March in Year C 10

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From the second Sunday of Lent

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 is: "That young people may learn to use modern means of social communication for their personal growth and to better prepare themselves to serve society".

His mission intention is: "That every believer in Christ may be conscious that unity among all Christians is a condition for more effective proclamation of the Gospel".

Prayers for today: Remember your mercies, Lord, your tenderness from ages past. Do not let our enemies triumph over us; O God, deliver Israel from all her distress. (Psalm 24: 6.3.22)

God our Father, help us to hear your Son. Enlighten us with your word, that we may find the way to your glory. We ask this through Christ our Lord in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

(February 28) Blessed Daniel Brottier (1876-1936)
Daniel spent most of his life in the trenches — one way or another. Born in France in 1876, Daniel was ordained in 1899 and began a teaching career. That didn’t satisfy him long. He wanted to use his zeal for the gospel far beyond the classroom. He joined the missionary Congregation of the Holy Spirit, which sent him to Senegal, West Africa. After eight years there, his health was suffering. He was forced to return to France, where he helped raise funds for the construction of a new cathedral in Senegal. At the outbreak of World War I Daniel became a volunteer chaplain and spent four years at the front. He did not shrink from his duties. Indeed, he risked his life time and again in ministering to the suffering and dying. It was miraculous that he did not suffer a single wound during his 52 months in the heart of battle. After the war he was invited to help establish a project for orphaned and abandoned children in a Paris suburb. He spent the final 13 years of his life there. He died in 1936 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Paris only 48 years later. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture: Genesis 15: 5-12.17-18; Ps 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28-36

About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying,

the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendour, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters— one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. (He did not know what he was saying.) While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him. When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no-one at that time what they had seen. (Luke 9:28-36)

Hope Perhaps the most striking thing about reality is its variety. Everywhere there are differences. Look at a garden, look at the animals in a zoo, look at any group of persons, look at a family, look at even a pair of twins. One sees many differences. The differences among the things that make up visible creation are not only of kind but of degree within the various kinds. Though all men are of the one kind, who could calculate the number of differences among individuals within humankind? Particularly notable are the differences in talent, in

capacity. All his life one man does the most humdrum of things and, though he may be happy, never achieves anything beyond the ordinary. Another man arises from obscurity and is in sight of becoming, even if briefly, nearly the master of the world. Where did Napoleon Bonaparte come from? He was an obscure Corsican from off the coast of Italy and yet by the age of 35 was Emperor of the French and within five more years was master of Europe. He fell, but his talent was extraordinary. Eighty years after the birth of Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler was born in obscurity in Austria. By the age of 44 was head of the German state and on his way to a despicable career of carnage and blood that brought death and injury to untold numbers all over the world. He had extraordinary talent. We can think of numerous high achievers in history, including some who were saints, and others who were filled with evil intent. In all high achievers there is once common element: hope. They had high hopes. Now, hope is not exclusive to high achievers who have great talent, for even in those of very ordinary talent it is essential that there be hope. Hope is a fundamental human requisite. The ordinary person who in his obscurity lives a beautiful life, humbly raising his several children, day by day engaged in a tedious round of humdrum activity such as delivering bread or stacking provisions, and ending his days having done his best at his uninteresting tasks, must live in hope. Were he not to have hoped, he would have long since given up on life. If there is not hope, all is hopeless.

There is, however, a grand undertaking that is ahead of every man and woman, be he high or low in talent. The distinguished and the ordinary must make this undertaking his own. What he makes of it will depend on his calling and his spiritual talent, but make it his own he must. That undertaking is the work of personal holiness in Christ. It is the common undertaking of all who are baptized. Now, in this, just as with everything, hope is a fundamental prerequisite. Each must have a high hope of attaining this goal if he is ever to attain it. If he has little hope of it, he will not give it the energy and dedication it requires. This hope is a God-given virtue, imparted at our baptism, by which we desire the kingdom of heaven that our Lord announced and established. By means of this supernatural hope we desire eternal life as our happiness, and the virtues that are necessary for it. The foundation of this hope, a hope that has to be high indeed, is the trust we place in Christ’s promises rather than our own strength, together with the grace of the Holy Spirit. Only the grace of Jesus Christ can take us to holiness, but we must apply ourselves to the work — and for this application we need to have a great hope. This hope is the gift of God, as is our faith in Jesus Christ and as is our love for him. This virtue that is God’s gift responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man and woman. We naturally hope for happiness and this natural hope drives our efforts and decisions during life. The hope that is supernatural and specifically Christian is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It completes and gives focus to the natural hope of every human heart. Buoyed up by this hope, we are kept from sin and selfishness and led to holiness, which is the true happiness of man. Abraham hoped, and we are his children in the faith. In the beatitudes of Jesus Christ (in Matthew and Luke) our hopes are raised to heaven, and the grace won for us by the Passion and Death of Christ sustains our hope. Thus hope becomes the steadfast anchor of the soul and our weapon in our spiritual struggle.

Our Gospel today (Luke 9:28-36) places before us the transfiguration of Christ, manifesting his glory. It shows forth what we are called to hope for. With the grace of God for which we ought pray, let us maintain high hopes of attaining our true end, which is union with Christ in his glory. This we attain by obeying the will of God in union with Jesus who attained his glory through suffering. We hope for union with the Bridegroom in the glory of heaven. As St Teresa of Avila wrote, “Hope, O my soul, hope.” Let us pray for the virtue of hope, and never let it fade away.
(E.J.Tyler)

Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.1817-1821 (Hope)

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You became very thoughtful when I told you: “The way I see it, everything seems too little when it is for Our Lord.”
(The Forge, no.47)

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Catholicism does not depend on its establishment for its existence, nor does its tradition live upon its establishment; it can do without establishment, and often dispenses with it to an advantage. A Catholic nation, as a matter of course, establishes Catholicism because it is a Catholic nation … the establishment is the spontaneous act of the people; it is a national movement, the Catholic people does it, and not the Catholic Church. It is but the accident of a particular state of things, the result of the fervour of the people; it is the will of the masses; but, I repeat, it is not necessary for Catholicism.

JHN, from Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (1851)

Monday of the second week of Lent

Prayers today: Redeem me, Lord, and have mercy on me; my foot is set on the right path, I worship you in the great assembly. (Ps 25:11-12)

God our Father, teach us to find new life through penance. Keep us from sin, and help us live by your commandment of love. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

(March 1) St. David of Wales (d. 589?)
David is the patron saint of Wales and perhaps the most famous of British saints. Ironically, we have little reliable information about him. It is known that he became a priest, engaged in missionary work and founded many monasteries, including his principal abbey in south-western Wales. Many stories and legends sprang up about David and his Welsh monks. Their austerity was extreme. They worked in silence without the help of animals to till the soil. Their food was limited to bread, vegetables and water. In about the year 550, David attended a synod where his eloquence impressed his fellow monks to such a degree that he was elected primate of the region. The episcopal see was moved to Mynyw, where he had his monastery (now called St. David's). He ruled his diocese until he had reached a very old age. His last words to his monks and subjects were: "Be joyful, brothers and sisters. Keep your faith, and do the little things that you have seen and heard with me." St. David is pictured standing on a mound with a dove on his shoulder. The legend is that once while he was preaching a dove descended to his shoulder and the earth rose to lift him high above the people so that he could be heard. Over 50 churches in South Wales were dedicated to him in pre-Reformation days. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Daniel 9:4-10; Psalm 78; Luke 6:36-38

Jesus said to his disciples, Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Luke 6:36-38)

Our neighbour One of the many disputes that have arisen over revealed doctrine has concerned the results of the original Fall of man. The priest Pelagius (a contemporary of Augustine and Jerome), — himself troubled by Augustine’s (and others’) theology of divine grace — was accused of denying the doctrine of original sin. He was accused of teaching, in effect, that man could attain salvation by his own earnest efforts. Eventually Augustine summoned the Council of Carthage in 418 and condemned the teaching of Pelagius — and this

condemnation was in due course accepted by the Church. Catholic doctrine insists on the Fall of man and his need of Christ’s redemption. He cannot be saved without the grace of Christ. However, subsequently the grand dispute concerned the extent of the depravity caused by the Fall. The Catholic Church insists that while man is profoundly wounded by the Fall he is not utterly deprived of goodness. To an extent, he can genuinely love. To an extent, he can be unselfish. But of course whatever be the natural capacity in fallen man to be good and loving, it is not sufficient to regain the full and saving friendship of God. For this there was needed the Sacrifice of Christ, the effects of which must be brought to each individual by the gift of the Holy Spirit. By himself man cannot soar towards God — he is like the bird that has been shot in the wing. While he is not by nature spiritually dead, he can only struggle along on the ground. So it is that while we see some striking displays of goodness and love in the world, all too often there are serious limits to it. It is vitiated by much self-seeking. There is a reluctance to be compassionate and merciful in practice. The practice of what we might call natural religion — that religion which naturally arises from the heart of man and which is distinct from revealed religion — is not notably charitable. It is not distinguished by concern for the needy and mercy towards the suffering. It is not especially forgiving. It is often very vengeful. It attains the level that we would expect of natural man.

Now, the religion revealed by Jesus Christ places love towards one’s neighbour and goodness towards others at the very centre of its practice. One’s level of true religion is measured by one’s level of practical love towards others. It does not replace one’s love for God and Christ, but it is the measure of it. This may be said to be a distinctive feature of revealed religion, and in the process it reveals what God is like. So much is God himself love, that he cannot accept a religion that is not loving towards those whom he himself loves. And who does God love with special predilection? God loves in a special sense those who are in need. He identifies with them, and absolutely insists that those who wish to serve and honour him must themselves put on the mind and heart that is his. That is to say we must aim to be compassionate, merciful and “good” to those in need. But of course, as was said earlier, we are profoundly wounded by the effects on our nature by the original Fall of man in sin. Of ourselves we cannot imitate the compassion and mercy of God towards others to the extent that is proper and necessary. We need to be redeemed and sanctified by the grace of Jesus Christ. By our own daily effort and most especially by having recourse to this grace, we can put on the mind of Christ and become more and more “religious” — united to God — in the sense intended by our all-loving and all-merciful Father. Thus it is that our Lord tells us in today’s Gospel “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:36-38). If we wish to love God we must love our neighbour, and for this reason the Christian saint is a person who is distinguished by his love for neighbour. Our Lord warns that in the final judgment whatever we do to the least, he will regard as having been done to him.

Let us never imagine that concern for our neighbour and in particular for the neediest of our neighbours, is but one fruit of religion, an incidental advantage that religion brings to society. Concern for neighbour is at the heart of revealed religion, and it is a principal moment or locale of the service of the unseen God. God identifies with the lowliest and the most needy, and if we wish to love him, we must love and serve the neediest. God will judge our love for him according to the measure of our love for our fellow man. Let us pray for the grace to get this right.
(E.J.Tyler)

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It would be good if it could be said of you that the distinguishing feature of your life was “loving God’s Will”.
(The Forge, no.48)

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Life is not long enough for a religion of inferences; we shall never have done beginning, if we determine to begin with proof. … Life is for action. If we insist on proofs for everything, we shall never come to action: to act you must assume, and that assumption is faith.

JHN, from ‘The Tamworth Reading Room’ (1841)

Tuesday of the second week in Lent

Prayers today: Give light to my eyes, Lord, lest I sleep in death, and my enemy say: I have overcome him. (Ps 12:4-5)

Lord, watch over your Church, and guide it with your unfailing love. Protect us from what could harm us and lead us to what will save us. Help us always, for without you we are bound to fail. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,...

(March 2) St. Agnes of Bohemia (1205-1282)

Agnes had no children of her own but was certainly life-giving for all who knew her. Agnes was the daughter of Queen Constance and King Ottokar I of Bohemia. At the age of three, she was betrothed to the Duke of Silesia, who died three years later. As she grew up, she decided she wanted to enter the religious life. After declining marriages to King Henry VII of Germany and Henry III of England, Agnes was faced with a proposal from Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor. She appealed to Pope Gregory IX for help. The pope was persuasive; Frederick magnanimously said that he could not be offended if Agnes preferred the King of Heaven to him. After Agnes built a hospital for the poor and a residence for the friars, she financed the construction of a Poor Clare monastery in Prague. In 1236, she and seven other noblewomen entered this monastery. Saint Clare sent five sisters from San Damiano to join them, and wrote Agnes four letters advising her on the beauty of her vocation and her duties as abbess. Agnes became known for prayer, obedience and mortification. Papal pressure forced her to accept her election as abbess; nevertheless, the title she preferred was "senior sister." Her position did not prevent her from cooking for the other sisters and mending the clothes of lepers. The sisters found her kind but very strict regarding the observance of poverty; she declined her royal brother’s offer to set up an endowment for the monastery. Devotion to Agnes arose soon after her death on March 6, 1282. She was canonized in 1989. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Isaiah 1:10.16-20; Psalm 49; Matthew 23:1-12

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and

do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practise what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honour at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the market-places and to have men call them 'Rabbi'. But you are not to be called 'Rabbi', for you have only one teacher and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth your 'father', for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called 'master', for you have one Master, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (Matt 23: 1-12)

Humility Years ago a prominent politician in Australia made the remark during an interview on television that “life was not meant to be easy.” His observation was derided by the press and it haunted him for the rest of his political career. But one minute’s thought ought make it obvious that this brief statement is true. No matter how one lives, life will not be “easy.” There will be difficulties no matter what path one takes, whether it is the path of virtue or the path of vice. Its more obvious application is in respect to virtue. To be good

will not be easy, even though it will bring happiness. The same is to be said of religion. As the Old Testament book of Sirach states, “My son, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials” (2:1). One of the trials of authentic religion is the struggle for humility. It has been revealed that at the beginning of mankind, man was tempted to put himself in God’s place: “you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad,” the Serpent insinuated (Genesis 3:5). Man fell into this temptation and lost his condition of friendship with God and full integration of his powers. He became profoundly inclined to assuming the place of God. That is to say, he became strongly inclined to be proud, and it was a great struggle to be humble. If he is not awake to this fallen condition and does not resist it with vigilance and the help of God, he will inevitably be a proud person. He will live in the unreality of thinking that he is a much better man than what he is. While he may not admit it to himself, in effect he will think he is somewhat on a par with God himself and will arrogantly ignore the commands of God. He will attempt to construct his own Tower of Babel in life, tending to think he can attain full influence and security. He will gradually decide for himself what is right and what is wrong, calling right what is in fact wrong, and vice versa. All will be vitiated by the persistence in his own life of the original temptation, which is pride. It is a capital sin and leads to death.

It is this pride which our Lord unmasks in many of the religious leaders of the people. They were leaders of religion, and yet in their spirit they were not religious. The reason for this was their pride and their seeking of personal glory precisely in their religion. In their lives they were not giving honour and glory to God but seeking it for themselves. “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honour at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the market-places and to have men call them 'Rabbi'” (Matt 23: 1-12). Our Lord does not condemn all “the teachers of the law and the Pharisees” who “sit in Moses' seat.” Further, he confirms their office, telling his hearers to “obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practise what they preach.” Our Lord warned his hearers not to make of the practice of revealed religion a means of self-glorification and adulation. Fundamentally, the danger consists in a violation of the very first of the Ten Commandments, which is that we acknowledge God to be God, and not to allow anything or anyone to occupy his place. The danger is, as it was in the beginning, that we ourselves secretly and almost without realizing the temptation, seek to occupy the place of God. It is profoundly demonic. It was the sin of those angels who rebelled against God in heaven. They would not serve because they wished to be like God. It was the temptation the demon presented to our first parents, and it was manifested in Satan’s temptation to Christ himself. “All this power will I give to you and the glory of them. If you worship me, all will be yours” (Luke 4: 6-7). Satan was attempting to entice Christ with the prospect of glory from the entire world, so that he himself would be worshipped. Every time we take a step along the path of pride and self-glorification, we are heading along the path of Satan. We may not traverse that road to its end, but that is the path he trod and treads.

By contrast, the path of Christ is that of humility. As St Paul writes, Christ had the very form and nature of God and yet he divested himself of this glory and became as we are, in the likeness of man. Indeed, he took a path that was even humbler, becoming obedient to death on a cross (Philippians 2: 6-7). How different from the path and the temptation presented by Satan, who wants man to aspire to be a god! Let us study the humility of Jesus Christ who invited us to learn from him, “for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28). Humility is the key to religion and to life.
(E.J.Tyler)

Second reflection (Matthew 23: 1-12)

Humility In his book A Grammar of Assent Cardinal Newman marvels at the awareness possessed by animals and remarks that it is a great mystery. I remember seeing one dog who for a brief time had to live with a visiting dog which friends of the family brought with them. Just to prove it was the 'top dog' it dug up all the bones which over a period of time it had hidden. It then displayed them before the other dog, keeping guard over them. The other dog barked at it from a distance in frustration. The dog with the bones was secure in being 'the top dog.' I remember another dog who could not bear to see its companion dog being petted and given attention by the masters of the house. It grew savage every time it saw this favour being accorded the other dog. It wanted to be 'the top dog'.

The example just given should show that it is not notably human to desire status and the esteem of others, to aim to be exalted in

their sight. It is part of human longing, but animals do this too in their fashion. The temptation is to spend most of one’s life trying to be 'the top dog.' To achieve this status clearly cannot in itself give intrinsic greatness to a human being. If man’s measure is God, then to be seeking status and exaltation in the eyes of men is actually unlike God, because Christ humbled himself and became as men are, and lowlier still — even to death on a cross (Philippians 2:8). Further, our Lord said, he who sees me sees the Father. So the Father is humble. Our Lord asked that we learn from him who is meek and humble of heart. Today's Gospel is very relevant to this point. "The greatest among you must be your servant. Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted" (Matthew 23: 1-12)

Let us understand that the humble person is the one who is like God. God our Father is meek, compassionate and humble, and was revealed in the humility of his Son, our Lord. If we wish to be exalted, the path is through being like God, which is to say by humbling ourselves. Let us ask the grace of the Holy Spirit, who in Christ is the Spirit of humility.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Any job, no matter how hidden, no matter how insignificant, when offered to the Lord, is charged with the strength of God’s life!
(The Forge, no.49)

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As regards the Catholic Creed, if we really believe that our Lord is God, we believe all that is meant by such a belief; or, else, we are not

in earnest, when we profess to believe the proposition. In the act of believing it at all, we forthwith commit ourselves by anticipation to believe truths which at present we do not believe, because they have never come before us; — we limit henceforth the range of our private judgment in prospect by the conditions, whatever they are, of that dogma. Thus the Arians said that they believed in our Lord’s divinity, but when they were pressed to confess His eternity, they denied it: thereby showing in fact that they never had believed in His divinity at all. In other words, a man who really believes in our Lord’s proper divinity, believes implicitè in His eternity.

JHN, from An Essay in aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870)

Wednesday of the second week in Lent

Prayers today: Do not abandon me, Lord. My God, do not go away from me! Hurry to help me, Lord, my Saviour. (Ps 37: 22-23)

Father, teach us to live good lives, encourage us with your support, and bring us to eternal life. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,...

(March 3) St. Katharine Drexel (1858-1955)
If your father is an international banker and you ride in a private railroad car, you are not likely to be drawn into a life of voluntary poverty. But if your mother opens your home to the poor three days each week and your father spends half an hour each evening in prayer, it is not impossible that you will devote your life to the poor and give away millions of dollars. Katharine Drexel did that. She was born in Philadelphia in 1858. She had an excellent education and travelled widely. As a rich girl, she had a grand debut into society. But when she nursed her

stepmother through a three-year terminal illness, she saw that all the Drexel money could not buy safety from pain or death, and her life took a profound turn. She had always been interested in the plight of the Indians, having been appalled by reading Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonour. While on a European tour, she met Pope Leo XIII and asked him to send more missionaries to Wyoming for her friend Bishop James O’Connor. The pope replied, “Why don’t you become a missionary?” His answer shocked her into considering new possibilities. Back home, she visited the Dakotas, met the Sioux leader Red Cloud and began her systematic aid to Indian missions. She could easily have married. But after much discussion with Bishop O’Connor, she wrote in 1889, “The feast of St. Joseph brought me the grace to give the remainder of my life to the Indians and the Coloured.” Newspaper headlines screamed “Gives Up Seven Million!” After three and a half years of training, she and her first band of nuns (Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Coloured) opened a boarding school in Santa Fe. A string of foundations followed. By 1942 she had a system of black Catholic schools in 13 states, plus 40 mission centres and 23 rural schools. Segregationists harassed her work, even burning a school in Pennsylvania. In all, she established 50 missions for Indians in 16 states. Two saints met when she was advised by Mother Cabrini about the “politics” of getting her Order’s Rule approved in Rome. Her crowning achievement was the founding of Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Catholic university in the United States for African Americans. At 77, she suffered a heart attack and was forced to retire. Apparently her life was over. But now came almost 20 years of quiet, intense prayer from a small room overlooking the sanctuary. Small notebooks and slips of paper record her various prayers, ceaseless aspirations and meditation. She died at 96 and was canonized in 2000.
“The patient and humble endurance of the cross—whatever nature it may be—is the highest work we have to do.” “Oh, how far I am at 84 years of age from being an image of Jesus in his sacred life on earth!” (Saint Katharine Drexel) (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 18:18-20; Psalm 30; Matthew 20:17-28

Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he

will be raised to life! Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favour of him. What is it you want? he asked. She said, Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom. You don't know what you are asking, Jesus said to them. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink? We can, they answered. Jesus said to them, You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father. When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:17-28)

The Glory There is something admirable about the approach to our Lord by the mother of the sons of Zebedee in our Gospel today. In his parables our Lord had given various images of the Kingdom of Heaven — that Kingdom of which he was the Messiah and King. Just before our passage today, our Lord speaks of those who will be first and last in the Kingdom. His parable describes the owner of the vineyard ( the Master or Ruler of the Kingdom)

hiring workers for his vineyard. As the owner, he will at the end reward each for his service, and he warns that while “many” will be called, “few” will be chosen. That is to say, by no means all will attain what they presume to expect. There will be surprises, for “they shall be first who were last, and they shall be last who were first.” The mother of the sons of Zebedee would have heard all this and was determined that her beloved sons should be the “first” in the Kingdom. She had generous and ardent sons. Our Lord nicknamed them “Boanerges,” sons of thunder. I like to think of our Lord, in his love for them, good naturedly teasing them for their volatile love for him. On one occasion they wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans for their discourtesy to our Lord. They were among our Lord’s very first disciples, his special companions together with Simon Peter, and according to St Paul were the pillars of the infant Church at Jerusalem. But then we read in our passage today that on the way “up to Jerusalem” Jesus warned the Twelve that “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” Our Lord is repeating to them that he is going to have a terrible death, and very soon. Then he will rise again. Now, it is then, after his having said this, that the mother of the sons of Zebedee presents her request. There is something truly admirable in their asking this of our Lord when his very death has just been announced.

They loved our Lord, and were utterly convinced that he was the promised Messiah, the King who would possess the eternal Kingship, the throne of David that would last forever. His glory would come. This faith in them is admirable, and our Lord, who could read the hearts of men, knew their mettle. How different did they turn out from Judas Iscariot! I suspect that our Lord’s talk of his coming death aroused complete disillusion and even a secret disgust in Judas. It occasioned a further draining away of his allegiance to our Lord. No so with the sons of Zebedee. Jesus was the promised King, and his Kingdom and his glory would come — but we see that despite their faith and their abandon to our Lord, they did not yet get it, as we might put it colloquially. They wanted to be among the first, and indeed, at our Lord’s right and left in his Kingdom. “You do not know what you are asking, Jesus said to them. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” We may presume that they had some idea that difficulties would be part and parcel of being with our Lord in his glory. Still, it is clear — on our Lord’s word — that they did not know what they were asking. They did not understand that just as the Son of Man must needs greatly suffer in order to enter his glory, so must they. Our Lord was blunt about sharing in his glory. They must drink “his” cup — the cup of the Suffering Servant. The others of the Twelve also shared in the illusion, for when they heard James and John attempting to obtain from our Lord this special favour in advance, they were hostile to the two brothers. They too wanted the top places, places of command where, after the manner of the rulers of the world, they would be served. It was an all-too human image of the glory of the Kingdom, one that reflected the kingdoms of this world and the aspirations of fallen man. They needed to understand that “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:17-28).

The great point of the passage is our Lord’s response to their question. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” he asked. In their love and generosity, they immediately said, “We can.” Our Lord saw that they had it in them to follow him to the end, and we may presume that he answered their request by granting them the grace to drink his “cup.” That is the true meaning of being at his right and at his left. We are called not to occupy the top places in glory, but to stand close to Jesus in all the suffering that is entailed in doing the will of God and serving our brothers. Let us ask Christ for the grace to remain at his right and left in his sufferings so as to share in his glory.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Feel the responsibility of your mission: the whole of Heaven is looking down on you.
(The Forge, no.50)

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I mean then by the Supreme Being, one who is simply self-dependent, and the only Being who is such; moreover, that He is without beginning or Eternal, and the only Eternal; that in consequence He has lived a whole eternity by Himself; and hence that He is all-sufficient, sufficient for His own blessedness, and all-blessed, and ever-blessed.

JHN, from The Idea of a University Part I (1852)

Thursday of the second week of Lent

Prayers today: Test me, O God, and know my thoughts; see whether I step in the wrong path, and guide me along the everlasting way. (Ps 138: 23-24)

God of love, bring us back to you. Send your Spirit to make us strong in faith and active in good works. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,...

(March 4) St. Casimir (1458-1483)
Casimir, born of kings and in line (third among 13 children) to be a king himself, was filled with exceptional values

and learning by a great teacher, John Dlugosz. Even his critics could not say that his conscientious objection indicated softness. Even as a teenager, Casimir lived a highly disciplined, even severe life, sleeping on the ground, spending a great part of the night in prayer and dedicating himself to lifelong celibacy. When nobles in Hungary became dissatisfied with their king, they prevailed upon Casimir’s father, the king of Poland, to send his son to take over the country. Casimir obeyed his father, as many young men over the centuries have obeyed their government. The army he was supposed to lead was clearly outnumbered by the “enemy”; some of his troops were deserting because they were not paid. At the advice of his officers, Casimir decided to return home. His father was irked at the failure of his plans, and confined his 15-year-old son for three months. The lad made up his mind never again to become involved in the wars of his day, and no amount of persuasion could change his mind. He returned to prayer and study, maintaining his decision to remain celibate even under pressure to marry the emperor’s daughter. He reigned briefly as king of Poland during his father’s absence. He died of lung trouble at 23 while visiting Lithuania, of which he was also Grand Duke. He was buried in Vilnius, Lithuania. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; Luke 16: 19-31

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The

rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.' He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' (Luke 16:19-31)

The poor If we were asked to provide in a single snapshot the state of the world in every age, I wonder what snapshots would be produced. There would be many who would, naturally, claim that it is utterly impossible to give in a single image the state of mankind and human society not only in its current situation, but in the broad sweep of history. If a great artist were commissioned to do just this — to come up with a painting that captured the

state of human society and its most obvious issues — I wonder what that artist would paint. I suggest that our Lord in our Gospel passage today (Luke 16:19-31) has provided such an image. It is of the “rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.” In every age there has been luxury and misery and a range of conditions of life between these two. In our Lord’s own time there were the blind beggars, the groups of ostracized lepers, the sick and the forgotten, and at the same time there were those wealthy who neglected the needy. We read in the Gospel that when Herod held his birthday party the nobles of the court attended, together with the leading men of Galilee. I wonder whether some of them fitted into the category of the rich man of our Lord’s parable who neglected the poor man Lazarus. It is remarked in another passage of the Gospels that the Pharisees loved money and they scoffed at our Lord’s warning against this love. One might wonder about how they too fitted into this parable. In any case, the world might well be described in terms of this opening image of the parable. There are those who have, and there are those who have not. Those who have not would love to partake of what might fall from the table of those who have, but are unable to. They must lie at the gate, with the dogs coming to lick their sores. Thus they pass their lives in misery.

There are admirable and significant initiatives constantly taken to alleviate the condition of the poor. One only has to think of the likes of Mahatma Ghandi to appreciate the natural goodness of the human heart, broken by sin though it is. History is dotted by numerous examples of marvellous dedication to those in need, and an admirable sharing of wealth with the many Lazaruses at the gates of those who have. Such examples show that the spark of goodness remained in the heart of man despite his catastrophic moral fall at the beginning. He is profoundly inclined to selfishness and sin, but at the same time he is drawn by an even deeper law of his being summoning him to a moral grandeur that strives to better the lot of his fellows. Nevertheless the lamentable situation stands. There is wealth and there is penury within countries and between countries. Evil afflicts very many people. Consider the centuries of slavery and the countless children of God who suffered lives of misery as a result. There were few to help them, and we may imagine great numbers who lived lives shrouded in an unchanging darkness. We may take another parallel instance in our own day, the instance of abortion. Millions of human beings at the start of their life’s journey are attacked, injured, destroyed precisely in the location where they are meant by the providence of God to be safest — in their mothers’ wombs. It is the first shelter God gives them, and they quickly become the Lazarus of our parable today. The point I am making is that our Lord’s opening image in today’s parable may be taken to be a true snapshot of the world as it has been during much of its history, and as it is today. What to do about it — that is the burning question. The answer lies in the rest of the parable. We must help and this imperative comes from Christ. If we do not we shall be placing ourselves in danger of sharing in the lot of the rich man of the parable. He died and was buried, and in his torment in Hell he could not pass from his side to the other. A great chasm existed between them.

