Morning Offering:
O Jesus, through the most pure heart of Mary, I offer you all the
prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions
of your divine heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass. I
offer them especially for the Holy
Father's intentions:
Pope Benedict's general
prayer intention for May 2009 is: "That the laity and the Christian
communities may be responsible promoters of priestly and religious
vocations".
His mission intention for May 2009 is: "That the recently
founded Catholic Churches, grateful to the Lord for the gift of faith,
may be ready to share in the universal mission of the Church, offering
their
availability to
preach the Gospel throughout the world".
(May 16) St. Margaret of Cortona
(1247-1297)
Margaret was born of farming parents in Laviano, Tuscany. Her mother died
when Margaret was seven; life with her stepmother was so difficult that
Margaret moved out. For nine years she lived with Arsenio, though they were
not married, and she bore him a son. In those years, she had doubts about
her situation. Somewhat like St. Augustine she prayed for purity—but not
just yet. One day she was waiting for Arsenio and was instead met by his
dog. The animal led Margaret into the forest where she found Arsenio
murdered. This crime shocked Margaret into a life of penance. She and her
son returned to Laviano, where she was not well received by her stepmother.
They then went to Cortona, where her son eventually became a friar. In 1277,
three years after her conversion, Margaret became a Franciscan tertiary.
Under the direction of her confessor, who sometimes had to order her to
moderate her self-denial, she pursued a life of prayer and penance at
Cortona. There she established a hospital and founded a congregation of
tertiary sisters. The poor and humble Margaret was, like Francis, devoted to
the Eucharist and to the passion of Jesus. These devotions fuelled her great
charity and drew sinners to her for advice and inspiration. She was
canonized in 1728. (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today: Acts
16:1-10; Psalm 100:1b-2, 3, 5; John 15:18-21
Jesus
said to his disciples, If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me
first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is,
you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That
is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant
is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you
also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat
you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.
(John 15:18-21)
There are many things
that are remarkable about created reality. One is the mixed and, indeed,
violent response to God that can well up from the world. It indicates that
something in the world has gone terribly awry. In our passage today from the
Gospel of St John our Lord speaks of the world and how it has hated him. Let
us look at this dynamic between Christ and the world. In the third chapter
of this Gospel St John describes the meeting between Nicodemus, a leading
Jew, and Christ. Nicodemus
believes in Jesus (for, as he says, “no one could perform the signs you do
unless God were with him”) and yet he has many difficulties. At the same
time he is from a class which is growing in fierce opposition to Jesus. Our
Lord obliquely refers to the final upshot of this opposition to him. He will
be lifted up, but it will be as the serpent in the desert was lifted up. On
the cross he would be the source of life for all and whoever looked on him
would have eternal life. Then John offers his general comment, clearly drawn
from our Lord himself: “God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have life
everlasting” (John 3: 16). So the world is the object of God’s love. God
loved the world so much, so very much, that there was nothing he would not
do to save it. He even sent his own beloved Son to save the world. The world
was his own, and yet when the Word became flesh and lived among his own, his
own did not receive him (John 1:10). But to all who did, he gave the power
to become children of God. In our Gospel passage today our Lord chooses to
refer to one aspect of this dynamic — the opposition of the world to him. He
is not saying that everyone in the world hates him for there are many who
love and follow him. But he chooses to apply the term “the world” to those
who oppose him. There is a general pattern in the relationship between God
and the work of his hands. A great deal of it hates him and opposes his
plans.
Those who are familiar
with the life of Christ know this. What can be lacking is a clear
appreciation of Christ’s warning to his disciples that they must be prepared
to share in his lot. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me
first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is,
you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That
is why the world hates you.” So if the Christian is truly consistent and
follows in the footsteps of Christ in the world of his work and daily life,
then he must to a greater or lesser extent expect the incomprehension and
opposition our Lord himself received. He ought not actively court it nor
imprudently arouse it. But he must expect it if he takes up Christ’s
invitation to bear witness to him before men. There are a few paradigm
instances of this that show what is involved in following and bearing
witness to Christ. In 1968 Pope Paul VI declared before the world the
intrinsic evil of artificial contraception in his epochal Encyclical
Humanae Vitae. The world burst into an uproar and arguably Pope Paul
never fully regained the attentive ear of the world again, so great was the
prejudice it conceived against him. In his first Encyclical, Redemptor
Hominis (March 1979), Pope John Paul II thanked God for “this great
Predecessor of mine, who was truly my father” (no.8). The cause for the
canonization of Pope Paul VI is proceeding, as is that of Pope John Paul II.
But in that reaction of the world to the teaching of Pope Paul VI, speaking
as he did in the name of Christ, we have a paradigm case of what our Lord
refers to in our Gospel passage today. Our Lord continues, “Remember the
words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they
persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching,
they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name,
for they do not know the One who sent me” (John
15:18-21). We are speaking here of something Christ predicted, so
it must therefore be expected.
I remember when I was
young a priest warned us against human respect. He was warning against the
desire to retain the good opinion of the world when the world opposes the
word of Christ and his Church. The Pope on his way to Africa says in passing
that condoms are not the answer to the scourge of AIDS and several European
governments erupt in anger. He is sharing in the lot of Christ and
exemplifying what Christ said his disciples must expect. There are, as St
Ignatius Loyola used to insist, two great Standards. There is the Standard
of Christ and there is the Standard of Satan. Let us take our stand with
Christ and never be drawn away from it in a secret desire to retain the good
opinion of the world.
(E.J.Tyler)
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How can you dare use that spark of divine intelligence — your mind — in
anything but in giving glory to your Lord?
(The Way, no.782)
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Continuing The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The Sixth ChapterTHE PROVING OF A TRUE
LOVER
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
MY CHILD, you are not yet a brave and wise lover.
THE DISCIPLE
Why, Lord?
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
Because, on account of a slight difficulty you give up what you have
undertaken and are too eager to seek consolation.
(Continuing)
Certainly this objection, that devotional practices, such as
prayer, fasting, and communicating [viz. receiving the Eucharist], tend to
self-righteousness, is the objection of those, or at least is just what the
objection of those would be, who never attempted them.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘Reliance on Religious Observances’ 1837)
Prayers this week:
Speak out with a voice of joy; let it be heard to the ends of the earth: the
Lord has set his people free, alleluia.
(Psalm 32: 5-6)
Ever-living God, help us to celebrate our joy in the resurrection of the
Lord and to express in our lives the love we celebrate.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy
Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
(May 17) St. Paschal Baylon (1540-1592)
In Paschal’s lifetime the Spanish empire in the New
World was at the height of its power, though France and England were soon to
reduce its influence. The 16th century has been called the Golden Age of the
Church in Spain, for it gave birth to Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier,
Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Peter of Alcantara, Francis Solano and
Salvator of Horta. Paschal’s Spanish parents were poor and pious. Between
the ages of seven and 24 he worked as a shepherd and began a life of
mortification. He was able to pray on the job and was especially attentive
to the church bell which rang at the Elevation during Mass. Paschal had a
very honest streak in him. He once offered to pay owners of crops for any
damage his animals caused! In 1564 Paschal joined the Friars Minor and gave
himself wholeheartedly to a life of penance. Though he was urged to study
for the priesthood, he chose to be a brother. At various times he served as
porter, cook, gardener and official beggar. Paschal was careful to observe
the vow of poverty. He would never waste any food or anything given for the
use of the friars. When he was porter and took care of the poor coming to
the door, he developed a reputation for great generosity. The friars
sometimes tried to moderate his liberality! Paschal spent his spare moments
praying before the Blessed Sacrament. In time many people sought his wise
counsel. People flocked to his tomb immediately after his burial; miracles
were reported promptly. In 1690 Paschal was canonized; in 1897 he was named
patron of Eucharistic congresses and societies.
"Meditate well on this: Seek God above all things. It
is right for you to seek God before and above everything else, because the
majesty of God wishes you to receive what you ask for. This will also make
you more ready to serve God and will enable you to love him more perfectly"
(St. Paschal). (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture: Acts 10:25-26,
34-35, 44-48; Psalm 98:1-4; 1 John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17
Jesus said to his
disciples, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my
love. If you obey my commands,
you
will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and
remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and
that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have
loved you. Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for
his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call
you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business.
Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my
Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and
appointed you to go and bear fruit— fruit that will last. Then the Father
will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each
other. (John 15:9-17)
A very important issue
in human life is the influence of religion on society. One of the notable
characteristics of indigenous religion is that it tends to pervade the
culture and social life of an indigenous community. For this reason
indigenous religion can be difficult to define in individual cases,
precisely because it can be indistinguishable from the culture of the
people. But this does not mean that the indigenous society itself is
entirely shaped by its religion, for it can be the case that its religious
notions and myths are, rather,
largely shaped by the social institutions. Be that as it may, my point in
introducing this example is that a great challenge for religion is that it
be brought to bear on the concrete life of society. Especially in a secular
society the two can proceed along parallel lines, with religion being
confined to worship and private prayer, and society being conducted
according to independent ethical criteria (which may not actually be very
ethical). In the case of a religion which is not especially ethical this
would not matter much because in that case society would not benefit
ethically by the influence of such a religion. But the Christian religion is
a profoundly ethical religion and it is meant by its divine founder to
influence all of human life, including the life of society. Its demands
embrace not only worship and private piety but also man precisely in his
community life and culture. Sadly, all too often societies that are
Christian by tradition have many profoundly unchristian mores and laws. For
instance, it takes for granted that each human person is an absolute value
and yet it often has laws that permit rampant abortion. Revealed religion is
not a religion that simply accepts, however genuinely and profoundly, the
great realities of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation and the Atonement, as
the defining element of one’s personal and private life. It goes further and
insists that this revelation by God be the inspiration for the Christian
also in his involvement in society. The individual is called to strive to
make God’s will and plan accepted by society as the basis and soul of its
life.
There are those who
dispute the proposition that the ethics of a secular society ought be
inspired by divine revelation. They deny that the human community should
have the God of revelation — and, specifically, the law of Jesus Christ — as
its guide. Of course, to an extent and in one sense this is true. For
instance, a democratic society cannot impose on its citizens belief in the
Holy Trinity, the Incarnation and the Atonement for sin by Christ. But
revealed religion does bring to light in a supremely sure way the demands of
reason and natural morality, and it is these demands as brought to light by
Christ which ought be the guide of human society. For instance, at the heart
of Christ’s teaching is the value of the human person. In our Gospel passage
today (John 15:9-17) our Lord gives his
command to his disciples that they love one another. In the Gospel of St
Matthew our Lord describes the Last Judgment, and it will hinge on how we
treat our neighbour because Christ will take as having been done to him
whatever good and whatever unjust evil we do to our neighbour, especially to
the most in need. So while of course religion involves the love of God it
ought also be clear that love for neighbour is inseparable from love for
God. What happens to one’s fellow man and to the human society should be of
great concern to the one who aspires to love God. If we wish to be a
follower and a friend of Christ we must strive to permeate society with the
spirit of Christ and structured in its institutions and laws according to
his will. Each person, especially the most forgotten and insignificant, must
be the principle, the subject and the end of all social institutions.
Certain societies and groupings, most especially the family, are absolutely
necessary for the human person. If man is to be loved and respected, so must
be the family. The good of society requires respect for justice, the
supremacy of the spiritual, and a turning away from sin and wrongdoing.
Charity, love for neighbour, which is the specific command of our Lord in
today’s Gospel, is the greatest social commandment.
The Catholic Church has
a large and striking body of official social teaching, developed on the
basis of revelation. The Church, at the level of her highest authority,
formally applies this social teaching to the structure and life of society.
All the Popes since Pope Leo XIII in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century have taught the Church and the world how society ought be conducted
in the light of the teaching of Christ. The Christian ought as part of his
Christian life bring that teaching to bear on his life in society. Society
is called to be pleasing to God, just as each person is. As each person will
be judged, so will societies. Let us then strive at the personal and
individual level, but also at the social and cultural level, to live
according to the mind and will of Christ.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church,
no.1878-1889 (The communitarian character of the human vocation,
Conversion and society)
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If life's purpose were not to give glory to God, how contemptible, how
hateful it would be.
(The Way, no.783)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ BOOK THREE
INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Sixth Chapter
THE PROVING OF A TRUE LOVER
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
The brave lover stands firm in temptations and pays no heed to the crafty
persuasions of the enemy. As I please him in prosperity, so in adversity I
am not displeasing to him. The wise lover regards not so much the gift of
Him Who loves as the love of Him Who gives. He regards the affection of the
Giver rather than the value of the gift, and sets his Beloved above all
gifts. The noble lover does not rest in the gift but in Me Who am above
every gift.
All is not lost, then, if you sometimes feel less devout than you wish
toward Me or My saints. That good and sweet feeling which you sometimes have
is the effect of present grace and a certain foretaste of your heavenly
home. You must not lean upon it too much, because it comes and goes. But to
fight against evil thoughts which attack you is a sign of virtue and great
merit. Do not, therefore, let strange fantasies disturb you, no matter what
they concern. Hold strongly to your resolution and keep a right intention
toward God.
(Continuing)
This passage from the end of Newman’s
Grammar of Assent (1870) talks of the martyrs of the early Christian Church. Fear of
suffering, he explains, could not cause them to deny the ’sovereign Thought’
of Jesus Christ. Through what Newman calls this ‘acceptable service’ to
their Saviour, his faithful servants ‘kept his commandments’ and ‘remained
in his love’ [cf. John 15: 10]:
The martyrs shrank from suffering
like other men, but such natural shrinking was incommensurable with apostasy. No
intensity of torture had any means of affecting what was a mental conviction;
and the sovereign Thought in which they had lived was their
adequate
support and consolation in their death. To them the prospect of wounds and loss
of limbs was not more terrible than it is to the combatant of this world. They
faced the implements of torture as the soldier takes his post before the enemy’s
battery. They cheered and ran forward to meet his attack, and as it were dared
him, if he would, to destroy the numbers who kept closing up the foremost rank,
as their comrades who had filled it fell. [...]
Christians felt it as an
acceptable service to Him who loved them, to confess with courage and to suffer
with dignity. In this chivalrous spirit, as it may be called, they met the words
and deeds of their persecutors, as the children of men return bitterness for
bitterness, and blow for blow. "What soldier," says Minucius, with a reference
to the invisible Presence of our Lord, "does not challenge danger more daringly
under the eye of his commander?" [...]
When the Christians were thrown
into prison, in the fierce persecution at Lyons, Vettius Epagathus, a youth of
distinction who had given himself to an ascetic life, could not bear the sight
of the sufferings of his brethren, and asked leave to plead their cause. The
only answer he got was to be sent off the first to die. What the contemporary
account sees in his conduct is, not that he was zealous for his brethren, though
zealous he was, nor that he believed in miracles, though he doubtless did
believe; but that he "was a gracious disciple of Christ, following the Lamb
whithersoever He went." [cf. Rev. 14: 4]
(John Henry Newman, An Essay in aid of
a Grammar of Assent (1870), Part II, Section 10/2, ‘ Inference and Assent in the
matter of Religion: Revealed Religion’, p. 478, 480-1.
(May 18) St. John I (d. 526)
Pope John I
inherited the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ. Italy had
been ruled for 30 years by an emperor who espoused the heresy, though he
treated the empire’s Catholics with toleration. His policy changed at about
the time the young John was elected pope.
When the eastern emperor began imposing severe measures on the Arians of his
area, the western emperor forced John to head a delegation to the East to
soften the measures against the heretics. Little is known of the manner or
outcome of the negotiations—designed to secure continued toleration of
Catholics in the West. When John returned to Rome, he found that the emperor
had begun to suspect his friendship with his eastern rival. On his way home,
John was imprisoned when he reached Ravenna because the emperor suspected a
conspiracy against his throne. Shortly after his imprisonment, John died,
apparently from the treatment he had received.
“Martyrdom makes disciples like their Master, who willingly accepted
death for the salvation of the world, and through it they are made like him
by the shedding of blood. Therefore, the Church considers it the highest
gift and supreme test of love. And while it is given to few, all however
must be prepared to confess Christ before humanity and to follow him along
the way of the cross amid the persecutions which the Church never lacks” (Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church, 42, Austin Flannery translation)
(AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today: Acts
16:11-15; Psalm 149:1b-6a and 9b; John 15:26-16:4a
Jesus
said to his disciples, When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you
from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will
testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from
the beginning. All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They
will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who
kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such
things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this,
so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.
(John 15:26-16:4a)
Let us notice a pattern
in the history of God’s dealings with his people. In the light of the
revelation of the New Testament I suppose we could say it was God the Father
who spoke to Abraham and the Partriarch, to Moses and the Prophets. There is
no formal revelation of the Holy Trinity, of course, and the Prophets deal
with God the Ultimate and the Absolute. It is God the Father of his chosen
people who reveals himself and has command of the scene. Then in the
fullness of time he sent his Son who was the image of the unseen God,
the
revelation of the Father, the face of the living God. Let all listen to him,
the Father said to the three Apostles from the cloud on the mountain. It is
the Son, who, as it were, took command of the scene and effected the work of
redemption by his teaching, ministry, death and resurrection. He constantly
testified to the Father and gave glory to him. We then observe the Son
referring to the Holy Spirit whom he says will soon come. There is, I think,
a danger of our thinking of the Holy Spirit as some kind of divine force or
energy, a powerful grace, as it were, rather than as a living personal
identity, a distinct Person. The Holy Spirit is portrayed in the New
Testament more as acting than as speaking (although he does speak at times
in the New Testament) and because of this his personhood might not strike us
as forcefully as does that of the Father and the Son. But his divine
personhood and his saving mission is clearly revealed nevertheless. He is
most active in our Lord’s life, leading him and giving power to his word and
work. Our Lord refers to him with profound reverence. If anyone blasphemes
against the Holy Spirit he will not be forgiven, he says. It is especially
in the Gospel of St John, and especially in our Lord’s Last Supper
discourses that the person, the character and the mission of the Holy Spirit
is revealed. He is the Counsellor of Christ’s disciples and the Church. He
is sent by Christ and he comes from the Father as did Christ himself. He
ranks with Christ himself as a divine person and his role will be to testify
about Christ.
