October1 in Year A 11

Saturday of the 26th Wk in Ordinary Time to Saturday of the 28th Wk in Ordinary Time

Click on any date to go to the Thought for that Day

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 October is: "For the terminally ill, that in their sufferings they may be sustained by faith in God and by the love of others."

His mission intention is: "That the celebration of World Mission Sunday may increase in the People of God the passion for evangelization and the support of missionary activity through prayer and economic aid for the poorest Churches."

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Entrance Antiphon Daniel 3: 31, 29, 30, 43, 42 All that you have done to us, O Lord, you have done with true judgment, for we have sinned against you and not obeyed your commandments. But give glory to your name and deal with us according to the bounty of your mercy.

Collect O God, who manifest your almighty power above all by pardoning and showing mercy, bestow, we pray, your grace abundantly upon us and make those hastening to attain your promises heirs to the treasures of heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

(October 1) Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Carmelite nun and doctor of the Church (1873-1897)
St Therese Of Lisieux

"I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul." These are the words of Theresa of the Child Jesus, a Carmelite nun called the "Little Flower," who lived a cloistered l St Therese Of Lisieux

ife of obscurity in the convent of Lisieux, France. [In French-speaking areas, she is known as Thérèse of Lisieux.] And her preference for hidden sacrifice did indeed convert souls. Few saints of God are more popular than this young nun. Her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, is read and loved throughout the world. Thérèse Martin entered the convent at the age of 15 and died in 1897 at the age of 24. Life in a Carmelite convent is indeed uneventful and consists mainly of prayer and hard domestic work. But Thérèse possessed that holy insight that redeems the time, however dull that time may be. She saw in quiet suffering redemptive suffering, suffering that was indeed her apostolate. Thérèse said she came to the Carmel convent "to save souls and pray for priests." And shortly before she died, she wrote: "I want to spend my heaven doing good on earth." On October 19, 1997, Pope John Paul II proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church, the third woman to be so recognized in light of her holiness and the influence of her teaching on spirituality in the Church. All her life St. Thérèse suffered from illness. As a young girl she underwent a three-month malady characterized by violent crises, extended delirium and prolonged fainting spells. Afterwards she was ever frail and yet she worked hard in the laundry and refectory of the convent. Psychologically, she endured prolonged periods of darkness when the light of faith seemed all but extinguished. The last year of her life she slowly wasted away from tuberculosis. And yet shortly before her death on September 30 she murmured, "I would not suffer less." (AmericanCatholic.org)

he seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name." He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it." (Luke 10: 17-24)

Blessed are you! The event of our Gospel passage today illustrates once again that with Jesus Christ a great Kingdom has appeared on the scene. The disciples are being given a taste of Christ’s power — and nothing can withstand it. “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name” (Luke 10: 17). They are saying that “everything” and, yes, “even the demons are subject” to us when we invoke your name. This almighty power is being entrusted to those who will constitute the foundations of Christ’s future Church — by your name, they exclaim, we are able to conquer evil, and the demons too. Christ is preaching and heralding a Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, and it is setting out to conquer hearts and minds, and the disciples are being given a taste of the ultimate victory. “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” Of course, the disciples have no idea as yet of the real weapons which Jesus Christ will employ to establish God’s Kingdom. The great weapon is the Cross of rejection, contradiction, frustration, suffering, death — borne in a spirit of profound obedience to the divine plan. These things the demons think to be their weapons, the trump-card that is theirs in spoiling the work of God. They have brought death to the world by enticing man to sin. But God has taken the devastation of death and made it the material for his victory. The ruin to which the demons reduced the field, God has taken up and turned to victorious account. The disciples as yet do not know or understand this. But they are being given a taste of the power of Jesus Christ’s name. The devils are subject to us! they cry. They will come to see that it is the Cross, with its suffering and death, that is now the buckler, sword and shield which will lay the demons low. How different is this Kingdom from the kingdoms of this world! The disciples do not understand this yet. But they will, with the tragic exception of Judas who perhaps clung to a hope of a worldly kingdom. The Kingdom of which they are now fledgling officers is the Promise of the Scriptures, that for which kings and prophets and holy men had longed.

Christ makes clear to his disciples here, as he does in various other parts of each of the Gospels, that he is the key to the Scriptures. “Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it" (Luke 10: 17-24). The sacred scrolls consisting of various genres — prayers, poetry, history, legislation, prophecy, musings — all of these Inspired Writings had a grand meaning, but what was it? That was the question, and at various points we see the religious leaders challenging Christ with the meaning they attributed to the Scriptures. Our Lord tells his disciples in our Gospel passage that the prophets and kings of the Writings longed to see what they were seeing and to hear what they were hearing. He is the meaning of the Scriptures. What he was teaching, and what they were heralding ahead of him, was what the Scriptures were all about. Blessed, then, are your eyes and your ears! You would not compare yourselves with the prophets and kings and great ones of the Inspired Writings, but you are much more privileged than they, by the disposition of God. Further, God has chosen you, the little ones, over those regarded as the wise and the learned: “Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” And what is it that has been granted to them? It is the saving knowledge of God, God the Father, Son and Spirit: “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” In his great prayer at the Last Supper, Christ would indicate how fundamental this gift of the knowledge of God really is: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). It is this which his disciples have been given, and it is this which they are to bring to the world.

But of course, this means us. We are the recipients of the Blessing which is Jesus Christ, and which the kings and prophets themselves longed to see and possess. We are the recipients of the gift which is the knowledge of the one true God and of Jesus Christ whom he has sent. We are the recipients of the eternal life which is possessed by the one who believes in him and is baptized, and who lives in accord with this belief. We are the recipients of the mission in which we see the Twelve engaged in our Gospel passage today. Let us appreciate what is ours, then!

“Take courage, my children, call on God: he who brought disaster on you will remember you.” A consciousness of our own sinfulness and of our incapacity to overcome sin without the grace of God is one of the foundations of the Christian life. But this alone is not sufficient. We must also have a living faith in Christ’s power, and a lively hope in his loving mercy. We must trust that, provided we cooperate, he will rescue us from the sin that besets us. The prophet Baruch pointed this out to the people of Israel, as we read in today’s first reading. They were to "take courage" and “call on God.” They had sinned in many ways and had done so grievously. They had been punished, but “he who brought disaster on you will remember you” (Baruch 4:27-29). The help of God was at hand, so they now had to “take courage,” and turn back to God. They were to “search for him ten times as hard" now, for God will rescue them and bring them eternal joy. Let us ask our Lord for the grace of a deep conviction of his love and of his power, brought to us in the gift of his grace.

In the Gospel today (Luke 10: 17-24) the disciples exulted in the power of Christ over Satan. Let us open ourselves to this power, that it might be granted to us. Then let us collaborate with it “ten times as hard.” If we do this the result will be a harvest.

