand, but we who have the witness and teaching of the Church do
understand the sense in which this Man of the ages, this Jesus of Nazareth
is the King. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He was entering
the City to bare his mighty shoulders for an unheard-of burden. On his
shoulders would be placed all the sins of the entire world, past, present
and to come. The proportions of this can scarcely be imagined. He was going
to make up for all the offences ever committed against his heavenly Father.
It is often observed that in respect to numbers we are able to take in say,
the figure of 100,000. But numbers can reach such lengths that they can no
longer be taken in — involving, say, trillions and trillions. They become
mere words and numbers. Let us try to imagine the sins of the world. Try to
imagine all the sins of just one individual and the number of offences
against the all-holy God which the average life represents. Imagine trying
to make up for all the offences of but one life, such that they are all now
negated. Well, this all-holy figure riding on the ass, solemnly proceeding
towards the City, was about to take upon himself, as one who was entirely
free of the slightest offence against God, the sins of all mankind. He was
about to enter a final battle, in which all the sins of the world would be
poured down upon him like the fire and brimstone that poured down upon the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. We read in the book of Genesis that all that
was left of this tremendous conflagration was the smoke of the city rising.
The two cities lay crushed in their sins. Here now the King who was entering
the City would freely accept being crushed by the sins of the world but then
he would rise as the Victor. By his rising, we who are sinners would be
enabled to rise with him. In his entry into Jerusalem Christ was joining in
battle with the greatest of mankind’s enemies, Sin and Satan. It was the
greatest of all battles and it was the greatest of all victories.
Let us place ourselves in spirit
besides Jesus our King as he enters the City. But let us resolve to fight
with him in that portion of this battle as it is present on the scene of our
life. We must gain the victory. It will be gained if we fight with him and
follow his way. That way was the way he was taking now as he entered the
City, a way that led to Calvary and then to the Resurrection. It is the way
of obedience to the will of God and bearing witness by our lives to the
truth of Jesus. Friendship with Jesus is the key, friendship with him and a
close following in his footsteps.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Those paintings by Valdes Leal, with their
distinguished heaps of decaying flesh — bishops, noblemen, all in rank
corruption — surely they must move you.
What then do you say of the Duke of Gandía's cry: 'No more will I serve a
lord whom I can lose through death'?
(The Way, no.742)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The Ninth Chapter
WANTING NO SHARE IN COMFORT
When, therefore, spiritual consolation is given by God, receive it
gratefully, but understand that it is His gift and not your meriting. Do not
exult, do not be overjoyed, do not be presumptuous, but be the humbler for
the gift, more careful and wary in all your actions, for this hour will pass
and temptation will come in its wake.
When consolation is taken away, do not at once despair but wait humbly and
patiently for the heavenly visit, since God can restore to you more abundant
solace.
(Continuing)
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In this passage from his sermon ‘Religious
Emotion’, preached in 1831, John Henry Newman speaks of two contrasts:
first, between the enthusiasm shown towards Christ by the crowds on Palm Sunday,
as he drew near to Jerusalem, compared with their subsequent support for his
crucifixion; secondly, that the Apostles, represented by St. Peter, proclaiming
their faithfulness to Christ, but then deserting him. Newman draws from these
observations a striking lesson for modern Christians:
Violent impulse is not the same as a firm determination,— … men may have their
religious feelings roused, without being on that account at all the more likely
to obey God in practice, rather the less likely. This important truth is in
various ways brought before our minds at the season sacred to the memory of
Christ’s betrayal and death.
The contrast displayed in the Gospels between His behaviour on the one hand, as
the time of His crucifixion drew near, and that both of His disciples and of the
Jewish populace on the other, is full of instruction, if we will receive it; He
steadily fixing His face to endure
those
sufferings which were the atonement for our sins, yet without aught of mental
excitement or agitation; His disciples and the … multitude first protesting
their devotion to Him in vehement language, then, the one deserting Him, the
other even clamouring for His crucifixion. He entered Jerusalem in triumph; the
multitude cutting down branches of palm-trees, and strewing them in the way, as
in honour of a king and conqueror. He had lately raised Lazarus from the dead;
and so great a miracle had given Him great temporary favour with the populace.
Multitudes flocked to Bethany to see Him and Lazarus; and when He set out for
Jerusalem where He was to suffer, they, little thinking that they would soon cry
“Crucify Him,” [Mark 15:13] went out to meet Him with the palm-branches, and
hailing Him as their Messiah, led Him on into the holy city. … Then our Saviour
foretold Peter’s trial and fall, Peter at length “said vehemently, ‘If I must
die with you, I will not deny you’.” [Mark 14:31 RSV]
Yet in a little while both the people and the Apostle abandoned their Messiah;
the ardour of their devotion had run its course.
Now it may, perhaps, appear, as if the circumstance I am pointing out,
remarkable as it is, still is one on which it is of little use to dwell … on the
ground that most men feel too little about religion. And it may be thence
argued, that the aim of Christian teaching, rather should be to rouse them from
insensibility, than to warn them against excess of religious feeling. I answer,
that to mistake mere transient emotion, or mere good thoughts, for obedience, is
a far commoner deceit than at first sight appears. How many a man is there, who,
when his conscience upbraids him for neglect of duty, comforts himself with the
reflection that he has never treated the subject of religion with open
scorn,—that he has from time to time had serious thoughts,—that on certain
solemn occasions he has been affected and awed,—that he has at times been moved
to earnest prayer to God,—that he has had accidentally some serious conversation
with a friend! This, I say, is a case of frequent occurrence among men called
Christian.
Again, there is a further reason for insisting upon this subject. No one (it is
plain) can be religious without having his heart in his religion; his affections
must be actively engaged in it; and it is the aim of all Christian instruction
to promote this. But if so, doubtless there is great danger lest a perverse use
should be made of the affections. … It is not enough to bid you to serve Christ
in faith, fear, love, and gratitude; care must be taken that it is the faith,
fear, love, and gratitude of a sound mind. That vehement tumult of zeal which
St. Peter felt before his trial failed him under it. That open-mouthed
admiration of the populace at our Saviour’s miracle was suddenly changed to
blasphemy.
This may happen now as then; and it often happens in a way distressing to the
Christian teacher. He finds it is far easier to interest men in the subject of
religion (hard though this be), than to rule the spirit which he has excited.
His hearers, when their attention is gained, soon begin to think he does not go
far enough; then they seek means which he will not supply, of encouraging and
indulging their mere feelings to the neglect of humble practical efforts to
serve God. After a time, like the multitude, they suddenly turn round to the
world, abjuring Christ altogether, or denying Him with Peter, or gradually
sinking into a mere form of obedience, while they still think themselves true
Christians.
(John Henry Newman, Sermon ‘Religious Emotion’, preached in 1831)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
(April 6) St. Crescentia Hoess (1682-1744)
Crescentia was born in 1682 in a little town near Augsburg, the daughter of
a poor weaver. She spent play time praying in the parish church, assisted
those even poorer than herself and had so mastered the truths of her
religion that she was permitted to make her holy Communion at the then
unusually early age of seven. In the town she was called "the little angel."
As she grew older she desired to enter the convent of the Tertiaries of St.
Francis. But the convent was poor and, because Crescentia had no dowry, the
superiors refused her admission. Her case was then pleaded by the Protestant
mayor of the town to whom the convent owed a favour. The community felt it
was forced into receiving her, and her new life was made miserable. She was
considered a burden and assigned nothing other than menial tasks. Even her
cheerful spirit was misinterpreted as flattery or hypocrisy. Conditions
improved four years later when a new superior was elected who realized her
virtue. Crescentia herself was appointed mistress of novices. She so won the
love and respect of the sisters that, upon the death of the superior,
Crescentia herself was unanimously elected to that position. Under her the
financial state of the convent improved and her reputation in spiritual
matters spread. She was soon being consulted by princes and princesses as
well as by bishops and cardinals seeking her advice. And yet, a true
daughter of Francis, she remained ever humble. Bodily afflictions and pain
were always with her. First it was headaches and toothaches. Then she lost
the ability to walk, her hands and feet gradually becoming so crippled that
her body curled up into a foetal position. In the spirit of Francis she cried
out, "Oh, you bodily members, praise God that he has given you the capacity
to suffer." Despite her sufferings she was filled with peace and joy as she
died on Easter Sunday in 1744. She was beatified in 1900 and canonized by
Pope John Paul II in 2001. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Isaiah 42:1-7;
Psalm 27:1, 2, 3, 13-14; John 12:1-11
Six days before the Passover, Jesus
arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the
dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honour. Martha served, while Lazarus
was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint
of pure
nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet
with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him,
objected, Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It
was worth a year's wages. He did not say this because he cared about the
poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help
himself to what was put into it. Leave her alone, Jesus replied. It was
intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You
will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.
Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not
only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the
dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on
account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their
faith in him. (John 12: 1-11)
One of the notable developments in
recent decades has been the flourishing sociology of religion. All kinds of
sociological studies are being made of religious practice, belief and
phenomena. Allied to this has been an underlining question: what is the
practical function of religion in people’s lives and in society? What
purpose does it serve? For instance, in sociological studies the effect of
religious belief and practice on depression is observed, or how religion
helps people cope with suffering and natural disasters. I have read an
article by a
leading British anthropologist who considered that a key element in the
religion of primal peoples was the sense it made of the experience of evil
and suffering. In this it served an important function. In a secular age
such as our own (at least in the West) religion is marginalised and society
is expected to function publicly without religion. Modern secular man looks
on the world as all there is, but tends to allow religion for the practical
benefits its practice may bring. Religion can have a use, although others
would assert that its practice is of little use. That is to say, we tend to
regard religion from a utilitarian perspective, as depending for its value
on its contribution to the happiness of man. Now, we see something of this
in the response of Judas Iscariot to the action of Mary the sister of Martha
in our Gospel today. Let us place ourselves in the scene again. “Here a
dinner was given in Jesus' honour. Martha served, while Lazarus was among
those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure
nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet
with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
What was Judas Iscariot’s reaction to this? He asked, what was the use of
this? What she did could have been put to better use. “Judas Iscariot, who
was later to betray him, objected, Why wasn't this perfume sold and the
money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages.”
(John 12: 1-11)
St John, the author of our
narrative, points out that at root this questioning of Judas had a moral
source: he was a thief. It was this that inspired his utilitarian
perspective. But what was the reaction of Christ himself for whom this
seemingly wasteful action was done? It was a good action, he said. She is
honouring me while I am still with you, just as she will honour me when I
die and am buried. Mary was pouring out on our Lord her most precious
possession and for no practical “use.” Its only “use” was to render honour
and praise to the person of Jesus. But this is the highest and most central
“function” of religion. Its “use” is not (primarily) to serve the interests
of man’s happiness but to render praise, thanks and adoration to God.
Indeed, this is the highest activity of man and is one of the things which
clearly sets him apart from all other living things in our world. When man
is loving and honouring God he is engaged in his highest and most worthy
activity. I remember years ago a boy I knew formed the intention of being a
priest. It was a course he had chosen in the presence of God in prayer and
he did in fact go on to the priesthood. But he had an uncle whom he loved,
and the uncle tried to dissuade him from the priesthood because, said his
uncle, it would be a waste of a life. A useless waste. What would be the use
of it? One of the best English works of spirituality in the late Middle
Ages, written in the second half of the fourteenth century, is The
Cloud of Unknowing. We notice that the author of this work is
concerned to refute the charge that the person who pursues a contemplative
vocation is engaging in a waste of time. His critics, he writes, will
“sharply reprove him, and tell him he is wasting his time” (Penguin, transl.
C.Wolters, p.76). But no. The greatest thing we can do is honour and praise
God, and God has become man in Jesus Christ. This is of far greater value
than making the practice of one's religion subservient to the primary goal
of utility.
Man is made to know, love and serve
God here on earth. God is to be his foremost value, whether or not this
proves to be “useful.” It is never a waste of time. What was the “use” of
our Lord placing himself in the hands of his enemies so as to bear witness
to the truth of his person, when it resulted in his death? The “use” of it
was that he bore testimony to divine truth and he made up for the sin of the
world. Our religion has as its object doing what Mary in our Gospel today
did: she made Christ the object of her love and adoration. Let us resolve to
do this every day.
(E.J.Tyler)
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You talk of dying 'heroically'. Do you not think that it is more 'heroic' to
die a bourgeois death, in a good bed, unnoticed... but to die of
love-sickness.
(The Way, no.743)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The Ninth Chapter
WANTING NO SHARE IN COMFORT
This
is neither new nor strange to one who knows God's ways, for such change of
fortune often visited the great saints and prophets of old. Thus there was
one who, when grace was with him, declared: "In my prosperity I said: 'I
shall never be moved.'" But when grace was taken away, he adds what he
experienced in himself: "Thou didst hide Thy face, and I was troubled."
Meanwhile he does not despair; rather he prays more earnestly to the Lord,
saying: "To Thee, O Lord, will I cry; and I will make supplication to my
God." At length, he receives the fruit of his prayer, and testifying that he
was heard, says "The Lord hath heard, and hath had mercy on me: the Lord
became my helper." And how was he helped? "Thou hast turned," he says, "my
mourning into joy, and hast surrounded me with gladness."
(Continuing)
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We
are now approaching that most sacred day when we commemorate Christ’s
passion and death. Let us try to fix our minds upon this great thought.
Let us try, what is so very difficult, to put off other thoughts, to
clear our minds of things transitory, temporal, and earthly, and to
occupy them with the contemplation of the Eternal Priest and His one
ever-enduring
Sacrifice.
[From the sermon ‘The Incarnate Son, a Sufferer and Sacrifice’ (1836)]
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(April 7) St. John Baptist de la Salle (1651-1719)
Complete dedication to what he saw as God's will for him dominated the life
of John Baptist de la Salle. In 1950, Pope Pius XII named him patron of
schoolteachers for his efforts in upgrading school instruction. As a young
seventeenth-century Frenchman, John had everything going for him: scholarly
bent, good looks, noble family background, money, refined upbringing. At the
early age of 11, he received the tonsure and started preparation for the
priesthood, to which he was ordained at 27. He seemed assured then of a life
of dignified ease and a high position in the Church. But God had other plans
for John, which were gradually revealed to him in the next several years.
During a chance meeting with M. Nyel of Raven, he became interested in the
creation of schools for poor boys in Raven, where he was stationed. Though
the work was extremely distasteful to him at first, he became more involved
in working with the deprived youths. Once convinced that this was his
divinely appointed mission, John threw himself wholeheartedly into the work,
left home and family, abandoned his position as canon at Rheims, gave away
his fortune and reduced himself to the level of the poor to whom he devoted
his entire life. The remainder of his life was closely entwined with the
community of religious men he founded, the Brothers of the Christian School
(Christian Brothers, or De La Salle Brothers). This community grew rapidly
and was successful in educating boys of poor families using methods designed
by John, preparing teachers in the first training college for teachers and
also setting up homes and schools for young delinquents of wealthy families.
The motivating element in all these endeavors was the desire to become a
good Christian. Yet even in his success, John did not escape experiencing
many trials: heartrending disappointment and defections among his disciples,
bitter opposition from the secular schoolmasters who resented his new and
fruitful methods and persistent opposition from the Jansenists of his time,
whose heretical doctrines John resisted vehemently all his life. Afflicted
with asthma and rheumatism in his last years, he died on Good Friday at 68
and was canonized in 1900.
"What is nobler than to
mold the character of the young? I consider that he who knows how to form
the youthful mind is truly greater than all painters, sculptors and all
others of that sort" (St. John Chrysostom). (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm
71:1-6ab, 15 and 17; John 13:21-33, 36-38
After he had said this, Jesus was
troubled in spirit and testified, I tell you the truth, one of you is going
to betray me. His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which
of them he meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining
next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, Ask him which
one he means. Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, Lord, who is it?
Jesus answered, It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I
have dipped it in the dish. Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to
Judas Iscariot, son of Simon. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered
into him. What you are about to do, do quickly, Jesus told him, but no-one
at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. Since Judas had charge of
the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the
Feast, or to give something to the poor. As soon as Judas had taken the
bread, he went out. And it was night. When he was gone, Jesus said, Now is
the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in
him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My
children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and
just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot
come. Simon Peter asked him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus replied, Where
I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later. Peter asked,
Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. Then
Jesus answered, Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the
truth, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times!
(John 13:21-33, 36-38)
There is described in our Gospel
passage today an awe-inspiring situation. We have before us the Man who is
God himself. That alone ought, as it were, take our breath away! There he
is, familiarly talking with his closest associates, those whom he called his
friends. I have not called you servants, he said, but friends. They were
privileged to be on easy and familiar terms with the Man who is God, with
God the Son made man. Through him all things were made, as St John writes in
the Prologue of his Gospel. Without him, nothing would or could exist. His
ease of access, his authentic humanity, his being truly one of us, makes his
central claim of being God so astonishing. Yet here he is, the great God himself, in his
humanity reclining at table with his chosen friends and sharing with them
the most intimate concerns of his heart. One of his deepest and most
wounding concerns was the betrayal he knew was afoot and very nigh. We read
that “Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, I tell you the truth, one
of you is going to betray me. His disciples stared at one another, at a loss
to know which of them he meant.” But now, look at the familiarity with which
John, the author of our Gospel passage, deals with Jesus! “One of them, the
disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned
to this disciple and said, Ask him which one he means. Leaning back against
Jesus, he asked him, Lord, who is it?” He leant back, placing his head on
the breast of God the Son made man, and simply asked him the leading
question which our Lord had not divulged in his momentous announcement. No
one to this last moment had divined that any betrayal was afoot, let
alone that Judas was implicated in such a thing. Our Lord knew it all. Our
Lord responded immediately in kind, by sharing with John the news of Judas.
It is all very human. No one else knew, only John. In all of this we see the
intimate friendship and familiarity which God has made possible between us
and himself.
However, there is another side to
this remarkable scene. It is the presence of the most horrendous of sins.
There in the midst of the group is the Holy of holies, divine Sanctity
itself, so entirely accessible to the friendship of man as instanced in the
Apostles. Judas in his heart had for some time turned away from our Lord and
was giving his soul to other things. He had turned away from God. He was
called by Christ to share in his friendship, in his life and in his mission.
Consider the loving restraint of Christ and how he did not take back his
gift, the gift to Judas of his call and his friendship. He did not expel
Judas from the Twelve, but undoubtedly continued to show him his love and
offer him his grace, but to no avail. The sorrow of Christ was great.
Imagine the emotion with which Christ offered Judas his final morsel as a
member of his chosen band. Undoubtedly it was a final, silent appeal — and
with that, Satan entered into Judas. He was lost to Christ. With that, Christ told him to go
and do what he planned. Thus he went out into the night
(John 13:21-33, 36-38). It shows that
sin can appear in the closest proximity to God himself. We think of the sin
of the Angels in heaven long before the creation of man. They were in the
very presence of God in heaven itself and they sinned, turning away from
obedience to God. They too were told to go, and they were thrown into Hell.
Let us also consider every deliberate sin. We are constantly held in
existence by our all-powerful loving Father, God. Whatever we do, God is in
a sense involved because our being and our actions are sustained by the
creative hand of God. When Satan sinned together with his like-minded
angels, they were being sustained in existence by the all-holy God. This
creative act of God meant that God was ever-so-near to them in their very
sinning. So too with man. God in his creative action remains ever-so-near to
us in what he regards as a horror, our sin. He is sustaining us as we sin.
The proximity of sin to God in the case of Judas is in a sense going on every
time we sin. Man sins in the most intimate presence of God. This thought
alone suggests to us the enormity of sin.
The transcendent God is immanent to
his creation. He is far closer to each of us than — in terms of
awareness — we are to ourselves. This great God has become man and made himself
visibly accessible, and by the gift of grace coming to us in baptism he has
placed us in him. It means that a wonderful relationship of friendship is
now possible between us and God. It also means that the horror of sin is
made more manifest still. Let us then renounce sin and choose Christ, and
make this choice the central dynamic of every day of our lives.
(E.J.Tyler)
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You — if you are an apostle — will not have to die. You will move to a new
house: that is all.
(The Way, no.744)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The Ninth Chapter
WANTING NO SHARE IN COMFORT
If this is the case with great saints, we who are weak and poor ought not to
despair because we are fervent at times and at other times cold, for the
spirit comes and goes according to His will. Of this the blessed Job
declared: "Thou visitest him early in the morning, and Thou provest him
suddenly."
In what can I hope, then, or in whom ought I trust, save only in the great
mercy of God and the hope of heavenly grace? For though I have with me good
men, devout brethren, faithful friends, holy books, beautiful treatises,
sweet songs and hymns, all these help and please but little when I am
abandoned by grace and left to my poverty. At such times there is no better
remedy than patience and resignation of self to the will of God.
(Continuing)
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What
is ecclesiastical history but a record of the ever-doubtful fortune of
the battle, though its issue is not doubtful? Scarcely are we singing
Te Deum, when we have to turn to our Misereres: scarcely are we in
peace, when we are in persecution: scarcely have we gained a triumph,
when we are visited by a scandal. Nay, we make progress by means of
reverses; our griefs are our consolations; we lose Stephen, to gain
Paul, and Matthias replaces the traitor
Judas.
(From ‘The Church of the Fathers’ (1857 edition)
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(April 8) St. Julie Billiart (1751-1816)
Born in Cuvilly, France, into a family of well-to-do farmers, young Marie
Rose Julia Billiart showed an early interest in religion and in helping
the sick and poor. Though the first years of her life were relatively peaceful
and uncomplicated, Julie had to take up manual work as a young teen when
her family lost its money. However, she spent her spare time teaching catechism
to young people and to the farm labourers. A mysterious illness overtook
her when she was about 30. Witnessing an attempt to wound or even kill
her father, Julie was paralyzed and became a complete invalid. For the
next two decades she continued to teach catechism lessons from her bed,
offered spiritual advice and attracted visitors who had heard of her holiness.
When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, revolutionary forces became
aware of her allegiance to fugitive priests. With the help of friends she
was smuggled out of Cuvilly in a haycart; she spent several years hiding
in Compiegne, being moved from house to house despite her growing physical
pain. She even lost the power of speech for a time. But this period also
proved to be a fruitful spiritual time for Julie. It was at this time she
had a vision in which she saw Calvary surrounded by women in religious
habits and heard a voice saying, "Behold these spiritual daughters whom
I give you in an Institute marked by the cross." As time passed and Julie
continued her mobile life, she made the acquaintance of an aristocratic
woman, Francoise Blin de Bourdon, who shared Julie's interest in teaching
the faith. In 1803 the two women began the Institute of Notre Dame, which
was dedicated to the education of the poor as well as young Christian girls
and the training of catechists. The following year the first Sisters of
Notre Dame made their vows. That was the same year that Julie recovered
from the illness: She was able to walk for the first time in 22 years.
Though Julie had always been attentive to the special needs of the poor
and that always remained her priority, she also became aware that other
classes in society needed Christian instruction. From the founding of the
Sisters of Notre Dame until her death, Julie was on the road, opening a
variety of schools in France and Belgium that served the poor and the wealthy,
vocational groups, teachers. Ultimately, Julie and Francoise moved the
motherhouse to Namur, Belgium. Julie died there in 1816. She was canonized
in 1969. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Isaiah
50:4-9a; Psalm 69:8-10, 21-22, 31 and 33-34; Matthew 26:14-25
Then one of the Twelve—
the one called Judas Iscariot— went to the chief priests and asked, What
are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you? So they counted out
for him thirty silver coins. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity
to hand him
over. On the first day of the
Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Where
do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover? He replied,
Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, 'The Teacher says: My appointed
time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at
your house.' So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared
the Passover. When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with
the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, I tell you the truth,
one of you will betray me. They were very sad and began to say to him one
after the other, Surely not I, Lord? Jesus replied, The one who has dipped
his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just
as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of
Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born. Then Judas, the
one who would betray him, said, Surely not I, Rabbi? Jesus answered, Yes,
it is you. (Matthew 26:14-25)
There is an abundance
of recent books about what we might call the history of God — meaning
by this the history of the notion and worship of the one God. There are
books about the origins of biblical monotheism, the rise of Yahwism, the
history of the Israelite religion, and so forth. A related subject that
is worthy of study and reflection is what we might call the history of
sin. Just as with the subject of the one God, so too in the Sacred Scriptures
there is much on the subject of sin. The drama of the Holy Scriptures is
that between God and sin, and just as God appears immediately
on the first page of Scripture, so does sin appear soon after. God creates,
and what he creates is good — indeed, in the case of man, very good. He
creates, and there appears, contrary to his plan, the ugly grin of sin.
Sin issued from the free choice of persons whom God created in his image
and likeness — first among the angels, then among men. Having arrived on
the scene of creation, sin was here to stay and fight against God. Its
defeat is certain, but many have been and will be dragged down by it in
the process. If we wish to take our stand with God, then we must consider
sin. We must consider its rise, its successes, and its results. Then we
must turn from it resolutely and take our stand with Christ. In our Gospel
passage today we have a special case of most serious sin entering into
the very circle of Christ himself, taking root there and destroying the bright
promise that the Lord himself had begun. We are speaking of Judas Iscariot,
whose name has become a by-word for an awful betrayal of all that is good
and holy. We forget the promise that shone in his heart and his life. He
had chosen to follow Christ and was numbered among his disciples. We are
not given the details of his choice of Christ, but this is certain that
after careful deliberation Christ called him from his many disciples to be
one of the Twelve. In God’s plan he was meant to be a foundation stone of
the Church. He had the call to be a great saint, a privileged intimate
of the Saviour of the world, one who till the end of time would take his
place with Peter, James, John, Andrew and the others.
Judas
was admitted into our Lord’s special company. Imagine the first days, weeks
and months of this intimacy with our Lord. He had gathered the Twelve to
himself and lived with them. They travelled together and they shared his
toils. He spoke with them daily, sharing their meals, sleeping at times
in the open as they travelled on among the towns and villages and farms.