We may say of the Holy
Spirit that just as Christ testified to the Father — with the Father in his
turn testifying to Christ — so the Holy Spirit testifies to Jesus — with
Jesus in his turn testifying to him. “He will testify about me” our Lord
says. “And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the
beginning”
(John 15:26-16:4a). The great work of
Christ’s faithful, the Church he founded on the rock of Peter, was about to
begin. Its work would be to believe in him and to testify to him before the
world as the one and only Saviour of mankind. The Holy Spirit would testify
with the Church as the Church’s heart and soul, animating and guiding the
Church is this great and constant mission. Just before he ascended into
heaven Christ gave to his disciples a charge. It was to go to the whole
world and make disciples of all the nations. He would be with them to the
end. But first they were to await the Promise of the Father, of which he had
spoken. That was the Holy Spirit. When he comes upon them they would receive
power, and with that power they would be witnesses to Jesus, both in
Jerusalem and to the ends of the world. So the Holy Spirit is the great
Evangelizer within the Church. He empowers the Church to believe in Jesus
and in all he has taught, and he empowers the Church to bear witness to
Jesus to the ends of the earth. So when Jesus has gone, the Holy Spirit
takes command of the field, as it were, just as Jesus had had command of the
field before him. All three divine persons, of course, are involved in the
work at every point from the call of Abraham to the end when Christ will
come as Judge. But when Christ goes the Holy Spirit is given charge and we
see the results very soon. The Church begins to expand and persecution
follows. Over three centuries of saints and martyrs the Church emerges as
the religion of the Empire. The Empire falls under barbarians from the north
and later is powerfully threatened by Islam from the East. But what do we
see? Great council after council proclaim the faith of the Church and a new
evangelization of barbarian Europe begins. It would lead to the new
Christian Europe, with many vicissitudes.
The Holy Spirit, the
Evangelizer who has been sent by Christ from the Father, is constantly at
work. This same mighty, all-holy Spirit of the Father and the Son has been
given to each of us who are baptized into the family of the Church. He is
God’s Gift to the Church and to each of us, and he testifies in our hearts
to the truth and the person of Christ. He leads us to believe in him and to
place all our hope in him. He inspires us to love and follow Christ and to
bear witness to him before the world of our daily life. Let us then not make
the Holy Spirit sad, but ask for his help all our days. He is our Counsellor
and our Sanctifier. He will help us be faithful to the end.
(E.J.Tyler)
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May no other attachment bind you to earth than the divine desire of giving
glory to Christ and, through him and with him and in him, to the Father and
the holy Spirit.
(The Way, no.786)
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Continuing The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The Sixth Chapter THE
PROVING OF A TRUE LOVER
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
It is not an illusion that you are sometimes rapt in ecstasy and then
quickly returned to the usual follies of your heart. For these are evils
which you suffer rather than commit; and so long as they displease you and
you struggle against them, it is a matter of merit and not a loss.
You must know that the old enemy tries by all means in his power to hinder
your desire for good and to turn you from every devotional practice,
especially from the veneration of the saints, from devout meditation on My
passion, and from your firm purpose of advancing in virtue. He suggests many
evil thoughts that he may cause you weariness and horror, and thus draw you
away from prayer and holy reading. A humble confession displeases him and,
if he could, he would make you omit Holy Communion.
(Continuing)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is
it more mysterious that Mary should be Mother of God, than that God should
be man?
(May 19)
St. Theophilus of Corte (1676-1740)
If we expect saints to do marvellous things continually and to leave us
many memorable quotes, we are bound to be disappointed with St. Theophilus.
The mystery of God's grace in a person's life, however, has a beauty all its
own. Theophilus was born in Corsica of rich and noble parents. As a young
man he entered the Franciscans and soon showed his love for solitude and
prayer. After admirably completing his studies, he was ordained and assigned
to a retreat house near Subiaco. Inspired by the austere life of the
Franciscans there, he founded other such houses in Corsica and Tuscany. Over
the years, he became famous for his preaching as well as his missionary
efforts. Though he was always somewhat sickly, Theophilus generously served
the needs of God's people in the confessional, in the sickroom and at the
graveside. Worn out by his labours, he died on June 17, 1740. He was
canonized in 1930.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today:
Acts 16:22-34; Psalm 138:1-3, 7c-8; John 16:5-11
Jesus
said, Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are
you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But
I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go
away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to
you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and
righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in
me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you
can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this
world now stands condemned. (John 16:5-11)
One of the most interesting of concepts in philosophical thought is that of
design, or more fundamentally, of order. There is a long tradition of
thought that argues that the order that is evident in the world is the fruit
of a Mind that designs. One of the classic Ways to God (Aquinas’ Fifth Way)
is by reflecting on the order in the universe and seeing in it the imprint
of Mind. This way of arguing for God has had many successes. One of the
notable was Anthony Flew the former British atheist philosopher who published
in 2007 his small book, There is a God. In it the "design"
argument — especially as applied to the basic structure of life — is allowed
as decisive. Flew states elsewhere that there has to be "an Intelligence
behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe" and that "my own
insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more
complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an
Intelligent Source." This, of course, is far from being a Christian but many
think he is on the way to that as well. My point in introducing this
consideration of order and design is not to press its value here as an
argument for theism, but simply as a reminder that God works, we may say,
according to plan. Rationality is a profound feature of his work. That is
one reason why authentic Christianity is a champion not only of revelation
but of reason. Now, while we may not see the reason for many things that
have been revealed to us by God — such as the mysteries of the Incarnation
and the Holy Trinity — nevertheless the manifest order in the world of our
experience both suggests and reminds us that in the work of salvation too
God acts according to a plan, however ineffable it is. Commonly in theology
this has been called the "economy," ie., the divine plan and management, of
salvation. There is a divinely intended way that God has gone about not only
creating the world, but saving it. Our Gospel today alludes to God’s plan of
salvation, and it is a cause of wonder. What, then, does our Lord say about
this?
In our Gospel today Christ says that it is for our good that he is going
away from us. Why is this? He says that "Unless I go away, the Counsellor
will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you." So,
mysteriously, it was the divine plan that Christ had to return to his
heavenly Father if the Holy Spirit was to be sent to us. There is much else
in the saving plan of God that is mysterious. The choice of a particular
people to be God’s own people, the promise of a Messiah, the Incarnation of
the Son of God as the promised Messiah, the Atonement, all these features of
the divine plan of salvation are a great mystery. Why was it necessary that
the Christ should suffer and so enter his glory, opening up for us a share
in his glory? We are not told. All these things make up the mysterious
saving plan of God. So too is the succession of missions of the three divine
Persons of the Blessed Trinity in the work of our salvation. The Father
spoke to Abraham and the Prophets, promising to send a Redeemer. The
promised Redeemer came and was gradually revealed as the eternal Son of the
Father. He won for us our salvation by his death and resurrection. But then,
wondrously, he had to return to the Father if Another was to come, the Holy
Spirit, and it would be he, the Holy Spirit, who would bring the redemption
won by Christ to each of us. He would be the Evangelizer and would convince
Christ’s faithful and the world. Why was this necessary? We are not told.
When we consider it, Christ had but limited success in convincing the people
to place their faith in him. His failure was manifested in his death, and
this was the very means by which he redeemed the world. It seems that
"success" in gaining disciples would be the special work of the Holy Spirit.
He would bring conviction to the hearts of men. Mysteriously, in the divine
plan Christ had to step aside and leave that great work to the Holy Spirit.
And so our Lord continues, "When he comes, he will convict the world of
guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment"
(John 16:5-11). So each person of the Holy
Trinity is always involved, but in the divine plan each has also his special
role. Such is the plan of God.
Let us marvel at the plan of God. God has his inscrutable and ineffable
plan. We see it reflected in the visible creation, and I have referred to
the order and design that in the history of thought has especially struck
many minds. We also see the inscrutable and ineffable way of God in the work
of salvation, and in our Gospel passage today our Lord refers to one aspect
of this divine plan. "It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go
away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to
you. When he comes, he will convict the world." Let us do all we can to
grasp the plan of God and then to live faithfully every day according to it.
(E.J.Tyler)
Continuing
The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The Sixth ChapterTHE PROVING OF A TRUE LOVER
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
Do not believe him or heed him,
even though he often sets traps to deceive you. When he suggests evil,
unclean things, accuse him. Say to him: "Away, unclean spirit! Shame,
miserable creature! You are but filth to bring such things to my ears.
Begone, most wretched seducer! You shall have no part in me, for Jesus will
be my strength, and you shall be confounded. I would rather die and suffer
all torments than consent to you. Be still! Be silent! Though you bring many
troubles upon me I will have none of you. The Lord is my light, my
salvation. Whom shall I fear? Though armies unite against me, my heart will
not fear, for the Lord is my Helper, my Redeemer."
(Continuing)
Scripture then, treating of invisible things, at best must use
words less than those things; and, as if from a feeling that no words can be
worthy of them, it does not condescend to use even the strongest that exist,
but often take the plainest. The deeper the thought, the plainer the word;
the word and thought diverge from each other.
(JHN, from ‘Holy Scripture in its relation to the Catholic Creed’ 1838)
(May 20) St. Bernardine of Siena
(1380-1444)
Most of the saints suffer great personal opposition, even persecution.
Bernardine, by contrast, seems more like a human dynamo who simply took on
the needs of the world. He was the greatest preacher of his time, journeying
across Italy, calming strife-torn cities, attacking the paganism he found
rampant, attracting crowds of 30,000, following St. Francis’s admonition to
preach about “vice and virtue, punishment and glory.” Compared with St. Paul
by the pope, Bernardine had a keen intuition of the needs of the time, along
with solid holiness and boundless energy and joy. He accomplished all this
despite having a very weak and hoarse voice, miraculously improved later
because of his devotion to Mary. When he was 20, the plague was at its
height in his hometown, Siena. Sometimes as many as 20 people died in one
day at the hospital. Bernardine offered to run the hospital and, with the
help of other young men, nursed patients there for four months. He escaped
the plague but was so exhausted that a fever confined him for several
months. He spent another year caring for a beloved aunt (her parents had
died when he was a child) and at her death began to fast and pray to know
God’s will for him. At 22, he entered the Franciscan Order and was ordained
two years later. For almost a dozen years he lived in solitude and prayer,
but his gifts ultimately caused him to be sent to preach. He always
travelled on foot, sometimes speaking for hours in one place, then doing the
same in another town. Especially known for his devotion to the Holy Name of
Jesus, Bernardine devised a symbol—IHS, the first three letters of the name
of Jesus in Greek, in Gothic letters on a blazing sun. This was to displace
the superstitious symbols of the day, as well as the insignia of factions
(for example, Guelphs and Ghibellines). The devotion spread, and the symbol
began to appear in churches, homes and public buildings. Opposition arose
from those who thought it a dangerous innovation. Three attempts were made
to have the pope take action against him, but Bernardine’s holiness,
orthodoxy and intelligence were evidence of his faithfulness. General of a
branch of the Franciscan Order, the Friars of the Strict Observance, he
strongly emphasized scholarship and further study of theology and canon law.
When he started there were 300 friars in the community; when he died there
were 4,000. He returned to preaching the last two years of his life, dying
while travelling. (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today:
Acts 17:15, 22-18:1; Psalm 148:1-2, 11-14; John 16:12-15
Jesus
said to his disciples, I have much more to say to you, more than you can now
bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all
truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and
he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking
from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father
is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make
it known to you.
(John 16:12-15)
In our Gospel today our Lord refers
to the Spirit of truth. One of the great phenomena of human history is that
mankind has been ever divided in its opinion as to what is true. In one
sense it is a marvel that we have the capacity to know the truth at all. The
animals are able to sense reality but do not know it precisely as objective
reality. They live in response to sensations. Man, though, knows objective
reality and is able to distinguish between the sensations he experiences and
the objects that cause them. He is not merely
subject
to sensations. He can know what things are and he can know that they are.
The truth is of critical importance to the human being and the marvel is
that he can attain it, easily or with difficulty as the case may be. But
there is another marvel, and this one has a sombre note. It is that in so
many respects he attains not truth but error. He knows this firstly from
personal experience and secondly from the mere fact that men hold
contradictory opinions, for something cannot be true and false at the same
time and in the same respect. Therefore mankind is marked not only by the
light of truth but by the darkness of positive error, by which I mean the
positive denial of what is true. Now, man’s power to know the truth is put
to its highest use in his apprehension of God. This he does either by the
use of his reason or by his faith in the word of those who have witnessed
the action and word of God. The most tragic use of his power to know is when
he positively denies what in fact is true — especially in the things of God.
All this is to say that truth and error are fundamental issues in the life
of man. Indeed, they are profoundly moral issues. There is a great duty to
strive to attain the truth and a great duty to avoid error, especially in
the things of God who is our origin and our end. If in response to this duty
we seek and attain the truth then a reward awaits us. If we are knowingly
responsible for error, our just deserts await us. Such is the drama of the
human situation. Our need for the truth rises to God like the incense of a
burnt offering. It is against this vast backdrop that our Lord refers to the
Spirit of truth.
God has heard the cry of man and has
intervened to reveal the truth about himself. His truth is present in his
own divine Son become man. Jesus Christ, as St Paul writes, is the image of
the unseen God. He who sees me, our Lord said, sees the Father. I am the
Way, he said, and the Truth and the Life. In him, St Paul writes, dwells the
fullness of the godhead bodily. So in Christ we have the truth about God. If
we wish to attain the truth about what is most important of all, namely God,
then we turn to the person of Jesus, we contemplate him and accept his
teaching with our whole heart and mind. But there is more, and it is the
great point of our Gospel passage today. It is that Jesus Christ gives to
those who believe in him the Spirit of truth. The Spirit of truth is the
Spirit of the Father and the Son, and our Lord said that it was most
important for his disciples that he return to the Father so that the divine
Spirit of truth could be sent to them. They would then be confirmed in the
truth and guided into it more fully. Let us note well what our Lord tells us
of the Spirit of truth whom he would send from the Father. He will, our Lord
says, guide us into all truth (John 16:12-15).
There was so much that our Lord said that the disciples simply could not
grasp, even the plainest of his utterances. They could not grasp that he was
to die and rise again. There were many other things, and our Lord told them
that when the Spirit of truth comes he would lead them into all the truth
that he had given to them. The Spirit of truth would take from what is our
Lord’s and what he had entrusted to his disciples, and would make it known
and understood by them. So this is Christ’s great gift to his Church, the
Spirit of truth. The Spirit of truth who is the Spirit of the Father and the
Son came to the Church at Pentecost to remain with it till the end. He
guards the Church in the truth revealed by Jesus. He gradually leads the
Church to a fuller and fuller understanding of what Christ has revealed and
preserves the Church from error in her formal and explicit teaching about
Christ.
Let us be devoted to the Holy
Spirit. As our Lord says, “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is
mine and making it known to you.” Let us pray to the Spirit of truth asking
that we be confirmed in the truth and preserved from error. In this way will
our lives give glory to Jesus. Let us always appreciate the gift of the
Spirit of truth to the Church founded on Peter and the Apostles,
understanding well that this gift preserves the Church in the truth and
enables her, by her teaching, to proclaim and explain the truth about Jesus
from generation to generation.
(E.J.Tyler)
Purity of intention. The suggestions of pride and the impulses of the flesh
are not difficult to recognize... and you fight and, with grace,
you conquer.
But the motives that inspire you, even in the holiest actions, do not seem
clear; and deep down inside you hear a voice which makes you see human
reasons in such a subtle way that your soul is invaded by the disturbing
thought that you don't act as you should — for pure Love, solely and
exclusively to give God all his glory.
React at once each time and say: 'Lord, for myself I want nothing. All for
your glory and for Love.'
(The Way, no.788)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ BOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The Sixth Chapter
THE PROVING OF A TRUE LOVER
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
Fight like a good soldier and if you sometimes fall through weakness, rise
again with greater strength than before, trusting in My most abundant grace.
But beware of vain complacency and pride. For many are led into error
through these faults and sometimes fall into almost perpetual blindness. Let
the fall of these, who proudly presume on self, be a warning to you and a
constant incentive to humility.
(Concluded)
The heavenly gift of the Spirit fixes the
eyes of our mind upon the Divine Author of our salvation. By nature we are
blind and carnal; but the Holy Ghost by whom we are new-born, reveals to us
the God of mercies, and bids us recognise and adore Him as our Father with a
true heart.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘The Indwelling Spirit’ 1834)
(May 21) St. Cristóbal Magallanes and his Companions (d. 1915-1928)
Like Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, S.J.,
Cristóbal and his 24 companion martyrs lived under a very anti-Catholic
government
in Mexico, one determined to weaken the Catholic faith of its
people. Churches, schools and seminaries were closed; foreign clergy were
expelled. Cristóbal established a clandestine seminary at Totatiche, Jalisco.
Magallanes and the other priests were forced to minister secretly to
Catholics during the presidency of Plutarco Calles (1924-28). All of these
martyrs except three were diocesan priests. David, Manuel and Salvador were
laymen who died with their parish priest, Luis Batis. All of these martyrs
belonged to the Cristero movement, pledging their allegiance to Christ and
to the Church that he established to spread the Good News in society—even if
Mexico's leaders once made it a crime to receive Baptism or celebrate the
Mass. These martyrs did not die as a single group but in eight Mexican
states, with Jalisco and Zacatecas having the largest number. They were
beatified in 1992 and canonized eight years later.
During his homily at the canonization Mass
on May 21, 2000, Pope John Paul II addressed the Mexican men, women and
children present in Rome and said: “After the harsh trials that the Church
endured in Mexico during those turbulent years, today Mexican Christians,
encouraged by the witness of these witnesses to the faith, can live in peace
and harmony, contribute the wealth of gospel values to society. The Church
grows and advances, since she is the crucible in which many priestly and
religious vocations are born, where families are formed according to God's
plan, and where young people, a substantial part of the Mexican population,
can grow with the hope of a better future. May the shining example of
Cristóbal Magallanes and his companion martyrs help you to make a renewed
commitment of fidelity to God, which can continue to transform Mexican
society so that justice, fraternity and harmony will prevail among all.”