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Certainly you can go to Hell. You are convinced it could happen, for in your heart you find the seeds of all kinds of evil. But if you become a child in front of God, that fact will bring you close to your Father God, and to your Mother, Holy Mary. And St Joseph and your angel will not leave you unprotected when they see you are a child. Have faith. Do as much as you can. Be penitent, and be loving. They will supply whatever else you need.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Est 4: 17 Within your will, O Lord, all things are established, and there is none that can resist your will. For you have made all things, the heaven and the earth, and all that is held within the circle of heaven; you are the Lord of all.

Collect Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Perhaps no aspect of Catholic piety is as comforting to parents as the belief that an angel protects their little ones from dangers real and imagined. Yet guardian angels are not just for children. Their role is to represent individuals before God, to watch over them always, to aid their prayer and to present their souls to God at death. The concept of an angel assigned to guide and nurture each human being is a development of Catholic doctrine and piety based on Scripture but not directly drawn from it. Jesus' words in Matthew 18:10 best support the belief: "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father." Devotion to the angels began to develop with the birth of the monastic tradition. St. Benedict gave it impetus and Bernard of Clairvaux, the great 12th-century reformer, was such an eloquent spokesman for the guardian angels that angelic devotion assumed its current form in his day. A feast in honour of the guardian angels was first observed in the 16th century. In 1615, Pope Paul V added it to the Roman calendar. "May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come to welcome you and take you to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem." (Rite for Christian Burial)

Scripture today: Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 79; Philippians 4: 6-9; Matthew 21: 33-43

Jesus said: "Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it a Shroud of Turin

nd built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. "The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. 'They will respect my son,' he said. "But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.' So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time." Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: " 'The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes' "Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but anyone on whom it falls will be crushed." (Matthew 21: 33-43)

The Kingdom of God Due to journalism, the world and its needs are before us continually. One aspect of the power of journalism is the sensation it can invest in news, giving the impression that rarely before have such events as those of the day had such moment. Journalism has the capacity to bring significant things to light, and it has the capacity to give to things a significance they do not have. It can serve truth, and it can distort it. It can enable sight, or it can prevent it — at the level both of the mass and the individual. Fr. Ted Tyler

The great benefit of journalism is that we are enabled to know what is happening, and to have an analysis of it by those who know it well. The analysis may be good or bad, but because of journalism it is available. I remember when Pope Paul VI visited Australia at the end of 1970 he told the assembled journalists that they were world power number one. I say all this precisely to introduce the world for our consideration, and the world is full of good things and bad. We see and hear of advances in medicine, technology and aid to those in need. We hear of wars, insurgency, bombings, tidal waves, terrorism, diseases and widespread plagues. What is the meaning of this? What, fundamentally, is going on? God has revealed to us that at the heart of the world there is a fundamental struggle between God himself and whatever in the world that is not with God — which our Lord himself called “the world” (John 15:18-19). We may go on to ask, what will be the ultimate upshot of this struggle? It is that God will reign over all. What is the key to this final success? It is the doing of God’s will. If only God were to have full sway, that his will be done, that his full sovereignty be in place, all would be well. For all evil has stemmed and does now stem from the rejection of God’s reign and authority. What is needed is that God’s kingship, his dominion, his rule come. It is especially important for the lay member of the Church to understand this, for his place is precisely the world. The lay member of Christ’s faithful has the vocation to live and work in the world and to serve it, working day by day for its improvement. His mission is to be a light to others, bringing them the revelation that the coming of God’s kingship is the answer to the world’s needs.

Our Lord himself made this clear. In the Prayer that he taught us, we are directed to pray that God’s kingdom will come. In our Gospel today he refers to the Kingdom of God. God is King, he is the Ruler and Lord of all. But the enormity is that so much of the world is in rebellion against him. Further, the world cannot overcome its chronic rebellion against God, because of the Fall of man who is its appointed and natural steward. A Redeemer was needed to bring the Kingdom of God, his dominion, to the world and to man. This Kingdom of God, this kingship or rule, was the great theme of the prophecies and it was to be the Messiah who would establish it among men. He would be its anointed King. Our Lord in his preaching taught that the promised Kingdom of God had indeed come, and it had come in him. Now, let our question be, can we be more precise about the Kingdom of God? Many may think that the Kingdom of God is simply the widespread acceptance of moral values and the advancement of a situation favourable to human dignity — in a word, a happier world. This is certainly part of it, but it is not of the essence of the Kingdom of God, which is the answer to the world’s needs and the great promise of revealed religion. So what exactly are we referring to, when we ask that God’s Kingdom, his rule and his kingship come? We are speaking here principally of our Lord himself. In Christ is found God’s kingship, his rule, his fullness. In Christ dwells the fullness of the godhead bodily, as St Paul writes (Colossians 2:9). In him is found every heavenly blessing (Ephesians 1: 1-6), because he is not just man but God. The Kingdom of God is the answer to the world’s needs in that the Person of Christ and the life he offers is the answer to the world’s needs. When we pray that God’s Kingdom will come, we are above all praying that Christ will reign in the hearts of men everywhere. The more Christ is recognized as Lord, the more his teaching and his sacraments as coming from his Church are accepted and lived, the more will God’s Kingdom come. That is why the Kingdom of God is found most of all in the Church, because Christ is the Church’s head and the Church is his body, living with his life and having the mission of bringing that life of Christ who lives in her to the world.

Christ came that we might have life and have it in abundance. At its root and in its fullness, Christ himself is the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom will reach its completion in heaven and at the end of time when Christ will hand back all to his Father and then God will be all in all. While we have life and breath, our work is to love Christ and serve him with all our hearts, bringing his Person, his revealed message and his life, as it is present in his body the Church founded on Peter the Rock, to the world around us. In this way we shall be, in Christ, worthy members of God’s Kingdom, and we shall be preparing for his everlasting Kingdom in heaven.

Further Reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.2816-2821 (Thy Kingdom come)

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How difficult it is to live humility! As the popular wisdom of Christianity says, “Pride dies twenty-four hours after its owner.” So when you think you’re right, against what you are being told by someone who has been given a special grace from God to guide your soul, be sure that you are completely wrong.