Let us remember that we are speaking of God the Son. Their privilege was
great. Moreover, they had been sent out with a share in his powers, his
power to preach, his power to heal, his power to cast out devils. Judas
must have preached ahead of Christ and in preparation for his coming to
a town or village. He must have healed the sick in the name of Jesus and
cast out devils in his name. We read of how the disciples returned to our
Lord telling him of what they had done. He would have listened carefully
to Judas as he did the same. He would have watched Judas, and with growing
concern would have noticed the change occurring in his heart. St John tells
us in his Gospel that our Lord did not need to be told what was in a man — he could read men’s hearts. He could read the heart of Judas, as he had
read it at the time of his choice of him. He could read it as he saw the
heart of Judas gradually losing faith in him and being corrupted. We read
in the Gospel of St John how as many of his disciples left him following
his announcement of the doctrine of the Eucharist, he turned to the Twelve
and said that one of them was a devil (6:70). It seems that by then Judas
in his heart of hearts had turned away from Christ as a disappointment
to his hopes. With the passing of time, this did not change but was merely
confirmed. How great must have been the sorrow of our Lord at seeing one
of his very own whom he loved being lost to Satan. It was all so secret,
but Christ could see it all. And so in our Gospel passage today (Matthew 26:14-25) Judas goes to the chief
priests and arranges the betrayal. The story of Judas is the saddest in
all of history. How could a person be so blind! It is the mystery of human
freedom, and we must take note of it.
Let us bear in mind the
tragedy of Judas Iscariot. There is an old saying oft repeated by the saints:
there go I but for the grace of God. Christ suffered and died for each
of us, and so every sin we commit gives force retrospectively to the hammer
blows of Christ’s crucifixion. My sins nailed Christ to the cross, as did
the sins of every other person. Every time we deliberately sin, we share
in the disloyalty of Judas. We turn away from the intimacy with Jesus which
he, Jesus, has granted us by our baptism. Let us every day begin again — as Judas should have done
— and with a contrite heart, relying on the
grace of God, resolve to live steadfastly in the friendship of Jesus.
(E.J.Tyler)
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'He shall come to judge the living and the dead.' So we pray in the Creed.
God grant that you never lose sight of that judgment and of that justice
and... of that Judge.
(The
Way, no.745)
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Continuing The
Imitation of Christ BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The Ninth Chapter WANTING
NO SHARE IN COMFORT
I have never met a man so religious and devout that he has
not experienced at some time a withdrawal of grace and felt a lessening
of fervour. No saint was so sublimely rapt and enlightened as not to be
tempted before and after. He, indeed, is not worthy of the sublime contemplation
of God who has not been tried by some tribulation for the sake of God.
For temptation is usually the sign preceding the consolation that is to
follow, and heavenly consolation is promised to all those proved by temptation.
"To him that overcometh," says Christ, "I will give to eat of the Tree
of Life." Divine consolation, then, is given in order to make a man braver
in enduring adversity, and temptation follows in order that he may not
pride himself on the good he has done.
The devil does not sleep, nor is the flesh yet dead; therefore, you must
never cease your preparation for battle, because on the right and on the
left are enemies who never rest.
(Concluded)
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Love
clearly does not consist merely in great sacrifices. We can take no
comfort to ourselves that we are God’s own, merely on the ground of
great deeds or great sufferings. The greatest sacrifices without love
would be nothing worth, and that they are great does not necessarily
prove they are done with
love.
[From the sermon ‘Love, the One Thing needful’ (1839)]
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Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper
(Thursday of Holy Week)
(April 9) St. Casilda (11th century)
Some saints’ names are far more familiar to us than others,
but even the lives of obscure holy persons teach us something. And so
it is with St. Casilda, the daughter of a Muslim leader in Toledo, Spain,
in the 10th century. Casilda was herself raised as a Muslim and showed
special kindness to Christian prisoners. She became ill as a young woman
but was not convinced that any of the local Arab doctors could cure her.
So, she made a pilgrimage to the shrine of San Vicenzo in northern Spain.
Like so many other people who made their way there—many of them suffering
from hemorrhages—Casilda sought the healing waters of the shrine. We’re
uncertain what brought her to the shrine, but we do know that she left
it relieved of illness. In response, she became a Christian and lived
a life of solitude and penance not far from the miraculous spring. It’s
said that she lived to be 100 years old. Her death likely occurred around
the year 1050. Tensions between Muslims and Christians have often existed
throughout history, sometimes resulting in bloody conflict. Through her
quiet, simple life Casilda served her Creator—first in one faith, then
another. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; Ps 116:12-13, 15-18; 1 Cor 11:23-26; John 13:1-15
It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had
come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his
own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted
Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father
had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and
was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing,
and wrapped a towel round his waist. After that, he poured water into
a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel
that was wrapped round him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord,
are you going to wash my feet? Jesus replied, You do not realise now what
I am doing, but later you will understand. No, said Peter, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered, Unless
I wash you, you have no part with me. Then, Lord, Simon Peter replied,
not just my feet but my hands and my head as well! Jesus answered, A person
who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean.
And you are clean, though not every one of you. For he knew who was going
to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean. When
he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned
to his place. Do you understand what I have done for you? he asked them.
You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord', and rightly so, for that is what I am.
Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should
wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do
as I have done for you.
(John 13:1-15)
It is generally recognized that Charles Darwin’s book,
On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, was an epochal work
in the history of science. Published in 1859, it proposed the hypothesis
of Evolution by natural selection. Darwin’s theory immediately seemed to account for the diversity
and the similarity among living things, and in its basic outline it has
commanded the assent of numerous students of the natural sciences ever
since. It placed development as the master process behind the astonishing
number of species in the world. But nearly a quarter of a century before,
in 1845, another epochal book was published, this time in Theology. It
proposed that development is the master element in accounting for the
history of Christian Doctrine. The question discussed was, How is it that in certain respects Christian
doctrine seems very different from what we read in the New Testament?
In his book, The Development of Christian Doctrine (which he
might even have dubbed the "Evolution" of Christian Doctrine) John Henry
Newman proposed that Christian doctrine naturally develops, which is to say that
this development
is altogether to be expected of the Church’s understanding and formal
expression of Revelation. But there is a further point to be made here
in respect to this. It is that not only does Christian doctrine
develop, but Revelation also developed
as history progressed. That is to say, God revealed more and more of himself and his saving
plan as time went on. He revealed himself and elements of his plan to
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He revealed more — we could perhaps say much
more — of himself to Moses. He revealed further things to the prophets.
Finally he revealed himself fully and definitively in Jesus Christ. There
will be no further divine Revelation beyond Christ, even though the Church’s
doctrine — her understanding and formal expression of divine Revelation — will
continue to develop, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Christ is the
beloved Son of the Father, and all are to listen to him. He is the revelation
and image of the unseen God, and he came to reveal in definitive and perfect
fashion — in a way fulfilling and surpassing the previous history of divine
revelation — the love of God for us sinners.
I say this by way of introduction to our Gospel passage today, in which Christ kneels down to wash the feet of his Apostles. Let us listen to the words of John describing the action. "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel round his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped round him" (John 13:1-15). Here we have the Son of God, one in being with the Father, possessing in himself the divine nature, the One through whom all things are made and sustained in being, the One with entire command over all that is, visible and invisible, the One to whom Thomas would say, my Lord and my God. Here he is, the Lord and Master, kneeling to wash the feet of his creatures, creatures he has deigned to call his friends and collaborators in the greatest work in the universe, the salvation of mankind. It was a surpassing revelation of the nature of God. God had called Abraham, commanding him to leave all to go to a promised land. God had become the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and under this title he introduced himself to Moses at the Burning Bush. Thus had God revealed his love and compassion for his chosen people. There would be a further revelation of this love in the mission he was giving to Moses. The ineffable God, the One who Is, would be with his people. He would save them. As the history of this people progressed, so would the revelation of God’s love for them. God is love, as St John writes in his first Letter (4:16). But our Lord’s gesture as described in our Gospel today (John 13:1-15) surely surpasses what has gone before. It is a flowering of the revelation of God’s love for his chosen ones. God is a God who choses to make us his friends, and to kneel down before us and wash our feet. In the same Last Supper our Lord would tell his disciples that he who sees him, sees the Father. So in Christ in effect the Father almighty was washing the feet of the Apostles.
Our Lord told his disciples that he had come not to be served but
to serve and his gesture in our Gospel today illustrates this teaching.
We could say it is, as a teaching, a climax of all that had gone before
and a pointer to what was soon to come. In giving his life for us, Jesus
our Lord was revealing the love of the Father in a way that was unprecedented.
He calls us to be like him, and to strive to be perfect in love, just
as our heavenly Father is perfect in love. Let us contemplate Christ’s
washing of his disciples’ feet against the backdrop of all that had gone
before, and as a key to what was soon to come.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Does your soul not burn with the desire to make your Father God happy
when he has to judge you?
(The Way, no.746)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The tenth chapter APPRECIATING GOD'S GRACE
WHY do you look for rest when you were born to work? Resign yourself to patience rather than to comfort, to carrying your cross rather than to enjoyment.
What man in the world, if he could always have them, would not readily accept consolation and spiritual joy, benefits which excel all earthly delights and pleasures of the body? The latter, indeed, are either vain or base, while spiritual joys, born of virtue and infused by God into pure minds, are alone truly pleasant and noble.
Now, since the moment of temptation is always nigh, since false freedom
of mind and overconfidence in self are serious obstacles to these visitations
from heaven, a man can never enjoy them just as he wishes.
(Continuing)
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Our Lord’s Last Supper (John
Henry Newman, 1843):
“And
He said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you
before I suffer.” [Luke 22: 15] There is something very observable and very
touching in the earnestness displayed in these words of our Lord, and in the
acts which preceded them. He had showed beforehand that great desire, of which
He here speaks. That He had thought much of His last Passover which He was to
eat with His disciples, is plain from the solemnity with which He marked out the
place to them, and the display of supernatural knowledge with which He
accompanied His directions. “He sendeth forth two of His disciples,” “Peter and
John,” “and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man
bearing a pitcher of water: follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye
to the good-man of the house,” “The Master saith, My time is at hand;” “My time
is at hand, I will keep the Passover at thy house with My disciples.” “And he
shall show you a large upper room furnished; there make ready.” And then, “when
the hour was come, He sat down, and the twelve Apostles with Him. And He said
unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I
suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be
fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” [Matt. 26: 17-19; Mark 14: 12-16; Luke 22:
7-18]
You may say, indeed, that most important occurrences took place at that feast;
and that these He had in view when He gave the command to prepare for it, and
when He expressed His satisfaction in celebrating it. Then He washed His
disciples’ feet, and gave the precept of humility; then He laid down the great
note of the Church, brotherly love, impressing it on them most persuasively by
His own example; and then He instituted His own heavenly Sacrament, which was to
remain on earth, together with that humility and love, unto the end. It is true;
but still it is true also, that He chose a festive occasion as the season for
these solemn and gracious acts. He closed His earthly ministry, He parted with
His disciples, He entered upon His trial, at a feast. The Son of Man had come,
in His own words, eating and drinking; and He preserved this peculiarity of His
mission unto the end.
There must be something natural, I mean something in accordance with deep
principles in our nature, in this action of our Lord’s, considering how widely
similar observances have prevailed, how congenial they are to us, and that He
who thus acted had taken upon Him human nature in its perfection. God has given
us “wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make him a cheerful
countenance, and bread to strengthen man’s heart.” [Psalm 104: 15] And these
good gifts of His, by which our life is strengthened, send the soul forth out of
itself in search of sympathy and fellowship; they end not in themselves, nor can
be enjoyed in solitude; they create, and convey, and blend with social feelings;
they are means and tokens of mutual good-will and kindness; or, to speak more
religiously, they are of a sacramental nature. They are intended, by being
partaken in common, to open our hearts towards each other in love; and this
being the case, we may judge how fearful is the abuse of God’s gifts in riot or
sensuality, for it is in some sort a profanation of a Divine ordinance, a
sacrilege. When then our Lord parted from His disciples in a feast, He took the
most tender, affectionate, loving leave of them which could be taken.
(John Henry Newman, from the start of the 1843 sermon ‘Our Lord’s Last
Supper and His First’)
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(April 10) St. Magdalen of Canossa (1774-1835)
Wealth and privilege did nothing to prevent today’s saint from following her
calling to serve Christ in the poor. Nor did the protests of her relatives,
concerned that such work was beneath her. Born in northern Italy in 1774,
Magdalen knew her mind — and spoke it. At age 15 she announced she wished to
become a nun. After trying out her vocation with the cloistered Carmelites,
she realized her desire was to serve the needy without restriction. For
years she worked among the poor and sick in hospitals and in their homes and
among delinquent and abandoned girls. In her mid-twenties Magdalen began
offering lodging to poor girls in her own home. In time she opened a school,
which offered practical training and religious instruction. As other women
joined her in the work, the new Congregation of the Daughters of Charity
emerged. Over time, houses were opened throughout Italy. Members of the new
religious congregation focussed on the educational and spiritual needs of
women. Magdalen also founded a smaller congregation for priests and
brothers. Both groups continue to this day. She died in 1835. Pope John Paul
II canonized her in 1988. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Isaiah 52:13—53:12; Hebrews
4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1—19:42
Pilate said to them, "Shall I
crucify your king?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but
Caesar." Then he handed him
over to them to be crucified. So they took
Jesus, and, carrying the cross himself, he went out to what is called the
Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with
him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle. Pilate also
had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, "Jesus the
Nazarene, the King of the Jews." Now many of the Jews read this inscription,
because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was
written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said
to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that he said, 'I am the
King of the Jews'." Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."
(A passage in John 18:1—19:42)
We love to think of the good things
of life, the successes we have had, perhaps the promotions that came our
way, the recognition our efforts gained. This is natural and is all part of
the plan and providence of God. And yet, of course, not only does apparent
success mark the course of human activity, but perhaps even more so does
seeming failure. It has been said that the early years are years of hope and
confidence, whereas the later years are years of regrets. Whether or not
this is true at least it points to the common fact of failure in
life. This failure may or may not be known by others, but failure to a
greater or lesser extent there is. This is often in no way the fault of the
one who fails. With great foresight and intelligence a man builds up his farm
and makes ample provision for his family. Suddenly a great bushfire sweeps
all before it and he is ruined. His efforts have ended in failure. What is
especially tragic is that the bushfire in question was caused by an
arsonist. Another person invests carefully after taking the very best
advice, making a judicious provision for his wife, children, and his own
retirement. Some time later it is suddenly revealed that the great
corporation in which he has deposited his savings has failed. Further, it is
due to fraud. All is lost. His efforts have ended in failure. So many
unknown persons in the course of human history have failed for a variety of
reasons — at times due to their own fault, at times due at least partially
to the fault of other persons, at times due entirely to external events and
the cruel actions of others. There is much of failure in any one human life,
and much failure in the course of human history. But one of the most
intriguing and inspiring things to observe in life is how success can emerge
from failure, how life can issue from death, and victory from defeat. The
greatest example of this is the passion and death of Jesus Christ. The death
of Jesus Christ casts a powerful light on the meaning of failure and on how
true success is attained.
How sad was the forlorn end of
Christ’s public life! In the sight of the people he was incontestably a very great prophet.
He was a man of
incomparable holiness and moral beauty. He was great in his works and in his
teaching, showing an unmatched authority in what he said and in his power
over nature and the underworld. He showed he could be absolutely trusted in
all that concerned man’s welfare. To follow his word was the way to life and
life everlasting. But all this revealed something even greater. It revealed
the transcendent uniqueness of Christ’s person. This man was God, the
one and only God of the universe, walking in company with man and in his own
person bringing man the light of life. St John writes that he came to his own, but his own did
not receive him. He failed to win over the mass of God’s chosen people. He failed to win
the leaders who could have led the chosen people to him. He was rejected,
and when he stood before them to bear witness to his person, he was put to
the most cruel of deaths. It seemed at the time to be the most abject,
embarrassing and shameful failure. Who could be proud of this? He was
rejected, insulted, defamed, scourged, led publicly to execution and there
in the presence of all he was crucified. He failed. At the time it was
victory for his enemies and a crushing disappointment for his friends. All
seemed lost before such an outcome. But no. The reason why the account of
the Passion and Death of the Messiah is the longest section in the Gospel of
St John (John 18:1—19:42) is that in
reality it was a victory march. Unbeknown to the world, as Christ was being
buffeted by the Sanhedrin, as he was being scourged and crowned by the Roman
soldiers, as he was carrying his cross out of the city, as he was being
nailed to the wood and insulted as he hung upon it, he was drawing mankind
out of the slavery of sin to the promised land of life in God. He was the
Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. Mysteriously his descent to
the depths of failure was his upward climb to a triumphant success.
The key to success
in life, whatever might be our seeming failures, is to live in union with
Jesus and to follow his way day by day. We were made to know, love and serve
God. In the concrete this means being a disciple of Jesus, not just in name
but in fact. How do we do this? Our Lord tells us quite explicitly: If any
one wishes to be a disciple of mine, let him renounce himself and take up
his cross every day and follow me. If in the midst of our successes and
seeming failures of life, be they small and unnoticed or great and observed
by many, we are following Christ, then our path of failure is taking us to a
share in his glory. That is true success, so let us aim for it.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Worldly souls are very fond of thinking of God's mercy.
And so they are encouraged to persist in their follies.
It is true that God our Lord is infinitely merciful, but he is also
infinitely just: and there is a judgment, and he is the Judge.
(The Way, no.747)
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Continuing
The Imitation
of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The tenth chapter
APPRECIATING GOD'S GRACE
God does well in giving
the grace of consolation, but man does evil in not returning everything
gratefully to God. Thus, the gifts of grace cannot flow in us when we are
ungrateful to the Giver, when we do not return them to the Fountainhead.
Grace is always given to him who is duly grateful, and what is wont to be
given the humble will be taken away from the proud.
I do not desire consolation that robs me of contrition, nor do I care for
contemplation that leads to pride, for not all that is high is holy, nor is
all that is sweet good, nor every desire pure, nor all that is dear to us
pleasing to God. I accept willingly the grace whereby I become more humble
and contrite, more willing to renounce self.
(Continuing)
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O
Thou who didst die on the Cross for me, even for me, sinner as I am, give me
to know Thee, to believe on Thee, to love Thee, to serve Thee; ever to aim
at setting forth Thy glory; to live to and for Thee; to set a good example
to all around me. (JHN,
From Meditations and Devotions
(published 1893), Part II
Jesus supports the whole world by His divine power, for He is God; but the weight was less heavy than was the Cross which our sins hewed out for Him. Our sins cost Him this humiliation. He had to take on Him our nature, and to appear among us as a man, and to offer up for us a great sacrifice. He had to pass a life in penance, and to endure His passion and death at the end of it. O Lord God Almighty, who dost bear the weight of the whole world without weariness, who bore the weight of all our sins, though they wearied Thee, as Thou art the Preserver of our bodies by Thy Providence, so be Thou the Saviour of our souls by Thy precious blood. (JHN, From Meditations and Devotions, 1893)
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(April 11) St. Stanislaus (1030-1079)
Anyone who reads the history of Eastern Europe cannot
help but chance on the name of Stanislaus, the saintly but tragic bishop of
Kraków, patron of Poland. He is remembered with Saints Thomas More and
Thomas Becket for vigorous opposition to the evils of an unjust government.
Born in Szczepanow near Kraków on July 26, 1030, he was ordained a priest
after being educated in the cathedral schools of Gniezno, then capital of
Poland, and at Paris. He was appointed preacher and archdeacon to the bishop
of Kraków, where his eloquence and example brought about real conversion in
many of his penitents, both clergy and laity. He became bishop of Kraków in
1072. During an expedition against the Grand Duchy of Kiev, Stanislaus
became involved in the political situation of Poland. Known for his
outspokenness, he aimed his attacks at the evils of the peasantry and the
king, especially the unjust wars and immoral acts of King Boleslaus II. The
king first excused himself, then made a show of penance, then relapsed into
his old ways. Stanislaus continued his open opposition in spite of charges
of treason and threats of death, finally excommunicating the king. The
latter, enraged, ordered soldiers to kill the bishop. When they refused, the
king killed him with his own hands. Forced to flee to Hungary, Boleslaus
supposedly spent the rest of his life as a penitent in the Benedictine abbey
in Osiak.
"Men desire authority for its own sake that they may
bear a rule, command and control other men, and live uncommanded and
uncontrolled themselves" (St. Thomas More, A Dialogue of Comfort).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
For Holy Saturday morning, let us consider
John 19: 38-42, the account of the Burial of Jesus
(After Jesus had died) Joseph of
Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of
Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he
came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who
earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and
aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus' body, the two of them
wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with
Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a
garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no-one had ever been laid.
Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was near by,
they laid Jesus there. (John 19: 38-42)
There are two days in the Liturgical
Year when there is no celebration of Mass. There is no Mass on Good Friday — though in the morning there is the celebration of the Stations of the Cross,
and in the afternoon there is the Commemoration of the Passion of the Lord.
Nor is there any Mass on Holy Saturday, the day after Good Friday. The
Easter Vigil Mass is celebrated on Saturday night, but of course that is
regarded by the Church as the Vigil Mass of Easter Sunday. On Holy Saturday
all is silent in the Church’s liturgical life. The thought of the entire
Church is of Christ's body in the tomb. There his body lies and it was not
touched or viewed by his companions because it was the Sabbath day. He was
buried late on the Friday, left in the tomb on the Sabbath, and then early
on the Sunday, while it was still dark, his friends came with spices to give
further preparation to the body. So on the Saturday we think of Christ
buried in death. In the Creed the Christian professes Christ truly to have
died. He shared our inevitable experience of death. Islam denies that he
died on the cross (Sura IV.157-158), and states that his death was made only
to appear as such. This has not the slightest historical basis or evidence,
but is merely the fruit of Islam’s repugnance to the Christian system.
Christ, like all men — Buddha, Confucius, Plato, Socrates, Alexander the
Great, Mahomet and all others — truly died. He lived, he was crucified, he
died as a result of his sufferings, and his body was buried in a tomb where
it lay. It was a corpse as ours will be when we too die. No life was there,
and his spiritual Self had departed from the body which it had informed. There were only the sacred remains. Our
Lord’s friends and enemies knew he had died. There was no doubt about it and
his enemies requested that a guard be set at his tomb because they
remembered that he had promised to rise from the dead. They expected that
his friends would remove the body and claim that he had risen. So just as
those we have known in life passed away and are buried, so the case was the
same with Christ. He was with his friends and disciples, and now he was gone.
This great fact of the death of
Christ reveals yet again the genuineness of the Incarnation. God became man,
while remaining God. That is to say, the second divine Person of the Blessed
Trinity, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, possessing — or rather,
being — the one and only divine nature of the godhead — took to himself at a
particular point in history our human nature. He shared our human nature
while being the one and only God. He was conceived, just as we are conceived
— though he was conceived of a Virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit. He
was a child, a youth, a man. It was plain to all that he was truly a man,
though he in no way or degree shared our life of sin. He suffered and was
put to death as might any good and holy person who is hated by those who are
evil. He, though, suffered and died for the sins of the world. His death was
a sacrifice for mankind. Still, he suffered and died and in this way shared
in the ultimate lot of man. The Incarnation was genuine and authentic. Now,
inasmuch as the burial of Christ contained a true grandeur because it was
Christ who was dead and buried, so too the burial of the Christian who dies
in Christ shares in that grandeur. The remains of the Christian, buried in
the tomb, share in the dignity of Christ who was also buried in the tomb. Thus are
the remains of the departed Christian to be honoured in death. Similarly,
inasmuch as by his Incarnation the Son of God united himself to every man, the
remains of every human being are likewise to be honoured in death. Christ confers a special dignity on the dead. It
is a common view among mankind to regard the dead with respect, and the
violation of the tomb of the dead is seen as a kind of desecration. This is
because of the dignity of the human being. But the fact that Christ, the Son
of God made man, also died and was buried confers on the dead an added and
special dignity. How much reverence was accorded the body of Christ as he
was placed in the tomb! At the first chance his friends hurried to the tomb
to prepare his body further for its rest. We are linked with Christ by the
fact of his humanity and by the gift to us of his grace, and so our death and burial
has gained a special dignity. Because of him we respect the dead even more,
and our own body in death will in him have a special dignity.
Of course, the great and overriding
fact about the death and burial of Christ is that he rose again. Buddha died
and was buried. Alexander the Great died and was buried. Zoroaster and
Confucius died and were buried. Mahomet died and
was buried. That was the end of them in the body, until Christ comes again.
Not so with Christ. He rose triumphant from the grave. But the tomb of
Christ prior to his resurrection was a sombre and revealing fact. Christ
shared our lot and gave to it a tremendous dignity and light. Let us then
look on death in its true light, namely as having been inhabited and
transformed by the Son of God made man. Due to him, from death has come
life. So it will be with us if we remain in Jesus.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Courage. Don't you know that Saint Paul tells the Corinthians that each will
duly be paid according to his share in the work?
(The Way, no.748)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The tenth chapter
APPRECIATING GOD'S GRACE
The man who has been taught by the gift of grace, and who learns by the lash
of its withdrawal, will never dare to attribute any good to himself, but
will rather admit his poverty and emptiness. Give to God what is God's and
ascribe to yourself what is yours. Give Him thanks, then, for His grace, but
place upon yourself alone the blame and the punishment your fault deserves.
Always take the lowest place and the highest will be given you, for the
highest cannot exist apart from the lowest. The saints who are greatest
before God are those who consider themselves the least, and the more humble
they are within themselves, so much the more glorious they are. Since they
do not desire vainglory, they are full of truth and heavenly glory. Being
established and strengthened in God, they can by no means be proud. They
attribute to God whatever good they have received; they seek no glory from
one another but only that which comes from God alone. They desire above all
things that He be praised in themselves and in all His saints -- this is
their constant purpose.
(Continuing)
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In
the Cross, and Him who hung upon it, all things meet; all things subserve
it, all things need it. It is their centre and their interpretation. For He
was lifted up upon it, that He might draw all men and all things unto Him.
