March1 in Year A 11

From Eighth week in Ordinary Time to First week of Lent A-1

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Eighth week of Ordinary Time A-1			1	2	3	4	5
9th week of OT / Lent A-1	6	7	8	9 Ash Wednesday	10	11	12
First Week of Lent A-1	13	14	15

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 intention for March is: "That the nations of Latin America may walk in fidelity to the Gospel and be bountiful in social justice and peace."

His mission intention is: "That the Holy Spirit may give light and strength to the Christian communities and the faithful who are persecuted or discriminated against because of the Gospel."

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(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)

Peter said to Jesus, We have left everything to follow you! I tell you the truth, Jesus replied, no-one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields— and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. (Mark 10:28-31)

Moral but not religious? Perhaps the greatest nineteenth-century account of the history of one man’s religious opinions is that contained in Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864). The very title of his book has become a standard phrase for any man’s “Apologia.” In it Newman gives the story of his passing from an Evangelical-like beginning of religious convictions on to his eventual entry into the Catholic Church. He experienced his first religious conversion at the age of fifteen, and we read that the previous year, Fr. Ted Tyler

when he was fourteen, he read with a certain curiosity and pleasure some of the anti-Christian writings of Paine, Hume and Voltaire (Apologia, p.3). We gain a further insight into his attitude at this point from a note he wrote in his Early Journals (Book I, p.,169), on January 19, 1823. He writes, “I recollect (in 1815 I believe) thinking I should like to be virtuous, but not religious. There was something in the latter idea I did not like. Nor did I see the meaning of loving God.” I mention this as an instance of the break between morality and religion that has been so characteristic of modern Western thought. Morality is allowed as essential, while religion is an extra, and indeed often questionable. I remember years ago watching an episode of the television series entitled “Cold Warrior.” I think it was showing in the early or mid 1980s. The principal hero of the series was an accomplished espionage and crime fighter, and in one episode he was asked if he believed in God. He answered that he believed in a higher Power. It was, we might say, old-time deism dressed up in a more modern language. By such a reply one is saved from being an “atheist” while carrying no baggage of religious dogma. There is little personal religion because the “higher Power” has scarcely anything to do with one’s practical life. For that character (the Cold Warrior), the important thing was to be moral, to fight against crime and social wrongdoing, and religion as such was, well, a mere extra. Basically, this is the public position of modern culture and society. Religion is a purely private persuasion. The important thing is that each citizen conform to public morality. A “good person” need not at all be a religious person.

One of the serious problems of this position is that the scope of being “moral” or “good” is not made clear. Morality without religion almost invariably means a very restricted morality. It usually consists of that morality which is approved by society, or which the natural reason of man approves. The point of my mentioning this here is not to begin an analysis of the widespread notion that what matters is morality and not religion, rather it is to contrast it with the alternative notion of morality profoundly connected with religion. Of course, there is a sense in which religion is to be judged by the fundamental principles of morality. A religion which is manifestly immoral — which approves, for instance, suicide bombings or other immoral perversions — cannot be allowed as, in those respects, having to do with the divine. But in revealed religion, God has everything to do with morality. He demands a moral and holy life. The Ten Commandments may be regarded as a simple summary of the great principles of the natural law. If anyone is to have any part with the God of Revelation, that same God requires of him that he lead a good life. Be holy, God says in the Old Testament, for I am holy (Leviticus 11: 44). The heart of the moral life to which the God of revelation calls each man and woman is a personal love for Him as their Lord and God. The principal and abiding inspiration for the good life is a love for the all-holy God of Revelation. God sees all. He is ever-present to man and to all things. There is not a single thought, not a single word, nor a single action, which does not stand in the full light of the gaze of the all-holy One. While society sees a little of what we do or say, and while reason can deduce many elements of our duty (while being easily subject to a perverted will), God is subject to no-one, and as our Judge he observes all our thoughts, words and deeds. What greater incentive to a total morality, to a morality that reaches every nook and cranny of our inner being, could there be than this? This brings us to our Gospel today (Mark 10:28-31), in which Peter, speaking on behalf of the disciples, professes his having left all to follow Jesus Christ. The love of Jesus Christ is the heart and soul of all the Christian does — his entire moral life.

Christ totally approves of this. The man who leaves all to follow him will receive everything back in a higher and better way. That is to say, if the moral life is the path to happiness, it is truer to say that the following of Jesus Christ as the foundation of the moral life is the path to happiness. The love of Jesus Christ inspires us to seek holiness — which is to say, to seek to be like Jesus our Master. This is much more demanding and of a higher standard than ordinary morality, and we have in Christ an example and a love that will lead us on to those heights. But more important than all, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit to make it all possible. The truly good man, the truly moral man, is the one moulded in the likeness of Jesus Christ by grace and by his love.

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

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: Ecclesiasticus 36: 1-2.5-6.13-19; Psalm 78; Mark 10:32-45

The disciples were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. We are going up to Jerusalem, Shroud of Turin

he said, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. Teacher, they said, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. What do you want me to do for you? he asked. They replied, Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. You don't know what you are asking, Jesus said. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with? We can, they answered. Jesus said to them, You will drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with, 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. When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, You know that those who are regarded as 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 slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:32-45)

Love One of the most pervasive features of the universe is attraction. Setting man aside for the moment, we see “attraction” everywhere. Mere gravity is an obvious manifestation of the presence and the force of attraction that pervades even the purely physical world. Down to the tiniest elements of the atom and the neutron, there is present the force of attraction. The physical universe is held together by laws of physical and chemical attraction, and as we ascend the order of visible creation this pattern of Fr. Ted Tyler

“attraction” of one to the other grows in richness accordingly. Within species of plant, insect, fish, animal, there is the law of mutual attraction — together, of course, with a law of attack. What drives this attraction is unreflecting instinct: it has to happen. There is no choice. All are driven by the instinct of attraction — and an opposite instinct of attack. While the purpose of this pattern of “attraction” (and attack) is self-preservation, it reflects in its own way the higher activity present in the crown of visible creation, which is man. That higher activity is love. Love is nobler far than mere “attraction.” One of the greatest things in the universe, and one of the noblest things extolled in literature of all kinds, is human love. Love is not mere instinct or chemical and physical attraction for the sake of the subject itself — which is the essence of “attraction” in the orders of creation lower than man. Love takes the subject beyond himself to the other and affirms and serves the other for his own sake. It leaves the Self behind and gives itself to the other for the other’s sake. Love is the highest activity in the universe, going far beyond mere physical and instinctive attraction which pervades and preserves the world. We may say that love is the highest tip of the mountain, a tip that almost touches the heavens. It is what most approaches the life of the God beyond the clouds. In fact, true human love is the stamp of God on creation, which is the work of his hands. It is his imprint on the things he has made, the calling and the law which he has implanted in the heart of man, who is made in his image. The law of “attraction” driving the rest of creation points to and reflects the higher law of “love” which man is called to obey, and in which he finds his true happiness.

But we notice that while love takes the subject out of himself into the other, the two thus united in love do not merely rest in one another. They, united in love, go beyond themselves to some further good. In the married couple, it is the child or the children, or some other persons in need, who also become the object of the love of husband and wife — united as they are in love for one another. Indeed, precisely as given over to the love and service of some further good, does their love for one another grow deeper. The married couple, giving themselves in love to their children, grow even further in their loving union with one another. Love always takes the subject beyond himself, and when two are united in love, this loving union takes them beyond themselves to a further good, which unites them one to the other even further. I say all this as a general philosophical context for our Gospel today (Mark 10: 32-45). In our Gospel scene we contemplate the Son of God made man setting resolutely on his course towards his Passion and Death — it will be the means by which he will redeem the world. He has about him the Twelve, whom he has invited to be with him as his companions and sharers in his mission. In the first instance, they are to be his companions. They have the calling to friendship with him — to be in love with the Master. Their whole life, as will be the life of the Christian, is to consist in friendship with Jesus Christ, ardent friendship, perfect friendship. Moral perfection will consist in the perfection of their friendship with him. But this will mean being united with him in his mission for the world. Their friendship with him will take them out of themselves into the heart of Jesus Christ, and, united with him, both he and them, in union, will give themselves for the salvation of the world. He is the Saviour, they share in his saving blessings and in union with him bring those blessings to mankind. That is the calling of Christ’s Church and of every member of it. Love for Jesus Christ does not mean simply sitting down watching the face of the Master and contemplating him with love. It is indeed this, in the first instance — being his companion. But it also means being up and doing with him — for he himself is ever up and doing in order to save souls.

By our baptism we share in the life of Christ. We are called to be his companions, and to be sent out by him with a share in his redemptive mission. This we prosecute in the ordinary duties of our daily life at home and in the world. This is the love of Jesus Christ, and it is the greatest thing in the world. There is nothing more wonderful than the Christian saint. He is the exemplification of the noblest thing in our world, which is love — but it is the highest love, the love of Jesus Christ. It is this which is the tip of the mountain that pierces the clouds, and which contains the imprint of the hand of God. Let us seek the perfection of Christian love, then!

The path to glory Our Gospel of today presents us with the contrast of what our Lord was expecting and what his disciples were Fr. Ted Tyler

expecting. Our Lord was steadily making his way to Jerusalem where he would bear witness to the truth about himself and suffer unto death as a result. He instructed his disciples accordingly: “Now we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is about to be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death..” Our Lord was returning to the Father to share his glory, but he must pass through his ordeal. By contrast, the disciples were thinking just of the glory. And so James and John asked him “Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory” (Mark 10:32-45). They did not know that it was necessary to drink first the cup that Jesus had to drink. The other disciples were indignant with the two brothers because it seemed that they were seeking to gain an advantage over them in terms of glory. They, too, had no idea that it was necessary to drink first of the cup.