The Christian has a most notable motive for helping the poor, and for overcoming his ingrained and fallen reluctance to part with his possessions for the sake of the needy. Whatever he does to the least and to the neediest, he will have done to Jesus the Lord of lords and the King of kings. It is a principal way of showing love for Jesus. There is as well a tremendous sanction. At the judgment, Christ will remember and bring forward what was done and what was not done to the least of his brothers. We shall be rewarded or punished accordingly. The saints have been distinguished for their love for Jesus as present in the poor. Let us love and serve the poor, then!
(E.J.Tyler)

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Reflection on the first reading: (Jeremiah 17:5-10) Trust in the Lord

Trust It is a very sad thing to come across a person who has lost hope. It is the most natural and normal thing to

have hope, and we thrive when we have plenty of hope. But the question is, in what do we place our hope? It may be that, without realizing it too clearly, we have been placing our hope in things that in the final analysis will let us down because of their inherently contingent nature. They are "things of flesh". In what are we placing our trust in life — financial success, physical health, plenty of friends? If these fail us, where then will our life and happiness find its support? The prophet Jeremiah tells us that "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD". Such a person’s life will never cease to bear fruit — the fruit that God wants. So we must select and choose what we shall trust in. Let it be the Lord. If however, and perhaps largely unknown to ourselves, we have come to trust in things that we then discover fail us (such as business success, health, friends, or whatever), let that discovery be the occasion for detaching ourselves from that object of trust. Let us then trust more deeply in the Lord. Let that occasion become a great opportunity, a moment of grace when we abandon ourselves more completely to the Lord. Trust in the Lord by deliberate choice and by policy. When what is dear fails us, let us trust in the Lord the more.
(E.J.Tyler)

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God awaits you! — So, wherever you are, you must commit yourself to imitating him and uniting yourself to him, cheerfully, lovingly, keenly, though circumstances might require you — even permanently — to go against the grain.

God awaits you!… and needs you to be faithful!
(The Forge, no.51)

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What were the actual circumstances of His coming? His Mother is a poor woman; she comes to Bethlehem to be taxed, travelling, when her choice would have been to remain at home. She finds there is no room in the inn; she is obliged to betake herself to a stable; she brings forth her firstborn Son, and lays Him in a manger. That little babe, so born, so placed, is none other than the Creator of heaven and earth, the Eternal Son of God.

JHN, from the sermon ‘Christ Hidden from the World’ (1837)

Friday of the second week of Lent

Prayers today: To you, Lord, I look for protection, never let me be disgraced. You are my refuge; save me from the trap they have laid for me. (Ps 30:2,5)

Merciful Father, may our acts of penance bring us your forgiveness, open our hearts to your love, and prepare us for the coming feast of the resurrection. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

(March 5) St. John Joseph of the Cross (1654-1734)

Self-denial is never an end in itself but is only a help toward greater charity—as the life of Saint John Joseph shows. John Joseph was very ascetic even as a young man. At 16 he joined the Franciscans in Naples; he was the first Italian to follow the reform movement of Saint Peter Alcantara. John’s reputation for holiness prompted his superiors to put him in charge of establishing a new friary even before he was ordained. Obedience moved John to accept appointments as novice master, guardian and, finally, provincial. His years of mortification enabled him to offer these services to the friars with great charity. As guardian he was not above working in the kitchen or carrying the wood and water needed by the friars. When his term as provincial expired, John Joseph dedicated himself to hearing confessions and practicing mortification, two concerns contrary to the spirit of the dawning Age of Enlightenment. John Joseph was canonized in 1839. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Genesis 37:3-4.12-13.17-28; Psalm 104; Matthew 21:33-43. 45-46

Jesus said, Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. The tenants

seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them in the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. 'They will respect my son,' he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.' So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, they replied, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time. Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes'? Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. (Matthew 21:33-43. 45-46)

The Vine Buddhism proposes a way to what it regards as life. The Christian religion sets forth a Person. He is the way, just as he is the full truth and life, life in abundance. Pope Paul VI once said that the Christian religion is not a simple matter — he was referring to the immense richness and unending implications of the Christian religion. But in one sense he would have been the first to insist on the simplicity of its essential element. Christianity is

about the person of Christ, and the vocation of the Christian is to live in friendship with Jesus Christ. When the Christian reads the inspired Scriptures, it ought deepen his understanding of Jesus Christ. So then, let us consider our Lord’s parable in today’s Gospel in view of what it says about him. Our Lord situates himself in the context of the history of God’s dealings with his chosen people. The people of his choice is his vineyard — and we think of the image of the vineyard used by the prophet Isaiah. What could I have done that I have not done! the prophet said, speaking on God’s behalf. We think of the history of that divine choice beginning with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob through to the twelve patriarchs, the sons of Jacob. God was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and he had entered into a covenant with them, marvellously renewed and developed in the covenant of Sinai. God was forming his people and sending them his prophets to guide and guard them as his own. We may say that this process of choice is encapsulated in our Lord’s opening scene of his parable: “There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower.” The vineyard was the house of Israel. But those charged with caring for the vineyard neglected their responsibility. “Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.” This was the context of our Lord’s reference in the parable to himself.

Now, observe the dramatic difference in the parable between the servants of the vineyard who are clearly the prophets, and Jesus himself. While they are the landowner’s servants, he is the landowner’s son. There is a difference, we may almost say, not in mere degree but almost in kind. The prophets are the servants of Yahweh God, but Jesus Christ is his son. No other prophet spoke of himself so — we might even say — audaciously. Yet repeatedly our Lord spoke of himself in these exalted terms, and in the presence of his determined opponents. There was no one equal to Jesus Christ in terms of his relationship with God: the best of them were but servants of God, whereas he was his very son. So while in the parable our Lord speaks of the judgment that will come upon the leaders of the people and how the vineyard will be taken away from them, the parable also speaks of Jesus Christ. He is the privileged son, the only son of the master of the vineyard. Moreover, he is destined to be cast out of the vineyard by the tenants and killed. So our Lord is pointing not only to his unique status and relationship with God, but to the mysterious destiny that is his, despite his exalted status. So as we read the parable, let us think of the one who is the son of the master of the vineyard. There is a second extraordinary point intimately connected with the son. The vineyard of the house of Israel in the plan of God became the vine that is the Church. The vine is the son. “I am the vine,” our Lord said to his disciples at the Last Supper, “and you are the branches.” So an altogether new relationship has been established by God between his son and the people of his choice. Christ does not serve merely as another of his father’s emissaries. He has become the vine, and the people of God are now the branches. There is an new relationship obtaining between God and his people. The owner of the vineyard is the now the vinegrower. He attends to the vine himself, and the vineyard has become but one vine. All of the Church’s members share as branches in the life of that one vine that is Christ. In Christ there has been effected a new relationship between God and his people (Matt. 21: 33-43. 45-46).

All of this constitutes a serious responsibility to tend the vine and to bring forth fruit. Christ told his disciples that he expected that they produce fruit that would last. In the previous situation described in the parable, the produce was not forthcoming. In its stead, the master of the vineyard was conspired against and his representatives were rejected. A judgment came upon the tenants as a result. Let us not be like that! Let us live as true branches of the vine, being open to the care of the vinegrower who is our heavenly Father, and who wishes us to share in the life of his Son.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection (Genesis 37:3-28)

Trust in God When threats come our way, perhaps loss of possessions, failure in work, bad health, serious sickness or the approach of death, we can be tempted to panic, or rebel, or simply to give up. We can fail in hope and trust because we think there is no one who is looking after us. Consider the patriarch Joseph, the beloved son of Jacob. He was hated by most of his brothers because they were envious of the special love their father had for him. So they violently sold him into the oblivion of slavery in Egypt. Joseph may have thought there was no hope humanly speaking. But the integrity he displayed in Egypt (as recounted in Genesis) shows that he still trusted in God.

In fact, God used his enslavement for far reaching purposes. He exalted Joseph in Egypt and as a result of this, he was the instrument whereby God preserved Jacob and his family from devastating famine. From Jacob and his family would come the Messiah. Among many things, the story of Joseph powerfully reminds us that God is our Father and our constant Provider, no matter what happens to us. Joseph was a type of Christ. Throughout his Passion, Christ abandoned himself to the care of his Father. Let us resolve to abandon ourselves into the Father's care, no matter what might happen to us.
(E.J.Tyler)

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You wrote: “My King, I hear you proclaiming in a loud voice that still resounds: Ignem veni mittere in terram, et quid volo nisi ut accendatur? — I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already kindled!”

Then you added: “Lord, it is me — all of me — who answers with all my senses and faculties: Ecce ego quia vocasti me! — here I am because you have called me.”

—May this answer of yours be a daily reality.
(The Forge, no.52)

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Christianity is eminently an objective religion. For the most part it tells us of persons and facts in simple words, and leaves that announcement to produce its effect on such hearts as are prepared to receive it.

JHN, from A Letter Addressed to the Rev. E. B. Pusey (1865)

Saturday of the second week in Lent

Prayers today: The Lord is loving and merciful, to anger slow, and full of love; the Lord is kind to all, and compassionate to all his creatures. (Ps 144:8-9)

God our Father, by your gifts to us on earth we already share in your life. In all we do, guide us to the light of your kingdom. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

(March 6) Servant of God Sylvester of Assisi (d. 1240)
Sylvester was one of the first 12 followers of St. Francis of Assisi and was the first priest in the Franciscan Order. A descendant of a noble family, Sylvester once sold Francis stones which were to be used to rebuild a church. When, a short while later, he saw Francis and Bernard of Quintavalle distributing Bernard's wealth to the poor, Sylvester complained that he had been poorly paid for the stones and asked for more money. Though Francis obliged, the handful of money he gave Sylvester soon filled him with guilt. He sold all of his goods, began a life of penance and joined Francis and the others. Sylvester became a holy and prayerful man, and a favourite of Francis—a companion on his journeys, the one Francis went to for advice. It was Sylvester and Clare who answered Francis' query with the response that he should serve God by going out to preach rather than by devoting himself to prayer. Once in a city where civil war was raging, Sylvester was commanded by Francis to drive the devils out. At the city gate Sylvester cried out: "In the name of almighty God and by virtue of the command of his servant Francis, depart from here, all you evil spirits." The devils departed and peace returned to the city. Sylvester lived 14 more years after the death of Francis and is buried near him in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Micah 7:14-15.18-20; Psalm 102; Luke 15:1-3.11-32

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law murmured, This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them. Then Jesus told them this parable: There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country,

who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no-one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' (Luke 15:1-3.11-32)

God and sin The parable that our Lord tells in today’s Gospel passage (Luke 15:1-3.11-32) is famous in world literature. The brief story is colourful, symmetrical, simple, complete. It is the perfect brief story containing a moral point. The point relates to the murmuring of the religious leaders who criticized our Lord’s easy association with “sinners and tax collectors.” The Gospels record our Lord dining — on invitation — with the Pharisees, and that was acceptable. But here he is dining with sinners and tax

collectors! Undoubtedly our Lord seemed at peace with this disreputable lot, and exuded happiness at their ease and delight in being in his company. On this occasion the religious leaders are not shown directing their objection to our Lord himself or to his disciples, for perhaps they feared an open debate with him. But their mutterings were noticed by our Lord and he immediately dealt with the challenge. What he was doing, so they deemed, was most unlike how God acts. God utterly shuns sinners. He punishes them and keeps them far from him. So the parable is about God and what he is like. He is a Father to us, a wonderful Father, a Father who welcomes sinners back to him, provided they come back with a recognition of their sins. He hates sin and it distresses him, but he yearns for the return to him of the sinner, and at this repentant return he goes to the sinner and embraces him. That is what happens in the parable of the Father who is so prodigal with his love, and that is what we see in Jesus Christ. In the same Gospel of St Luke (ch.19) we read that our Lord was passing through Jericho and Zacchaeus, a leading tax collector, ran ahead to climb a tree to see Jesus as he passed by. Our Lord reached the tree, looked up, called Zacchaeus by name and invited himself to his home to dine. He dined with the leading Pharisees when invited, and he dined with the leading tax collectors — the leading “sinners” — on his own initiative. In the case of Zacchaeus the conversion was remarkable, and we may presume that he became a faithful disciple of our Lord. Our Lord acted as God acts.

While the parable is fundamentally about God as revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, it is also about man. The fundamental issue for man is not food, clothing, education, success, prosperity or failure — however truly important these are. The fundamental issue in life is sin and the recognition of it. If there is no recognition of personal sin, there will be no return to the Father. If there is no desire to abandon the path of sin — that path pursued by the younger son in the parable — then man will die in his sins. The wages of sin are death, St Paul writes in Romans. So the first thing that the parable teaches about man is that the greatest evil is sin, which is separation from God by acts which disobey and offend him. No matter how slight the sin, deliberate sin is the worst thing a man can do. Sin is the principal issue of every man and woman. It was the principal issue at the beginning when God gave to man his command and it was flouted, and it remains from age to age the principal issue for man. We must recognize that we are sinners, and we must do what the younger son did in the parable. We must resolve to turn away from sin and return to the Father. Sin must be recognized and renounced. The motive for this is the revelation and the thought of the love of God. That is what man must do, and it is this that we see happening in today’s parable. The sinner — the younger son — recognizes his sin and returns to the Father, but there are those who see little sin in themselves and do not wish well of those who do. The Pharisees who criticized our Lord for receiving sinners and dining with them, saw little or no sin in themselves, and did not wish well of those who did see sin in themselves. Thus it is that in the picture of man presented to us in the parable, there are two classes of persons. While all have sinned, some recognize this and others do not. Zacchaeus recognized his sinfulness and gloried in the welcome and the friendship of Jesus Christ. We may presume that the sinners and tax collectors who dined with our Lord here also shared in the attitude of Zacchaeus. But we see no such recognition of personal sin in the Pharisees, such as to lead them to the One who takes away the sin of the world.

There are all sorts of things we can do in life and there is no need to list them. One thing we must do is gain a recognition of the fact of sin and of its odious character. Sin is both evil in itself and it is offensive to the good God. We must recognize its presence in our lives and ask for the grace to turn away from it and go back to God. The Romans of antiquity left a great line for generations to remember: Carthage must be destroyed! The deeper line to be taken up by the whole human race is: sin must be destroyed. It must be recognized, fought against and overcome. The converse of this — the other side of the very same coin — is that there must be a return in repentance to God our heavenly Father. By the grace of Christ this can be done! Let us all to it, then!
(E.J.Tyler)

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You should show the moderation, fortitude and sense of responsibility that many people acquire after many long years, in their old age. You will achieve all this, while you are still young, if you do not — I beg you — lose the supernatural outlook of a son of God. For he will give you, more than to the old, those qualities you need for your apostle’s work.
(The Forge, no.53)

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Had St. Stephen shrunk from the trial put upon him, and recanted to save his life, no one can estimate the consequences of such a defection. Perhaps (humanly speaking) the cause of the Gospel would have been lost; the Church might have perished; and, though Christ had died for the world, the world might not have received the knowledge or the benefits of His death.

JHN, from the sermon ‘Martyrdom’ (1831)

Third Sunday of Lent C

Prayers today: My eyes are ever fixed on the Lord, for he releases my feet from the snare. O look at me and be merciful, for I am wretched and alone (Psalm 24:15-16).

Father, you have taught us to overcome our sins by prayer, fasting and works of mercy. When we are discouraged by our weakness, give us confidence in your love. We ask this through Christ our Lord in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

(March 7) Saints Perpetua and Felicity (d. 203?)
“When my father in his affection for me was trying to turn me from my purpose by arguments and thus weaken my faith, I said to him, ‘Do you see this vessel — waterpot or whatever it may be? Can it be called by any other name than what it is?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am—a Christian.’” So writes Perpetua, young, beautiful, well-educated, a noblewoman of Carthage, mother of an infant son and chronicler of the persecution of the Christians by Emperor Septimius Severus. Despite threats of persecution and death, Perpetua, Felicity (a slavewoman and expectant mother) and three companions, Revocatus, Secundulus and Saturninus, refused to renounce their Christian faith. For their unwillingness, all were sent to the public games in the amphitheatre. There, Perpetua and Felicity were beheaded, and the others killed by beasts. Perpetua’s mother was a Christian and her father a pagan. He continually pleaded with her to deny her faith. She refused and was imprisoned at 22. In her diary, Perpetua describes her period of captivity: “What a day of horror! Terrible heat, owing to the crowds! Rough treatment by the soldiers! To crown all, I was tormented with anxiety for my baby.... Such anxieties I suffered for many days, but I obtained leave for my baby to remain in the prison with me, and being relieved of my trouble and anxiety for him, I at once recovered my health, and my prison became a palace to me and I would rather have been there than anywhere else.” Felicity gave birth to a girl a few days before the games commenced. Perpetua’s record of her trial and imprisonment ends the day before the games. “Of what was done in the games themselves, let him write who will.” The diary was finished by an eyewitness. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Exodus 3:1-8.13-15; Psalm 102; 1 Corinthians 10:1-.10-12; Luke 13:1-9

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.

Jesus answered, Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them— do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Then he told this parable: A man had a fig-tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig-tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?' 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig round it and fertilise it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.' (Luke 13:1-9)

Suffering and repentance There are two events which our Lord comments on in today’s Gospel which may be said to sum up much of the experience of mankind, and much of what mankind must grapple with when it comes to religion. The two events are the massacre of the Galileans “whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices,” and the sudden tragedy of the “eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them.” They involved murder and natural disaster. The lives of human beings are suddenly

snuffed out because of an act of man or the turn of natural events. This pattern recurs repeatedly all through history and untold loss of life results. Hurricanes, tidal waves, bush fires, plagues and earthquakes suddenly sweep away up to hundreds of thousands of souls, leaving a train of suffering in their wake to countless families and communities. Alternatively, war and merciless cruelty thunders over populations, leaving the smoke of the dead and their towns and farms rising as far as the eye can see. Typically, modern man will see these tragedies as calling into question the very existence of a good and all-powerful God. If he is supposed to exist and be present everywhere, what is he doing? What is more common in human history is not a movement from the sight of evil and suffering towards atheism. Commonly, the fact of God is an unquestioned given, whatever be the puzzles of the world. Rather, the tendency is to interpret the harsh events of life as a judgment. Just as in civil society man is punished proportionately for misdemeanours and crime, so man tends to interpret the sufferings of life as a proportionate punishment for his own sins. He is conscious of sin, and he is certain of the existence of the gods, and so he tends to think that his sufferings are an exact reprisal for his sins. The gods are not pleased with him, he thinks, and so they inflict him with the evils he is undergoing. In the revealed religion of the Old Testament, suffering and death appear at the dawn of history due to the sin of man (Genesis 3). Moreover, in the history of the chosen people, God often punishes sins (such as his punishment of Moses for his lack of faith, and of David for his murder of Uriah.)

But this is not to say that the sufferings man endures are simply due to his own sins, nor is it to say that they are necessarily in proportion to his own sins. What, then, is the meaning of the sufferings that we endure? There are many answers to this, and our Lord gives one in our Gospel passage today. Our Lord is told of the massacre by Pilate of several in the place of worship. In response to this news he refers also to the tragedy of the collapse of the Tower of Siloam. Our Lord does not say that they were not sinners. Nor does he say that their sins had absolutely nothing to do with their suffering. He does not comment on the sins of those who had died, except to say that their sufferings were not an indicator that they were greater sinners than others. What he does say is that their sudden and unprovoked death is a reminder to others that they must take heed to their own situation. If they do not repent, the final upshot of their sins will be death. That is to say, sin will lead to death. We are reminded of what St Paul wrote in his Letter to the Romans, that the wages of sin are death, and that it was because of one man’s sin that death entered the world and spread to the whole human race. And so our Lord concludes his comment on the ones who had been massacred by Pilate, “unless you repent, you too will all perish.” It is the same with those who were killed by the falling tower “ — do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” He reinforces his point by providing yet another image, this time drawn from the fig tree that produces no figs. “A man had a fig-tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig-tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?' 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig round it and fertilise it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down” (Luke 13:1-9). The sufferings of this life ought lead to repentance, be they our own sufferings, or those of others.

In actual fact, elsewhere our Lord shows — especially in his own person — that suffering can be an essential part of a high mission from God. Suffering has been made redemptive by our Lord. But it also reminds us of the need to repent. All are invited by Jesus to enter the Kingdom of God. Even the worst of sinners is called to convert from his sins and to accept the boundless mercy of the Father. Already here on earth, the Kingdom belongs to those who accept it with a humble heart. To them the mysteries of the Kingdom are revealed. Let us then be reminded of the final upshot of unrepented sin, and turning away from sin, let us believe wholeheartedly in the Gospel.

(E.J.Tyler)

Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.541-546 (Proclamation of the Kingdom)

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You enjoy an interior happiness and peace that you would not exchange for anything in the world. God is here. There is no better way than telling him our woes for them to cease being such.
(The Forge, no.54)

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It still remains to be tried whether what is called Anglo-Catholicism, the religion of Andrewes, Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson, is capable of being professed, acted on, and maintained on a large sphere of action and through a sufficient period, or whether it be a mere modification or transition-state either of Romanism or of popular Protestantism, according as we view it.

JHN, from the Prophetical Office of the Church (1837)

Monday of the third week in Lent

Prayers today: My soul is longing and pining for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. (Ps 83:3)

God of mercy, free your Church from sin and protect it from evil. Guide us, for we cannot be saved without you. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,...

(March 8) St. John of God (1495-1550)
Having given up active Christian belief while a soldier, John was 40 before the depth of his sinfulness began to dawn on him. He decided to give the rest of his life to God’s service, and headed at once for Africa, where he hoped to free captive Christians and, possibly, be martyred. He was soon advised that his desire for martyrdom was not spiritually well based, and returned to

Spain and the relatively prosaic activity of a religious goods store. Yet he was still not settled. Moved initially by a sermon of Blessed John of Avila, he one day engaged in a public beating of himself, begging mercy and wildly repenting for his past life. Committed to a mental hospital for these actions, John was visited by Blessed John, who advised him to be more actively involved in tending to the needs of others rather than in enduring personal hardships. John gained peace of heart, and shortly after left the hospital to begin work among the poor. He established a house where he wisely tended to the needs of the sick poor, at first doing his own begging. But excited by the saint’s great work and inspired by his devotion, many people began to back him up with money and provisions. Among them were the archbishop and marquis of Tarifa. Behind John’s outward acts of total concern and love for Christ’s sick poor was a deep interior prayer life which was reflected in his spirit of humility. These qualities attracted helpers who, 20 years after John’s death, formed the Brothers Hospitallers, now a worldwide religious order. John became ill after 10 years of service but tried to disguise his ill health. He began to put the hospital’s administrative work into order and appointed a leader for his helpers. He died under the care of a spiritual friend and admirer, Lady Ana Ossorio. The archbishop called John of God to him in response to a complaint that he was keeping tramps and immoral women in his hospital. In submission John fell on his knees and said: “The Son of Man came for sinners, and we are bound to seek their conversion. I am unfaithful to my vocation because I neglect this, but I confess that I know of no bad person in my hospital except myself alone, who am indeed unworthy to eat the bread of the poor.” The archbishop could only trust in John’s sincerity and humility, and dismissed him with deep respect. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: 2 Kings 5: 1-15; Psalms 41/42; Luke 4: 24-30

Jesus said, I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his home town. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed — only Naaman the Syrian. All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. (Luke 4: 24-30)

Sin and the good There are currents of philosophical thought which regard objective morality as a phantom. The “good” — meaning that which is morally good — is deemed to be nothing more than the preferable, or the most useful, or the most in accord with aesthetic taste, or whatever. In terms of objective reality, the “good” and the “ought” are reducible to whatever happens to be the fact. Whatever is, is what “ought” be. Mere facts are all that there are, and any contours of a moral character in these facts

are simply one’s subjective reactions. Hence there is no objective moral system, absolutely speaking. Now, this view is remarkable because just as the sheer fact of reality and the world is evident, so is “the good” and “the ought” evident. Duty is a fact of life just as much as houses and other material things. If any theory does not accept the manifest moral phenomenon of duty then it is difficult to know how to proceed in the discussion. John Henry Newman, in his study of the nature of faith, states that he begins with the fact that we have a conscience. This, to him, is evident — which is to say that the objective moral realm is evident, even if it is not clear whether this or that proposed course of action is morally obligatory. But now, granted the manifest fact that there are objective moral obligations, the next striking feature of human life is that moral obligation can be calmly and absolutely rejected. The “good” and the “ought” can easily be avoided, flouted, ignored, greatly weakened and crushed. It is possible for a man to set out on a life-long course of rejecting the “ought” and even destroying it. His mind and heart will become blinded and depraved by his rejection of the “ought,” and this will lead him to reject the “ought” the more. The destruction of the human being is set in train most especially by his rejection of what is morally good, and his acceptance of what is morally bad. We might keep healthy by good exercise and a proper diet, but our fundamental and everlasting health is determined by our response to the “ought.” The great issue of life and history is the human response to what is good.

We see this encapsulated in our Gospel passage today (Luke 4: 24-30). Our Lord is speaking to his own townspeople. He stands before them, having returned from his developing prophetic ministry in Judea and Galilee. They had heard about it, for the fame of our Lord had gone forth throughout the country. While during his years growing up in Nazareth his true nature and incomparable grandeur would not have been suspected — which shows the strength and completeness of the Incarnation — his relatives and townsmen must have seen a little of the great goodness of his life. They must have understood something of his immense probity, and we see something of this in John the Baptist’s response when our Lord presented himself to him for baptism. “It is you who ought be baptizing me,” he said to Jesus. Jesus did not deny it, but asked that the baptism proceed for it was fitting in view of God’s plan. John the Baptist knew Christ’s goodness of life, and, as I have just said, presumably his townsmen in Nazareth also divined something of it. So there he stood, speaking to them in the Synagogue, the very good man whom they knew so well. All their eyes were upon him. But what happened? When the “ought” was presented to them, they rebelled and attempted to crush it. Our Lord’s own person embodied all of moral grandeur, and all that was morally required. The “ought” was that they accept his person and his teaching and revelation that he was the promised Messiah. But they refused to do what they “ought” to have done. Our Lord could read their hearts and warned them by pointing to similar instances in the Scriptures. They would be passed by if they did not change. “I tell you the truth, he continued, no prophet is accepted in his home town. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed— only Naaman the Syrian.”

The people of Nazareth — at least a significant section of them — attempted to kill our Lord. It was an omen of what was to come, and it manifested the mystery of sin. We are able to apprehend clearly that the good ought be done and evil ought be avoided. But we are also able to disregard this fundamental natural law. We disregard and flout it in its particular embodiments. The fullest and most perfect embodiment of the “good” is the person of Jesus Christ. We can accept him in love and in faith, or we can reject him. A striking instance of the rejection of him occurred not long into his public ministry, when the people there attempted to do away with him. Let us take heed, then, and preserve our hearts for Jesus Christ, resisting any tendency to dally with sin and evil.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Is it possible, you asked me, that Christ should have spent so many years — twenty centuries — acting on earth, and the world should be now what it is? Is it possible, you went on, that there should still be people who do not know Our Lord?

—And I answered you with conviction: It is our fault. For we have been called to be co—redeemers, and at times, perhaps often, we do not follow the Will of God.
(The Forge, no.55)

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Who has not felt a fear lest he be wandering from the true doctrine of Christ? Let him cherish and obey the holy light of conscience within him, as Saul [St Paul] did; let him carefully study the Scriptures, as Saul did not; and the God who had mercy even on the persecutor of His saints, will assuredly shed His grace upon him, and bring him into the truth as it is in Jesus.