Trust in God’s Providence enabled Mother Theodore to leave her homeland, sail halfway around the world and to found a new religious congregation. Born in Etables, France, Anne-Thérèse’s life was shattered by her father’s murder when she was 15. For several years she cared for her mother and younger sister. She entered the Sisters of Providence in 1823, taking the name Sister St. Theodore. An illness during novitiate left her with lifelong fragile health; that did not keep her from becoming an accomplished teacher. At the invitation of the bishop of Vincennes, she and five sisters were sent in 1840 to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, to teach and to care for the sick poor. She was to establish a motherhouse and novitiate. Only later did she learn that her French superiors had already decided the sisters in the United States should form a new religious congregation under her leadership. She and her community persevered despite fires, crop failures, prejudice against Catholic women religious, misunderstandings and separation from their original religious congregation. She once told her sisters, “Have confidence in the Providence that so far has never failed us. The way is not yet clear. Grope along slowly. Do not press matters; be patient, be trustful.” Another time, she asked, “With Jesus, what shall we have to fear?” She is buried in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, and was beatified in 1998. Eight years later she was canonized.

During his homily at the beatification Mass, Pope John Paul II said that Blessed Mother Theodore “continues to teach Christians to abandon themselves to the providence of our heavenly Father and to be totally committed to doing what pleases him. The life of Blessed Theodore Guérin is a testimony that everything is possible with God and for God.” (AmericanCatholic.org)

There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with Shroud of Turin

all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveller who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbour to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:25-37)

The Commandments On one occasion, St Mark informs us (Mark 12: 28-34), our Lord was asked by a scribe who had been impressed with his replies, which is the first of the commandments? There were so many commandments set forth in the Pentateuch alone, the five books of Moses. Indeed, this question of which were the more important was a major point of contestation between our Lord and his enemies. Our Lord answered instantly, quoting a single sentence from the Book of Deuteronomy 6: 4: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. That was the “first” of all the commandments. But immediately — though not asked for it — Christ added “the second”: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Love of neighbour was an integral component of the Law of God. Our Lord’s reply profoundly impressed the well-meaning scribe, and he was himself commended by our Lord as being not far from the Kingdom of God (Mark 12:34). Interestingly, this praise of Christ by one of the scribes, and Christ’s praise of him, is followed in Mark by the news that “After that no one dared to ask him any questions” (Mark 12: 34). On the occasion of our Gospel passage today (Luke 10:25-37) — a scene similar to Matthew 22:34 — a scholar of the law rises not to ask a question in good faith, but to test our Lord with a question the answer to which he already knew. It was the question as in Mark’s Gospel, but framed differently: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” In the Book of Deuteronomy 4: 1, God says, “Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live...” In Jeremiah 21:8, God directs the prophet to place before the people the alternative: “Tell the people, This is what the LORD says: See, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.” “Life,” then, is the reward of obedience to God’s law. So our scribe rises to ask our Lord what must be done to inherit “eternal life,” and our Lord, seeing that he was testing him, asked him to answer his own question, which he did. He gave the reply our Lord had himself given elsewhere, as reported in Mark and Matthew. “You have answered correctly,” our Lord said, “do this and you will live.”

But this time, the question of the “second” commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself becomes the issue. The scholar of the Law, in order not to appear foolish for having answered his own question, asks who, then, is my “neighbour”? The Law, as in the Pentateuch and in particular in Leviticus, had so many prescriptions separating the children of Israel from others who might contaminate the purity of their belief. “Foreigners,” for instance, were scarcely looked upon as “neighbours” to be “loved” as one would love oneself. So it was that our Lord launched upon his famous parable of the Good Samaritan which has become one of the great parables of world literature. In his story, our Lord depicted what might be said to be the spirit of things in the Judaism of the time: the priest passed by the half-dead person, as did the Levite. Revealed religion did not cause them to show an effective concern for whoever might be in need. It should have, but it did not. “Religion” meant being noted for religious observance, but not for concern for one’s neighbour, whoever he might be and whatever might be his need. The second commandment, lying amid the numerous prescriptions of the Law, needed a grand Interpretation, and this it received from the One who was himself, in person, the Interpretation of the Law and the Prophets. One’s “neighbour” was to be regarded as anyone in need — as exemplified by the attitude and behaviour of that heretic and foreigner, the Samaritan of the Parable. The priest passed by. The Levite passed by. But the Samaritan, seeing the man half-dead by the roadside, was moved with compassion for him and spent time and money attending to his needs. This he did from “compassion at the sight.” Our Lord may have even been suggesting that he did this not so much from religious faith — from the knowledge that the God of the Patriarchs required it — but from his own good heart and natural conscience — the natural law within him. This was pleasing to God, for this natural law within him, this natural conscience prompting him to hear this law within, was a reflection of the voice of God. He was doing God’s will, and this was pleasing to God. He was fulfilling the second commandment of the Law, to love one’s neighbour as oneself.

The great task of life is to learn to love after the heart of Jesus Christ. Christ’s heart is the exemplar of the heart which man must learn to acquire. This requires of a man both his own efforts (for man is not entirely depraved), and most especially the grace of God. The grace of God is made available to us in and through Jesus Christ. We must put on the mind of Jesus Christ, and this we do through faith and baptism. Then we must, aided by divine grace, work at our salvation and sanctification “with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). This means striving to love God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourself — with Jesus Christ as our life and our exemplar.

The providence of God: “Jonah decided to run away from the Lord and to go to Tarshish.” While there is a widespread lack of acceptance of Christ’s revelation, many more at least believe in the providence of God. That is to say, many have the sense that God is watching over them, and whatever their infidelities, they think of God as a good Spirit whom they can consider as their Father. Inadequate as this degree of belief is, at least it is a starting point. Granted God’s providence in the life of each individual, what further can we say of his providential action in our regard? Many have the feeling (apart from its being revealed) that a good God is ever trying to reclaim us from a wayward course and bring us back to the path of his will. We are being gently pursued by a caring God who will be our Judge. In the first Reading, Jonah is given a mission by God to preach repentance to the pagan people of Nineveh (Jonah 1:1-2) in order that they might be spared punishment for their sins. Jonah decides “to run away from the Lord, and to go to Tarshish.” Indeed, throughout most of the book that follows Jonah is constantly running away from God’s will. Mishap after mishap comes upon him in our passage today, and the meaning behind it all was that God was recalling him to his will. The course of these events was illuminated, we might presume, by the voice of Jonah's conscience summoning him to return to the will of the Lord. Even the sailors around him echoed this message.

Let us renew our conviction that nothing that happens in our life is outside the will and the plan of God. All that happens to us is willed or permitted in view of his plan in our regard. St Paul says that God brings all things together for good to those who love him. So, let us choose to love him, and ultimately all will be well. Thinking of Jonah, let us renew our sense of the fatherly providence of God at work in the course of life’s events.

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Serving and forming children, caring lovingly for the sick. To make ourselves understood by simple souls, we have to humble our intellect; to understand poor sick people we have to humble our heart. In this way, on our knees in both body and mind, it is easy to reach Jesus along that sure way of human wretchedness, of our own wretchedness. It will lead us to make “a nothing” of ourselves in order to let God build on our nothingness.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Est 4:17 Within your will, O Lord, all things are established, and there is none that can resist your will. For you have made all things, the heaven and the earth, and all that is held within the circle of heaven; you are the Lord of all.

Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally — not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit and without a mite of self- St Francis Of Assisi

importance. Serious illness brought the young Francis to see the emptiness of his frolicking life as leader of Assisi's youth. Prayer — lengthy and difficult — led him to a self-emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by embracing a leper he met on the road. It symbolized his complete obedience to what he had heard in prayer: "Francis! Everything you have loved and desired in the flesh it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun this, all that now seems sweet and lovely to you will become intolerable and bitter, but all that you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy." From the cross in the neglected field-chapel of San Damiano, Christ told him, "Francis, go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down." Francis became the totally poor and humble workman. He must have suspected a deeper meaning to "build up my house." But he would have been content to be for the rest of his life the poor "nothing" man actually putting brick on brick in abandoned chapels. He gave up every material thing he had, piling even his clothes before his earthly father (who was demanding restitution for Francis' "gifts" to the poor) so that he would be totally free to say, "Our Father in heaven." He was, for a time, considered to be a religious "nut," begging from door to door when he could not get money for his work, bringing sadness or disgust to the hearts of his former friends, ridicule from the unthinking. But genuineness will tell. A few people began to realize that this man was actually trying to be Christian. He really believed what Jesus said: "Announce the kingdom! Possess no gold or silver or copper in your purses, no travelling bag, no sandals, no staff" (see Luke 9:1-3). Francis' first rule for his followers was a collection of texts from the Gospels. He had no idea of founding an order, but once it began he protected it and accepted all the legal structures needed to support it. His devotion and loyalty to the Church were absolute and highly exemplary at a time when various movements of reform tended to break the Church's unity. He was torn between a life devoted entirely to prayer and a life of active preaching of the Good News. He decided in favour of the latter, but always returned to solitude when he could. He wanted to be a missionary in Syria or in Africa, but was prevented by shipwreck and illness in both cases. He did try to convert the sultan of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade. During the last years of his relatively short life (he died at 44) he was half blind and seriously ill. Two years before his death, he received the stigmata, the real and painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side. On his deathbed, he said over and over again the last addition to his Canticle of the Sun, "Be praised, O Lord, for our Sister Death." He sang Psalm 141, and at the end asked his superior to have his clothes removed when the last hour came and for permission to expire lying naked on the earth, in imitation of his Lord.

"We adore you and we bless you, Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all the churches which are in the whole world, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world" (St. Francis). (AmericanCatholic.org)

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me! Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:38-42)

Hearing the word Our Gospel scene today, in which our Lord “came to a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him,” seems from the context of Luke’s narrative to be situated in Galilee. In the same chapter, our Lord is reported condemning the Galilean towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum (Luke 10: 13-15). Luke does not expressly say that Martha and Mary were living in Galilee, and his inclusion of this incident at this point may be a literary device serving other of his purposes. There is no other Fr. Ted Tyler

mention by Luke of the two sisters, and he gives no reference to Lazarus. In the Gospel of St John, Martha, Mary and Lazarus are important figures and John specifically tells us that they lived in Bethany, near Jerusalem: “Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha” (John 11:1). Of course, they may have moved from Galilee to the environs of Jerusalem, or John may be making it clear to those who had read the Gospel of St Luke that, as a matter of fact, they had lived near Jerusalem. In any case, John shows that a public event of great importance was associated with the three. That event was the dramatic raising of Lazarus from the dead at the threshold of the Passion (chapter 11), and it was preceded by a magnificent profession of faith in Jesus on the part of Martha (11:27). This raising of Lazarus is immediately followed by the account of Martha serving, of Lazarus dining at table with Jesus, and Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with the pure nard and wiping them with her hair (12:2-3). On that occasion our Lord speaks of his burial, and of his disciples not always having him with them (12:7-8). A few things are found to be in clear agreement between the accounts of Luke and John. Among them is the special friendship between Christ and this household. In Luke, “Martha welcomed him into her home” (10:38). In John, the sisters send a message to Jesus saying that “he whom you love is ill” (11:3), and John tells us that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (11:5). Jesus himself refers to Lazarus as “our friend” (11:11). When Jesus arrived at Bethany he “wept. So the Jews said, See how he loved him!” (11:35-36).

One thing that is common to both John and Luke in their portrayals of the two sisters is in their characters. Martha is the active, outgoing disciple of generous service. Mary is the deeply contemplative disciple who shows love. Incidentally, while we learn from the correction directed by Christ at Martha, we also remember that Martha is celebrated in the Church’s liturgical year as a Saint. If we identify Mary her sister as Mary Magdalene, then Mary is also celebrated as a Saint of the Church’s year. But we can by no means be sure that Mary the sister of Martha is indeed Mary Magdalene, and I, for one, do not believe that she is. Further, Lazarus, whom our Lord so much loved, is not celebrated as a Saint of the liturgical year — Martha alone appears to have that honour. So then, that being stated, let us contemplate the scene provided us by the Gospel of St Luke today (Luke 10:38-42). It is Martha who welcomes Jesus — and perhaps others of his disciples too, because we read that “as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him...” (10:38). So there may have been other disciples in the house witnessing the event, and — who knows! — Luke’s source may have been one of them. Perhaps the visit was sudden, unannounced, and Martha, overjoyed at having Jesus (and perhaps others of his disciples) in the house, bounded into her characteristic hospitality. But it was not easy and amid the flurry she — as we might say — “lost it” a little. Luke tells us that she became “distracted” and, in her words to Jesus about her unconcerned sister who was simply enjoying the teaching of the Master, irritated. She boldly went to Jesus and asked him to tell her impractical sister to be up and doing. Luke uses the incident to recall for all time how important Christ regards the gaze of the disciple on his very Person and a heartfelt hearing of his teaching. This is the foundation of discipleship and of all service of the Master. It must not be taken away, dispensed with, or neglected. It is on this basis that generous service of him and the Church — his disciples — must rest. One must hear the word of God first, and then put it into practice.

Mary “sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.” What was Christ’s response to the pressing request to stop this and to be getting on with serving? He did not in any way criticize Martha for serving, but he gently and smilingly reminded her that its basis had to be listening to his word. This was the necessary thing, and it must never be taken away. “Only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Prayer must never be taken away from us, that prayer which consists of being at the feet of Jesus, gazing at his Person in spirit, and listening to his word.