Let us pray for the grace to appreciate that, paradoxically, suffering is the means to glory and happiness, if we suffer in union with Christ and with his dispositions. The Old Testament book of Sirach tells us that if we aspire to serve the Lord, we must prepare ourselves for an ordeal. Our Lord is man’s Exemplar of this. Let us think all through life of the glory that is coming and which will be ours. But let us keep before us equally that the cross provides the path to this glory.

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Dear Jesus, I do want to correspond to your Love, but I am so feeble. With your grace, I will know how to.

Friday of the eighth week in Ordinary Time A-1

(March 4) St. Casimir (1458-1483)
St Casimir

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: Ecclesiasticus 44: 1.9-13; Psalm 149; Mark 11: 11-26

Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig-tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to Shroud of Turin

the tree, May no-one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard him say it. On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry things through the temple. And as he taught them, he said, Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers'. The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, they went out of the city. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig-tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, look! The fig-tree you cursed has withered! Have faith in God, Jesus answered. I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. (Mark 11: 11-26)

Reverence The Temple of Jerusalem was the spiritual heart of the nation — quite apart from its architectural renown as a religious building in the ancient world. To it went a continuous stream of pilgrims and worshippers. We read in the Gospel of St Luke that when Mary and Joseph, carrying the child Jesus, went to the Temple, they were met by Anna the prophetess who spent her days and nights in the Temple fasting and praying. The nation loved the Temple, and of course Jesus Christ loved the Temple more than Fr. Ted Tyler

anyone else. God dwelt among his chosen people, but in an altogether special way did he dwell in the Temple of Jerusalem — Christ said that it was his Father’s House. We read in our Gospel passage today that on our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, he went into the Temple — this was his first stop on entering the City. With what love did he visit the Temple of Jerusalem, and with what emotion and depth did he commune with his heavenly Father when there! How sacred an abode he knew the Temple to be, and with what disgust must he have viewed all forms of disrespect and profanation in it — and abuses crept in. There were various zones of the Temple used for different purposes. For instance, Gentiles could pray in its outer court, but were not permitted to enter. There is actually a Greek language inscription from Herod's Temple, of late 1st century BC, warning Gentiles to refrain from entering the Temple enclosure, on pain of death. Sacrificial animals were sold in the outer court as a service to pilgrims. We read in the Gospel of St Luke that Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem to present the Child Jesus to the Lord and also to offer a sacrifice of a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons. Perhaps they bought these in the outer precincts — in the Gospel accounts of Christ’s cleansing of the Temple, Jesus addresses those selling pigeons there. There was also the facility to exchange foreign coins for local currency to pay the Temple tax and other purposes.

As a matter of fact, Christ was appalled at the situation. In our Gospel passage today (Mark 11: 11-26), we read that our Lord “entered the Temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple”. This was “in” the Temple. It suggests to me that the business of buying and selling sacrificial animals and exchanging money had encroached beyond the outer courts (permitted to Gentiles) into the Temple proper. We also read that Jesus “would not allow any one to carry things through the Temple” — suggesting that “things” that related to this Temple trade were being carried “through” the Temple, or at least things that should not have been transported through the Temple anyway. In any case, the sacredness of the area was forgotten and Christ determined to put an end to it forthwith. It manifested a neglect by the Temple authorities, and perhaps a certain greed on their part, a desire that the sacrifice-purchasing and money-changing be profitable and in very good shape. Within a short space of time — let us say, twenty minutes or so, amid shouts and noise, scurrying of animals and cages, the whizz of Christ’s whip, the clattering and rolling of money and the loud thud of tables and benches being tossed asunder, the scene was transformed. Our Lord’s clear and stentorian voice electrified the scene and drove all before him. Animals, birds, money and personnel with their furniture were bundled breathless and confused out into the open air, leaving the Temple quiet. The power of Christ’s leadership was irresistible. He was brimful of love for his heavenly Father, and indignant at the honour of God being thus forgotten. St Mark has our Lord doing this at the end of his public ministry, after he enters Jerusalem for the last time — and he is presented as then teaching at length in the Temple. Perhaps his cleansing of the Temple was one of the precipitating factors leading to his final arrest. However, St John in his Gospel presents our Lord cleansing the Temple at the start of his public ministry. This could have been just John’s method of arranging the event, but it may indicate that at both the beginning and at the end of his ministry he performed this striking gesture, so full of symbolism.

Let us contemplate our Lord as Master of the Temple, just as he was Master of the Sabbath, indeed, just as he is Master of all things, seen and unseen. On rising from the dead he told his disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him. It is the will of Jesus Christ that we cultivate a profound reverence in all our prayer, including whenever we are in God’s sacred precincts. Let us enter our churches with something of the reverence of Jesus Christ, remembering the indignation which irreverence before God his Father aroused in him.

The Christ of strength Every scene of the Gospel presents us with a facet of the figure of Jesus. In our Gospel today we see Fr. Ted Tyler

Jesus in his power, Jesus in his strength. He condemns the fig tree to barrenness, as a sign of the condemnation by God of those who are unfaithful. He drives out those who were demeaning the Temple with their selling and buying, and he commands the admiration of the people by his teaching. It is proverbial that people admire and wish to see in their leaders strength. But of course they do not want to see just strength. They want to see it combined with goodness and all the other qualities that are necessary if good is to prevail. All of this we know we have in the person of Jesus to a perfect degree. Our Lord is absolutely and utterly admirable, and he lives with us now. He is ever near, to aid us always.

Let us lean on Christ the good and strong One, who by his strength is able to lead us gradually to goodness and holiness. If there is one thing the human person who is in touch with his real condition will inevitably come to appreciate, it is that he is weak. He needs the help of One who is good and strong. This One is God, and the fullness of the godhead dwells bodily in Jesus. Let us then depend on Jesus constantly.

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We can never be content with what we are doing to serve our God, just as an artist is never satisfied with the painting or statue he is working on. Everyone tells him how marvellous it is, but he thinks: “No. It isn’t quite right. I wanted it to be better.” This is how we should feel. Moreover, the Lord has given us so much. He has a right to the very best from us — and we must go at his pace.

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)

Jesus and his disciples arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. By what authority are you doing these things? they asked. And who gave you authority to do this? Jesus replied, I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John's baptism— was it from heaven, or from men? Tell me! They discussed it among themselves and said, If we say, 'From heaven', he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' But if we say, 'From men;' They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet. So they answered Jesus, We don't know. Jesus said, Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. (Mark 11: 27-33)

Life’s guide A fundamental question to be considered in life, and one that is very often neglected, is, what is my guide through life — and importantly, what should be my guide? In my everyday life, what am I relying on to find my way through life’s problems and issues? This of course raises the question of what are the important issues of life, but setting that aside for the moment, what is it that I rely on? Of course, from day to day I rely on a variety of things. To a fair extent my own private judgment is my guide. I must make a decision as to whether I ought apply for a particular job, and after taking some advice, I rely on my own best lights and apply for the job. Perhaps my reliance on my own judgment was ill-advised, but so be it — that is one of the things I rely on. I rely on the good will and judgment of those around me, and accordingly, I rely on their advice and help. I ring up to book a seat on the train, and I rely on the sense of responsibility and competence of the person making the bookings. If I get to the railway station and discover that no booking has been made and that in fact I am unable to get on the train at all because it is packed out, I have been let down in what I relied on. If I am a tourist in a foreign country, I find I have to rely on the chance meetings with this or that person in the matter of how to get to various places. If I am given ill-informed guidance, it leads to great inconvenience. Most people naturally and almost without thinking, depend on a variety of guides. But of course, life is more than going for a job, or booking a train, or finding the right way to get somewhere. There is the fundamental question of how to become the person I can and should be. There is the question of how to become good. There is the question of doing the right and moral thing — whatever this means in terms of personal convenience. There is the question of death, and of dying well. There is the question of life hereafter. These are questions of philosophy and religion. In such matters many rely on the modicum of guidance they have received over the years, without considering carefully whether it was good enough, or even correct at all. So then, what is the authority that I am depending on to guide me through life, especially in basic matters of religion?

There are many who do not care about religion, nor about what others call the ultimate questions. Their interests are immediate, or at least earthly. There are those who, when they care to think about it, dismiss the Hereafter as a figment of the imagination. This life is all that there is, and beyond it there is only the grave. Any consideration of the Hereafter is a waste of time. But this is not typical of man — what is more usual is that, while he accepts the Hereafter, he does not bother to think much of it. So the question of a guide in life that takes him through life to happiness beyond does not arise in his mind. He lives as if there is not a Hereafter, or at least as if it does not compare in substance with the present. But this is extremely shortsighted, and is exactly like the man who, in full health, knows there is a future for him, but refuses to think of it. The future will come, and it will leave him profoundly embarrassed. How much more so is it in the matter of the Hereafter. But the issue is, who or what is to be man’s guide? It comes down to two alternatives. It will come down to reliance on one’s private judgment, or reliance on the word of another. This is putting the alternatives in very simple terms, and prescinding from an inevitable degree of overlap one with the other. Of course to a point we all rely on others and to a point we rely on ourselves. To a point both are necessary, but ultimately one or the other predominates. I shall be my own guide, or I shall take another for my guide. In the last analysis, the emphasis will fall on one or the other. In this sense we can say that Man stands at a Junction, and must go forward along one path or the other. But while he stands there, a voice comes from the cloud: This is my Son, the beloved. Listen to Him! It has been revealed to us that in the final analysis we must depend on a Guide other than ourselves, and that Guide has been given to us from Heaven. It is God the Son become Man, Jesus Christ our Brother and our Saviour, the Redeemer of the world. He is our Guide and he it is who takes us securely to our homeland in heaven, the true Hereafter for man.