(From the sermon ‘The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World’ 1841)
Jesus, when He was nearest to His everlasting triumph, seemed to be farthest from triumphing. When He was nearest upon entering upon His kingdom, and exercising all power in heaven and earth, He was lying dead in a cave of the rock. He was wrapped round in burying-clothes, and confined within a sepulchre of stone, where He was soon to have a glorified spiritual body, which could penetrate all substances, go to and fro quicker than thought, and was about to ascend on high. Make us to trust in thee, O Jesus, that Thou wilt display in us a similar providence. Make us sure, O Lord, that the greater is our distress, the nearer we are to Thee. The more men scorn us, the more Thou dost honour us. The more men insult over us, the higher Thou wilt exalt us. The more they forget us, the more Thou dost keep us in mind. The more they abandon us, the closer Thou wilt bring us to Thyself. (From Meditations and Devotions, 1893)
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Easter Sunday The Resurrection of the Lord B (Vigil and Mass of the Day)
Prayers this week: The Lord has
indeed risen, alleluia. Glory and kingship be his for ever and ever. (Luke 24:34; Rev.1:6)
God our Father, by raising Christ your Son you conquered the power of
death and opened for us the way to eternal life. Let our celebration today
raise us up and renew our lives by the Spirit that is within us.
We ask this
through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
(April 12) St. Teresa of Los Andes (1900-1920)
One needn’t live a long life to leave a deep imprint. Teresa of Los Andes is
proof of that.
As a young girl growing up in Santiago, Chile, in the early 1900s, she read an
autobiography of a French-born saint—Therese, popularly known as the Little
Flower. The experience deepened her desire to serve God and clarified the path
she would follow. At age 19 she became a Carmelite nun, taking the name of
Teresa. The convent offered the simple lifestyle Teresa desired and the joy of
living in a community of women completely devoted to God. She focused her days
on prayer and sacrifice. “I am God’s, ” she wrote in her diary. “He created me
and is my beginning and my end. ” Toward the end of her short life, Teresa began
an apostolate of letter-writing, sharing her thoughts on the spiritual life with
many people. At age 20 she contracted typhus and quickly took her final vows.
She died a short time later, during Holy Week. Teresa remains popular with the
estimated 100,000 pilgrims who visit her shrine in Los Andes each year. She is
Chile’s first saint.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Easter Vigil
(Saturday evening of Holy Week)
Easter Vigil readings: Genesis 1:1—2:2 or 1:1, 26-31a; Psalm
104:1-2, 5-6, 10, 12, 13-14, 24, 35; Genesis 22:1-18 or 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13,
15-18; Psalm16:5, 8, 9-10, 11; Exodus 14:15—15:1; Exodus 15:1-2, 3-4, 5-6,
17-18; Isaiah 54:5-14; Psalm 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12, 13; Isaiah 55:1-11; Isaiah
12:2-3, 4, 5-6; Baruch 3:9-15, 32(4:4); Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 11; Ezechiel
36:16-17a, 18-28; When baptism is celebrated: Psalm
42:3, 5; 43:3, 4; When baptism is not celebrated:
Isaiah 12:2-3, 4bcd, 5-6; Epistle: Rom
6:3-11; Responsorial Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23; Gospel:
Mark 16:1-7
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome
bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the
first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb
and they asked each other, Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the
tomb? But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large,
had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in
a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. Don't be alarmed,
he said. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has
risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his
disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see
him, just as he told you.' (Mark 16:1-7)
I remember reading an article by a prominent theist philosopher in Australia and
he observed that in respect to God and the supernatural reason alone will not
bring much real certainty to the enquirer. That is to say, if our only resource
were to be rational reflection on the visible world then we would be profoundly
uncertain of the fact and nature of its unseen Creator. That was his opinion of
what in fact could be expected of his own academic discipline. What helps us to
appreciate this is to consider the notions of God
as exemplified in the
religions and philosophies of man in the course of history, and then to compare
these notions with historical Revelation. There is a tremendous gulf between the
two. If our standard of truth is Revelation, man without this Revelation is
shown by the facts to be in the poorest twilight. Characteristically he is not
in the light, and the contrast between the teaching of Christ and the teachings
of the most influential (pagan) teachers shows that without the light of Christ the
world is in religious darkness — allowing, of course, for the flickers and flashes and
elements of religious light that are continually recurring. With good reason St
Matthew in his Gospel (4:16) quotes the prophet: “The people who sat in darkness
saw a great light; and to those in the region and shadow of death a light has
dawned.” The same may be said of the Afterlife. What would we know of what
happens after death were we to attempt to work it out on our own? The fact
impressing itself on our mind would be the fact of the grave and the sight of
the tomb. The one we had known and loved all our life — our father, mother,
brother, sister, relative, close friend, whoever — has gone from sight and the
remains of that much-loved person are in the earth. A monument rests on the spot
with his name on it, or his ashes are gathered in a small container. But what
has happened to the person we loved, the person who animated the body which in
turn gave to him his visible and concrete countenance? The answers to this are
numerous and they leave the inquirer at sea. Man needs hard facts about the
Afterlife.
We can say that the hardest and worst fact in life that is unendingly recurring
in human history is the fact of death. As a fact of life death is absolutely
unavoidable. It brings everything to an end. The person has gone for good from
this world. Because of this awful situation, many religious systems have
embraced a doctrine of reincarnation, which, with the greatest of respect, is
absurd. What man needs are hard concrete facts to answer to the fact of death.
In short he needs to see what has followed on death. The actual witnessing of
this is what will throw a lasting and certain light on the worst fact that
cannot be shaken off in the life of all mankind. Well, mankind has this fact
which tells him what happens after death. The fact I am alluding to is the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The fact was that he died, and the
fact was that he rose from the dead. He was seen to have died and was buried
just as we are. But unlike us he rose from the dead and was seen in his body by many. As the
Angel said, “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has
risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him”
(Mark 16:1-7). As
risen he lives a transformed life of glory. It hasn’t happened to anyone else,
with one exception. The single exception was his own mother who at the end of
her mortal life was taken body and soul into heaven in glory. But her case is
the great illustration of what we can hope for, provided we live and die in
Christ. From him comes life and the key to sharing in his life is to believe in
him and to follow in his footsteps. What other facts can be relied on? Apart
from that fact, there are only myths, religious proposals and rational
speculations. The message brought by the Church to the world is a fact of
history which has profound implications for everyone who accepts it. Where
Christ has gone, we can hope to follow. If we die in him we shall rise with him.
Christ has shed a tremendous light on the great mystery of death. Death now need
not be an entirely negative mystery. In Christ it has become a source of
fruitful life. The point, though, is that man has a hard fact to go by. Divine
revelation involves the hard facts of history.
Let us resolve so to contemplate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
as to appreciate the truth and the reality of it. It is no mere myth. It is not
just a speculative and rational system, a beautiful creed that keeps our lives
motivated by a tremendous sense of meaning. Christianity is not just the most
profound religion in the world. It is a religion of hard facts, facts that can
be absolutely relied on for the light we need on God and the Afterlife. Because
of those facts we can confidently devote our lives to the pursuit of holiness
and to attaining heaven hereafter.
(E.J.Tyler)
Scripture of Easter Day: Acts 10:34a,
37-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23;
Colossians 3:1-4 or I Corinthians 5:6b-8; John 20:1-9 or Mark 16:1-7
or Luke 24:13-35
On the first day of the week, Mary of
Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw
the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the
other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, "They have taken the Lord from
the tomb, and we don't know where they put him." So Peter and the other disciple
went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster
than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths
there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the
tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other
disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and
believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from
the dead. (John 20:1-9)
Let us notice a few revealing details in
our Gospel passage for today. The first to appear on the scene in St John’s
account is Mary the Magdalene. She is mentioned in the Gospel as having been
freed by our Lord of seven devils, and of assisting our Lord and the apostolic
band by her assistance and her means. She loved our Lord very greatly. She was
with him at the last together with Mary his mother and Mary the wife of Clopas
and John the beloved disciple. So, with the Sabbath now over, Mary of Magdala
comes to
the tomb. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that at least one other
— “the
other Mary” — was with her (28:1). It is still dark — presumably they are
carrying a lighted torch, or perhaps there is enough light from the (almost)
full moon. All is quiet, the city is asleep. They come to keep watch, and
perhaps to give the body of Jesus further burial preparations. She stops and
gazes in astonishment at the tomb, for the stone has been rolled away. The body
is gone. Leaving the others she runs to Peter and John and tells them that “they
have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” Notice
that it does not occur to her that he has risen from the dead. Matthew tells us
that “to this day” the Jews have been saying that the disciples took away the
body of Jesus. The story, Matthew tells us, originated from the chief priests
and elders (28:11-15). But here John tells us that the ones who first discovered
the empty tomb thought that those who orchestrated his death had taken away the
body. The point here, though, is that no one expected Jesus to rise from the
dead despite his having repeatedly said he would. The chief priests knew that he
had said he would, but did not expect it would happen. Our Lord’s own disciples
and friends had been told by him that he would, but they did not expect it to
happen. When Mary Magdalene told Peter and John that the tomb was empty, they
too did not imagine that he had risen from the dead. He had died, and that was
the tragic end to it all. Despite all Christ said, a blindness had enveloped
them in respect to what he had predicted. Death was the final and tragic end to
so much promise.
The response of Mary Magdalene to the
opened and empty tomb and the response of Peter and John to what she told them
illustrate the bleak finality of death in the history of mankind. All know that
death is the end. So great is this certainty that despite all our Lord had shown
of himself, despite what he had repeatedly promised concerning his own death,
despite the power over death that he had demonstrated during his public
ministry, and despite their own love for and faith in him, they could not take
in his own rising from the dead. The response of Mary Magdalene and Peter and
John is indicative of the momentous power of death in the experience of mankind.
Death cannot be overcome, and the thought of it being overcome is, humanly
speaking, very difficult for both the intellect and the imagination to absorb.
We remember how when Paul announced the resurrection in the Aereopagus, they
laughed at him. It is said that when the Court of Aereopagus was founded,
Aeschylus announced that the god Apollo had declared that "...there is no
resurrection." Here on this bleak Easter morning, with the light beginning to
break at dawn, the two leading disciples run as fast as they can to the tomb.
The love of their life has gone. His body is not in the tomb. Where have they
taken him? The younger of the two arrives and sees the cloths lying there. Yes,
the body has gone. Then Peter arrives, goes in to the tomb and sees the cloths
there. This special mention of the burial cloths suggests that the very cloths
are full of significance for the truth of the Resurrection. John then enters,
sees again, and a dawning light enters his soul. In some sense, he believes
(John 20:1-9). John sees, presumably from
the position and state of the cloths, that the body of Jesus was not taken away.
He believes that Jesus has risen, but perhaps his belief still needs the
strengthening that will come from a personal meeting with the risen Jesus. That
will come that very day, the first Easter Sunday. In Christ, the power of death
has been overcome. Christ has come back from death to share his life with man.
Let us endeavour with the help of grace
to appreciate the wonder of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He freely laid
down his life by surrendering himself to the power of his enemies. He did this
to bear witness to the truth of his person and his mission and by his witness
unto death to take away the sin of the world. He freely took it up again in
order to share with us his risen life. Life apart from Christ leads to death.
Life in Christ is life indeed, and leads to life everlasting. This is the Good
News of Christ for the world. Let us make it our own and bring it to the world.
(E.J.Tyler)
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There is a hell. Not a very original statement, you
think. I will repeat it, then: there is a hell!
Echo it for me, at the right moment, in the ear of one friend, and of another,
and another.
(The Way, no.749)
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Continuing
The Imitation of
Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The tenth chapter
APPRECIATING GOD'S GRACE
Be grateful, therefore, for the least gift and you will be worthy to receive a
greater. Consider the least gift as the greatest, the most contemptible as
something special. And, if you but look to the dignity of the Giver, no gift
will appear too small or worthless. Even though He give punishments and
scourges, accept them, because He acts for our welfare in whatever He allows to
befall us.
He who desires to keep the grace of God ought to be grateful when it is given
and patient when it is withdrawn. Let him pray that it return; let him be
cautious and humble lest he lose it.
(Concluded)
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Rejoice on Easter Day (John Henry Newman, 1839)
Let us rejoice in the Day which He has made, and let us be
"willing in the Day of His Power." [Psalm 110: 3] This is Easter Day. Let us say
this again and again to ourselves with fear and great joy. As children say to
themselves, "This is the spring," or
"This is the sea,"
trying to grasp the thought, and not let it go; as travellers in a foreign land
say, "This is that great city," or "This is that famous building," knowing it
has a long history through centuries, and vexed with themselves that they know
so little about it; so let us say, This is the Day of Days, the Royal Day, the
Lord’s Day. This is the Day on which Christ arose from the dead; the Day which
brought us salvation. It is a Day which has made us greater than we know. It is
our Day of rest, the true Sabbath. Christ entered into His rest, and so do we.
It brings us, in figure, through the grave and gate of death to our season of
refreshment in Abraham’s bosom. We have had enough of weariness, and dreariness,
and listlessness, and sorrow, and remorse. We have had enough of this
troublesome world. We have had enough of its noise and din. Noise is its best
music. But now there is stillness; and it is a stillness that speaks. We know
how strange the feeling is of perfect silence after continued sound. Such is our
blessedness now. Calm and serene days have begun; and Christ is heard in them,
and His still small voice, because the world speaks not. Let us only put off the
world, and we put on Christ. The receding from one is an approach to the other.
We have now for some weeks been trying, through His grace, to unclothe ourselves
of earthly wants and desires. May that unclothing be unto us a clothing upon of
things invisible and imperishable! May we grow in grace, and in the knowledge of
our Lord and Saviour, season after season, year after year, till He takes to
Himself, first one, then another, in the order He thinks fit, to be separated
from each other for a little while, to be united together for ever, in the
kingdom of His Father and our Father, His God and our God. (John Henry
Newman, From the sermon ‘Difficulty of Realizing Sacred Privileges’, (1839)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
(April 13) St. Martin I
(d. 655)
When Martin I became pope in 649, Constantinople was the capital of
the Byzantine empire and the patriarch of Constantinople was the most influential
Church leader in the eastern Christian world. The struggles that existed
within the Church at that time were magnified by the close cooperation of
emperor and patriarch. A teaching, strongly supported in the East, held
that Christ had no human will. Twice emperors had officially favoured this
position, Heraclius by publishing a formula of faith and Constans II by
silencing the issue of one or two wills in Christ. Shortly after assuming
the office of the papacy (which he did without first being confirmed by
the emperor), Martin held a council at the Lateran in which the imperial
documents were censured, and in which the patriarch of Constantinople and
two of his predecessors were condemned. Constans II, in response, tried
first to turn bishops and people against the pope. Failing in this and in
an attempt to kill the pope, the emperor sent troops to Rome to seize Martin
and to bring him back to Constantinople. Martin, already in poor health,
offered no resistance, returned with the exarch Calliopas and was then submitted
to various imprisonments, tortures and hardships. Although condemned to
death and with some of the torture imposed already carried out, Martin was
saved from execution by the pleas of a repentant Paul, patriarch of Constantinople,
who himself was gravely ill. Martin died shortly thereafter, tortures and
cruel treatment having taken their toll. He is the last of the early popes
to be venerated as a martyr.
The breviary of the Orthodox Church pays tribute to Martin: “Glorious
definer of the Orthodox Faith...sacred chief of divine dogmas, unstained
by error...true reprover of heresy...foundation of bishops, pillar of the
Orthodox faith, teacher of religion.... Thou didst adorn the divine see of
Peter, and since from this divine Rock, thou didst immovably defend the
Church, so now thou art glorified with him.” (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts
2:14, 22-33; Psalm 16:1-2a and 5, 7-11; Matthew 28:8-15
So the women hurried away
from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
Suddenly Jesus met them.
Greetings, he said. They came
to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do
not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will
see me. While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into
the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened.
When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they
gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, You are to say, 'His
disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.'
If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out
of trouble. So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed.
And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
(Matthew 28:8-15)
According to the Gospel
of St Matthew our Lord’s disciples were not the only witnesses of the open
and empty tomb. Both the death and the burial of Jesus was an established
fact. Pilate knew he had died. Matthew tells us that Joseph of Arimathea — with Pilate’s permission
— had taken Jesus down from the cross and had
laid his body in his own tomb (27:60). Mary Magdalene was present, as was
“the other Mary” (27:61). The next day, we read, the chief priests and the
Pharisees went to Pilate to ask that the tomb be secured
and guarded against his disciples coming prior to or on the Sunday to take
away the body, for, they said, he did claim that he would rise on the third
day. This prediction by Christ was known by them, a prediction they did
not believe, of course, for they regarded Jesus as “that deceiver” (Greek:
ekeinos ho planos). Pilate told them to post their own guards at the
tomb, which they did, and they also secured the tomb in some way (27:66).
Matthew then tells us in his final chapter that early on the first day of
the week the tomb was opened by a heavenly agency, and in some sense the
guards of the priests witnessed something. The precise details are a little
obscure and may suggest that the guards were rendered in some kind of stupor
(28:4). At all events, they discovered the opened and empty tomb. We read
that they went to the chief priests and told them this and even perhaps
something of the circumstances. They were then bribed to spread the story
that while they were asleep the disciples came and stole the body away.
So there was no doubt that Jesus had died, that he was buried, and that
on the third day the tomb was discovered to be empty with the body gone.
The disciples were not the only witnesses to this. One story accounting
for this among the Jews was spread by the temple guard, a story that had
originated from the priests who bribed the guard. It was that while they
were asleep, the disciples came and took him away. As St Augustine observes,
that was absurd, for in the nature of the case the sleeping guard could
not have witnessed them in the act.
It was incontestable that
Christ had died, was buried, and that the body was found to have gone and
was never rediscovered. Moses died and his body was never discovered because
the precise location of his death and burial was not recorded. The tomb
of Alexander the Great has not been discovered either, though it may be.
No one ever claimed to have seen Moses alive again, or Alexander the Great.
But the very day Christ’s tomb was discovered to be empty — not only by
his own disciples but by temple guard, his disciples met him again, now
brimming with the fullness of life. Their repeated encounter with him transformed
their entire outlook. They still had a way to go and this would happen with
the coming of the Holy Spirit. But the hard and momentous fact, the concrete
event that overshadowed everything was the meeting of the disciples with
the living Jesus after he had died and was buried (Matthew
28:8-15). If they believed in him, if they followed him, if they
remained in union with him, if they kept to his path, they too would rise
as he had risen. Their rising from the dead would involve a sharing in his
risen life — not that they would rise in the body immediately, but they
would eventually. They would rise in their spirit with a share in his own
risen life, and in the fullness of time they would share in his bodily resurrection
too. So it became a cardinal point of the Christian creed to believe in
the resurrection from the dead. The Sadducees had refused to believe in
this, despite, for instance the teaching of the Book of Maccabees — but of
course they did not accept the divine inspiration of that Book. Death was
always the bad news about life, but now the fact of Christ’s resurrection
made resurrection from the dead the good news about life. No one could take
away this fact, this hard concrete fact, that Jesus who had died, was buried,
whose empty tomb no one could deny, had risen from the dead and had been
seen and known by those who knew him so well. As St Paul records, up to
500 on one occasion saw the risen Jesus. It was the turning point of history.
Let us endeavour to appreciate
the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He came back from the dead
to tell us what our prospects now are if we take our stand with him and
make him our Way, our Truth and our Life. He is our risen Lord, man’s joy
for all ages. He is the one great Fact we can cling to no matter what may
happen. Amid a world so very vulnerable, Jesus Christ is the one firm rock
that nothing and no one can remove.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Listen to me, you who are absorbed in science: your science cannot deny
the reality of diabolic activities. My Mother, the holy Church, for many
years required her priests each day at the foot of the altar to invoke Saint
Michael, 'against the wickedness and snares of the devil'.
(The
Way, no.750)
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Continuing
The Imitation
of Christ BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The eleventh chapter FEW
LOVE THE CROSS OF JESUS
JESUS has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His
cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few
who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part
in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything
for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking
of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the
shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship;
many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him.
But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either
into complaints or into deep dejection. Those, on the contrary, who love
Him for His own sake and not for any comfort of their own, bless Him in
all trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even
if He should never give them consolation, yet they would continue to praise
Him and wish always to give Him thanks. What power there is in pure love
for Jesus -- love that is flee from all self-interest and self-love!
(Continuing)
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We, too, though we are not witnesses of Christ’s actual resurrection, are
so spiritually. By a heart awake from the dead, and by affections set on
heaven, we can as truly and without figure witness that Christ liveth, as
[the Apostles] did … He who obeys God conscientiously, and lives holily,
forces all about him to believe and tremble before the unseen power of Christ.
(JHN,
From the sermon ‘Witnesses of the Resurrection’, 1831)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
(April 14) Blessed Peter Gonzalez
(d. 1246)
St. Paul had a conversion experience on the road to Damascus. Many
years later, the same proved true for Peter Gonzalez, who triumphantly
rode his horse into the Spanish city of Astorga in the 13th century to
take up an important post at the cathedral. The animal stumbled and fell,
leaving Peter in the mud and onlookers amused. Humbled, Peter re-evaluated
his motivations (his bishop-uncle had secured the cathedral post for him)
and started down a new path. He became a Dominican priest and proved to
be a most effective preacher. He spent much of his time as court chaplain,
and attempted to exert positive influence on the behaviour of members of
the court. After King Ferdinand III and his troops defeated the Moors
at Cordoba, Peter was successful in restraining the soldiers from pillaging
and persuaded the king to treat the defeated Moors with compassion. After
retiring from the court Peter devoted the remainder of his life to preaching
in northwest Spain. He developed a special mission to Spanish and Portuguese
seamen. He is the patron of sailors. Peter Gonzalez died in 1246 and was
beatified in 1741. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 2:36-41; Psalm 33:4-5, 18-20 and 22; John 20:11-18
Mary
stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she bent over to look into
the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been,
one at the head and the other at the feet. They asked her, Woman, why
are you weeping? They have
taken my Lord away, she said,
and I don't know where they have put him. At this, she turned round and
saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus. Woman,
he said, why are you weeping? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking
he was the gardener, she said, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell
me where you have put him, and I will get him. Jesus said to her, Mary.
She turned towards him and cried out in Aramaic, Rabboni! (which means Teacher).
Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father.
Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father
and your Father, to my God and your God.' Mary Magdalene went to the disciples
with the news: I have seen the Lord! And she told them that he had said
these things to her. (John 20: 11-18)
In the
history of human society and culture there has long been talk of ghosts.
Now, ghosts tend to inspire fear. It is almost proverbial that people
are scared of ghosts. It suggests that a ghost is expected to try to do
harm. We have often heard of haunted houses — whether houses have truly
been haunted is not my point here. My point concerns the notion and image
of ghosts in human culture. We remember when the disciples on the Sea
of Galilee saw Jesus walking towards them they cried out in fear, for
they
thought they were seeing a ghost. Our Lord called to them saying, do
not
be afraid, it is I. Now, in our Gospel passage today, Mary is standing
outside the empty tomb, weeping. She had found the tomb empty and it
had
not occurred to her that Jesus had risen from the dead. We read that
she
turned, and saw Jesus standing there. She had not the slightest
impression
that she was seeing a ghost. She thought it was the gardener. There was
no vague fear in her at the sight — it was a perfectly normal
experience,
all so very ordinary. She spoke to him abstractedly, perhaps without
looking
at him at all closely. Then "the gardener" spoke. All he said was one
word and the entire atmosphere of that morning was charged with love
and
light. "Mary!", the man before her said. In an instant she knew him and
she physically held him. All that we would expect of a ghost was
entirely
absent from this encounter. It was very simple, entirely
non-threatening.
There was nothing eerie about it. The man before her was the same she
had known. He was very concrete and wholly recognizable. She was
suddenly having a conversation which she might just have had before
Christ's Passion and Death in the sense that the same Jesus was
standing before her in all his
simplicity and, as we might term it, in his same physicality. There was
no doubt that he had died. There was no doubt that he had risen. Were
it the ghost of Jesus who appeared to Mary, we may expect that her
reaction
to him would have been very different.
There is also a kind of playfulness of Jesus. He is very human. Do not cling to me, he says to her (John 20:11-18). I have to get going and you are holding me back. I have to ascend to my Father, so stop holding on to me! We can imagine our Lord smiling, perhaps with a slight chuckle. His eyes were bright and sparkling. He has won the great battle. The tide has turned in the story of sin, and Satan has been left defeated. Christ stood before her, the man she had known, her Lord and God, calm in his great victory, smiling in his triumph. It was no ghost but the Master, Rabbuni. He gave her his first instruction on rising from the dead — go and tell about the resurrection. Tell my brothers what you have seen and that I am now on my way to my Father and your Father, my God and your God. That same day our Lord would appear again to others with the same result. There was no ghost, but the same Jesus, the same countenance, the same voice, the same person risen from the dead. Let us imagine his meeting on that day with his own mother. There is no record of it in the Gospels, but of course it would have happened. Imagine Mary his mother in her room in Jerusalem on that Easter Sunday morning. There is Jesus before her. She would have known and, unlike the others, would have been awaiting his return from the dead. Imagine their encounter on this day of all days. Imagine their conversation and his sharing with her the achievement of his Passion and the great work that would soon be launched bringing salvation to the world! She gazed on him in the flesh, his Passion and Death now behind him. Perhaps they were seated as they conversed. That day he appeared to Simon Peter. He appeared to the two disciples on their way to the village of Emmaus. He appeared to the Eleven gathered that evening in the upper room. There was nothing of the ghost about Jesus. They were not granted a vision of the spirit of Jesus, but of the Jesus they had known in his very body.
Let
us
understand very clearly by immersing ourselves in our Gospel text that
though we do not see Jesus, he is very near and with us in all his
physical
reality. He is now in glory, and therefore not bound by the limitations
of space and time. Because of him we believe in the resurrection of the
body. Let us take our stand with him, following him closely.
If we do, we too shall share in his glory and in the resurrection of
the
body and life everlasting.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Heaven: 'the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, neither has it entered
into the heart of man to conceive the things that God has prepared for
those who love him.'
Don't these revelations of the Apostle spur you on to fight?
(The Way, no.751)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The eleventh chapter FEW LOVE THE CROSS OF JESUS
Do not those who always seek consolation deserve to be
called mercenaries? Do not those who always think of their own profit
and gain prove that they love themselves rather than Christ? Where can
a man be found who desires to serve God for nothing? Rarely indeed is
a man so spiritual as to strip himself of all things. And who shall find
a man so truly poor in spirit as to be free from every creature? His value
is like that of things brought from the most distant lands.