JHN from the sermon ‘St. Paul’s Conversion Viewed in reference to His Office’ (1831)

Tuesday of the third week of Lent

Prayers today: I call upon you, God, for you will answer me; bend your ear and hear my prayer. Guard me as the pupil of your eye; hide me in the shade of your wings. (Ps 16:6, 8)

Lord, you call us to your service and continue your saving work among us. May your love never abandon us. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, …

(March 9) St. Frances of Rome (1384-1440)
Frances’s life combines aspects of secular and religious life. A devoted and loving wife, she longed for a lifestyle of prayer and service, so she organized a group of women to minister to the needs of Rome’s poor. Born of wealthy parents, Frances found

herself attracted to the religious life during her youth. But her parents objected and a young nobleman was selected to be her husband. As she became acquainted with her new relatives, Frances soon discovered that the wife of her husband’s brother also wished to live a life of service and prayer. So the two, Frances and Vannozza, set out together—with their husbands’ blessings—to help the poor. Frances fell ill for a time, but this apparently only deepened her commitment to the suffering people she met. The years passed, and Frances gave birth to two sons and a daughter. With the new responsibilities of family life, the young mother turned her attention more to the needs of her own household. The family flourished under Frances’s care, but within a few years a great plague began to sweep across Italy. It struck Rome with devastating cruelty and left Frances’s second son dead. In an effort to help alleviate some of the suffering, Frances used all her money and sold her possessions to buy whatever the sick might possibly need. When all the resources had been exhausted, Frances and Vannozza went door to door begging. Later, Frances’s daughter died, and the saint opened a section of her house as a hospital.
Frances became more and more convinced that this way of life was so necessary for the world, and it was not long before she requested and was given permission to found a society of women bound by no vows. They simply offered themselves to God and to the service of the poor. Once the society was established, Frances chose not to live at the community residence, but rather at home with her husband. She did this for seven years, until her husband passed away, and then came to live the remainder of her life with the society—serving the poorest of the poor. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Daniel 3: 25.34-43; Psalm 24; Matthew 18: 21-35

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to

him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow- servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. His fellow- servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow- servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. (Matthew 18: 21-35)

Forgive! At this point in history perhaps the most serious issue for peace in the world is the conflict in the Middle East, and in particular the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The conflict is long, bitter and intractable. There are several fundamental issues, but it would appear that there is also the refusal by each side to forgive. Each may regard it as perfectly reasonable that it refuse to forgive the atrocities committed by the other, but ordinary reflection would suggest that unless there is

a breakthrough in the impasse of this refusal, the cauldron will continue unabated. So we are led to think of forgiveness in the life of fallen man. In respect to the conflict just mentioned, both sides represent religions which look to Abraham as their common father, but which from the later years of Mahomet himself have been in conflict with one another. The call to forgive stands, but the involvement of religion in the situation raises the question of the prominence that each of these two religions give to forgiveness. How important, how critical, is it to the practitioner of Judaism and Islam that he or she forgive? Is forgiveness an imperative, an imperative whatever be the injury, an imperative for retaining or gaining the favour of God? I am not aware that, in either Islam or in Judaism, it is understood that forgiveness is an absolute imperative no matter what the injury. Nor am I aware that it is an absolute requirement in, say, Hinduism or Buddhism or, say, Zoroastrianism. I do not think it could be maintained that forgiveness is the key to the thought of the great natural philosophers who profess to construct their systems on reason. In general, forgiveness is recognized as a noble quality and quite necessary if progress in difficult human relations is to be attained. Society requires that people forgive others — but, to a point. We ought forgive, but to a point. Beyond that, forgiveness is unreasonable. The distinguishing — nay, the astonishing — feature of the Christian religion is that we are commanded by our divine Founder to forgive always and from the heart, no matter what be the injury or the debt. If this is refused, there will be divine sanctions.

The old image of an injury being requited by means of a formal duel would be abhorrent to Jesus Christ. That is not to say that crimes are to be allowed by society to go unresisted and unpunished, for such a path would spell the end of law and social concord. But the teaching of Jesus Christ is concerned with what goes on in the human heart. As St Paul puts it, we must put on the mind of Jesus Christ. The heart must forgive any and every injury. In various passages of the New Testament this teaching comes through clearly and insistently. The Lord’s Prayer gives special prominence to the forgiveness which we promise, when asking God for his forgiveness. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, we pray. Having taught this Prayer, our Lord concludes by warning of the sanctions associated with the failure to practise forgiveness: Yes, if you do not forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will not forgive you yours. In our parable today, the command to forgive is absolutely at the forefront, and our Lord concludes with these words: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:21-35). Now, this forgiveness from the heart can be a most difficult thing to do. It can seem impossible, and because of this it can be quietly shelved, quietly ignored, and never really presented to one’s conscience in its entirety. Because of this we can go along day by day with a certain level of generosity in fulfilling our duties before God, but all the while ignoring the most fundamental ones. Am I forgiving those who have injured me? Am I trying to forgive them? Am I asking for the grace to do this? What our Lord says elsewhere in a different context, is applicable here. For man, it is impossible, but not for God. For God all things are possible. We ought pray for the grace to remember — in a way the servant of the master failed to remember — the goodness of God in our regard. He has forgiven us, so we ought forgive our neighbour. Let us then steep ourselves in the fundamental fact of life, which is the love and forgiveness of God in our regard. On this basis we shall find the wherewithal to forgive and love others when they trespass seriously against us.

So serious is this challenge in the life of each person that it may even be regarded as the principal challenge and duty of life. It could be the work of a life, and it could take a lifetime. But, if at the end of our lives we have from the heart forgiven everyone who has injured or offended us, we shall be in a good condition to depart from this life for our meeting with God our Judge. Let us not leave it to the last minute, then! Let us get down to it this very day, forgiving those who have injured us, and forgiving them from the heart. Let us pray for the grace, and then do it!
(E.J.Tyler)

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How humble Jesus is. What a shame, in contrast, that I who am nothing but dust from a dung-heap should so often have disguised my pride under the cloak of dignity, or justice. — And as a result, how many opportunities to follow the Master I have missed or wasted, by failing to supernaturalise them.

(The Forge, no.56)
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My Brethren, there are those who imagine that, when we use great words of the Church, invest her with heavenly privileges, and apply to her the evangelical promises, we speak merely of some external and political structure. They think we mean to spend our devotion upon a human cause, and that we toil for an object of human ambition. They think that we should acknowledge, if cross-examined, that our ultimate purpose was the success of persons and parties, to whom we were bound in honour, or by interest, or by gratitude; and that, if we looked to objects above the world or beyond the grave, we did so with very secondary aims and faint perceptions. They fancy, as the largest concession of their liberality, that we are working from the desire, generous, but still human, of the praise of earthly superiors, and that, after all, in some way or other, we are living on the breath, and basking in the smile, of man.

(John Henry Newman, Sermons preached on Various Occasions (1870) Sermon no. 4, p. 56-8)

Prayers today: Lord, direct my steps as you have promised, and let no evil hold me in its power. (Ps 118:133)

Lord, during this Lenten season nourish us with your word of life and make us one in love and prayer. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, …

(March 10) St. Dominic Savio (1842-1857)
So many holy persons seem to die young. Among them was Dominic Savio, the patron of choirboys. Born into a peasant family

at Riva, Italy, young Dominic joined St. John Bosco as a student at the Oratory in Turin at the age of 12. He impressed John with his desire to be a priest and to help him in his work with neglected boys. A peacemaker and an organizer, young Dominic founded a group he called the Company of the Immaculate Conception which, besides being devotional, aided John Bosco with the boys and with manual work. All the members save one, Dominic, would in 1859 join John in the beginnings of his Salesian congregation. By that time, Dominic had been called home to heaven. As a youth, Dominic spent hours rapt in prayer. His raptures he called "my distractions." Even in play, he said that at times "It seems heaven is opening just above me. I am afraid I may say or do something that will make the other boys laugh." Dominic would say, "I can't do big things. But I want all I do, even the smallest thing, to be for the greater glory of God." Dominic's health, always frail, led to lung problems and he was sent home to recuperate. As was the custom of the day, he was bled in the thought that this would help, but it only worsened his condition. He died on March 9, 1857, after receiving the Last Sacraments. St. John Bosco himself wrote the account of his life. Some thought that Dominic was too young to be considered a saint. St. Pius X declared that just the opposite was true, and went ahead with his cause. Dominic was canonized in 1954. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Deuteronomy 4: 5-9; Psalm 147; Matthew 5: 17-19

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever puts into practice and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5: 17-19)

Act, do! Prior to his election as Pope, John Paul II’s primary academic discipline was philosophy, although he had also published in theology and letters (i.e., drama and poetry). Within philosophy he worked within a school of thought that combined Thomism and modern phenomenology, as developed in a special way at the University of Lublin, Poland, where he taught prior to his becoming Archbishop of Crakow. His principal philosophical work,

translated into English from the original Polish, was The Acting Person. It stressed the paramount importance of the act, as opposed to, say, mere thought. It is not merely man’s thoughts but his acts that define him and set his course. Indeed, it is his action that manifests his real thought and it is his action that naturally takes him beyond himself in a form of self-transcendence. Man finds himself to be not just a self that thinks but a self that acts in and on the world. One philosophical advantage of this approach is that if the human act rather than mere human thought is the starting point of one’s account of man, then while man’s thought is included in his action, the Cartesian isolation of the thinking self from the world is avoided. Modifying Descartes’ famous first principle that brought so many problems to philosophy, we may say, “I act, therefore I am” — rather than “I think, therefore I am.” Be all this as it may, my point in dwelling upon a philosophy that lays primary stress on human action is that it surely prepares us for our Lord’s own stress on action. It is not just what we think that makes all the difference — although what we think does matter a great deal. But it is what we do about it that will matter so much more. We think of our Lord himself who came not as, say, another Socrates — although, as we remember, his disciples came to see that he knew all things. Socrates the thinker could not, as we might say, hold a candle to him. But, more than anything he came not merely as a master of thought, but as one who did the greatest of works, and at immense cost to himself. The Son of God came among us to act, to take away the sin of the world. He came, he says in today’s Gospel, to fulfil the Law and the Prophets.

And so it is that it is not enough to know and think of the commandments of God. Christ counts as great the man who obeys them and teaches others to obey them. It is action, deeds, obedience, that Christ expects. He wants us to conform our lives to what we know to be right, and this we do not just by thinking about what is right, but by acting on what is right. Cardinal Newman once wrote that the essence of religion lies in authority and obedience. He was countering the liberal and relativistic view of religion which made one’s private judgment and free opinion the fundamental principle. Nevertheless, his statement has a wider relevance. A religion of God’s authority and man’s obedience is one that places the stress on what we do rather than just what we think. “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever puts into practice and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:17-19). This stress on active obedience involving, for instance, a profoundly moral life, is a most notable characteristic of revealed religion. The prophets inveighed against a religion of sacrifices and holocausts while neglecting and indeed violating justice and mercy — and our Lord criticized the scribes and the Pharisees for a similar defect in their religion. He said to his disciples that it is not those who say to me, Lord! Lord! who will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. He contrasted the foolish man with the sensible man. The foolish man, the one who hears the word but fails to do it, has built his house on sand. The sensible man, the one who hears and obeys the will of God, has built his house on rock. He stands, whatever be the rains and the floods. His is a religion that endures because what counts in his life is that he do what God wants of him and not just — say — know it. He does not neglect the all-important business of action. Every day he rises from his rest in order to act, to do the work, to fulfil the duty that God is asking of him. The saint is the person who does what God expects of him.

Of course, we must understand “action” broadly, which is to say in a sense that includes all of man’s acting. The acting person is the person whose action embraces praying, recreating, and the myriad forms of serving, but who in all his acts is resolved to do whatever is right even at the cost of his life. That is why Jesus Christ is the Man par excellence. He acted and in his acts he did what pleased the Father. Cardinal Newman understood the conscience to be the most distinctive faculty of man’s mind, and what is the conscience? The conscience reveals what a person is called to do. It obliges him to act in a certain way. In God’s plan, the acting person strives to know the will of God and puts it into practice. If we do this, we flourish as human beings and are on the path to glory.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Sweet Mother…, lead us to that madness that will make others fall madly in love with our Christ.

Sweet Lady Mary, may Love not be in us a flash in the pan, or a will-o’-the-wisp, such as decomposing corpses sometimes produce. May it be a true devouring fire, which sets alight and burns everything it touches.
(The Forge, no.58)

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The Church is a collection of souls, brought together in one by God’s secret grace, though that grace comes to them through visible instruments, and unites them to a visible hierarchy. What is seen, is not the whole of the Church, but the visible part of it. When we say that Christ loves His Church, we mean that He loves, nothing of

earthly nature, but the fruit of His own grace;—the varied fruits of His grace in innumerable hearts, viewed as brought together in unity of faith and love and obedience, of sacraments, and doctrine, and order, and worship. The object which He contemplates, which He loves in the Church, is not human nature simply, but human nature illuminated and renovated by His own supernatural power. If He has called the visible Church His spouse, it is because she is the special seat of this divine gift. If He loved Peter, it was not simply because he was His Apostle, but because Peter had that intense, unearthly love of Him, and that faith which flesh and blood could not exercise, which were the fitting endowments of an Apostle. If He loved John, it was not as merely one of the Twelve, but because he again was adorned with the special gift of supernatural chastity. If He loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, it was not only as His friends and guests, but for their burning charity, and their pure contrition, and their self-sacrificing devotion. So it is now: what He creates, what He contemplates, what He loves, what He rewards, is (in St. Peter’s words) “the hidden man of the heart,” of which the visible Church is the expression, the protection, the instrumental cause, and the outward perfection.

(Reference: John Henry Newman, Sermons preached on Various Occasions (1870) Sermon no. 4, p. 56-8)

Thursday of the third week in Lent

Prayers today: I am the Saviour of all people, says the Lord. Whatever their troubles, I will answer their cry, and I will always be their Lord.

Father, help us to be ready to celebrate the great paschal mystery. Make our love grow each day as we approach the feast of our salvation. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, ...

(March 11) St. John Ogilvie (c. 1579-1615)
John Ogilvie's noble Scottish family was partly Catholic and partly Presbyterian. His father raised him as a Calvinist, sending him to the continent to be educated. There John became interested in the popular debates going on between Catholic and Calvinist scholars. Confused by the arguments of Catholic scholars whom he sought out, he turned to Scripture. Two texts particularly struck him: "God wills all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth," and "Come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you." Slowly, John came to see that the Catholic Church could embrace all kinds of people. Among these, he noted, were many martyrs. He decided to become Catholic and was received into the Church at Louvain, Belgium, in 1596 at the age of 17. John continued his studies, first with the Benedictines, then as a student at the Jesuit College at Olmutz. He joined the Jesuits and for the next 10 years underwent their rigorous intellectual and spiritual training. Ordained a priest in France in 1610, he met two Jesuits who had just returned from Scotland after suffering arrest and imprisonment. They saw little hope for any successful work there in view of the tightening of the penal laws. But a fire had been lit within John. For the next two and a half years he pleaded to be missioned there. Sent by his superiors, he secretly entered Scotland posing as a horse trader or a soldier returning from the wars in Europe. Unable to do significant work among the relatively few Catholics in Scotland, John made his way back to Paris to consult his superiors. Rebuked for having left his assignment in Scotland, he was sent back. He warmed to the task before him and had some success in making converts and in secretly serving Scottish Catholics. But he was soon betrayed, arrested and brought before the court. His trial dragged on until he had been without food for 26 hours. He was imprisoned and deprived of sleep. For eight days and nights he was dragged around, prodded with sharp sticks, his hair pulled out. Still, he refused to reveal the names of Catholics or to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the king in spiritual affairs. He underwent a second and third trial but held firm. At his final trial he assured his judges: "In all that concerns the king, I will be slavishly obedient; if any attack his temporal power, I will shed my last drop of blood for him. But in the things of spiritual jurisdiction which a king unjustly seizes I cannot and must not obey." Condemned to death as a traitor, he was faithful to the end, even when on the scaffold he was offered his freedom and a fine living if he would deny his faith. His courage in prison and in his martyrdom was reported throughout Scotland. John Ogilvie was canonized in 1976, becoming the first Scottish saint since 1250. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 7: 23-28; Psalm 94; Luke 11: 14-23

Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute

spoke, and the crowd was amazed. But some of them said, By Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons. Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven. Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub. Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armour in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters. (Luke 11: 14-23)

Demons Imagine that you are among a small party of astronauts who have docked in at the space station, on the way to a moon landing. You look out at planet earth and see the marvel of its contours and composition. You advert to the fact that it is just a possibility that no other planet in all of the vast universe is so constructed as to support the extraordinary range of life that teems on planet earth. Earth abounds with innumerable forms of life on

land, in the sea and in the air. Planet earth is astonishingly varied, and all is supported by an extraordinary set of circumstances that continue age after age. These circumstances themselves depend directly or indirectly on the rest of the universe. One great mishap could convulse everything. Imagine the effect of three vast meteors colliding with the earth! Your eyes now roam from the earth to the moon, and then on to Mars and the other planets in your galaxy, and then on to other galaxies. Your imagination attempts to envisage the scarcely calculated limits of the universe, and the marvel of the one only God strikes your mind yet again. All this sea of visible things is sustained by the touch of his finger. Were that touch to be withdrawn, all would be reduced instantly to nought. Though the universe is commonly thought to be simply “there” — a vast object of unending research that never seems to raise the mind to a Beyond — it is not simply “there.” It is the work of the great God and he continues in his mercy to do this work of creation. By doing this he sustains the apple of his eye, man — man who is made in his image and likeness. But even the religious person whose faith is alive and active, as he looks out on the universe, can forget an even more vast and extraordinary world. I am referring to the unseen world, the world of God, and the souls and spirits both good and bad, created by him. There is a world which no man can see. It consists of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It also consists of the souls of all those who have died, and how many millions must they be — a population numerous times that of present planet earth. It also consists of the angels and the demons. This entire unseen realm is sustained by God.

Of course, we have no idea of the number of spirits there are — and by “spirits” I refer to those of the angelic world, the world of angels and demons. Our Lord, the Son of the living God, often refers to them both. St Thomas Aquinas points out that each angelic being is its own distinct species. It would be regarded as a natural catastrophe if it were discovered that an entire species of plant, bird, insect, or animal were down to one individual in that species. Numerous species are now extinct. Well, each angelic spirit is its own distinct species, and being spiritual, has an immortal nature. How spectacular must be the variety of the angelic world, then! An angel, sustained by the hand of God, is by nature immortal. The numbers of angels too would be breathtaking. Our Lord said in the Garden of Gethsemane, that at his word the Father would send twelve legions of angels to defend him. Again, how many guardian angels must there be! In our Gospel today (Luke 11:14-23) our Lord refers to the kingdom of Satan: “If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” our Lord asks his accusers. So there is a kingdom of demons. He implies that there are two kingdoms in the unseen world, each standing one against the other. There is the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, and our Lord by his death broke the power of the kingdom of Satan. The point I am making is that however enthralled we might be with the world which is our home, our responsibility and our challenge, let us, children of a very secular age, never forget the invisible, supernatural world. We tend to regard the demonic either as a joke, or as a terrible force that is simply beyond us. It is no joke — our Lord did not joke about Satan as if he were just a mischievous fairy. He is the master demon of the underworld, and the images of the evil forces in Tolstein’s Lord of the Rings may help us envisage his world. He is no joke, but nor is his strength beyond our resources — provided we take our stand with Christ. The Gospels portray Christ effortlessly putting to flight the demons in possession of people. The case of their master-stroke, Christ’s Passion and Death, was all part of the plan of God. By submitting to his apparent defeat, Christ won the victory. It was all according to the divine plan.

Bearing on the world that we see is another world, unseen, supernatural. It is populated by our friends and our enemies. Our friends are the stronger far, and the Friend par excellence is the Lord God himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son of God became man to put to flight the evil kingdom, and the victory is already won. In the life of Saint Thomas More, the Lord chancellor of England under Henry VIII, there came a great moment. He declared at that moment that “the field is won.” He had conquered his fears, and he went on to martyrdom. In Christ, the field is won. Satan has been vanquished. His kingdom will not stand. Let us take our stand with Jesus Christ, then!
(E.J.Tyler)

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If you respond to the call the Lord has made to you, your life — your poor life! — will leave a deep and wide furrow in the history of the human race, a clear and fertile furrow, eternal and godly.
(The Forge, no.59)

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To those who live by faith, every thing they see speaks of that future world; the very glories of nature, the sun, moon, and stars, and the richness and the beauty of the earth, are as types and figures witnessing and teaching the invisible things of God. All that we see is destined one day to burst forth into a heavenly bloom, and to be transfigured into immortal glory.

JHN, from the sermon ‘The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life’ (1836)

Friday of the third week in Lent

Prayers today: Lord, there is no god to compare with you; you are great and do wonderful things, you are the only God. (Ps 85:8, 10)

Merciful Father, fill our hearts with your love and keep us faithful to the gospel of Christ. Give us the grace to rise above our human weakness. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,.

(March 12) Blessed Angela Salawa (1881-1922)
Angela served Christ and Christ’s little ones with all her strength. Born in Siepraw, near Kraków, Poland, she was

the 11th child of Bartlomiej and Ewa Salawa. In 1897, she moved to Kraków where her older sister Therese lived. Angela immediately began to gather together and instruct young women domestic workers. During World War I, she helped prisoners of war without regard for their nationality or religion. The writings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross were a great comfort to her. Angela gave great service in caring for soldiers wounded in World War I. After 1918 her health did not permit her to exercise her customary apostolate. Addressing herself to Christ, she wrote in her diary, "I want you to be adored as much as you were destroyed." In another place, she wrote, "Lord, I live by your will. I shall die when you desire; save me because you can." At her 1991 beatification in Kraków, Pope John Paul II said: "It is in this city that she worked, that she suffered and that her holiness came to maturity. While connected to the spirituality of St. Francis, she showed an extraordinary responsiveness to the action of the Holy Spirit" (L'Osservatore Romano, volume 34, number 4, 1991).
Henri de Lubac, S.J., wrote: "The best Christians and the most vital are by no means to be found either inevitably or even generally among the wise or the clever, the intelligentsia or the politically-minded, or those of social consequence. And consequently what they say does not make the headlines; what they do does not come to the public eye. Their lives are hidden from the eyes of the world, and if they do come to some degree of notoriety, that is usually late in the day, and exceptional, and always attended by the risk of distortion" (The Splendor of the Church, p. 187). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Hosea 14:2-10; Psalm 80; Mark 12:28-34

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer,

he asked him, Of all the commandments, which is the most important? The most important one, answered Jesus, is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these. Well said, teacher, the man replied. You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. And from then on no-one dared ask him any more questions. (Mark 12: 28-34)

We have a dream! One of the distinguishing first principles of modern Western culture — in theory if not in practice — is the place of individual human rights. The recognition of human rights is deemed to be fundamental in a civilized society, according to the Western vision of things. Of course, there are certain rampant violations of human rights in Western countries (such as the rights of the unborn), which show that the deeper matter of a true understanding of man and his destiny is more properly at stake.

However, there is no doubt that the rights of each person is a defining element in the Western account of man and society. Now, one of the most famous speeches of the twentieth century was precisely a call based on what all in theory accept: human rights. I am thinking of the speech given by Dr Martin Luther King, the great “human rights” activist on behalf of the American Negro. His assassination is universally attributed to the resistance by some to his powerful demand for the full recognition of the human rights of the individual Negro. He had a dream: “I have a dream!” he rhetorically began in sentence after sentence. “I have a dream!” was the refrain of his speech, and now, every time a politician or leader uses these words, it is clear that he wishes all his hearers to associate him with the spirit of Martin Luther King. I have a dream! But ah! Another said this from the mists of eternity, and it was the archetype of all noble dreams. Any dream that Martin Luther King had, was a pale reflection of the dream that filled the heart of God from before the foundation of the world. I have a dream — a wonderful cry, indeed! But if there is a God — and of course there is a God — then does he have a dream, or does he exist as might a human being with no dreams at all? Ah yes! God has a dream. From the heart of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, there has come a glorious song, a heavenly symphony, a hymn that has burst on the scene of history. That hymn is, “We have a dream!” What is the dream that has filled the Holy Trinity from eternity? It is man’s salvation.

In our Gospel today (Mark 12: 28-34) we are told that one of the lawyers came and heard the debate between our Lord and his critics. He was full of admiration for our Lord in his answers, and was led to pose the question of questions about the Law, with its numerous commands and prescriptions. He asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Without any hesitation Christ gave the answer: “The most important one, answered Jesus, is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.” The lawyer could not help but praise our Lord, and proceeded to show he understood. “Well said, teacher, the man replied. You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” That is the divine command, and it is the divine dream. It ought be our fundamental dream that is the absolute first principle of everything else, including the modern and most commendable dream of the recognition of the human rights of every person. The fundamental dream should be holiness of life and the overcoming of sin. If this is not the basic dream, the hope that is constantly ahead of us, then all other dreams will fall short of their goals. Sin is the source of the corruption and failure of man and society, as well as his eternal damnation. Sin must be conquered! Personal goodness and holiness of life must be gained! That is the best and truest of all human dreams, and it has been the dream of God for man from all eternity. It was his original gift to man whom he made in his image and likeness, but it was a gift that man squandered and threw away like the prodigal son of our Lord’s parable about the loving and indulgent father. So God’s dream has continued, it led to the Incarnation, the Atonement, the sending of the Spirit, and the Church.

“We have a dream!” This is the cry of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. With the Incarnation, with God the Son becoming man, the grand dream was implemented. The dream is that each of us will resist and overcome sin by the grace won for us at Calvary. We will thus gain such holiness of life that we will be able to firstly, love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and then to love our neighbour as ourself. Let us all, day after day, sing this divine melody, “I have a dream,” the dream being our redemption and sanctification — and that of all our brothers and sisters.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Each day be conscious of your duty to be a saint. — A saint! And that doesn’t mean doing strange things. It means a daily struggle in the interior life and in heroically fulfilling your duty right through to the end.

` (The Forge no.60)

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The Sabbath then is one instance in point; though the Apostle implies that it has come to nought, yet it endures, though in a new manifestation. Another instance, suggested by the passage before us, is the rite of circumcision. This is altogether done away with

in the Gospel; yet not so done away with, but it leaves behind it a representative. It is abolished as a type fulfilled, a type of Christian renewal; yet still there is such a rite as Christian circumcision, and it is called Baptism. This is what St. Paul expressly says in the chapter before us. “Ye are complete in Christ,” he says, “which is the Head of all principality and power. In whom all ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with Him in baptism.” [Col. 2: 10-12] Here he says, first, that the Colossians had received a circumcision, though not the Jewish; and then names what it is, “buried with Him in Baptism.” Thus, though circumcision is abolished, Scripture has not left us without its substitute, lest the great and fundamental rule which circumcision implied, of entering God’s service by a formal act of dedication, should be slighted. And on account of this correspondence between the two rites, we infer the duty of baptizing infants, because infants were circumcised, though there is no command to that effect in Scripture. Nor need there be, if, as I am here showing, the Law contains in it the ecclesiastical and ritual rules of the Gospel, only under a veil.

(JHN, 1842 sermon ‘The Principle of Continuity between the Jewish and Christian Churches’
Reference: John Henry Newman, Sermons bearing on Subjects of the Day (1843) Sermon no. 15, p. 209-10)

Prayers today: Bless the Lord, my soul and remember all his kindnesses, for he pardons all my faults. (Ps 102:2-3)

Lord, may this Lenten observance of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ bring us to the full joy of Easter. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,...

(March 13) St. Leander of Seville (c. 550-600)
The next time you recite the Nicene Creed at Mass, think of today’s saint. For it was Leander of Seville who, as bishop, introduced the practice in the sixth century. He saw it as a way to help reinforce the faith of his people and as an antidote against the heresy of Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ. By the end of his life, Leander had helped Christianity flourish in Spain at a time of political and religious upheaval. Leander’s own family was heavily influenced by Arianism, but he himself grew up to be a fervent Christian. He entered a monastery as a young man and spent three years in prayer and study. At the end of that tranquil period he was made a bishop. For the rest of his life he worked strenuously to fight against heresy. The death of the anti-Christian king in 586 helped Leander’s cause. He and the new king worked hand in hand to restore orthodoxy and a renewed sense of morality. Leander succeeded in persuading many Arian bishops to change their loyalties.
Leander died around 600. In Spain he is honoured as a Doctor of the Church. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Hosea 6:1-6; Psalm 50; Luke 18: 9-14

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men— robbers, evildoers, adulterers— or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke: 18: 9-14)

Authentic religion There are some fundamental human activities which all men and women find themselves engaged in. Man must work in order to eat and to pursue his interests. Of course, he finds himself reflecting on things, and making choices — some of which are momentous and have far-reaching consequences. So the list could go on. Man also finds himself being religious, or tending to be religious, or taking to religion when it is presented to him as he grows. He is drawn into the religious life of his family and his community. As a result of his power of reflection and choice he may abandon the religion of his upbringing and forego religion or adopt another. I think we could say that, looking at the matter anthropologically and sociologically, religion is

one of the most common of human activities. So pervasive is it in traditional societies that, as has often been observed when setting man in the context of other living and conscious beings, man could be described as a religious being. Yes, of course he works in order to eat and do other things. Of course he reflects and chooses. But equally notable is the abundant manifestations of his religious life. But what is the essential activity of religion? What is it to be religious, authentically religious, and indeed profoundly religious? Of course, all understand that the religious person is the one who acknowledges God as the living Master of his life, however God may be conceived and imagined. A person who through ignorance, neglect or deliberate choice did not recognize God (or the gods) in this way, would never be described as religious, except in some analogous sense. That having been granted, could we make this more explicit and identify an inner attitude, informing one’s recognition of God, which marks the authentically religious person? Putting it slightly differently, is there something the religious person, the one who recognizes God as Master, should especially attempt to develop in his attitude before God? In our Lord’s day (as in every day) there were persons who were professionally religious and who led the people in their religion. But many of them were not especially religious at all.