In our Gospel to day (Mark 11: 27-33), the “chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. By what authority are you doing these things? they asked. And who gave you authority to do this?” Jesus Christ has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. There is no authority greater than he. It is curious to note that some of the greatest philosophers and religious founders in the history of mankind have been profoundly mistaken. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He, as the disciples said to him, knows all things. No-one comes to the Father but through me, he said. Let us take him as our Guide, for with him are the words of life.

The authority of Christ In our Gospel passage today (Mark 11:27-33) the chief priests and scribes challenge our Lord’s authority for acting as he did. Cardinal Newman once wrote that authority and obedience are of the essence of religion. It is of the essence of religion that we recognise the authority of God and obey him. But what does this mean in the concrete? After he rose from the dead, our Lord said that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him. For that reason his apostles and disciples were to go and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all that he had commanded them. Obedience to Christ out of love for him is at the foundation of the Christian religion, and this obedience is to pervade our entire life. The Catholic recognises, further, that Christ entrusted to his Church his own authority to bind and to loose, and to use the keys of the kingdom. He accepts the authority of the Church as the concrete expression of the authority of Christ.

Let us then have no part with the mentality of the scribes and priests who challenged and refused Christ his authority. In the concrete, this will mean that we be docile children of the Church our Mother, who teaches in his name.

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You lack faith — and you lack love. Were it not so you would go immediately and much more often to Jesus, asking for this thing and that. Don’t delay any further; call out to him and you will hear Christ speaking to you: “What do you want me to do for you?” Just as when he stopped for that poor blind man by the roadside who kept on crying out, undeterred.

Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time A

Prayers this week: O look at me and be merciful, for I am wretched and alone. See my hardship and my poverty, and pardon all my sins. (Psalm 24:16.18)

Father, you love never fails. Hear our call. Keep us from danger and provide for all our needs. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.

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: Deut 11:18, 26-28, 32; Psalm 31:2-4, 17, 25; Rom 3:21-25, 28; Matthew 7:21-27

Jesus said to his disciples: Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. (Matthew 7:21-27)

Man the saint If we stand back from the world and human society, and gaze on it as an observer, what surely strikes us is the phenomenon of universal activity. Everything is in a state of activity and change. More particularly, each thing seems to be doing something, either reacting to something that bears down upon it, or itself acting on some other thing. The very air we breathe is an agent, as are so many other things, right down to the tiniest neutron. Man, too, is in action. If we speak of a person “doing nothing,” it Fr. Ted Tyler

is not a compliment. It does not bode well for a person who characteristically does very little. We are made to be up and doing, in some sense. We are made for work and activity — to be achieving goals and being creative. In his innermost being, man senses and feels called to work at things in life, and he will be profoundly dissatisfied if he does very little. But there is something deeper still in man’s being engaged in action, and in being called to action. It is his call to be good in his action. While man feels drawn to attain various goals by his activity, he knows that he has the moral obligation to seek good goals, and by means of good activity. Indeed, this is his fundamental calling. It is constantly required of him by his conscience. He is drawn to be good as something beautiful in itself, and he is required to be good by the obligatory dictate of his conscience. If he does what his conscience — which is to say his conscientious judgment — tells him is morally wrong, he judges himself to be morally at fault and to that extent evil. It is difficult for him to live with the awareness, imposed by his conscience, that he is evil. It leaves him fundamentally sad and fearful. He is called to be good — and if at least he is striving to be good, however limited be his success, then to that extent he will experience happiness and contentment of heart. There is this further feature of the awareness that one is obliged to seek moral goodness. While the obligation comes from within man’s heart, it does so as if from beyond it. It presents itself as the echo of the voice of an external Obliger. At the heart of man’s natural conscience is the echo of God’s call that he seek to be good.

This is the situation, looking at it from the perspective of man’s inner being. From the very law of his own nature, he is commanded to be good. That natural law — so he senses — reflects the command of One who is beyond him. He will not be happy unless he obeys that law. The great question, of course, is, what does this mean in practical detail — and this is where there can be so much confusion. The instinctive desire, rather the instinctive obligation, to be good which springs from within the depths of a man’s heart, has to be — and is — translated into concrete and particular judgements. Thus, let us say in passing, one can distinguish one action of the conscience that commands the good, and another which decides on the practical course which must embody the moral goodness being commanded. Such is man. He is called and commanded by an inner law of his nature to be good, and this has been implanted within him by God. But to this yearning of man for goodness has come an answer from Heaven. God has entered man’s situation and has revealed to him a higher calling still, which will fulfill to perfection the law of his being requiring of him a good life. Be holy, the God of Revelation commands, for I am holy. How is this holiness to be attained? Holiness is attained through a personal friendship with Jesus Christ, lived out by Christ’s own test of this friendship, which is the keeping of his commandments. If you love me, he said, you will keep my commandments. But the heart of it is a personal friendship with Jesus Christ. It is not the mere living according to a moral standard. In essence the true moral life of man, the true path to the goodness to which he is called and which is commanded of him, is a genuine friendship with Jesus Christ. This is the rock of his life, the basis referred to in our Gospel today (Matthew 7:21-27). This friendship is based (as is any true friendship) on faith in his Person and his word, but it brings with it the divine aid and a share in the divine life. This grace of God becomes the driving and transforming force empowering the Christian to live the moral life to an excellent degree. He becomes more and more transformed into the image of Jesus Christ in his mind and heart. Friendship with Jesus Christ brings with it the blessing of grace, and this is the divine engine of Christian holiness. The grace of Christ enables man to be a saint.

Natural man feels called and obliged to be good. But his fallen condition makes this extremely difficult. St Paul writes that all men are under the power of sin. God has entered the lists on man’s behalf, and has given to him the Saviour. The way is now clear, and that way is to know, love and serve Jesus the Saviour as one’s personal Friend and Master. The person who meets and comes to know and love Jesus Christ receives a higher calling which fulfils the one his own nature presents. That calling is Christian sanctity. The baptized Christian is called to be a saint in his everyday life, doing all for love of Jesus, and being moulded anew by grace. Let us turn to Jesus Christ, become his friend, and follow in his footsteps whatever be the cost.
(E.J.Tyler)

Further reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2012-2016 (Christian holiness)

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That good friend of ours wrote: “I have asked the Lord many times to forgive me my very great sins. Kissing the Crucifix, I have told him that I love him and I have thanked him for his fatherly providence during these days. I was rather surprised, as I have been years ago, when I found myself saying (I didn’t realize it until later): all the works of God are perfect. At the same time I was left with the complete certainty, without the slightest doubt, that this reply to his sinful yet loving creature came from my God. All my hope is in him. May he be blessed forever.” I hastened to reply: “The Lord always acts as the good Father he is, and gives us continual proofs of his Love. Place all your hope in him — and keep up your struggle.”

(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)

Jesus began to speak to the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders in parables. A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed. He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, 'They will respect my son.' But the tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven't you read this scripture: 'The stone the builders rejected has become the keystone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes'? Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away. (Mark 12:1-12)

Rejection Any reading of history will bring to light some of the great motives of human action. The acquisition of wealth is an obvious motive, as is the acquisition of power. It is immensely gratifying to own many material resources, and many people have made it their life’s business to own a great deal. Some have gone on to use this wealth, whether earned or inherited, in very commendable ways. Katharine Drexel was born in Philadelphia USA in 1858. She was a rich girl, and had a grand debut into society, receiving an excellent education and travelling widely. She underwent a religious conversion and went on to use her inheritance to serve the Indians and Coloureds. She is a canonized saint. Others, though, spend their lives simply accumulating wealth. Or again, there have been many persons who have aimed for, and gained, great power, and a great trail of human suffering often followed in their wake. Another object of human striving is the good opinion of others — the esteem and admiration of men. It is immensely gratifying to know that one is respected, admired, loved, acclaimed. Let us consider this for a moment. It is obvious that if a person is competent, he will be admired at least for his particular competence. If he has other gifts, he will be respected for those gifts, and if he has accomplishments to his name, respect will be accorded him for what he has done. But of course, despite a person’s abilities, gifts and achievements, recognition may be denied him for a variety of reasons. One reason may simply be the self-centeredness of others. He may get in the way of their own plans and hopes, and so despite his merits he may be opposed and even eliminated. The good person can be the object of injustice and rejection, and if this is the case, he ought try to be fairly philosophical about it — remembering that all are afflicted with sin, and this will mean that many are hurt as a result. However, a question may be raised as to whether there is any pattern in life for good persons. Allowing for exceptions, will the good person generally be recognized and accorded the respect that is his due, and is there any way of determining whether there is any such pattern?

We have an exemplar of all good persons. That exemplar is Jesus Christ. There was one Roman emperor who, I have read, had statues of the various deities and great persons, and included among them was a statue of Moses, and one of Jesus Christ. Christ was but one of many good people. I remember watching an interview with the Dalai Lama — he regarded Jesus as an instance of the Buddha, in the sense that he incorporated the spirit of the Buddha as have other great persons in history. In other words, Christ is but one way to the Father — however “the Father” might be conceived. He is but one of many prophets, as the disciples told our Lord the people thought him to be. But no. The Christian knows that he is the Prophet, the only way to the Father, the One to whom, being the Son, all mankind is to listen. He is indeed the exemplar of man, the One to whom all men are intended by God to direct their attention. He is the Good Man — indeed he is absolutely perfect as man. When Christ told his disciples that they were to seek to be perfect as their heavenly Father was perfect, they had before them the Perfect Man of history. Now, thinking of our earlier question of what pattern of recognition can be expected for the good man, we have a key in what was accorded to Jesus Christ. There never was, and never will be, anyone nearly as good a man as Jesus Christ. He was and is the all-holy God himself and he walked the earth in his humanity. He is still man, and ever shall be. The pattern in his life was that the important people attacked, reviled and persecuted him. This is the point of our Gospel parable today (Mark 12:1-12). How great a privilege it would be to meet and gaze upon Jesus Christ! It is life’s goal — eventually to gaze upon him and to be with him forever. But when he walked the earth, he was opposed and reviled. Indeed, he was put to death by those who hated him. This was the pattern of things for the Good Man of history, the all-holy One, the perfect One. If it was so for him, then it must be expected for the generality of those who are truly good, but especially for those who share in his goodness through their personal friendship with him. Jesus Christ shows that there is a mysterious correlation between holiness and being rejected.