“And the people of Nineveh believed in God; they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth” In today’s first reading (Jonah Fr. Ted Tyler

3: 1-10) the prophet Jonah eventually “set out and went to Nineveh in obedience to the word of the Lord”, and there he preached repentance. Even more, we ought be inspired by the repentance of the pagan Ninevites. On hearing Jonah’s announcement of the coming punishment, they recognised their sins and at the same time the goodness of God, and repented. Among other things, this surely reminds us that many outside of the household of the faith can teach us what it means to be pleasing to God. In this particular case we are reminded of the importance and the effectiveness of repentance. The inspired author shows us that even the pagan is capable of seeing this. Yet repentance is so frequently neglected! The Ninevites accepted that punishment for their sins was deserved and was coming, and that due to the goodness of God, it could be averted. St John the Baptist preached repentance and threatened punishment for those who did not repent. Our Lord spoke of hell fire, and said — speaking of several who had died accidentally — that unless his hearers repented they would perish too.

Let us take to heart the example of the Ninevites and aim at repentance. Indeed, we ought aim at constant repentance, ever starting again. So, now I begin!

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Mary Faustina's name is forever linked to the annual feast of the Divine Mercy (celebrated on the Second Sunday of Easter), the divine mercy chaplet and the divine mercy prayer recited each day by many people at 3 p.m. Born in what is now west-central Poland St Faustina Kowalska

(part of Germany before World War I), Helena was the third of 10 children. She worked as a housekeeper in three cities before joining the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in 1925. She worked as a cook, gardener and porter in three of their houses. In addition to carrying out her work faithfully, generously serving the needs of the sisters and the local people, she also had a deep interior life. This included receiving revelations from the Lord Jesus, messages that she recorded in her diary at the request of Christ and of her confessors. At a time when some Catholics had an image of God as such a strict judge that they might be tempted to despair about the possibility of being forgiven, Jesus chose to emphasize his mercy and forgiveness for sins acknowledged and confessed. “I do not want to punish aching mankind,” he once told St. Maria Faustina, “but I desire to heal it, pressing it to my merciful heart” (Diary 1588). The two rays emanating from Christ's heart, she said, represent the blood and water poured out after Jesus' death (Gospel of John 19:34) Because Sister Maria Faustina knew that the revelations she had already received did not constitute holiness itself, she wrote in her diary: “Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God” (Diary 1107). Sister Maria Faustina died of tuberculosis in Krakow, Poland, on October 5, 1938. Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1993 and canonized her seven years later. Four years after Faustina's beatification, Pope John Paul II visited the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy at Lagiewniki (near Krakow) and addressed members of her congregation. He said: “The message of divine mercy has always been very close and precious to me. It is as though history has written it in the tragic experience of World War II. In those difficult years, this message was a particular support and an inexhaustible source of hope, not only for those living in Krakow, but for the entire nation. This was also my personal experience, which I carried with me to the See of Peter and which, in a certain sense, forms the image of this pontificate. I thank divine providence because I was able to contribute personally to carrying out Christ's will, by instituting the feast of Divine Mercy. Here, close to the remains of Blessed Faustina, I thank God for the gift of her beatification. I pray unceasingly that God may have 'mercy on us and on the whole world' (Quote from the Chaplet of Divine Mercy).” (AmericanCatholic.org)

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. He said to them, When you pray, say: 'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.' (Luke 11: 1-4)

The Lord’s Prayer There are two versions of the prayer that Jesus Christ taught his disciples. There is our version of today, provided by the Gospel of St Luke. There is Matthew’s version in the Sermon on the Mount — which appears as a teaching to his disciples (Matthew 5:1-2), and yet which “the crowds” seem also to have heard (7:28). Matthew’s version of this Prayer is preceded by our Lord’s twofold directive that, firstly, prayer be “to your Father who is in secret” — and not to gain the praise of men. Secondly, prayer should be simple and trusting — and not a lot of gabble and patter like the prayer of the Gentiles (Matthew 6:6-7). While the context of Matthew’s version is the Sermon on the Mount, the context of Luke’s is the sight of our Lord himself praying (11:1). Luke’s version (Luke 11: 1-4) is simpler than Matthew’s, perhaps reflecting our Lord’s teaching of it in different contexts and for slightly different purposes. In Matthew, the Prayer begins by addressing God as “our Father,” while in Luke it begins simply with, “Father.” Matthew’s form, “our Father,” manifests the common Fatherhood of God both for mankind generally and for all those in Christ, and perhaps a more liturgical context. Luke’s simpler form of address may reflect a little more our Lord’s own usage (for our Lord himself addressed the Father simply as “Father”) and perhaps a more individual or personal use of the Prayer. Notably, two of the petitions in Matthew are missing from Luke’s version, though of course they are implied by the preceding petitions. In Luke, following “Your Kingdom come” — and the “Kingdom of God” pervades the preaching of our Lord in Luke’s Gospel — the Prayer passes on to the request that the Father “forgive us our sins.” Matthew, though, after praying that “your Kingdom come,” asks that “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (6:10). Matthew, then, makes explicit what is implied — namely that the will of the Father may prevail on earth just as it is willingly received in heaven. “Heaven” is a kind of template or paradigm of the goal of man’s striving on earth, and is this world’s final goal — the essence of it being the “will” of God. Luke’s version also, with its last request for protection against temptation, omits Matthew’s final petition to “deliver us from evil.”

It is Matthew’s slightly longer version which the Church has usually preferred to inculcate and which she has used liturgically. Luke’s version of today illustrates for us the great simplicity of Christian prayer. It is to be noted that at no point in the Gospels is Christ shown to be praying this Prayer with his disciples, suggesting that it is not only a prayer to be prayed by the Christian and by the Church, but it is a general guide to Christian prayer as well. Such has the Church used it, for it is the basis of the Church’s official teaching on prayer. In numerous commentaries on this Prayer the Church’s saints and doctors have expounded on how we are to pray, and the Church herself in her official catechisms has done the same. Most notably, in the great Catechism of the Council of Trent published by Pope St Pius V, and in its successor the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published by Pope John Paul II — with the aid of his main assistant, the future Benedict XVI — the Lord’s Prayer is the foundation of the Church’s official account. Pope Paul VI, whose Cause for canonization is proceeding, died with the Lord’s Prayer on his lips. Perhaps the most serious danger lies in the old hazard of routine. Every Christian knows the Lord’s Prayer. It is one of the first things he is taught. He knows it by heart and he repeats it time and again throughout life. It can become precisely what our Lord warns us about in giving it to us: gabble and patter, like the prayer of the pagans. We must attend to its meaning, and what can help us here is the realization that its roots lie deep in the Scriptures. Nearly all the elements of the prayer of our Lord have counterparts in the Old Testament, such as in Isaiah 63:15-16, Ezechiel 36:23 and 38:23, 1 Samuel 3:18, Proverbs 30:8, and Psalm 119:133. In fact, I would recommend that the Prayer be always thought of as being within the context of the Scriptures generally, and not as free-standing and therefore lacking Christ’s own profoundly Jewish roots. It is the Prayer that comes from the lips of Christ, and Christ is the Promise and Fulfilment of the Scriptures. Let us cultivate that image of the Lord’s Prayer — it is surrounded by a wealth of inspired allusions.