It is very fortunate that our Lord’s teaching was commonly given in images rather than in, as with Aristotle, abstract discourse. Our Lord’s teaching was meant for the world — including all the Aristotles — and so he spoke in the pictorial language of mankind. In our Gospel today (Luke: 18: 9-14) our Lord tells his well-known parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, and he turns firstly to the Pharisee. The Pharisee was the religious person — in the view of society. Our Lord did not discount the role of the scribes and the Pharisees, and on one occasion he directed that his hearers do what they say while avoiding their example. They occupied the chair of Moses. They were legitimate religious teachers and they sustained to a greater or lesser extent the religious life of the nation. So, in his parable our Lord describes the Pharisee — and he is devastating in his description of the inner character of their religion. The prayer of the Pharisee was thus: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men— robbers, evildoers, adulterers— or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” Essentially, he exalted himself. The properly religious person exalts God, but the Pharisee in the parable exalted himself, before God and before others. So there we have from the lips of our Lord himself one thing which the religious person absolutely must not do. He must avoid self-exaltation like the plague. This self-exaltation can even be very secret, seen by God himself. By contrast, the Tax Collector stood far back, perhaps in the shadows of the Temple where he would be scarcely be seen. He had nothing to show before the gaze of men. But, most especially, he had nothing to show before the gaze of God, and he knew it. “He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'” Now, Cardinal John Henry Newman, a leading religious mind of the nineteenth century, claimed that this expressed the essence of authentic religion. The plain and manifest fact is that we are sinners, and he, Newman, maintained that even natural, fallen man knows or should know this. We are sinners and our most authentic act in religion is to acknowledge our sinfulness before God and to ask his forgiveness.

Our Lord’s sums up the effect of each prayer, and states that the Pharisee was left separated from God and still in sin, whereas the sinful Tax Collector was left reconciled with God. “ I tell you that this man,” our Lord concludes, “rather than the other, went home justified before God.” What we must do, whether we are called to occupy a lowly and hidden place in the world or a prominent place that draws the esteem of others, is to be like the Tax Collector in our inner religion. Our heart must be steeped in humility and contrition before God. This is what it means to be authentically religious. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
(E.J.Tyler)

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O my dear brethren, what joy and what thankfulness should be ours, that God has brought us into the Church of His Son! What gift is equal to it in the whole world in its preciousness and in its rarity?

Fourth Sunday of Lent C

Prayers today: Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her you who mourned for her, and you will find contentment at her consoling breasts. (Isaiah 66: 10-11)

Father of peace, we are joyful in your Word, your Son Jesus Christ, who reconciles us to you. Let us hasten toward Easter with the eagerness of faith and love. We ask this through Christ our Lord

(March 14) St. Maximilian (d. 295)
We have an early, precious, almost unembellished account of the martyrdom of St. Maximilian in modern-day Algeria. Brought before the proconsul Dion, Maximilian refused enlistment in the Roman army saying, "I cannot serve, I cannot do evil. I am a Christian."

Maximilian: "I will never serve. You can cut off my head, but I will not be a soldier of this world, for I am a soldier of Christ. My army is the army of God, and I cannot fight for this world. I tell you I am a Christian."

Dion: "There are Christian soldiers serving our rulers Diocletian and Maximian, Constantius and Galerius."

Maximilian: "That is their business. I also am a Christian, and I cannot serve."

Dion: "If you will not do your service I shall condemn you to death for contempt of the army."

Maximilian: "I shall not die. If I go from this earth my soul will live with Christ my Lord."

Maximilian was 21 years old when he gladly offered his life to God. His father went home from the execution site joyful, thanking God that he had been able to offer heaven such a gift. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Joshua 5: 9.10-11; Psalm 33; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3.11-32

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law murmured, This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them. Then Jesus told them this parable: There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he

had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no-one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I have been serving you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' (Luke 15:1-3.11-32)

Conversion and repentance It is clear from the context of this long passage that our Lord’s principal point is that God is very different from what the Pharisees and teachers of the Law imagined him to be. They murmured at our Lord welcoming sinners and eating with them. Jesus, they insinuated, was unlike the all-holy God who hates sin. God, they thought, does not allow sinners to draw near to him, and he condemns and punishes sinners. So our Lord proceeds to explain himself by means of a parable. The principal figure of the parable is the indulgent and loving father who warmly welcomes his wayward son back to the family home.

God does not shun the sinner — provided the sinner acknowledges his sin and returns to him repentant. Now, while our Lord provides us with a remarkable surprise as to the nature of the all-holy God — that he is love and compassion — his parable also tells us about man. While it tells us about God our Father, it also divides his children into two types. There is the son who is full of the awareness that he has sinned against heaven and against his loving father. There is also the older son who can only think of the fact that “All these years I have been serving you and never disobeyed your orders.” The younger son has a profound sense of his sin. Because of the pain his sins have brought upon himself he is repentant, even if his repentance is not especially noble-minded. He has not been led back by the thought of the offence to his father that his life has been, but by the experience of suffering it brought upon himself. So his life has been wayward and his repentance less than perfect. How like the sinners and tax collectors they were, who gathered about our Lord! Despite their sins they experienced what the younger son in the parable experienced, a loving welcome from Jesus Christ who, as St Paul writes, is the image of the unseen God. By contrast, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law were like the older son who could only think of his faithful service. He begrudged the special welcome the younger son was receiving, and was angry with his forgiving father.

So we are reminded by our Lord’s parable not only of the boundless love of God for man despite his sin, but of the critical importance of a sense of sin in every man and woman. According to the teaching of the Church, only two human beings have been absolutely free of sin in every sense. Firstly of course, Jesus Christ was entirely free of sin because, though having assumed a human nature, he is divine in his person. He could never sin, even though as man he was open to temptations coming from without, and the Gospels record some of the temptations Satan presented to him. The other human being who, the Church teaches, was sinless, was the Virgin Mary his mother. Creature of God that she was, by the power of the Holy Spirit she was conceived free of sin, and remained sinless throughout her life. This she did by the power of God’s grace and her cooperation with that grace. All men, St Paul writes, are under the power of sin due to the original Fall, and were it not for the special grace of God, the all-holy Virgin Mary would have been too. But due to the merits of her divine Son, she was preserved from the inherited condition of sin. All this is to say that the response of the older son in the parable was utterly inappropriate, considered as a type of man’s response to God. We cannot say to God that we have been “all these years serving you” and having “never disobeyed your orders.” We are sinners all, even if to a greater or lesser extent. We should place ourselves in the camp of the younger son who returned repentant to the embrace of his loving father. What must distinguish our lives is repentance from sin and confidence in the love of God our Father. Our Lord holds up for our contemplation the loving mercy of God and the repentance of the younger son who trusted in his father. The older son, by his self-righteous attitude and hostility to both his younger brother and to his loving father, refused to come inside to join in the celebrations. How like the Pharisee! Christ’s call to conversion must continue to resound in our lives. Conversion is a continuing and life-long obligation for each of us and for the whole Church.

Our Lord’s essential point in the parable of this Sunday is that God is boundlessly merciful to the sinner who returns to him in repentance. The one who does not thus return, excludes himself from the friendship of God. The grace of God is our hope, and it enables us to respond to the merciful love of God by sorrow for sin and a firm purpose of amendment. We express this in acts of contrition and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The same grace of God enables us to continue to trust in God, and to live a life of penance in prayer, fasting and almsgiving. There are two recurring times when the Church invites us to practise this penance in a special way: Lent and each Friday. Let us then aim at true conversion, and be duly warned against the spirit of the older son in today’s parable.
(E.J.Tyler)

Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.1427-1449 (Conversion and repentance)

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A second reflection on today’s Gospel

Sin Today’s Gospel passage is famous in world literature. In it our Lord tells the story of the prodigal son, a sinner who contritely admits what he has done: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.’ But let us remember why our Lord told the parable: it was to explain his own actions. We read that the tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. ‘This man’ they said ‘welcomes

sinners and eats with them.’ So in response to this objection that what he was doing was ungodly, our Lord told the parable explaining why he, sinless as he was, welcomed sinners and ate with them. The prodigal son welcomed by the father is the tax collector and the sinner. The older brother who complains at his father’s behaviour is the scribe and the Pharisee complaining at our Lord’s behaviour. But more than anything, the father in the parable is Christ’s image of God. It describes what God is like if we come to him, acknowledging that we are sinners. Like the father of the prodigal son, God our Father is extravagantly forgiving, provided we return to him with contrition. A principal purpose of Lent is to realize the love of God and to turn back to him seeking his forgiveness, especially in the Sacrament of Penance. In the second reading St Paul says, in Christ’s name we appeal to you, be reconciled to God. God is all-forgiving. During Lent let us strive to understand what God is like, and that we are sinners in profound need of his love. One of the most serious and yet common mistakes we can make in life is to think that little sins, as they are called, do not matter much. The moment we fall into any sin through weakness — and here I am referring especially to venial sin — we should make an act of contrition, of sorrow for sin, and ask God’s forgiveness.

Our ambition ought be to avoid deliberate venial sin, precisely and above all because it is an offence against God. If we take venial sin lightly we shall not only never reach holiness. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin is the path that leads to mortal sin. Of course, if the sin is mortal, whether it be a sin of thought or word or deed, we must endeavour to make an act of perfect contrition, that is to say, an act of sorrow inspired primarily by the thought that I have seriously offended the good God. Then we ought approach the Sacrament of Penance as soon as possible. Indeed, the most concentrated and effective way of receiving God’s pardon, whether it be for mortal or venial sin, is through the Sacrament of Penance. The Church recommends regular and frequent confession of venial sins. When it comes to any mortal sin, we are absolutely bound to seek God’s forgiveness for that sin in the Sacrament of Penance, and we should do so as quickly as possible. We certainly must do so before receiving Holy Communion. A great benefit of being a Catholic is that by means of Confession we can always regain the state of grace through this sacrament, and grow in it. We are bound by Church law to confess any grave sins, at least once a year in order to receive Holy Communion during the Easter season. Our Lord gave us the Sacrament of Penance after his resurrection, when he said to his apostles, “Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them.” St John Chrysostom reminds us that this authority to forgive is not even given to archangels, nor is it given to our Lady herself. Yet it is given to every priest, and this is done for our benefit, to keep us in the state of grace. So let’s use it.

                                                                                                                    (E.J.Tyler)
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A third reflection on the Gospel of the fourth Sunday of Lent C

Scripture today: Joshua 5:9.10-12;   Psalm 33;   2 Corinthians 5:17-21;   Luke 15:1-3.11-32

The tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what he had to say, and the Pharisees complained. ‘This man’ they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ (Luke 15:1-3)

Love and sin   By the fourth Sunday we are well and truly into Lent, the season of repentance from sin. We are invited by Christ and the Church to be conscious of sin and to turn from it back to our loving Father. In our Lord’s parable, the Prodigal Son came to realise that he was a sinner. “I have sinned,” he said to his loving father, “against God and against you.” He offers no excuses. He knew he had sinned and he understood what sin had led to. He confessed his sin and he was received back into his father’s friendship. Now, it is important to understand the purpose of this story. The parable is above all about God our

Father, and about Jesus who is the image of the Father. He who sees me sees the Father, he said at the Last Supper. The Pharisees despised sinners, but Jesus sought them out and showed them love and offered them his company. In response, sinners sought him out. The parable is about God awaiting the return of the sinner whom he greatly loves, and whom he is always ready to forgive, if the sinner is willing to renounce his sins and return to him. So, as we read the parable we ought think first of God our loving Father, and of Jesus who reveals him. He loves sinners. All through the parable the Father is portrayed as lovingly indulgent. The younger of the two sons said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of property that falls to me”. The father did not object, rather he simply divided his living between them. If anything, the father was excessively indulgent. God will be our Judge, but that does not take away from the fact that he is indulgent with us, especially while we have the chance in this life of repenting. So the younger son went off and squandered his property in loose living. Then in the depths of distress and depression he returned home seeking work in his father’s house. He realised that his father loved him, and so he felt sufficiently confident to return to ask for employment. But what happened? The story tells us that ‘while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.’ And so they began to celebrate.

This is the image we should have of God receiving any soul who turns away from sin and comes back to friendship with him. Just before our Lord tells this particular parable, he says that there will be more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. St John in one of his letters tells us that God is love. One of the things we ought be working on during Lent is a correct image of God, and the picture of the indulgent father in today’s parable can help us. But the parable also tells us about sin. It ruined the younger son. Sin is not only a profound offence against God and his most holy nature. It is also the great destroyer of creation and of man. God, while loving us with a boundless love, hates sin. For this reason he sent his son, to take away the sin of the world. So while we think of God’s love for us, we should also think of what sin does to us and of how hateful it is to God. Again, the parable of our Gospel text helps us appreciate sin and its destructive power. The younger son squandered all his property in loose living, and when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country and he began to be in want. So he ended up serving the swine, and the swine were better off than he, in terms of food. No one gave him anything to eat. That is what he had come to. Let that be an image of the wages of sin, which St Paul tells us is death. Let us think of sin with the help of this famous parable, and let us endeavour to recover a sense of sin, and of how it is the greatest evil in the world. God hates sin and wants to see it entirely overcome and eliminated, precisely because he loves us. The younger son experienced the dregs of suffering because of his sins, and Christ stepped into the place of the younger son and bore on his shoulders the consequences of the sin of all mankind. He expiated for the sin of the world. If we wish to gain a true idea of the hatefulness of sin and of its consequences for mankind, look on our Lord hanging on the cross. It was sin, our sins, the sins of each person, that put him there.

It is imperative that we recognise the presence and nature of sin in our lives. God hates sin which is the gravest affront to him. But he loves us, who commit the sin that he hates. Every time we commit a sin — even a venial sin but most of all if it is a mortal sin — we must make a sincere act of contrition, one that is as perfect an expression of love for God as we can. We should go to Confession regularly and frequently, and each time we go we should make it as good a Confession as possible. We should examine our consciences daily. At the beginning of every Mass we confess our sinfulness, thinking of the times we have sinned. In each of these ways, let us make Lent a time when we recover a sense of sin and renounce it profoundly.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Sanctity does not consist in great concerns. — It consists in struggling to ensure that the flame of your supernatural life is never allowed to go out; it consists in letting yourself be burned down to the last shred, serving God in the lowest place… or in the highest: wherever the Lord may call you.
(The Forge, no.61)

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In this passage from his Meditations and Devotions, John Henry Newman speaks of Jesus Christ as the ‘Beginning of the New Creation’. He concludes his reflection with a prayer to Christ, ‘Splendour of the eternal light, and the Sun of Justice’, for ‘all ranks and conditions of men in Thy Holy Church’:

Our Lord Jesus Christ is said by His Almighty power to have begun a new creation, and to be Himself the first fruit and work of it. Mankind were lost in sin, and were thereby, not only not heirs of heaven, but the slaves of the Evil one. Therefore He who made Adam in the beginning resolved in His mercy to make a new Adam, and by a further ineffable condescension determined that that new Adam should be Himself. And therefore, by His holy Prophet Isaias, He announced before He came, “Behold I

create new heavens and a new earth” [Isaiah 65: 17]. On the other hand St. Paul calls Him “The image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature” [Col. 1: 15]. And St. John calls Him “the Amen, the faithful and true witness, who is the beginning of the creation of God” [Rev. 3: 14]. The Creator came as if He were a creature, because He took upon Him a created nature—and as, at the first, Eve was formed out of the side of Adam, so now, when He hung on the cross, though not a bone of Him was broken, his side was pierced, and out of it came the grace, represented by the blood and the water, out of which His bride and spouse, His Holy Church, was made. And thus all the sanctity of all portions of that Holy Church is derived from Him as a beginning; and He feeds us with His Divine Flesh in the Holy Eucharist, in order to spread within us, in the hearts of all of us, the blessed leaven of the New Creation. All the wisdom of the Doctors, and the courage and endurance of the Martyrs, and the purity of Virgins, and the zeal of Preachers, and the humility and mortification of religious men, is from Him, as the beginning of the new and heavenly creation of God.

O Lord, who art called the Branch, the Orient, the Splendour of the eternal light, and the Sun of Justice, who art that Tree, of whom Thy beloved disciple speaks as the Tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, and its leaves for the healing of the nations, give Thy grace and blessing on all those various states and conditions in Thy Holy Church, which have sprung from Thee and live in Thy Life. Give to all Bishops the gifts of knowledge, discernment, prudence, and love. Give to all priests to be humble, tender, and pure; give to all pastors of Thy flock to be zealous, vigilant, and unworldly; give to all religious bodies to act up to their rule, to be simple and without guile, and to set their hearts upon invisible things and them only. Grant to fathers of families to recollect that they will have hereafter to give account of the souls of their children; grant to all husbands to be tender and true; to all wives to be obedient and patient; grant to all children to be docile; to all young people to be chaste; to all the aged to be fervent in spirit; to all who are engaged in business, to be honest and unselfish; and to all of us the necessary graces of faith, hope, charity, and contrition. Amen.

(Reference: John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions of the Late Cardinal Newman (1893) Part 2, ‘Twelve Meditations and Intercessions for Good Friday, with Prayers for the Faithful Departed’, p. 193-95)

Monday of the fourth week in Lent C

Prayers today: Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her, you who mourned for her, and you will find contentment at her consoling breasts. (See Is 66: 10-11)

Father of peace, we are joyful in your Word, your Son Jesus Christ, who reconciles us to you. Let us hasten to our Easter with the eagerness of faith and love. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
or
God our Father, your Word, Jesus Christ, spoke peace to a sinful world and brought mankind the gift of reconciliation by the suffering and death he endured. Teach us, the people who bear his name, to follow the example he gave us: may our faith, hope, and charity turn hatred to love, conflict to peace, death to eternal life. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

(March 15) St. Louise de Marillac (d. 1660)
Louise, born near Meux, France, lost her mother when she was still a child, her beloved father when she was but 15. Her desire to become a nun was discouraged by her confessor, and a marriage was arranged. One son was born of this union. But she soon found herself nursing her beloved husband through a long illness that finally led to his death.

Louise was fortunate to have a wise and sympathetic counsellor, St. Francis de Sales, and then his friend, the Bishop of Belley, France. Both of these men were available to her only periodically. But from an interior illumination she understood that she was to undertake a great work under the guidance of another person she had not yet met. This was the holy priest M. Vincent, later to be known as St. Vincent de Paul. At first he was reluctant to be her confessor, busy as he was with his "Confraternities of Charity." Members were aristocratic ladies of charity who were helping him nurse the poor and look after neglected children, a real need of the day. But the ladies were busy with many of their own concerns and duties. His work needed many more helpers, especially ones who were peasants themselves and therefore close to the poor and could win their hearts. He also needed someone who could teach them and organize them. Only over a long period of time, as Vincent de Paul became more acquainted with Louise, did he come to realize that she was the answer to his prayers. She was intelligent, self-effacing and had physical strength and endurance that belied her continuing feeble health. The missions he sent her on eventually led to four simple young women joining her. Her rented home in Paris became the training centre for those accepted for the service of the sick and poor. Growth was rapid and soon there was need of a so-called rule of life, which Louise herself, under the guidance of Vincent, drew up for the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (though he preferred "Daughters" of Charity). He had always been slow and prudent in his dealings with Louise and the new group. He said that he had never had any idea of starting a new community, that it was God who did everything. "Your convent," he said, "will be the house of the sick; your cell, a hired room; your chapel, the parish church; your cloister, the streets of the city or the wards of the hospital." Their dress was to be that of the peasant women. It was not until years later that Vincent de Paul would finally permit four of the women to take annual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. It was still more years before the company would be formally approved by Rome and placed under the direction of Vincent's own congregation of priests. Many of the young women were illiterate and it was with reluctance that the new community undertook the care of neglected children. Louise was busy helping wherever needed despite her poor health. She travelled throughout France, establishing her community members in hospitals, orphanages and other institutions. At her death on March 15, 1660, the congregation had more than 40 houses in France. Six months later St. Vincent de Paul followed her in death. Louise de Marillac was canonized in 1934 and declared patroness of social workers in 1960. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Isaiah 65:17-21; Psalm 29; John 4:43-54

After the two days Jesus left for Galilee. (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honour in his own country.) When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast,

for they also had been there. Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, Jesus told him, you will never believe. The royal official said, Sir, come down before my child dies. Jesus replied, You may go. Your son will live. The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he enquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour. Then the father realised that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, Your son will live. So he and all his household believed. This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee. (John 4:43-54)

God, Saviour of all There is a detail in our Gospel passage today which could prompt thoughts about the saving plan of God for the whole world. I refer to the departure of our Lord from Samaria and his return to Galilee. John, the author of the account, mentions that the event he is about to describe, occurred in “Cana of Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine.” This mention by John of specific locations and what happened twice at this particular location reminds us of the historical and geographical character of revealed religion. Revealed religion is an historical religion rooted in facts that, of course, occurred in precise places.

God had drawn very near to man in precise locations which are with us today. In Jesus Christ he had personally come to dwell among a particular people as one of them, in a particular part of the world at a particular time. Places are specifically mentioned and the number of occurrences are specified. Cana is with us today, and it has a beautiful church to commemorate our Lord’s visit and two miracles there. Some archaeological work done there can be viewed. But let us expand our vision a little, beyond the scene of our Gospel. The passage mentions that “a royal official” — a “nobleman” as Knox chooses to translate the Greek — approached our Lord with his request for a healing of his son at Capernaum. Was the royal official a Hebrew, an adherent of the Jewish religion? We may presume so, but it may not have been the case. In any event, those to whom he was attached in his work may not have been. We are reminded by this event of the centurion who asked our Lord to come and heal his servant. The centurion had faith that evoked the high praise of Christ. Presumably the centurion was not an adherent of the religion of the Hebrews, even though he was friendly to it. He had built the synagogue, we read. Our Lord’s personal mission was to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, but he constantly bore in mind the pagan world, for it was all around him. He had grown up in a village that was very near the cosmopolitan city of Zephoris, and had perhaps regularly worked there with Joseph on all the construction continually going on.

Jesus our Lord visited Cana and worked two spectacular miracles there. God was present in person there. But let us try to imagine the saving work of God among the nations. God was not neglecting his children, the vast majority of whom were beyond the confines of his chosen people. In this respect, let us remember a detail from the infancy narratives of the Gospel of St Matthew. The Magi from the east — presumably Zoroastrians — received the guidance of a star. God was intervening in a circle of professional adherents of that venerable natural religion to set them on the path to Christ. The path he drew them along led directly to Christ, but the notable thing here is that he was granting them a form of revelation prior to their journey to Christ. We may surely presume that God was, in diverse ways, attempting to draw the peoples along paths that were not unrelated to that which leads to Jesus Christ, the one and only Redeemer of the world. Some of the early Fathers of the Church spoke of the “seeds of the Word” in the philosophies and religions of the world. Cardinal Newman spoke often of a universal revelation. This universal revelation, while in no way serving as a substitute for the Revelation that is Christ who is the only way to the Father, drew the peoples closer to the Father of all and prepared them for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In this extended sense we may accept the terminology of various religions which speak of their founders as “prophets.” To an extent, they may have been directly assisted by God in their perception of certain great truths that subsequently guided countless souls after them in the pursuit of the good life. The fact that these great truths — say, of one only God, and of his holy character — were mixed up with many untruths that led subsequently to certain evils, need not gainsay the fact of a certain revelation by God. Newman allowed the same point to be made of the work of certain great philosophers. Indeed, the point may be even more applicable to those great philosophers, for Augustine understood Christianity to be the successor of the best of philosophy rather than of religion.

As we think of Christ visiting Cana of Galilee for the second time and working yet another miracle there, let us also think of God’s action across the mighty span of mankind. His Gift of gifts that absolutely opened the gates of heaven was Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son. By entering into communion with Jesus Christ and living according to the demands of that communion, we shall be saved. But God is and has always been reaching out to all of his scattered children of every age and place. He is constantly endeavouring to lead them to him and along the path of good and towards the person of the Saviour. How good the great God is!

(E.J.Tyler)

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Our Lord did not confine himself to telling us that he loved us. He showed it to us with deeds, with his whole life. — What about you?

(The Forge, no.62)
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Christianity, considered as a moral system, is made up of two elements, beauty and severity; whenever either is indulged to the loss or disparagement of the other, evil ensues.

JHN, from the sermon ‘Indulgence in Religious Privileges‘ (1842)

Tuesday of the fourth week in Lent

Prayers today: Come to the waters, all who thirst; though you have no money, come and drink with joy. (See Is 55:1)

Father, may our Lenten observance prepare us to embrace the paschal mystery and to proclaim your salvation with joyful praise. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

(March 16) St. Clement Mary Hofbauer (1751-1820)
Clement might be called the second founder of the Redemptorists, as it was he who carried the congregation of St. Alphonsus Liguori to the people north of the Alps. John, the name given him at Baptism, was born in Moravia into a poor family, the ninth of 12 children. Although he longed to be a priest there was no money for studies, and he was apprenticed to a baker. But God

guided the young man's fortunes. He found work in the bakery of a monastery where he was allowed to attend classes in its Latin school. After the abbot there died, John tried the life of a hermit but when Emperor Joseph II abolished hermitages, John again returned to Vienna and to baking. One day after serving Mass at the cathedral of St. Stephen, he called a carriage for two ladies waiting there in the rain. In their conversation they learned that he could not pursue his priestly studies because of a lack of funds. They generously offered to support both him and his friend, Thaddeus, in their seminary studies. The two went to Rome, where they were drawn to St. Alphonsus' vision of religious life and to the Redemptorists. The two young men were ordained together in 1785. Newly professed at age 34, Clement Mary, as he was now called, and Thaddeus were sent back to Vienna. But the religious difficulties there caused them to leave and continue north to Warsaw, Poland. There they encountered numerous German-speaking Catholics who had been left priestless by the suppression of the Jesuits. At first they had to live in great poverty and preached outdoor sermons. They were given the church of St. Benno, and for the next nine years they preached five sermons a day, two in German and three in Polish, converting many to the faith. They were active in social work among the poor, founding an orphanage and then a school for boys. Drawing candidates to the congregation, they were able to send missionaries to Poland, Germany and Switzerland. All of these foundations had eventually to be abandoned because of the political and religious tensions of the times. After 20 years of difficult work Clement himself was imprisoned and expelled from the country. Only after another arrest was he able to reach Vienna, where he was to live and work the final 12 years of his life. He quickly became "the apostle of Vienna," hearing the confessions of the rich and poor, visiting the sick, acting as a counsellor to the powerful, sharing his holiness with all in the city. His crowning work was the establishment of a Catholic college in his beloved city. Persecution followed him, and there were those in authority who were able for a while to stop him from preaching. An attempt was made at the highest levels to have him banished. But his holiness and fame protected him and the growth of the Redemptorists. Due to his efforts, the congregation, upon his death in 1820, was firmly established north of the Alps. He was canonized in 1909. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Ezechiel 47:1-9.12; Psalm 45; John 5:1-16

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie— the blind, the lame, the paralysed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, Do you want to get well? Sir, the invalid replied, I have no-one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, Get up! Pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat. But he replied, The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.' So they asked him, Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk? The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. (John 5:1-16)

Jesus Christ One gets the impression that on the occasion of this miracle our Lord was in Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews in a somewhat private capacity, without publicity. There is no mention of crowds thronging around him, no mention of his publicly teaching in the Temple, although he undoubtedly had some of his disciples with him — such as John who reports the incident. Our Lord may have been visiting for the Feast in this incognito manner to avoid the mounting hostility

of the religious leaders, while being able to visit the House of his beloved Father in heaven. So let us observe him quietly mingling with the crowd, his dress similar to the rest, with a cloth headpiece protective against the weather hanging down and perhaps serving also to disguise his features. He is accompanied by John, perhaps Simon Peter, James and some others. Gaze on this Man of the ages! There he stands, there he moves forward, filled with love and peace, the Light of the world! He sees the truth, and he is the Truth. He is intent on entering the House of his dear Father, his Abba. My Father! he whispers to himself. My dear Father! How I long to see you glorified! Father, dear Father, is the refrain that sings in his heart. This Man has come from the Father himself. His Person was with the Father from age to age. From all eternity the two had been together, united in a third Person, the one who leads him now — the Spirit! The Spirit fills his heart and prompts his powerful and loving prayer that unceasingly rises to the highest heavens and captivates the Father of all, the Origin of origins. There he is, moving ahead. Oh, how marvellous is this Man we watch! We follow him with John and the others. We see his figure, calm, powerful, so utterly good, so very beautiful in his entire being. He is the heart and the head of the whole world, the entire universe. He is the King, the Lord, the One long promised. Is it not a staggering and wondrous thought that this Man who now stops and gazes on an invalid is the very Son of God? We behold in him no mere magnificent prophet, no singular and even unique religious teacher and leader. We are gazing on the living God.