(Continuing)
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The grave could not detain Him who “had life in Himself.” [cf. John 5:26] (JHN, from the sermon ‘Christ, a Quickening Spirit’, 1831)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
(April 15) Blessed Caesar de Bus (1544-1607)
Like so many of us, Caesar de Bus struggled with the decision about what to
do with his life. After completing his Jesuit education he had difficulty
settling between a military and a literary career. He wrote some plays but
ultimately settled for life in the army and at court. For a time life was
going rather smoothly for the engaging, well-to-do young Frenchman. He was
confident he had made the right choice. That was until he saw firsthand the
realities of battle, including the St. Bartholomew's Day massacres of French
Protestants in 1572. He fell seriously ill and found himself reviewing his
priorities, including his spiritual life. By the time he had recovered
Caesar had resolved to become a priest. Following his ordination in 1582, he
undertook special pastoral work: teaching the catechism to ordinary people
living in neglected, rural, out-of-the-way places. His efforts were badly
needed and well received. Working with his cousin, Caesar developed a
program of family catechesis. The goal—to ward off heresy among the
people—met the approval of local bishops. Out of these efforts grew a new
religious congregation: the Fathers of Christian Doctrine. One of Caesar's
works, Instructions for the Family on the Four Parts of the Roman Catechism,
was published 60 years after his death. He was beatified in 1975.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 3:1-10;
Psalm 105:1-4, 6-9; Luke 24:13-35
Now that same day two of them were
going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They
were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they
talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and
walked along with them; but they were kept from recognising him. He asked
them, What are you discussing together as you walk along? They stood still,
their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, Are you only a
visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in
these days? What things? he asked. About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He
was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The
chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and
they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to
redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took
place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early
this morning but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had
seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions
went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did
not see. He said to them, How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to
believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer
these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the
Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures
concerning himself. As they approached the village to which they were going,
Jesus acted as if he were going further. But they urged him strongly, Stay
with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over. So he went in to
stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave
thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened
and they recognised him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked
each other, Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on
the road and opened the Scriptures to us? They got up and returned at once
to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled
together and saying, It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to
Simon. Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was
recognised by them when he broke the bread. (Luke
24:13-35)
The event as described in this
account of St Luke is briefly alluded to in the Gospel of St Mark. St Mark
(reflecting, it is agreed, the preaching of Simon Peter) writes that the
risen Jesus “appeared in another form to two of them as they were walking
into the country” (16:12). Luke’s sources gave him ample information about
this encounter with Jesus. Presumably it came from Cleopas, whom Luke
mentions by name in his text. Many regard Cleopas and more especially Mary
his wife (“Mary of Clopas”) as being
among the relatives of Jesus. I suspect
that Luke’s information here derives from his contact with Mary the mother
of Jesus and her circle of relatives. Whatever about his sources, as we
imagine this event as narrated by Luke, we cannot help but notice the
realism of it all. It is quiet, low-keyed, ordinary, and very realistic. Our Lord
does not appear as a heavenly apparition to the two. He is an ordinary
pedestrian. There is no drama. The road out to Emmaus was quiet, lonely,
simple. Two men were on their way, talking in very subdued tones. All had
been shattered for them. Jesus had been done away with, the great and holy
Jesus, a prophet mighty in word and deed before God and man. Now it was all
over, and his body lay in the tomb — though there was a puzzle. The women
had reported seeing a vision of him as alive, and the tomb had been found to
be empty. They were depressed and perplexed. Thus the conversation
proceeded. The possibility of a real resurrection from the dead seems not to
have been able to penetrate their minds. There is nothing of the mythical in
this. It is simple fact. A lone stranger is also walking. Perhaps they
hospitably lingered so he could join them, for there was a good distance
ahead to be covered. So join them he did. He is friendly and shows he had
heard them talking. He asks what they had been discussing — so he could join
them in conversation. Cleopas said, How could you ask this? There could be
only one thing we could be discussing. What? The stranger asked. So they
told him. The account is simple, natural, real, beautiful.
Thus the conversation proceeded. It
was a sharing of information, then a sharing of ideas. The stranger, having
been told all the disappointing facts and their depressing upshot, began
quietly to speak. You surprise me, he said. You amaze me. Have you not read
the Scriptures? Is not this the pattern Scripture foresees? Consider Moses
and his writings. Consider the prophets. The promised Messiah had to suffer
grievously in order to enter his glory as Messiah. The stranger then begins
a long and illuminating explanation of the Scriptures, going through
“beginning with Moses and all the prophets” (Luke
24:13-35). Now, Moses embraces the Pentateuch, the first five
great books of the Bible. “All the prophets” consists of a large section of
the Old Testament and may have included the Psalms as coming from David. The
stranger discussed them all, and cast a powerful unifying light on the
entire body of the Scriptures. It was a new light that had to that point only been seen in
bits and pieces. It offered a unifying, all-embracing perspective on the
Scriptures. Such a light was sorely needed. There must have been
perspectives innumerable on the meaning of the Scriptures in the history of
God’s people, and the Christian religion offers Christ’s revelation of the
true perspective to be taken in the reading of the Scriptures. He is the
meaning of the Scriptures, and without him — him, as interpreted by himself
— the Scriptures will never yield their true meaning. The stranger walking
by their side, simple in his humanity, so real, so ordinary we might even
say, is the meaning of the entire Scriptures. This man is the light of the
world, a new light in the history of Israel, and this light is now dawning.
Imagine how the hearts of the two disciples begin to fill with consolation
and light as the stranger speaks. We get the impression that the stranger
puts himself somewhat in the background as he speaks. It was the light he
was gently and ever so clearly shedding which was filling their minds and
flooding their hearts. He spoke quietly and modestly. His marvellous lesson
on the Scriptures does its work.
The same risen Jesus is with each of
us his disciples if we but allow him to accompany us along our route of
life. He walks with us gently, offering us his support and light. Let us
pray for a vivid appreciation of his risen reality and of the great truth of
the resurrection from the dead. Let us ask him to accompany us always,
giving us his teaching and his light, leading us to our homeland in heaven.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Always. For ever! Words brought
to our lips by our human desire to prolong — to make eternal — what is
pleasant.
Lying words, on earth, where everything must end.
(The Way, no.752)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The eleventh chapter
FEW LOVE THE CROSS OF JESUS
If a man give all his wealth, it
is nothing; if he do great penance, it is little; if he gain all knowledge,
he is still far afield; if he have great virtue and much ardent devotion, he
still lacks a great deal, and especially, the one thing that is most
necessary to him. What is this one thing? That leaving all, he forsake
himself, completely renounce himself, and give up all private affections.
Then, when he has done all that he knows ought to be done, let him consider
it as nothing, let him make little of what may be considered great; let him
in all honesty call himself an unprofitable servant. For truth itself has
said: "When you shall have done all these things that are commanded you,
say: 'we are unprofitable servants.'"
Then he will be truly poor and stripped in spirit, and with the prophet may
say: "I am alone and poor."[18] No one, however, is more wealthy than such a
man; no one is more powerful, no one freer than he who knows how to leave
all things and think of himself as the least of all.
(Concluded)
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Let
us pray [God] then to give us such a real and living insight into the
blessed doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God, of His birth of a
Virgin, His atoning death, and resurrection.
(JHN from the sermon ‘The Eucharistic Presence’, 1838)
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(April 16) St. Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879)
(Pictures: incorrupt body of Bernadette
and the home of Bernadette)
Bernadette Soubirous was born in 1844, the first child of an extremely poor
miller in the town of Lourdes in southern France. The family was living in
the basement of a dilapidated building when on February 11,1858, the Blessed
Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette in a cave above the banks of the Gave
River near Lourdes. Bernadette, 14 years old, was known as a virtuous girl
though a dull student who had not even made her first Holy Communion. In
poor health, she had suffered from asthma from an early age. There were 18
appearances in all, the final one occurring on the feast of Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel, July 16. Although
Bernadette's
initial reports provoked skepticism, her daily visions of "the Lady" brought
great crowds of the curious. The Lady, Bernadette explained, had instructed
her to have a chapel built on the spot of the visions. There the people were
to come to wash in and drink of the water of the spring that had welled up
from the very spot where Bernadette had been instructed to dig. According to
Bernadette, the Lady of her visions was a girl of 16 or 17 who wore a white
robe with a blue sash. Yellow roses covered her feet, a large rosary was on
her right arm. In the vision on March 25 she told Bernadette, "I am the
Immaculate Conception." It was only when the words were explained to her
that Bernadette came to realize who the Lady was. Few visions have ever
undergone the scrutiny that these appearances of the Immaculate Virgin were
subject to. Lourdes became one of the most popular Marian shrines in the
world, attracting millions of visitors. Miracles were reported at the shrine
and in the waters of the spring. After thorough investigation Church
authorities confirmed the authenticity of the apparitions in 1862. During
her life Bernadette suffered much. She was hounded by the public as well as
by civic officials until at last she was protected in a convent of nuns.
Five years later she petitioned to enter the sisters of Notre Dame. After a
period of illness she was able to make the journey from Lourdes and enter
the novitiate. But within four months of her arrival she was given the last
rites of the Church and allowed to profess her vows. She recovered enough to
become infirmarian and then sacristan, but chronic health problems
persisted. She died on April 16, 1879, at the age of 35. She was canonized
in 1933. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 3:11-26; Psalm 8:2ab
and 5-9; Luke 24:35-48
Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognised
by them when he broke the bread. While they were still talking about this,
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. They
were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them,
Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands
and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh
and bones, as you see I have. When he had said this, he showed them his
hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and
amazement, he asked them, Do you have anything here to eat? They gave him a
piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. He said
to them, This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must
be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and
the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the
Scriptures. He told them, This is what is written: The Christ will suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of
sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:35-48)
Let us notice a detail in our Gospel
passage today. The two disciples had arrived back from Emmaus, one of them
being Cleopas. They told the disciples “what had happened on the way, and
how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.” We remember how
our Lord had joined them on their journey. There was nothing about him that
caused them to think of him other than a fellow pedestrian making his way
with them to the village ahead. It was only at the “breaking of bread” that
they realized who he was, which meant that his bodily resurrection was very
real to them. He was no ghost. Early that same Easter morning, our Lord had
appeared to Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. Again, she like them had
engaged in conversation with him prior to her realizing that the one she was
speaking to was Jesus. She thought he was the gardener. Then he addressed
her by her name, and she knew him then. He was no ghost, but the living
Jesus standing before her in his concrete bodily reality. He was seen,
touched and heard. In our passage today the two disciples were assuring the
others that Jesus was alive when suddenly he appeared before them. In this
case he did not engage with them in conversation prior to granting them a
realization of who he was — as he had with Mary Magdalene and the two
disciples on the way to Emmaus. He simply stood before them all. There he
was, and they were “startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.”
That was natural, I suppose, inasmuch as all they initially had was a
spectacle before them. We remember how during his public ministry our Lord
came to them walking on the water, and they cried out in fear thinking they
were seeing a ghost. Then our Lord called to them, assuring them that it was
he. Here, on the evening of the day he rose from the dead, our Lord
immediately speaks to them and assures them that it is he. He shows them his
wounds on his hands and feet, the marks of his crucifixion. Then he proceeds
to eat before their eyes. He is the same Jesus in all his bodily reality,
now full of glorious indestructible life.
During the journey out to Emmaus, our Lord
had spent his time
instructing his two disciples on the meaning of the Scriptures. The
Scriptures, he had explained — “Moses and all the prophets” — taught that the
Messiah must suffer in order to enter his glory as Messiah. Let us notice that without our Lord’s instruction the
two disciples would not have perceived
the true teaching of the Scriptures. That is to say, the Scriptures need the authoritative
teaching of Christ to be understood. The Scriptures alone
would not have yielded up their true meaning to the disciples had Christ himself not pronounced
on them. With the help of the Holy Spirit the disciples in their turn, speaking in the name of Christ and the
Church, would in their preaching and teaching convey the meaning of the
Scriptures. The Scriptures alone are not enough for the private reader. He
needs the light and teaching of Christ coming from his body the Church to
discern the true sense of the Scriptures. We see a similar pattern in our
Gospel account today, narrating our Lord’s words to the overjoyed disciples
on the evening of Easter Sunday (Luke 24:35-48).
Our Lord, having showed them that it was he who was before them, he in his
risen bodily person, proceeded to instruct them on the meaning of the
Scriptures. “He said to them, This is what I told you while I was still with
you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of
Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could
understand the Scriptures. He told them, This is what is written: The Christ
will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and
forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:35-48). They
needed Christ’s person and teaching in order to understand the Scriptures.
This same principle applies to the Christian. The Scriptures alone are not
enough for the private Christian reader. Where is Christ and teaching? He
and his teaching are present and come to us in his body the Church.
The disciples never lost their joy
at the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Jesus had come back from
death to be with them forever. Nothing now could separate them from the love
of God present in Jesus Christ. Let us never separate ourselves from Jesus
and his teaching, and he and his teaching are found in the body of his
faithful, the body he founded as his Church. By means of his light coming to
us from his Church we are able to understand the meaning of the Scriptures,
and be thus equipped to bring Christ and his word to the world.
(E.J.Tyler)
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All that this earth can offer us is continually passing away: hardly has
pleasure begun than it is already ended.
(The Way, no.753)
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Continuing
The Imitation
of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
TO MANY the saying, "Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me,"
seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: "Depart from
Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." Those who hear the word of the
cross and follow it willingly now, need not fear that they will hear of
eternal damnation on the day of judgment. This sign of the cross will be in
the heavens when the Lord comes to judge. Then all the servants of the
cross, who during life made themselves one with the Crucified, will draw
near with great trust to Christ, the judge.
(Continuing)
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Why do you believe that our Lord rose from the dead? Why, that He redeemed
us all with His precious blood? Why, that He
washes
away our sins in Baptism? Why do you believe in the power and grace
which attends the other sacraments? Why do you believe in the
resurrection of our bodies? You believe it because nothing is too hard
for God—because however wonderful a thing may be, He can do
it.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘The Omnipotence of God the Reason for Faith and
Hope’, 1848)
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(April 17) St. Benedict Joseph Labre (d. 1783)
Benedict Joseph Labre was truly eccentric, one of God's special little ones.
Born in France and the eldest of 18 children, he studied under his uncle, a
parish priest. Because of poor health and a lack of suitable academic
preparation he was unsuccessful in his attempts to enter the religious life.
Then, at 16 years of age, a profound change took place. Benedict lost his
desire to study and gave up all thoughts of the priesthood, much to the
consternation of his relatives. He became a pilgrim, travelling from one
great shrine to another, living off alms. He wore the rags of a beggar and
shared his food with the poor. Filled with the love of God and neighbour,
Benedict had special devotion to the Blessed Mother and to the Blessed
Sacrament. In Rome, where he lived in the Colosseum for a time, he was
called "the poor man of the Forty Hours Devotion" and "the beggar of Rome."
The people accepted his ragged appearance better than he did. His excuse to
himself was that "our comfort is not in this world." On the last day of his
life, April 16, 1783, Benedict Joseph dragged himself to a church in Rome
and prayed there for two hours before he collapsed, dying peacefully in a
nearby house. Immediately after his death the people proclaimed him a saint.
He was officially proclaimed a saint by Pope Leo XIII at canonization
ceremonies in 1883. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 4:1-12; Ps 118:1-2 and
4, 22-27a; John 21:1-14
Afterwards Jesus appeared again to
his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: Simon Peter,
Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee,
and two other disciples were together. I'm going out to fish, Simon Peter
told them, and they said, We'll go with you. So they went out and got into
the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus
stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realise that it was Jesus. He
called out to them, Friends, have you caught anything? No, they answered. He
said, Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.
When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large
number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the
Lord! As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, It is the Lord, he wrapped his
outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the
water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of
fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they
landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some
bread. Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish you have just caught.
Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large
fish, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, Come
and have breakfast. None of the disciples dared ask him, Who are you? They
knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and
did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to
his disciples after he was raised from the dead.
(John 21:1-14)
Our Gospel passage today begins the
final chapter of St John’s Gospel, but this final chapter looks like an
appendage to the one before. The one before (ch.20) has as its climax the profession
of faith in the risen Jesus by Thomas, who declares the risen Jesus to be
God — the God who is the Lord, in other words, Yahweh. There is then a kind
of conclusion, summing up the intent of the Gospel which is to show that
Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. But then we have another chapter
(ch.21) and
this time the focus is on Simon
Peter. Our passage today introduces the
scene. It was “the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was
raised from the dead.” The author seems to mean that it was the third time
that Jesus appeared to the Apostles grouped as a body. In John’s account of
the appearances of Jesus, there is his appearance to Mary Magdalene. She
then went to tell “the disciples that she had seen the Lord” (20:18). Then
in the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the risen Jesus
appeared to the disciples. This was his first appearance to the Eleven as a group,
when he showed them he had truly risen in his body, imparted to them the
gift of the Holy Spirit and conferred on them the power to forgive sins. His
second appearance to his disciples as a group was a week later when he showed to the
doubting Thomas that he had truly risen in his body, and drew from him his
great profession of faith. Thus all Eleven were confirmed as witnesses of
the Resurrection. The “third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he
was raised from the dead” was by the Sea of Galilee, early in the morning as
the disciples were out in the boat. There were seven of the Eleven, and the
author is able to give us the names of five. Once again as in the case of
the other appearances of Jesus, there is a great note of reality given to
the circumstances. The seven disciples are in the boat at the end of an
unsuccessful night and dawn is breaking. Suddenly they notice a figure
standing on the shore.
Notice the ordinariness and reality
of the scene. All is still, with only the slight ebb and flow of the tide
breaking the silence. Perhaps it is too early for any cries of birds. The
disciples are quiet and tired with a night’s work behind them and their
voices are subdued. A figure stands on the shore. He suddenly calls out to them, Caught any fish? The voice is clear,
carries easily across the water, and is very real. No, is their reply to
him. Toss the net out again and you’ll get something, came the reply. What
made them, experienced fishermen, do this at his bidding? We are not told,
but they did and a sudden and powerful wrench of their nets told them that
they had unaccountably caught a huge haul of fish. They could not actually
draw up the haul and place it in the boat, so great was its quantity. It had
to be dragged. At this John knew their man: it was the risen Jesus again. He
“said to Peter, It is the Lord!” (John 21:1-14)
At this Simon sprang into the water and began to hasten towards
Jesus, about a hundred yards off. Inasmuch as there was a boat afloat right
there containing six other disciples, Peter might have been in the water at
chest or perhaps even close to shoulder level. He went ahead towards the
shore with the
person of Jesus filling his heart and soul. His love for Jesus consumed him.
The others followed in the boat, towing the huge catch, presumably dragging
it along the shallow sea bed. We are told that they were particularly large
fish (Greek: ichthuon megalon). It was a sudden and strenuous end to
the night’s uneventful work and the man before them was the cause of it.
They all knew it was Jesus — no one asked, they all knew. Their not asking,
their not commenting, their simply dragging the fish ashore and accepting
what Jesus was doing and preparing for them shows that the bodily
resurrection of Jesus was the great fact they had all accepted. Jesus simply
said, Come now and have breakfast. He had prepared it on the fire he had
made. Notice his thoughtfulness — perhaps he had often done this before.
There was no gaping, no staring, no awkwardness, no fear in the presence of
a spectre, only a subdued going about the preparations.
The scene is a
beautiful one in its ordinariness and simplicity. Jesus Christ is back from
the dead. As he handed them one by one their breakfast repast of bread and
fish prepared on the fire, perhaps they noticed again the gash in his wrists
that had been made by the nails. Did he have marks near the crown of his
head
from the heavy cap of bristling thorns? Possibly. Now he was in glory, yet
rejoining his disciples and readying them for their life-long mission. Let
us take our stand with the risen Jesus and understand that in him we can
share in his victory.
(E.J.Tyler)
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This is the key to open the door and enter the Kingdom of Heaven: qui
facit voluntatem Patris mei qui in coelis est, ipse intrabit in regnum
coelorum — he who does the will of my Father... he shall enter!
(The Way, no.754)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
Why, then, do you fear
to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? In the cross is
salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in
the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of
mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the
cross is perfect holiness. There is no salvation of soul nor hope of
everlasting life but in the cross.
Take up your cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and you shall enter eternal
life. He Himself opened the way before you in carrying His cross, and upon
it He died for you, that you, too, might take up your cross and long to die
upon it. If you die with Him, you shall also live with Him, and if you share
His suffering, you shall also share His glory.
(Continuing)
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Trial or temptation, time of tribulation, time of wealth,
pain, bereavement, anxiety, sorrow, the insults of the enemy, the loss of
worldly goods, nothing can “separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 8: 39] This the Apostle told us long since;
but we, in this age of the world, over and above his word, have the
experience of many centuries for our comfort.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘Christ, a Quickening Spirit’,
1831)
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(April 18) Blessed James Oldo (1364-1404)
You’ve heard rags-to-riches stories. Today, we celebrate the reverse. James
of Oldo was born in 1364, into a well-to-do family near Milan. He married a
woman who, like him, appreciated the comforts that came with wealth. But an
outbreak of plague drove James, his wife and their three children out of
their home and into the countryside. Despite those precautions, two of his
daughters died from the plague, James determined to use whatever time he had
left to build up treasures in heaven and to build God’s realm on earth. He
and his wife became Secular Franciscans. James gave up his old lifestyle and
did penance for his sins. He cared for a sick priest, who taught him Latin.
Upon the death of his wife, James himself became a priest. His house was
transformed into a chapel where small groups of people, many of them fellow
Secular Franciscans, came for prayer and support. James focused on caring
for the sick and for prisoners of war. He died in 1404 after contracting a
disease from one of his patients. James Oldo was beatified in 1933.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 4:13-21;
Psalm 118:1 and 14-21; Mark 16:9-15
When Jesus rose early on the first
day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had
driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who
were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she
had seen him, they did not believe it. Afterwards Jesus appeared in a
different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These
returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.
Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for
their lack of faith and their hardness of heart, because they did not
believe those who had seen him after he had risen. He said to them, Go into
all the world and preach the good news to all creation.
(Mark 16:9-15)
There were very many remarkable
things about Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospels, and his life and
ministry transcend that of, say, the prophets of the Old Testament.
The greatest thing of all was his rising from the dead. No other prophet
predicted that he would die and that on the third day he would rise again.
This, he explained, was something he would freely do. Abraham and the
patriarchs died, Moses died, as did David and the prophets. The nearest we
have to a rising was Elijah being
taken up in the fiery chariot (surely
a symbolic image) together with the prediction that he would come again to prepare the
way for the Messiah. But of course he was never seen again, and our Lord
told his disciples that this prediction was fulfilled in John the Baptist.
Christ rose from the dead and was seen, touched, heard and spoken to. Many
saw him. The first, St Mark informs us in our reading today, was Mary
Magdalene and that was at the tomb itself, soon after dawn and presumably not long after the
actual resurrection. St John’s Gospel gives us ample detail about this
meeting, and it tells us that our Lord informed her that he was on his way
to the Father. She was to go and tell the brothers this, and this she did.
But what happened? They, “mourning and weeping,” did not believe it. It
indicates the depth of their sense of hopelessness now that Jesus had gone.
Mark also tells us that Jesus appeared “in a different form to two of them
while they were walking in the country.” St Luke gives us ample details
about this appearance. These two returned and reported it, but again the
rest
did not believe it. The response of the Eleven to the news of the witnesses
that Jesus had risen from the dead was non-belief. Let us notice that our passage informs
us that the risen Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith and hard
heartedness in not believing those who had seen him. Their lack of faith was
in some way blameworthy.
This is to say that our Lord’s
rebuke of his disciples — the Eleven, no less — implies that their lack of
faith was reprehensible, and that they had been responsible for this. It was
not simply due to the strangeness of the news of his resurrection, or to
their depression and melancholy, or to the way it was reported to them. They
should have believed, our Lord is saying. The evidence was there; the
witnesses were perfectly credible; our Lord himself had prepared them for
this; he had explicitly predicted it; he had shown by his words and works
that he could freely do it. They should have expected it and they should
have received the news with joy as confirmation of their expectation. All
this they should have done, but they did not. What was at the bottom of
their refusal to believe? According to St Mark’s account of our Lord’s
words, it was because of the hardness of their hearts (Greek:
sklerokardian) (Mark 16:9-15). From
this Greek word skleros we have such words as “sclerosis” and
“skeleton.” Their hearts were hard, unresponsive, set. That is to say, they
were indisposed to believe the good news, because their faith in our Lord himself
was deficient and this itself was worthy of blame. It was illustrated
further by the stubborn lack of faith of Thomas at the news from the Apostles as a
group that they had seen the Lord. Of course as soon as they saw our
Lord and had overcome their hesitations they were filled with joy. The point
here, though, is that we take note of this lack of readiness and willingness
to believe the testimony of witnesses that Jesus had risen from the dead.
This indisposition to believe can be present to a greater or lesser extent
in believers and we must be on guard against it ourselves. We need to work
at a greater and greater realization in faith of the fact of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Cardinal Newman in his writings
on faith distinguished between a notional assent and a real assent. The one
accepts the notion, the other realizes the fact. Our lack of a realization
of the fact may be due to a hardness of the heart and an obscure choice of
the will. Our basic assumptions may militate against a ready faith and these
assumptions may be those shared by the world.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help
us believe in the Good News of Jesus Christ from the bottom of our hearts.
Let us understand that by our baptism we have been granted the gift of
divine faith. It is a gift that must be protected and developed. It can be
weakened by our attitudes — attitudes of the will for which to a greater or
lesser extent we are responsible. Faith is the foundation of the Christian
life and we ought bring to bear our entire will and power of choice to make
this gift of faith fruitful.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Many great things depend — don't forget it — on whether you and I live our
lives as God wants.
(The Way, no.755)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
Behold, in the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross
everything depends. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace
than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification. Go where you will,
seek what you will, you will not find a higher way, nor a less exalted but
safer way, than the way of the holy cross. Arrange and order everything to
suit your will and judgment, and still you will find that some suffering
must always be borne, willingly or unwillingly, and thus you will always
find the cross.