Let us treasure the Prayer Jesus Christ taught his disciples — especially to be noted in Luke’s account is that he taught them this after they had seen him praying. So he is the model of how we ought pray this Prayer. We ought pray it, thinking of Christ our Brother and our Intercessor praying. He is not only the model. He is our life as we pray it, which is to say that we pray this Prayer contemplating the risen Jesus in whom we live and by whose grace we pray. It is a precious Prayer, the paradigm of all prayer and one which ought shape our entire life of prayer.

"One of his disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." We ought often contemplate our Lord at prayer. He prayed at night — all night long, at times. He prayed in the synagogue, and in the Temple at Jerusalem. He prayed in agony before his Passion. So profound was our Lord’s prayer that his disciples, having seen him at prayer, wanted him to teach them to pray (Luke 11: 1-4). How good it would be to be taught by Christ to pray! In fact, we have been given a share in Christ’s own Spirit and St Paul tells us that his Spirit cries out in our own hearts, Abba! Father! The Holy Spirit is our sanctifier and our teacher. He will teach us to pray as Christ taught his disciples, if we ask him, and if we faithfully follow the Church’s guidance. So, let us constantly ask the Holy Spirit to help us to pray as we take to heart the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer our Lord taught his disciples. Let us make it a life-long object of our meditation on how to pray. Let us especially notice that Christ asks us to pray that his Kingdom come. St Monica, for one, prayed constantly for years for the conversion of her wayward son, Augustine. Her prayers were heard and he became one of the most influential saints in the Church’s history.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us to pray, and let us pray as our Lord taught us to pray.

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Thank Jesus for the confidence he gives you. It’s not stubbornness, but God’s light that makes you firm as a rock. Meanwhile, others, good as they are, present a sorry picture. They seem to be sinking in the sand. They lack the foundation of the faith. Ask Our Lord to grant that the demands of the virtue of faith may be met both in your life and in the lives of others.

This saint has the honour of having founded a religious order which, as the saying goes, has never had to be reformed because it was never deformed. No doubt both the founder and the members would reject such high praise, but it is an indication of the saint's intense love of a penitential life in solitude. He was born in Cologne, Germany, became a famous teacher at Rheims and was appointed chancellor of the archdiocese at the age of 45. He supported Pope Gregory VII (May 25) in his fight against the decadence of the clergy and took part in the removal of his own scandalous archbishop, Manasses. Bruno suffered the plundering of his house for his pains. He had a dream of living in solitude and prayer, and persuaded a few friends to join him in a hermitage. After a while he felt the place unsuitable and, through a friend, was given some land which was to become famous for his foundation "in the Chartreuse" (from which comes the word Carthusians). The climate, desert, mountainous terrain and inaccessibility guaranteed silence, poverty and small numbers. Bruno and his friends built an oratory with small individual cells at a distance from each other. They met for Matins and Vespers each day, and spent the rest of the time in solitude, eating together only on great feasts. Their chief work was copying manuscripts. The pope, hearing of Bruno's holiness, called for his assistance in Rome. When the pope had to flee Rome, Bruno pulled up stakes again, and spent his last years (after refusing a bishopric) in the wilderness of Calabria. He was never formally canonized, because the Carthusians were averse to all occasions of publicity. Pope Clement extended his feast to the whole Church in 1674. “Members of those communities which are totally dedicated to contemplation give themselves to God alone in solitude and silence and through constant prayer and ready penance. No matter how urgent may be the needs of the active apostolate, such communities will always have a distinguished part to play in Christ's Mystical Body...” (Decree on the Renewal of Religious Life, 7) (AmericanCatholic.org)

Then Jesus said to them, Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of Shroud of Turin

bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11: 5-13)

Prayer If there is one thing that ought be characteristic of “religion,” it is prayer. There are, of course, modern understandings of “religion” which regard it as a man’s dedication to the ultimate values of his life. In this sense, a man’s consuming interest in sport, or in his own professional advancement, or in some temporal ideology such as Marxism, is a “religion.” He may not know that it is, in effect, his “religion,” and in its command of his heart it may far exceed the formal religion which he considers himself to accept. His Fr. Ted Tyler

Catholic faith may be purely notional and nominal, while his all-consuming dedication to the policies of his political party may be, virtually, a “religion” for him. Obviously, there would be little or no prayer in the life of such a one as this. Or again, he may accept a deity but its reality may scarcely touch him. The famous "Tom" Paine (1737 – 1809) was an author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. In his well-known work, The Age of Reason, he writes: “I do not believe in the creed professed by .... any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.” What kind of a God did he allow for? His religion consisted, he wrote, in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavouring to imitate him in everything moral, scientific, and mechanical. I can scarcely imagine that Thomas Paine ever prayed — he was certainly resolutely opposed to Christian revelation and insisted on a reliance in all things on “Reason” and “Common Sense.” One character in American literature which portrays the deist soul is the Pathfinder of James Fernimore Cooper’s novel (of the same name as the character). The novel appeared in 1840 and in the Pathfinder character it may be regarded as a fruit of the Enlightenment era, while containing elements of the new Romanticism. The Pathfinder, hero of the American wilds and unsurpassed with his rifle, himself is of a firm deist belief and at one point remotely acknowledges a redemption from sin. But he is never portrayed as praying to his Creator. What I am saying is that there is a modern notion of “religion” which has little place in it for prayer.

But this is profoundly at variance with the testimony of the religions of mankind. Prayer has always been regarded as inextricably at the root of religion. To claim to be religious, and to regard oneself as being religious, and to be portrayed as being religious and never to pray — as in Cooper’s Pathfinder, winning character as he is — would be ridiculous according to the voice of mankind. In fact, prayer may be regarded as one of the most profoundly recurring activities of man. Just as man may be described not merely as a “rational” animal but as a “religious” one, so he may be described as a “praying” animal. Man prays, both individually and as a community. As sociologists, anthropologists and historians understand, his culture is characteristically pervaded by the practice of prayer and religion — the exception being modern secular society, in which God has become an optional private persuasion. Now, this is not just a question of sociological phenomena. It is a matter of life and death. St Alphonsus Liguori writes somewhere in his multi-volume works that it is very difficult to be saved without prayer, and specifically without the prayer of petition. In fact, it is precisely the prayer of petition which is so characteristic of the life and history of man — he and his community cry out to the Unseen for aid in their need. Prayer is the most natural, universal and persistent thing in the world. It is what we tend to do unless we have allowed ourselves to be overtaken by a philosophy that renders us sceptical and then blind to what we instinctively know — that there is a God who aids us. All of this brings us to our immensely consoling Gospel today, in which Christ urges us to ask God our heavenly Father for what we need. He also tells us what God is especially desirous of giving us, and therefore of what we especially need. That munificent Gift, that Gift of which we have so much need, is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God by means of whom God created the world and redeemed it through his Son our Lord. “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11: 5-13). Let us pray for this, and never cease praying for it.