The Christian who is truly such, the one who truly follows in the footsteps of the Master, will expect what the Master received — even though this is played out in an almost infinite variety of ways in the real life of those who love the Master. Some saints are accorded great acclaim during life — but look closely, and you will notice that they too share in surprising ways in the opprobrium endured by their Master. Other saints share in it in very obvious ways. Each authentic Christian will share in this mysterious lot, and will count it a privilege to do so. Let us then take our stand with Jesus for love of him, accepting with love all that this entails.

Love of neighbour In our passage today from the book of Tobit (1:3.2:1-8) we are introduced to a typical day in the life of the charitable Tobit. He was one of the Jewish exiles living in the pagan land to which with so many others he had been deported. He is shown carefully observing one of the feast days of the Jewish calendar. He is profoundly charitable, wanting to have a poor fellow-Jewish exile brought to share his good dinner. He is then brought news of another unfortunate Jewish exile who has just been murdered and left in the streets. He immediately rises and goes to help. What comes through in these inspired lines is that any one who truly lives the religion revealed by God is both deeply religious and deeply charitable. He loves God and loves his neighbour.

Our Lord in his teaching confirms this and raises it to a new level by pointing to himself as the fulfilment of the Law, and our model in all that God requires. We are to love one another as Jesus loves us. Our Lord gives us the Holy Spirit to make this possible. Tobit in his way is a type of Christ, Christ who is our daily model, Christ who is our life.

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O Jesus! If in spite of the poor way I have behaved, you have done for me what you have done, what would you do if I were to respond well? This truth will lead you to be generous without measure. Weep and show with sorrow and love how much it pains you, for Our Lord and his Blessed Mother deserve different treatment from you.

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 St John of God

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)

Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we? But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. Why are you trying to trap me? he asked. Bring me a denarius and let me look at it. They brought the coin, and he asked them, Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription? Caesar's, they replied. Then Jesus said to them, Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. And they were amazed at him. (Mark 12:13-17)

Christ and Caesar St John the Baptist made a point of appearing before Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee and Perea, to confront him about his immoral life. Specifically, he condemned Herod’s divorce of his first wife Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea, and his remarriage with Herodias, who had formerly been married to his brother Herod Philip I. So the Baptist tried to reclaim the ruler to subject himself to God and his law. Interestingly, we see nothing of this in the ministry of our Lord. His Fr. Ted Tyler

public ministry is much more extensive than was that of the Baptist, both in geographical scope and in range of teaching and deeds. But he never approached rulers to bring about their reform. When, during his Passion, Jesus was sent by Pontius Pilate to the court of this same Herod, he refused to speak with him. Antipas plied him with questions — he wanted to see a miracle. Christ answered him not a word. Our Lord did not deal in any special way with the civil authorities — he certainly made no attempt to bring before the Roman authorities, such as Pilate, his message of the Kingdom with which he was filling Galilee and Judea. When finally in the presence of Pilate, he spoke merely of his mission being to bear witness to the Truth. But of his being himself the Truth, he said nothing. Christ did not formally proclaim the Gospel to him. What is Truth? Pilate asked, and with that question, their conversation ended. Christ dealt courteously with civil authorities when they met. He readily agreed to go to the house of the Centurion who had asked that he come and heal his servant. The episode finished with Christ praising most highly the faith of that Centurion. But in general, Christ confined himself to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and kept somewhat aloof from civil authorities. There were various currents of anti-Roman hostility, and it was a contested point whether the Roman tax ought be paid. Many despised those who obtained jobs from the Romans, such as the tax-collectors. And so it is that in our Gospel today (Mark 12:13-17), our Lord is presented with, in the times, a tough question.

The question was, should the people pay taxes to the Romans or not? By paying, they were supporting the pagan and somewhat oppressive Romans — should they be doing this? What was this doing for the exaltation of the true God, the God of the Hebrews. The question was one of general principle. If our Lord had been asked whether this or that action or tax of the Romans ought be respected, I suspect he would have declined to answer. On one occasion a man from the crowd asked our Lord to intervene in his case — his brother had appropriated the estate, and he was getting nothing as a result. Our Lord said to him, “who appointed me arbitrator in matters such as this?” and went on then to speak about the dangers of greed. In our case today, our Lord is asked a general question of whether it is allowable to pay taxes to Caesar. His questioners, of course, simply wanted to trap him into uttering words that would create a dangerous political situation for him. But our Lord was more than equal to their cunning. Our Lord answered the question immediately and showed that both God and Caesar may and can be obeyed. “Render to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, and to God the things that are God’s.” He did not pronounce on the ultimate legality of Roman control of the Hebrew nation nor of any of the nations falling under its authority. He simply said that, inasmuch as Caesar exercised governance of the Hebrews, he has a right to levy the funds which are needed to fulfil that temporal responsibility. This was as far as he would go during his public ministry. But on rising from the dead, the situation had changed. He told his disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him. They were therefore to go to all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the holy Trinity. With that, the situation was now very different. Here we had a universal King, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and a Kingdom established on this earth which, though, was not a temporal kingdom. Moreover, his disciples were to go to the whole world and make disciples of all the nations. Our Lord said, the “whole” world and “all” the nations. This included emperors. All, high and low, were to become disciples. Rome would indeed reach the point of regarding Christ and his Church as a rival empire — to be put down. But it conquered. Many kings and emperors have become Christ’s disciples. There is Edward the Confessor in England, King Louis of France, Henry of Germany.

The whole world is called to become Christ’s disciples, and to welcome Jesus Christ into their hearts and minds. The Church has received the mission — and the Church means each one of us united to the Church — to help evangelize the world. Each lay person ought exploit their daily situation in the world to advance the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ from the highest to the lowest. The lay person has a magnificent mission, to bring Jesus Christ to the heart of the world and to every aspect of its action — right up to the ruler, indeed the Caesar and his equivalent. Let us resolve to do this for love of Jesus Christ.

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Even though at times you don’t feel like praying and you think you are only saying things with your lips, nevertheless keep up your acts of faith and hope and love. Don’t fall asleep. Otherwise, when things are going fine, an ill wind will come and it will drag you off.

Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. Teacher, they said, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her? Jesus replied, Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising— have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken! (Mark 12:18-27)

Resurrection Some people, by natural bent of mind, are inclined to religion and to the acceptance of the reality of the unseen. They tend to think of the unseen realm as being of much greater import than this visible world of our experience. An example of this, if we are to go on his own testimony, was Cardinal Newman, beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. In his Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864) he speaks of his (at times) tending as a child to imagine “all this world as a deception” (p.2). He speaks of his “childish imaginations” which tended to isolate him “from the objects which surrounded me, in confirming me in my mistrust of the reality of material phenomena, and making me rest in the thought of .... myself and my Creator” (p.4). In speaking of the intellectual influence of Joseph Butler on him, he refers to “the theory, to which I was inclined as a boy, viz. the unreality of material phenomena” (p.11). That is to say, for whatever reasons he was inclined from his early years to rest in the unseen God as being of greater import and substance than the world that is seen. This natural religious temperament placed him, obviously, at an advantage in respect to the formal embrace of religious faith. There are others — especially in the modern Western secular culture — in whom the opposite tendency prevails. They, from their earliest years, tend to rest only in the thought of this visible world. Even if their imaginations float above the hard visible facts of life, still, their thoughts and reveries remain confined to this world. They are not by mental inclination bent towards God and religion. There are others with a more serious difficulty. Anyone who is familiar with the inner life of Oxford University in the 1820s and 1830s would know of Joseph Blanco White. He was a Spanish born ex-Catholic priest who wrote works in England against the Catholic Church. In his book, The Present Position of Catholics, Newman considers Blanco White who in the late 1820s had been his friend, and shows by examining his published works that he never had joy in religion. He concludes that in respect to religion, Blanco White had “some radical defect of mind” (IV, 3).

Our intellectual bent will assist or hinder us in coming to terms with this or that truth, whatever be the order of truth to which it pertains. A case in point is the truth of the resurrection from the dead. The study of comparative religions would suggest that the belief in a hereafter of some kind is the normal belief of man. However, there is no unanimity in respect to its nature. In our Gospel today (Mark 12:18-27) the Sadducees approach our Lord with their objection to the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead. It would seem that the Sadducees took their stand on the inspiration of the Books of the Pentateuch alone — the first five books of the Bible. There was no warrant in these Books, so they thought, for a doctrine of the resurrection. Our Lord answered their difficulty by quoting from the Pentateuch — specifically, from the Book of Exodus. They understood neither the Scriptures nor the power of God, he said to them. The point here is that whatever be our particular mental temperament or intellectual bent, whatever be our assumptions and starting points, we must overcome all obstacles in the way of accepting the truth. This applies especially to the revealed truth of God. We may be inclined to religion and the things of God; we may, on the contrary, be inclined to rest only in the things we can see; we may have even deeper difficulties with any religious truth — and the sad case of Blanco White comes to mind. But whatever be our bent, we must so act and think as to be governed by the truth. We must forego our own inclinations and so adjust as to attain the truth and be subject to it. The greater the struggle against inner obstacles to the truth, the greater the merit in overcoming them. Towards the end of his life, Newman wrote that our deepest assumptions and starting points are beyond our own sight and consciousness. We must ask God to implant in us, by his grace, the right starting points, the right first principles. On the basis of these we shall be open to the truth. Our Gospel today reminds us of a great and essential truth in revealed religion. This life is not all that there is. We shall rise again in the flesh — to glory or to damnation.