(Continuing)
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Christ
… came into the world to regenerate it in Himself, to make a new
beginning, to be the beginning of the creation of God, to gather
together in one, and recapitulate all things in Himself. … The world
was like some fair mirror, broken in pieces, and giving back no one
uniform image of its Maker. But He came to combine what was dissipated,
to recast what was shattered in
Himself.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘The Three Offices of Christ’, 1840)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
(Second Sunday of Eastertide B)
Prayers this week: Rejoice to the
full in the glory that is yours, and give thanks to God who called you to
his kingdom, alleluia. (4 Ezr 2: 36-37)
God of mercy, you wash away our sins in water, you give us new birth
in the Spirit, and redeem us in the blood of Christ. As we celebrate
Christ's resurrection increase our awareness of these blessings and renew
your gift of life within us.
We ask
this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy
Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
(April 19) Blessed Luchesio and Buonadonna (d.1260)
Luchesio and his wife Buonadonna wanted to follow St. Francis as a
married couple. Thus they set in motion the Secular Franciscan Order.
Luchesio and Buonadonna lived in Poggibonzi where he was a greedy merchant.
Meeting Francis—probably in 1213—changed his life. He began to perform many
works of charity. At first Buonadonna was not as enthusiastic about giving
so much away as Luchesio was. One day after complaining that he was giving
everything to strangers, Buonadonna answered the door only to find someone
else needing help. Luchesio asked her to give the poor man some bread. She
frowned but went to the pantry anyway. There she discovered more bread than
had been there the last time she looked. She soon became as zealous for a
poor and simple life as Luchesio was. They sold the business, farmed enough
land to provide for their needs and distributed the rest to the poor. In the
13th century some couples, by mutual consent and with the Church’s
permission, separated so that the husband could join a monastery (or a group
such as Francis began) and his wife could go to a cloister. Conrad of
Piacenza and his wife did just that. This choice existed for childless
couples or for those whose children had already grown up. Luchesio and
Buonadonna wanted another alternative, a way of sharing in religious life,
but outside the cloister. To meet this desire, Francis set up the Secular
Franciscan Order. Francis wrote a simple Rule for the Third Order (Secular
Franciscans) at first; Pope Honorius III approved a more formally worded
Rule in 1221. The charity of Luchesio drew the poor to him, and, like many
other saints, he and Buonadonna seemed never to lack the resources to help
these people. One day Luchesio was carrying a crippled man he had found on
the road. A frivolous young man came up and asked, "What poor devil is that
you are carrying there on your back?" "I am carrying my Lord Jesus Christ,"
responded Luchesio. The young man immediately begged Luchesio’s pardon.
Luchesio and Buonadonna both died on April 28, 1260. He was beatified in
1273. Local tradition referred to Buonadonna as "blessed" though the title
was not given officially.
St Francis used to say, "Whoever curses a poor man does an
injury to Christ, whose noble image he wears, the image of him who made
himself poor for us in this world" (1 Celano, #76).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 4:32-35; Psalm
118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31
On the evening of that first day of
the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear
of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you!
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were
overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, Peace be with you! As
the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that he breathed on them
and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are
forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. Now Thomas
(called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus
came. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord! But he said to
them, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the
nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it. A week
later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.
Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said,
Peace be with you! Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here; see my
hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and
believe. Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God! Then Jesus told him,
Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not
seen and yet have believed. Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the
presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these
are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing you may have life in his name.
(John 20:19-31)
Numerous new disciplines of study
and teaching have appeared over the last century or so. One is the study of
the religions of man. Of course there has been something of a study of this
field for a very long time indeed, but the modern study of anthropology,
archaeology and comparative religion has brought the study of religion very
much into its own. One result is that, with the abundance of data we now
have, it has become so much more difficult to generalize about religion
than, say, a little over a century ago. Take Newman’s great work, A
Grammar of Assent, published in 1870. On page 306 (Image Book) he
quotes the
Penny Encyclopaedia of his day to the effect that
the practice of atonement is and has been universal — even (he writes)
“among that most peculiar race, the natives of Australia”. Well, of course,
that assertion would now have to be severely revised. One British
anthropologist — Evans-Pritchard — has written that one thing his research
taught him was that it is most difficult to make any general judgment on
primal religions. All of that having been said, there are some
generalizations we can make. For instance, there is no doubt that compared
with the gods and higher powers of other religions, the God of the
Judaeo-Christian Revelation displays some unique characteristics. Most
notable is his mercy and compassion. It is often pointed out that Yahweh God
is wrathful in respect to sin and in his wrath he can be compared to the
gods of other peoples. But his wrath is a factor of his holiness, which is
to say his hatred of wrongdoing. Moreover, this hatred of wrongdoing and sin
is revealed more and more as love. He loves the wrongdoer and constantly
calls him to repentance so as to save him from his sins. The fullest
revelation of this is the person of Jesus Christ, who, as St Paul writes,
“loved me and gave himself up for me.” He is the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world by bearing it upon his own shoulders and expiating for
it himself. That is how God’s hatred of sin is expressed. He hates it, and
comes to rid the world of it by atoning for it himself. Christ’s Atonement
for sin reveals that the most distinctive feature of the character of God is
his mercy.
Our Gospel scene
today narrates the meeting of the risen Jesus with his disciples on the
evening of the day he rose from the dead. He had come back from the dead to
rejoin his disciples, this time risen and now in glory. The first thing he
did was to show them that he was back in the flesh, and in particular with
the marks of the nails still on his body. He showed them his hands and his
side: they contained the proof of his great work now done. He had atoned for
the sin of man by his death on the cross. It was a sacrifice of atonement
and the greatest work of mercy in the history of the world. Christ on the
cross revealed that God is a God rich in mercy. On this Easter Sunday
evening, Christ is now with his disciples — alive, well and in glory. What
does he do? He confers on them the gift of a share in his own divine Spirit,
the Spirit of God who is the Lord and Giver of life. He then empowers them
to forgive sins. The sin of the world has been atoned for by his death on
the Cross. This atonement will now be available for each person through the
ministry of the Apostles and the Church which, by the power of the Holy
Spirit, he would build on them. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending
you. And with that he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If
you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them,
they are not forgiven” (John 20:19-31).
Every time we state the Creed, we profess our belief in the forgiveness of
sins. The sin of the world has been atoned for. This was Christ’s great work
of mercy, for which he was sent into the world by the all-merciful Father.
The Church, in the persons of the Apostles and those who share in the
ministerial priesthood with them, bears with it the power to forgive the
sins of any who repent of them. Thus is the ministerial priesthood itself a
manifestation and work of God’s mercy. The problem especially with modern
man is that characteristically he does not think that sin matters very much.
For him it is not, as we might say, a big deal. Hence the mercy of God tends
to leave him unmoved.
Let us ponder often on what God in
his mercy has done for man. He has taken away the sin of the world, and
through his gift to the Apostles offers individual man the forgiveness of
his sins. Let us strive to appreciate the mercy of God. He is a God rich,
rich beyond description, in mercy. But if we are to appreciate this we must
appreciate what we have been delivered from. We have been delivered from
sin. Sin is the world’s horror, and God in his mercy has come to our aid.
Let us build our lives on the great revelation that has been made to us of
the abundant mercy of God.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 651-655 (The resurrection and the divine mercy)
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We are blocks of stone that can move and feel, that have a perfectly free
will.
God himself is the stone-cutter
who works on us, chipping off the rough edges, shaping us as he desires,
with blows of the hammer and chisel.
Don't let us try to draw aside, don't let us want to escape his will, for in
any case we won't be able to avoid the blows. We will suffer all the more,
and uselessly— and instead of polished stone, ready for the work of
building, we will be a shapeless heap of gravel that people will trample
contemptuously under foot.
(The Way, no.756)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
Either you will experience bodily pain or you will undergo tribulation of
spirit in your soul. At times you will be forsaken by God, at times troubled by
those about you and, what is worse, you will often grow weary of yourself.
You cannot escape, you cannot be relieved by any remedy or comfort but must
bear with it as long as God wills. For He wishes you to learn to bear trial
without consolation, to submit yourself wholly to Him that you may become
more humble through suffering. No one understands the passion of Christ so
thoroughly or heartily as the man whose lot it is to suffer the like
himself.
The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter
where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take
yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will --
above, below, without, or within -- you will find a cross in everything, and
everywhere you must have patience if you would have peace within and merit
an eternal crown.
(Continuing)
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Now, in the first place, as we all know, Christ chose twelve
out of His disciples, whom He called Apostles, to be His representatives
even during His own ministry. And He gave them the power of doing the
wonderful works which He did Himself. Of course I do not say
He gave them equal power (God forbid!); but He gave them a certain
sufficient portion of His power. “He gave them power,” says St. Luke,
“and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases; and He sent them
to preach the Kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.” [Luke 9: 1, 2] And
He expressly made them His substitutes to the world at large; so that
to receive them was to receive Himself. “He that receiveth you,
receiveth Me.” [Matthew 10: 40] Such was their principal power before
His passion, similar to that which He principally exercised, viz. the
commission to preach and to perform bodily cures. But when He had
wrought out the Atonement for human sin upon the Cross, and purchased
for man the gift of the Holy Ghost, then He gave them a higher
commission; and still, be it observed, parallel to that which He
Himself then assumed. “As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.
And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them,
Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted
unto them; and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained.” [John 20:
21-23] Here, then, the Apostles became Christ’s representatives in the
power of His Spirit, for the remission of sins, as before they were His
representatives as regards miraculous cures, and preaching His
Kingdom.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘The Christian Ministry’, 1834)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Monday of the second week in Eastertide I
(April 20) St. Conrad of Parzham (1818-1894)
Conrad spent most of his life as porter in Altoetting,
Bavaria, letting people into the friary and indirectly encouraging them to
let God into their lives. His parents, Bartholomew and Gertrude Birndorfer,
lived near Parzham, Bavaria. In those days this region
was
recovering from the Napoleonic wars. A lover of solitary prayer and a
peacemaker as a young man, Conrad joined the Capuchins as a brother. He made
his profession in 1852 and was assigned to the friary in Altoetting. That
city’s shrine to Mary was very popular; at the nearby Capuchin friary there
was a lot of work for the porter, a job Conrad held for 41 years. At first
some of the other friars were jealous that such a young friar held this
important job. Conrad’s patience and holy life overcame their doubts. As
porter he dealt with many people, obtaining many of the friary supplies and
generously providing for the poor who came to the door. He treated them all
with the courtesy Francis expected of his followers. Conrad’s helpfulness
was sometimes unnerving. Once Father Vincent, seeking quiet to prepare a
sermon, went up the belltower of the church. Conrad tracked him down when
someone wanting to go to confession specifically requested Father Vincent.
Conrad also developed a special rapport with the children of the area. He
enthusiastically promoted the Seraphic Work of Charity, which aided
neglected children. Conrad spent hours in prayer before the Blessed
Sacrament. He regularly asked the Blessed Mother to intercede for him and
for the many people he included in his prayers. The ever-patient Conrad was
canonized in 1934.
"It was God’s will that I should leave everything that was
near and dear to me. I thank him for having called me to religious life
where I have found such peace and joy as I could never have found in the
world. My plan of life is chiefly this: to love and suffer, always
meditating upon, adoring and admiring God’s unspeakable love for his
lowliest creatures" (Letter of Saint Conrad).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 4:23-31; Psalm 2:1-3, 4-9; John 3:1-8
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish
ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, we know you are a
teacher who has come from God. For no-one could perform the miraculous signs
you are doing if God were not with him. In reply Jesus declared, I tell you
the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. How
can a man be born when he is old? Nicodemus asked. Surely he cannot enter a
second time into his mother's womb to be born! Jesus answered, I tell you
the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water
and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to
spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.'
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell
where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the
Spirit. (John 3:1-8)
Our Gospel passage today presents us with a dialogue between two
protagonists: Jesus and Nicodemus. One of the themes of the Gospel of St
John, from which our passage today is drawn, is the antagonism towards
Christ manifested with mounting implacability by those St John calls “the
Jews.” They are the leaders of the Jews such as the Pharisees, the members
of the ruling council and the chief priests. But we must note that John
clearly does not mean to imply that all “the Jews” — by that I mean all the
Pharisees and ruling people
— were opposed to Jesus. At the outset of our
passage today we have one of the Pharisees coming to Jesus by night, a
member of the ruling council. He comes as a believer, recognizing in the
presence of our Lord that he is a teacher who came from God. This is exactly
what others among the ruling council denied, and they were the ones who
carried the day in terms of decisions about Jesus. Nicodemus was a secret
disciple of Christ — secret, for fear of his colleagues. John later reports
his defence of Jesus among them (7:50), and of course his reverent burial of
Jesus, assisted by Joseph of Arimathea (19:39-40). We have no reason to
assume that Nicodemus was the only member of what John calls “the Jews” to
have been won to our Lord. Joseph of Arimathea was probably a member of the
Sanhedrin, and John says of him that he was “a disciple of Jesus, but
secretly for fear of the Jews” (19:38). Inasmuch as the names of these two
are mentioned by John they may even have attained some prominence as
Christians, and may have been sources of John’s detailed information about
the trial of Jesus before the chief priests, the Sanhedrin and Pilate. There
may just have been other disciples among the ruling class too. After all,
Nicodemus says to our Lord that “we know you are a teacher from God”- there
are, then, more than himself. Be that as it may, here we have our Lord with
a representative of the ruling class receiving instruction on the rebirth of
baptism that is necessary for entry into the Kingdom and on the action of
the Holy Spirit. These central features of Christ’s revelation were known at
first hand by secret disciples of Christ within the highest circles.
So let us imagine Christ receiving Nicodemus by night, sitting face-to-face
with him, with perhaps others of the disciples present such as John who
reports the conversation (John 3:1-8). Our Lord receives him graciously and with
understanding. Nicodemus is made to feel welcome and at ease, and has no
difficulty in asking our Lord questions. He loves and venerates our Lord,
but is somewhat fearful of the hostility of his colleagues. Our Lord’s
teaching burns into the memory of John, as it would have of Nicodemus. What,
then, does Nicodemus hear directly from our Lord, face to face, and
explained to him with care and no hurry? The Kingdom of God, long promised
and long expected, predicted for instance by the prophet Daniel (ch.2),
requires of a person that he be born again. This is a remarkable element of
the divine plan. Man, fallen man, man whose entire history as described in
the inspired Scriptures is so marked by sin and death, is to be offered a
new birth. He is to be granted a new beginning, a new life, and this gift
will place him in the Kingdom of God. This “birth” is not to be crassly
understood as a physical birth, of course, but is a new birth involving a
double feature: water and the Spirit. Our Lord is pointing to baptism and
the action of the Holy Spirit which will be Christ’s fundamental offer to
every man. From this new birth by water and the Spirit will come the
benefits of the Kingdom of God. As we imagine ourselves present at the scene of
this conversation let us endeavour to appreciate anew the decisive
importance of our baptism in our life in Christ. It is so simple, so
available, so easy, that like so many things we are very familiar with, we
can take it for granted with barely a thought. But in this respect it is a
little like the simplicity and ease of the Eucharist. It is so accessible,
seemingly so ordinary. And yet how great is the power and significance of
the Eucharist for it is nothing other than the person of Christ himself in
his entire reality. Baptism, so simple in its appearance, is similarly
awesome in its effect. Let us pray to appreciate this.
As we read our Gospel passage today let us endeavour to appreciate the
importance of the great and fundamental Sacrament of Baptism. All that
Christ came to do for us is made available in the first instance by our
Baptism. More is required after Baptism, but without Baptism we have no
access to it at all. At our Baptism the Holy Spirit effects our new birth.
We are taken out of the kingdom of darkness and placed in the kingdom of
light. The power of sin is broken and we are freed and empowered to begin the difficult
work of attaining holiness in Christ. We are admitted into God’s family the
Church. Let us thank God for his loving providence in granting us the gift
of baptism.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Resignation?... Conformity? Love for the will of God!
(The Way, no.757)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
If you carry the cross willingly, it will carry and lead you to the desired
goal where indeed there shall be no more suffering, but here there shall be.
If you carry it unwillingly, you create a burden for yourself and increase
the load, though still you have to bear it. If you cast away one cross, you
will find another and perhaps a heavier one. Do you expect to escape what no
mortal man can ever avoid? Which of the saints was without a cross or trial
on this earth? Not even Jesus Christ, our Lord, Whose every hour on earth
knew the pain of His passion. "The Christ must suffer, and rise again from
the dead, . . . and so enter into his glory." How is it that you look for
another way than this, the royal way of the holy cross?
(Continuing)
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Philosophies and religions of the world have each its day,
and are parts of a succession. They supplant and are in turn supplanted. But
the Catholic religion alone has had no limits; it alone has ever been
greater than the emergence, and can do what others cannot do. If it were a
falsehood, or a corruption, like the systems of men, it would be weak as
they are; whereas it is able even to impart to them a strength which they
have not, and it uses them for its own purposes, and locates them in its own
territory.
JHN, from An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1845)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Tuesday of the second week in Eastertide I
(April 21) St. Anselm (1033-1109)
Indifferent toward religion as a young man, Anselm became one of the
Church's greatest theologians and leaders. He received the title "Father of
Scholasticism" for his attempt to analyze and illumine the truths of faith
through the aid of reason. At 15, Anselm wanted to enter a monastery, but
was refused acceptance because of his father's opposition. Twelve years
later, after careless disinterest in religion and years of worldly living,
he finally fulfilled his desire to be a monk. He entered the monastery of
Bec in Normandy, three years later was elected prior and 15 years later was
unanimously chosen abbot. Considered an original and independent thinker,
Anselm was admired for his patience, gentleness and teaching skill. Under
his leadership, the abbey of Bec became a monastic school, influential in
philosophical and theological studies. During these years, at the
community's request, Anselm began publishing his theological works,
comparable to those of St. Augustine. His best-known work is the book Cur
Deus Homo ("Why God Became Man"). At 60, against his will, Anselm was
appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 1093. His appointment was opposed at
first by England's King William Rufus and later accepted. Rufus persistently
refused to cooperate with efforts to reform the Church. Anselm finally went
into voluntary exile until Rufus died in 1100. He was then recalled to
England by Rufus's brother and successor, Henry I. Disagreeing fearlessly
with Henry over the king's insistence on investing England's bishops, Anselm
spent another three years in exile in Rome. His care and concern extended to
the very poorest people; he opposed the slave trade. Anselm obtained from
the national council at Westminster the passage of a resolution prohibiting
the sale of human beings.
"No one will have any other desire in
heaven than what God wills; and the desire of one will be the desire of all;
and the desire of all and of each one will also be the desire of God" (St.
Anselm, Opera Omnia, Letter 112). (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 4:32-37; Psalm 93:1-2,
5; John 3:7b-15
Jesus said to Nicodemus, 'You must
be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but
you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with
everyone born of the Spirit. How can this be? Nicodemus asked. You are
Israel's teacher, said Jesus, and do you not understand these things? I tell
you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have
seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you
of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I
speak of heavenly things? No-one has ever gone into heaven except the one
who came from heaven— the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes
in him may have eternal life. (John 3:7b-15)
It is a commonplace to observe that
our Lord in his teaching makes much use of parables. There have been
numerous great teachers in history and it would be an interesting
investigation to compare their characteristic teaching methods. Undoubtedly
the method employed by a particular teacher reflects the method of his
thought. For instance, Aristotle was not only an outstanding philosopher,
but a teacher. He had his disciples, and in fact he served as tutor to
Alexander the Great. What was his pedagogical
method? I am not in a position
to say, but I doubt that it was primarily by the use of story and analogy.
But let us consider the greatest Teacher of all time, the one whose teaching
has inspired countless disciples and has transformed lives. I refer, of
course, to Christ. He usually made
use of the story. He loved analogy. In his speech he saw analogies between
things of everyday life: Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, he warned his
disciples. His disciples missed the analogy and thought he was referring to bread
because they only had one loaf with them. He saw an analogy between the
field sown with both wheat and cockle and the world with its good and bad
elements. He also continually drew on the course and constitution of the
world to illustrate the course and nature of the things of God. That is to
say, he seems to have constantly seen an analogy between the world of our
direct experience and the unseen world of God that is beyond our direct
experience. There have been Christian thinkers who have employed analogy to
support the truth of revelation. An obvious example was the Anglican Bishop
Butler of the eighteenth century in his influential philosophical book,
The Analogy of
Religion. Consider our Gospel passage today, and in particular our Lord’s
reference to the Holy Spirit. Nicodemus’s question had been, how could a new
birth happen? Our Lord explained that it would be by water and the Holy
Spirit. Then he used an analogy: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You
hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is
going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
But while our Lord uses analogy
— perhaps because, apart from its pedagogical effectiveness, it reflected the
bent of his human intellect — the foundation of his teaching was his own
direct knowledge. That is to say, he spoke of what he saw and could see. He
had sight of that for which others needed faith. He knew his heavenly Father
by direct knowledge. He knew him and saw him personally for he is the Son of
the eternal Father. He came from the Father and has made him known. It is in
this spirit that he constantly spoke of “my Father” and “your Father.” My
Father works, he said to the Jews, and so I work too. “My Father’s house is
a house of prayer” he told his objectors. So it is that in our Gospel
passage today our Lord speaks of what he knows. “I have spoken to you of
earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak
of heavenly things? No-one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came
from heaven— the Son of Man” (John 3:7b-15).
It is on this basis that he speaks of the Holy Spirit to Nicodemus. He
knows God and the things of God because he comes from God. He has seen it
all. In our passage today not only is our Lord speaking of the Holy Spirit
and his mysterious power — and employing as an analogy the wind of our
experience — but he is speaking too of his supreme and unmatched authority
as teacher of the things of God. He speaks as one who knows directly the
unseen things of heaven. He is inviting Nicodemus and all those who enquire
as he did, to accept him as the unique authority for all that pertains to
the truth of God. In this same Gospel of St John our Lord makes
exclusive claims without the slightest apology. I and the Father are one, he
declares before his enemies. No one can come to the Father except through
me, he tells his disciples. He had come from the Father and was soon to
return to him. For these reasons Jesus Christ is the teacher of mankind and
for these reasons he commanded his disciples to go to the whole world and
make disciples of all the nations.
Let us in our hearts accept Christ
as our one and only teacher of the ultimate things of life. He is the one
who knows God because he is God — God the Son of the eternal Father. He who
was in the bosom of the Father has come among us and has made him known. I
once visited a young archaeologist to discuss Australian aboriginal sites
and engravings. I noticed he had Buddhist pictures before him and especially
pictures of the Dalai Lama. He was a Westerner and I would say had chosen to embrace
Buddhism. His choice was a stark reminder to me that Christ — Jesus Christ
— is the true teacher of mankind,
the only way to the Father.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Accepting the will of God wholeheartedly is a sure way of finding joy and
peace: happiness in the Cross. Then we realize that Christ's yoke is sweet
and that his burden is not heavy.
(The Way, no.758)
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Continuing
The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
The whole life of Christ was a cross and a martyrdom, and do you seek rest
and enjoyment for yourself? You deceive yourself, you are mistaken if you
seek anything but to suffer, for this mortal life is full of miseries and
marked with crosses on all sides. Indeed, the more spiritual progress a
person makes, so much heavier will he frequently find the cross, because as
his love increases, the pain of his exile also increases.
(Continuing)
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In the Christian scheme we find all the Divine Attributes (not mercy only, though mercy pre-eminently) brought out and urged upon us, which were but latent in the visible course of things. (JHN, from the University Sermon, ‘The Influence of Natural and Revealed Religion Respectively’, 1830)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Wednesday of the second week in Eastertide I
(April 22) St. Adalbert of Prague (956-97)
Opposition to the Good News of Jesus did not discourage
Adalbert, who is now remembered with great honor in the Czech Republic,
Poland, Hungary and Germany. Born to a noble family in Bohemia, he received
part of his education from St. Adalbert of Magdeburg. At the age of 27 he
was chosen as bishop of Prague. Those who resisted his program of clerical
reform forced him into exile eight years later. In time the people of Prague
requested his return as their bishop. Within a short time, however, he was
exiled again after excommunicating those who violated the right of sanctuary
by dragging a woman accused of adultery from a church and murdering her.
After a short ministry in Hungary, he went to preach the Good News to people
living near the Baltic Sea. He and two companions were martyred by pagan
priests in that region. Adalbert's body was immediately ransomed and buried
in Gniezno cathedral (Poland). In the mid-11th century his body was moved to
St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.
Preaching the Good News can be dangerous work whether the audience
is already baptized or not. Adalbert fearlessly preached Jesus' gospel and
received a martyr's crown for his efforts. Similar zeal has created modern
martyrs in many places, especially in Central and South America. Some of
those martyrs grew up in areas once evangelized by Adalbert.
“God our Father, you have honoured the Church with the
victorious witness of St. Adalbert, who died for his faith. As he imitated
the suffering and death of the Lord, may we follow in his footsteps and come
to eternal joy” (adapted from the Common of a Martyr in the Easter season).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 5:17-26;
Psalm 34:2-9; John 3:16-21
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 3:16-21)
It is only a few hundred years since
European society and culture was riven by religious conflict. I refer to the
Reformation and its aftermath. People who
were harshly
opposed to one another exalted what they considered the Truth. They did not
permit whatever they deemed
to be its opposite, no matter what the cost to themselves and to society.
The satirical sceptic Voltaire pointed to the
violence in the Old Testament, and the great eighteenth century agnostic
philosopher, David Hume, asserted that, as against polytheism, monotheism is
intolerant. It will not allow, he thought, a disregard for or a contradiction
to the Truth of the one and only God
of Revelation. That is the charge of the secular man: that the man of
revealed religion is intolerant. Non belief is said to be indicted by
religion as not merely mistaken but wicked, a sin, and potentially a
crime. Well now, this is not the moment to be discussing at length the
balance between adherence to the truth and tolerance of error. Suffice
it to say that in modern Western secular culture the temptation for
society is hardly to be intolerant of religious unbelief. Rather, the
assumption of our age and culture is to think that unbelief has no
special moral bearing. Unbelief is characteristically regarded as a morally indifferent
issue. That is to say, it is a mere private opinion just as religious belief
is a private opinion. Be that as it may, and without condoning
intolerance, let us notice the stark condemnation of unbelief which St John
presents in our inspired passage today. “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.” Of course, just as Christ did not come to
condemn — for condemnation will be left till later — so too the
believer should be slow to condemn — for condemnation, if it comes,
will come from God and it will come later. That, though, does not mean
that unbelief is to be regarded as something morally indifferent. It is
a matter of the utmost moral significance. We are taught in this
passage that belief in Christ and in his teaching is the hinge on which
hangs salvation and condemnation. That is because belief is a
profoundly moral matter.