He stops. Perhaps it is a disciple who mentions to him this particular invalid. This incapacitated man has lain there a long time — his presence at the Bethesda pool began before Jesus was born. He had been there at the pool during those years when the adolescent Jesus accompanied his parents to Jerusalem for the annual Feast. Ah! Think of the adolescent Jesus! What a boy he was! The boy who was God made man! So great in nature and grace, growing in his marvellous humanity, preparing for the titanic work ahead in which he would take away the sin of the world, bring the Spirit to all who asked for it, and found his Church whereby he, the Saviour, would reach the ends of the earth and every person. A titanic work indeed, and here he is now, the Man. Pilate would say to the enemies of Christ, Behold the Man! Let us continue to behold him as he stops now and speaks to the invalid. “He asked him, Do you want to get well? Sir, the invalid replied, I have no-one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, Get up! Pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked” (John 5: 1-16). It seems that that was all that happened, and Jesus moved on, mingling unknown amid the crowd, on his way to the Temple. The man who had been healed had no idea who it was who had healed him, so effective was our Lord’s obscurity during these moments. Our Lord stopped, healed, moved on. Now, let us remember that though our Lord is not visible, he is very much with us. Moreover, he sees all our difficulties. Why did he not heal this paralytic long before? We do not know. Thirty-eight years! But the moment finally came — and someone mentioned the invalid. Let us never give up on Jesus Christ for all our needs, and for the needs of others! The same Man said, ask and you will receive, seek and your will find. The one who asks always receives. Let us keep in his presence then, and never forget who it is to whom we are praying!

Let us never take Jesus Christ for granted, in effect forgetting who he is. He is the Man of men, the unique person of human history. He is truly man, man in every way except that he had no sin, no tendency to sin, no moral fault of any kind because he was literally and truly God. Man though he is, in the first instance he is God, for he is one of the three divine Persons. He took to himself a human nature, and in his humanity suffered and died for us, taking away the sin of the world. Let us love and follow him then! There is no one like him.
(E.J.Tyler)

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If you love the Lord, you will necessarily feel the blessed burden of souls, and the need to bring them to God.

(The Forge, no.63)

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In this passage from his 1840 sermon ‘The New Works of the Gospel’, Newman reflects on the nature of faith and the fruits of grace in the Christian life, shedding light on the words of St Elizabeth to the Blessed Virgin Mary in today’s Gospel, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled”:

We see why justification must be of faith: because, as Christ, by means of His Spirit, makes a new beginning in us, so faith, on our part, receives that new beginning, and cooperates with Him. And it is the only principle which can do this: for as things spiritual are unseen, so faith is in its very nature that which apprehends and uses things unseen. We renounce our old unprofitable righteousness, which is from Adam, and accept, through faith, that new righteousness which is imparted by the Spirit; or, in St. Paul’s words, “we, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.” [Galatians 5: 5] [...]

Let us think much, and make much, of the grace of God; let us beware of receiving it in vain; let us pray God to prosper it in our hearts, that we may bring forth much fruit. We see how grace wrought in St. Paul: it made him labour, suffer, and work righteousness almost above man’s nature. This was not his own doing; it was not through his own power. He says himself, “Yet not I, but the grace of God which was in me.” [1 Cor. 15: 10] God’s grace was “sufficient for him” [see 2 Cor. 12: 15]. It was its triumph in him, that it made him quite another man from what he was before. May God’s grace be efficacious in us also. Let us aim at doing nothing in a dead way; let us beware of dead works, dead forms, dead professions. Let us pray to be filled with the spirit of love. Let us come to Church joyfully; let us partake the Holy Communion adoringly; let us pray sincerely; let us work cheerfully; let us suffer thankfully; let us throw our heart into all we think, say, and do; and may it be a spiritual heart! This is to be a new creature in Christ; this is to walk by faith.

(Reference: John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons Vol 5 (1840) Sermon no. 12, p. 176-77)

Solemnity of St. Patrick

Prayers today: God our Father, you sent St. Patrick to preach your glory to the people of Ireland. By the help of his prayers, may all Christians proclaim your love to all men. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
or
Father in heaven, you sent the great bishop Patrick to the people of Ireland to share his faith and to spend his life in loving service. May our lives bear witness to the faith we profess, and our love bring others to the peace and joy of your Gospel. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

(March 17) St. Patrick (415?-493?)

Legends about Patrick abound; but truth is best served by our seeing two solid qualities in him: He was humble and he was courageous. The determination to accept suffering and success with equal indifference guided the life of God’s instrument for winning most of Ireland for Christ. Details of his life are uncertain. Current research places his dates of birth and death a little later than earlier accounts. Patrick may have been born in Dunbarton, Scotland, Cumberland, England, or in northern Wales. He called himself both a Roman and a Briton. At 16, he and a large number of his father’s slaves and vassals were captured by Irish raiders and sold as slaves in Ireland. Forced to work as a shepherd, he suffered greatly from hunger and cold. After six years, Patrick escaped, probably to France, and later returned to Britain at the age of 22. His captivity had meant spiritual conversion. He may have studied at Lerins, off the French coast; he spent years at Auxerre, France, and was consecrated bishop at the age of 43. His great desire was to proclaim the Good News to the Irish. In a dream vision it seemed “all the children of Ireland from their mothers’ wombs were stretching out their hands” to him. He understood the vision to be a call to do mission work in pagan Ireland. Despite opposition from those who felt his education had been defective, he was sent to carry out the task. He went to the west and north, where the faith had never been preached, obtained the protection of local kings and made numerous converts.

Because of the island’s pagan background, Patrick was emphatic in encouraging widows to remain chaste and young women to consecrate their virginity to Christ. He ordained many priests, divided the country into dioceses, held Church councils, founded several monasteries and continually urged his people to greater holiness in Christ. He suffered much opposition from pagan druids, and was criticized in both England and Ireland for the way he conducted his mission. In a relatively short time the island had experienced deeply the Christian spirit, and was prepared to send out missionaries whose efforts were greatly responsible for Christianizing Europe. Patrick was a man of action, with little inclination toward learning. He had a rocklike belief in his vocation, in the cause he had espoused. One of the few certainly authentic writings is his Confessio, above all an act of homage to God for having called Patrick, unworthy sinner, to the apostolate. There is hope rather than irony in the fact that his burial place is said to be in strife-torn Ulster, in County Down. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture Today (In Australia, a solemnity): Jeremiah 1: 4-9; Acts 13:46-49; Luke 10:1-12

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this house.' If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.' But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.' I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. (Luke 10:1-12)

Apostolic friendship In Nazareth there are, of course, well-known Christian churches that honour the Incarnation. There is the large Catholic basilica of the Annunciation with its House of Mary underneath, commemorating the conception of Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary. There is impressive archaeological work associated with that church. There is the associated church of St Joseph, commemorating the dwelling of the Holy Family. There is also the Greek Orthodox church of what is called the Spring of Mary, commemorating the spring where Mary would have come to draw water. The Greek Orthodox take the

Annunciation to have occurred while Mary was at that spring of water. In the same large city of Nazareth — now grown far beyond its size at the time of Christ — there are mosques, and in particular the White Mosque. I have visited that mosque and I could not but be impressed by the religious practice of the Moslems attending that famous mosque. The menfolk entered, prayed and left in a reverent manner. I was instinctively led to compare in my own mind the two religions that are represented so strikingly in the city of Christ’s childhood, youth and manhood. Islam honours the one and only God as it conceives and imagines him. Allah is high, transcendent, holy, merciful. Above all, Allah is very high and very great — indeed, even distant. He is a strong counterweight against the polytheism of the religions of man. There is no other God but he, and Islam characteristically interprets the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity as denying the oneness of Allah. How different is the Christian religion! Of course the Christian rejoices that Islam has profited so directly by the absolute monotheism of the Judaeo-Christian revelation. But the God of Abraham, Moses, the prophets, draws very near to his chosen people, speaking of himself as a Husband to the people of his choice. This nearness is surpassed and brought to its ultimate term in Jesus Christ. God has actually become man. God the Son, truly God and truly man, trod a chosen land and associated freely and easily with us his brothers. In speaking familiarly with him, people were speaking familiarly with the great God himself. The all-high God made himself wondrously near to us. In Jesus Christ, God became our brother and our friend.

Yes, for the one who by divine grace has discerned the divinity of Jesus Christ — for his humanity is evident — and who by baptism is in Christ, God the Son is his brother. Further, for that same person who by baptism is in Jesus Christ, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is his Father — and all this by the power of the Holy Spirit. God has crossed the distance and become our best of friends. For Islam, this is no way to speak of God, for the one God is our exalted Master and Lord. The pivotal element in the Christian religion is personal friendship with Jesus Christ, living, risen, unseen. By means of friendship with Jesus, established by the Sacraments and nourished by his word and personal prayer, we live in God who is our brother and our father. But there is a distinctive character to this friendship with Jesus Christ — and this brings us to our Gospel today (Luke 10: 1-12). Friendship with Jesus is not just a matter of being with Jesus in, we might even say, a sedentary sense. We are not, as Christians, simply sitting in a room with Jesus for the whole of our Christian life. By that I mean that our grasp of the outstretched hand of Jesus our Saviour does not end there. Yes, he extends his hand to us to take away our sins and to share his divine life with us. But very importantly, he also wishes to draw us into his mission. As our brother and our friend he wants us to join with him in his work. He wants his friends to help bring him and his grace to the world. He wants us to bear fruit, fruit that will last. Life for the Christian is life in union with our divine brother, saviour and friend, a life that is very much a “working” life. It is a life of immersion in the work of Jesus Christ our brother. We are all called to collaborate with Christ in bringing salvation in him to the world. And so it is that we read in our Gospel today that our Lord “appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go!” We must work and pray for it.

For this reason many decades ago the Venerable Pope Pius XII taught that an essential element of the Christian life is that it be apostolic. This teaching was repeated with insistence by the Second Vatican Council and developed by subsequent popes. No matter what our calling in life, if we aspire to friendship with the living Jesus — and sanctity consists of this — we must aspire to be one with Jesus in his mission. This is part and parcel of putting on the mind of Christ, as St Paul chooses to express it. Today is the feast of St Patrick, outstanding missionary. Christ calls us to an apostolic friendship with him, and the character and shape of this will vary from calling to calling and circumstance to circumstance. Let us then strive to grow in the desire to bring others to Jesus Christ, for he is the life of man.

(E.J.Tyler)

Prayers today: I pray to you, O God, for the time of your favour. Lord, in your great love, answer me. (See Ps 68:14)

Lord, you reward virtue and forgive the repentant sinner. Grant us your forgiveness as we come before you confessing our guilt. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

Scripture today (when just the weekday): Isaiah 49:8-15; Psalm 144; John 5:17-30

Jesus said to them, My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working. For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no-one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him. I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out— those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. (John 5:17-30)

Jesus It is of great spiritual assistance to the Christian to become immersed in the Old Testament, and this for two obvious reasons. Firstly, if in his reading he keeps the figure of Jesus Christ constantly before him, the Old Testament will be a powerful prefiguring of the love of his heart. One thinks of the Seed of the Woman who will crush the Serpent’s head — at the beginning of Genesis; or the one to whom the sceptre will be given — at the end of the same book; or the Prophet foretold by

Moses — in Deuteronomy; or the heavenly Son of Man — in the book of Daniel; or again the Suffering Servant who bears the sins of the many — in Deutero-Isaiah. The figures of human goodness therein portrayed, the inspired profiles and predictions of the One who was coming, all these support, nourish and confirm one’s acceptance of Jesus Christ as the fulfilment of the divine promises. God had promised to Abraham that through him all the nations would be blessed, and the Old Testament gradually gives shape and contour to this grand prophecy. Finally the Man comes, the one to whom is given the Kingdom. A daily reading of the Old Testament — either chapter by chapter, as it were, or as in the Church’s liturgical readings — prepares and nourishes a Christian mind. There is a second reason why a strong familiarity with the Old Testament helps the Christian. The figure of Jesus Christ stands out in all his uniqueness when he is set against the backdrop of all that went before him and that pointed to him. Who is there in the Old Testament who can compare with Jesus Christ in his holiness, in his claims and in his deeds? Take the holy Jeremiah, steadfast in his prophetic mission despite the persecution heaped upon him by his enemies. But — to take but one instance — Jeremiah could not in any way match the depths of peace and forgiveness that welled up from the heart of Christ amid his unparalleled sufferings. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do! Even the devils cried out in frustration when in the presence of Jesus, “I know who you are! The Holy One of God!”

The claims made by Jesus Christ are especially extraordinary. Consider our Gospel passage today. A fundamental linchpin of the religious life of God’s chosen people derived directly from the third commandment. The nation must observe the Sabbath Day as holy to the Lord. How was this to be done? The scribes and Pharisees represented a tradition of interpretation which imposed a range of practices which simply went to extremes, especially in the matter of the Sabbath rest. Jesus Christ observed the Sabbath, of course, and we can only imagine how holy he made the day in his own observance. But he absolutely disregarded many of the details of the Pharisaic interpretation and teaching on it. He healed on the Sabbath — although not in every sense, it seems. For instance, we read (Mark 1: 22-34) that, having exorcised a devil in the Synagogue of Capernaum on the Sabbath morning, it was not till the evening that he began to heal “all those who were afflicted, and those who were possessed by devils.” Nevertheless, he unhesitatingly healed on various occasions on the Sabbath Day. Indeed, he told the leaders that he, the Son of Man, was Lord even of the Sabbath. In our Gospel today (John 5: 17-30) he replies to the mounting hostility of the leaders to his violations of the received rules of Sabbath rest. He says that, inasmuch as his own Father was continually working, he would work too. He spoke, then, of God as his very own Father in a way that was unheard of, and claimed the right to act as he, his heavenly Father, acts. My Father acts thus, so therefore do I. “For this reason,” we read, “the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” What other prophet spoke in a way that gave this clear impression, and even to the very face of the religious leaders? But there was more. The Father loves Jesus “the Son,” and “shows him all he does.” So there is nothing about God and his ways that Jesus does not know. No prophet spoke thus.

There is much, much more in our passage than this. Jesus has life in himself. He can give life to whomsoever he wills. He is the Judge of all. The time would come when the graves would be opened at his voice. There is no question but that Jesus Christ claimed to be on a par with God — which is to say that he is the one and only God. But he was not the Father, whom elsewhere he said was greater than he — greater because he was his very Father, his Origin in the godhead. Our Lord is thus revealing the ineffable mystery of the Holy Trinity. Let us immerse ourselves in this wonderful passage and contemplate the beautiful person of Jesus Christ, God and man.
(E.J.Tyler)

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For someone who wants to live for Love with a capital letter, the middle course is not good enough; that would be meanness, a wretched compromise.
(The Forge, no.64)

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In the sermon ‘Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness‘ (1826), John Henry Newman reflects on the implications of the vocation to holiness, giving his own answer to the question put to St John the Baptist, by those who seek God’s salvation: ‘What should we do?’ What is Newman’s answer? Only through Christian conversion – the search for ‘truth and purity’, and ultimately the search for God – can we prepare to enter heaven. Moreover, we learn what heaven is like from the Christian liturgy, a foretaste of the joy that we hope for in the company of the angels and saints:

Heaven then is not like this world; I will say what it is much more like, — a church. For in a place of public worship no language of this world is heard; there are no schemes brought forward for temporal objects, great or small; no information how to

strengthen our worldly interests, extend our influence, or establish our credit. These things indeed may be right in their way, so that we do not set our hearts upon them; still (I repeat), it is certain that we hear nothing of them in a church. Here we hear solely and entirely of God. We praise Him, worship Him, sing to Him, thank Him, confess to Him, give ourselves up to Him, and ask His blessing. And therefore, a church is like heaven; viz. because both in the one and the other, there is one single sovereign subject — religion — brought before us.

[If] we were told that no irreligious man could worship, or spiritually see Him in church; should we not at once perceive the meaning of the doctrine? viz. that, were a man to come hither, who had suffered his mind to grow up in its own way, as nature or chance determined, without any deliberate habitual effort after truth and purity, he would find no real pleasure here, but would soon get weary of the place; because, in this house of God, he would hear only of that one subject which he cared little or nothing about, and nothing at all of those things which excited his hopes and fears, his sympathies and energies.

If then a man without religion (supposing it possible) were admitted into heaven, doubtless he would sustain a great disappointment. Before, indeed, he fancied that he could be happy there; but when he arrived there, he would find no discourse but that which he had shunned on earth, no pursuits but those he had disliked or despised, nothing which bound him to aught else in the universe, and made him feel at home, nothing which he could enter into and rest upon. He would perceive himself to be an isolated being, cut away by Supreme Power from those objects which were still entwined around his heart. Nay, he would be in the presence of that Supreme Power, whom he never on earth could bring himself steadily to think upon, and whom now he regarded only as the destroyer of all that was precious and dear to him. Ah! he could not bear the face of the Living God; the Holy God would be no object of joy to him. “Let us alone! What have we to do with thee?” [Luke 4:34] is the sole thought and desire of unclean souls, even while they acknowledge His majesty. None but the holy can look upon the Holy One; without holiness no man can endure to see the Lord.

(Reference: John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons Vol 1 (1834) Sermon no. 1, p. 4-6)

Thursday of the fourth week of Lent

Prayers today: Let hearts rejoice who search for the lord. Seek the Lord and his strength. seek always the face of the Lord. (Ps 104:3-4)

Merciful Father, may the penance of our Lenten observance make us your obedient people. May the love within us be seen in what we do and lead us to the joy of Easter. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

(March 18) St. Cyril of Jerusalem (315?-386)
The crises that the Church faces today may seem minor when compared with the threat posed by the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ and almost overcame Christianity in the fourth century. Cyril was to be caught up in the controversy, accused (later) of Arianism by St. Jerome, and ultimately vindicated both by the men of his own time and by being declared a Doctor of the Church in 1822. Raised in Jerusalem, well-educated, especially in the Scriptures, he was ordained a priest by the bishop of Jerusalem and given the task of catechizing during Lent those preparing for Baptism and during the Easter season the newly baptized. His Catecheses remain valuable as examples of the ritual and theology of the Church in the mid-fourth century.

There are conflicting reports about the circumstances of his becoming bishop of Jerusalem. It is certain that he was validly consecrated by bishops of the province. Since one of them was an Arian, Acacius, it may have been expected that his “cooperation” would follow. Conflict soon rose between Cyril and Acacius, bishop of the rival nearby see of Caesarea. Cyril was summoned to a council, accused of insubordination and of selling Church property to relieve the poor. Probably, however, a theological difference was also involved. He was condemned, driven from Jerusalem, and later vindicated, not without some association and help of Semi-Arians. Half his episcopate was spent in exile (his first experience was repeated twice). He finally returned to find Jerusalem torn with heresy, schism and strife, and wracked with crime. Even St. Gregory of Nyssa, sent to help, left in despair. They both went to the (second ecumenical) Council of Constantinople, where the amended form of the Nicene Creed was promulgated. Cyril accepted the word consubstantial (that is, of Christ and the Father). Some said it was an act of repentance, but the bishops of the Council praised him as a champion of orthodoxy against the Arians. Though not friendly with the greatest defender of orthodoxy against the Arians, Cyril may be counted among those whom Athanasius called “brothers, who mean what we mean, and differ only about the word [consubstantial].”

“It is not only among us, who are marked with the name of Christ, that the dignity of faith is great; all the business of the world, even of those outside the Church, is accomplished by faith. By faith, marriage laws join in union persons who were strangers to one another. By faith, agriculture is sustained; for a man does not endure the toil involved unless he believes he will reap a harvest. By faith, seafaring men, entrusting themselves to a tiny wooden craft, exchange the solid element of the land for the unstable motion of the waves. Not only among us does this hold true but also, as I have said, among those outside the fold. For though they do not accept the Scriptures but advance certain doctrines of their own, yet even these they receive on faith” (Catechesis V). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Exodus 32:7-14; Psalm 105; John 5:31-47

Jesus said, If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid. There is another who testifies in my favour, and I know that his testimony about me is valid. You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light. I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept praise from men, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God? But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say? (John 5:31-47)

He has seen the Father When St Paul visited Athens he saw a shrine to the “unknown God.” He made use of this in his address to the Areopagus, but in the event his efforts to convince were of little avail. He made a point, though, that is full of interest even though I do not wish to explicate its implications here. Rather, I suggest that we dwell on the inability of man to see and know God directly. We take it for granted — as, in a sense, we must — that for all that we see and know directly, we cannot see and know directly the overwhelmingly important and prominent Being who sustains our vast universe. We see the myriads

of insects and the range of bird and animal life. We observe the composition and the movements of earth and stars. The study of man and nature as represented in the libraries and literature of the world is so vast as to be far beyond synthesis. This we see. But the One who sustains everything we do not see. We know something of this great Being from the visible creation, but our knowledge is fitful and there is little firm agreement among the peoples and religions as to the lineaments of his nature. Yet the religions and literature of man testify to the fact that we long to see and communicate with the One on whom everything depends. More than this, we long for a revelation from the great Being whom we constantly need. Indeed, it is typical for the religions of man to claim that this revelation has occurred. Mahomet claimed it and others have too, and sadly human history has numerous instances of one religion attempting by force to put down another because of such competing claims. But they all bear testimony to the need for a direct contact with God. Typically man reveres the one who claims to have had this contact, at least if he makes such a claim persuasively. The seers and the prophets — whatever they be called — are honoured unless they conflict with others who claim this position. This religious Fact shows how great a boon man would consider having a person who has seen and known God directly. Such a man would give us what we truly need to know.

This is the reason why the Christian religion offers such good news to the world — this and much more. In our Gospel today (John 5: 31-47), our Lord speaks with sovereign assurance of how totally qualified he is to speak of God. He is more qualified than any other. Take any of the prophets — take John, John the Baptist, for instance. What is to be said of Jesus Christ when set next to John? “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light. I have testimony weightier than that of John.” Whatever reason one might have for accepting the testimony of the greatest of the prophets, the testimony Jesus Christ has is much the greater. Look at his work! Not only do his miracles testify to his authority to speak of God — and who in the history of the world has worked the miracles that Jesus Christ worked, in terms of number and quality? But his work is above all the work of redemption from sin. Now, who in the history of the world has attempted to take away the sin of the world? This is a breathtaking proposition, and as a mission it has scarcely occurred to anyone anywhere. But this was the mission of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist said of him that he is the one who takes away the sin of the world. Further, what is the means of doing this? If we were to have asked the greatest of the ancient philosophers — say, Socrates, or Plato, or Aristotle — how the sin of the world could be taken away, what would be the response? I suspect they would have been nonplussed, even if they had understood the terms of the question. But that was Christ’s grand mission, and the way to attain it was by his Passion and Death. He is unique in his claims and in the support for his claims. But most of all, he has seen the living God. “You have never heard his voice nor seen his form,” our Lord says to his enemies. He, Jesus of Nazareth, “heard his voice” continually, and continually saw “his form,” the “form” of the Father.

Let us recognize the authority of Jesus Christ. It is supreme. He comes from God, with whom he dwelt from all eternity. He is the Father’s only-begotten Son, and mankind has the inestimable blessing of having as a brother man One who is God himself. There is in our midst the One who knows all things and has opened for us the way to God by his Passion and Death. Let us regard him as our Light, then! He the Light of the world, without which we are in the dark.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Here is a recipe for your way as a Christian: pray, do penance, work without rest, fulfilling your duty lovingly.

(The Forge, no.65)

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When we contemplate human life in itself, in however small a portion of it, we see implied in it the presence of a soul, the energy of a spiritual existence, of an accountable being; consciousness tells us this concerning it every moment.

Prayers today: Save me, O God, by your power, and grant me justice! God, hear my prayer; listen to my plea. (Ps 53:3-4)

Father, our source of life, you know our weakness. May we reach out with joy to grasp your hand and walk more readily in your ways. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

Scripture today: Wisdom 2:1.12-22; Psalm 33; John 7:1-2.10.25-30

Jesus moved around in Galilee; he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him. The Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near. When his brothers had gone up to the feast, he himself also went up, not openly but as it were in secret. Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said, "Is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ? But we know where he is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from." So Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said, "You know me and also know where I am from. Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me." So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come. (John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30)

Man and God One thing about our Lord is plain in the passage before us today. His person and background is well known. He is one of the people. He is a brother Hebrew to them. There is mention of “his brothers” who went up to the feast before him. They were, of course, his kinsmen presumably from Nazareth and its environs. There is a tradition that the parents of Mary had resided in the nearby cosmopolitan city of Zephoris, so some of our Lord’s relatives may even have lived there. Whatever of that, the point is that our Lord was deeply rooted in certain places and in a family network. He was very well known. That was up in

Galilee, in the locality of Nazareth. Let us observe the specimen of the talk about him in Jerusalem, provided by our passage. Our Lord went up to the feast quietly and then was discovered to be teaching in the Temple. We read that “Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said, "Is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ? But we know where he is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from." The drift of it is that Jesus was one of the people, and that this was a problem. He was but an ordinary Hebrew, an artisan from Galilee — all knew who Jesus of Nazareth was and where he was from. He lacked the mystery that would be associated with the Messiah. In his origin and person the Messiah would be far, far larger than life, a figure the like of which the world had never seen. All of this was perfectly true in its way, and did reflect the general impression projected by the Scriptures. But other predictions were missed that located the Messiah as coming from the people. What these reactions and remarks illustrate was the truth that Jesus Christ was truly and absolutely a man like us. In all his human characteristics there was an individuality with the limitations which this necessarily involved. He was of a certain height, with certain features, a certain timbre of voice, a certain manner of walking, speaking, smiling. The Messiah was very much a man of a certain lineage, time and culture.

All this our Lord openly and readily acknowledges. “Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said, "You know me and also know where I am from.” That is to say, I am a man just as are others, and you know me as such. But then he alludes to the tremendous mystery that is his nevertheless. “Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me." Our Lord speaks in a way that transcends the language of the prophets, though he is in the line of them. He repeatedly insists that he came from God. The prophets spoke of having been called by God for a special mission, and of having received his word which they then proclaimed to the people, despite much opposition. Not uncommonly they would refer to their place of origin and their occupation prior to their calling. But Jesus Christ speaks of himself as coming not simply from Nazareth, but directly from God. He states time and again that while many of his hearers did not know God, he knew him. Our Lord separates himself from the rest in his incomparable knowledge of God, a knowledge that he has directly because he came directly from him. “I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” Our Lord is claiming a unique relationship with God, a uniquely authoritative mission, and a unique knowledge. This singular authority was what the religious leaders could not bear, and we read that after our Lord said this, “they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come” (John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30). It all constitutes yet another allusion — so frequent especially in the Gospel of St John — to his divinity. This is the wondrous thing about Jesus Christ, and it is what makes the Christian religion so striking, provided it is truly understood. This man, truly man — one whom they knew so well as almost to disqualify Jesus Christ from being the Messiah, in their mind — is the living God. We simply must not “get used” to this proposition. There is nothing like it on earth.

Let us in our mind’s eye, in spirit as it were, place ourselves among the hearers and gaze at Jesus Christ as he speaks. Observe his features, so noble, so filled with spiritual majesty, so expressive of divine love and strength. He is every bit a man as any man, indeed far more so because there is no sin in him to sully his humanity. He is, in this sense, perfectly man, perfectly human. But in the first instance he is divine. He is a divine person who has come from the Father as one sent by him. This same Jesus Christ is with us continually in his Church, in the word and Sacraments of the Church. Let us live in him then, and never be separated from him.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Solemnity of St Joseph, the husband of Mary (March 19)

Prayers today: The Lord has put his faithful servant in charge of his household. (Lk 12:42)

Father, you entrusted our Saviour to the care of St. Joseph. By the help of his prayers may your Church continue to serve its Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary (March 19)
The Bible pays Joseph the highest compliment: he was a “just” man. The quality meant a lot more than faithfulness in paying

debts. When the Bible speaks of God “justifying” someone, it means that God, the all-holy or “righteous” One, so transforms a person that the individual shares somehow in God’s own holiness, and hence it is really “right” for God to love him or her. In other words, God is not playing games, acting as if we were lovable when we are not. By saying Joseph was “just,” the Bible means that he was one who was completely open to all that God wanted to do for him. He became holy by opening himself totally to God. The rest we can easily surmise. Think of the kind of love with which he wooed and won Mary, and the depth of the love they shared during their marriage. It is no contradiction of Joseph’s manly holiness that he decided to

divorce Mary when she was found to be with child. The important words of the Bible are that he planned to do this “quietly” because he was “a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame” (Matthew 1:19). The just man was simply, joyfully, wholeheartedly obedient to God—in marrying Mary, in naming Jesus, in shepherding the precious pair to Egypt, in bringing them to Nazareth, in the undetermined number of years of quiet faith and courage. The Bible tells us nothing of Joseph in the years after the return to Nazareth except the incident of finding Jesus in the Temple (see Luke 2:41–51). Perhaps this can be taken to mean that God wants us to realize that the holiest family was like every other family, that the circumstances of life for the holiest family were like those of every family, so that when Jesus’ mysterious nature began to appear, people couldn’t believe that he came from such humble beginnings: “Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother named Mary...?” (Matthew 13:55a). It was almost as indignant as “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46b).
“He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: ‘Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord’” (St. Bernardine of Siena). (AmericanCatholic.org)

St Joseph is considered the second greatest saint, next to the Blessed Virgin Mary, because of his humility and closeness to Jesus as the foster father of our Lord. Scripture tells us that Joseph was just, pure, gentle, prudent, and unfailingly obedient to the divine will. He died in the presence of Jesus and Mary. We wish to imitate him by renewing our desire to be faithful. We know that the only meaning of our life is to be faithful to the Lord till the last day as Joseph was. Blessed Pius IX named him Patron of the Universal Church and Blessed John XXIII included his name in the Roman Canon.