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Jesus said to his disciples, In a little while you will see me no more, and
then after a little while you will see me. Some of his disciples said to one
another, What does he mean by saying, 'In a little while you will see me no
more, and then after a little while you will see me,' and 'Because I am
going to the Father'? They kept asking, What does he mean by 'a little
while'? We don't understand what he is saying. Jesus saw that they wanted to
ask him about this, so he said to them, Are you asking one another what I
meant when I said, 'In a little while you will see me no more, and then
after a little while you will see me'? I tell you the truth, you will weep
and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will
turn to joy. (John 16: 16-20)
It is passages such as our Gospel of
today that illustrate the degree of incomprehension that clouded the minds
of our Lord’s close friends, his disciples. They could not follow him when
he referred to their soon not seeing him, and then after a little while
their seeing him again. Some of them “said to one another, What does he mean
by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a
little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” We
read elsewhere that when our Lord referred explicitly to his coming passion
and death to be followed by his resurrection, they asked among themselves
what ‘rising from the dead’ could mean. They wanted to ask him but they were
reluctant to do so. Here our Lord saw that they wanted to ask him what he
meant, and so he explained. He tells them solemnly — I tell you the truth,
he says — “you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will
grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.” In the first instance this
obviously refers to the brief and shattering experience of our Lord’s
passion and death, to be followed by their reunion with him following his
resurrection. But clearly it also refers to a more ultimate and general
situation. Christ will be absent from the visible company of his disciples
here on earth, and that includes us. Our beloved Master, our Friend and
Redeemer, will be away from our sight. Life will be marked by the absence of
the visible presence of Jesus Christ, though not his invisible presence.
This absence will be the principal factor in the contentment of the world
and the discontent of Christ’s faithful: “ I tell you the truth, you will
weep and mourn while the world rejoices.” This will characterise human
history as it flows onward towards its culmination which will be the coming
again of Christ in glory. At his coming mankind will see him again and he
will then be with us forever. Then “your grief will turn to joy,” he says .
Our Lord’s simple terms describe the basic dynamics of human history. Christ
has gone from sight but he will come again.
Many have said that the persistent
stumbling block to belief in God is the ocean of suffering that has always
spread across the life of mankind. There is no denying the difficulty. But
the greatest believers in the existence of God — the Christian saints — have
lived lives marked by great suffering. It did not diminish their conviction
of the reality of God and his loving mercy. The exemplar of all is Jesus
Christ himself. Suffering is unavoidable. Now, in our Gospel passage today
(John 16: 16-20) our Lord provides a
tremendous light at the end of the tunnel — the tunnel being each human life
and the life of mankind generally. The light at the end of it is his
promised presence at the end, be it the end of each human life or the end of
the course of mankind. We all have a great hope to sustain us and that hope
is that we shall see Jesus Christ and be with him at the end. The end is not
truly the end but rather the beginning of life with Jesus for ever and ever.
Our Lord is referring to an eternity of heaven which is the certain hope of
those who live and die in their faith in Jesus. He cannot be seen now, but
he is known by faith to be present and ever so near. He will be seen in the
future, and then all sorrow “will turn to joy.” So let us think of Christ’s
unseen presence with us now and his visible presence to come. Let us think
of heaven and think of it often. Our destiny, thanks to all that Christ has
done for us, is one of glory. We shall share in the glory of Christ if we
have accompanied him in faith here on earth. I often think that an antidote
to the depression that many feel at the thought of past hurts and injuries
is to think far more often of the good experiences of the past and to
deliberately fill one’s imagination with those happy memories. Conversely,
we ought fill our imagination with the happy thought of what is to come.
Christ repeatedly refers to it and so he means us to think of it. We shall
be with him and with the Father and with the Holy Spirit for ever. We shall
be with the angels and the saints for ever. Our eternity will be one of joy,
whatever be our course in this life.
Many sadnesses
afflict our life here on earth, but as our Lord makes clear in our Gospel
passage today, we have many things to be happy about. Indeed they far
outnumber the sadnesses. Christ is with us, though invisibly, and this is
our consolation. We shall see him, however, and then we shall never be
separated from him. Heaven awaits the one whose faith and hope and love are
centred in Jesus. Let us then take up the baton of the Christian life and
mission and run with it to the end.
(E.J.Tyler)
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You must indeed have purified your intention well when you said: from this
moment on I renounce all human gratitude and reward.
(The Way, no.789)
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Continuing The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The seventh chapter: GRACE
MUST BE HIDDEN UNDER THE MANTLE OF HUMILITY
THE
VOICE OF CHRIST
IT IS better and safer for you to conceal the grace of devotion, not to be
elated by it, not to speak or think much of it, and instead to humble
yourself and fear lest it is being given to one unworthy of it. Do not cling
too closely to this affection, for it may quickly be changed to its
opposite. When you are in grace, think how miserable and needy you are
without it. Your progress in spiritual life does not consist in having the
grace of consolation, but in enduring its withdrawal with humility,
resignation, and patience, so that you neither become listless in prayer nor
neglect your other duties in the least; but on the contrary do what you can
do as well as you know how, and do not neglect yourself completely because
of your dryness or anxiety of mind.
(Continuing)
If
there be mysteriousness in [the Catholic Church's] teaching, this does but
show that she proceeds from Him, who is Himself Mystery, in the most simple
and elementary ideas which we have of Him, whom we cannot contemplate at all
except as One who is absolutely greater than our reason, and utterly strange
to our imagination.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘Mysteries of Nature and of Grace’ 1849)
(May 22) St. Rita of Cascia (1381-1457)
Like Elizabeth Ann Seton, Rita of Cascia was a wife, mother, widow and
member of a religious community. Her holiness was reflected in each phase of
her life. Born at Roccaporena in central Italy, Rita wanted to become a nun
but was pressured at a young age into marrying a harsh and cruel man. During
her 18-year marriage, she bore and raised two sons. After her husband was
killed in a brawl and her sons had died, Rita tried to join the Augustinian
nuns in Cascia. Unsuccessful at first because she was a widow, Rita
eventually succeeded. Over the years, her austerity, prayerfulness and
charity became legendary. When she developed wounds on her forehead, people
quickly associated them with the wounds from Christ's crown of thorns. She
meditated frequently on Christ's passion. Her care for the sick nuns was
especially loving. She also counselled lay people who came to her monastery.
Beatified in 1626, Rita was not canonized until 1900. She has acquired the
reputation, together with St. Jude, as a saint of impossible cases. Many
people visit her tomb each year.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today: Acts 18:9-18;
Psalm 47:2-7; John 16:20-23
Jesus said to his disciples, I tell
you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will
grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has
pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the
anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you:
Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice,
and no-one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me
anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in
my name. (John 16:20-23)
At various points in the Gospels our
Lord makes his points in stark and dramatic terms. He said on one occasion
that if a man does not hate his father and mother he is not worthy of him.
Of course he is not saying that he expects a person to hate his parents for
his sake. On the contrary he condemns the Pharisees for directing people to
neglect their parents for spurious religious reasons. He is making the point
starkly that he expects a total attachment to himself on the part of his
disciples. He says on another occasion
that before criticising our brother
we ought take the beam out of our own eye first. He is not saying that he
expects that a beam of wood will be lodged in our eye. He is making the
point starkly that we have many faults to rid ourselves of before we start
condemning others for their faults. So we must not mistake our Lord’s
meaning in the sharp contrast he draws between the weeping of his disciples
and the rejoicing of the world. He does not mean that the lot of his
disciples will be one of sadness and weeping in this world. After all, he
tells them elsewhere in this same Gospel that he is giving to them a share
in his own joy and peace — but not the joy that the world possesses. With
that gift of his joy we shall be able to rejoice. We remember that St Paul
exhorted the Christians to rejoice in the Lord always — again I say,
rejoice, he writes. So let us understand our Lord’s meaning. In the first
instance he is predicting the sorrow of the disciples at his coming Passion
and Death. They will weep and mourn, while those of the world — our Lord’s
enemies among the leaders of the nation — will rejoice at his death. But he
will see them again, and then they will rejoice. Then no one will be able to
take away their joy. So their lot will be one of joy because they will be
with Jesus. In the midst of future suffering, they will be still with Jesus.
So they can rejoice. But there is a more lasting meaning to this utterance,
beyond his resurrection and meeting and abiding with them again. It is that
the sufferings of this world will not compare with the joy of the next.
By the gift of Christ’s Holy Spirit
the Christian shares in Christ’s risen divine life and this will be the
basis not only of his joy amid suffering in this life, but it will be the
heart and soul of his eternal joy with God in heaven. Heaven! Everlasting
life in heaven! An eternity of joy! Seeing face to face the infinite Beauty!
Heaven! What a prospect of joy and happiness lies ahead of us provided we
stay close to Jesus. “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again
and you will rejoice, and no-one will take away your joy.” Ultimately this
promise will be fulfilled in heaven, and in that sense what our Lord says
here is directed not merely to the Twelve who will be shattered by his
arrest, his passion and his death, and who will be filled with joy when they
see him again. This promise is directed to all of us. He is with us now
invisibly, and so we have every reason to rejoice no matter what afflictions
strike us, be it sickness, bereavement, being ignored or criticized. Jesus
is with us. But this life, brief as it is, is the prelude to being with
Jesus face to face forever. There no tear will need to be wiped away for all
will share in the glory and the joy of Jesus. Let us think of the joy ahead,
then. At the end of a great book he had just written, John Henry Newman
wrote that life is short and eternity long. He was inviting the reader to
consider what he had written and to consider it with the thought of eternity
ahead. This entails two alternatives: either heaven forever or hell forever.
Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel (John 16:20-23)
invite us to think of heaven. If we remain with Jesus we shall be with him
forever in heaven. Heaven will be an eternity of constant and cloudless joy.
It will entail seeing the great God face to face. God, face to face! God is
infinite goodness and beauty, and our life in heaven will be one of being
with him without end. How catastrophic to miss this and to be lost forever!
It will all depend on our being good here, on our doing what our mind and
heart tell us is right, and on our doing our very best to be sure that our
mind and heart tell us aright and not mistakenly. The ultimate embodiment of
our duty and our happiness is the person of Jesus.
There has long been a current of
philosophical thought that understands the ultimate ground of morality to
lie in the happiness of man. That is to say, what is moral is what is most
conducive to my truest happiness. So I should do what is most useful to
my happiness. Now while of course the fulfilling of the obligations of the
moral law will indeed lead to my ultimate happiness, morality cannot be
grounded in this utilitarian principle. That having been said, there is one
simple and profound principle which most certainly leads to man’s happiness
here on earth and forever in heaven. It is being with Jesus and living
according to the demands of his friendship. Let us then take our stand with
him and never stray from him.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Don't you long to shout to those young men and women all around you: Fools,
leave those worldly things that shackle the heart and very often degrade
it..., leave all that and come with us in search of Love?
(The Way, no.790)
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Continuing The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The seventh chapter: GRACE MUST BE HIDDEN
UNDER THE MANTLE OF HUMILITY
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
There
are many, indeed, who immediately become impatient and lazy when things do
not go well with them. The way of man, however, does not always lie in his
own power. It is God's prerogative to give grace and to console when He
wishes, as much as He wishes, and whom He wishes, as it shall please Him and
no more.
Some careless persons, misusing the grace of devotion, have destroyed
themselves because they wished to do more than they were able. They failed
to take account of their own weakness, and followed the desire of their
heart rather than the judgment of their reason. Then, because they presumed
to greater things than pleased God they quickly lost His grace. They who had
built their homes in heaven became helpless, vile outcasts, humbled and
impoverished, that they might learn not to fly with their own wings but to
trust in Mine.
(Continuing)
When
our Lord was lifted up on the Cross, then, too, He presented to us the same
example of a soul raised heavenwards and hid in God, with the tumultuous
world at its feet.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘Rising with Christ’ 1836/7)
(May 23) St. Felix of Cantalice (1515-1587)
Felix was the first Franciscan Capuchin
ever canonized. In fact, when he was born, the Capuchins did not yet exist
as a distinct group within the Franciscans. Born of humble, God-fearing
parents in the Rieti Valley, Felix worked as a farmhand and a shepherd until
he was 28. He developed the habit of praying while he worked. In 1543 he
joined the Capuchins. When the guardian explained the hardships of that way
of life, Felix answered: "Father, the austerity of your Order does not
frighten me. I hope, with God’s help, to overcome all the difficulties which
will arise from my own weakness." Three years later Felix was assigned to
the friary in Rome as its official beggar. Because he was a model of
simplicity and charity, he edified many people during the 42 years he
performed that service for his confreres. As he made his rounds, he worked
to convert hardened sinners and to feed the poor as did his good friend, St.
Philip Neri, who founded the Oratory, a community of priests serving the
poor of Rome. When Felix wasn’t talking on his rounds, he was praying the
rosary. The people named him "Brother Deo Gratias" (thanks be to God)
because he was always using that blessing. When Felix was an old man, his
superior had to order him to wear sandals to protect his health. Around the
same time a certain cardinal offered to suggest to Felix’s superiors that he
be freed of begging so that he could devote more time to prayer. Felix
talked the cardinal out of that idea. Felix was canonized in 1712.
The Rule of St Francis states, "And let us refer all good to
the most high and supreme lord God, and acknowledge that every good is His,
and thank Him for everything, [He] from Whom all good things come. And may
He, the Highest and Supreme, Who alone is true God, have and be given and
receive every honour and reverence, every praise and blessing, every thanks
and glory, for every good is His, He Who alone is good. And when we see or
hear an evil [person] speak or act or blaspheme God, let us speak well and
act well and praise God (cf. Rom 12:21), Who is blessed forever (Rom 1:25)"
(St. Francis, Rule of 1221, Ch. 17). (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today: Acts 18:23-28;
Psalm 47:2-3, 8-10; John 16:23b-28
Jesus said to his disciples, I tell
you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until
now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive,
and your joy will be complete. Though I have been speaking figuratively, a
time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell
you plainly about my Father. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not
saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself
loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and
going back to the Father. (John 16:23b-28)
There are many tests of faith. One
test is suffering. A person suffers greatly and he loses faith in God.
Alternately, a person suffers greatly and believes in God the more. For
instance, a person goes off to war and undergoes terrible experiences. He
comes back a changed man — for the worse. He cannot settle down in his
marriage and proves to be a terrible trial to his wife and children and
abandons the practice of his Christian faith. Another person — perhaps even
his own brother — goes off to war and undergoes terrible sufferings but
gains a reputation among his comrades for his indomitable Christian faith.
He prays for the enemy towards whom he aims his weapon. He comes back far
more mature in his Catholic faith than he was before. He has passed the test
while the other failed it. There are many other tests of religious faith.
One, for instance, is prayer, and more specifically the prayer of petition — and it is this to which our Lord refers in our Gospel today.
This kind of prayer, the prayer in which we not only cultivate the presence
of God, the prayer in which we not only thank God for favours, but the
prayer in which we ask God for what we want and need, is the most common. It
is at the root of the practice of religion in numerous societies across the
centuries of human history. Indigenous societies turn to the unseen powers
because of their need and they invoke their aid. So it is with many advanced
societies. Man is all too aware of his need in the face of a world that does
not respect his convenience, and he asks the help of the unseen powers that do
control the world and its forces. Man’s sense of his limitations, his
transience, his vulnerability and in general his need lead him spontaneously
to the prayer of petition. But what of modern secular man who tends to think
that the world is not dependent, moment by moment, on a higher Power? Modern
religious man tends, I think, to be a deist or a pantheist. He tends not to
regard the world as being in constant and radical dependence on a
transcendent God for its very being. If he is not religious at all but
totally secular he looks on this world as the Ultimate in reality. This
world is all there is. So he does not engage much in the prayer of petition
because it has no point for him. In fact, the prayer of petition is a normal
test of faith.
Christ warmly
encourages us to ask God — himself the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit — for what we
need. Consider what he says. “I tell you the truth, my Father will give you
whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my
name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete”
(John 16:23b-28). St Alphonsus Ligouri
in one of his books writes that the prayer of petition is of great
importance for salvation because many of the graces we need come to us if we
ask for them. To take a fundamental example: baptism. It is because the
parents of a child come to the Church to ask God for baptism that the child
receives the great and foundational grace of baptism. It is the result of a
prayer of petition. One of the reasons why we do not receive much more from
God is that we do not ask him for more. This relates not only to spiritual
favours but to material as well. I remember a very elderly woman lost
something most precious and necessary for her. She searched and searched
with mounting anxiety and finally in desperation asked me to join with her
in prayer that she would find what she was looking for. Two minutes later
she found it, to her exhilaration. The saints are our heavenly models and
intercessors before God. They join their prayers with ours, and the Church
has nominated some saints as our intercessors especially in material needs.
So we are encouraged by Christ and the Church to make the prayer of petition
a firm part of our lives. But all too often we do not have the faith to do
so. In this particular test we fail. There is the nagging doubt that God
will answer our prayer and so we think it is a waste of time. Without facing
our own thoughts, we perhaps think that God does not really have the power or
the willingness to assist us in the concrete things we need — whether they
be of the material or the spiritual order. We think we are really on our
own, other than having God’s company during our weary course during life.
Let us make a point of exercising
our faith more. We believe that God is our almighty Father, that he is both
all-powerful and all-loving. His power is revealed in his mercy, and his
mercy is revealed in his active power. But do we act on this faith in terms
of asking for what we need? We ought not only ask for our own needs, but
even more for the needs of others because their needs are all too often far
greater than our own. We ought also pray for the dead that God will hasten
their purification and admit them into his eternal presence. Let us then
pray for all we need.
(E.J.Tyler)
You
lack drive. That's why you sway so few. You don't seem very convinced of
what you gain by giving up those things of the earth for Christ.
Just compare: a hundredfold and life everlasting! Would you call that a poor
bargain?