We have a great prospect to look forward to every day. Father Patrick Peyton, the Irish promoter of family prayer across the world some decades ago, was once asked about death. He said that he looked forward to his death. Death was the occasion when he would be going to meet God and our Lord. The disciple of Christ longs to see the face of Jesus, and this longing will be fulfilled following on death. At our death, our soul goes to meet Christ for judgment. At the end of time we shall be reunited with our bodies, and live forever thus — risen in the flesh. Let us so live as to be judged worthy of a place in the abode prepared for us by God.

In the midst of suffering Tobit was a very good Jew, scrupulously observant of the revealed Law of God, and full of charity and justice towards his neighbour. Yet a personal catastrophe befell him. He was blinded. I have known people who have turned away from God because of painful things that have happened to them. Now, I am not sure at all that before those painful things occurred they were notably religious and notably charitable. Whatever the case may be, this turning away from God as a result of suffering and forms of evil certainly occurs. Any turning away from God can be very difficult to undo, once done. However understandable it may be, it is always a tragedy and never justified. Tobit did not do that. In her frustration, his wife poured scorn on the value of his good works, in view of his misfortunes. But Tobit did not turn away from God, though he had no explanation for what had befallen him. He was ultimately rewarded, as the book of Tobit shows.

God will reward those who trust him and who are faithful to him, whatever life may bring. We are reminded of St Thomas More who said (or words to this effect) on the way to the scaffold, I may lose my head, but I shall come to no harm.

Prayers today: Lord, you are merciful to all, and hate nothing you have created. You overlook the sins of men to bring them repentance. You are the Lord of all. (Wisdom 11: 24-25.27)

Lord, protect us in our struggle against evil. As we begin the discipline of Lent, make this season holy by our self-denial.

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 St Frances of Rome

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: Joel 2:12-18; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Take heed that you do not perform your justice before men in order to be seen by them. Otherwise you will not receive a reward from your Father who is in heaven. Therefore when you give alms do not have a trumpet sound before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets in order that they may be honoured by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing. In this way your alms may be in secret and thy Father who sees in secret will repay you. When you pray do not be like the hypocrites who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets in order that they may be seen by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and having shut the door pray to your Father in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will repay you. And when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, sad. They disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast anoint your head and wash your face in order that you will not appear to men to be fasting but only to your Father who is in secret. Your Father who sees in secret will repay you. (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18)

For God alone We read in the Gospels of how, on occasion, our Lord would spend the whole night in prayer to God, and this followed an intense day of work in his public ministry. On other occasions he would rise very early and leave the dwelling to go out and spend the early hours in prayer. Fr. Ted Tyler

On one such occasion Peter went hunting for him and, when he found him, told him that the people were looking for him. When he was baptized in the river Jordan and the Spirit of God descended on him in the form of a dove, our Lord was led by the Spirit into the desert where he spent forty days in prayer and fasting, being tempted by Satan. On other occasions at the end of an intense day of work with his disciples, our Lord led them off to be by themselves to rest awhile — to rest with Jesus and with God. There is something fundamental about this pattern of going aside from normal activity in order to rest and be with God. One of the Ten Commandments specifies that at the end of the working week, a day is to be set aside as the Sabbath. It is the Lord’s Day when God becomes the object of man’s attention, and man takes a religious rest. In the account of creation as depicted in the first chapter of Genesis, God works for a week, then he rests. The account sets an inspired paradigm for all of man’s working life. We are to interrupt our activities by giving time to God and to rest. Christ himself practised this, and he had his disciples observe this pattern too. This has many purposes, but one is to enable us to renew our relationship with God and to purify our motivation for all that we do. The fact is that we must guard our hearts against their becoming attached to many things other than God, in the hurly-burly of daily life. A mixed motivation can enter the most sacred and best of activities, including the specific works of religion. I am thinking of prayer, fasting (self-denial) and works of mercy and charity. These most laudable activities can become corrupted in their motivation. That is, we can do them for our own glory, rather than for God’s. We must guard against this by regularly and often going into our “secret room” and renewing our love for and service of God.

Our Lord roundly criticised many (though not all) of the religious leaders for being whitewashed tombs. They were hypocrites, making a show of their religious practice in order to retain the respect of men. “Take heed that you do not perform your justice before men in order to be seen by them. Otherwise you will not receive a reward from your Father who is in heaven.” In our Gospel today (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18), our Lord commands the utmost purity of motive, and he brings home his point by vivid images. Incidentally, we notice how he isolates three features of religion: almsgiving, fasting, and prayer. These are the pillars — and we ought examine our lives to see if all three are in place. For instance, we may regularly pray. The habit of prayer could be well established in our life. But what of fasting (i.e., self-denial) and almsgiving? Do we give to those in need? Alternatively, we may be generous in giving alms to the poor, but how good is our life of prayer? We may even recognize our serious deficiencies in one or other of these two great areas of religious living, but then fail to do anything much about it. Thus the situation remains unchanged year after year, indeed to the end of life. We must institute in our plan of living a regular examination of conscience, so that the weeds are noticed and uprooted. That having been said, what our Lord is insisting on in our Gospel passage today is that these basic actions of religion be done for love of God and not for love of self. If we don’t look sharp, the love of self will creep into the good things we are doing. I remember when I was young, just starting out in preparing for the priesthood, the priest responsible for our spiritual preparation warned against the insidious presence of “human respect.” He was referring to the fear of the bad opinion of the world and of worldly persons, leading a person away from religious practice. Our Lord here is referring to that “human respect” which leads a person to religious practice in order to gain admiration. We may find ourselves seeking the esteem of men, and even when we are aware of this, we may find it very hard to break radically from it. As our Lord says, this will be our reward.

One of the signs of the authentic character of the Gospel accounts is the frequent presence of hyperbole in our Lord’s teaching. He speaks in everyday idiom to drive home his points. It is the vernacular of the day, and a further sign of the reality of the Incarnation. Our Lord said it was better to tear out one’s eye if it led to sin, rather than to go to Hell with two eyes. Our Lord was not suggesting self-mutilation. In our Gospel passage today, our Lord directs that when you give alms, your left hand must not know what your right hand is doing. So too, “when you pray, go into your room and having shut the door pray to your Father in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” Let us enter into the spirit of Lent by resolving to turn aside with Christ, and, “in secret” with him, renew the true motive of all we do: the love and service of him alone.

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This is how you should pray: if I am to do anything worthwhile, Jesus, you will have to do it for me. May your Will be done. I do love it, even if your Will should permit that I be always as I am now, falling dismally only to be lifted up by you!

(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 St Dominic Savio

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)

Jesus said to his disciples: “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be put to death, and on the third day rise again.” He said to all, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it and the one who loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his very self?” (Luke 9:22-25)

Just want it! I have long heard it said that while St Thomas Aquinas puts the intellect at the forefront of the human constitution, St Bonaventure — his Franciscan contemporary and friend — gives primary emphasis to the will and love. Of course, we are speaking here merely of emphasis, and to exclude a due place for the will in St Thomas would be ridiculous. Unfortunately I have never had the time to read or study St Bonaventure, but I tend to think that a primary emphasis on the will deserves careful thought. What we want, whether this is the result of full deliberation or not, has a great impact on how and what we think. John Henry Newman insisted that our religious views and positions do not depend just on rational processes. They depend also on our hidden starting points, our basic preferences, our fundamental choices. A good man will think differently on subjects moral and religious than will a bad man. What he considers probable will depend in large measure on what he expects and wants. To a great degree, our life, including what we think, will depend on the bent and choice of our will. It is for this reason that we shall be held accountable for our convictions and beliefs. Now, of course the greatest issue in life is the call to goodness which arises from the depths of our conscience, and which is confirmed and elevated by the call of Christ to holiness in friendship with him. From before the world began, St Paul writes, God chose us in Christ to be holy and full of love in his sight. This is the issue before each and all of us, but on what does it depend? It depends on our will. Indeed — referring back to St Thomas Aquinas again — it is said that the sister of St Thomas asked her illustrious brother how one can become a saint. Excellent question! It is the question of the ages. Her brother gave a very simple answer: Just want it! Do we really want this? Of course we would all like to be good and holy, but all too often we want other things more. We would like to be holy, but we don’t really want it because of the effort it entails. Anything worthwhile costs, and the question is, while we may like to have that thing, are we prepared to pay the cost? That is the test as to what we want.

In our Gospel passage today, our Lord tells us what being his disciple entails. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it and the one who loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:22-25). As baptized Christians we may look into our hearts and discover ambivalence there in respect to the following of Jesus Christ. We want to be his true friends to the very end, but there is another tug going on in our hearts. We instinctively hesitate before the cost and find within us an inveterate reluctance when it comes to action. We would love to be generous, but, paradoxically, we find that we do not want to be. Well, let us begin with what we have! We want to be generous disciples of Jesus Christ, and we know that we believe in him and love him — even if only to a point. Let us begin there, then! On one occasion our Lord was asked by a distraught father that he release his son from his possession by a demon. Our Lord questioned the extent of his faith. The man replied, Lord, I do believe — help my unbelief. We too believe. We love, and we desire to follow our Lord generously. Let us profess this in the presence of Jesus Christ, thanking him for the gift of this faith and love such as it is — all the while asking that it be augmented the more. St Josemaria Escriva, in his book of short statements entitled The Forge, gives us a brief prayer. It is “Make me into a saint, my God, even if you have to beat me into it. I don’t want to be a hindrance to your Will. I want to respond, I want to be generous.” But then he adds the critical question: “But what sort of wanting is mine?” (No.391). Well, our “wanting” may be very limited indeed, but at least we have something to start with, and this is the gift of grace. Count on the grace of God, then! In another similar book by the same author, indeed his first spiritual book of maxims, he speaks of failure. He writes, “So you have failed? You — be convinced of it — cannot fail. You haven’t failed, you have gained experience. On you go!” (The Way, no.405). The saint is always relying on the grace of God, and always starting again.