Prayer for today: Father, you entrusted our Saviour to the care of St Joseph. By the help of his prayers may your Church continue to serve its Lord, Jesus Christ. We ask this through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

Scripture today: 2 Samuel 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16; Psalm 89:2-5, 27 and 29; Rom 4:13, 16-18, 22; Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24a or Luke 2:41-51a

Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ. Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. (Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24a)

Grandeur in ordinary life In ordinary life we tend to think that the little person does not matter much. Some historians maintain that the importance of the common people in shaping history is generally missed. I would propose that this is especially so in the case of those of the common people who are of great moral stature. At the time of her death, Therese of Lisieux in France was unknown beyond her convent. She lived during the last decades of the nineteenth century and was a

great, yet quite hidden saint in her convent. Were it not for the publication of her autobiography, it is a moot point whether she would have been known, and canonized, and eventually (because of the doctrine contained in her autobiography) declared a Doctor of the Church. Again, were it not for the subsequent fame of Therese as a saint, her parents would have been unknown. But her parents (Louis Martin and Marie Zelie Guerin) were hidden saints too, and were beatified in 2008. We cannot speak adequately of the extent to which the world depends on those of the common people who are truly good and holy, but as a factor in history I tend to think that it is vastly underestimated. Now, there is one instance of the ordinary, obscure person where history was profoundly affected. The Christian knows that the fundamental issue for mankind is the overcoming of sin and the attainment of goodness — goals which because of the Fall are absolutely beyond man’s native powers. For this reason the greatest thing that has every happened in human history is the Incarnation. God became man to take away the sin of the world and to reconcile us to God. The Word was made flesh. Now, this happened when the obscure, unknown virgin Mary gave her consent to the Angel. Much depended, too, on the subsequent decision of an equally unknown individual, Joseph. At the word from the angel, he received Mary as his wife. He became her husband, and the foster-father of the Messiah. If there is any case of the paramount importance of obscure and common persons, it is the case of Mary and Joseph.

Today we think of Joseph the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Joseph was the husband of the mother of God, and the foster father of God the Son made man. In terms of objective importance, the Roman Emperor of the day (Augustus and then Tiberius) paled before Joseph, the one who was guardian of the Messiah. But beyond his tiny village, scarcely anyone would have known him. He was, it could easily be said, a nobody — a true representative of the common man. He spent his life as a humble carpenter, profoundly devout, an inhabitant of a tiny village which was satellite to the city of Zephoris. Of that village Nathanael asked: Can anything good come out of Nazareth? No words of his are recorded in the Gospels. Except for some moments of drama recorded in the Gospels, his life followed the common round characteristic of the millions of artisans like him. What did he do that was so important? He did God’s will — and by contrast, one wonders whether there was very much in the lives of Augustus and Tiberius that was ever done according to God’s will. Joseph always did exactly what God asked of him. He was a very great, yet hidden saint. Now, what was the secret to his high sanctity? It was his continual intimacy with Jesus and Mary. He lived continually in their presence, serving, protecting and guiding them. It is a breathtaking thought that Joseph lived day after day, year after year, with the Son of God and with his all-holy Mother. He was the husband of the Mother of God, with all the loving intimacy that this entailed. We can scarcely imagine the loftiness of the holy love that existed between them. How great a man, how great a husband was Joseph! But then, imagine being the foster-father of God the Son made man, knowing and loving and serving him so continually! Imagine the bond between the two, forged day after day in their work and home life. With the exception of the love between Mother and Son, there has been nothing to equal it on the face of the earth. How could any saint attain the relationship with Jesus that Joseph had, with the exception of Mary, Jesus’ own mother?

How grand was the ordinary life of Joseph. If we want to gain a sense of the grandeur of ordinary life and the importance of the common person who fulfils his vocation to be good and holy, think of Joseph. No matter how ordinary our life may seem and how lacking in achievements and recognition, let us take inspiration from the person of St Joseph, husband of Mary. Let us ask him to make our life like his, a life fulfilling God’s will (whatever it be and however humble) in the intimate presence of Jesus and Mary. Go to Joseph, many saints have urged. How could God refuse the intercession of the husband of Mary and the foster-father of his Son?

(E.J.Tyler)

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My God, teach me how to love! — My God, teach me how to pray!

(The Forge, no.66)
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Despise not the gift that is in you: despise not the blessing which by God’s free grace you have, and others have not. There is nothing to boast in, that you are God’s people; rather the thought is an anxious one; you have much more to answer for.

Saturday of the fourth week in Lent

Prayers today: The snares of death overtook me, the ropes of hell tightened around me; in my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice. (Ps 17:5-7)

Lord, guide us in your gentle mercy, for left to ourselves we cannot do your will. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

(March 20) St. Salvator of Horta (1520-1567)
A reputation for holiness does have some drawbacks. Public recognition can be a nuisance at times — as the confreres of Salvator found out. Salvator was born during Spain’s Golden Age. Art, politics and wealth were flourishing. So was religion. Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society of Jesus in 1540. Salvator’s parents were poor. At the age of 21 he entered the Franciscans as a brother and was soon known for his asceticism, humility and simplicity. As cook, porter and later the official beggar for the friars in Tortosa, he became well known for his charity. He healed the sick with the Sign of the Cross. When crowds of sick people began coming to the friary to see Salvator, the friars transferred him to Horta. Again the sick flocked to ask his intercession; one person estimated that two thousand people a week came to see Salvator. He told them to examine their consciences, to go to confession and to receive Holy Communion worthily. He refused to pray for those who would not receive those sacraments. The public attention given to Salvator was relentless. The crowds would sometimes tear off pieces of his habit as relics. Two years before his death, Salvator was moved again, this time to Cagliari on the island of Sardinia. He died at Cagliari saying, "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." He was canonized in 1938.
Medical science is now seeing more clearly the relation of some diseases to one’s emotional and spiritual life. In Healing Life’s Hurts, Matthew and Dennis Linn report that sometimes people experience relief from illness only when they have decided to forgive others. Salvator prayed that people might be healed, and many were. Surely not all diseases can be treated this way; medical help should not be abandoned. But notice that Salvator urged his petitioners to re-establish their priorities in life before they asked for healing. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 11:18-20; Psalm 7:2-3, 9bc-12; John 7:40-53

On hearing his words, some of the people said, Surely this man is the Prophet. Others said, He is the Christ. Still others asked, How can the Christ come from Galilee? Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived? Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. Some wanted to seize him, but no-one laid a hand on him. Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, Why didn't you bring him in? No-one ever spoke the way this man does, the guards declared. You mean he has deceived you also? the Pharisees retorted. Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law— there is a curse on them. Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he is doing? They replied, Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee. Then each went to his own home. (John 7:40-53)

Faith and the heart Our passage today ends on a sombre note which has significance for every person of every place. We are told that “the chief priests and the Pharisees,” having declared that “a prophet does not come out of Galilee,” then “went each to his own home.” Let us imagine the body of the leaders in council, gathered perhaps in the Temple precincts and filled with anger and consternation at the fearlessness of Jesus Christ speaking elsewhere in the same Temple.

They had sent the temple guard to bring our Lord before them, but once in the presence of Jesus, the guard were captivated and helpless. Spellbound at his words and at his person and his teaching, they listened and watched, as did the people. They were not prejudiced in heart against our Lord, and could not bring themselves to arrest him. His spiritual majesty was so evident and his teaching so exalted. So they returned — for they knew they were being awaited — and could only say, “No-one ever spoke the way this man does.” We may say that this judgment encapsulates John the Evangelist’s view of the situation. No one in all the history of God’s chosen people spoke as Jesus Christ spoke, and no other man in all of history has spoken as he spoke. This was because it was the Incarnate God himself who was speaking. Yet, mysteriously, the response of man was profoundly mixed. This indeed is a mysterious phenomenon because one would have expected that in the nature of the case, the creature would instinctively respond in an entirely positive fashion to the words of his loving Creator, even if due to the Incarnation his Creator were not immediately recognized. But no. The response to our Lord was mixed. Though many of the people accepted him, many others were divided about him. The leaders in the main were against him. Christ had but limited success, and his success has been limited ever since. Many rejected him, as do many still. In order to understand the roots of this rejection, let us consider especially those who rejected him entirely. I refer to the leaders of the people.

To the testimony of the guards, the religious leaders replied “You mean he has deceived you also?” There was a profound prejudice at work in their hearts that impeded any listening on their part. “Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law— there is a curse on them” (John 7:40-53). They supported each other in their blindness, choosing to view those who followed our Lord as being under a curse. The situation is further illustrated by the question of Nicodemus, one of their number. The loyalty of Nicodemus to our Lord, incidentally, shows that our Lord had at least a small following even among the leaders. Joseph of Arimathea was also among them. We remember that some time later the infant church records a considerable number of priests entering the Church (Acts 6:7). Be that as it may, Nicodemus objected. “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?” The leaders refused even to hear our Lord with an open heart, and to find out what he was doing. Their heart was set against him, and they would not listen. Of course, they did not know or intimate that he was divine, and all of our Lord’s allusions to this stupendous fact fell on stony hearts. In this sense, they did not know what they were doing. On the cross our Lord asked his Father to forgive them for they did not know what they were doing. But it is equally clear that they were responsible for their ignorance. They were blind, but their blindness was due to their moral fault. Their hostility grew apace with our Lord’s ministry, and as our Lord revealed more and more of his powers, his person and his teaching, so did their hatred of him increase. The final scene in this drama is, of course, Calvary, in which our Lord is hanging from the cross and the religious leaders are jeering at him. They did not realize that they were jeering at God, dying in his humanity for love of mankind. It is a remarkable phenomenon in history. Let us draw from this spectacle a sense of the horror of sin and what it leads to.

Faith in Jesus Christ and the perception of the true nature of his person depends on our moral condition. It is not just an intellectual matter, divorced from one’s state of heart. What we see depends on what we are. Blessed are the pure of heart, our Lord said, for they shall see God. The mixed response to our Lord was a result of the mixed moral condition of those who viewed and heard him. Let us strive for true goodness of heart, for this is the foundation and requirement for a true faith
(E.J.Tyler)

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We must ask God for faith, hope and charity, with humility, with persevering prayer, with upright behaviour and a clean life.
(The Forge, no.67)

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Wisdom is the clear, calm, accurate vision, and comprehension of the whole course, the whole work of God; and though there is none who has it in its fulness but He who “searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of” the Creator, yet “by that Spirit” they are, in a measure, “revealed unto us.”

JHN, from the University sermon ‘Wisdom, as Contrasted with Faith and with Bigotry’ (1841)

Fifth Sunday of Lent C

Prayers this week: Give me justice, O God, and defend my cause against the wicked; rescue me from deceitful and unjust men. You, O God, are my refuge. (Psalm 42: 1-2)

Father, help us to be like Christ your Son, who loved the world and died for our salvation. Inspire us by his love and guide us by his example. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.

(March 21) Blessed John of Parma (1209-1289)

The seventh general minister of the Franciscan Order, John was known for his attempts to bring back the earlier spirit of the Order after the death of St. Francis of Assisi. He was born in Parma, Italy, in 1209. It was when he was a young philosophy professor known for his piety and learning that God called him to bid good-bye to the world he was used to and enter the new world of the Franciscan Order. After his profession John was sent to Paris to complete his theological studies. Ordained to the priesthood, he was appointed to teach theology at Bologna, then Naples and finally Rome. In 1245, Pope Innocent IV called a general council in the city of Lyons, France. Crescentius, the Franciscan minister general at the time, was ailing and unable to attend. In his place he sent Father John, who made a deep impression on the Church leaders gathered there. Two years later, when the same pope presided at the election of a minister general of the Franciscans, he remembered Father John well and held him up as the man best qualified for the office. And so, in 1247, John of Parma was elected to be minister general. The surviving disciples of St. Francis rejoiced in his election, expecting a return to the spirit of poverty and humility of the early days of the Order. And they were not disappointed. As general of the Order John travelled on foot, accompanied by one or two companions, to practically all of the Franciscan convents in existence. Sometimes he would arrive and not be recognized, remaining there for a number of days to test the true spirit of the brothers. The pope called on John to serve as legate to Constantinople, where he was most successful in winning back the schismatic Greeks. Upon his return he asked that someone else take his place to govern the Order. St. Bonaventure, at John's urging, was chosen to succeed him. John took up a life of prayer in the hermitage at Greccio. Many years later, John learned that the Greeks, who had been reconciled with the Church for a time, had relapsed into schism. Though 80 years old by then, John received permission from Pope Nicholas IV to return to the East in an effort to restore unity once again. On his way, John fell sick and died. He was beatified in 1781.

In the 13th century, people in their 30s were middle-aged; hardly anyone lived to the ripe old age of 80. John did, but he didn’t ease into retirement. Instead he was on his way to try to heal a schism in the Church when he died. Our society today boasts a lot of folks in their later decades. Like John, many of them lead active lives. But some aren’t so fortunate. Weakness or ill health keeps them confined and lonely—waiting to hear from us. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 125; Philippians 3:8-14; Luke 8:1-11.

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered round him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say? They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, Woman, where are they? Has no-one condemned you? No-one, sir, she said. Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared. Go now and leave your life of sin. (John 8:1-11)

The Law and the Sixth Commandment Our Gospel passage today provides us with yet another instance of the conflict between Christ and the religious leaders — specifically, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. This conflict would culminate in our Lord’s death, by which he would redeem the world from sin. The accusations by which Jesus was condemned to death included his acting against the temple in Jerusalem, his acting against faith in the one God because he proclaimed himself

to be the Son of God, and in general for his acting against the Law. Such accusations were groundless, but in our Gospel today the leaders confront our Lord with a prescription of the Law of Moses. “Teacher,” they said, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were intent on showing up Christ’s opposition to the Law of Moses. Now, elsewhere our Lord stated quite clearly that he did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to complete and fulfill them. Time and again he referred lovingly to the prophets. He insisted on the fulfilment of what the Law truly required, and we remember how at his Transfiguration, Moses representing the Law and Elijah representing the prophets, appeared with him in glory. They were conversing with him about his death which he would accomplish in Jerusalem. Jesus did not abolish the Law given by God to Moses on Sinai, but rather he fulfilled it by giving to it its definitive interpretation. The issue was indeed one of interpretation. We remember how he was challenged over the matter of divorce, which Moses allowed. Christ thereupon gave his authoritative interpretation of this Mosaic permission. The allowance of divorce by Moses was merely, our Lord said, a practical regulation of the hardness of heart of the people. They would not observe the law of God as revealed in the original creation of man and woman with the vocation to be “one body,” as husband and wife. Moses regulated this sad refusal for the sake of social order. In his person, in his teaching and in his practice, Christ fulfilled the Mosaic Law and gave to it its true interpretation.

The case in point in our Gospel today (John 8: 1-11) was the ancient Mosaic directive to stone those guilty of adultery (as in, say, Deuteronomy 22:22 and Leviticus 20:10). Rather than dwelling further on our Lord’s teaching on the status of this prescription, let us consider its deeper significance. It shows the seriousness of the sixth commandment, You shall not commit adultery, which in ancient times it was meant to protect. At the end of the incident described in today’s Gospel, with our Lord having rid the scene of the woman’s accusers, he told her: Go, and sin no more. He set aside the stoning, but reaffirmed the sixth commandment. Although the biblical text of the sixth commandment simply reads “you shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14), the Tradition of the Church comprehensively follows the teachings of the entire Scriptures, and considers the sixth commandment as encompassing all sins against chastity. Grave sins against chastity go well beyond adultery and include the various expressions of the vice of lust — such as the reading and use of pornography, homosexual acts, fornication, masturbation, and the social decadence that tends to undermine a culture of chastity. Very importantly, our Lord himself extended the scope of the sixth commandment and condemned adultery in the human heart. That is to say, not only must a person be chaste in deed, but also in mind and heart. This, indeed, is the foundation. Chastity is a moral virtue, a gift of God, a grace, and a fruit of the Holy Spirit to be resolutely lived and guarded. It embraces a whole life of chastity, in keeping with each person’s particular state of life, and is part and parcel of a life lived in imitation of Christ our Saviour and model. There is a further point of great importance. The Christian laity are called to evangelize the world. The world must be brought to accept Christ and his teaching. This includes bearing witness to chastity in culture and society. It means spreading everywhere the conviction that the dignity of the person requires protections for chastity in the culture and civil law of society.

One of the most notable changes in society over the last century has been the vast proliferation of media and entertainment. This has meant the spread and influence of a range of models of what it means to be human and happy. All too often these types and models have been of persons who disregard and violate a life of chastity. The battle is largely a cultural one, and the challenge is to evangelize our culture. Let us take up the work, then, and pursue it daily by word and deed.

(E.J.Tyler)

Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.577-582 (Jesus and the Law), no.2331-2391: (The sixth commandment)

A second reflection for the fifth Sunday of Lent

"He looked up and said, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?' 'No one, sir' she replied. 'Neither do I condemn you,' said Jesus 'go away and don't sin any more.'" (Luke 8:11)

Sin and grace In the Gospel scene today, the Church presents us with the scene of the sinful woman and her accusers standing before our Lord. Then she is left before him, her accusers gone, herself a sinner nevertheless. Our Lord says to her, I extend my mercy and pardon to you. Go and do not sin any more. Let this scene be an image of what should be going on during

Lent in our own hearts. Cardinal Newman once wrote that the foundation of authentic religion is the sense of sin. With this lively sense we more easily turn to Christ asking for his forgiveness. Let us imagine our sins being like those scribes and Pharisees, accusing us before our divine Lord, and demanding that he punish us. In fact that is just what Satan does. He tempts us to sin, gains the victory, and then becomes our accuser, our adversary before God. For that reason our Lord described the Holy Spirit as our Advocate, pleading our cause from within the very heart of God. He is the love of God himself consoling us sinners. And so we ought stand before Jesus during Lent with our sins. Our sins will accuse us, if we have a lively conscience. But if we come before Jesus admitting our sins and asking his pardon, and not simply remain with our conscience alone, we shall hear those consoling words of Jesus, “Neither do I condemn you.” All of this we are able to do and experience in every genuine act of contrition, and whenever we go to Confession.

We shall also hear him say, go and sin no more. This too should distinguish the weeks of Lent: namely, a new impulse in our quest for holiness of life. The years will pass quickly for each of us, and the question will be, how well have I used my life for the purpose for which it was given to me? Its purpose is to reach the fullest degree of love and service of God possible for me. In the second reading, St Paul says that the supreme value in his life was to know Christ and to live in him. By comparison with this all else was rubbish, he said. He sought perfection in this. There are many things we try to excel in during life: perhaps in our possessions, in our professional standing, our job, or whatever. But the one thing necessary is, St Paul writes, to know Christ and the power of his risen life in our lives, which is to say the power of grace. Saint Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises presents the retreatant with his greatest colloquy, in which God’s love and grace are prayed for. The one thing we should be praying for day by day which is absolutely and in every sense necessary, is the love and the grace of Christ. Neither life nor death, great possessions or few, health or sickness, important though these things may be in certain real respects, compare with knowing Christ as his genuine, intimate and faithful friend, and following him in his sufferings so as to share in his resurrection. St Paul says, ‘Not that I have become perfect yet: I have not yet won, but I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me. I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.’

Let us resolve during Lent to confess our sins, obtain Christ’s pardon, and to set out anew in a vigorous way towards holiness, which is nothing other than the love and the obedient service of Jesus in our everyday life. A great psychiatrist, Victor Frankl, once said that human happiness depends on a person’s having a sense of the meaning of life and living in view of it. The true meaning of life, the one revealed to us by God, is to know, love and serve Jesus as perfectly as possible. Let this Lent involve a profound renewal of our sense of the true meaning of life, which is to belong totally to Jesus.

(E.J.Tyler)

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You told me that you did not know how to repay me for the holy zeal that flooded your soul.

—I hastened to answer: It is not I who have given you any of those yearnings; it is the Holy Spirit.

—Desire his company, get to know him. — That way you will come to love him better and better, and you will come to thank him for taking up his abode in your soul so that you may have interior life.

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Surely, if Almighty God is ever one and the same, and is revealed to us as one and the same, the true inward impression of Him, made on the recipient of the revelation, must be one and the same; and, since human nature proceeds upon fixed laws, the statement of that impression must be one and the same, so that we may as well say that there are two Gods as two Creeds.

JHN, from the University sermon ‘The Theory of developments in Religious Doctrine’ (1843)

Monday of the fifth week in Lent C

Prayers today: God, take pity on me! My enemies are crushing me; all day long they wage war on me. (Ps 55:2)

Father of love, source of all blessings, help us to pass from our old life of sin to the new life of grace. Prepare us for the glory of your kingdom. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

(March 22) St. Nicholas Owen (d. 1606)
Nicholas, familiarly known as "Little John," was small in stature but big in the esteem of his fellow Jesuits. Born at Oxford, this humble artisan saved the lives of many priests and laypersons in England during the penal times (1559-1829), when a series of statutes punished Catholics for the practice of their faith. Over a period of about 20 years he used his skills to build secret hiding places for priests throughout the country. His work, which he did completely by himself as both architect and builder, was so good that time and time again priests in hiding were undetected by raiding parties. He was a genius at finding, and creating, places of safety: subterranean passages, small spaces between walls, impenetrable recesses. At one point he was even able to mastermind the escape of two Jesuits from the Tower of London. Whenever Nicholas set out to design such hiding places, he began by receiving the Holy Eucharist, and he would turn to God in prayer throughout the long, dangerous construction process. After many years at his unusual task, he entered the Society of Jesus and served as a lay brother, although—for very good reasons—his connection with the Jesuits was kept secret. After a number of narrow escapes, he himself was finally caught in 1594. Despite protracted torture, he refused to disclose the names of other Catholics. After being released following the payment of a ransom, "Little John" went back to his work. He was arrested again in 1606. This time he was subjected to horrible tortures, suffering an agonizing death. The jailers tried suggesting that he had confessed and committed suicide, but his heroism and sufferings soon were widely known. He was canonized in 1970 as one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Daniel 13: 1-9.15-17.19-30.33-62; Psalm 22; John 8:12-20

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but

will have the light of life. The Pharisees challenged him, Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid. Jesus answered, Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no-one. But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me. Then they asked him, Where is your father? You do not know me or my Father, Jesus replied. If you knew me, you would know my Father also. He spoke these words while teaching in the temple area near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no-one seized him, because his time had not yet come. (John 8:12-20)

The claims of Christ One of the more notorious of modern forensic inventions is the lie detector. The basis of its assumed validity would seem to be an analysis of the recorded emotions and physical reactions of the one who is speaking, reactions that are deemed to be beyond the easy control of the mind. The analysis can take different forms and can employ different kinds of data to judge the reactions of the subject. Despite margins of error, such methods are admissible in some courts of, for instance,

the United States. Whatever be the extent of the usefulness of such devices, there is no doubt that in ordinary life we instinctively form impressions of the truthfulness of a person’s account by the physical manner in which he gives it. He appears calmly objective and balanced or not as the case may be, although we also take into account our prior knowledge of him and the opinion of others about him. A skilled and experienced person may well be able to form a pretty good idea of how truthful a person is, by observing carefully his manner in telling his story. His judgment that a person is likely to be truthful or lying can carry true weight. We all do this to some extent, as we must — even though we are aware that a good “con-man” (as we call him) may deceive his hearers and observers. Many issues are so unimportant that it does not matter to anyone whether the person is truthful or not, as in say, some “true story” a person tells to entertain others in conversation. But other matters are of maximum importance. The pre-eminent case of the critical importance of truth is a claim to have received a divine revelation. There have been so many such claims, and so very many of them have won the allegiance of great numbers right into the modern era. The Baha’i religion was founded by an alleged prophet, as was the Seventh Day Adventist religion. By and large the ordinary person acts and judges on instinct, on a degree of education and on common sense to determine the truth or otherwise of such claims. He is most fortunate if, by the providence of God, he is in fact raised in the truth that has been truly and objectively revealed.

This is not the moment to consider the ways a “prophet” is vindicated in his claims. Rather, with the above remarks as an introduction, I would like to draw attention to the transcendent claims of Jesus Christ and to the spiritual majesty with which he uttered them. St Jerome once wrote that ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Jesus Christ. However such a statement is to be understood — and we could hardly exclude the numerous illiterates from the saving knowledge of Christ — there is no doubt that the long use of the Scriptures gives to the believer a profound conviction of the absolute persuasiveness of Jesus Christ. In particular, the daily reading and contemplation of the Gospels will convince the Christian that Jesus Christ is what he claimed to be. It is very much like growing in a long-standing friendship. In such an acquaintance, the person comes to be known. By immersing ourselves in the Gospels, we contemplate Jesus Christ and we come to know him for what he claims to be. In our Gospel today, our Lord makes a claim that I am not aware was made by any other serious and weighty individual in history. He says — and he calmly says it to the religious leaders who regarded themselves as the light of the nation — that “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12-20). No other individual in all of the inspired Scriptures, and indeed — I think I can say — no one else of consequence in human history, had the temerity to say such a thing. But Jesus Christ said this with sovereign and imperturbable assurance, all the while uttering a unique teaching backed up with incomparable holiness of life and miracles. He is the Light of the nations. This Light that is his very person bestows abundant life on the world. If man wishes to have life in abundance, eternal life, he must live in the Light that is Jesus Christ. There is so much darkness in human history! Jesus Christ has told us that he is the light that dispels the darkness. He comes from the Father; he stands with the Father; the Father is always his witness.

Let us draw near to Jesus who is the treasure and the light of mankind. He stands unique among the prophets and utterly transcends them, be they the prophets of the inspired Scriptures, or those taken to be prophets by the peoples. He is the Prophet par excellence, and far more than a prophet could be because he is none other — O marvellous a fact! — than the Lord God himself. He, this man among men, is literally and truly God. How extraordinary a thing that the created, material universe contains such a Phenomenon. God so loved the world that he sent his only Son to be the Light of the world. By walking according to this Light, life everlasting will be ours.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Keep struggling, so that the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar really becomes the centre and root of your interior life, and so your whole day will turn into an act of worship — an extension of the Mass you have attended and a preparation for the next. Your whole day will then be an act of worship that overflows in aspirations, visits to the Blessed Sacrament and the offering up of your professional work and your family life…
(The Forge, no.69)

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If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else

you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties ….You may be tolerant or intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. … The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the Revelation.

JHN, from An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)

Lord, help us to do your will that your Church may grow and become more faithful in your service, Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

(March 23) St. Turibius of Mogrovejo (1538-1606)
Together with Rose of Lima, Turibius is the first known saint of the New World, serving the Lord in Peru, South America, for 26 years. Born in Spain and educated for the law, he became so brilliant a scholar that he was made professor of law at the University of Salamanca and eventually became chief judge of the Inquisition at Granada. He succeeded too well. But he was not sharp enough a lawyer to prevent a surprising sequence of events. When the archdiocese of Lima in Peru required a new leader, Turibius was chosen to fill the post: He was the one person with the strength of character and holiness of spirit to heal the scandals that had infected that area. He cited all the canons that forbade giving laymen ecclesiastical dignities, but he was overruled. He was ordained priest and bishop and sent to Peru, where he found colonialism at its worst. The Spanish conquerors were guilty of every sort of oppression of the native population. Abuses among the clergy were flagrant, and he devoted his energies (and suffering) to this area first. He began the long and arduous visitation of an immense archdiocese, studying the language, staying two or three days in each place, often with neither bed nor food. He confessed every morning to his chaplain, and celebrated Mass with intense fervour. Among those to whom he gave the Sacrament of Confirmation was St. Rose of Lima, and possibly St. Martin de Porres. After 1590 he had the help of another great missionary, St. Francis Solanus. His people, though very poor, were sensitive, dreading to accept public charity from others. Turibius solved the problem by helping them anonymously. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Numbers 2:4-9; Psalm 101; John 8:21-30

Once more Jesus said to them, "I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot

come." This made the Jews ask, "Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, 'Where I go, you cannot come'?" But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am, you will indeed die in your sins." "Who are you?" they asked. "Just what I have been claiming all along," Jesus replied. "I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is true, and what I have heard from him I tell the world." They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him." Even as he spoke, many put their faith in him. (John 8:21-30)

The key to life Occasionally one comes across those who do not seem to care in thinking of physical death as the absolute end of everything for a person. One fairly elderly person said to me that as far as he was concerned, death for him would be the same as it is for any animal. It would be the end, with nothing beyond it. Now, this belief is most uncharacteristic of human thought. In the main, man is and always has been religious, and religion almost always includes belief in an Afterlife. Man expects to continue

in some form after death, although the views and images of the Afterlife have been legion. There is an immense difference between the Afterlife of Judaeo-Christian revelation and that of Buddhism, for instance. We all know that death must come, but this thought is assuaged by the prospect of an Afterlife — which is to say, we believe that after death, life will continue. The thought of death in an absolute sense is a shocking prospect. All this is to say that life is one of our most precious possessions, even though we usually take it somewhat for granted. If there is any threat to our life, our whole being is roused in fear and apprehension — and even animals respond in similar fashion. If a loved one embarks on a course which may mean the loss of life — as in some military campaign — then his family and friends become immensely concerned. They dread the day they might receive notice that he has lost his life. Clearly, one of the principal goals of a society is to ensure the preservation the lives of its citizens. A culture that undervalues life and allows its destruction for reasons of convenience or for trivial misdemeanours is to that extent closer to barbarism. Now, we may ask, if life is one of our greatest possessions, is there any key to its secure possession? We try to eat properly, maintain good health, and avoid unnecessary dangers such as driving recklessly on the roads. Life is a truly precious gift, and in all sorts of ways our conviction of this, and the conviction of society about this, is manifest. But we cannot hang on to our physical life indefinitely. What, then, is the key?