(The Way, no.791)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ BOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The seventh chapter: GRACE MUST
BE HIDDEN UNDER THE MANTLE OF HUMILITY
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
They who are still new and inexperienced in the way of the Lord may easily
be deceived and overthrown unless they guide themselves by the advice of
discreet persons. But if they wish to follow their own notions rather than
to trust in others who are more experienced, they will be in danger of a
sorry end, at least if they are unwilling to be drawn from their vanity.
Seldom do they who are wise in their own conceits bear humbly the guidance
of others. Yet a little knowledge humbly and meekly pursued is better than
great treasures of learning sought in vain complacency. It is better for you
to have little than to have much which may become the source of pride.
(Continuing)
It
must not be supposed, because the doctrine of the Cross makes us sad, that
therefore the Gospel is a sad religion. The Psalmist says, “They that sow in
tears shall reap in joy;” [Psalm 126] and our Lord says, “They that mourn
shall be comforted.” [cf. Matthew 5:4]
(JHN, from the sermon ‘The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World’
1841)
Prayers today: Lord, hear my
voice when I call to you. My heart has prompted me to seek your face; I seek
it, Lord; do not hide from me, alleluia. (Psalm 26:
7-9)
Father, help us keep in mind that Christ our Saviour lives with you in glory
and promised to remain with us until the end of time. We ask this through
our Lord Jesus Christ your Son...
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Scripture today: Acts 1: 15-17.20-26; Psalm
102; 1 John 4: 11-16; John 17: 11-19
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Holy Father, keep those you have
given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us. While I was
with them, I kept those you had given me true to your name. None has been
lost except the one who chose to be lost, and that was in fulfilment of the
Scriptures. I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still
in the world, to share my joy with them to the full. I have given them your
word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more
than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world
but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even
as I am not of it. Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth. As you
sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I
consecrate myself, that they too may be consecrated in truth.
(John 17:
11-19)
The Truth
One of the very notable things in the Gospel of St John, from
which our Gospel passage today is drawn, is the prominence of the idea of
“truth” in the teaching of Jesus Christ. I would be interested to see a
study comparing the notion of truth on the lips of Christ, as in the Gospel
of St John, with truth as featuring in other ancient and classical writings.
I suspect that it could be
shown that, set against such a background, the
presence and meaning of “truth” in John’s Gospel is quite striking. In the
Prologue of his Gospel we have a comparison between Moses and Jesus Christ,
in which “truth” is brought out.. Moses is said to have given the Law. Let
us think of Moses and his relationship with Yahweh God in the Meeting Tent
(Exodus 33: 9-23). In the Tent, the Lord spoke with Moses “face to face, as
one man speaks to another.” But when Moses then asks to see the glory of
God, God answers that he will indeed show his beauty to him “but my face you
cannot see, for no man sees me and still lives” (23: 20-23). God promises
that when his glory passes by, he will cover Moses with his hand till he has
passed―“so that you may see my back; but my face is not to be seen.” So
the earlier statement that “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face”
must mean a special kind of presence, but not a direct sight of the face of
God. The next day Moses ascends the Mountain with the tablets he has made,
and after forty days and forty nights returns with the commandments on the
tablets and his face radiant. The point is that Moses received the Law from
God and gave it to the people, but for all his friendship and converse with
God, he never saw his face. “The Law,” St John writes, “was given by Moses,
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Grace is a share in the life of
God, while “truth” is the revelation about him. “No man has seen God at any
time,” John writes, “the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father―he has made him known.” While Moses was granted sight of God’s “back,”
Jesus had come from the very embrace of the Father. He had always seen God’s
face, and he has made him known. This is the “Truth” which Jesus has brought
to the world, the “Truth” he has seen as the only-begotten Son.
Standing before Pilate, the representative of Caesar and the Empire―which
is to say, the pagan world, Christ said that “for this was I born, for this
did I come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of
the truth listens to my voice.” He came to reveal the Father, as the one and
only who has seen him. But there is more. He himself is the Truth. Little
did Pilate know, when he asked, “What is truth?” Christ declared to his
disciples that he himself is not only the way―for no-one could come to the
Father except through him―but that he is also the truth and the life. “I
am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” he said. Further, he promised to send
the Spirit of Truth (14: 17) who would teach them all things, and bring to
their remembrance all that he had said to them. The Truth is none other than
God―Father, Son and Spirit―and in our Gospel today Christ prays that his
disciples will be consecrated in the Truth. This means that they will be
absolutely grounded in the truth of God, coming to them in his word which is
none other than the person of Jesus Christ. While Moses did not see the face
of God, they, the disciples, saw the face of Jesus Christ―and Christ is
God. He who sees me, sees the Father, Jesus told them. So in gazing on the
face of Jesus Christ, the disciples gazed on the face of God. In receiving
from him the Spirit of truth, they received grace, which is the life of God.
From Jesus Christ, then, they received grace and truth. In our Gospel
passage today (John 17: 11-19), our Lord prays to his heavenly Father that
the disciples will be consecrated in the truth. They are to be completely
surrendered to God as revealed in his word, coming in the person of Jesus
Christ. “Consecrate them in the truth, your word is truth.” This will mean a
total and definitive reception by them of the truth of God, and a committing
of themselves to its universal proclamation. Personal sanctification will
come through this consecration to the truth, which is to say to a personal
appropriation of it, and to the spread of it. This applies to all of us who
are disciples of Christ. The one thing necessary is that we be sanctified in
this divine truth, and totally consecrated to it.
Let us pray to be kept true to the divine name, the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and that none of us may be lost, as was
the one mentioned by our Lord in our passage today. We have in Mary our
mother, a sublime exemplar, advocate and intercessor. Let us pray every day
that she will intercede for us now, and at the hour of our death. It is
imperative that we be consecrated in the truth―this will be our means of
sanctification, so let it be our life, then!
(E.J.Tyler)
Prayers this week:
Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking in the sky? The Lord will return,
just as you have seen him ascend, alleluia.
(Acts 1:11) God our
Father, make us joyful in the ascension of your Son Jesus Christ. May we
follow him into the new creation, for his ascension is our glory and
our hope.
We ask
this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
(May 24) St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi (1566-1607)
Mystical ecstasy is the elevation of the spirit to God in such a way that
the person is aware of this union with God and both internal and external
senses are detached from the sensible world. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi was so
generously given this special gift of God that she is called the "ecstatic
saint." She was born into a noble family in Florence in 1566. The normal
course would have been for Catherine de Pazzi to have married wealth and
enjoyed comfort, but she chose to follow her own path. At nine she learned
to meditate from the family confessor. She made her first Communion at the
then-early age of 10 and made a vow of virginity one month later. When 16,
she entered the Carmelite convent in Florence because she could receive
Communion daily there. Catherine had taken the name Mary Magdalene and had
been a novice for a year when she became critically ill. Death seemed near
so her superiors let her make her profession of vows from a cot in the
chapel in a private ceremony. Immediately after, she fell into an ecstasy
that lasted about two hours. This was repeated after Communion on the
following 40 mornings. These ecstasies were rich experiences of union with
God and contained marvellous insights into divine truths. As a safeguard
against deception and to preserve the revelations, her confessor asked Mary
Magdalene to dictate her experiences to sister secretaries. Over the next
six years, five large volumes were filled. The first three books record
ecstasies from May of 1584 through Pentecost week the following year. This
week was a preparation for a severe five-year trial. The fourth book records
that trial and the fifth is a collection of letters concerning reform and
renewal. Another book, Admonitions, is a collection of her sayings arising
from her experiences in the formation of women religious. The extraordinary
was ordinary for this saint. She read the thoughts of others and predicted
future events. During her lifetime, she appeared to several persons in
distant places and cured a number of sick people. It would be easy to dwell
on the ecstasies and pretend that Mary Magdalene only had spiritual highs.
This is far from true. It seems that God permitted her this special
closeness to prepare her for the five years of desolation that followed when
she experienced spiritual dryness. She was plunged into a state of darkness
in which she saw nothing but what was horrible in herself and all around
her. She had violent temptations and endured great physical suffering. She
died in 1607 at 41, and was canonized in 1669. (AmericanCatholic.org)
Jesus said to his disciples, 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)
Before he began his public ministry
our Lord’s mission was announced by John the Baptist. Jesus of Nazareth was
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Before he took the
first steps in his great work, this had been said of him by the acknowledged
prophet of the nation. John had pointed to him as one much greater than
himself. He, Jesus, was the bridegroom, and he, John, was merely the friend
of the bridegroom. Jesus would take away the sin of the world. A greater
work could scarcely
be imagined, for who could measure the scale of the sin
of the world! Moreover, who could conceive how such a task could be done!
Yet this is what the Son of God made man set out to do, and this is what he
did. He broke the power of sin; he made up for the sins of the world by his
obedience to his heavenly Father; he opened the gates of heaven for mankind.
He did all this — he who is the great God himself — at the cost of
unimaginable suffering. It cost God a tremendous effort and toil to do this
work, but he did it perfectly. It was the work of the Father done through
the work of his Son. But look at what remained to be done. Redemption had
been achieved, but the vast world remained as yet untouched by all that
Christ had done. The Redemption had to be brought to each individual, each
society, each culture, in short to the whole world. The world had yet to be
brought to belief in Jesus so that it might receive the blessings now
available to all. The disciples were weak and few. The Jewish leaders had
rejected Christ’s claims and had done away with him. Christ had founded his
Church on the rock of Peter and on the Twelve, but it was all at its bare
beginnings. The Church had to be enlivened and launched on its mission and
thereafter sustained in a vigorous world-wide growth under constant and
serious persecution. In the plan of God, just as the second divine Person
had been sent to do the work of taking away the sin of the world and
founding the Church, so the third divine Person was now needed to do the
mighty work of the evangelization of the world.
Great beyond compare as was the work
of Christ, of equal greatness is the work of the Holy Spirit that is its
sequel. The Holy Spirit is at the forefront of the world’s evangelization.
In our Gospel passage today for the feast of the Ascension our Lord entrusts
the mission of the evangelization of the world to his disciples. What a
mission is this! “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.” The salvation of the world was being
entrusted to his Church, founded on Peter and the Apostles. Salvation would
depend on belief in Jesus. Of course, our Lord was not excluding from heaven
those who have not heard of him and who in consequence have only the
uncertain voice of their own conscience to rely upon. In his famous
Letter to the Duke of Norfolk in 1875, John Henry Newman wrote that
the natural conscience is the “aboriginal vicar of Christ.” That
is to say, the natural representative of Christ is
the conscience of man, but the
voice of conscience can easily be mistaken or muted. The
conscience of man needs the clear voice of Christ as it speaks through the
teaching and witness of his Church. So Christ must be brought to the world.
For this great work, the Father and the Son have sent the third divine
Person. The work of Redemption now done and the Church now founded, both the
Father and the Son have entrusted the work of enlivening the Church and
evangelizing the world to the third divine person, the Holy Spirit. Christ
ascended into heaven, having given to his disciples the grandest of
missions. They needed now another Counsellor, Friend and Guide, and this was
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. He is the very
soul of the Church animating, building and sustaining her in her growth and
in her work of bringing Christ to the world. He restores to the baptized the
divine likeness that was lost through sin and enables them to live in Christ
the life of the Holy Trinity. He enables them to bear witness to the Truth
and he brings his grace to the Church’s members through the Sacraments.
We read that “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). This was done because
of the coming and the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us be constantly alive
to the great fact of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the life
of the Church and her members. Let us pray for his help and resolve never to
make him sad through deliberate sin.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church,
no.737-741 (The Holy Spirit and the church)
'Duc
in altum. Put out into deep water!' Throw aside the pessimism that makes
a coward of you. And pay out your nets for a catch!
Don't you see that you, like Peter, can say: 'In nomine tuo, laxabo rete':
Jesus, if you say so, I will search for souls?
(The Way, no.792)
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Continuing The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The seventh chapter: GRACE MUST
BE HIDDEN UNDER THE MANTLE OF HUMILITY
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
He who gives himself up entirely to enjoyment acts very unwisely, for he
forgets his former helplessness and that chastened fear of the Lord which
dreads to lose a proffered grace. Nor is he very brave or wise who becomes
too despondent in times of adversity and difficulty and thinks less
confidently of Me than he should. He who wishes to be too secure in time of
peace will often become too dejected and fearful in time of trial.
If you were wise enough to remain always humble and small in your own eyes,
and to restrain and rule your spirit well, you would not fall so quickly
into danger and offence.
(Continuing)
The Solemnity of the Ascension of Christ is in some places celebrated
today, and in others this coming Sunday. Here is an extract from
John Henry Newman’s 1838 sermon ‘Warfare the Condition of Victory’. In the
sermon, he talks of the Apostles, their state and mind and spiritual
condition, after Christ had ascended into heaven. According to Newman, their
joyous attitude reveals something to us about what it means to be a
Christian:
“They worshipped Him,” says the text, “and returned to Jerusalem with great
joy, and were continually in the Temple praising and
blessing
God.” [Luke 24: 52-53] Now how was it, that when nature would have wept, the
Apostles rejoiced? … Christ surely had taught them what it was to have their
treasure in heaven; and they rejoiced, not that their Lord was gone, but
that their hearts had gone with Him. Their hearts were no longer on earth,
they were risen aloft. When He died on the Cross, they knew not whither He
was gone. Before He was seized, they had said to Him, “Lord, whither goest
Thou? Lord, we know not whither Thou goest?” [cf. John 13: 36; 14: 5] They
could but follow Him to the grave and there mourn, for they knew no better;
but now they saw Him ascend on high, and in spirit they ascended with Him.
Mary wept at the grave because she thought enemies had taken Him away, and
she knew not where they had laid Him. “Where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also.” [Matt. 6: 21] Mary had no heart left to her, for her
treasure was lost; but the Apostles were continually in the Temple, praising
and blessing God, for their hearts were in heaven, or, in St. Paul’s words,
they “were dead, and their life was hid with Christ in God.” [cf. Col. 3:3]
Strengthened, then, with this knowledge, they were able to face those trials
which Christ had first undergone Himself, and had foretold as their portion.
“Whither I go,” He had said to St. Peter, “thou canst not follow Me now, but
thou shalt follow Me afterwards.” [John 13: 36] And He told them, “They
shall put you out of the synagogues, yea, the time cometh, that whosoever
killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” [John 16: 2] That time
was now coming, and they were able to rejoice in what so troubled them forty
days before. For they understood the promise, “To him that overcometh, will
I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set
down with My Father in His Throne.” [Rev. 3: 21]
It will be well if we take this lesson to ourselves, and learn that great
truth which the Apostles shrank from at first, but at length rejoiced in.
Christ suffered, and entered into joy; so did they, in their measure, after
Him. And in our measure, so do we. It is written, that “through much
tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God.” [cf. Acts 14: 22] God
has all things in His own hands. He can spare, He can inflict: He often
spares (may He spare us still!) but He often tries us,—in one way or another
He tries every one. At some time or other of the life of every one there is
pain, and sorrow, and trouble. So it is; and the sooner perhaps we can look
upon it as a law of our Christian condition, the better. One generation
comes, and then another. They issue forth and succeed like leaves in Spring;
and in all, this law is observable. They are tried, and then they triumph;
they are humbled, and then are exalted; they overcome the world, and then
they sit down on Christ’s throne.
(John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons Vol 6 (1842)
Sermon no. 16, p. 225-27)
(May 25) In Australia Mary Help of Christians
(a Solemnity — is normally on May 24)
Pope Pius VII, after he returned to Rome in 1815 from several years
of captivity imposed by the emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, instituted this
feast day in honour of the assistance which the Blessed Virgin had accorded
the Church. The occasion of the Pope’s exile and captivity was the emperor’s
resistance to the authority of the Vicar of Christ, superior before God
to his own.
A decree of the emperor in 1809 had ordered that the papal States be joined
to the French empire; violence followed in Rome, when the French tricolor
flag was set up and the papal arms broken. The Pope’s very courageous bull
of excommunication of the emperor was made public in the following month.
Then, one morning, a group of armed men entered the Quirinal Palace by
breaking down the doors with axes, and its leader announced that the pope
must either renounce his sovereignty over Rome or be taken by the troop
to a French General, who would communicate to him his next destination.
The sacrilegious seizure of his person was executed, and he spent five
years in exile in various places, finally at Fontainebleau, France. After
1815 the clemency of the great Pope towards the Emperor and his family
is a matter of history; the latter were afforded a secure refuge in Rome
itself, when Napoleon was exiled. And for the Emperor himself, relegated
to the island of Saint Helena, the Pope pleaded for clemency with the Prince-Regent
of England. When Napoleon died, it was with the assistance of chaplains
sent to him by Pius VII. Our Lady, Help of Christians, was made better
known by Saint John Bosco, who consecrated his Order of Salesian priests
to Her. And in Turin, beginning in 1865, he began to raise in Her honour
a vast and magnificent church. Without ever having a penny in advance, always
the needed sums of money arrived in time. About three-fourths of the gifts
offered were presented in thanksgiving for favours obtained through Her intercession.
An example of her intercession is as follows: A certain Senator of the
Kingdom of Italy was ill; Don Bosco went to visit him and found him very
discouraged and speaking of his imminent death. “What would you do,” said
Don Bosco, “if Our Lady Auxiliatrix obtained your cure from God?” “My cure!
Well, I would give two thousand francs a month for Her church, for six
months.” “Be of good courage,” said the Saint on rising; “I will see that
prayers are said for you.” Three days later, Baron Gotta, perfectly cured,
went to Don Bosco to make his first payment, giving more than he had promised;
and he did not cease to outdo himself in generosity. (L’histoire ecclésiastique)
click on centre arrow
(In Australia, Mary Help of Christians)
Proverbs 31; Psalm 112; James 3: 13-18; Luke 1:
39-56
At
that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,
where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth
heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled
with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: Blessed are you among
women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favoured,
that the mother of my
Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my
ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed
that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished! And Mary said:
My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for
he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all
generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things
for me— holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from
generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he
has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought
down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled
the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped
his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants
for ever, even as he said to our fathers. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for
about three months and then returned home. (Luke
1: 39-56)
Consider Mary the mother
of Jesus in action, as recorded in the Gospels. One of her most obvious
features is that she helps those in need. The Angel Gabriel announces to
her that God’s plan is that she be the mother of the Messiah, who will
save his people from their sins. He asks her consent, which she gives.