There is a famous prayer in the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. It is a prayer of self-oblation, in which the one doing the Spiritual Exercises entrusts himself to God. He invites the Lord to take everything he wishes — but to give two things in return. Give me, he prays, your love and your grace! Let us pray for the gift of a deeper and deeper love for God, and for more and more of God’s grace, empowering us to be generous in the living of this love. For our part, let us strive to be faithful to the light and the grace we are granted, for as John Henry Newman says in one of his sermons, if we are faithful to the grace of God, more will be granted us.

Taking up our daily cross It is a God-given instinct, inherent in our nature, to avoid suffering and to draw back from whatever might harm us. We avoid allowing ourselves to be burnt by fire, or to be placed in other dangerous situations. They cause pain, and pain is the protective alarm system drawing us back from suffering in order to protect us. The animals have this instinct, and some plants show evidence of something like it. But like every natural tendency in the case of man, it must be guided by reason (or a higher faith) towards what is in our best interests. Our Lord tells us that if we want to be a follower of his, we must renounce ourselves and take up our cross every day and follow him (Luke 9:22-25). So the acceptance of hardship in the following of our Lord is an indispensable element of being his disciple. It is natural that we tend to avoid the difficulties that are part of this course. But our Lord says that if we give in to this tendency we cannot be his disciples.

Lent is a time of grace and opportunity in making a start in self-renunciation. The tendency will be to avoid the cross inherent in daily life. That cross is, more often than not, the self-renunciation involved in our daily duties. This is the one great thing that is necessary if we are to follow our Lord to sanctity. So let’s make a start in practical and attainable ways during Lent.

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Make me into a saint, my God, even if you have to beat me into it. I don’t want to be a hindrance to your Will. I want to respond, I want to be generous ... But what sort of wanting is mine?

(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 St John Ogilvie

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 St John Ogilvie

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)

Then John's disciples came and asked him, How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Jesus answered, How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast. (Matthew 9:14-15)

The Bridegroom If one thing is clear, it is that generally man believes in a higher, unseen world. There is an enormous variety of ways in which the unseen world is imagined in the religions of man, with a great range of images of the deities. Commonly the other world is imagined as populated by numerous gods — which is to say, deities who exercise some independent authority over this or that feature of the world. They do not seem to “create,” rather they influence and shape. Strict “creation” is rare. The world is perceived Fr. Ted Tyler

as being under the influence of these higher beings, all of whom are limited in every respect, including their power. The highest god is limited in power by lower deities, and usually religious devotees deal with these many lower ones. This polytheism was characteristic of high civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, as it was of the numerous traditional and primal societies. It reflects our human experience — our world is made up of numerous sources of influence, and the notion of but one ruler guiding all things (let alone creating them) would normally boggle both imagination and intellect. This is one reason why the Hebrew religion stands out so prominently in the ancient world. It allowed there to be but one God. There is an academic dispute as to whether historically the revealed religion of the Hebrews instantly and from the very first declared that no other deities even so much as existed. There are those who maintain that at the beginning, the strict command was that the only God of the Hebrews was to be Yahweh Lord. The matter of the deities of other peoples was left to one side. According to this theory, formal monotheism, stating that there is in fact only one God and that all other so-called “deities” are but phantoms, angelic messengers or demons with no independent power, emerged as a gradual realization. Strict monotheism was implicit in the revelation, but realized only gradually. It is also disputed as to what God’s work of “creation” meant in the beginning — some maintaining that the notion of “creation from nothing” was realized but gradually too. Whatever of such theories, historical revelation declares the dogma that there is but one Creator of all things, seen and unseen.

This is a striking doctrine, and to say the least it certainly simplifies life and our conception of the world. To begin with, if all is in the hands of but one Creator who not only guides all things but creates and sustains them in existence, then it allows for consistent laws. The laws of the world can be studied and mastered. The world is not the plaything of arbitrary and fickle deities. But there is a further wondrous feature about the one God of revelation — it concerns the relationship he has with the world. One of the notable issues in the philosophy of religion going back to the Greeks is the balance between the transcendence of God and his immanence in the world. It seems to me that the best classical philosophy tended to stress the transcendence of the First Cause and the Prime Act. Consequently, God was distant, and conveyed the image of a principle rather than a living Person. The revealed religion of the Hebrews, though, stressed God’s closeness to his people. He, a living Person above and beyond all things, chose a people for his own. He was with them. There was a special covenant between him and his people. Those who were privileged to be members of this chosen people had the Lord for their God, the Lord who was almighty and who loved them and would save them. He lived with them as their God — and certain places could be pointed to as the locale of his presence. Such was the Temple, for instance. But to say all this is not really to do it sufficient justice. The God of the Hebrews spoke of himself and his relationship with his people in daring and astonishing ways. Most notably, he was Bridegroom and Husband to his people, and they were his spouse. To turn to other gods was being unfaithful to their Husband. More than this, holiness of life and the observance of revealed morality was to be conceived by the people in terms of their spousal relationship with their God. Hence we find our Lord referring to moral failures, such as the seeking from him of signs as proof of his claims, for reasons of hostility or mere curiosity, as acts of an adulterous generation. But most remarkable of all, we see Christ appropriating for himself this title of Bridegroom. He, now, is the Bridegroom.

Yes, in our Gospel today (Matthew 9:14-15), our Lord speaks of himself as the Bridegroom. His disciples are the special guests of the Bridegroom, his friends. They are present at the wedding, which of course is the complete self-oblation by Christ of himself for the sake of mankind. It is the first great token of the wedding-feast of heaven. By this self-oblation, consummated on the Cross at Calvary, Christ becomes irrevocably united with his spouse the Church, and this union brings life to the world. This is an enthralling image of our relationship with God in Christ, and it comes from the lips of our Lord himself. Let us resolve so to live as to make it the heart and soul of our daily lives. Christ is the Bridegroom of our souls.

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The Bridegroom is taken away One of the most beautiful and striking images that Yahweh God uses of himself in the Old Fr. Ted Tyler

Testament is that of the Husband or Bridegroom. I remember being told by one scripture scholar that in his opinion the very meaning of the word Yahweh is akin to Bridegroom. God is the Husband or Bridegroom, and Israel is his Spouse. The bond was meant to be unbreakable. Because Israel did in fact break this bond repeatedly, God promised and brought about a new covenant. In this new covenant Christ is the Bridegroom. St John the Baptist described our Lord at the beginning of his public ministry as the bridegroom, and himself as the bridegroom’s attendant. And now, here in our Gospel passage today (Matthew 9:14-15) our Lord describes himself as the Bridegroom, and his disciples as the guests. Christ, then, occupies the place of Yahweh in the new covenant between God and his people.

However, the Bridegroom has been taken away from us — in the sense that he is no longer directly visible to the senses. So our hearts can the more easily be led astray and we can forget the bridegroom of our souls. We must then fast in the sense of denying ourselves those things that are taking us away from full union with our Bridegroom. Let us use Lent to make a real start in the self-denial that should characterise the life of the authentic Christian who aspires to sanctity.

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You are full of concern because you do not love as you ought. Everything annoys you. And the enemy does all he can to make you show your bad temper. I realise you feel very humiliated. Precisely because of this you must take measures to react without delay.

Angela served Christ and Christ’s little ones with all her strength. Born in Siepraw, near Kraków, Poland, she was the 11th child of Bl Angela Salawa

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)

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. Follow me, Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'? Jesus answered them, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Luke 5: 27-32)

Doctor to the sick In each of the Synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark and Luke — our incident today follows on Christ’s forgiveness of the sins of the paralytic who was lowered from the roof before him. This suggests a common source, or at least that the authors of these three Gospels were making a point of harmonizing with the accounts of the others. As usual, though, there are differences. In Luke’s account in today’s passage, the call of Levi the tax collector occurs when our Lord leaves the house where he had cured the paralytic and forgiven his sins. In Mark (2:13-17), the incident is situated after mention of our Lord’s going from the house to the seaside where he taught the crowds — the seaside is not mentioned in Luke and Matthew (Matthew 9:9-13). In both Mark and Matthew, Levi, having heard the invitation of our Lord to follow him, rises up and follows him. But Luke, as if to emphasize Levi’s abandonment of everything for the sake of Jesus Christ, adds the detail that, “leaving all things,” he rose and followed him. Levi the despised tax-collector, was, then, whole-hearted in his response. While Mark and Matthew simply say that “our Lord reclined at Levi’s house” (to dine), Luke, as if to emphasize the action of Levi, writes that “Levi made a great feast for him in his house.” Matthew and Mark tell us that “many tax collectors and sinners reclined at table with Jesus and his disciples,” with Mark adding the detail that “there were many, and they followed him.” Luke calls it a “great crowd of tax-collectors and others” who sat down with them — stressing even more, it would seem, the great number of those deemed despicable who were in Jesus’ company on this occasion. Reading between the lines, then, in our Gospel today (Luke 5: 27-32) Luke brings out especially the response of Levi the tax-collector to the call of Jesus. All three give us in virtually identical terms our Lord’s answer to the objection of the scribes and Pharisees at his association with sinners. He is there as physician to the sick, leading them to repentance. Characteristically, in Matthew our Lord also quotes from the Scriptures.