Our Lord in today’s Gospel (John 8: 21-30) gives us the key to attaining, holding on to, and flourishing in the gift of life. He tells us what is the ultimate threat to life. It is sin. The average person in a secular culture assumes that the ultimate threats to life are those he sees as destroying physical life. Life is threatened ultimately, he thinks, by hunger, disease, neglect, imprudence in health, and so forth. But Christ has revealed that the ultimate threat to life is sin and its consequent separation from God. St Paul writes that sin entered the world through one man and with sin came death, and death has spread to the whole human race. In our Gospel passage today, our Lord tells his hearers that they will die in their sins. This is the ultimate tragedy, to die in one’s sins, for this will bring the ultimate death — not a death that is extinction, but a dying forever, as it were. It will be an eternal separation from God. Horrible thought! It is the ultimate fate of the demons, and such is the lot of the one who does not die in God but in his sins. So what does our Lord provide as the key to the possession of life? The key to life is belief in him and in his word. “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.” He was going to his Father, to life forever at the right hand of God, and he was telling his hearers that the course they were presently pursuing would lead them to death in their sins. “You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am, you will indeed die in your sins.” The one way to avoid ultimate death is to believe in the One whom God had sent. Significantly, our Lord alludes to his divinity and to belief in this fundamental doctrine. “If you do not believe that I am, you will indeed die in your sins” — the “I am” is a clear reference to the name that Yahweh God had pronounced before Moses as being his own. On a different occasion, just before he raised Lazarus from the dead, our Lord had said to Martha that the one who believes in him will live, even though he die. The key is faith in Jesus.

On a separate occasion again, our Lord was visiting the home of Mary and Martha. He said to Martha that Mary her sister had chosen the better part in sitting before him and listening to his word. The most important thing in life is to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Saviour, and to live according to his word. This belief constitutes the key to life. By means of this, death is overcome in its ultimate sense, and we live now and forever in God. Let us then take our stand with Jesus, knowing that being with him is the one thing necessary.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Try to give thanks to Jesus in the Eucharist by singing the praises of Our Lady, the Virgin most pure, without stain, who brought

forth the Lord into this world.

—And, with childlike daring, say to Jesus: My dearest Love, blessed be the Mother who brought you into this world!

I assure you it will please him, and he will put even greater love in your soul.
(The Forge, no.70)

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All things are possible to you, through God’s grace. Come to Him for the will and the power to do that to which He calls you. He never forsakes anyone who calls upon him. He never puts any trial on a man but He gives Him grace to overcome it.

JHN, from the sermon ‘The Calls of Grace’ (1848)

Wednesday of the fifth week of Lent

Prayers today: Lord, you rescue me from raging enemies, you lift me up above my attackers, you deliver me from violent men. (Ps 17:48-49)

Father of mercy, hear the prayers of your repentant children who call on you in love. Enlighten our minds and sanctify our hearts. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,...

(March 24) St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)
Going to confession one day was the turning point of Catherine’s life. When Catherine was born, many Italian nobles were

supporting Renaissance artists and writers. The needs of the poor and the sick were often overshadowed by a hunger for luxury and self-indulgence. Catherine’s parents were members of the nobility in Genoa. At 13 she attempted to become a nun but failed because of her age. At 16 she married Julian, a nobleman who turned out to be selfish and unfaithful. For a while she tried to numb her disappointment by a life of selfish pleasure. One day in confession she had a new sense of her own sins and how much God loved her. She reformed her life and gave good example to Julian, who soon turned from his self-cantered life of distraction. Julian’s spending, however, had ruined them financially. He and Catherine decided to live in the Pammatone, a large hospital in Genoa, and to dedicate themselves to works of charity there. After Julian’s death in 1497, Catherine took over management of the hospital. She wrote about purgatory which, she said, begins on earth for souls open to God. Life with God in heaven is a continuation and perfection of the life with God begun on earth. Exhausted by her life of self-sacrifice, she died September 15, 1510, and was canonized in 1737. Shortly before Catherine’s death she told her goddaughter: "Tomasina! Jesus in your heart! Eternity in your mind! The will of God in all your actions! But above all, love, God’s love, entire love!" (Marion A. Habig, The Franciscan Book of Saints, p. 212). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Daniel 3:14-20.91-95; (Psalm) Daniel 3; John 8:31-42

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.

How can you say that we shall be set free? Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it for ever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know you are Abraham's descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father's presence, and you do what you have heard from your father. Abraham is our father, they answered. If you were Abraham's children, said Jesus, then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does. We are not illegitimate children, they protested. The only Father we have is God himself. Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. (John 8:31-42)

Christ and his teaching It is possible to hold to the importance of Christ, while in effect discounting somewhat the practice of his teaching. In a so-called “Christian country” where the Christian religion is the one accepted by the majority of the population, there is little open opposition to the person of Jesus Christ. To begin with, open opposition would immediately draw the fire of convinced Christians. While this does not eliminate the formal expression of anti-Christian opinion (in the way anti-Islamic opinion

would be eliminated in a Muslim country), it usually results in it being expressed respectfully. In a “Christian country” Christ is respected and most people would describe themselves as Christian. But what does this mean? It very often does not mean the acceptance of and holding to the teaching of Jesus Christ. Christ is allowed and a person may count himself a Christian. But he unhesitatingly makes up his own mind as to what teachings he holds to be those of Jesus Christ, and even dismisses those that he recognizes to be of Christ but which happen to be very inconvenient. It is one result of the modern authority of private judgment. In previous eras, cultures accepted authority easily. Now, we make up our own mind — and this approach we apply to religion. In the face of all this, let us notice how our Lord describes the Christian — which is to say, the disciple of Jesus Christ. In our Gospel passage today, our Lord says, “ If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.” So to be a Christian, it is absolutely critical that one truly hold to the teaching of Jesus Christ, and a holding to that teaching does not merely mean a vague intellectual acceptance — but a practical living of it. We cannot say that we hold to something if despite this we act in a way that is contrary to it. If we hold to the teaching of Christ, then as Cardinal Newman often pointed out, we must fear lest we be mistaken about it. But not many have this fear. They make up their own minds, with little apprehension lest they not be holding at all to the teaching of Jesus Christ. They do not care.

There are further implications of this, and our Lord draws them out in our passage today. To begin with, our Lord says that his teaching is the truth. If we hold to his teaching, we shall know the truth: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Our Lord is referring to an inner freedom of mind and heart at the very roots of our being. There are, then, two things which affect us at the foundations of our spirit: accepting the truth that comes from Christ, and refusing to accept it. The denial of Christ’s truth will ensnare us in sin, and by this denial we shall be enslaved. “They answered him, We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free? Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it for ever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” One of the great gains of modern culture and thought is its emphasis on freedom, but co-terminus with this gain is a serious loss. It is the disassociation of freedom from truth. Freedom is considered to be the freedom to do what one likes, whereas true freedom is the capacity to do what is right — which is to say what is in accord with the truth. It takes a great deal of inner and spiritual freedom to do what is right, especially when there are great internal and external pressures to do what is wrong. For example, one’s long-standing memories may constitute a great pressure to be unforgiving. It could be extremely difficult to forgive if we remain in our memories. It takes a great deal of inner freedom to forgive when such memories crowd in upon the imagination. Our Lord tells us that truly holding to his teaching is the way forward to the truth and to freedom. This applies to hatred, bitterness, to lust, to sloth and to all the capital sins leading man to slavery and to death. If we wish to be free, we must hold to the truth of Jesus Christ, which is, as our Lord insists, what is involved in truly being his disciple.

Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is the touchstone of true religion and of a true relationship with God. Our Lord tells those who claim to have God for their Father while rejecting him, that “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me” (John 8: 31-42). This is very serious for the person who actually rejects Christ’s teaching, therefore rejecting Christ himself. It is something that each Christian must bring to the secular world of his everyday life.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Saint Luke the Evangelist tells us that Jesus prayed... What must his prayer have been like!

Contemplate this fact slowly: the disciples had the opportunity of talking to Jesus and in their conversations with him the Lord taught them by his words, and deeds, how they should pray. And he taught them this amazing truth of God’s mercy: that we are God’s children and that we can address Him as a child addresses his Father.
(The Forge, no.71)

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What a day will that be when I am thoroughly cleansed from all impurity and sin, and am fit to draw near to my Incarnate God in His palace of light above!

JHN, from Meditations and Devotions (1893)

Solemnity of The Annunciation of the Lord (March 25)

Prayers today: As Christ came into the world, he said: Behold! I have come to do your will, O God. (Heb l0:5, 7)

God our Father, your Word became man and was born of the Virgin Mary. May we become more like Jesus Christ, whom we acknowledge as our redeemer, God and man. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
or
Almighty Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you have revealed the beauty of your power by exalting the lowly virgin of Nazareth and making her the mother of our Saviour. May the prayers of this woman bring Jesus to the waiting world and fill the void of incompletion with the presence of her child, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

(March 25) The Annunciation of the Lord
The feast of the Annunciation goes back to the fourth or fifth century. Its central focus is the Incarnation: God has become one of us. From all eternity God had decided that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity should become human. Now, as Luke

1:26-38 tells us, the decision is being realized. The God-Man embraces all humanity, indeed all creation, to bring it to God in one great act of love. Because human beings have rejected God, Jesus will accept a life of suffering and an agonizing death: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Mary has an important role to play in God’s plan. From all eternity God destined her to be the mother of Jesus and closely related to him in the creation and redemption of the world. We could say that God’s decrees of creation and redemption are joined in the decree of Incarnation. Because Mary is God’s instrument in the Incarnation, she has a role to play with Jesus in creation and redemption. It is a God-given role. It is God’s grace from beginning to end. Mary becomes the eminent figure she is only by God’s grace. She is the empty space where God could act. Everything she is she owes to the Trinity. She is the virgin-mother who fulfils Isaiah 7:14 in a way that Isaiah could not have imagined. She is united with her son in carrying out the will of God (Psalm 40:8-9; Hebrews 10:7-9; Luke 1:38). Together with Jesus, the privileged and graced Mary is the link between heaven and earth. She is the human being who best, after Jesus, exemplifies the possibilities of human existence. She received into her lowliness the infinite love of God. She shows how an ordinary human being can reflect God in the ordinary circumstances of life. She exemplifies what the Church and every member of the Church is meant to become. She is the ultimate product of the creative and redemptive power of God. She manifests what the Incarnation is meant to accomplish for all of us. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Isaiah 7:10-14. 8:10; Psalm 39; Hebrews 10:4-10; Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, Hail, you who are full of grace! The Lord is with

you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; his kingdom will never end. How will this be, Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin? The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God. I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered. May it be to me as you have said. Then the angel left her. (Luke 1:26-38)

Son and Mother It is clear that in this pivotal event of the Gospel of St Luke, there are two protagonists whom the angel Gabriel sets forth for our contemplation. We are first drawn to consider “the virgin whose name was Mary.” It is to be noted that in the Scriptures no emissary from heaven had ever addressed a person with such honour and praise. For instance, this same chapter of St Luke opens with a description of Elizabeth and Zachary. They “were both righteous before God, walking

blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord” (1:6). They were excellent children of Israel. Notice how the angel Gabriel addresses Zachary. He exhorts him not to fear, and promises a child. The tone of the angel is one of command, and there is no special praise for his faithful life. But when the angel speaks to Mary, be begins with fulsome respect for her life of grace and union with God. “You who are full of grace,” he entitles her. “The Lord is with you.” These are absolute statements and do not have qualifications. In this, Mary stands out in the entire sweep of the Scriptures both Old and New. The Church teaches that, as one full of grace she herself had been conceived immaculate. She was preserved free from original sin from the first instant of her conception, thanks to the grace of God and in anticipation of the merits of Jesus Christ. Full of grace, she was kept free from every personal sin her whole life long. She is declared by the angel to have found favour with God and by divine choice is to be mother of the promised Messiah, whose prerogatives will be even greater than those predicted. She then conceived the eternal Son in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit without the cooperation of man. She is truly the Mother of God because she is truly the Mother of Christ. He who is her Son is the eternal Son of the Father. She is the absolutely obedient servant of God. Having clarified her position and what God intended, she consented. “Be it done to me according to your word.” So it is that through the ages the Church has maintained this praise begun by the angel.

So we, disciples of Christ, also sing, “Hail Mary! Full of grace. The Lord is with you!” But of course, Mary’s greatness before God reflects, and is due to, her Son. And so the angel proceeds to announce to the holy maid before him the wonder of her future Son. In hearing his words, we bow down in spirit before the divine Person about to be made flesh in the womb of the holy virgin. We contemplate him in spirit as we hear the sonorous words from heaven describing him who is soon to come. He is the Son of the Most High, the Son of God. He is the Messiah, and eternally so. “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; his kingdom will never end.” Mary’s son will be the Christ and the Son of the living God, no less. Further, the angel speaks to Mary of the Most High, of the Son of the Most High, and of the Holy Spirit who will bring about the Incarnation. So we have in the words of the angel an annunciation — as far as it went — of the mystery of the Incarnation and the mystery of the Holy Trinity. It was the first proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was received totally and in absolute obedience. The Son of God became incarnate in order to reconcile us sinners with God, to have us learn of God’s infinite love, to be our model of holiness and to make us partakers of the divine nature. All these blessings have their foundation in the Incarnation, in the wonderful union of the divine and human natures in the one divine Person of the Word. The Word who was with God in the beginning became flesh and dwelt among us. His glory was seen. In seeing, hearing and touching the man Jesus Christ, men made direct physical contact with God. Faith in the Incarnation is a distinctive sign of the Christian faith, and the refusal to believe this is the distinctive sign of the non-Christian. The son of Mary is true God and true man in the unity of his divine Person, our God and our brother. He saved us from our sins by his death and resurrection, and he abides constantly with us in his body, the Church.

The feast of the Annunciation is a central feast day in the Church’s Liturgical Year. On this day we think of the words of the angel to and about the Virgin Mary, and about her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our one and only Redeemer. In seeing him, we see the Father, for he is the image of the unseen God. He is the only way to the Father, and the only name by which men may be saved. By his side stands his sinless Mother who has been given to us by him as our mother in the order of grace. She is our mother and our model in the Christian life. She is the Help of Christians enabling us to follow with love and devotion in the footsteps of her Son.
(E.J.Tyler)

Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.456-503

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When you start out each day to work by Christ’s side and to look after all those souls who seek him, remember that there is only one way of doing it: we must turn to the Lord.

—Only in prayer, and through prayer, do we learn to serve others!
(The Forge, no.72)

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Doubtless it is no sin to feel at times passionately on the subject of religion; it is natural in some men, and under certain circumstances it is praiseworthy in others. But these are accidents. As a general rule, the more religious men become, the calmer they become; and at all times the religious principle, viewed by itself, is calm, sober, and deliberate.

JHN, from the sermon ‘Religious Emotion’ (1831)

Friday of the fifth week in Lent C

Prayers today: Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in distress; rescue me from the hands of my enemies. Lord, keep me from shame, for I have called to you. (Ps 30:10, 16, 18)

Lord, grant us your forgiveness, and set us free from our enslavement to sin. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,...

(March 26) Blessed Didacus of Cadiz (d. 1801)
Born in Cadiz, Spain, and christened Joseph Francis, the youth spent much of his free time around the Capuchin friars and their

church. But his desire to enter the Franciscan Order was delayed because of the difficulty he had with his studies. Finally he was admitted to the novitiate of the Capuchins in Seville as Brother Didacus. He later was ordained a priest and sent out to preach. His gift of preaching was soon evident. He journeyed tirelessly through the territory of Andalusia of Spain, speaking in small towns and crowded cities. His words were able to touch the minds and hearts of young and old, rich and poor, students and professors. His work in the confessional completed the conversions his words began. This unlearned man was called "the apostle of the Holy Trinity" because of his devotion to the Trinity and the ease with which he preached about this sublime mystery. One day a child gave away his secret, crying out: "Mother, mother, see the dove resting on the shoulder of Father Didacus! I could preach like that too if a dove told me all that I should say." Didacus was that close to God, spending nights in prayer and preparing for his sermons by severe penances. His reply to those who criticized him: "My sins and the sins of the people compel me to do it. Those who have been charged with the conversions of sinners must remember that the Lord has imposed on them the sins of all their clients." It is said that sometimes when he preached on the love of God he would be elevated above the pulpit. Crowds in village and town squares were entranced by his words and would attempt to tear off pieces of his habit as he passed by. He died in 1801 at age 58, a holy and revered man. He was beatified in 1894. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 17; John 10:31-42

The Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me? We are not stoning you for any of these, replied the Jews, but for blasphemy, because you, a

man, claim to be God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods', to whom the word of God came — and the Scripture cannot be broken — what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father. Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp. Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptising in the early days. Here he stayed and many people came to him. They said, Though John never performed a miraculous sign, all that John said about this man was true. And in that place many believed in Jesus. (John 10:31-42)

Christ is God One of the most fascinating movements within Anglican history was the Oxford Movement, which had its origins in the late 1820s at Oxford University, and formally beginning in 1833. Its principal purpose was the restoration in Anglicanism of orthodox Christian belief and of the authority of the Church. In the late 1820s — before the Movement formally began — there arrived at Oxford University a man by the name of Joseph Blanco White, and Newman and he became fast friends. Blanco White

was a Spaniard by birth, and had been ordained a Catholic priest in Spain. He had gradually abandoned the Catholic Faith and fled to England during the Napoleonic war in Spain. By the time of his arrival in England he was virtually an atheist, but he came to embrace the Anglican Faith and was ordained an Anglican clergyman. He arrived in Oxford after many years in England and was granted a degree by the University for his publications attacking the Catholic religion. During the years 1827 to about 1830 Newman and he were close friends at the University, although soon differences in religious belief began to be evident. My point in mentioning Blanco White is that he illustrates the centrality of the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ. He gradually came to look on Jesus Christ as no more than an eminent religious man, an outstanding leader of religion. He ended his days a Unitarian, and his lengthy posthumous biography was edited and published by the Unitarian minister, John Hamilton Thom. In it the story of his journey from Catholic belief to Unitarianism, which denies the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, is traced. Newman saw Blanco White’s life as a tragedy of the loss of orthodox Christian belief. At its heart was the loss of belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Newman himself went on to be England’s outstanding intellectual champion of credal Christianity, at the heart of which is the divinity of Jesus Christ.

One of the distinguishing features of the Gospel of St John is its presentation of the divinity of Jesus Christ and of the claims of Jesus Christ to be divine. I suspect that one of the purposes of John’s writing of his Gospel was to give a more fulsome emphasis to this central doctrine as present in the other three (synoptic) Gospels. There are two defining features of the Christian religion that mark it off from Judaism. The first is that Jesus is the promised Messiah, and the second is far more notable: that Jesus the Messiah is the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. If a Christian begins to doubt this — as did Blanco White — he is on the path to the abandonment of Christianity. That Jesus Christ claimed to be the Son of God is manifest in the Gospel of St John, and our passage today (John 10: 31-42) is one of the several that could be cited to show this. We read that “The Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me? We are not stoning you for any of these, replied the Jews, but for blasphemy, because you, a man, claim to be God.” One of the distinctive features of the religion of the Hebrews was the prophetic tradition. It was a religion of prophets. Several had been called by God to speak on his behalf, and they claimed to be prophets. They knew they had been called by God to speak his word to the people, and they denounced false prophets in the process. Our Lord in his preaching referred often to the prophets before him — and to the false prophets, too. When our Lord appeared on the scene — after receiving the formal backing of John the Baptist — he was counted a prophet by the people. A great prophet has risen among us, they said, even one of the old prophets brought back to life. But Jesus Christ did not claim to be just one more prophet. His claim was utterly unique. He claimed to be God’s very own Son. This was meant in a special sense, and the leaders understood it immediately. He was God’s Son in the sense that he was divine. He was equal to God. It was for this that he died.

Let us never get used to the thought that the man Jesus Christ is God. The Christian religion is therefore like no other. Who is God? God is Jesus Christ — and he is the Father, and he is the Holy Spirit. So we adore and love Jesus Christ as the centre and heart of man’s religion. For this reason the vocation of man is to know, love and serve Jesus Christ with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and in him to love and serve our neighbour. This is what the Christian religion entails. Let us then strive every day to be true Christians!

(E.J.Tyler)

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Remember that prayer does not consist in making pretty speeches, or high—sounding or consoling phrases.

Prayer, at times, will be a glance at a picture of Our Lord or of his Mother; sometimes a petition, expressed in words; or offering

good works, and the fruits of faithfulness…

We have to be like a guard on sentry duty at the gate of God Our Lord: that’s what prayer is. Or like a small dog that lies down at its master’s feet.

—Do not mind telling him: Lord, here I am, like a faithful dog; or better still like a little donkey, which will not kick the one who loves him.
(The Forge, no.73)

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The great duty of the Gospel is love to God and man … this love is quenched and extinguished by self-indulgence, and cherished by self-denial.

JHN, from the sermon ‘Apostolic Abstinence a Pattern for Christians’ (1841)

Saturday of the fifth week in Lent

Prayers today: Lord, do not stay away; come quickly to help me! I am a worm and no man: men scorn me, people despise me. (Ps 21:20, 7)

God our Father, you always work to save us, and now we rejoice in the great love you give to your chosen people. Protect all who are about to become your children, and continue to bless those who are already baptized. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

(March 27) Blessed Francis Faà di Bruno (1825-1888)
Francis, the last of 12 children, was born in northern Italy into an aristocratic family. He lived at a particularly turbulent time in

history, when anti-Catholic and anti-papal sentiments were especially strong. After being trained as a military officer, Francis was spotted by King Victor Emmanuel II, who was impressed with the young man's character and learning. Invited by the king to tutor his two young sons, Francis agreed and prepared himself with additional studies. But with the role of the Church in education being a sticking point for many, the king was forced to withdraw his offer to the openly Catholic Francis and, instead, find a tutor more suitable to the secular state. Francis soon left army life behind and pursued doctoral studies in Paris in mathematics and astronomy; he also showed a special interest in religion and asceticism. Despite his commitment to the scholarly life, Francis put much of his energy into charitable activities. He founded the Society of St. Zita for maids and domestic servants, later expanding it to include unmarried mothers, among others. He helped establish hostels for the elderly and poor. He even oversaw the construction of a church in Turin that was dedicated to the memory of Italian soldiers who had lost their lives in the struggle over the unification of Italy. Wishing to broaden and deepen his commitment to the poor, Francis, then well into adulthood, studied for the priesthood. But first he had to obtain the support of Pope Pius IX to counteract the opposition to his own archbishop's difficulty with late vocations. Francis was ordained at the age of 51. As a priest, he continued his good works, sharing his inheritance as well as his energy. He established yet another hostel, this time for prostitutes. He died in Turin on March 27, 1888, and was beatified 100 years later. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Ezechiel 37:21-28; (Psalm:) Jeremiah 31;10, 11-12abcd, 13; John 11: 45-56

Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. What are we accomplishing? they asked. Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like

this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take his life. Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked one another, What do you think? Isn't he coming to the Feast at all? (John 11:45-56)

Trust in God It is interesting to notice that in the Gospel of St John we are given detailed reports of the discussions about Jesus within the meetings of the Sanhedrin, including his trial. We also know the details of the discussion between Pilate and the priests. It suggests that the author of the Gospel had some special access to the Sanhedrin and ready contacts with the members of it. Putting it all together, some scholars opine that John the Evangelist’s family — Zebedee of Galilee being John’s father — was a

priestly family. Be that as it may, in John’s account today the Sanhedrin, gathered in session, is shown as profoundly perplexed as to how to dominate the person of Jesus and his ministry. “What are we accomplishing? they asked. Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” Their fear of the action of the Romans was a pretext they hypocritically used to justify their angry discomfort. That there was no basis for this was shown in Pilate’s own lack of concern about Jesus when he was confronted by him. But then we have the words of Caiaphas, serving as high priest that year, who rises to put their confusion to an end. He purports to resolve their moral dilemma with this principle: “You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” It was utilitarianism at its worst, doing away with the prophet for the benefit of avoiding a supposed catastrophic intervention by the Romans. But then the inspired author makes the profound point that God was the Master of history, and Caiaphas, unworthy though he was, was speaking prophetically. He did not know it, but the very principle he was setting forth would be marvellously vindicated in the event. It was indeed better that Jesus Christ die for the nation and for all of God’s children everywhere and in every time. Had Christ not died for our sins, the upshot for us would be death, for the wages of sin are death.

The words of Caiaphas and John’s comment on them (John 11:45-56) are a powerful reminder of the might of God’s providence. God bestows on man his gift of freedom. He can choose good or evil, and terrible evils have been perpetrated in the world as a result of man’s free choice. Sin and crime have proliferated from the beginning, and yet the Creator of all attains his ends. Good is drawn out of evil and that good is far greater than the evil from which it was drawn. An archetypal instance of this is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it ought provide hope and inspiration for all who are burdened with the mystery of suffering and evil. If any question were justified, it would surely have been (at the time) the perennial one. Why did God allow this to happen to Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in word and deed, whom many had hoped would bring to Israel their liberation? Why did he himself allow this to happen to him, when he had shown time and again that he could elude the machinations of his enemies? But it was not to be. The prince of this world was on his way, and the net, ever encircling, suddenly entrapped the prey. Christ was apprehended, hastily condemned and put to a shocking death. There he lay, noble beyond description in his terrible death, the expression of a king on his incomparable though lifeless face. It was a sudden and terrible end and it seemed that God had been defeated. But ah! Ah, no! God was Master of history, and to Satan’s chagrin all had been according to the divine plan. It had been better for the people that the Messiah and Son die, than that the people perish. It was necessary that the Son of Man suffer and die in order to enter into his glory, and take with him all of God’s children. The supposed breakthrough offered by Caiaphas to the confused Sanhedrin was indeed mankind’s breakthrough, but in a sense transcending all that the corrupt high priest had supposed. Without the death of Christ, men would have died without any hope of eternal life. The mighty providence of God had drawn unparalleled good out of unparalleled evil.

Let us in all our difficulties and disappointments, all our perplexities at the seeming futility of life’s efforts, gaze on the figure of the Crucified One. Let us but resolve to do God’s will as it seems to present itself before us, and trust in the power and wisdom of God. He has a reason, a very good reason, for permitting whatever he does. We must do our best for what is good — as did Jesus Christ — and then trust in the providence of God. On the tomb of Mary MacKillop in Sydney is that holy woman’s advice: Trust in God! That is what we must do, in everything.
(E.J.Tyler)

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We all have to be ipse Christus — Christ himself. This is what Saint Paul commands in the name of God: Induimini Dominum Iesum Christum — put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Each one of us — you! — has to see how he puts on that clothing of which the Apostle speaks. Each one personally, has to sustain an uninterrupted dialogue with the Lord.
(The Forge, no.74)

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The day, we know, will come, when every Christian will be judged, not by what God has done for him, but by what he has done for himself: when, of all the varied blessings of Redemption, in which he was clad here, nothing will remain to him, but what he has incorporated in his own moral nature, and made part of himself.

JHN, from the University sermon ‘Evangelical Sanctity the Completion of Natural Virtue’ (1831)

Prayers this week: Six days before the solemn Passover the Lord came to Jerusalem, and children waving palm branches ran out to welcome him. They loudly praised the Lord: Hosanna in the highest. Blessed are you who have come to us so rich in love and mercy.

Almighty and ever living God, you have given the human race Jesus Christ our Saviour as a model of humility. He fulfilled your will by becoming man and giving his life on the cross. Help us to bear witness to you by following his example of suffering and make us worthy to share in his resurrection. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.