I am the handmaid of the Lord, his slave, she replies. So Mary is the Servant
of the Lord. She understands that her son will spend himself in the service
of his people, saving them from their sins. This spirit of service
and help she imitates and reflects and we see it in action as soon as the
Angel leaves her. She rises up and leaves without delay to help her kinswoman
Elizabeth, whom she has heard from the Angel is well advanced in expecting
her child. So Mary is the helper of those in need. She arrives at the home
of Elizabeth and is honoured by her elderly relative who praises God for
the arrival of the mother of her Lord. There Mary stays to help her kinswoman,
and then she returns home (Luke 1: 39-56).
Just as Mary helped then, so now from heaven Mary helps us. We remember
how at the beginning of his public ministry our Lord came with his disciples
to the town of Cana and attended the wedding feast. The wine ran out and
the mother of Jesus came to him to tell him that they had no wine. Mary
is there as the one who helps. She informs her son and then tells the stewards
to do whatever he tells them to do. Her intervention has been decisive
and it not only saved the day for the wedding, but it brought forward the
commencement of our Lord’s miraculous helping of those in need. From heaven
she is our Help. Barely three years later following our Lord’s zenith during
his public ministry, she stood before the cross as her son hung dying in
agony, taking away the sin of the world. She was there as his help. He
looked down at her during his last moments and said to the beloved disciple,
Here is your mother. Looking at her, he said, this is your son. He was
entrusting all his disciples to her care. He was constituting her the Help
of Christians and indeed of all men because all are called to the discovery
and acknowledgement of Christ as our God and our Redeemer.
Throughout Christian
history Mary the mother of Jesus has been regarded as the help of Christians
in their following of Christ. She is the greatest help of Christians in
their life of Christian discipleship. Not only is this the case in the
personal life of each member of Christ’s faithful, but in the life of Christian
societies and civilizations. A signal instance of this was in the Christian
response to the threat coming from Islam in the second half of the sixteenth
century. It was an immense danger to Christian Europe, especially in view
of the intractable division between Christian states that had gradually
been developing over the previous centuries. Christian kings were lethargic
and would not unite their Catholic countries in a coalition. Gradually
due to the efforts of the Pope of the day — Pope St Pius V — a limited
Christian coalition was formed under Don John of Austria. The Islamic fleet
was to be confronted. At the same time the Pope put the entire enterprise
under the protection of Mary Help of Christians and ordered a great campaign
of prayer, using especially the Rosary, for the intention. Many of the
galley slaves in the Islamic fleet who were starved, beaten, and pulling
the oars were captured Christians. One of them was Miguel de Cervantes,
the future author of the great Spanish novel Don Quixote. He
later called the encounter the greatest naval sea battle in history and
the most important to that time for the safety of Europe. The Turks had
been massing an enormous fleet for an invasion of Italy. It may have resulted
in the crushing of the Christian civilization of Europe, and few expected
that the outnumbered Christian fleet could possibly prevail. Finally at
Lepanto in the Gulf of Patras, the Ionian Sea, the battle was joined. The
clash and crash of weaponry resounded across sea and air and the upshot
was a resounding Christian victory. All attributed it to the help of our
Lady. The Islamic fleet never fully recovered. It was one of several instances
in history of a general appeal by Christendom to Mary for her help. Mary
is the heavenly Help of Christians.
On May 24 (the feast
shifts when a Sunday falls on that day) the Church celebrates Our Lady
as Help of Christians. The gift of Christ as he hung dying on the Cross
was his mother. She is his gift to us who love, serve and follow him. She
can help us with her all-powerful intercession and her incomparable example
to live the Christian life generously, and to defend the Christian faith
when it is under attack. It is now under the insidious attack of a secular
culture that rejects the proposition that Christ is the heart and soul
of life. Let us turn to Mary for her constant help.
(E.J.Tyler)
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The search for fellow-apostles. It is the unmistakable sign of true zeal.
(The Way,
no.793)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ BOOK THREE INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The seventh chapter: GRACE MUST
BE HIDDEN UNDER THE MANTLE OF HUMILITY
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
When a spirit of fervour is enkindled within you, you may well meditate
on how you will feel when the fervour leaves. Then, when this happens,
remember that the light which I have withdrawn for a time as a warning
to you and for My own glory may again return. Such trials are often more
beneficial than if you had things always as you wish. For a man's merits
are not measured by many visions or consolations, or by knowledge of the
Scriptures, or by his being in a higher position than others, but by the
truth of his humility, by his capacity for divine charity, by his constancy
in seeking purely and entirely the honour of God, by his disregard and
positive contempt of self, and more, by preferring to be despised and humiliated
rather than honoured by others.
(Concluded)
What is nobler, what is more elevating and transporting, than the generosity
of heart which risks everything on God’s word, dares the powers of evil
to their worst efforts, and repels the illusions of sense and the artifices
of reason, by confidence in the Truth of Him who has ascended to the right
hand of the Majesty on high?
(JHN, from the sermon ‘Mysteries in Religion’ 1834)
Scripture today:
Acts 19:1-8;
Psalm 68:2-7ab; John 16:29-33
The disciples said to Jesus, Now you are speaking clearly and without
figures of speech. Now we know that you know all things and that you do not
even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you
came from God. You believe at last! Jesus answered. But a time is coming,
and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will
leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. I have
told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you
will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
(John 16:29-33)
Knowing by faith
Many years ago I was quite struck by a position expressed to me in a
conversation I was having with a relative of mine. As I recall it, we were
discussing the firm position of the Catholic Church on some point of
religious belief. The person I was explaining this to countered by saying
that we can’t be sure of anything really, because what seems true to one
person is nothing more than that. It is just a personal perception. He meant
that the human mind cannot absolutely attain the knowledge of what is
objective. It
came home to me then that a widespread and long-standing
philosophical position was actually current at the grassroots level of
ordinary citizens. For some centuries the foremost problem in philosophy has
been human knowledge. Man instinctively thinks―and indeed, knows―that
when he knows something, he knows it precisely as something objective to
him. It is not just a personal impression or persuasion. This is the voice
of mankind, we may say, and all of society is built upon this conviction. If
a person commits a crime, it would be laughable in the courts for him or
anyone else to say―yes, you have proved my guilt, but this does not answer
the fundamental question whether you or we can know anything objective. The
functioning of everyday life is built on the conviction that we can know the
objective order and we have responsibilities to live according to what is
objectively right and wrong. But much of philosophy asserts that all this
means is that we think we know the objective order, and that in fact there
is no means of knowing this for certain. There have been various answers to
this, attempting to lay the philosophical basis for certain knowledge. It is
certainly important for religion, unless religion is understood as merely a
powerful and meaningful feeling. But if it is understood as involving the
knowledge of God and his will, then a position which denies the possibility
of certain knowledge will logically lead to agnosticism and atheism. But
granted the power of the mind to know the objective order, the next question
is, what is the means of attaining this objective knowledge? While for the
vast proportion of human history and cultures it has been taken for granted
that the most important realm of reality is unseen and unable to be seen,
the opposite is the case for the modern (Western) era. We take for granted
that the most important realm of reality, indeed the only realm of reality,
is what is seen.
As already said, I can vouch that even in ordinary folk there can be found a
scepticism as to the possibility of objective knowledge. But I have also
encountered in the average person, including young thinking people, the view
that it is only what one can see, or feel, or hear, that can be counted as
being certainly there. Only the empirical is real, and the real is only
empirical. The supernatural is a phantom, and this world is all that there
is. Just as the prior assumption about the non-objectivity of knowledge will
play havoc in religion, so will this assumption that there is nothing beyond
what we can ourselves directly sense or measure or test. They are
assumptions contrary to common sense, contrary to the voice of mankind, and
certainly contrary to objective religion. They are therefore contrary to the
well-being of man and his vocation to sanctity and to life everlasting.
Hidden within it too is often a further assumption that ultimately the only
basis of certain knowledge is personal sense knowledge. It is only what I
myself have sensed, measured and tested that can be counted as certain
knowledge. The acceptance of the word of another as an authority to be
relied on is of no use for certain knowledge. All of this constitutes a
downward spiral into general scepticism. What I am leading to here is the
affirmation of the power of the human mind to know things, whether seen or
unseen. This is not the place to justify this philosophically, except to
observe that it is the general conviction of man because it is evident to
him. Further, and this is particularly important, much of our certain
knowledge is based on faith in the word of others. I am absolutely certain
that there is a part of the world called Iceland. I have never seen it, but
I am sure of it on the word of others. This brings us to our Gospel today in
which the disciples say to our Lord that “now we know that you know all
things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This
makes us believe that you came from God.” They had attained belief in Jesus
Christ, and this belief in him brought certain knowledge of the things he
revealed and spoke about. Belief was the basis of their knowledge of things
unseen―belief in the person of Christ, and therefore in his word.
Let us contemplate the joy of our Lord as he uttered the sigh of joy
expressed in our Gospel passage: “You believe at last!”
(John 16:29-33). It was the goal of so
much of his efforts, to bring his disciples and all others to belief in him,
belief that the Father had sent him. Everything depended on this belief. The
one who believes, he said to his disciples, will be saved. The one who
refuses, will be condemned. Just before ascending to his heavenly Father, he
commissioned them to go to the whole world and make disciples of all the
nations. This is the work of the Church and of all her members, to believe
in Jesus Christ and to bring the world to belief in him. It is the surest
basis of all for certain knowledge of the things of God and it brings us to
life everlasting.
(May 26) Saint Philip Neri, priest (1515-1595)
Philip Neri was a sign of contradiction, combining popularity with
piety against the background of a corrupt Rome and a disinterested clergy,
the whole post-Renaissance malaise. At an early age, he abandoned the
chance to become a businessman, moved to Rome from Florence and devoted
his life and individuality to God. After three years of philosophy and
theology studies,
he gave up any thought of ordination. The next 13 years
were spent in a vocation unusual at the time—that of a layperson actively
engaged in prayer and the apostolate. As the Council of Trent was reforming
the Church on a doctrinal level, Philip’s appealing personality was winning
him friends from all levels of society, from beggars to cardinals. He
rapidly gathered around himself a group of laypersons won over by his
audacious spirituality. Initially they met as an informal prayer and discussion
group, and also served poor people in Rome. At the urging of his confessor,
he was ordained priest and soon became an outstanding confessor, gifted
with the knack of piercing the pretences and illusions of others, though
always in a charitable manner and often with a joke. He arranged talks,
discussions and prayers for his penitents in a room above the church.
He sometimes led "excursions" to other churches, often with music and
a picnic on the way. Some of his followers became priests and lived together
in community. This was the beginning of the Oratory, the religious institute
he founded. A feature of their life was a daily afternoon service of four
informal talks, with vernacular hymns and prayers. Giovanni Palestrina
was one of Philip’s followers, and composed music for the services. The
Oratory was finally approved after suffering through a period of accusations
of being an assembly of heretics, where laypersons preached and sang vernacular
hymns! (Cardinal Newman founded the first English-speaking house of the
Oratory.) Philip’s advice was sought by many of the prominent figures
of his day. He is one of the influential figures of the Counter-Reformation,
mainly for converting to personal holiness many of the influential people
within the Church itself. His characteristic virtues were humility and
gaiety. (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today: Acts 20:17-27; Psalm 68:10-11, 20-21; John 17:1-11a
After Jesus said this, he looked towards heaven and prayed: Father,
the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For
you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life
to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may
know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have
brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And
now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you
before the world began. I have revealed you to those whom you gave me
out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed
your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from
you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They
knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent
me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you
have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have
is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world
no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you.
(John
17:1-11a)
There are various ways
of describing and defining religion. In general the word denotes a system of
involvement and relationship with the deity, however he might be understood. It
involves God (or the Absolute) on the one hand, and us in our
living relationship with him on the other. How wonderfully is this the case in our Gospel today,
in which John narrates the prayer of
Jesus at the Last Supper. John was the beloved disciple, one to whom our Lord
showed special marks of personal friendship, and one who was on terms of special
trust and intimacy. We only have to think
of the way he
unhesitatingly asked our Lord who it was that would betray him, and of how our
Lord divulged to him the one it would be. Our Lord’s words of prayer burnt
themselves into his memory, and we might suppose that in the years following the
Ascension and sending of the Holy Spirit, John wrote down the words of our
Lord’s long prayer as he remembered them. They would have served for his own
prayerful and doctrinal contemplation, and as the basis of the Gospel he would
later come to write. So he remembered how our Lord addressed his heavenly Father
during the Last Supper. He raised his eyes and prayed, in his prayer telling the
Father that the time had finally come. A little later he refers to his eternity
with the Father before the world began. Let us imagine how the work of the
redemption was in the mind of God from all eternity. The Son was about to suffer
to the very end for the salvation of the world. The time long decreed has come.
It would be the great feat of God in restoring the world to holiness, and so
Christ’s crucifixion would be a glorification of himself, God the Son, and in
doing that it would be a glorification of God the Father. "Glorify your Son that
your Son may glorify you." This would be the result of his death on the Cross.
When he rose from the dead and before he ascended into heaven he told his
disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him — and
here in his prayer he reveals why this authority is his. It is in order that "
he might give eternal life to all those you have given him."
In his prayer Christ now speaks more specifically of those who belong
to him. This means not only his disciples who are gathered with him at
the Last Supper. It means each of us. We have been given to Jesus by the
Father, and he has been revealed to us by the Son. "I have revealed you
to those whom you gave me out of the world", our Lord says. We belong
to the Father and the Father has given each of us to Christ our Good Shepherd.
He teaches us what the Father wishes us to do. " They were yours; you
gave them to me and they have obeyed your word." In the word of Christ
as it comes to us in the teaching, the witness, the life and the tradition
of the Church, we have all we need for the life of religion. Our Lord
on one occasion said that it is not those who say to him Lord, Lord! who
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father
in heaven. On another occasion he said, looking at the disciples who were
listening to him, Anyone who does the will of my heavenly Father, he is
my brother and my sister and my mother. On another occasion he said that
the one who hears his words and puts them into practice is like a house
built on rock. When the rain comes and the waters rise his house will
stand because it is built on rock. Christ’s words are the words that bring
everlasting life provided we both hear them and practise them. "Now they
know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them
the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty
that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me"
(John 17:1-11a).
So in our passage today we have the grand realities of God who loves us
with an eternal and undying love, and ourselves as subject to him who
is our Father. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit from all
eternity had the plan to redeem us. This plan is revealed by Jesus Christ
and it is effected by Jesus Christ. The prayer of Christ at the Last Supper
as presented by John places Christ at the summit of human history in what
is the central concern of man: his salvation.
In his prayer Christ and the Father are presented. At Pentecost there
would be a great revelation of the Holy Spirit, that divine Spirit to
whom our Lord at various times referred and to whom he especially referred
before he ascended into heaven. He was the Promise, just as before his
own coming he, Christ, was the Promised One. Let us then profess our faith
in Father, Son and Holy Spirit and make their redemptive mission the all-important
mission of our own life.
(E.J.Tyler)
To sow. The sower went out... Scatter your seed, apostolic soul. The wind
of grace will bear it away if the furrow where it falls is not worthy...
Sow, and be certain that the seed will take root and bear fruit.
(The Way, no.794)
Continuing The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Eighth Chapter
SELF-ABASEMENT IN THE SIGHT OF GOD
THE DISCIPLE
I WILL speak to my Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. If I consider myself
anything more than this, behold You stand against me, and my sins bear
witness to the truth which I cannot contradict. If I abase myself, however,
if I humble myself to nothingness, if I shrink from all self-esteem and
account myself as the dust which I am, Your grace will favour me, Your
light will enshroud my heart, and all self-esteem, no matter how little,
will sink in the depths of my nothingness to perish forever.
(Continuing)
O Thou who wast so gentle and familiar with us, who didst converse with
us by the way, and sit at meat with us, and didst enter the vessel with
us, and teach us on the Mount, and bear the malice of the Pharisees, and
feast with Martha, and raise Lazarus, art Thou gone, and shall we see
Thee no more? Yet so it was determined: privileges they were to have,
but not the same; and their thoughts henceforth were to be of another
kind than heretofore.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘Warfare the Condition of Victory’ 1838)
(May 27) St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 605?)
In the year 596 a small party of some
40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England.
Leading the group was Augustine, the prior of their monastery in Rome.
Hardly had he and his men reached Gaul (France) when they heard stories of
the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and of the treacherous waters of the
English Channel. Augustine returned to Rome and to the pope who had sent
them—St. Gregory the Great—only to be assured by him that their fears were
groundless. Augustine again set out and this time the group crossed the
English Channel and landed in the territory of Kent, ruled by King
Ethelbert, a pagan married to a Christian. Ethelbert received them kindly,
set up a residence for them in Canterbury and within the year, on Pentecost
Sunday, 597, was himself baptized. After being consecrated a bishop in
France, Augustine returned to Canterbury, where he founded his see. He
constructed a church and monastery near where the present cathedral, begun
in 1070, now stands. As the faith spread, additional sees were established
at London and Rochester. Work was sometimes slow and Augustine did not
always meet with success. Attempts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxon Christians
with the original Briton Christians (who had been driven into western
England by Anglo-Saxon invaders) ended in dismal failure. Augustine failed
to convince the Britons to give up certain Celtic customs at variance with
Rome and to forget their bitterness, helping him evangelize their
Anglo-Saxon conquerors. Labouring patiently, Augustine wisely heeded the
missionary principles—quite enlightened for the times—suggested by Pope
Gregory the Great: purify rather than destroy pagan temples and customs; let
pagan rites and festivals be taken over into Christian feasts; retain local
customs as far as possible. The limited success Augustine achieved in
England before his death in 605, a short eight years after he arrived in
England, would eventually bear fruit long after in the conversion of
England. Truly Augustine of Canterbury can be called the “Apostle of
England.”