Our Lord, then, dined with the tax-collectors and sinners as their physician with a view to reclaiming them from sin. We notice that he also dined with the Pharisees. Some two chapters after this episode, St Luke tells us that our Lord inveighed against those who said of John the Baptist that he was a “devil” for his extreme fasting — and of Jesus that he was “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of publicans and sinners.” Clearly, our Lord is responding again to the criticism of the scribes and Pharisees of his readiness to eat and drink with “publicans and sinners” (Luke 7: 34). But here we notice that immediately after, “one of the Pharisees invited him to dine with him.” So Jesus “entered the house of the Pharisee and reclined” at table. Why did our Lord take up this invitation, as he had taken up the invitation of Levi, and the tax-collectors and sinners? As with the tax-collectors, he went to dine with the Pharisees as the physician of souls, the doctor of the sick, to lead them to repentance. Once he was at table, a sinner came looking for him, but of course it was not one of the Pharisees. It was, we read, “a woman who was in the town, a sinner, who heard that Jesus was at table in the house of the Pharisee.” She came to do him honour, bringing an alabaster jar of ointment. There she stood at his feet, weeping because of her sins and her knowledge of his compassion. She began to wash his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. The Pharisee — as with the previous occasion when they observed him dining with the tax-collectors and sinners — criticized him for his permitting this contact with a sinner. “If he were a prophet,” he thought, he would have known that this woman is a sinner. Our Lord proceeded to contrast the love and the humility of the sinful woman with the discourtesy and pride of the Pharisee. Then he forgave the woman her sins. He was there as the physician to the sick, leading them to repentance. He succeeded with the sinful woman, while failing with the Pharisee. Can we not expect that the sinful woman became a true disciple, as might have many of the tax-collectors with whom our Lord had dined earlier?

The tax-collectors who dined with our Lord and who were among his followers had a lively sense of personal sin, as did the woman in the later episode. The scribes and Pharisees who objected to our Lord’s associating with tax-collectors had little or no sense of sin. The doctor can only help if the sick person is open to that help. The problem is acute when the sick person thinks he is perfectly well — and that was the situation with the Pharisees. Let us pray for a vivid realization of our true condition, and then turn to Christ for all that we need to pass from sickness to health, from death to life, and from separation from God to union with him.

Leaving all The great and ever pressing issue of each day is the call of God to each of us that we be saints, hidden, known as such only to God, but saints nevertheless. It means loving God with all our heart, expressing this love in the generous fulfilment of our daily duties, and being prepared to struggle to the utmost to bring this about — with the grace of God. Now why is it that all too often we make so little progress? It is because we do not do what St Matthew did when our Lord said to him, “Follow me.” Matthew left everything and followed him. That disposition to leave all was what our Lord wanted. Seeing in Matthew that readiness to respond to his call immediately, our Lord could lead Matthew on to sanctity. By contrast, consider the rich young man. He came to our Lord and asked what he had to do to gain eternal life. Our Lord invited him to leave all and to follow him. But he went away sad.

Let us this Lent leave behind what is preventing us from a total following of the Master each day. In this lies the grandeur of ordinary life. Let what we see in Matthew’s response to our Lord’s call be the pattern of our lives.

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The holiness which makes people say that “to put up with a saint you need two saints” is not true holiness. At best, it would only be its caricature.

Prayers today: When he calls to me, I will answer; I will rescue him and give him honour. Long life and contentment will be his.

Father, through our observance of Lent, help us to understand the meaning of your Son's death and resurrection, and teach us to reflect it in our lives. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

(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: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

Jesus was then led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the Devil. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was Shroud of Turin

hungry. The Tempter coming said to him, “If you are the Son of God command that these stones become bread.” He answered and said, “It is written, not in bread alone does man live but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Then the devil took him up into the holy city and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and he said to him, “If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down, for it is written that he has given his angels charge over you and in their hands shall they bear you up, lest perhaps you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, “It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Again the Devil took him up a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. He said to him, “All these will I give you, if falling down you adore me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Begone Satan, for it is written, The Lord your God will you adore, and him only will you serve.” Then the devil left him, and behold angels came and ministered to him. (Matthew 4:1-11)

Christ and Satan When the Christian peruses the pages of the Old Testament, it is very striking to him how meagre are the references to Satan — the Devil. Satan (ha-satan, meaning “accuser” or slanderer — understood as the Fiend, in the sense of Devil or diábolos) is rarely mentioned in the Old Testament. So obvious is this, that T.J. Wray and Gregory Mobley in their book (published 2005, p.52) go to the excess of claiming that “The Satan of later imagination is absent in the Hebrew Bible.” Satan is indeed present Fr. Ted Tyler

there, references are sparse. By contrast, in the New Testament, "Satan" (satana) occurs more than 30 times in passages alongside diábolos (referring to Satan.) However, despite this paucity of references, there is in the Old Testament one striking depiction of the Enemy. I refer to the beginning of Genesis. Although the “Satan” who is occasionally mentioned in the Old Testament is not formally identified with the Serpent of the beginning of Genesis, it is plain that the two are the same. If we compare the few references to Satan in the Old Testament with the intervention of the Serpent at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, the Serpent of Genesis looms more ominously and devastatingly than does “Satan” in the other books. The Serpent of Genesis represents, it seems to me, a great development in the Old Testament revelation about the Devil. The inspired compiler of this second account of the Creation (chapters 2-3) places the action and words of the Serpent at the beginning of the whole story of God and his people. His action in tempting man to rebel against God is shown as a fundamental factor in the appearance of evil in the world. All was well till the Serpent spoke. While “Satan” in, say, the Book of Job speaks to God in slanderous fashion about Job the just man, in Genesis the Serpent is not in the presence of God at all. It is about God that he lies, when he talks to the Woman. He then tempts her to be another god — “like gods,” and prompts her to disobey him, because, he suggests, God is depriving her of something good. Satan is God’s enemy and does not acknowledge his lordship. He draws the woman, and through her the man, into his own stand against God, and in doing so he subtly enters their life as Master. His defeat is soon announced, but the whole scene is a remarkable teaching. The Serpent approached, and won a signal victory.

Aeons pass, and another Beginning is launched, the one promised at the first beginning. It will be a new creation, and there in the wilderness stands a new Man. While in the Garden the Man and the Woman had been surrounded with plenty, this new Man has been fasting and was starving. Ah! the Tempter again appears on the scene, and once again his function is to tempt away from God. In our Gospel passage today (Matthew 4:1-11), he is the diabolos, the “devil” — and is addressed by Christ as “Satan.” Mark tells us that Christ was tempted by “Satan” — satana. Luke’s account refers to him as the “devil,” and to Christ addressing him with the name of “Satan.” Because of the manifest parallel between the two, the historical fact of the temptations of Christ before the commencement of his public ministry seems to me to confirm the fact of the temptation of our first parents in the beginning — quite apart from the account and inclusion of it being inspired by God. The parallel is so marked, though the upshot so different. The Genesis account of the Temptation by the Serpent stands out among the sparse references to Satan in the Old Testament, whereas the Temptation of Christ by Satan at the beginning of each of the three Synoptic Gospels is part of a piece. It marks the beginning of the presence of the demons wherever our Lord goes in his public ministry. The Temptation in the wilderness is not mentioned by John in his Gospel, nor does John have much mention of Christ’s combat with the demons in his account of Christ’s ministry. His concerns are different. So it is that at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry, as narrated by Matthew, Mark and Luke, we are immediately reminded of what happened at the Beginning. With the rebellion of the first Man and Woman, the world fell into Satan’s hands, and instantly his coming defeat was proclaimed. We are reminded in the Gospel that Christ’s work will constitute this defeat, a defeat that begins to take effect from his first encounter with the Enemy. What a contrast with the Genesis scene! The tone of the Gospel is set. A great struggle has been joined, and the Enemy will learn that his days are numbered. Our Champion is on the scene, armour donned, sword in hand, and nothing will stop him.

There are two Standards being held aloft. We must decide every day which is the one we shall fall behind. The die is cast, and there is no turning back as far as God is concerned. His will be the victory, and Satan’s the defeat. How strange that we continue to hold on to sin and its temptations! Let us be done with it! Let us work at disentangling our life from all that smacks of sin, no matter how minor. A small and harmless matter, is it? If it is sin, it is not harmless. It reeks with the smoke and stench of hell. Let us be done with it, then, and take our stand with Jesus.

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The devil tries to draw us away from God, and if you allow him to dominate you, good people will draw away from you, because they draw away from the devil’s friends and from those possessed by him.

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)

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Shroud of Turin

Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (Matthew 25: 31-46)

The Judge A dictionary tells us the usual meanings of a word. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1964) states that the conscience is the moral sense of right and wrong, or, the consciousness that one’s actions are right or wrong. It is, then, the judgment of the mind on what is right and wrong in human action, and on one’s moral state as a consequence of one’s deliberate actions. If one knowingly does something unjust to someone else, one’s action is morally wrong, and one’s conscience judges one accordingly. A dictionary does not offer a philosophical definition of something. It simply attempts to define what most people mean by the word. On reflection, we can see that any deliberate action, any action that is the fruit of free deliberation, any action that is truly my own and not just that proceeds from me and despite me, will have a moral value. Now, we may ask, in the main what actions do most people think of as being good or evil? I think that most people would consider that in the main their moral life revolves around what they do to others. If I do something good, I usually mean that I have done something good to others, and my conscience approves. If I do something evil, I usually mean that I have unjustly caused harm to others, and my conscience accuses me. Of course, I make distinctions. I can deliberately cause harm to others without it being unjust and therefore immoral. For instance, I may cause some harm to another in legitimate self-defence. I also know that not all wrong actions are actions that inflict harm on others. Many actions may harm only me, violating my dignity as a person and my best interests. It is immoral to take, without serious reason, heavy drugs. It is wrong of me to cultivate evil friendships. It is morally wrong to neglect my relationship with God. All that having been said, I think that, rightly or wrongly, the instinct of most people is that the moral life is generally concerned with what we do to others. If a person devotes himself unstintingly to the welfare of others, his conscience will approve of what he has done. The conscience of others approves too, whereas it condemns the one who unjustly harms another.