(March 28) St. Hesychius of Jerusalem (c. 450)
Not only is the name of today's saint a bit hard to pronounce and spell. It's also difficult to learn about such a modest and gentle man who lived in the fourth and fifth century and who is better known in the Russian Orthodox Church. The birth date of Hesychius (pronounced HESH-us) is unclear, but we know that he was a priest and monk who wrote a history of the Church, unfortunately lost. He also wrote about many of the burning issues of his day. These included the heresy of Nestorianism, which held that there were two separate persons in Jesus—one human, one divine—and the heresy of Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ. Some of his commentaries on the books of the Bible as well, along with meditations on the prophets and homilies on the Blessed Virgin Mary, still survive. It's believed Hesychius delivered Easter homilies in the basilica in Jerusalem thought to be the place of the crucifixion. His words on the Eucharist, written centuries ago, speak to us today: "Keep yourselves free from sin so that every day you may share in the mystic meal; by doing so our bodies become the body of Christ."
Hesychius died around the year 450. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 21; Philippians 2:6-11; Luke 22:14-23:56

Luke 19: 28-40 (The Entry into Jerusalem) After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find

a colt tied there, which no-one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it.' Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, Why are you untying the colt? They replied, The Lord needs it. They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples! I tell you, he replied, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. (Luke 19: 28-40)

The work of works There are those who consider the wars flowing from the French Revolution and the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte as being the first world war — and this was over a century prior to World War I. Ultimately it became a war between Bonaparte and his principal enemy, the British. Napoleon came to see that because of the mastery of the sea by the British, it would be impossible for him to invade England. So he launched into a continental blockade which attempted to destroy Britain’s

ability to trade. The whole of the European continent, including even Russia, was to be shut off from English goods. It involved immense effort, was never fully implemented, went on for nearly eight years, and broke down at the seams. It was a tremendous project involving enormous effort internationally. For instance, England’s response to it seriously affected its relations with the United States. On the other hand, the blockade facilitated Wellington’s entry into Europe via the rebellious Spanish Peninsular, and this contributed greatly to Bonaparte’s final defeat. Ultimately it caused more harm to the Grand Empire than to England. I mention this as one example of so many spectacular projects in the history of mankind. Kingdoms and rulers have risen and fallen; lives have been lost; blood, sweat and tears have been expended, and one might be forgiven for wondering, all to what avail. George Bernard Shaw once publicly joked that it would have been better for mankind if Napoleon had never been born. Let that be the backdrop, and let the scene of history now change to the one portrayed in our Gospel passage today. It occurred on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, at the gates of Jerusalem. A man was proceeding on a colt, humbly, with no pretensions in his regal face. He was no ruler, no holder of great power. There he slowly rode with crowds surrounding him, front and behind. They were acclaiming him as the Messiah who had come. A man in his prime, his face exuded holiness and an indefinable dignity. His eyes gazed ahead of him to the holy city which would be the scene of a unique drama affecting all of history to come.

Let us imagine all the projects of the world and the efforts that they have required of man — and I referred to but one of them earlier. What would any of these, or all of them together, amount to when compared with the project which this Man now entering Jerusalem had set himself? He had set himself the task, and had been sent from above for the purpose, of making up for the sin of the world. He was about to bare his shoulders to suffer for all the sins of mankind. Can anyone think of a more mammoth task? Consider the sins of one solitary individual, even an unusual individual blessed with never having committed a mortal sin of either thought, word or deed. Consider his numerous, nay countless, venial offences against God. Even if all of mankind were never to have committed a mortal sin, consider the unending sea of venial sins perpetrated daily by mankind, sins of the heart, sins of the mind, sins of the tongue, sins of deed. Imagine being burdened with the venial sins of all mankind. But in fact we must imagine the sin of the world as involving mortal sin indeed. From the very dawn of history mortal sin has appeared on the scene, dark, hateful, rebellious, deadly. Our first parents sinned mortally, wishing to be gods in independence of the one God. If you eat of this tree you will be like God, knowing (i.e., determining for yourself) good and evil. That was the temptation, and they chose it. It reflected the sin of the demons in heaven long before. Ever since the terrible beginning at the dawn of history, sin has abounded in the world, and it has been deadly sin as well as venial sin. The problem of the world has been sin. Sin entered the world through one man and with sin came death, and death has spread to the whole human race. The problem the Messiah had been sent to fix was man’s separation from God. There he was, now entering Jerusalem, and by the end of that week the work would be done. It was achieved not by armies, not by trumpets, not by the fanfare of the great, but by his own absolute obedience amid unparalleled personal suffering.

The greatest thing ever done for man and the world was done by Jesus Christ. It entailed simple steps: witnessing to the truth of his person and teaching, and accepting the will of his heavenly Father that he suffer indescribably for the sin of the world as a result. He carried his cross from Pilate’s building across to the raised rock outside the city and there was crucified. It was an occurrence that veiled a profound cosmic shift, a shift from bondage to sin to a share in the life of God. If we, nobodies though we might be, follow in the footsteps of Jesus, then we shall also contribute mightily to the good of man. Let us get our priorities right, then! Ah yes, to the work!

(E.J.Tyler)

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A second reflection for Palm Sunday:

"As he was approaching the downward slope of the Mount of Olives, the whole group of disciples joyfully began to praise God at the top of their voices for all the miracles they had seen". (Luke 19:28-40)

I remember watching a television interview with a prominent Australian philosopher who was asked if he believed in God. He said he did not because of all the evil and suffering there is in the world. If there were a God, he said, he would have arranged things differently. It was not clear whether the philosopher (Peter Singer) was asking for a world free of evil and suffering, but the good news is that God has sent his Son to deal with evil and suffering, and by uniting ourselves with Jesus, we too deal with it — in God’s way — in our own lives.

On Palm Sunday we celebrate our Lord entering Jerusalem for the holiest week of his life, the week during which he would deal definitively with suffering and sin. He dealt with sin by accepting — indeed embracing — and then bearing to the end the suffering which came to him as a result of his witnessing to the truth. Our Lord dreaded his hour of suffering, and in the Garden he sweated blood at the prospect. But at the same time he looked to it with longing, setting his face towards it like flint. He advanced towards it with firm decision because he intended to give it its new meaning. By means of his suffering he would take away the sin of the world. In the first reading we read of the suffering Servant of Yahweh, the harbinger of Christ in meekly submitting to the violence inflicted upon him. St Paul writes that God made the sinless Christ to be sin, as it were, in order to take away our sins.

There is another aspect of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. He entered Jerusalem to bear witness to the truth about his own person before the leaders of the Jews and before Pilate, which is to say before the chosen people and before the world. Before the chief priests he testified that he was the Son of the Most High, that he would be seated at his right hand, and therefore that he was equal to God. Before Pilate he said that he was born to bear witness to the truth, and in his passion he bore witness to this truth. We are called to share in his work of bearing witness to the truth about Jesus. The word martyr means witness, and martyrs are referred to as receiving the palm of martyrdom. On Palm Sunday we all receive palms above all to symbolize our resolve to bear witness to our faith in Jesus our king. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Let us resolve to bear witness to Jesus every day in every aspect of our lives, in all our thoughts, words, joys and sufferings. For if we are not ashamed of bearing witness to Jesus here on earth he will bear witness to us before our Father in heaven. Christ has shown that the suffering in the world is now the path to glory. Let us take that path.

Christ humbled himself to share our nature even to death, and because of his obedience God raised him on high. If we unite our sufferings with those of Christ in a spirit of obedience and in witness to him who is the truth, those sufferings will lead us to glory. They will sanctify us. This is the grace to seek this week and today, uniting ourselves in spirit with Jesus as he enters Jerusalem to suffer for us.
(E.J.Tyler)

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A third reflection on Palm Sunday

Scripture today: Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 21; Philippians 2:6-11; Luke 22:14-23:56

"As he was approaching the downward slope of the Mount of Olives, the whole group of disciples joyfully began to praise God at the top of their voices for all the miracles they had seen". (Luke 19:28-40)

Today we think of our Lord entering Jerusalem to undergo unimaginable sufferings for the salvation of the world. Due to our Lord’s sufferings, human suffering has a purpose, and we must recover this sense of purpose. Suffering takes many forms. For instance, it can take the form of failure. If one were to ask, from a worldly point of view, whether Christ at the time of his death

was a success or a failure, what would some have said? They would have said — especially the religious leaders would — that he was a failure. The people en masse did not really believe in him, and in fact the leaders killed him. His own closest associates ran away. In fact, if there is one person in history who presents the problem of evil and suffering, it is Jesus Christ. The ancient Greeks were fatalists. Even their gods were depicted as being in the hands of fate. In our day what is the reaction to suffering? It is to do anything, anything, even the grossest evil, to avoid it. We even kill the unborn to avoid suffering. I suppose there are two main reasons why an abortion is proposed. One is the difficulty and great inconvenience entailed in the pregnancy, birth and upbringing of the child. A second reason is often that, due to scientific techniques, it is discovered that the child will have serious disabilities. The child, it is said, would have no quality of life and the quality of life for the mother too will be seriously impaired. There will be too much suffering and inconvenience. Suffering is deemed to have no purpose, and the response to it is to do anything to avoid it, even to put an end to the life in question.

Once on the ABC TV 7.30 Report, presenter Kerry O’Brien interviewed the scientist who many years ago discovered DNA, the genetic material that determines the character traits and constitution of the unborn child. Because of this discovery all sorts of genetic information is now available, enabling the parents to know what will be the physical health and constitution of the child. With this knowledge many decide to abort children who have very serious disabilities. The scientist who discovered DNA unambiguously stated that the unborn child has no rights as such, and that if it is discovered that the child will have serious disabilities, it is up to the parent to decide whether the child should live or not. That was his response to suffering. Suffering has no purpose at all. Immediately after that segment, Kerry O’Brien introduced another segment which showed a seriously disabled woman in her wheelchair. She was shown deriving great joy from her painting. Then it was explained that her disease progressively makes her a complete prisoner in her own body, and will probably eventually kill her. But she radiated happiness and joy. Moreover, she had formed a group of young women friends who had established a foundation to raise funds for research into the disease she was suffering from. They had already raised $200,000 for this purpose, and had brought out a scientist to Australia to begin the research. One of the group explained that even if this woman dies from the disease without the cure, the research will go on. But most impressive of all was the happiness, the vitality and the joy of this disabled woman. Significantly, she said that she was convinced that her disability was given to her for a reason. Her suffering had and would have a purpose.

That woman was living proof from her joyful attitude that life was indeed worth living despite her deadly disability. Further, she was establishing a foundation to find a cure for the disability from which she herself was suffering. She was bringing quality of life to others. When the cross comes, we must resolve to believe that all is in the hands of God and that he is allowing this, or even sending it, as a sign of his love. We must try to thank him for the good things as well as the bad, knowing that he gives and he takes away for our best interests. We must trust him, and unite ourselves to the Cross of Christ, asking Jesus to use our sufferings just as the Father used his to redeem the world.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Your prayer cannot stop at mere words. It has to lead to deeds and practical consequences.
(The Forge, no.75)

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O my God and Saviour, who went through such sufferings for me with such lively consciousness … such recollection, and such fortitude, enable me, by Thy help, if I am brought into the power of this terrible trial, bodily pain, enable me to bear it with some portion of Thy calmness.

JHN, from Meditations and Devotions (1893)

Monday of Holy Week C

Prayers today: Defend me, Lord, from all my foes: take up your arms and come swiftly to my aid for you have the power to save me. (Ps 34:1-2; 139: 8)

All-powerful God, by the suffering and death of your Son, strengthen and protect us in our weakness. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

(March 29) Blessed Ludovico of Casoria (1814-1885)
Born in Casoria (near Naples), Arcangelo Palmentieri was a cabinet-maker before entering the Friars Minor in 1832, taking the name Ludovico. After his ordination five years later, he taught chemistry, physics and mathematics to younger members of his province for several years. In 1847 he had a mystical experience which he later described as a cleansing. After that he dedicated his life to the poor and the infirm, establishing a dispensary for the poor, two schools for African children, an institute for the children of nobility, as well as an institution for orphans, the deaf and the speechless, and other institutes for the blind, elderly and for travellers. In addition to an infirmary for friars of his province, he began charitable institutes in Naples, Florence and Assisi. He once said, "Christ’s love has wounded my heart." This love prompted him to great acts of charity. To help continue these works of mercy, in 1859 he established the Gray Brothers, a religious community composed of men who formerly belonged to the Secular Franciscan Order. Three years later he founded the Gray Sisters of St. Elizabeth for the same purpose. Toward the beginning of his final, nine-year illness, Ludovico wrote a spiritual testament which described faith as "light in the darkness, help in sickness, blessing in tribulations, paradise in the crucifixion and life amid death." The local work for his beatification began within five months of Ludovico’s death. He was beatified in 1993. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Isaiah 42:1-7; Psalm 26; John 12:1-11

Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honour. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary

took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. Leave her alone, Jesus replied. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him. (John 12:1-11)

True Religion Before he fled Tibet for India, the young Dalai Lama met Mao Tse Tung in Beijing. Mao in due course told him plainly that he had no belief in religion and that religion was a nonsense. Mao had embraced atheistic Marxism, which had come out of the West. He had no time for religion — like his counterparts in Russia at the time. Religion was a wholly negative phenomenon and harmful to the true interests of man, those interests being material. Man’s true home was here in this life, and

religion took man’s eyes right off the ball to a pie in the sky, an opiate that took away his incentive to better his conditions of life. However, that is not the only attitude to religion on the part of those who are not religious as such. There are irreligious governments that recognize the benefits of religion for society. As far as they are concerned, religion keeps the people law-abiding and submissive, and it fosters charitable works. When Napoleon Bonaparte, having gained absolute power in France after the decade or more of chaos following the outbreak of the Revolution, decided to restore the Old Religion, he did it for very practical purposes. He established a concordat with the Holy See (which he soon disregarded) in order to regulate French life. He wanted an orderly and contented nation. He himself was a man of the Enlightenment and saw the religion of the Church as useful to himself and to the state. So he re-established it to a degree, and channelled its activities to suit his purposes. Now, his attitude is very typical of much of Western secular culture. The West does not suppress religion, of course, for it prizes democracy. It supports and defends religion as one of the rights of man, and as being beneficial to man. As far as secular man is concerned, at root religion is useful. So it is that if it is known that in, say, Communist China, religion is strictly controlled and even suppressed, the West does not become too convulsed because religion is considered to be, at most, useful.

In our Gospel today a beautiful action was taken, which in the mind of Judas Iscariot, was not very useful. We read that in the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus a dinner was given in honour of our Lord, following his raising of Lazarus from the dead. “Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” Imagine the scene. There is another scene in the Gospels of our Lord visiting the home of Martha and Mary. Martha is doing the serving, and Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to his word. It is a wondrous thought that God made man was seated in that home, and that Mary was seated before him absorbed in his words. She was before the living God, gazing on him, listening to him as he spoke to her. In its way, it is thrilling. Here in our Gospel scene today, Martha is again doing the serving — she who professed such a magnificent faith in our Lord just before he raised her brother so spectacularly from the dead — and Mary is once again at the feet of Jesus. This time she brings not just herself, but “a pint of pure nard.” Perhaps this was kept as the oil of burial for all three of them, Martha, Mary and Lazarus, and even others of the wider family besides — we cannot tell. Its great value is indicated by the grudging words of Judas whose heart was clearly leaving Jesus Christ. It was worth the best part of a year’s salary, and was about to be poured out in one moment. Let us imagine Mary quickly entering with her container, and full of love and veneration she stood at the feet of Jesus as he reclined at the feast. We may presume that Martha and Lazarus were aware of what she was about to do and fully concurred. As she poured out the precious nard and wiped our Lord’s feet with her hair, the whole house was filled with the action. It was a magnificent gesture of worship, and an image of true religion. Religion is not just a matter of utility. Religion is the offering to God of our love and adoration. Her gesture was solemnly approved by Christ.

Let us understand that the highest thing we can do in life is the kind of thing that Mary did on this occasion. Every day on rising, let us immediately offer our whole selves to God and Christ, and make the rest of the day like the pure nard that Mary poured out on the feet of Jesus Christ. As she poured and then wiped his feet with her hair, so by the offering of our minds and hearts, we direct the prayers, works, joys and sufferings of each day to God. All of this is caught up in Christ every time we participate in Mass. Let us make true religion the heart and soul of our life.
(E.J.Tyler)

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To pray is the way to keep all the evils we suffer in check.
(The Forge, no.76)

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O my Lord and Saviour, in Thy arms I am safe; keep me and I have nothing to fear; give me up and I have nothing to hope for. I know not what will come upon me before I die. I know nothing about the future, but I rely upon Thee.

JHN, from Meditations and Devotions (1893)

Tuesday in Holy Week C

Prayers today: False witnesses have stood up against me, and my enemies threaten violence; Lord, do not surrender me into their power! (Ps 26:12)

Father, may we receive your forgiveness and mercy as we celebrate the passion and death of the Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

(March 30) St. Peter Regalado (1390-1456)
Peter lived at a very busy time. The Great Western Schism (1378-1417) was settled at the Council of Constance (1414-1418). France and England were fighting the Hundred Years’ War, and in 1453 the Byzantine Empire was completely wiped out by the loss of Constantinople to the Turks. At Peter’s death the age of printing had just begun in Germany, and Columbus's arrival in the New World was less than 40 years away. Peter came from a wealthy and pious family in Valladolid, Spain. At the age of 13, he was allowed to enter the Conventual Franciscans. Shortly after his ordination, he was made superior of the friary in Aguilar. He became part of a group of friars who wanted to lead a life of greater poverty and penance. In 1442 he was appointed head of all the Spanish Franciscans in his reform group. Peter led the friars by his example. A special love of the poor and the sick characterized Peter. Miraculous stories are told about his charity to the poor. For example, the bread never seemed to run out as long as Peter had hungry people to feed. Throughout most of his life, Peter went hungry; he lived only on bread and water. Immediately after his death on March 31, 1456, his grave became a place of pilgrimage. Peter was canonized in 1746. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm 70; John 13:21-33.36-38

After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me. His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, Ask him which one he means. Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him,

Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish. Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. What you are about to do, do quickly, Jesus told him, but no-one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Feast, or to give something to the poor. As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night. When he was gone, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. Simon Peter asked him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus replied, Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later. Peter asked, Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. Then Jesus answered, Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times! (John 13:21-33.36-38)

The gaze of Christ On March 15 (the Ides of March), 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by some Roman senators, including Marcus Junius Brutus, Caesar's close friend. Caesar's last words are not known with certainty. Those most famously attributed to him are “Et tu, Brute?”, placed in his mouth by Shakespeare in his drama, Julius Caesar. Some understand Caesar’s final words as expressing shock at his betrayal, others see in them a curse and a threat. In any case, the great Caesar knew nothing of the

conspiracy and, surprised at the last, went to his death at the hand of a friend. The words, “Et tu, Brute?” have come to signify betrayal by a friend. A little less than seventy years after Caesar, there was a far more heinous betrayal in a corner of the Empire. In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord addressed his betrayer as his friend. “Friend,” he said to Judas, “would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” Our Lord had personally chosen Judas from among his disciples to be one of the Twelve, a patriarch of his Church, to be with him as his special companion and to be sent out with a special share in his mission. It was an extraordinary vocation to friendship with Christ, a unique choice, and Judas could have been a great saint like the rest of the Twelve. As such he would have been celebrated with his own feast day in the life of the Church till the end of time. He could have died a martyr for Christ and reigned forever with Christ in heaven. But what do we notice? In chapter six of St John’s Gospel, after our Lord made his stunning announcement of the doctrine of the Eucharist in the Synagogue of Capernaum, many of his disciples left him. Turning to the Twelve, he asked if they too were intending to go, for there was no turning back from what he had just revealed. No indeed, Simon Peter answered, for he, Jesus, had the words of life. “Have I not chosen you Twelve?” our Lord replied. “Yet one of you is a devil.” Caesar knew nothing of his betrayal, but our Lord knew his betrayer exactly.

Our Gospel today (John 13: 21-33.36-38) opens with our Lord’s expression of heartfelt disappointment, which undoubtedly was an oblique appeal to the soul of his chosen companion. “Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me.” An absorbing feature of this scene is that the entire body of disciples had not the slightest suspicion of the apostasy of the heart of Judas. They had no idea that one among them had given up on Jesus, let alone had entered into relations with his very enemies. Judas had been with them for the best part of three years, living with them, going out on missions with them, associating with our Lord freely and constantly. It must have been a community life of the first order with our Lord as its heart and soul. If there is one good way of getting to know a person, live with him. They lived with Judas, and yet over this period of constant association they suspected nothing. They would have known various of his faults just as they would have known various of the faults of one another. But nothing of seriousness was suspected. We read that when our Lord made his startling announcement, “His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, Ask him which one he means. Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, Lord, who is it?” Simon Peter had no idea, nor did John the beloved disciple. Our Lord had associated Peter, James and John with him in special ways, but nothing whatever was divulged to them. The complete disaffection by Judas was one of Christ’s most serious burdens. Judas attempted to disguise himself even from Christ. But his heart was in full view to our Lord’s loving and sorrowful gaze. Our Lord did not unmask him, nor expel him, nor take him to task. Undoubtedly by all sorts of discreet ways our Lord attempted to shield and dissuade him from the approaches of Satan. But Satan won, and at the Last Supper, entered him.

The story of Judas is, among other things, the story of a heart that became more and more sunk in serious sin, but which was constantly open to the gaze of Jesus Christ. Let us think of that divine gaze. No one, not even Satan, can plumb the depths of our hearts and see what is happening at bottom. Not even do we see to the very depths. But one assuredly does, and he is our brother and our God, Jesus Christ. He knows our heart through and through, and its very first starting points are laid bare before him. Let us ask him to give us a heart which right to the very foundation is good soil for the word of God, a heart that will produce a harvest with the aid of God’s grace. In a word, let us live before the gaze of Jesus Christ, always trying to please him.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Here is a piece of advice I shall never tire of telling souls: Love the Mother of God madly, for she is our Mother.

(The Forge, no.77)

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Holy the womb that bare Him / holy the breasts that fed / but holier still the royal heart / that in His passion bled.

JHN, from Meditations and Devotions (1893)

Wednesday of Holy Week

Prayers today: At the name of Jesus every knee must bend, in heaven, on earth and under the earth; Christ became obedient for us even to death, dying on the cross. Therefore, to the glory of God the Father: Jesus Christ is Lord. (Phil 2:10, 8, 11)

Father, in your plan of salvation your Son Jesus Christ accepted the cross and freed us from the power of the enemy. May we come to share the glory of his resurrection, for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

(March 31) St. Stephen of Mar Saba (d. 794)
A "do not disturb" sign helped today's saint find holiness and peace. Stephen of Mar Saba was the nephew of St. John Damascene, who introduced the young boy to monastic life beginning at age 10. When he reached 24, Stephen served the community in a variety of ways, including guest master. After some time he asked permission to live a hermit's life. The answer from the abbot was yes and no: Stephen could follow his preferred lifestyle during the week, but on weekends he was to offer his skills as a counsellor. Stephen placed a note on the door of his cell: "Forgive me, Fathers, in the name of the Lord, but please do not disturb me except on Saturdays and Sundays." Despite his calling to prayer and quiet, Stephen displayed uncanny skills with people and was a valued spiritual guide. His biographer and disciple wrote about Stephen: "Whatever help, spiritual or material, he was asked to give, he gave. He received and honored all with the same kindness. He possessed nothing and lacked nothing. In total poverty he possessed all things." Stephen died in 794. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Isaiah 50:4-9; Psalm 68; Matthew 26:14-25

One of the Twelve — the one called Judas Iscariot — went to the chief priests and asked, What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you? So they counted out for him thirty silver coins. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand

him over. On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover? He replied, Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, 'The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.' So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover. When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me. They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, Surely not I, Lord? Jesus replied, The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born. Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, Surely not I, Rabbi? Jesus answered, Yes, it is you. (Matthew 26:14-25)

Secret sin In their accounts of the Last Supper, each of the four Gospels narrates how our Lord sorrowfully announced that one of his own would betray him. They all agree that Judas was there in their midst during this dramatic announcement that astonished the body of the disciples. Now, there is a textual detail that suggests how memorable this was in the minds of the disciples. Our Gospel passage today is Matthew’s account of this declaration of Jesus, which occurs early in the Supper (26:20-21).

In Matthew, our Lord’s words are (in the Greek) “eis ex humon paradosei me” (one of you will betray me). In John’s account of the Supper, Christ tells the news after he has washed the feet of his disciples, which would have included Judas. The words as quoted by John (13: 21) are the same, “eis ex humon paradosei me.” In the Gospel of St Mark, which scholars generally agree is Mark’s writing of Peter’s account of the Gospel, the wording is the same: “eis ex humon paradosei me” (14:18) with the addition of “ho esthion met emou” (the one eating with me). That is to say, we have identical versions of the very words of Christ in the recollections of three of the Apostles who were at the Supper. With all three, the Greek rendering of the original Aramaic (or Hebrew) is the same. John and Peter were on either side of our Lord, and perhaps Matthew was reclining not far from them at the repast. Luke, who was not at the Supper and who reports the result of his careful enquiries, has our Lord say this: “behold, the hand of my betrayer is with me at the table” (22:21). He, not an eye-witness, differs in wording from the other three, although our Lord may have said what Luke reports as well. The point I am making here is that it looks as if our Lord’s devastating news was so memorable that the very words he used burned into the minds of those who were present. It was overwhelming and there had been no preparation for it. They had not the slightest inkling that such a thing would come to pass. The Apostles were in complete confusion, and all the while Judas kept his terrible secret. He was buried in secret, mortal sin — hidden, as he hoped, even from the knowledge of Christ.

Yes, Judas in his heart of hearts was profoundly isolated, and this is how he wanted it to be. He studiously fitted in with the others. They had no suspicion of where he stood. In our Gospel passage today from Matthew (Matthew 26: 14-25), various of the Apostles in turn asked our Lord if it were they who would betray him — presumably they meant inadvertently, or in some other inexplicable manner. Matthew reports that Judas also asked our Lord the same question — and perhaps Matthew remembered seeing Judas ask this. This fact immediately suggests that, apart from fitting in very well in the Apostolic group, even in his expressions of friendship towards our Lord Judas had seemed no different from the others. The point is that Judas was sunk in hidden sin. His descent from venial to mortal sin had been a solitary and hidden process, in which in his heart he had gradually striven to hide himself from the Saviour. We remember the first man and woman who, after they had sinned, hid from the Lord God. Judas became clouded in self-deception, thinking that what he was doing was “okay” after all. He had approached the chief priests, and perhaps his dark and terrible dealings with them gave legitimacy to his course, in his own mind. Satan was befuddling him in self-deceit and at each step, Judas deliberately chose his course. All of this was luminously clear to the all-knowing Christ. He could see the advancing tragedy of his chosen friend — his friend! He would address him as such in the Garden: Friend, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? In our passage today, Judas thinks that Christ knows nothing of the direction of his heart and of his relations with his mortal enemies. He is seated near enough to our Lord, because in John’s Gospel our Lord reaches to him, offering the gift of a morsel. Hiding himself from the gaze of Goodness itself, he asks, Surely not I, Rabbi? Our Lord whispered plainly to him that, yes, it was he indeed. The tragedy of Judas was that he was not open with our Lord. Had he only admitted to our Lord his temptations and his secret falls!

The immortal story of Judas Iscariot surely tells us that we must bring our temptations and our sins before Jesus Christ for his light, his grace, his pardon and his direction. We must develop a hatred of hidden, secret sins. We must examine our consciences, and bring all sins to the light of the divine gaze, asking Jesus our Redeemer for his grace, his light and his pardon. Judas needed the spiritual direction of Jesus Christ, and he refused it. He needed his pardon, and he refused it. He went down the path of Satan, and reached a point where all he then did was despair. Let this be the lesson of lessons. Flee all secret sin! Bring all sin before Jesus Christ!
(E.J.Tyler)

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Heroism, sanctity, daring, require a constant spiritual preparation. You can only ever give to others what you already have. And, to give God to them, you yourself need to get to know him, to live his Life, to serve him.
(The Forge, no.78)

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The long practised Christian, who, through God’s mercy, has brought God’s presence near to him, the elect of God, in whom the Blessed Spirit dwells, he does not look out of doors for the traces of God; he is moved by God dwelling in him, and needs not but act on instinct. I do not say there is any man altogether such, for this is an angelic life; but it is the state of mind to which vigorous prayer and watching tend.

JHN, from the sermon ‘The Spiritual Mind’ (1831)

Liturgical Season	Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
Second Week in Lent B/II	28 February	1	2	3	4	5	6
Third Week in Lent B/II	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
Fourth Week in Lent B/II	14	15	16	17 Solemnity of Saint Patrick	18	19 Solemnity of St Joseph	20
Fifth Week in Lent B/II	21	22	23	24	25 Annunciation of The Lord	26	27
Holy Week	28 Palm Sunday	29	30	31