In a letter to Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great wrote: "He who would climb
to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps." (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today: Acts 20:28-38;
Psalm 68:29-30, 33-36ab; John 17:11b-19
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and
said, Holy Father, keep true to your name those you have given to me so that
they may be one as we are one. While I was with them I kept true to your
name those whom you gave me. I have watched over them so that none has been
lost except the one doomed to destruction, in fulfilment of the Scriptures.
I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the
world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have
given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the
world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them
out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not
of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word
is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.
For them I dedicate myself, that they too may be dedicated in the truth.
(John 17:11b-19)
In our Gospel passage today our Lord
prays his powerful and lofty prayer for his disciples and in his prayer we
have before us his plans and hopes. Our Lord’s love for his disciples is
immediately evident and that love extends, of course, to all his disciples
in every age and place. His concern is that they be faithful to the name of
the Father. Keep those you have given me true to your name, our Lord prays.
When we begin and end our prayers we make the sign of the Cross from
forehead to chest and then to each shoulder. As we do this we call on the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In doing this we
are resolving to be true to the name of God the most holy Trinity. Let us
always make the Sign of the Cross well. In asking that his disciples be kept
true to the name of the Father our Lord is praying that they be kept in
their love for and obedience to God. He, Christ, is our High Priest
constantly interceding for us at the right hand of the Father, and this
prayer that we be kept faithful continues in heaven. Let us depend on
Christ’s intercession and let us pray that we may never fall away. He
protects and guards us always. But this protection does not take away the
awesome gift of our free will which we can abuse. It is possible to turn
one’s back on Christ and the Father. Despite being in our Lord’s company,
despite having been chosen and watched over by Christ himself, Judas fell
away. It is one of the greatest mysteries in history how a man could have
done this. He was a friend of Christ himself, and at the very moment of
betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ addressed him as Friend. Yet he
abandoned Christ and went over to the camp of Satan. We read in the Gospel
of St John that Satan entered him during the Last Supper. So due to the free
and dark choice of Judas, Christ lost him. As we read, “I have watched over
them so that none has been lost except the one whom perdition claims for its
own, in fulfilment of the Scriptures” (John
17:11b-19). This is a grave lesson
for all. St Paul writes that we must work out our salvation in fear and
trembling.
Christ does not pray that his
disciples be taken out of the world, for he wants them in the world to do
his work. God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son to save
it. God loves the world and he wants his disciples to be in the world so as,
in union with himself who is the Saviour, to save it. But he prays that the
Father will protect them from the evil one. Satan has already triumphed over
one of Christ’s own. Judas has been lost to him and he prays that the Father
will keep the others safe. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray to the Father that
he will deliver us from all evil, most especially from the Evil One. Most
notably, our Lord prays to the Father that he sanctify his disciples in the
truth. The word of God is the truth, and sanctity will come from receiving
the truth, knowing the truth, guarding the truth and living according to it
whatever be the cost. Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. When he
stood before Pontius Pilate Christ said that he had come into the world to
bear witness to the Truth and that those who are of the Truth listen to his
voice. This testimony fell on uncomprehending ears with Pilate who only
replied, “What is truth?” When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, the
disciples and the infant Church were confirmed in the Truth and began to
bear witness to it with remarkable boldness and courage. This has been the
mission of the Church and the Church’s members ever since, to bear witness
to the Truth especially under persecution of one form or another.
Incomprehension, resistance and opposition must be expected, our Lord
repeatedly warned. The life of the Christian must be grounded in the truth
revealed by Jesus. Nothing compares in importance with this, and fidelity to
the truth of Jesus is what takes a person to sanctity. This revealed truth
which sanctifies is found in the witness, the teaching and the life of the
Church which Christ founded on Peter and the Apostles. The Church, the body
of Christ, is the pillar of truth bringing sanctity to her members.
Let us resolve to be true to the
name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and let us rely on the grace
of Christ to do this. He intercedes for us continually before the Father.
Let us understand that sanctity comes through daily fidelity to the truth
revealed by Jesus. That truth, that divine revelation, that Good News, is
brought to us by the Church in her authoritative teaching and in her
divinely inspired Book, the Holy Scriptures. Through the Church’s Tradition
and her Scriptures — especially the Gospels — Christ speaks his truth to us
from generation to generation, and living in this truth is what will take us
to sanctity and to life everlasting.
(E.J.Tyler)
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By good example good seed is sown; and charity compels us all to sow.
(The Way, no.795)
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Continuing The Imitation of Christ BOOK THREE
INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Eighth Chapter SELF-ABASEMENT IN
THE SIGHT OF GOD
THE DISCIPLE
It is there You show me to myself -- what I am, what I have been, and what I
am coming to; for I am nothing and I did not know it. Left to myself, I am
nothing but total weakness. But if You look upon me for an instant, I am at
once made strong and filled with new joy. Great wonder it is that I, who of
my own weight always sink to the depths, am so suddenly lifted up, and so
graciously embraced by You.
(Continuing)
O
my dear and holy Patron, Philip [Neri], I put myself into thy hands, and for
the love of Jesus, for that love’s sake which chose thee and made thee a
saint, I implore thee to pray for me, that, as He has brought thee to
heaven, so in due time He may take me to heaven too.
(JHN, from Meditations and Devotions 1893)
(May 28) St. Mary Ann of Jesus of Paredes
(1614-1645)
Mary Ann grew close to God and his people during her short life. The
youngest of eight, Mary Ann was born in Quito, Ecuador,
which
had been brought under Spanish control in 1534. She joined the Secular
Franciscans and led a life of prayer and penance at home, leaving her
parents’ house only to go to church and to perform some work of charity. She
established in Quito a clinic and a school for Africans and indigenous
Americans. When a plague broke out, she nursed the sick and died shortly
thereafter. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
"At times when especially impelled by love for God and fellowmen, she
afflicted herself severely to expiate the sins of others. Oblivious then to
the world around her and wrapped in ecstasy, she had a foretaste of eternal
happiness. Thus transformed and enriched by God's grace, she was filled with
zeal to care not only for her own salvation, but also for that of others to
the utmost of her ability. She generously relieved the miseries of the poor
and soothed the pains of the sick. And when severe public disasters such as
earthquakes and plagues terrified and afflicted her fellow citizens, she
strove by prayer, expiation, and the offering of her own life to obtain from
the Father of mercies what she could not accomplish by human effort" (Pope
Pius XII). (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today: Acts 22:30; 23:6-11;
Psalm 16:1-2a and 5, 7-11; John 17:20-26
Jesus prayed, My prayer is not for
them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their
message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am
in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have
sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one
as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete
unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you
have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I
am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me
before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does
not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made
you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the
love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.
(John 17:20-26)
In the early Church it was famously
quoted of the pagans that they said of the Christians, How they love one
another! It was a striking badge of the Church especially in the age of
persecution and was undoubtedly a major factor in the eventual triumph of
the Christian religion in the Roman Empire. The Church’s proclamation of her
doctrine went hand in hand with the witness of her fraternal charity. This
having been said, it must nevertheless also be said that one of the very
striking things about Christianity through the centuries has been not only
its doctrine but its disunity. From the earliest years Christians have been
divided. The age of Roman persecution — more or less the first three
centuries — kept a lid on this disunity, even though there was plenty of
disunity nevertheless. Gnostic and other sects strained in various
directions with their reinterpretations and misinterpretations of Christ and
his teaching. But once the Christian religion became established in the
Empire disunity emerged with a vengeance. The greatest outbreak was almost
immediate with the heresy of the Alexandrian priest Arius provoking the
calling of the Council of Nicea. This was followed by a tremendous rift in
doctrinal allegiance throughout the fourth century. And so it has gone on.
Mahomet in the early seventh century drew very many of his religious notions
from Jewish and Christian currents in his immediate environment, and his
poor notions of Christianity would have been drawn from the tangled
Christian sects and movements of his experience. In response to division and
heresy Council after Council convened and pronounced on Christian doctrine.
Doctrine was clarified and developed, but the problem of unity within the
Church continued. Gradually the Eastern Church drifted from the Western and
finally in the eleventh century the communion between the Pope and the
Patriarch of Constantinople was ruptured. More heresies saw the light of
day. The Protestant reformation came and went, and in our day Christianity is
found to be divided, though much less rancorous.
That is the phenomenon of the
Christian religion and there are those who are of the opinion that there is
nothing especially untoward about this situation. They do not think that
Christian unity is necessarily part of the plan of God. But no. Our Gospel
passage today shows clearly what is the plan of Christ. He wants all his
disciples to be one. “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those
who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one,
Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so
that the world may believe that you have sent me”
(John 17:20-26). Christ’s disciples are called to share in the
oneness that obtains between the Father and the Son within the life of the
most holy Trinity. The Father and the Son are distinct divine persons but
are one in the Holy Spirit. All Christ’s disciples together are called to
share in this divine communion. Concretely, this means sharing in the
oneness that pertained to the body of the Twelve, a oneness in their common
acceptance of the person and doctrine of Jesus Christ. Could a situation be
imagined in which there were five or six of the Twelve following our Lord
and in full communion with him, while at the same time being out of
communion with the other five or six who were themselves living in a
separate communion with Jesus? The notion is absurd and would have been
intolerable to our Lord himself. He called them to a common communion and
friendship with him. Moreover, he appointed one of them to be the very Rock
on which he would build his Church. They had a common mission and were, in
common, the foundation stones of the Church which Christ said he was
building. How is the unity Christ prayed for ever to be achieved? An
absolutely essential element is through the Church which Christ himself
built. You are Peter, he said, and on this rock I will build my Church. I
will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven. The Apostles were the
foundation stones with Peter the visible Rock. Being a disciple of Christ,
then, involves yearning and working for the unity Christ prayed for. This
unity entails full communion with his Church founded on Peter and the
Apostles, together with an understanding of where that Church subsists.
Let us pray for Christian unity just
as Christ prayed for it. The salvation of the world is at stake because our
Lord prayed that “they be brought to complete unity to let the world know
that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Let us do
all we can to live in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ, knowing
that a most powerful witness to the truth is given as a result of brothers
living in unity. Above all, let us depend on the power of the Holy Spirit.
His might is without end, and he can unite hearts and minds in a way beyond
imagining.
(E.J.Tyler)
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You have but little love if you are not zealous for the salvation of all
souls. You have but poor love if you are not eager to inspire other apostles
with your craziness.
(The Way, no.796)
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Continuing The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Eighth Chapter
SELF-ABASEMENT IN THE SIGHT OF GOD
THE DISCIPLE
It is Your love that does
this, graciously upholding me, supporting me in so many necessities,
guarding me from so many grave dangers, and snatching me, as I may truly
say, from evils without number. Indeed, by loving myself badly I lost
myself; by seeking only You and by truly loving You I have found both myself
and You, and by that love I have reduced myself more profoundly to nothing.
For You, O sweetest Lord, deal with me above all my merits and above all
that I dare to hope or ask.
May You be blessed, my God, for although I am unworthy of any benefits, yet
Your nobility and infinite goodness never cease to do good even for those
who are ungrateful and far from You. Convert us to You, that we may be
thankful, humble, and devout, for You are our salvation, our courage, and
our strength.
(Concluded)
(May 29) St. Madeleine Sophie Barat (1779-1865)
The legacy of Madeleine Sophie Barat
can be found in the more than 100 schools operated by her Society of the
Sacred
Heart, institutions known for the quality of the education made
available to the young. Sophie herself received an extensive education,
thanks to her brother, Louis, 11 years older and her godfather at Baptism.
Himself a seminarian, he decided that his younger sister would likewise
learn Latin, Greek, history, physics and mathematics — always without
interruption and with a minimum of companionship. By age 15, she had
received a thorough exposure to the Bible, the teachings of the Fathers of
the Church and theology. Despite the oppressive regime Louis imposed, young
Sophie thrived and developed a genuine love of learning. Meanwhile, this was
the time of the French Revolution and of the suppression of Christian
schools. The education of the young, particularly young girls, was in a
troubled state. At the same time, Sophie, who had concluded that she was
called to the religious life, was persuaded to begin her life as a nun and
as a teacher. She founded the Society of the Sacred Heart, which would focus
on schools for the poor as well as boarding schools for young women of
means; today, co-ed Sacred Heart schools can be found as well as schools
exclusively for boys. In 1826, her Society of the Sacred Heart received
formal papal approval. By then she had served as superior at a number of
convents. In 1865, she was stricken with paralysis; she died that year on
the feast of the Ascension. Madeleine Sophie Barat was canonized in 1925.
Madeleine Sophie Barat lived in turbulent times. She was only 10 when the
Reign of Terror began. She was a contemporary of the Cure of Ars. In the wake of the French Revolution, rich and poor
both suffered before some semblance of normality returned to France. Born to
some degree of privilege, she received a good education. It grieved her that
the same opportunity was being denied to other young girls, and she devoted
herself to educating them, whether poor or well- to-do. We who live in an
affluent country can follow her example by helping to ensure to others the
blessings we have enjoyed. (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today: Acts 25:13b-21;
Psalm 103:1-2, 11-12, 19-20ab; John 21:15-19
When they had finished eating, Jesus
said to Simon Peter, Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than
these? Yes, Lord, he said, you know that I love you. Jesus said, Feed my
lambs. Again Jesus said, Simon son of John, do you truly love me? He
answered, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Jesus said, Take care of my
sheep. The third time he said to him, Simon son of John, do you love me?
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, Do you love me? He
said, Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you. Jesus said, Feed
my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself
and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your
hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to
go. Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would
glorify God. Then he said to him, Follow me! (John
21:15-19)
When we look carefully at the last
two chapters of St John’s Gospel — which narrate the resurrection
appearances of our Lord — we notice that there is a summing up of the Gospel
at the end of the first of the two, chapter 20. John makes a general comment
about the signs Jesus did and explains the purpose of his writing the
Gospel. It was written in order that the reader may believe that Jesus is
the Christ the Son of God, and believing this he may find life in his name.
But then another chapter begins. The chapter that has just finished was
about the risen Christ’s appearances to various of his disciples, which is
to say the infant Church — Mary Magdalene, the Eleven, and finally the
doubting Thomas ending with his magnificent profession of faith. This next
chapter 21 looks like an addition to what might have been the original
conclusion of the Gospel. It has its own conclusion in which it is said that
“we” vouch for the testimony of the beloved disciple who has written these
things. This chapter is about Christ’s relationship with Peter and John the
beloved disciple. Most especially, though, it is about Peter’s relationship
with Christ. It speaks of the office Christ entrusted him with and of the
love Christ expected of him and which Peter gave. Among the disciples Peter
is shown to have the primacy. In this sense it is a chapter which throws
light on the plan of the risen Jesus for his Church. So let us consider our
Gospel passage. The first thing that is evident is the prominence of Simon
Peter. Seven of the Eleven are at the sea of Tiberius and it is Simon Peter
who announces he is going fishing, and they go with him. Christ calls from
the shore and the beloved disciple tells Peter it is the Lord. Even though
he is not denominated “the beloved disciple” Peter appears as the one who
loves Jesus the most, for he immediately jumps into the water and makes his
way ahead of the others towards the risen Jesus. The others follow and so it
also portrays Peter leading all to him. At Christ’s command he goes and
draws the net on to the shore, symbolic again of Peter bringing to Christ
those in the net of the Church.
But then, and most importantly, the
chapter tells us what the risen Christ expected of Peter and appointed him
to. As narrated in St Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 16: 18-19) during his public
ministry Christ appointed Peter to be the Rock of the Church he will build
and stated that he will give to him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. We
notice that in that text Christ uses the future tense: he “will build” his
Church on Peter whom he is now appointing to be the Rock. He “will give” to
him the keys of the Kingdom of heaven. It is surely a pointer to the work of
the risen Jesus and especially to the work of the Holy Spirit. Here in our
Gospel today, narrating the risen Christ’s conversation with Simon Peter, we
have his confirmation of Peter’s role. He asks him three times, Do you love
me? The foundation of the entire Christian life is to be a personal love for
the risen Jesus, and this is most especially the case with the life of the
shepherds of Christ’s flock, and supremely the case with the chief shepherd.
Do you love me more than these others do? (John
21:15-19) That is the question Christ asks of Peter. He was
giving to Peter the primacy over the disciples, over the Eleven, and over
all of Christ’s flock. Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep, he says. It is the
supreme responsibility. He therefore asks him if he loves him more than
these others do. It is the duty Christ places before Peter, and the
implication of the chapter is that Peter did indeed love Christ more than
the others. He, then, is a prototype of all the ordained pastors of Christ’s
flock and especially of all successors of St Peter himself. If that love for
Jesus is missing then his divinely appointed mission will be profoundly at
threat. Perhaps our Lord was indirectly reminding Simon of his threefold
denial before the cock crew during the Passion. Perhaps he was reminding him
also of what happened to Judas, whom our Lord addressed as his friend at the
moment of betrayal in the garden. Peter, conscious of his failings, assured
our Lord that he loved him. The pastors of Christ’s flock must lead the way
in love for Jesus. They must tend the flock, while recognizing the
pre-eminent responsibility given to Peter over all who are members of
Christ’s flock. The pastors, united under Peter, tend the flock and should
lead the way in love.
It is a
beautiful scene in which Christ entrusts his Church to Peter, who knows that
he is a man of weakness. Christ asks him to love him with all his heart and
to love him more than the other disciples. He tells him to feed his sheep
and his lambs. He is to follow Jesus with all his heart no matter what the
cost unto death. This is what Peter did, and this is what all the disciples
of Christ must do, most especially the ordained pastors of Christ’s Church,
and most importantly the chief pastor, the successor of the Apostle Peter.
Let us take up the baton and run with it.
(E.J.Tyler)
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You realize that your way is not clear. And that it is not clear because by
not following Jesus closely you remain in darkness. What keeps you from
making up your mind?