What this means is that faith in
Christ and the acceptance of his entire teaching which flows from faith is
not just a matter of the intellect being drawn to penetrate a great
religious challenge and puzzle. It is a matter of the conscience of man
leading him to the recognition of and faith in a Person. It is a question of
duty, and it requires a sense of duty. It requires a conscience attuned to
Truth and its recognition. If one’s life is oriented to the fulfillment of
one’s duty it will be easier to attain to faith because belief is primarily
a moral matter. As our passage today continues, “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
3:16-21). What this means is that the fundamental call of man is
that directed to him by his conscience. He has the duty to seek the truth
conscientiously, to overcome and dispel error in his life, and most
decisively of all, to live by this truth. The implication of our passage
today is that to the extent one strives to know the truth and especially
to live by it, to that extent will one draw nearer to the light of
Christ. The one who strives in this way truly to be moral may not know that
the drift of his life is towards God and his truth, but so it is — provided
he is trying to live by the light he has been granted. The foundation for
faith is the
daily effort to do what is right, which is to say, the daily effort to be
good. It is the good man who is in the best position to attain the truth
about God and Christ. It is the good man too who will most profit from faith
in Christ and be led to the holiness which is the purpose of life in Christ.
Such is the implication of our Gospel text today.
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church informs us that “when he
listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking” (no.1777).
That is not to say that his interpretation of what he hears is in every
respect correct, for the conscience in the first instance tells the prudent
man that he must do good and avoid evil. This is unmistakable. What he may
be mistaken in is in his judgment as to what this involves in the concrete.
But the point here is that it is fidelity to the conscience, understood in
all prudence, that will lead a person towards the truth of God. Let us then
resolve in everything to do what is right, to be good, and to be led by God
to his truth.
(E.J.Tyler)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peace, peace, you tell me. Peace is... for men of 'good' will.
(The Way, no.759)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
Yet such a man, though
afflicted in many ways, is not without hope of consolation, because he knows
that great reward is coming to him for bearing his cross. And when he
carries it willingly, every pang of tribulation is changed into hope of
solace from God. Besides, the more the flesh is distressed by affliction, so
much the more is the spirit strengthened by inward grace. Not infrequently a
man is so strengthened by his love of trials and hardship in his desire to
conform to the cross of Christ, that he does not wish to be without sorrow
or pain, since he believes he will be the more acceptable to God if he is
able to endure more and more grievous things for His sake.
It is the grace of Christ, and not the virtue of man, which can and does
bring it about that through fervour of spirit frail flesh learns to love and
to gain what it naturally hates and shuns.
(Continuing)
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What
do we gain from words, however correct and abundant, if they end with
themselves, instead of lighting up the image of the Incarnate Son in
our
hearts? (JHN, from the sermon ‘The Humiliation of the Eternal Son’, 1835)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Thursday of the second week in Eastertide
(April 23) St. George
If Mary Magdalene was the victim of misunderstanding, George is the object
of a vast amount of imagination. There is every reason to believe that he
was a real martyr who suffered at Lydda in Palestine, probably before the
time of Constantine. The Church adheres to his memory, but not to the
legends surrounding his life. That he was willing to pay the supreme price
to follow Christ is what the Church believes. And it is enough. The story of
George's slaying the dragon, rescuing the king's daughter and converting
Libya is a twelfth-century Italian fable. George was a favourite patron
saint of crusaders, as well as of Eastern soldiers in earlier times. He is a
patron saint of England, Portugal, Germany, Aragon, Genoa and Venice.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 5:27-33;
Psalm 34:2 and 9, 17-20; John 3:31-36
The one who comes from above is
above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as
one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies
to what he has seen and heard, but no-one accepts his testimony. The man who
has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has
sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The
Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever
believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not
see life, for God's wrath remains on him. (John 3:
31-36)
I don’t think anyone has ever
claimed that Mahomet came down from heaven. The most fervent Muslim
identifies where he was born and when. He grew up in a certain locality and
his influence grew. It is claimed that he received certain revelations and
thus became, as Islam deems, a prophet — indeed, he is counted by Islam to
be the greatest prophet. Then he died, and was buried and his tomb is
venerated. Nor do I think anyone has ever claimed that Buddha came down from
heaven, nor Zoroaster, nor
Confucius. Various mythical personages have been
understood to have come from above, but modern man understands these persons
to be precisely that: mythical. The Catholic Church and with it the rest of
what we might call Christendom, understanding very clearly what is meant by
a myth, asserts that Christ came down from heaven in sober fact. It was no
myth. The secular non-believing man may reject the claim but he would be
surely foolish to do so out of hand and without considering it with the
utmost seriousness, because it is made with full awareness and with an
immense and high-class tradition of intellect behind it. If there is one
thing that cannot be denied it is that Christianity and in particular
Catholic Christianity is a religion of intellect. It is well able to
consider and distinguish myth from cold hard fact. So then, there are many
things that are unique to the historical figure of Jesus Christ. The first
thing about him is that — as against all other founders of the religions of
man — his human conception and then birth in Bethlehem was not the beginning
of his existence as a person. He pre-existed his conception and birth.
Indeed, he had existed from all eternity. At a certain point the Angels came
into being, as did the world, and as did man himself. But from all eternity
the Person of Jesus Christ had existed. He was the Son of the Eternal
Father, and he came down from heaven. This was one of the most frequent
things Jesus Christ said about himself, that he had come from the Father and
had been sent by him. Our Gospel today says it too: Jesus Christ comes from
above.
It
has often been pointed out that while monotheism has come to occupy
centre stage in the religions of the world — the monotheism that has
issued from Judaic revelation — nevertheless polytheism has been more
characteristic of human history. For the one who recognizes the
Judaeo-Christian revelation the historical prevalence of polytheism is
an abiding symptom of the Fall. Be that as it may, I would make this
suggestion about modern secular culture. It is, of course, typically
sceptical of revealed religion but I suggest that in its skepticism it
has reverted to a form of polytheism. Its gods are not the gods of
Egypt such as Seth and Osiris, nor of Canaan such as Ba’al, nor of Rome
such as Jupiter, nor of Greece such as Zeus. There are other things
modern man worships and they are not one but many. Typically he
dedicates his life not to one exalted figure or goal, but to numerous
limited things and they change with the years. The Greek religion was
populated by many heavenly (though limited) powers and modern secular
man’s life is populated too by many superior (though limited) figures
which command his allegiance. They can be said to occupy the place in
his life which the many gods occupied in the life of non-secular man.
But secular man’s gods do not transcend this world. They are not powers
above, but powers that inhabit our scene. They are terrestrial — it
could be career, status, money, sport, whatever. We often say that
“sport is his religion.” In this sense what St John says about Jesus
Christ in our gospel today is very relevant to modern secular man:
Christ, who has come down from heaven and who occupies our scene, is
above all. There is one historical figure, one person of human history,
who is above all. No matter what it is that a person might tend to
revere and dedicate his life to, Jesus Christ is above that, and above
all. That is to say, Jesus Christ stands against all forms of
polytheism, including its modern secular and very material forms. He
himself is the one only God. Monotheism finds its embodiment and focus
in him. For modern man willing to accept only concrete facts as real,
he has in Jesus Christ the unmatched factual object of all love and
worship.
“The one who comes from heaven is
above all” (John 3: 31-36). Let us
contemplate the person of Jesus Christ long and lovingly, for he is above
all. No other can be compared to him. We tend to be condescending with
regard to religion and we allow ourselves to drift away from the one and
only God who, we say, is a pie in the sky. But all too often what is
happening is that we are, unbeknown to ourselves, drifting towards the
worship of many gods. Jesus Christ is no pie in the sky: he is an historical
figure and a living concrete fact. But the unique thing about him is that he
came down from heaven and is above all. He is absolutely above all. Let us
then give our heats to him and recognize him for what he is. He is the great
God, God the Son, and our brother too.
(E.J.Tyler)
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A thought which brings peace to
the heart and which the holy Spirit suggests to those who seek the will of
God: The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
What can worry the soul that sincerely repeats these words?
(The Way, no.760)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
To carry the cross, to love the cross, to chastise the body and bring it to
subjection, to flee honours, to endure contempt gladly, to despise self and wish
to be despised, to suffer any adversity and loss, to desire no prosperous
days on earth -- this is not man's way. If you rely upon yourself, you can
do none of these things, but if you trust in the Lord, strength will be
given you from heaven and the world and the flesh will be made subject to
your word. You will not even fear your enemy, the devil, if you are armed
with faith and signed with the cross of Christ.
Set yourself, then, like a good and faithful servant of Christ, to bear
bravely the cross of your Lord, Who out of love was crucified for you. Be
ready to suffer many adversities and many kinds of trouble in this miserable
life, for troublesome and miserable life will always be, no matter where you
are; and so you will find it wherever you may hide. Thus it must be; and
there is no way to evade the trials and sorrows of life but to bear them.
(Continuing)
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Though Christ came to be the light of the world, yet He is not and cannot be a light to all, but to those only who seek Him in the way of His commandments.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ’, 1830)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Friday of the second week in Eastertide I
(April 24) St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen (1577-1622)
If a poor man needed some clothing, Fidelis would often give the man the
clothes right off his back. Complete generosity to others characterized this
saint's life. Born in 1577, Mark Rey (Fidelis was his religious name) became
a lawyer who constantly upheld the causes of the poor and oppressed people.
Nicknamed "the poor man's lawyer," Fidelis soon grew disgusted with the
corruption and injustice he saw among his colleagues. He left his law career
to become a priest, joining his brother George as a Franciscan friar of the
Capuchin Order. His wealth was divided between needy seminarians and the
poor. As a follower of Francis, Fidelis continued his devotion to the weak
and needy. Once, during a severe epidemic in a city where he was guardian of
a friary, Fidelis cared for and cured many sick soldiers. He was appointed
head of a group of Capuchins sent to preach against the Calvinists and
Zwinglians in Switzerland. Almost certain violence threatened. Those who
observed the mission felt that success was more attributable to the prayer
of Fidelis during the night than to his sermons and instructions. He was
accused of opposing the peasants' national aspirations for independence from
Austria. While he was preaching at Seewis, to which he had gone against the
advice of his friends, a gun was fired at him, but he escaped unharmed. A
Protestant offered to shelter Fidelis, but he declined, saying his life was
in God's hands. On the road back, he was set upon by a group of armed men
and killed. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 5:34-42; Psalm 27:1,
4, 13-14; John 6:1-15
Some time after this, Jesus crossed
to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a
great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he
had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down
with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near. When Jesus looked up
and saw a great crowd coming towards him,
he said to Philip, Where shall we
buy bread for these people to eat? He asked this only to test him, for he
already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, Eight
months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a little!
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, Here is a
boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they
go among so many? Jesus said, Make the people sit down. There was plenty of
grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them.
Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were
seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had
all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, Gather the pieces that are
left over. Let nothing be wasted. So they gathered them and filled twelve
baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had
eaten. After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began
to say, Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world. Jesus,
knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew
again to a mountain by himself. (John 6:1-15)
The sequence of events narrated in
our Gospel passage today, so remarkable that the people began to contemplate
making Jesus their king, is occasioned by a question from our Lord to
Philip: “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” Consider the
situation. Our Lord had crossed with his disciples to “the far shore of the
Sea of Galilee (the Sea of Tiberius), and a great crowd of people followed
him”. It seems that they were far from a centre where sufficient provisions
could be obtained, and the people had brought very little with them, so great
had been their enthusiasm for Jesus. They had simply forgotten to come
prepared. We are told that five thousand men were there, not counting
others. There may well have been children and women present: certainly one
boy was there, and he it was who provided a few loaves and fish. Under
normal circumstances it could have been a disaster with numbers of
people fainting for lack of food. Then came our Lord’s question: “Where
shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” It shows, incidentally, that
our Lord did not normally exercise his divine power in order to meet
everyday needs. He bought his food, as did the disciples. For example, on
one occasion in the same Gospel of St John (ch.4:8) when Jesus and the
disciples were passing through Samaria, our Lord stopped at Jacob’s Well,
while the disciples went on ahead to the town to buy food. Our Lord
subjected himself, as man, to this normal human condition. This time,
though, he intended to work what St John calls a sign. So he asked, as would
have been his custom, where shall we buy food for the people, for
undoubtedly there was nowhere in the immediate vicinity. Philip immediately
put to him another problem: where will the money come from anyway? So there
was a serious practical problem. But St John tells us that our Lord asked
Philip this question only as a test. He knew what he intended to do. So it
was to be a test of Philip’s and the disciples’ faith.
Now this is a significant sentence
in the passage: Christ meant his question to test Philip, for he knew what
he would do. There are other situations in the Gospel accounts which we can
take as intended as tests. For instance, when our Lord with his disciples
were out on the sea in the midst of a tremendous storm, he himself was sound
asleep. They woke him terrified, and at a word he calmed the winds and the
sea. Then he asked, why did you doubt? Though he did not say so, the
situation that he had allowed was clearly a test. On another occasion when
his disciples were alone out on the lake in the midst of a very rough sea,
he came to them walking on the water. As he approached Simon called to Jesus
asking that he bid him come to him across the water. Our Lord asked him to
come. We could say it was a test of his faith. Simon began to come, but his
faith failed. Our Lord’s passion and death was to be the greatest test of
their faith, the greatest opportunity to show that they believed. When he
rose from the dead he rebuked them for failing to believe those who brought
them news of his resurrection. It had been a test of their faith. In our
Gospel passage today (John 6:1-15) our
Lord asks Philip a question which was, John writes, a test of his faith in
Jesus, in his power and his compassion. Our Lord went ahead and fed the
multitude with the handful of food. Whatever the situation, all is in the hand of God. Jesus Christ
shows himself to be master of the world and of every difficulty. This is
one of the points that surely comes through in our passage today, and it has
direct relevance for the life of the Christian. The world is a vulnerable
and complex reality, and man is often left in sore straits. Just as the
crowds were in a serious practical and material situation, so too we are
vulnerable to all kinds of threatening and disastrous situations. They
also constitute tests. They are tantamount to an opportunity to prove our faith in
Jesus. They are not just a great bind, but an opportunity. They are an
opportunity to show our faith in Jesus to Jesus our Lord himself, and an
opportunity to show our faith in him to the world.
St John’s observation that Christ’s
question to Philip was a test, for he himself knew what he would do, ought
be a lesson to us for the whole of our lives. All is in the hand of God and
nothing will happen that is beyond his all-powerful providence. He knows
what he is going to do. Therefore let us trust him. Every difficult
situation, indeed every single situation, is a test, an opportunity to prove
our faith in Christ not only to God himself but to others. When they bring
you before governors, our Lord said to his disciples, this will be your
opportunity to bear witness. It will be a test. Let us look on every day and
every situation of every day as such a test. Let us resolve to pass the test
with as good a result as we can. That is to say, let us trust Christ
totally.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Free man, subject yourself to a voluntary servitude, so that Jesus won't
have to say of you what we are told he said of others to Saint Teresa:
'Teresa, I wanted it... But men did not.'
(The Way, no.761)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR
LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
Drink the chalice of the Lord with affection it you wish to be His friend
and to have part with Him. Leave consolation to God; let Him do as most
pleases Him. On your part, be ready to bear sufferings and consider them the
greatest consolation, for even though you alone were to undergo them all,
the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory to
come.
When you shall have come to the point where suffering is sweet and
acceptable for the sake of Christ, then consider yourself fortunate, for you
have found paradise on earth. But as long as suffering irks you and you seek
to escape, so long will you be unfortunate, and the tribulation you seek to
evade will follow you everywhere. If you put your mind to the things you
ought to consider, that is, to suffering and death, you would soon be in a
better state and would find peace.
(Continuing)
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Nicodemus, though a sincere inquirer, and (as the event shows) a true follower of Christ, yet at first was startled at the mysteries of the Gospel. He said to Christ, “How can these things be?” [John 3: 9] He felt the temptation, and overcame it. But there are others who are altogether offended and fall away on being exposed to it; as those mentioned in the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, who went back and walked no more with Him. (JHN, from the sermon ‘The Christian Mysteries’ (1829)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Saturday of the second week of
Eastertide
Prayers today: You are a people
God claims as his own, to praise him who called you out of darkness into his
marvellous light, alleluia. (1 Peter 2:9)
God our Father, look upon us with love, you redeem us and make us your children
in Christ. Give us true freedom and bring us to the inheritance you promised. We
ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .
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Scripture today: Acts 6:1-7;
Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19; John 6:16-21
When evening came the disciples of Jesus
went down to the sea, got into a boat and went across for Capharnaum. It was now
dark, and Jesus had not yet come back to them. A strong wind blew and the sea
began to stir. They had rowed some twenty five or thirty furlongs when they saw
Jesus walking on the sea and approaching the boat. They were afraid, but he said
to them: It is I. Do not fear. Then they took him on board willingly enough and
very soon the boat reached the shore to which they were going.
(John 6:16-21)
Help in the storm
James George Janos (born July 15, 1951), better known as Jesse
Ventura, once said in a Playboy interview that "organized religion is a sham and
a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers." Ventura in a
different context explained his statement in a way that toned it down, but it is
a common perception nevertheless. Religion is a crutch―which is to say that
the persuasion that God exists and cares for us is nothing more than a
self-serving illusion with no objective reality. It is like the doll that an
elderly woman who has largely lost her mind is given to hug. The doll serves as
an illusion which consoles the woman in her wintry situation. There have been
all kinds of variants of this description of religion. Karl Marx looked on
religion as an opiate. It drugged the masses out of their constant pain in the
midst of their material oppression. They had the consoling thought of a caring
God who would reward them with heaven at the end of their hopeless trials. The
thought of God―religion―was the one thing holding their material progress
back, because it led them to accept their lot and not cast off the yoke of their
upper class oppressors. Religion was a crutch, the opium of the masses. What are
we to say of this? Well, to begin with, a crutch is what a crippled or wounded
person needs. A person who is crippled, but who thinks he is not crippled at all
and so makes no use of a crutch of some kind―he is the person who is suffering
from an illusion. I can imagine a person suffering from great pain due to an
injury, being assisted by a controlled use of opium―in the way any modern
pain-relieving medication might. For instance, in a rudimentary situation where
a leg has to be amputated, the taking of opium may be life-saving because of its
control of pain. In such a case, opium would not be an illusion. On the
contrary, it may be absolutely illusory for a person to think he can cope with
the pain unassisted. The fact is that to a fair extent, modern Western man is
under the illusion that there is no need of God, and that this world is all that
there is. The current illusion is not that there is a God who cares despite the
pain of life, but that all that is worth living for is what can be touched and
enjoyed.
This is an illusion, if only because of the ever-looming spectre of decline and
death. Man cannot rest secure if this world is all that there is. It is an
illusion to think that he can get by without any reference to the Unseen. The
plain fact is that he is extremely vulnerable. At any point in his life a storm
can arise. His health can suddenly begin to fail. He can find his work beyond
him and thereafter bringing on him various reversals. He can lose his friends
and near relations―his spouse or child could die. In a radical sense his life
is absolutely contingent. It need never have been and it can be snuffed out in
an instant. It is therefore the most rational thing of all to cry out for
assistance from the Unseen―from that which is beyond our contingent and
vulnerable world. But the marvel is that God has intervened so that we can rely
on him with the assurance of sight. God became man and dwelt among us, and, as
St John says, we saw his glory. We saw it, he said, the glory as of the
only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. In our Gospel passage
today, the disciples find themselves in a situation that exemplifies and
symbolizes the human situation. They are in a storm, and in difficulties―and
precisely in this situation they see Jesus coming toward them. “It was now dark,
and Jesus had not yet come back to them. A strong wind blew and the sea began to
stir. They had rowed some twenty five or thirty furlongs when they saw Jesus
walking on the sea and approaching the boat. They were afraid, but he said to
them: It is I. Do not fear. Then they took him on board willingly enough and
very soon the boat reached the shore to which they were going”
(John 6:16-21).
It was not an illusory crutch that they saw coming to them across the water in
the midst of the strong wind. It was not an illusory opiate being offered them.
It was an objective reality. Christ came to them across the water offering real
strength, security, consolation and safety. The result of God’s revelation is
that we now know that reality is ultimately kind, compassionate, merciful,
caring. Reality is ultimately love, so we ought turn to him and rely on him.
God, who is this love, means to take us to himself where all will be eternally
secure in his love.
Any person who feels secure while repudiating the idea of God is suffering from
an illusion. His crutch will be his limited and failing senses, and the world
which he sees and on which he depends. That will be his crutch and his opiate.
The most clear-sighted thing a man can do is acknowledge his entire dependence
on his Creator, and resolve to live in communion with him by doing his will.
There are no illusions there. The saint is the one who lives in the light,
whereas the one who is far from God dwells at most in the twilight. It is
imperative that he approach the only One who is the Light of the world and live
in his friendship.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist
(Saturday of the Second Week of Eastertide)
(April 25) Saint Mark, Evangelist
Most of what we know about Mark comes directly from the New Testament. He is
usually identified with the Mark of Acts 12:12. (When Peter escaped from
prison, he went to the home of Mark's mother.) Paul and Barnabas took him
along on the first missionary journey, but for some reason Mark returned
alone to Jerusalem. It is evident, from Paul's refusal to let Mark accompany
him on the second journey despite Barnabas's insistence, that Mark had
displeased Paul. Later, Paul asks Mark to visit him in prison so we may
assume the trouble did not last long. The oldest and the shortest of the
four Gospels, the Gospel of Mark emphasizes Jesus' rejection by humanity
while being God's triumphant envoy. Probably written for Gentile converts in
Rome—after the death of Peter and Paul sometime between A.D. 60 and
70—Mark's Gospel is the gradual manifestation of a "scandal": a crucified
Messiah. Evidently a friend of Mark (Peter called him "my son"), Peter is
only one of the Gospel sources, others being the Church in Jerusalem (Jewish
roots) and the Church at Antioch (largely Gentile). Like one other Gospel
writer, Luke, Mark was not one of the 12 apostles. We cannot be certain
whether he knew Jesus personally. Some scholars feel that the evangelist is
speaking of himself when describing the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane: "Now
a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body.
They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked" (Mark
14:51-52). Others hold Mark to be the first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt.
Venice, famous for the Piazza San Marco, claims Mark as its patron saint;
the large basilica there is believed to contain his remains. A winged lion
is Mark's symbol. The lion derives from Mark's description of John the
Baptist as a "voice of one crying out in the desert" (Mark 1:3), which
artists compared to a roaring lion. The wings come from the application of
Ezekiel's vision of four winged creatures (Ezekiel, chapter one) to the
evangelists.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: 1 Peter 5:5b-14; Psalm 89:2-3, 6-7, 16-17; Mark 16:15-20
Jesus said to the Eleven, Go into
all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and
is baptised will be
saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive
out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with
their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at
all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.
After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he
sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached
everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the
signs that accompanied it. (Mark 16:15-20)
Among the many differences that one
observes between the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ and the many
prophets who preceded him is that Jesus actively endeavoured to fill the
nation with his message. He was intensely missionary. Of course Moses,
Samuel, Isaiah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Ezechiel and the other prophets strove to
impart to the nation what God had said to them. But we do not see as a
general characteristic the prophets striving to bring their inspired
message physically to every nook and cranny of the country. We do not read
of them going from village to village, town after town, even to the farms
and homes of the
chosen people
and sending their disciples ahead of them to prepare, in order to bring the word of God to them. John the
Baptist, the greatest of the prophets, remained in a few venues and people came to him
from all over the country. They came
from all parts including Jerusalem to be baptized by him in the river
Jordan. Our Lord himself came from Galilee to be baptized by John. John,
whom our Lord called the greatest born of woman, did not go from town to
town all over the country. But we do see that very pattern in the ministry
of our Lord. In this same Gospel of St Mark we read that after
working miracles of healing in Capernaum and preaching the word to them, our
Lord was found out by Simon Peter the next morning when he was at prayer and
told that all were looking for him (1: 35-39). Did our Lord stay there and await the
country to come to him? No, he told Simon that he had to go to the other
towns and villages too, because that was why he was sent. So, we read, he
went throughout Galilee preaching in their synagogues and casting out
devils. Our Lord was constantly travelling and told one prospective disciple
that the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. He gathered his disciples
about him, the Twelve, and these he sent out ahead of him to prepare the
people before him. He was a great prophet, and a constantly itinerant one.
He was the all-consuming missionary. If we compare Jesus Christ with the
other founders of religions, it will be seen that one of his distinguishing
traits was to have been so strikingly missionary.
This same characteristic he expected
of his disciples once he had gone. The records provided by the Gospels are
very consistent in many things, including his final instructions when risen
from the dead and about to return to his heavenly Father. For instance, St
Matthew tells us that his last word was that his disciples were to go and
make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all his
commandments. He guaranteed he would be with them in their world-wide
missionary endeavour. In St Luke he tells his disciples that repentance for
the forgiveness of sins was to be preached to all the nations, and that they
were to await the coming of power from on high. In the Acts our Lord tells
them that once they received power from the Holy Spirit they would be his
witnesses to the ends of the earth. In the Gospel of St John the risen Jesus
breathes the Holy Spirit upon them and tells them that just as the Father
sent him so he is now sending them. They are being given a share in his own
mission. In our Gospel today, drawn from St Mark, our Lord tells the Eleven,
“Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” Then comes
a dire warning for all: “Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but
whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark
16:15-20). There is a tremendous note of urgency to the
missionary character of Christian discipleship. The issues are salvation and
damnation. No prophet spoke as clearly and as vividly about both heaven and
hell as did Jesus Christ. Indeed, no other founder of the great religions
spoke so clearly and insistently about these last things as did he.
Mysteriously, faith is revealed as the ticket to life everlasting — yes, a faith
that must be a living faith, yes — a faith that must show itself in obedience and
good works, but faith nevertheless. It is faith in the person and teaching
of Jesus Christ, and that this faith is a matter of duty and personal choice
is shown by its consequences. Faith in Jesus Christ is the gateway to
mankind’s salvation, and hence the Church is directed by our Lord to be
essentially and necessarily missionary.