It is an intriguing fact of experience that the conscience, as Shakespeare puts it in his Hamlet, makes cowards of us all. In the dictate of conscience there is a vague sense of an objective Lawgiver, and in the judgment of conscience there is a vague fear of an objective tribunal and Judge. We are not only ashamed of the wrong we do, but we fear for the future as a result. We seem to have an intimation of a future judgment, and this fear is contained in the feeling and judgment of conscience. However much many philosophers may discount this as a purely subjective feeling, it has held its own in human thought from time immemorial. In the judgment of conscience a man has an inkling of how he stands in an ultimate sense. Thus it is that we speak of conscience as being the voice, or the echo of the voice, of God in both its dictate as to what is to be done, and in its judgment on one’s moral state. If one has spent one’s life in serving the needy, and has avoided causing harm to others, one will feel approved not only by one’s conscience — but in some more ultimate sense as well. Cardinal Newman went so far as to call the conscience the “aboriginal vicar of Christ” (Letter to Norfolk) which is to say that element in our nature which acts as Christ’s representative. If it acts as Christ’s representative, under what aspect is Christ represented by it? The Conscience acts as vicar of Christ the Judge — which brings us to our Gospel today. In our Gospel today (Matthew 25: 31-46), Christ reveals that at the end of time he will come again to judge the living and the dead, and all will be subject to his definitive judgment. This is contained in the very Creed. As a result of Christ’s judgment, each person will either go to Heaven, or be condemned to Hell. Christ tells us another thing in his vivid description in today’s Gospel. It is that much of the judgement will hinge on how we have treated others. Christ does not teach that this is the only matter for God’s judgment. For instance, in another part of the Gospel, our Lord says that the one who is ashamed of him and his teaching, of that person will he be ashamed in the presence of his heavenly Father (Luke 9: 26). Nevertheless, how we have treated others in their need is high on the agenda of our future judgment, and this, as I have been suggesting, is intimated to us by our conscience.

In our Gospel today our Lord sanctions the general testimony of the conscience that what we do to others has a profound moral importance, and in large measure determines our moral state. We might say that this testimony is the voice of Nature within us, and the voice of mankind without. It points to the word of the unseen Judge of all. That Judge is Jesus Christ, God become man, our Redeemer, our Brother and our God. We have a sentinel within, a messenger from on high implanted within the sanctuary of our hearts. That guardian is our conscience which, if functioning correctly and guided by right reason and revealed teaching, will point to the supreme Judge. The day will assuredly come when, as he describes in the Gospel, he who is our Judge will consider whatever we have done to the least of his brothers.

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Loving Christ in those in need A very notable feature of many ancient religions, and of the traditional religions of primitive societies and peoples, is that the practices of religion are directed to the god or gods, with little concern, relatively speaking, for one’s fellow man. The dictates of the religion are oriented to honouring and placating the gods. Now, of course in revealed religion both Old and New there are abundant elements that direct one to the honour and worship of God. This is the primary purpose of religion. It is God who must be honoured and loved above all else. But very obvious in revealed religion is the constant reference to justice and charity towards one’s neighbour. Numerous passages from the Old Testament make it clear that as far as God is concerned, he cannot be honoured and worshipped properly if one is failing in justice and charity towards one’s neighbour in need. And our Gospel passage today presents the judgment of God as being dominated by this issue. Our Lord tells us that at our judgment and at the General Judgment in particular, we will be told that our neglect of the one in need has been counted as a culpable neglect of Christ himself. “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:31-46). The upshot will be solemn and eternal: “And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the virtuous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25: 46).

Lent is the time of grace and opportunity to make a real step ahead in our spiritual life. Let us resolve this Lent, then, to rediscover Christ in our neighbour, especially in our needy neighbour. It is because of this (i.e., Christ being in the needy) that love for the needy will sanctify us.

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When you speak to God, even if you think yours are just empty words, ask him for a greater dedication, for a more determined progress towards Christian perfection. Ask him to put more fire into you.

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 St Louise De Marillac

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)

Jesus said to his disciples, When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.' For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:7-15)

Forgive! It is impossible not to be hurt in life, whatever be one’s circumstances. There are so many wheels turning within the system of the world, so many shifts in various directions by the multitudinous variety of forces in the universe, that collisions cannot be avoided. In one sense or another, one will be bumped, pushed, hit, pinched, struck — and so, be hurt. In turn, one will bump and strike others, and they will be hurt too. Unless one were to expect the Creator to alter the vast course of the world moment by Fr. Ted Tyler

moment so that there is an abiding protection against all collision, in a world run by laws given to it by the Creator it is impossible to avoid injury in some sense. One is born and one lives at a certain point in history and in a certain locality. This means, to begin with, that one’s path will cross that of certain others who have their faults and temperament. Hurt and injury will result, and for all parties to a greater or lesser extent. It is inconceivable and virtually unimaginable that life will not bring its hurts, and those hurts could be major. So one must be somewhat philosophical about life’s injuries — even somewhat “fatalistic,” in the sense that it will happen. It may be a person of immense talent and religious faith. He shows promise of doing great good, yet is thwarted time and again in his plans and hopes. He is misunderstood and maligned. He finds himself required to spend his time and energies in trivialities not of his making. He experiences a profound sense of the injustice of his situation, and friendly observers would agree with him. He passes the course of his life not being able to do anything like the degree of good he could have done, and very largely because of the obstacles placed in his way by others who are, as a matter of fact, good people in their turn. His temptation is to be bitter and aggrieved, and yet he is an exceptionally good person. But in his spiritual maturity, he resists this temptation while protesting against the injustice he experiences. He knows he has suffered injustice, but he is not unforgiving. He understands that others who have hurt him are themselves subject to their many limitations. In any case, he puts his life in the hands of God who knows all and who guides the course of history to its proper end.

What I am saying is that no-one ought be surprised if his life has involved a trail of hurts, for whatever reason. No-one ought be surprised if he finds that he has a problem with bitterness against this or that person or turn of events. As I said, I think he ought be somewhat philosophical about it, even somewhat “fatalistic” — in that injuries are to be expected. He knows, of course, that all is in the hands of a loving Creator. What must not happen is the next step. In their hearts people are, because of their hurts, commonly unforgiving. It is herein that life’s major challenge lies. What each person faces is the option of being forgiving or not. In a great many cases, people do not want to forgive. So strong is this desire not to forgive that they think they cannot forgive. I cannot forgive this! This may be so, but at root it is because they absolutely do not want to forgive. It is certainly one of the greatest tasks and challenges of life, and if it is met, it is one of life’s greatest achievements. Consider the person who has absolutely forgiven everyone who in any sense hurt him, together with every situation that has caused hurt! How could he have done it? some would ask. At root, it was because of personal decisions, acts of the will that express the core of the subject who does the forgiving. To forgive is a magnificent achievement. It is a deeply personal act, and not just the result of personal temperament. But now, in speaking of forgiveness we are not just talking here of a beautiful moral picture that might occur to us in some sort of reverie. We are speaking of what our best conscience requires, and more importantly of what Jesus Christ demands of us. If we are going to have anything to do with Jesus Christ, we shall be immediately confronted with his demand that we forgive to the very end. We are to forgive from the heart not just seven times, but seventy-seven times. Furthermore, Christ lays this down as a command that carries severe sanctions — that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart (Matthew 18:35). He tells us that the amount we measure out is the amount that will be given us (Luke 6:38). This brings us to our Gospel today (Matthew 6:7-15).

In our Gospel today our Lord teaches us about prayer and gives us a prayer. An instruction on simplicity in prayer introduces it — for the Lord’s Prayer is strikingly simple. An instruction on forgiveness ends the prayer — for in the Lord’s Prayer we ask God for pardon, and we promise to pardon in our turn. Ask yourself this: how often in your prayer are you struggling with a refusal to forgive? Take it from our Lord — good prayer and the resolve to forgive go hand-in-hand. If we want to grow in prayer, pray for a growth in forgiveness. Difficult is it? Ah yes, but as our Lord said elsewhere, for man it is impossible, but all things are possible to God. So ask constantly for the grace to forgive, all the while resolving, as a genuine act of the will, truly to forgive.

Forgiving others St Alphonsus Liguori says somewhere that it is impossible to be saved if we do not pray. So we ought have the utmost appreciation for any teaching coming from our Lord himself on how we are to pray. All too often we simply take for granted the prayer he himself taught us in response to the request that he teach his disciples to pray: the Lord’s Prayer. Let us treasure the Lord’s Prayer, pondering deeply on its parts, allowing it to shape and inform our own life of prayer. Let us especially during Lent notice and take to heart one detail in this most admirable of prayers. Christian prayer includes the constant request to God for forgiveness. Anyone with a sense of sin will do this, and it has to be an essential element of Lent. But our Lord says that if we hope to be forgiven by God, we must be prepared to forgive others in our turn.

Let us pray for the grace to forgive others. Let us forgive, and forgive. Imagine if we reach the point by the end of our lives of going to God having forgiven everyone for everything. “Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.” (Matthew 6:15)

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Renew your firm resolution to live your Christian life right now, at every moment and in all circumstances.