(The Way, no.797)
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Continuing The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The Ninth Chapter ALL
THINGS SHOULD BE REFERRED TO GOD AS THEIR LAST END
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
MY CHILD, I must be your supreme and last end, if you truly desire to be
blessed. With this intention your affections, which are too often perversely
inclined to self and to creatures, will be purified. For if you seek
yourself in anything, you immediately fail interiorly and become dry of
heart.
Refer all things principally to Me, therefore, for it is I Who have given
them all. Consider each thing as flowing from the highest good, and
therefore to Me, as to their highest source, must all things be brought
back.
(Continuing)
(May 30) St. Gregory VII (1020-1085)
(below: Pope Gregory's tomb)
The tenth century and the first half of the eleventh were dark days for the
Church, partly because the papacy was the pawn of various Roman families. In
1049, things began to change when Pope Leo IX, a reformer, was elected. He
brought a young monk named Hildebrand to Rome as his counsellor and special
representative on important missions. He was to become Gregory VII. Three
evils plagued the Church then: simony (the buying and selling of sacred
offices and things), the unlawful marriage of the clergy and lay investiture
(kings and nobles controlling the appointment of Church officials). To all
of these Hildebrand directed his
reformer’s attention, first as counsellor
to the popes and later (1073-1085) as pope himself. Gregory’s papal letters
stress the role of bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ and the visible
centre of unity in the Church. He is well known for his long dispute with
Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV over who should control the selection of bishops
and abbots. Gregory fiercely resisted any attack on the liberty of the
Church. For this he suffered and finally died in exile. He said, “I have
loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile.” Thirty years
later the Church finally won its struggle against lay investiture.
The Gregorian Reform, a milestone in the history of Christ’s Church, was
named after this man who tried to extricate the papacy and the whole Church
from undue control by civil rulers. Against an unhealthy Church nationalism
in some areas, Gregory reasserted the unity of the whole Church based on
Christ and expressed in the bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter.
(AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today: Acts 28:16-20, 30-31; Psalm
11:4, 5 and 7; John 21:20-25
Peter turned and saw that the
disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had
leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, Lord, who is going to
betray you?) When Peter saw him, he asked, Lord, what about him? Jesus
answered, If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?
You must follow me. Because of this, the rumour spread among the brothers
that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not
die; he only said, If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is
that to you? This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who
wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. Jesus did many other
things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even
the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
(John 21:20-25)
One of the most common of human
problems is that of envy. A nation can envy the lot of another and, filled
with envious anger, can attack it, defeat it and expropriate its resources.
Envy can lead to the loss of international peace and can convulse the world
in war. Envy can sour the relations within a family, and when the envious
person is unable to gain the good that others have, his envy will deprive
him of his happiness in daily life. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins — a
list of sins systematized by certain of the early Fathers, especially
Gregory the Great. They are: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and
pride. When unchecked they lead to the death of the soul in mortal sin. What
then is envy? In his envy a person is jealous of what he perceives to be
another’s good fortune. In sum, envy is a sorrow at the sight of another’s
good. Now, in the nature of the case no created person can possibly possess
in his own person all the good that others may have. Being limited in the
degree and quality of existence that has been granted to him, he will
usually discover that others have qualities not possessed by him. Therefore
he will find himself seeing and associating with others who are more
talented in this or that respect — perhaps even in every respect — than he
is. Not only the qualities of the other person may be greater, but his lot
in life may appear much more fortunate. A good-hearted girl from a good
family grows up and marries and her husband turns out to be difficult far
beyond any expectation. He causes her untold suffering. By contrast, the
sister of the same girl is also good-hearted and she marries and the
marriage turns out to be a happy and successful one. It may seem unfair that
the fortune of the one is so bad and that of the other so good. Is the
unfortunate girl envious? No. She is too good-hearted. She struggles with
her marriage, never complains, and finally after a long and difficult life
succeeds in winning over her husband to the practice of the Christian life
and to a proper life in his family. She could have been envious but was not.
In our Gospel today our Lord has
just commissioned Peter to the highest work in his Church. He is to feed the
lambs and the sheep of Christ’s flock. We read that “Peter turned and saw
that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who
had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, Lord, who is going
to betray you?) When Peter saw him, he asked, Lord, what about him?”
(John 21:20-25) Peter was not being
jealous, only curious. But our Lord’s answer made it clear that his
curiosity was misplaced. He was to leave to God the course that he had
planned for others. His business was to follow Christ. Though Peter was not envious,
his curiosity is a reminder to us of the danger of envy. What about him,
Lord? Is his course in life going to be better than mine? Look at him, Lord.
Why has he been so talented, and I have not? Look at him, Lord. Why has he
received so much more respect in life than I? Look at her, Lord. Why has her
marriage been so much more fortunate than mine? Look at her, Lord. Why has
she received so much more kindness than I? Just as our Lord refused to tell
Peter what the future course of John the beloved disciple would be, so the
ways of God can remain hidden to us. Just as our Lord told Peter to leave
all that to God, so he asks us to do the same. Our task is to follow Jesus
in doing the will of God as best we can in the circumstances of our life. If
our life has been difficult to this point, if it has been marked by much
failure then entrust all that to God, and resolve to follow Jesus. There is
no place for envy. As our Lord said to Peter, “Jesus answered, If I want him
to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” If
I have allowed this or that person to prosper in the ways you notice, what
is that to you? You must follow me. That person you are seeing will have his
or her own cross. You are to follow me. So we must accept the inscrutable ways of
God, knowing that he is all good and all wise.
Let us resolve to fill our hearts
with love and to banish all envy and sadness at the sight of others’ good.
Envy will reduce seriously our capacity to love and to rejoice at the good
of others. This attitude can spread and shrivel up our hearts and set up a
wall within it to the grace of the Holy Spirit who is the Love of the Father
and the Son. If it grows envy can lead to the death of the soul for it is one
of the seven deadly sins. Rather, let us be filled with gratitude at the
gifts God has given us and set our hearts on the one thing necessary, which
is the following of Jesus.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Reasons?... What reasons could the poor Ignatius give to his brilliant
companion Xavier?
(The Way, no.798)
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Continuing
The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE
INTERNAL CONSOLATION
The Ninth ChapterALL THINGS SHOULD BE REFERRED TO GOD AS THEIR LAST
END
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
From Me the small and the great, the poor and the rich draw the water of
life as from a living fountain, and they who serve Me willingly and freely
shall receive grace upon grace. He who wishes to glory in things apart from
Me, however, or to delight in some good as his own, shall not be grounded in
true joy or gladdened in his heart, but shall be burdened and distressed in
many ways. Hence you ought not to attribute any good to yourself or ascribe
virtue to any man, but give all to God without Whom man has nothing.
(Continuing)
This
wonderful change from darkness to light, through the entrance of the Spirit
into the soul, is called Regeneration, or the New Birth; a blessing which,
before Christ’s coming, not even Prophets and righteous men possessed, but
which is now conveyed to all men freely through the Sacrament of Baptism.
(JHN, from the sermon ‘The Indwelling Spirit’ 1834)
Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (May 31)
Entrance Antiphon Cf.
Ps 66 (65):
16 Come and hear, all who fear God; I will tell
what the Lord did for my soul (E.T. alleluia).
Collect
Almighty ever-living God, who, while the Blessed Virgin Mary was carrying
your Son in her womb, inspired her to visit Elizabeth, grant us, we pray,
that, faithful to the promptings of the Spirit, we may magnify your
greatness with the Virgin Mary at all times. 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.
(May 31) The Visitation
This is a fairly late feast, going back only to the 13th or
14th century. It was established widely throughout the Church to pray for
unity. The present date of celebration was set in 1969 in order to follow
the Annunciation of the Lord (March 25) and precede
the Birthday of John the
Baptist (June 24). Like most feasts of Mary, it is closely connected with
Jesus and his saving work. The more visible actors in the visitation drama
(see Luke 1:39-45) are Mary and Elizabeth. However, Jesus and John the
Baptist steal the scene in a hidden way. Jesus makes John leap with joy—the
joy of messianic salvation. Elizabeth, in turn, is filled with the Holy
Spirit and addresses words of praise to Mary—words that echo down through
the ages. It is helpful to recall that we do not have a journalist’s account
of this meeting. Rather, Luke, speaking for the Church, gives a prayerful
poet’s rendition of the scene. Elizabeth’s praise of Mary as “the mother of
my Lord” can be viewed as the earliest Church’s devotion to Mary. As with
all authentic devotion to Mary, Elizabeth’s (the Church’s) words first
praise God for what God has done to Mary. Only secondly does she praise Mary
for trusting God’s words. Then comes the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). Here
Mary herself (like the Church) traces all her greatness to God.
“Moved by charity, therefore, Mary goes to the house of her
kinswoman.... While every word of Elizabeth’s is filled with meaning, her
final words would seem to have a fundamental importance: ‘And blessed is she
who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what had been spoken to her
from the Lord’ (Luke 1:45). These words can be linked with the title ‘full
of grace’ of the angel’s greeting. Both of these texts reveal an essential
Mariological content, namely the truth about Mary, who has become really
present in the mystery of Christ precisely because she ‘has believed.’ The
fullness of grace announced by the angel means the gift of God himself.
Mary’s faith, proclaimed by Elizabeth at the visitation, indicates how the
Virgin of Nazareth responded to this gift” (Pope John Paul II, The
Mother of the Redeemer, 12).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today: Zephaniah 3: 14-18;
Psalm―Isaiah 12; Luke 1: 39-56
At that time Mary arose and hastened
to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home
and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child
leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud
voice she exclaimed:
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why
am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as
the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leaped for
joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will
be accomplished! And Mary said: My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit
rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been looked upon the lowliness of his
handmaid. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty
One has done great things for me— holy is his name. His mercy extends to
those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty
deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost
thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up
the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich
away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to
Abraham and his descendants for ever, even as he said to our fathers. Mary
stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
(Luke 1: 39-56)
Mary
Take any of the protagonists of the Gospel of St
Luke apart from the Saviour himself, and ask this: how much consideration
does the inspired author give to that person? There are the priest Zechariah
and his wife Elizabeth, “both righteous before God, living blamelessly
according to his commands” (Luke 1:5-6). There is the virgin Mary (Luke
1:26-27) and a few mentions of her betrothed, Joseph. There are Simeon and
Anna (Luke 2: 25-38). There is John the Baptist (3: 2-20). Once Christ
begins his public ministry, there are
his disciples and the Twelve―especially Peter, James and John. There are
the crowds. There are Christ’s enemies among the scribes, the Pharisees, the
Sadducees and the priests. Taking the Gospel canvas as a whole, it is
obvious that the virgin Mary is the personality who attracts the highest
heavenly praise, and into whose soul we have the greatest access. Most
precious are the thirty verses given to her in Luke’s first chapter (1:
26-56). The words of greeting by the Angel to the virgin Mary are in high
praise of her. They come from heaven: Chaîre, kecharitōménē.
The new Latin Vulgate translates this as Ave, gratia plena
(Hail! Full of grace!), while the New RSV has, Rejoice, favoured one! It is
difficult to think of an exact parallel to the superlative character of this
in the Scriptures. The Angel continues: The Lord is with you! reminding us
of the words of the Angel to Gideon, Yahweh is with you, valiant warrior!
(Judges 6:12). Boaz greeted the reapers with the wish, May Yahweh be with
you! (Ruth 2: 4), but the Angel tells Mary that the Lord is
with her. “You have found favour with God,” the Angel continues. Mary is a
soul of the highest purity who is about to be blessed with the highest
calling. She is to be the mother of the Son of the Most High, the One to
whom will be given the throne of David. He will be great, and will reign
over the House of Jacob forever. His kingdom will have no end. She is to be
the mother of the promised Messiah, and how great a Messiah! He will be
conceived by her through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the child to be
born of her will be “holy; he will be called Son of God” (Luke 1: 32-35).
Mary’s dignity as a servant of Yahweh is matched by her obedience. “Behold,
I am the servant of the Lord: let it be done to me according to your word”
(Luke 1:38). Our Gospel today (Luke 1: 39-56)
gives us the second scene in Luke’s section devoted to the virgin
Mary. It is her arrival at Elizabeth’s home, and while previously it was the
Angel of the Lord who spoke of her and her divine Son, now it is Elizabeth,
speaking under divine inspiration. It is with a “loud voice,” as if due to
an overwhelming impulse that transcended her, that she declares Mary to be
of singular dignity as the mother of the Lord. “When Elizabeth heard Mary's
greeting, the child leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the
Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: Blessed are you among women, and
blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favoured, that the
mother of my Lord should come to me?” Not only is Mary’s blessedness due to
her unique motherhood―it is due also to her obedient faith: “Blessed is
she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be
accomplished!” There is no disciple of Jesus Christ, no member of the Church―and Luke is the historian of the infant Church―who receives such special
praise. But what is also magnificent is Mary’s prayer praising and thanking
God her Saviour. The Gospel of St John records a few significant words of
Mary in which she intercedes for those in need (John 2: 3). But it is Luke
who gives us an especially precious statement by her who is the mother of
the Messiah. It is this which the Church presents to us for our
contemplation on the feast of her visit to her kinswoman Elizabeth. Her soul
is filled with praise of God, and rejoices in her Saviour. God is her Lord (kurios)
and Saviour (sōtēr)―the Master from whom she has received
her all, and the Deliverer who has ever saved her from evil and harm. He is
the Mighty One who has done great things for her, the Holy One, the merciful
One, the strong One who scatters the proud and lifts up the lowly. Mary is
distinguished for her profound sense of God and for her obedient faith in
his word and will. In the Gospel of St Luke, she is the pre-eminent servant
of the Lord.
St Luke, through the words of the virgin Mary, makes it clear that it is in
the plan of God that she will be called “blessed” for all generations to
come. She is the “blessed” one―the “blessed” virgin Mary. That the
“virgin” whose “name was Mary” (Luke 1: 27) is “blessed” and that she will
always be counted as “blessed” (Luke 1: 48) is the clear teaching of
Scripture. Let us extol her, then! Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is
with you! Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the end! Let us
cultivate a true devotion to the virgin Mary. The Scriptures invite us to do
so.
(E.J.Tyler)
Prayers this week:
The Spirit of the Lord fills the whole world. It holds all things together
and knows every word spoken by man, alleluia.
(Wisdom 1:7) God our
Father, let the Spirit you sent on your Church to begin the teaching of the
gospel continue to work in the world through the hearts of all who believe. We ask this
through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
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Scripture: Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104:1, 24,
29-31, 34; 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13 or Gal 5:16-25;John 20:19-23 or John 15:26-27; 16:12-15 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.
(John 20:19-23)
On this Sunday the Church celebrates
Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. In the Acts of the Apostles,
St Luke narrates the coming of the Holy Spirit on the infant Church at
Pentecost, following Christ’s ascension to the right hand of the Father. On
his coming, Peter immediately boldly bore witness to Christ and his
inaugural discourse is reported in the same chapter of Acts. As a result
many from numerous parts of the world who were in Jerusalem for the feast
sought baptism and the infant Church at once became universal in its
composition. It was one body. It was holy in that the Spirit of God abode
within it and began to sanctify its members. It was catholic in its
universality and it was apostolic in being led by Peter and the Apostles.
The Catholic Church was born and launched, and this was a direct result of
the coming and action of the Holy Spirit. But while Luke informs us that the
Holy Spirit came upon the infant Church at Pentecost, we learn from the
Gospel of St John that this was not his first coming. It is interesting to
compare the accounts by St Luke and St John of the appearance of the risen
Jesus to the Apostles on the evening of Easter Sunday. St Luke narrates how
the risen Jesus, having accompanied the two disciples on their way to
Emmaus, appeared to the Eleven in the evening of the day he rose from the
dead. He speaks to the Eleven and shows them that he has indeed risen in his
body. He instructs them once again on the testimony of the Scriptures about
him, and tells them of the mission he was giving them. He then directs them
to wait in Jerusalem for the gift of “power from on high”. But when we turn
to the Gospel of St John, we find that his account of this appearance of
Jesus to the Eleven provides details not included by Luke. Perhaps John
means to complement Luke’s account with his own eye-witness material. While
John makes no mention of the journey to Emmaus, he narrates Christ’s
conversation with Mary Magdalene. He then gives other very important details
of his meeting with the Eleven in the evening not found in Luke.
In fact, as our Gospel today from
John describes, on the very day he rose from the dead, Christ endowed the
Eleven with the Holy Spirit and with that, a share in his mission and the
power to forgive sins. It was a first instalment of the later gift of the
Spirit, but here with certain features of the gift special to the Eleven. It
was not a coming of the Holy Spirit on them giving them the power to bear
witness to Jesus boldly there and then, but it was a true coming
nevertheless. They would receive this “power from on high”, as Luke
expresses it in his Gospel, at Pentecost. Perhaps John was indicating that a
special “ordination” of the Eleven in the Holy Spirit, as we might call it,
occurred at this earlier moment and was of a distinct kind than that granted
later to the rest of the infant Church. As a result, the Eleven received
their distinctive share in the mission of Christ and, in particular, the
power to forgive sins. “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 20:19-23). While
as a result of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the Church as a body
shared in Christ’s priestly, kingly and prophetic character and mission, the
Eleven had already in principle been granted their share, but of a
distinctive kind, on the day Christ rose from the dead. By the gift of the
Holy Spirit the risen Christ immediately constituted the Apostles as the
foundation of his Church which, as the body of Christ’s Faithful, would be
born and launched in its mission at the coming of the Holy Spirit at
Pentecost some fifty days later. These two great comings of the Holy Spirit,
firstly to the Eleven following Christ’s resurrection from the dead, and
secondly to the whole Church following his ascension into heaven, show forth
the variety of roles and charisms which together build up the Church and
empower it in its mission. The Apostles and those who succeed them and who
share in their distinctive mission have their gifts of the Spirit. The
Church at large, Christ’s faithful which includes the Twelve, also have
their gifts of the Spirit. All together in their different ways are led by
the Spirit to sanctity and to the apostolate of the world.