The Gospel for today is that chosen by
the Church for the feast of St Mark on April 25. St Mark is thus proposed as
a shining example of the Church’s missionary vocation. Just as Christ
himself was essentially missionary, so must the Christian be and the entire
Church too. A Christian who fails to be missionary in his everyday life is
failing in an essential component of the Christian life. So let us then ask
ourselves, what have I yet done for Christ? What am I doing for him now?
What shall I do for him in the future? He wants me to bear witness to him
and his teaching every day. So then, let each of us resolve to do this.
(E.J.Tyler)
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An act of complete acceptance of the will of God: 'Is that what you want,
Lord?... Then, it's what I want also!'
(The Way, no.762)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
Although you were taken to the third heaven with Paul, you were not thereby
insured against suffering. Jesus said: "I will show him how great things he
must suffer for My name's sake." To suffer, then, remains your lot, if you
mean to love Jesus and serve Him forever.
If you were but worthy to suffer something for the name of Jesus, what great
glory would be in store for you, what great joy to all the saints of God,
what great edification to those about you! For all men praise patience
though there are few who wish to practise it.
(Continuing)
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Nothing can harm those who bear Christ within them.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘Christ, a Quickening Spirit’, 1831)
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Day of the Fallen
(for example, ANZAC Day, Australia―April 25)
Entrance Antiphon
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord Let them rest from their labours, for
their good deeds go with them.
Collect Almighty everlasting God, who sent your Son to
die that we might live, grant, we pray, eternal rest, to those who gave
themselves in service and sacrifice for their country. Through our Lord Jesus
Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
ANZAC Day (April 25) is a national day of remembrance in Australia and
New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to
honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought
at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all
those who died and served in military operations for their countries in all
wars. Anzac Day is also observed in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.
lick on centre arrow
Scripture today: Many suggested readings. The Gospel may be
John 12: 23-28 or John 14:23-29
Jesus
answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen,
amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it
remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever
loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve
it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there
also will my servant be. The Father will honour whoever serves me. "I am
troubled now. Yet what should I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But it
was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Then
a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it and will glorify it again."
(John 12: 23-28)
Untoward death
We tend to think that visible, apparent success is the only real
success. A person who over the years writes articles on a variety of topics, is
on this or that literature and history board, is possessed of an interesting and
prominent personality, and who after many years of recognized accomplishments is
crowned with an honorary doctorate by a sandstone university, is deemed a
“successful” person. But of course a little more careful reflection might
suggest that such success is ephemeral, or at least is not to be thought
of as necessarily greater than “success” that is out of sight. More than a
millennium before Jesus Christ an ordinary, otherwise unknown woman from the
Moabite people attached herself to her widowed mother-in-law Naomi. Her husband
and two sons were deceased (leaving no children) and Naomi was about to return
to her native Bethlehem after being away for several years. Her Moabite
daughter-in-law returned with her, in due course married Boaz and gave birth to
Obed, the grand-father of King David. That woman was Ruth (Ruth 4: 13-17). Her
ordinary, otherwise utterly unknown life attained a singular value, in that by
God’s plan, she became an ancestor of the Messiah. Value can be present without
it being seen or known. The greatest blot on human life is death. Death visits
all, and it visits a great number suddenly, ruthlessly, and in their prime of
life. A young man with a family suddenly succumbs to terminal cancer. A child is
killed by a car on the road. A young and competent soldier with family back home
is killed in combat. We look on such events as tragedies, which they are. But we
also tend to look on them as meaningless and devoid of fruitful upshot, unless
its meaning and upshot can be seen. If this were to be the case, the tragedy
would be so much the greater. But among the many things which Christ has taught
us by his teaching and example, is the fruitfulness and value of suffering and
death when borne in submission to the divine will. The “tragedy” of Christ’s
death, and its lack of apparent “success,” was the divinely-chosen path to the
most important kind of “success” that there ever could be: the glory of God and
the salvation of mankind. “Death” is now an illustrious moment filled with real
promise.
Their embrace of death in formal submission to the divine will and in union with
Jesus Christ, gives to Christ’s disciples a share in the sufferings and death of
Christ. We can intend to unite ourselves to Christ in his suffering and death,
and if we are in the state of grace we shall share in his sufferings, and in
their fruitfulness. But we ought not restrict the possibility of a share in the
death of Christ to the possession of this formal Christian intention. For
instance, the Church every year celebrates the Holy Innocents as martyrs of
Jesus Christ. They had no idea of their coming death, and had no idea of the
reason for their murder. They lacked a formal intention of submission to the
divine will and of being in union with Jesus Christ in his sufferings―but
nevertheless they shared in its meaning and fruitfulness, but in a way beyond
ordinary sight and comprehension. They died because of hatred for Jesus Christ
by others, and because of that are honoured by the Church―and therefore by
heaven―as sharing in the redemptive value of Christ’s death. The point I am
making is that by dying, Christ gave to death a new potential, a new and
unimagined fruitfulness known to God and unseen by man. Just as we cannot
calculate the degree of fruitfulness of this transformation of death by Christ
having died for us, so we ought not forget the extent to which the ordinary and
common man, by his dying, may be able to share in the sufferings and death of
Jesus Christ. His submission to the will of God may be implicit, ill-formed,
somewhat rudimentary, marred by sin, enmeshed in moral compromises, but still
there to a point. By God’s mercy, the sufferings and death that visit him may
enable, to a greater or lesser degree as the case may be, his participation in
the fruitfulness of the death of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world.
Indeed, his seemingly sorry death may give to an obscure “no-body” a value he
never had in his life―precisely because of the limitless fruitfulness of the
death of Jesus Christ his Saviour. This hope-filled consideration based on the
person and work of Jesus Christ brings us to the thought of so many who have
lost their young lives in war, defending their country. Perhaps they had no
choice in their deaths―but neither did the Holy Innocents. Of course, the Holy
Innocents were innocent of personal sin. Nevertheless, the redemptive Passion,
Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ casts a new light on all such tragedies.
Perhaps the most singular feature of human life in the course of history is
precisely its untimely and tragic loss. In every era, great numbers are, as we
might say, swept out to sea never to be seen again―the “sea” being an image of
the multitude of life’s adverse circumstances. In our Gospel today
(John 12: 23-28), Christ speaks of the
life-giving power of death: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat
falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies,
it produces much fruit.” What are we to think of the death, say, of those
countless men fallen in defence of their country? The suffering and death of
Jesus Christ gives us hope that their deaths may have possessed a special
fruitfulness. Death has a certain glow, known to God, now that Christ has passed
through its gate. Christ has transformed everything, including the ogre of death.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Prayers this week: Let all the
earth cry to God with joy; praise the glory of his name; proclaim his
glorious praise, alleluia.
(Psalm 65: 1-2)
God our Father, may we look forward with hope to our resurrection, for
you have made us your sons and daughters, and restored the joy of our youth.
We ask
this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy
Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
(April 26) St. Pedro de San José Betancur
(1626-1667)
Central America can claim its first saint with the July 30 canonization of
Pedro de Betancur by Pope John Paul II in Guatemala
City.
Known as the "St. Francis of the Americas," Pedro de Betancur is the first
saint to have worked and died in Guatemala. Calling the new saint an
“outstanding example” of Christian mercy, the Holy Father noted that St.
Pedro practiced mercy “heroically with the lowliest and the most deprived.”
Speaking to the estimated 500,000 Guatemalans in attendance, the Holy Father
spoke of the social ills that plague the country today and of the need for
change. “Let us think of the children and young people who are homeless or
deprived of an education; of abandoned women with their many needs; of the
hordes of social outcasts who live in the cities; of the victims of
organized crime, of prostitution or of drugs; of the sick who are neglected
and the elderly who live in loneliness,” he said in his homily during the
three-hour liturgy. Pedro very much wanted to become a priest, but God had
other plans for the young man born into a poor family on Tenerife in the
Canary Islands. Pedro was a shepherd until age 24, when he began to make his
way to Guatemala, hoping to connect with a relative engaged in government
service there. By the time he reached Havana, he was out of money. After
working there to earn more, he got to Guatemala City the following year.
When he arrived he was so destitute that he joined the bread line which the
Franciscans had established. Soon, Pedro enrolled in the local Jesuit
college in hopes of studying for the priesthood. No matter how hard he
tried, however, he could not master the material; he withdrew from school.
In 1655 he joined the Secular Franciscan Order. Three years later he opened
a hospital for the convalescent poor; a shelter for the homeless and a
school for the poor soon followed. Not wanting to neglect the rich of
Guatemala City, Pedro began walking through their part of town ringing a
bell and inviting them to repent. Other men came to share in Pedro's work.
Soon they became the Bethlehemite Congregation, which went on to earn
official papal approval after Pedro's death. He is sometimes credited with
originating the Christmas Eve posadas procession in which people
representing Mary and Joseph seek a night's lodging from their neighbours.
The custom soon spread to Mexico and other Central American countries. Pedro
was beatified in 1980. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture: Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; Psalm
4:2, 4, 7-9; 1 John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-48
Then the two told what had happened
on the way, and how Jesus was recognised by them when he broke the bread.
While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and
said to them, Peace be with you. They were startled and
frightened, thinking
they saw a ghost. He said to them, Why are you troubled, and why do doubts
rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me
and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have. When he
had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did
not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, Do you have
anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it
and ate it in their presence. He said to them, This is what I told you while
I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me
in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds
so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, This is what is
written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and
repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all
nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
(Luke 24:35-48)
We read in the first book of Samuel
(28: 9-19) that near the end of his career King Saul approached the woman (a
witch, she is often translated as) at En-dor, and asked her to summon up a
ghost he would nominate to tell him his future. Saul was violating his own
religious laws that indicted all fortune telling and dealing with spirits — indicating, incidentally, the condemnation of all such practices by Old
Testament religion. With a sworn guarantee to her of secrecy, Saul directed
her to summon up the ghost of Samuel. Accordingly the ghost of Samuel was
called forth from his abode. The ghost of Samuel came forth from below to
predict that Saul would be with him in Hades on the morrow because of his
disobedience. This, incidentally, is one of the many Old Testament texts
that testify to the Afterlife and to the Judgment of God. It is not, though,
a text that testifies to the resurrection of the body. Moreover, the state
of Samuel as he appears to Saul is shadowy. Samuel tells Saul he has
disturbed his “rest”, as if it is a kind of repose from which he has just
been disturbed. But one does not get the impression of the spirit of Samuel
enjoying abundant life. That Saul will soon be with him itself suggests
little that discriminates between the states of the just and the wicked in
this Afterlife. In fact, not very much is revealed to us of the Afterlife in
the Old Testament. Though the fact of it is indisputably a revealed
teaching, that teaching is shown in process of development. God when
speaking to Moses from the Burning Bush had told him he was the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — indicating, as our Lord pointed out, that these
three patriarchs were alive because God is the God of living persons. Elijah
had gone up to heaven, and was predicted in some sense to return. As we read
in the Book of Maccabees, offerings were made to pray for the dead that they
might be released from their sins. In the Book of Wisdom the virtuous man,
though he die before his time, will find rest in God, and he will live
forever in recompense. The godless will be judged for their sins. So the
broad lines of the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead are revealed,
but dimly.
All is changed with the great fact
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He was a great prophet,
mighty in word and in work, revealing himself to be truly man of course, but
also the divine Son of the eternal Father. He lived as man, suffered and
died as man, and then rose from the dead in his manhood. He came back from
the dead not as Samuel did. There was no mistaking the ghost of Samuel. He
did not come back in his body. When our Lord rose from the dead we see two
kinds of response. Those who entered into conversation with him before
having been introduced formally had no doubt that they were talking to
someone in the flesh. For instance, when at the tomb Mary Magdalene began
talking to the one she thought was the gardener, she had no doubt that he
was a living man. So too when the two disciples met Jesus on the road to
Emmaus later that same Easter Sunday morning. They discussed at length with
him the meaning of the Scriptures. It was only later that they saw it was
Jesus who had been speaking to them. When our Lord appeared to the Eleven
that evening at first they thought they were seeing a ghost
(Luke 24:35-48). But he soon dispelled
such thoughts. They heard him, saw him, felt him, touched him, watched him
eat, and entered into joyful conversation with him. These were men who had
been persistently sceptical of all they had been told by eye-witnesses.
Christ had come back from the dead not as a ghost might but in his body. The
resurrection of the body was now a cardinal belief of the Christian
religion. Those who believed in Jesus, who shared his Spirit, and who lived
and died in union with him, would share in his resurrection in the body. The
body of the risen Jesus was his same body, but now glorified. It was now in
no way subject to anything leading to or indicative of death and its
limitations. It was not a return to earthly life as was the resurrection of
Lazarus from the dead, or as was the son of the widow of Nain. In his risen
body Christ lived the divine life of glory and so transcended the conditions
of this life. He appeared, he vanished, and he ascended into heaven in his
body. If we live and die in Jesus we shall share in his resurrection of the
body. In our bodies we shall share in his glory.
Every Sunday at Mass we all recite
the Nicene Creed. Frequently in our private prayer — such as at the
beginning of the Rosary — we recite the Apostles Creed. In these Creeds we
profess our faith in the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. We are
professing our firm hope, based on our faith in Christ, that we shall share
in the resurrection of Christ in his body. He rose from the dead in his body
to a glorified life. In his body, the same body in which he suffered and
died, he was in glory. As glorified he appeared in his body to his
disciples. All this we shall share in, if we believe in Jesus and live in a
manner consistent with this belief. Let us place our faith in him, then, and
live this faith in all the details of everyday life.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church,
no.645-646
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Don't hesitate: let your lips pronounce a heartfelt Fiat, 'be it done!',
which will be the crown of your sacrifice.
(The Way, no.763)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
With good reason, then, ought you to be willing to suffer a little for
Christ since many suffer much more for the world.
Realize that you must lead a dying life; the more a man dies to himself, the
more he begins to live unto God.
No man is fit to enjoy heaven unless he has resigned himself to suffer
hardship for Christ. Nothing is more acceptable to God, nothing more helpful
for you on this earth than to suffer willingly for Christ. If you had to
make a choice, you ought to wish rather to suffer for Christ than to enjoy
many consolations, for thus you would be more like Christ and more like all
the saints. Our merit and progress consist not in many pleasures and
comforts but rather in enduring great afflictions and sufferings.
(Continuing)
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In this 1835 sermon, John Henry Newman tells his hearers that the Christian religion
consists in two things: believing in what God has revealed, and doing his
will. We achieve this, Newman goes on, through Christ, who shows us both who
God is, and how we should live our lives:
“Hereby do we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” [1 John
2: 3] [...]
To
know God is life eternal, and to believe in the Gospel manifestation of Him
is to know Him; but how are we to “know that we know Him?” How are we to be
sure that we are not mistaking some dream of our own for the true and clear
Vision? How can we tell we are not like gazers upon a distant prospect
through a misty atmosphere, who mistake one object for another? The text
answers us clearly and intelligibly; though some Christians have recourse to
other proofs of it, or will not have patience to ask themselves the
question. They say they are quite certain that they have true faith; for
faith carries with it its own evidence, and admits of no mistaking, the true
spiritual conviction being unlike all others. On the other hand, St. John
says, “Hereby do we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
Obedience is the test of Faith.
Thus the whole duty and work of a Christian is made up of these two parts,
Faith and Obedience; “looking unto Jesus,” [Heb. 12: 2] the Divine Object as
well as Author of our faith, and acting according to His will. [...]
St. John speaks of knowing Christ and of keeping His commandments, as the
two great departments of religious duty and blessedness. To know Christ is
(as I have said) to discern the Father of all, as manifested through His
Only-begotten Son Incarnate. In the natural world we have glimpses, frequent
and startling, of His glorious Attributes; of His power, wisdom, and
goodness; of His holiness, His fearful judgments, His long remembrance of
evil, His long-suffering towards sinners, and His strange encompassing mercy
at times when we least looked for it. But to us mortals, who live for a day,
and see but an arm’s length, such disclosures are like reflections of a
prospect in a broken mirror; they do not enable us in any comfortable sense
to know God. They are such as faith may use indeed, but hardly enjoy.
This then was one among the benefits of Christ’s coming, that the Invisible
God was then revealed in the form and history of man, revealed in those
respects in which sinners most required to know Him, and nature spoke least
distinctly, as a Holy yet Merciful Governor of His creatures. And thus the
Gospels, which contain the memorials of this wonderful grace, are our
principal treasures. They may be called the text of the Revelation; and the
Epistles, especially St. Paul’s, are as comments upon it, unfolding and
illustrating it in its various parts, raising history into doctrine,
ordinances into sacraments, detached words or actions into principles, and
thus everywhere dutifully preaching His Person, work, and will. St. John is
both Prophet and Evangelist, recording and commenting on the Ministry of his
Lord. Still, in every case, He [Christ] is the chief Prophet of the Church,
and His Apostles do but explain His words and actions; according to His own
account of the guidance promised to them, that it should “glorify” Him. The
like service is ministered to Him by the Creeds and doctrinal expositions of
the early Church, which we retain in our Services. They speak of no ideal
being, such as the imagination alone contemplates, but of the very Son of
God, whose life is recorded in the Gospels. Thus every part of the
Dispensation tends to the manifestation of Him who is its centre.
Turning from Him to ourselves, we find a short rule given us, “If ye love
Me, keep My commandments.” [John 14: 15] “He that saith he abideth in Him,
ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” [1 John 2: 6] “If ye then
be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ
sitteth on the right hand of God.” [Col. 3: 1] This is all that is put upon
us, difficult indeed to perform, but easy to understand; all that is put
upon us,—and for this plain reason, because Christ has done everything else.
He has freely chosen us, died for us, regenerated us, and now ever liveth
for us; what remains? Simply that we should do as He has done to us, showing
forth His glory by good works.
Thus a correct (or as we commonly call it), an orthodox faith and an
obedient life, is the whole duty of man. And so, most surely, it has ever
been accounted. Look into the records of the early Church, or into the
writings of our own revered bishops and teachers, and see whether this is
not the sum total of religion, according to the symbols of it in which
children are catechized, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten
Commandments. (JHN, from the sermon ‘Saving Knowledge’, 1835)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Monday of the third week in Eastertide
(April 27) St. Louis Mary de Montfort (1673-1716)
Louis's life is inseparable from his efforts to promote genuine devotion to
Mary, the mother of Jesus and mother of the
Church.Totus tuus(completely
yours) was Louis's personal motto; Karol Wojtyla chose it as his episcopal
motto. Born in the Breton village of Montfort, close to Rennes (France), as
an adult Louis identified himself by the place of his Baptism instead of his
family name, Grignion. After being educated by the Jesuits and the
Sulpicians, he was ordained as a diocesan priest in 1700. Soon he began
preaching parish missions throughout western France. His years of
ministering to the poor prompted him to travel and live very simply,
sometimes getting him into trouble with Church authorities. In his
preaching, which attracted thousands of people back to the faith, Father
Louis recommended frequent, even daily, Holy Communion (not the custom
then!) and imitation of the Virgin Mary's ongoing acceptance of God's will
for her life. Louis founded the Missionaries of the Company of Mary (for
priests and brothers) and the Daughters of Wisdom, who cared especially for
the sick. His book, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, has become a
classic explanation of Marian devotion. Louis died in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre,
where a basilica has been erected in his honour. He was canonized in 1947.
“Mary is the fruitful Virgin, and in all the souls in which she comes to
dwell she causes to flourish purity of heart and body, rightness of
intention and abundance of good works. Do not imagine that Mary, the most
fruitful of creatures who gave birth to a God, remains barren in a faithful
soul. It will be she who makes the soul live incessantly for Jesus Christ,
and will make Jesus live in the soul” (True Devotion to the Blessed
Virgin). (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 6:8-15;
Psalm 119:23-24, 26-27, 29-30; John 6:22-29
The next day the crowd that had
stayed on the opposite shore of the lake realised that only one boat had
been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples, but that
they had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the
place
where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.
Once the crowd realised that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there,
they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. When they
found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, Rabbi, when did you
get here? Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not
because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your
fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal
life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed
his seal of approval. Then they asked him, What must we do to do the works
God requires? Jesus answered, The work of God is this: to believe in the one
he has sent. (John 6:22-29)
Years ago there was a well-known
personality in public affairs, an acquaintance of whom I happened to meet years
later. I asked how that person was going spiritually. He said in
reply that he was not “working on it.” He meant that he was not
“working” at growing in his
religious faith
— he was working at other
things, but not on that. It was a good way of putting it, because our
religious faith has to be worked at if it is to grow. It will not grow
naturally — and here I am talking of a dogmatic religion, one founded on and
nourished by religious dogma, the doctrine of Christ as enunciated by the
teaching Church. There are many who have been given a religious upbringing
by their parents. They have been instructed in the Christian faith and its
doctrines. They were raised in the practice of the Christian faith by being
taken to Mass and church on Sundays. But they then fell away and lost their
Christian faith. At times the comment made on this falling away is that it
is proof that the Church is not being effective in getting its message
across. But if a person is to remain faithful to religion it requires that
he himself be working at it, and working at it all his life for it is easy
to begin falling away. That falling away begins when we cease working on it.
It is precisely this which our Lord refers to in our Gospel passage today.
He was being chased by the people after having worked the miracle of the
loaves. But he had no illusions about this. They were clamouring for him
because they had been fed the day before. The implication was that they were
seeking him for the material benefits they could get from him. But what they
should have been doing is working for the food that would give them eternal
life. So they asked him, What work does God require? “Jesus answered, The
work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent”
(John 6:22-29).
How, then, do we engage in this work
of belief in Jesus? Firstly, we have to be working at it every day of our
lives. The work of faith is not like a hobby or personal interest that we
can take up or leave aside as the feeling comes and goes. If I have an
interest in painting as a youth, but then leave it aside for years because
of other commitments or interests, this ultimately does not matter because
my life does not depend on it. But there is an interesting feature of even
this which ought be noted. If I have a love for painting and some talent for
it and then leave it aside for some years, I may well find that when I
eventually turn to it again, any real interest has gone. I do not have
sufficient interest any more to make the necessary effort to regain my
facility for it. I once was interested, but having left it aside, I find I
no longer have any real interest. So it can be, but in a far more serious
sense, with the life of religion. I may have been somewhat interested in
religion once — say, when I was living with my parents and family and school
— but when I left that environment I became interested in other things and
my spiritual interest in religion began to be seriously neglected. I no
longer worked on it, and my interest faded away. Later when I come to think
of religion again, I find my interest has gone. That is to say, my faith has
died. I have turned away from Christ and I see that I am no longer
interested in him. The point here is that I must, as a matter of urgency,
work on my religious faith every day of my life. I must not neglect it for a
single day. My eternal prospects depend on my life of faith. It is the work
of my life. What are the means of prosecuting this work? To begin with, I
must have a plan of life involving spiritual work, and then I must keep to
that plan. Every day I must put time into prayer, generally set times of
prayer so that my prayer life each day is not subject to the whims of the
moment. I should do a little spiritual reading every day. For the Catholic
he must never miss his Sunday Mass. He must receive the Sacrament of
Reconciliation regularly. He
ought receive regular advice from a prudent spiritual director.
Hearing our Lord’s words in today’s
Gospel passage let us take up the great work of life: growing in a deep and
strong faith in Jesus Christ. This faith must show itself in obedience to
his commandments and in active love for him, manifested in daily prayer and
the fulfilment of the duties of one’s state in life. The purpose of life is
to attain genuine sanctity, which is to say to grow in the love of God. This
is the great work ahead for all. Let us all get to work, then!
(E.J.Tyler)
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The closer an apostle is to God, the more universal his desires. His heart
expands and takes in everybody and everything in its longing to lay the
universe at the feet of Jesus.
(The Way, no.764)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK TWO: THE INTERIOR LIFE
The twelfth chapter
THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE HOLY CROSS
If, indeed, there were anything better or more useful for man's salvation
than suffering, Christ would have shown it by word and example. But He
clearly exhorts the disciples who follow Him and all who wish to follow Him
to carry the cross, saying: "If any man will come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me."
When, therefore, we have read and searched all that has been written, let
this be the final conclusion -- that through much suffering we must enter
into the kingdom of God.
(Concluded)
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Faith
only can introduce us to the unseen Presence of God; let us venture to
believe, let us make trial before we see, and the evidence which others
demand before believing, we shall gain more abundantly by believing.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘The Gospel Sign Addressed to Faith’ (1837)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Tuesday of the third week in Eastertide
(April 28) St. Peter Chanel (1803-1841)
Anyone who has worked in loneliness, with great adaptation required and with
little apparent success, will find a kindred spirit in Peter Chanel. As a
young priest he revived a parish in a "bad" district by the simple method of
showing great devotion to the sick. Wanting to be a missionary, he joined
the Society of Mary (Marists) at 28. Obediently, he taught in the seminary
for five years. Then, as superior of seven Marists, he travelled to Western
Oceania where he was entrusted with a vicariate. The bishop accompanying the
missionaries left Peter and a brother on Futuna Island in the New Hebrides,
promising to return in six months. The interval lasted five years. Meanwhile
he struggled with this new language and mastered it, making the difficult
adjustment to life with whalers, traders and warring natives. Despite little
apparent success and severe want, he maintained a serene and gentle spirit
and endless patience and courage. A few natives had been baptized, a few
more were being instructed. When the chieftain's son asked to be baptized,
persecution by the chieftain reached a climax. Father Chanel was clubbed to
death, his body cut to pieces. Within two years after his death, the whole
island became Catholic and has remained so. Peter Chanel is the first martyr
of Oceania and its patron.
"No one is a martyr for a conclusion, no one is a martyr for
an opinion; it is faith that makes martyrs" (Cardinal Newman, Discourses
to Mixed Congregations). (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture: Acts 7:51 — 8:1a; Psalm
31:3cd-4, 6 and 7b and 8a, 17 and 21ab; John 6:30-35
So they asked Jesus, What miraculous
sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you
do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave
them bread from heaven to eat.' Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, it
is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father
who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who
comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Sir, they said, from now
on give us this bread. Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. He who
comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be
thirsty. (John 6:30-35)
One gets the impression that modern
man tends to discount miracles. I speak of modern secular man. He is not
particularly interested in miracles and discounts their likelihood. If the
topic of the canonization of saints comes up and the requirement of
authenticated miracles, the subject tends to be regarded as a little absurd.
If it is explained that the Church in requiring a miracle is requiring a
sign from God that her investigation into the sanctity of a person’s life
has a divine warrant, still the miracle itself tends to be discounted. It is
regarded as unreal and in any case beside the point. The point is the
person’s goodness of life — and this emphasis, of course, the Church agrees with, while
requiring the miracle nevertheless. The important point is indeed the
goodness and virtue of a person and his credibility derives primarily from
this. But a prejudice against miracles prevents a person from appreciating
the full action of God in revealed religion and at times in the world. In
fact God worked miracles then and he has continued to do so to our day. The
Jews expected miracles to authenticate prophetic action — not necessarily,
but often so. For instance, when Elijah confronted the four hundred prophets
of Ba’al he proposed a contest. He and they, beginning with them, would
offer sacrifice to their respective gods, and the sacrifice that was
accepted by fire from heaven would manifest which god was the true God. We
remember what happened. The sacrifice of the prophets of Ba’al remained
unconsumed, whereas the sacrifice of Elijah was instantly consumed by fire
from heaven. It was a miracle that authenticated the claims of the prophet
Elijah. But miracles were not always given. The greatest of the prophets,
John the Baptist, worked no miracle. But here we have in our Gospel passage
the people asking our Lord to prove his claims with a miracle. They pointed
to the miracle of the manna in the desert by means of which God fed his
people in the wilderness. Our Lord worked many miracles, but he used their
request to point to the greatest of all miracles, the coming of himself
among them.
In fact, miracles alone will not
bring religious conviction. They do not bring religious conviction to modern
man who remains sceptical about them, and they did not necessarily bring
conviction in our Lord’s day. We only have to think of the response of the
scribes and Pharisees in our Lord’s day to the miracles they saw and heard
of him working. On one occasion a paralysed man was lowered in front of our
Lord for his healing. This was in the presence of his enemies the Pharisees.
The first thing our Lord did was forgive his sins. Then, by way of proof for
his authority to do this, he healed the man of his paralysis. What did the
scribes and Pharisees do? They began to plot his elimination because he had
presumed to forgive sins. No account was taken of the miracle before their
eyes. So miracles alone do not convince. In fact, very little will convince
if a person is not open to conviction. But in our Gospel passage today our
Lord in response to the request of the people for a miraculous sign, points
to himself. “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and
believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert
... Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given
you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread
from heaven.... Sir, they said, from now on give us this bread. Then Jesus
declared, I am the bread of life” (John 6:30-35).
He himself is the greatest sign of all, the greatest miracle. His goodness
and holiness of life ought be convincing to the properly disposed person,
even though he worked numerous miracles to manifest even more the nature of
his person. We remember how our Lord, having been baptised by John and soon
to begin his public ministry, was followed by two of John’s disciples. Jesus
stopped, invited them to accompany him and they stayed with him that day.
That proved to be enough for them. They had spent time with him, they had
come to know him, and they believed. There were no miracles at this point,
but they had come to believe.
Christ is our bread of life. He is
the one who has come down from heaven for our sakes. The most important
thing we can do is spend time with him in faith. If we spend time with him
in daily prayer and suitable spiritual reading, if we listen with a docile
spirit to the preaching, the teaching and the witness of the Church about
Jesus our Lord, then we shall grow in a deeper and deeper faith in him.
Christ himself ought be the object of our life’s contemplation. He is the
bread of life who has come down from heaven to give life to the world. Let
us truly believe, then!
(E.J.Tyler)
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So much do I love your will, my God, that heaven itself, without your will —
if such an absurdity could be — I would not accept.
(The Way, no.765)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK THREE INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The First Chapter
THE INWARD CONVERSATION OF CHRIST WITH THE FAITHFUL
SOUL
I WILL hear what the Lord God will speak in me."
Blessed is the soul who hears the Lord speaking within her, who receives the
word of consolation from His lips. Blessed are the ears that catch the
accents of divine whispering, and pay no heed to the murmurings of this
world. Blessed indeed are the ears that listen, not to the voice which
sounds without, but to the truth which teaches within. Blessed are the eyes
which are closed to exterior things and are fixed upon those which are
interior. Blessed are they who penetrate inwardly, who try daily to prepare
themselves more and more to understand mysteries. Blessed are they who long
to give their time to God, and who cut themselves off from the hindrances of
the world.
(Continuing)
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Faith
only can introduce us to the unseen Presence of God; let us venture to
believe, let us make trial before we see, and the evidence which others
demand before believing, we shall gain more abundantly by believing.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘The Gospel
Sign Addressed to Faith’ 1837)
It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing judgment on the things which come before us. No sooner do we apprehend than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare, contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, classify: and we view all our knowledge in the associations with which these processes have invested it. (JHN, from An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1845)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Wednesday of the third week in Eastertide I
(April 29) Saint Catherine of Siena, virgin and doctor of the Church
(1347-1380)
The value Catherine makes central in her
short life and which sounds clearly and consistently through her experience
is
complete surrender to Christ. What is most impressive about her is that
she learns to view her surrender to her Lord as a goal to be reached through
time. She was the 23rd child of Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa and grew up as an
intelligent, cheerful and intensely religious person. Catherine disappointed
her mother by cutting off her hair as a protest against being overly
encouraged to improve her appearance in order to attract a husband. Her
father ordered her to be left in peace and she was given a room of her own
for prayer and meditation. She entered the Dominican Third Order at 18 and
spent the next three years in seclusion, prayer and austerity. Gradually a
group of followers gathered around her—men and women, priests and religious.
An active public apostolate grew out of her contemplative life. Her letters,
mostly for spiritual instruction and encouragement of her followers, began
to take more and more note of public affairs. Opposition and slander
resulted from her mixing fearlessly with the world and speaking with the
candour and authority of one completely committed to Christ. She was cleared
of all charges at the Dominican General Chapter of 1374. Her public
influence reached great heights because of her evident holiness, her
membership in the Dominican Third Order, and the deep impression she made on
the pope. She worked tirelessly for the crusade against the Turks and for
peace between Florence and the pope. In 1378, the Great Schism began,
splitting the allegiance of Christendom between two, then three, popes and
putting even saints on opposing sides. Catherine spent the last two years of
her life in Rome, in prayer and pleading on behalf of the cause of Urban VI
and the unity of the Church. She offered herself as a victim for the Church
in its agony. She died surrounded by her "children." Catherine ranks high
among the mystics and spiritual writers of the Church. In 1970 Paul VI named
her and Teresa of Avila as doctors of the Church. In recent years, it has
been suggested that she (among other possibilities) should be named patron
of the Internet. Her spiritual testament is found in The Dialogue.
Catherine's book Dialogue contains four treatises—her
testament of faith to the spiritual world. She wrote, "No one should judge
that he has greater perfection because he performs great penances and gives
himself in excess to the staying of the body than he who does less, inasmuch
as neither virtue nor merit consists therein; for otherwise he would be an
evil case, who for some legitimate reason was unable to do actual penance.
Merit consists in the virtue of love alone, flavoured with the light of true
discretion without which the soul is worth nothing." (AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 8:1b-8;
Psalm 66:1-7a; John 6:35-40
Then Jesus declared, I am the bread
of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me
will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do
not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes
to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my
will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who
sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them
up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the
Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at
the last day. (John 6:35-40)
As we look out on the universe and
on the history of mankind we see a stupendous and vast fact: it is the sheer
fact of the world. I remember years ago watching a movie, and in the movie a
child asked his mother, Why isn’t there nothing? Indeed. Why isn’t there
nothing at all? The mere fact that things come and go in their life and
being shows that they need not be. I remember one very good priest I knew
who lived his working life in Australia but died in Spain. Just before he
died he said he was grateful for the
gift of life. He knew he need not have
been at all. None of us need be, and we know that from the mere fact that
not long ago we did not exist. The same thing is to be said of every other item
in the universe — all things come to be and pass away. In their nature and
existence they are beholden to forces other than themselves. The universe in
its being, made up as it is of transient realities, is itself essentially
transient. But the stupendous thing about it is that it actually exists. The
universe, though it is in no way necessary, is a vast fact. Sadly, though, it is a
fact that will pass away. Death follows the blessing of life, and corruption
follows the blessing of wholeness. God has revealed why this is so — it is
ultimately due to sin. There is another fundamental feature about man and
his world which has been revealed to us by God. It is that we are faced not
only with life and then death, but an with an even more serious prospect. It
is that of either salvation or damnation. We cannot avoid one or the other.
Ultimately each of us will be saved or damned, and forever. What could be
more pressing than that every day we be on the path to salvation? This is the
path through and beyond the sad fact of death and corruption which follows
the wondrous fact of life and being. What could be more sad and
catastrophic than, following life, to be submerged in death and to pass from
there to damnation forever? The key just must be found to the attainment of
life beyond death. If there is no key to be found then the philosophers
(like Satre) proclaiming the absurdity of life are discovered thereby to be
correct. All is absurd.
Fortunately there is a key and it is
proclaimed by Jesus Christ. It is, he says, to believe in him. It is as
simple as that, provided we take it all in as he meant it. He has come to
save all, all of mankind. There is a path to ultimate security, only one
path, and it has been made abundantly clear what that path is. Let us listen
again to what he tells us in our Gospel today. “I have come down from heaven
not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the
will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me,
but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who
looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day” (John 6:35-40).
Facing each person is the prospect of being lost, or of being saved. Of
ourselves, we would be lost. We do not have the power to save ourselves from
our sinful condition. We are born in sin and we are subject to its power, a
power that leads to death — not just the oblivion of natural death following
the blessing of life, but a second death that is definitive, eternal. What a
terrible predicament we are revealed to be in! It is due to the sin of man — his original sin in the beginning, and his personal sins during life. But a
grand blessing has come. The Creator has sent his divine Son to be man’s
salvation, and the key is to turn to him and believe in him. He who believes
in me, Christ told his disciples, will be saved, and the one who knowingly
refuses to believe in me, will be lost. He himself is intent on saving all.
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who
believes in me will never be thirsty... All that the Father gives me will
come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” Jesus Christ
is the only way to the Father: “No one comes to the Father except through
me”, he told his disciples. As Peter said to the Sanhedrin, there is no
other name by which men may be saved, than the name of Jesus Christ. There
we have the key to the most serious issue facing every man and woman, and
all of humanity.
The issue facing all of us is
salvation or damnation, and the key to salvation is Jesus Christ. The one
thing necessary we must do every day is place our faith in Jesus Christ — the living, risen Jesus
— and live our daily life in a way consonant with
that belief. It means keeping his commandments and striving to grow in a
personal love for and following of him. Let us be clear-sighted then and
never allow ourselves to stray from the one thing necessary. So then, let
each of us say to ourselves, Now I begin!
(E.J.Tyler)
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Abandonment to the will of God is the secret of happiness on earth. Say,
then: meus cibus est, ut faciam voluntatem ejus, my food is to do his
will.
(The Way, no.766)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK THREE INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The First Chapter
THE INWARD CONVERSATION OF CHRIST WITH THE FAITHFUL
SOUL
Consider these things, my soul, and close the door of your senses, so that
you can hear what the Lord your God speaks within you. "I am your
salvation," says your Beloved. "I am your peace and your life. Remain with
Me and you will find peace. Dismiss all passing things and seek the eternal.
What are all temporal things but snares? And what help will all creatures be
able to give you if you are deserted by the Creator?" Leave all these
things, therefore, and make yourself pleasing and faithful to your Creator
so that you may attain to true happiness.
(Concluded)
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The opposition between Faith and Reason takes place in two
ways, when either of the two encroaches upon the province of the other.
(JHN, from the University sermon ‘The Usurpations of Reason’, 1831)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Thursday of the third week in Eastertide
(April 30) St. Pius V (1504-1572)
This is the pope whose job was to implement the historic Council of Trent.
If we think recent popes have had difficulties in implementing Vatican
Council II, Pius V had even greater problems after that historic council
more than four centuries ago. During
his papacy (1566-1572), Pius V was
faced with the almost overwhelming responsibility of getting a shattered and
scattered Church back on its feet. The family of God had been shaken by
corruption, by the Reformation, by the constant threat of Turkish invasion
and by the bloody bickering of the young nation-states. In 1545 a previous
pope convened the Council of Trent in an attempt to deal with all these
pressing problems. Off and on over 18 years, the Church Fathers discussed,
condemned, affirmed and decided upon a course of action. The Council closed
in 1563. Pius V was elected in 1566 and was charged with the task of
implementing the sweeping reforms called for by the Council. He ordered the
founding of seminaries for the proper training of priests. He published a
new missal, a new breviary, a new catechism and established the
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) classes for the young. Pius
zealously enforced legislation against abuses in the Church. He patiently
served the sick and the poor by building hospitals, providing food for the
hungry and giving money customarily used for the papal banquets to poor
Roman converts. His decision to keep wearing his Dominican habit led to the
custom of the pope wearing a white cassock. In striving to reform both
Church and state, Pius encountered vehement opposition from England's Queen
Elizabeth and the Roman Emperor Maximilian II. Problems in France and in the
Netherlands also hindered Pius's hopes for a Europe united against the
Turks. Only at the last minute was he able to organize a fleet which won a
decisive victory in the Gulf of Lepanto, off Greece, on October 7, 1571.
Pius's ceaseless papal quest for a renewal of the Church was grounded in his
personal life as a Dominican friar. He spent long hours with his God in
prayer, fasted rigorously, deprived himself of many customary papal luxuries
and faithfully observed the Dominican Rule and its spirit.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 8:26-40; Psalm
66:8-9, 16-17, 20; John 6:44-51
Jesus said, No-one can come to me
unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last
day. It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.'
Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. No-one
has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the
Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the
bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.
But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and
not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of
this bread, he will live for ever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world. (John 6:44-51)
One of the most curious features of
the history of human thought and culture is the extraordinary diversity of
notions and images of the numinous. Compare the images and notions of the
Dreaming in Australian Aboriginal religion with the myths and rituals of the
tribes of the North American Red Indians. Compare the African Nuer or Massai
religions with that of the New Zealand Maoris. Compare the various religions
of classical times — those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome. This is not
to speak of the profusion of philosophical notions on the nature of the
Absolute that has studded human thought. The peoples of the world typically
agree that there is more to reality than the material and visible and that
higher powers are involved in the course of the world. But this phenomenon
of diversity in myth, ritual and religion also suggests a radical ignorance
of the nature of what we might call the Absolute. Whatever it is that is
the Ultimate in reality, its nature seems to have defied the common comprehension of
man. That there is an Absolute — be it one or many — is affirmed by the
religious life of man and his cultures. Man is convinced of the fact of the Beyond, but its
nature has eluded the consensus of the family of man. So with his
imagination and ritual he gropes along within the limits of the experience
and resources of his society and age. He longs to see and know the Final
Term and Source of everything, but he cannot. God dwells in inaccessible
light which for man is impenetrable darkness. Into this confused pattern of religious endeavour has
beamed a great Light coming from above. There has been a divine revelation
letting man know something true about God and of his plan for the world. But
there is more. God himself has come among us such that all men can now see
him, at least through the medium and witness of those who did see him. The
Ultimate has been encountered in history by ordinary people. God the Son became truly man. He showed us
that he came from the Father, from the Absolute and the Ultimate, from the
Origin and the End, and that he knew him first-hand and face to face. He had
seen him. No one else had in the history of the world, only he. He had seen
the Father because he is the Father's own Son.
This is what our Lord tells his
hearers in today’s Gospel. “No-one has seen the Father except the one who is
from God; only he has seen the Father”. The way our Lord constantly referred
to the Father illustrates this. Accused of violating the Sabbath he said, My
Father is working, so I work too. So unique was the sense conveyed by this
utterance that the Jewish leaders attempted to stone him for it because he
was making God out to be his very own father, and so making himself equal to
God. He drove the businesses out of the Temple, saying that the Temple was
the House of his own Father. He spoke as one who knew God the Father
first-hand, by intimate sight. He had come from his side. He had been with
him, he knew him, and now he had come to tell the world about him.
Furthermore, we read that everyone who listens to the Father will come to
Jesus. The pre-eminent examples of those who listen to the Father are the
prophets. They pointed to the Messiah who was to come. When the Christ-child
was brought into the Temple by Mary and Joseph, Simeon and the prophetess
Anna were drawn to him. St John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets,
pointed to Jesus and revealed him as the Lamb of God, the Anointed One. It
is the Father who actively draws people to Jesus: “No-one can come to me
unless the Father who sent me draws him”. He does so by the power of the
Holy Spirit. Thus it is that they will be taught by God. The peoples of the
world sought communion with the gods in order to secure life, however they
might have visualized it. They sought, we might say, the bread — the means
— that would give them enduring life, life with security. Jesus is revealed as
the one who provides this. He is the bread of life “that comes down from
heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came
down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever. This
bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”
(John 6:44-51). All this is to say that
the Father himself has intervened and said, This is my beloved Son. Listen
to him.
Our deepest yearnings are for
communion with God. As St Augustine put it, our hearts are made for you, O
God, and they will not find rest except in you. Jesus Christ is the one who
reveals God to us. He, the Word, was with God from the beginning and is,
indeed, himself God. No one comes to the Father except through him. He who
sees me sees the Father, he said. Thus it is that Jesus Christ is the bread
of life for mankind, the living bread come down from heaven and anyone who
eats of this bread will live forever. In communion with Jesus Christ is to
be found the communion with God that mankind has always sought. Let us abide
with him, then!
(E.J.Tyler)
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This abandonment is exactly what you need so as never again to lose your
peace.
(The Way, no.767)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK THREE
INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Second Chapter
TRUTH SPEAKS INWARDLY WITHOUT THE SOUND OF WORDS
THE DISCIPLE
SPEAK, Lord, for Thy
servant heareth." "I am Thy servant. Give me understanding that I may know
Thine ordinances . . . Incline my heart to Thine ordinances . . . Let Thy
speech distil as the dew."
The children of Israel once said to Moses: "Speak thou to us and we will
hear thee: let not the Lord speak to us, lest we die."
Not so, Lord, not so do I pray. Rather with Samuel the prophet I entreat
humbly and earnestly: "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." Do not let
Moses or any of the prophets speak to me; but You speak, O Lord God, Who
inspired and enlightened all the prophets; for You alone, without them, can
instruct me perfectly, whereas they, without You, can do nothing. They,
indeed, utter fine words, but they cannot impart the spirit. They do indeed
speak beautifully, but if You remain silent they cannot inflame the heart.
They deliver the message; You lay bare the sense. They place before us
mysteries, but You unlock their meaning. They proclaim commandments; You
help us to keep them. They point out the way; You give strength for the
journey. They work only outwardly; You instruct and enlighten our hearts.
They water on the outside; You give the increase.
(Continuing)
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If it is a great work to preserve Christianity in the world,
this I think the Church has done and is doing: and at this moment
Christianity would be dying out in all its varieties were the Catholic
Church to be suppressed.
(JHN, From a letter to John Rickards Mozley, April 21 1875)
---------------Back to index for this month---------------------------Back to index to Liturgical Days-----------------------
Friday of the third week in Eastertide
(May 1) St. Joseph the Worker
Apparently in response to the “May Day” celebrations
for workers sponsored by Communists, Pius XII instituted the feast of St.
Joseph the Worker in 1955. But the relationship between Joseph and the cause
of workers has a longer history. In a constantly necessary effort to keep
Jesus from being removed from ordinary human life, the Church has from the
beginning proudly
emphasized
that Jesus was a carpenter, obviously trained by Joseph in both the
satisfactions and the drudgery of that vocation. Humanity is like God not
only in thinking and loving, but also in creating. Whether we make a table
or a cathedral, we are called to bear fruit with our hands and mind,
ultimately for the building up of the Body of Christ. “The Lord God then
took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care
for it” (Genesis 2:15). The Father created all and asked humanity to
continue the work of creation. We find our dignity in our work, in raising a
family, in participating in the life of the Father’s creation. Joseph the
Worker was able to help participate in the deepest mystery of creation. Pius
XII emphasized this when he said, “The spirit flows to you and to all men
from the heart of the God-man, Savior of the world, but certainly, no worker
was ever more completely and profoundly penetrated by it than the foster
father of Jesus, who lived with Him in closest intimacy and community of
family life and work. Thus, if you wish to be close to Christ, we again
today repeat, ‘Go to Joseph’” (see Genesis 41:44).
In Brothers of Men, René Voillaume of the Little Brothers of
Jesus speaks about ordinary work and holiness: “Now this holiness (of Jesus)
became a reality in the most ordinary circumstances of life, those of word,
of the family and the social life of a village, and this is an emphatic
affirmation of the fact that the most obscure and humdrum human activities
are entirely compatible with the perfection of the Son of God...in relation
to this mystery, involves the conviction that the evangelical holiness
proper to a child of God is possible in the ordinary circumstances of
someone who is poor and obliged to work for his living.”
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Scripture today: Acts 9:1-20;
Psalm 117:1bc, 2; John 6:52-59
Then the Jews began to argue sharply
among themselves, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus said to
them, I tell you
the
truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you
have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal
life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and
my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in
me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of
the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the
bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but
he who feeds on this bread will live for ever. He said this while teaching
in the synagogue in Capernaum. (John 6:52-59)
Christ has already told his
listeners that he is the true manna from Heaven. He was challenged to
provide a sign that would warrant their faith in him — after all, their
fathers had been given manna to eat from Heaven. What could he do? Our Lord
replied that the bread from Heaven that he would give was far, far superior
to the manna of Moses in the wilderness. Those who ate that bread are all
dead. The bread he would provide would enable them to live forever. Of
course, our Lord was not saying that all those who
ate
the manna in the desert were lost eternally whereas those who ate of the
bread he would give would — by contrast with them — live for ever. He was
simply saying that the manna in the desert sustained this life only. It
could not, of itself, give a life that would endure beyond the grave. The
bread he himself would give, however, provided eternal life. It was the true
bread from heaven. Give us this bread, then! they replied. I am the bread of
life, our Lord said. He who eats of this bread will live forever. Then our
Lord was even more explicit. He did not mean that he was the bread of life
in that, say, his teaching and his example if followed would sustain a
person to life everlasting. He was not referring to, for example, his word
which was the word of God. No, he was stating that the bread he would give
was his own flesh which he would give for the life of the world (John 6:51).
His very body is the bread from heaven, and it would be eaten. The
Jews heard all this and debated what it could mean. How could “this man give
us his flesh to eat?” That is the question posed by all our Lord’s hearers
not only on this occasion in the synagogue of Capernaum, but through the
ages. Jesus must mean this, they thought, in some symbolic or metaphorical
way — how is his flesh to be given to us as food to be eaten? This is the
setting for our Gospel passage today. John is reporting events he had seen
and he gives the location. What was our Lord’s answer to this?
Firstly, our Lord stated even more
expressly and unambiguously what he had just told them. He is meaning what
he says in all truth. I tell you the truth, he said. You must eat my flesh
and drink my blood and if you do not you will die. If you do, you will have
already eternal life, and I shall raise you up on the last day. Then our
Lord insists: his flesh is real food, not just food in some symbolic or
metaphorical sense. It is real food, and his blood is real drink. It is to
be eaten and drunk. Then he explains something of the utmost importance. If
one eats his flesh and drinks his blood, there will be a profound union
established with his own person: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live
because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me”
(John 6:52-59). Eating the flesh of
Jesus and drinking his blood establishes a communion with the living Jesus,
in which each remains in the other. Christ was giving his flesh and blood to
those who accept him in order to enter into a profound communion with them.
The Holy Eucharist would constitute the most profound union with the living
Jesus, and by means of it we who eat his flesh and drink his blood would
live because of him, just as he lives because of the Father. This too is to
be noted: while our Lord was stating with the utmost clarity and publicity
that his flesh must be eaten and his blood must be drunk, he was not
explaining then, at that point, how this would be done. Importantly, he did
not say that his flesh would be eaten in a physical sense, as one would sit
down to eat meat involving a chewing of physical flesh. While he stated the
fact of his body being eaten and blood being drunk, he did not explain the manner
whereby it would happen. This he explained to his disciples at the Last
Supper. He would give his flesh and blood sacramentally. Mysteriously, and by his
almighty divine power, the bread would become his body and the wine his
blood, while retaining all the appearances of the bread and wine. The
reality of the bread and wine would become the person of Jesus while
all the physical appearances and characteristics of the bread and wine — what Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophers call its “accidents”
— would remain.
The Catholic doctrine on the Holy
Eucharist is the doctrine our Lord taught in the synagogue of Capernaum, and
is the doctrine the Church has taught unambiguously since the beginning. It
is the mystery of our faith and is the Church’s greatest treasure. The
Eucharist is the person of Jesus Christ given to man sacramentally. In the
Holy Eucharist the Church’s member eats the flesh of the Son of Man and
drinks his blood, and does so sacramentally — which is to say, under the
appearances of bread and wine. It is not bread and wine, symbolizing the
body and blood of Christ, which is eaten. It is literally Jesus himself — but in
sacramental mode. It is a stupendous miracle, and it is a principal reason
for being a Catholic Christian. Let us love this Sacrament, then!
(E.J.Tyler)
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This abandonment is exactly what you need so as never again to lose your
peace.
(The Way, no.767)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continuing The Imitation of Christ
BOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The Second Chapter
TRUTH SPEAKS INWARDLY WITHOUT THE SOUND OF WORDS
THE DISCIPLE
They cry out words; You give understanding to the hearer.
Let not Moses speak to me, therefore, but You, the Lord my God, everlasting
truth, speak lest I die and prove barren if I am merely given outward advice
and am not inflamed within; lest the word heard and not kept, known and not
loved, believed and not obeyed, rise up in judgment against me.
Speak, therefore, Lord, for Your servant listens. "Thou hast the words of
eternal life."[30] Speak to me for the comfort of my soul and for the
amendment of my life, for Your praise, Your glory, and Your everlasting
honour.
(Continuing)
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To
the devout and spiritual, the Divine Word speaks of things, not merely of
notions.
(JHN, from An Essay in aid of a Grammar of Assent, 1870)
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