Let us on this day of Pentecost
think with gratitude of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and to
the entire Church. From the Church we each of us have received a share in
the Spirit of God. He comes to us when we believe and are baptised, and he
continues to come to us in our growth in faith and in our devout reception
of the Sacraments of the Church. He comes to those who are ordained
according to their distinctive mission. Let us not make the Holy Spirit sad
by our neglect of the Christian life and our failure to play our part in the
mission of Christ to the world.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church,
no.702-716 (The Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets).
What amazes you seems natural to me— that God
has sought you out in the practice of your profession!
That is how he sought the first, Peter and Andrew, James and John, beside
their nets, and Matthew, sitting in the custom-house.
And — wonder of wonders! — Paul, in his eagerness to destroy the seed of the
Christians.
(The Way, no.799)
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Continuing The Imitation of ChristBOOK THREE INTERNAL
CONSOLATION
The Ninth ChapterALL THINGS
SHOULD BE REFERRED TO GOD AS THEIR LAST END
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
I have given all things. I will that all be returned to Me again, and I
exact most strictly a return of thanks. This is the truth by which vainglory
is put to flight.
Where heavenly grace and true charity enter in, there neither envy nor
narrowness of heart nor self-love will have place. Divine love conquers all
and enlarges the powers of the soul.
If you are truly wise, you will rejoice only in Me, because no one is good
except God alone, Who is to be praised above all things and above all to be
blessed.
(Concluded)
"This then is the special
glory of the Christian Church, that its members do not depend merely on what
is visible, they are not mere stones of a building, piled one on another,
and bound together from without, but they are one and all the births and
manifestations
of one and the same unseen spiritual principle or power, "living stones,"
internally connected, as branches from a tree, not as the parts of a heap.
They are members of the Body of Christ. That divine and adorable Form, which
the Apostles saw and handled, after ascending into heaven became a principle
of life, a secret origin of existence to all who believe, through the
gracious ministration of the Holy Ghost. This is the fruitful Vine, and the
rich Olive tree upon and out of which all Saints, though wild and barren by
nature, grow, that they may bring forth fruit unto God.
So that in a true sense it may
be said, that from the day of Pentecost to this hour there has been in the
Church but One Holy One, the King of kings, and Lord of lords Himself, who
is in all believers, and through whom they are what they are; their separate
persons being but as separate developments, vessels, instruments, and works
of Him who is invisible. Such is the difference between the Church before
the Spirit of Christ came, and after. Before, God’s servants were as the dry
bones of the Prophet’s vision, connected by profession, not by inward
principle; but since, they are all the organs as if of one invisible,
governing Soul, the hands, or the tongues, or the feet, or the eyes of one
and the same directing Mind, the types, tokens, beginnings, and glimpses of
the Eternal Son of God. Hence the text, in speaking of the kingdom of
Christ, enlarges upon the special office of His Saints — "All Thy works
praise Thee, O Lord, and Thy Saints give thanks unto Thee: they show the
glory of Thy kingdom, and talk of Thy power, that Thy power, Thy glory, and
mightiness of Thy kingdom might be known unto men." [Psalm 145]
John Henry Newman, from the sermon ‘The Communion of Saints’ (1837)
Entrance Antiphon Cf.
Ps 25 (24): 16,
18 Turn to me and have mercy on me, O Lord,
for I am alone and poor. See my lowliness and suffering and take away all my
sins, my God.
Collect O
God, whose providence never fails in its design, keep from us, we humbly beseech
you, all that might harm us and grant all that works for our good. 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.
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the
cornfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some ears of
corn. The Pharisees said to him, Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on
the Sabbath? He answered, Have you never read what David did when
he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high
priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is
lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions. Then he
said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son
of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Another time he went into the synagogue, and
a man with a shrivelled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason
to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the
Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shrivelled hand, Stand up in front of
everyone. Then Jesus asked them, Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or
to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they remained silent. He looked round
at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the
man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was completely
restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how
they might kill Jesus. (Mark 2:23-3:6)
The Sabbath
Any group of people is shaped in large measure by what
it does together. The local conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society meets
weekly or fortnightly, and its members regularly visit those in need. This
shapes its character. With no such action, the Society would die. The case is
the same with numerous other organizations. The religion of a society is
expressed in its rituals, its ceremonies, its religious myths―“myth”
understood in the best sense of the word. It would be an interesting exercise to
determine what action
in the civil life of a society expresses and deepens its culture and distinctive
character. Well, let us consider revealed religion, the religions of the
Judeo-Christian revelation. I refer, of course, to Judaism and Christianity.
What is the moment when the faithful come together in a common action that
expresses its life, its convictions, its purpose? That moment, that action, is
above all the observance of the Sabbath. The Jewish religion expresses itself in
various feasts, but the most common is the weekly Sabbath. The Sabbath
observance is a festival that is probably original to the Jewish religion, it
being difficult to find an exact parallel among the religions of the classical
era. Christianity, coming forth from the midst of Judaism and claiming to be its
fulfilment, expresses itself in various feasts (as do all the religions), but
the most important is the weekly Sabbath. This the Christian celebrates on the
Sunday, the day of the resurrection of the Lord. The Jewish Sabbath began on the
Friday evening―what the Catholic Church calls the Vigil. For the Church, the
Vigil of the Sunday was part of the Sunday celebration in the praying of the
Breviary and in the celebration of certain major feasts. This was extended in
the latter part of the twentieth century, so that now commonly the Church’s
celebration of the Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, begins on the Saturday evening
and includes the Sunday. The Church teaches that it is a grave obligation for
every Catholic to attend Mass each Sunday. The Catechism of the Catholic
Church states that the first precept of the Church requires the faithful to
sanctify the day commemorating the Resurrection .. by participating in the
Eucharistic celebration (no.2042). The faithful are bound to participate in Mass
on Sundays and, unless excused for a serious reason, “those who deliberately
fail in this obligation commit a grave sin” (Catechism of the Catholic Church,
no.2181).
What, then, is the Sabbath? In the Old Testament, the Sabbath was a day of rest
"sanctified to the Lord" (Exodus 16:23; 31:15; Deuteronomy 5:14). All work was
forbidden, the prohibition including strangers as well as Israelites, beasts as
well as men. Besides abstention from work, special religious observances were
prescribed. That is to say, the ordinary pursuits of the workaday week were
interrupted and the day was given to the Lord as the Author of the universe and
of time. The day thus being the Lord's, it required that each abstain from
working for his own interests, and that he should devote himself to God by
special acts of private and public worship. With the Covenant of Sinai, God was
to Israel the Lord of that Covenant. The Sabbath thereby also became a sign of
it, and its observance was an acknowledgment of the agreement between God and
his chosen people: "See that thou keep my Sabbath; because it is a sign between
me and you in your generations; that you may know that I am the Lord, who
sanctify you" (Exodus 31:13). Thus the Sabbath observance really was a most
important institution―perhaps the most important. It was the object of one of
the Ten Commandments. With good reason had the Pharisaical class striven to make
it a centrepiece of the life of the nation. They went to great excess, and
turned it to account in enhancing their religious hegemony. Nevertheless, a
legacy of the religion of Israel is the Sabbath. It carried over to the religion
revealed and founded by Jesus Christ, which was the intended fulfilment of the
Covenant of Sinai. In the Christian Sabbath, the Church celebrated the creative
work of God and of man’s dependence on the Creator of all, including and
especially the new creation flowing from the Resurrection of Christ. It was
particularly a celebration of the New Covenant established in the blood of Jesus
Christ, creating a new relationship with God our Creator. We are now his adopted
children, sharing in the Spirit of Christ. Sunday Mass and the observance of a
due religious rest on the Sunday is the most important spiritual exercise of
Christ’s faithful. If every member of Christ’s faithful were to attend Sunday
Mass fervently, and make of the Sunday the Lord’s Day and not just another day
of the week, the Church would be roused profoundly in vitality.
Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath, and if this is recognized in practice,
the Sabbath truly will be for man (Mark 2:23-3:6).
The overwhelming percentage of Christians do not regularly observe the Christian
Sabbath. It ought be the highest and greatest activity of the week, the one into
which we put all of ourselves in a way that surpasses everything else. Involving
the Holy Eucharist, it is the summit and source of the Christian life for the
individual, the parish, the diocese and the entire Church. Let us resolve to
make the best of our Sunday Mass, and to devise ways of making the day itself a
day given to him who is Lord of the Sabbath.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos.
2168-2188
(The Sabbath)
Morning Offering:
O Jesus, through the most pure heart of Mary, I offer you all the
prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions
of your divine heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass. I
offer them especially for the Holy
Father's intentions:
availability to
preach the Gospel throughout the world".
Jesus
said to his disciples, If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me
first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is,
you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That
is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant
is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you
also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat
you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.
(John 15:18-21)
rather,
largely shaped by the social institutions. Be that as it may, my point in
introducing this example is that a great challenge for religion is that it
be brought to bear on the concrete life of society. Especially in a secular
society the two can proceed along parallel lines, with religion being
confined to worship and private prayer, and society being conducted
according to independent ethical criteria (which may not actually be very
ethical). In the case of a religion which is not especially ethical this
would not matter much because in that case society would not benefit
ethically by the influence of such a religion. But the Christian religion is
a profoundly ethical religion and it is meant by its divine founder to
influence all of human life, including the life of society. Its demands
embrace not only worship and private piety but also man precisely in his
community life and culture. Sadly, all too often societies that are
Christian by tradition have many profoundly unchristian mores and laws. For
instance, it takes for granted that each human person is an absolute value
and yet it often has laws that permit rampant abortion. Revealed religion is
not a religion that simply accepts, however genuinely and profoundly, the
great realities of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation and the Atonement, as
the defining element of one’s personal and private life. It goes further and
insists that this revelation by God be the inspiration for the Christian
also in his involvement in society. The individual is called to strive to
make God’s will and plan accepted by society as the basis and soul of its
life
adequate
support and consolation in their death. To them the prospect of wounds and loss
of limbs was not more terrible than it is to the combatant of this world. They
faced the implements of torture as the soldier takes his post before the enemy’s
battery. They cheered and ran forward to meet his attack, and as it were dared
him, if he would, to destroy the numbers who kept closing up the foremost rank,
as their comrades who had filled it fell. [...]
in Mexico, one determined to weaken the Catholic faith of its
people. Churches, schools and seminaries were closed; foreign clergy were
expelled. Cristóbal established a clandestine seminary at Totatiche, Jalisco.
Magallanes and the other priests were forced to minister secretly to
Catholics during the presidency of Plutarco Calles (1924-28). All of these
martyrs except three were diocesan priests. David, Manuel and Salvador were
laymen who died with their parish priest, Luis Batis. All of these martyrs
belonged to the Cristero movement, pledging their allegiance to Christ and
to the Church that he established to spread the Good News in society—even if
Mexico's leaders once made it a crime to receive Baptism or celebrate the
Mass. These martyrs did not die as a single group but in eight Mexican
states, with Jalisco and Zacatecas having the largest number. They were
beatified in 1992 and canonized eight years later.
A decree of the emperor in 1809 had ordered that the papal States be joined
to the French empire; violence followed in Rome, when the French tricolor
flag was set up and the papal arms broken. The Pope’s very courageous bull
of excommunication of the emperor was made public in the following month.
Then, one morning, a group of armed men entered the Quirinal Palace by
breaking down the doors with axes, and its leader announced that the pope
must either renounce his sovereignty over Rome or be taken by the troop
to a French General, who would communicate to him his next destination.
The sacrilegious seizure of his person was executed, and he spent five
years in exile in various places, finally at Fontainebleau, France. After
1815 the clemency of the great Pope towards the Emperor and his family
is a matter of history; the latter were afforded a secure refuge in Rome
itself, when Napoleon was exiled. And for the Emperor himself, relegated
to the island of Saint Helena, the Pope pleaded for clemency with the Prince-Regent
of England. When Napoleon died, it was with the assistance of chaplains
sent to him by Pius VII. Our Lady, Help of Christians, was made better
known by Saint John Bosco, who consecrated his Order of Salesian priests
to Her. And in Turin, beginning in 1865, he began to raise in Her honour
a vast and magnificent church. Without ever having a penny in advance, always
the needed sums of money arrived in time. About three-fourths of the gifts
offered were presented in thanksgiving for favours obtained through Her intercession.
An example of her intercession is as follows: A certain Senator of the
Kingdom of Italy was ill; Don Bosco went to visit him and found him very
discouraged and speaking of his imminent death. “What would you do,” said
Don Bosco, “if Our Lady Auxiliatrix obtained your cure from God?” “My cure!
Well, I would give two thousand francs a month for Her church, for six
months.” “Be of good courage,” said the Saint on rising; “I will see that
prayers are said for you.” Three days later, Baron Gotta, perfectly cured,
went to Don Bosco to make his first payment, giving more than he had promised;
and he did not cease to outdo himself in generosity. (L’histoire ecclésiastique)
he gave up any thought of ordination. The next 13 years
were spent in a vocation unusual at the time—that of a layperson actively
engaged in prayer and the apostolate. As the Council of Trent was reforming
the Church on a doctrinal level, Philip’s appealing personality was winning
him friends from all levels of society, from beggars to cardinals. He
rapidly gathered around himself a group of laypersons won over by his
audacious spirituality. Initially they met as an informal prayer and discussion
group, and also served poor people in Rome. At the urging of his confessor,
he was ordained priest and soon became an outstanding confessor, gifted
with the knack of piercing the pretences and illusions of others, though
always in a charitable manner and often with a joke. He arranged talks,
discussions and prayers for his penitents in a room above the church.
He sometimes led "excursions" to other churches, often with music and
a picnic on the way. Some of his followers became priests and lived together
in community. This was the beginning of the Oratory, the religious institute
he founded. A feature of their life was a daily afternoon service of four
informal talks, with vernacular hymns and prayers. Giovanni Palestrina
was one of Philip’s followers, and composed music for the services. The
Oratory was finally approved after suffering through a period of accusations
of being an assembly of heretics, where laypersons preached and sang vernacular
hymns! (Cardinal Newman founded the first English-speaking house of the
Oratory.) Philip’s advice was sought by many of the prominent figures
of his day. He is one of the influential figures of the Counter-Reformation,
mainly for converting to personal holiness many of the influential people
within the Church itself. His characteristic virtues were humility and
gaiety. (AmericanCatholic.org)
which
had been brought under Spanish control in 1534. She joined the Secular
Franciscans and led a life of prayer and penance at home, leaving her
parents’ house only to go to church and to perform some work of charity. She
established in Quito a clinic and a school for Africans and indigenous
Americans. When a plague broke out, she nursed the sick and died shortly
thereafter. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
Heart, institutions known for the quality of the education made
available to the young. Sophie herself received an extensive education,
thanks to her brother, Louis, 11 years older and her godfather at Baptism.
Himself a seminarian, he decided that his younger sister would likewise
learn Latin, Greek, history, physics and mathematics — always without
interruption and with a minimum of companionship. By age 15, she had
received a thorough exposure to the Bible, the teachings of the Fathers of
the Church and theology. Despite the oppressive regime Louis imposed, young
Sophie thrived and developed a genuine love of learning. Meanwhile, this was
the time of the French Revolution and of the suppression of Christian
schools. The education of the young, particularly young girls, was in a
troubled state. At the same time, Sophie, who had concluded that she was
called to the religious life, was persuaded to begin her life as a nun and
as a teacher. She founded the Society of the Sacred Heart, which would focus
on schools for the poor as well as boarding schools for young women of
means; today, co-ed Sacred Heart schools can be found as well as schools
exclusively for boys. In 1826, her Society of the Sacred Heart received
formal papal approval. By then she had served as superior at a number of
convents. In 1865, she was stricken with paralysis; she died that year on
the feast of the Ascension. Madeleine Sophie Barat was canonized in 1925.
Madeleine Sophie Barat lived in turbulent times. She was only 10 when the
Reign of Terror began. She was a contemporary of the Cure of Ars. In the wake of the French Revolution, rich and poor
both suffered before some semblance of normality returned to France. Born to
some degree of privilege, she received a good education. It grieved her that
the same opportunity was being denied to other young girls, and she devoted
herself to educating them, whether poor or well- to-do. We who live in an
affluent country can follow her example by helping to ensure to others the
blessings we have enjoyed. (AmericanCatholic.org)
The tenth century and the first half of the eleventh were dark days for the
Church, partly because the papacy was the pawn of various Roman families. In
1049, things began to change when Pope Leo IX, a reformer, was elected. He
brought a young monk named Hildebrand to Rome as his counsellor and special
representative on important missions. He was to become Gregory VII. Three
evils plagued the Church then: simony (the buying and selling of sacred
offices and things), the unlawful marriage of the clergy and lay investiture
(kings and nobles controlling the appointment of Church officials). To all
of these Hildebrand directed his
reformer’s attention, first as counsellor
to the popes and later (1073-1085) as pope himself. Gregory’s papal letters
stress the role of bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ and the visible
centre of unity in the Church. He is well known for his long dispute with
Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV over who should control the selection of bishops
and abbots. Gregory fiercely resisted any attack on the liberty of the
Church. For this he suffered and finally died in exile. He said, “I have
loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile.” Thirty years
later the Church finally won its struggle against lay investiture.
the Birthday of John the
Baptist (June 24). Like most feasts of Mary, it is closely connected with
Jesus and his saving work. The more visible actors in the visitation drama
(see Luke 1:39-45) are Mary and Elizabeth. However, Jesus and John the
Baptist steal the scene in a hidden way. Jesus makes John leap with joy—the
joy of messianic salvation. Elizabeth, in turn, is filled with the Holy
Spirit and addresses words of praise to Mary—words that echo down through
the ages. It is helpful to recall that we do not have a journalist’s account
of this meeting. Rather, Luke, speaking for the Church, gives a prayerful
poet’s rendition of the scene. Elizabeth’s praise of Mary as “the mother of
my Lord” can be viewed as the earliest Church’s devotion to Mary. As with
all authentic devotion to Mary, Elizabeth’s (the Church’s) words first
praise God for what God has done to Mary. Only secondly does she praise Mary
for trusting God’s words. Then comes the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). Here
Mary herself (like the Church) traces all her greatness to God.