The corollary of this is that we should — for it is a duty — feel confident that God will hear our prayers if in our prayers we wish to please him. Our Lord makes it clear that prayer is not fruitless, even if we do not see the intervention of God taking effect before our eyes. Christ does not promise that — he promises that God will hear our prayers even if we do not see him doing this, nor how he does it, nor in what sense he does it. But answer our prayers he will if we pray with faith and persistence, endeavouring all the while to pray in accordance with his will. How great will be the good we shall do, if we persist in asking God for our needs and the needs of others!

“So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you” Once a lady told me of the success her prayers seemed to be having. She Fr. Ted Tyler

had been asked to pray for someone who was seriously ill. She approached others as well, to pray for this intention, and they persevered in prayer. She then had the joy of being approached by the relative of the sick person with the news he was improving. One of the characteristics of many religiously observant people is that they do not really believe that their prayers will make any difference. They do not believe much in the prayer of petition. It implies that they do not believe in God's active power and love, and in his promise that he will answer prayer. Of course, this faith is a gift, and it ought be prayed for because if we do not believe that our prayers of petition will make any difference, we will not pray such prayers. If we do not ask God for much, we may not receive much. St Alphonsus Liguori wrote that one reason why people do not receive a lot more from God than they do is that they do not ask God for much. In our Gospel passage today (Luke 11: 5-11) Our Lord teaches us that we must not only ask for what we need, but we must persist in asking. Our prayer should be persevering, and we ought especially ask for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier. A father knows how to be generous with his child when his child asks for something that is good for him. “How much more,” our Lord comments, “will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Let us take to heart our Lord's enormously important teaching on the prayer of petition. Let us pray for the faith to ask God for much, especially for whatever aids our quest for holiness.

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If I behaved differently, if I were more in control of my character, if I were more faithful to you, Lord, how marvellously would you help us!

Pope St. Pius V established this feast in 1573. The purpose was to thank God for the victory of Christians over the Turks at Lepanto — a victory attributed to the praying of the rosary. Clement XI extended the feast to the universal Church in 1716. The development of the rosary has a long history. First, a practice developed of praying 150 Our Fathers in imitation of the 150 Psalms. Then there was a parallel practice of praying 150 Hail Marys. Soon a mystery of Jesus' life was attached to each Hail Mary. Though Mary's giving the rosary to St. Dominic is recognized as a legend, the development of this prayer form owes much to the followers of St. Dominic. One of them, Alan de la Roche, was known as "the apostle of the rosary." He founded the first Confraternity of the Rosary in the 15th century. In the 16th century the rosary was developed to its present form — with the 15 mysteries (joyful, sorrowful and glorious). In 2002, Pope John Paul II added the five Mysteries of Light to this devotion.

“The rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at a heart a Christ-centred prayer. It has all the depth of the gospel message in its entirety. It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb...It can be said that the rosary is, in some sense, a prayer-commentary on the final chapter of the Vatican II Constitution Lumen Gentium, a chapter that discusses the wondrous presence of the Mother of God in the mystery of Christ and the Church" (Pope John Paul II, apostolic letter The Rosary of the Virgin Mary). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Some people said of Jesus, It is by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that he is driving out demons. Others tested him by asking for a Shroud of Turin

sign from heaven. Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub. Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armour in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters. When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. (Luke 11: 15-26)

God and Satan There is an odd ambiguity in modern culture when it comes to the matter of Satan. I have seen prominent advertisements that depict demons as mischievous, yet basically good-natured, imps. That is to say, a demon — including the arch-demon — is scarcely to be taken seriously. Anyone who accepts divine revelation knows that demons ought, rather, be depicted as ruthless, cunning and bloodthirsty spirits of the very worst order, devoid of any redeeming features. On the other hand, there is plenty of literature on demon possession and the menacing Occult, and, interestingly, it is the Catholic Church and her priest who is usually the successful foe of this remorseless, hellish Agent. This sort of thing is generally overdone, but it bears witness to the opposite of the secular scepticism towards things religious and unseen. Now, the most secure reference point for any talk of Satan and the demons is the four Gospels, and in particular the words and public ministry of Jesus Christ. There is a manifest leap in references to Satan between the books of the Old Testament and those of the New. In Genesis 3, Satan is present in the Garden as the Serpent. He is a fallen being, and is a cunning force for evil. Isaiah 14: 12-15 has often been understood as an inspired picture of Satan’s Fall: “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God .... ... I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit.” Ezekiel 28:12-17 has also been used to describe his Fall from heaven. But all up, Satan has no special prominence in what Christians call the Old Testament. He is introduced in the Garden as the cunning Serpent (Genesis 3:1-5) and wreaks havoc by tempting the Woman to be a god, like the one God. He is the Adversary of Job (Job 1 and 2), trying to use suffering to turn Job from God, but fails. In 1 Chronicles 21: 1, Satan (or, “a Satan”) is the Adversary of Israel, enticing David into proudly taking his census. In Zechariah 3: 1-2, he is the Adversary and Accuser of Joshua the high priest.

This shadowy Element occasionally appearing in the Inspired Scrolls suddenly bursts into full view with the arrival of the conquering and all-holy Messiah. Before Christ even begins his public ministry — which is to say, immediately after the designation of him by the Precursor — Satan solemnly makes his approach. As in the Garden, here too he appears and speaks. He treats this Man with respect, and makes an enticing offer. He will give Jesus the world, for he is worthy of it. There is one condition — the Man who might be (“if you are”) “the Son of God” must acknowledge him — indeed, worship him, no less. But oh! How different is this Man from the first one, and from the Woman who drew him along with her. This time Satan was shown the door. At that, the battle was joined and Satan and his minions appear throughout the Gospel narratives in a way and with an abundance unprecedented in the history of Israel and in its Inspired Writings. There is no quarter. The very approach of Jesus sends the demons squealing in fear and frustration. His word sends them forth from their sorry abodes and leaves him master of their fields. Behind these constant skirmishes, the arch-demon is at work — he will put an end to this second Adam, and he is busy with his own. Indeed, he gains successful entry into the circle of the Messiah himself. Our Lord told Simon that Satan had sought to sift them all like wheat — to get to the elements that he could make his own. And, to a point, he was successful. When Christ announced the Eucharist, he also said that one of the Twelve was a devil. At the Last Supper, Satan entered Judas. Our Gospel today is one of several utterances by our Lord on the reality and character of Satan and his minions. “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” There are two kingdoms, our Lord here tells us: there is Satan’s kingdom, and God’s Kingdom: “if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Luke 11: 15-26). God’s Kingdom is far the stronger, but man must be vigilant.

St Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises gives us a Meditation which we ought ponder long and hard. There are two Standards — one is that of Christ, and the other is that of Satan. It is as serious as that, and we have no business making light of Satan. He is out to tempt us so as to take away from the honour and glory we might give to the Lord God. He wants nothing other than our destruction, so as to spoil the work of God. Our Redeemer and our Friend is he whom the devils called the Holy One of God. Let us take our stand with him, then, and never leave him!

“So too with Satan; if he is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?” In our Gospel today (Luke 11: 15-26) we are immediately presented with the fight between Christ and Satan — and it is a fight indeed. Jesus had just cast out a demon, and following this he refers to the kingdom and the household of Satan. This satanic “kingdom” or “household” pits itself against the “kingdom” and the household of Christ, which is the Church his body. But in thinking of the household of Christ we also think of the one who is the Mother and Model of this household under Christ: Mary. On October 7, we celebrate the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary. We think of Mary as she accompanies us in praying this highly recommended prayer of the Church. The Church has for a very long time praised the Rosary and repeatedly urged it on her children. Papal Encyclicals have been written about the Rosary, and its devout recitation has been rewarded with rich indulgences. This guarantees that God blesses with great graces the fervent private and communal praying of this prayer. If we want to be holy, we ought take the Rosary seriously.

This is relevant to our Gospel passage today because the history of devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary links it to the fight against Satan and all that threatens the Christian life and civilization. Let us resolve to seek Christ in company with Mary our Mother and our Model by means of a loving and attentive praying of the Rosary.

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Your Father God puts a longing for atonement in your soul. That longing will be satisfied if you unite your own poor expiation to the infinite merits of Jesus. Rectify your intention, and love suffering in him, with him, and through him.

"I am only one person! Why should I do anything? What good would it do?" Today, as in any age, people seem plagued with the dilemma of getting involved. In his own way John Leonardi answered these questions. He chose to become a priest. After his ordination, he became very active in the works of the ministry, especially in hospitals and prisons. The example and dedication of his work attracted several young laymen who began to assist him. They later became priests themselves. John lived after the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent. He and his followers projected a new congregation of diocesan priests. For some reason the plan, which was ultimately approved, provoked great political opposition. John was exiled from his home town of Lucca, Italy, for almost the entire remainder of his life. He received encouragement and help from St. Philip Neri [whose feast is May 26], who gave him his lodgings—along with the care of his cat! In 1579, John formed the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, and published a compendium of Christian doctrine that remained in use until the 19th century. Father Leonardi and his priests became a great power for good in Italy, and their congregation was confirmed by Pope Clement in 1595. He died at the age of 68 from a disease caught when tending those stricken by the plague. By the deliberate policy of the founder, the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God have never had more than 15 churches and today form only a very small congregation. (AmericanCatholic.org)

As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you. He replied, Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it. (Luke 11: 27-28)

Obeying the word It is impossible to express adequately the wonder of the Incarnation. It is the Event of all events, the Occurrence which makes of all other occurrences in the universe puny satellites of a gigantic star. We speak of the Big Bang as starting it all — and of course, granted a Big Bang, it did start it all. But when it comes to the Incarnation, no other happening in the universe can possibly Fr. Ted Tyler

compare with it — and yet is happened ever so quietly. The great God, limitless in being and in every respect, became man. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was conceived of the Virgin Mary and took unto himself a human nature exactly like ours without the deformation and crippling infirmity of sin. Without laying aside his own divine nature, he thenceforth possessed as well a human mind, will, imagination, temperament and all the normal battery of human characteristics. God the Son thenceforth had his own human DNA, derived overwhelmingly from his mother who was, by the power and intervention of the Spirit of God, the single human agent in his conception. She then carried in her womb the infinite God become limited man, while remaing the God he always was. This or that man, in virtue of his material wealth, might be said to be, as we say, “a pot of gold.” Another might carry around with him the prestige of his profession — he is, say, the prime minister. Another carries with him other accomplishments that win him acclaim, arising from his work. But Mary carried with her the Son of God made man. She, a creature, was the very mother of God. How stupendous her dignity! With good reason did the woman in the crowd call out in wonder as she gazed on the magnificent prophet before her, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and who nursed you.” The woman did not know Mary — she was gazing on the Man before her, and could not help but wonder at how blessed his mother was in having such a Son. Mary herself, in the same Gospel from which our passage is taken, had said that all generations to come would call her blessed, because the Mighty God had done such great things for her (Luke 1:48-49). But our Lord immediately pointed to what God regards as especially, and indeed as more, important.

Our Lord did not say his mother was not blessed in having him as her Son — she was blessed indeed in being the mother of him who is God. But even more blessed was she in hearing the word of God and obeying it: “He replied, Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11: 27-28). In a real sense, her becoming the mother of the Lord was founded on her obedience to God. She heard and obeyed, and with that the Lord God came to dwell within her. In her particular case, God’s coming was of a unique and stupendous kind: God came to her to take flesh of her flesh, and to abide within her as her very son. But the pattern of God’s action is what we ought also notice: she heard God’s word, she obeyed it, and God came to her to dwell with her. This is the pattern of revealed religion. God spoke to Abraham. Abraham heard God’s word and obeyed it, and God came to abide with him as his God. It was the same with Isaac and Jacob, and with Moses, and with the people he chose for his own. The promise was, if you obey my word, I shall be your God and you will be my people. Yahweh is my name, which is to say: I who AM will be with you! This my presence with you will be threatened if you choose to disobey my word, and if you abandon me as your God. Let us note the pattern: God speaks, and if we hear and obey his word, he will be with us. He will be God-with-us, and his abode will be with us. The initiative is always his, and he is merciful. He forgives the one who turns to him in contrition and who resolves to hear and to obey — he will dwell with him as his God. Now, we are part of this in a wondrous way. For our Lord’s promise is, “You will live on in my love if you keep my commandments, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and live in his love” (John 15:10). If we keep his commandments and live in his love, he will come to us and abide with us: “Anyone who loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to him and make our dwelling place with him” (John 14:23). The great result of the Incarnation is the divine dwelling with man — and for us, it means the Divine Indwelling in us.

Mary became the mother of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ who is our God. She heard the word of the Lord and obeyed it, and the Word became flesh within her and dwelt within her. She was blessed for being the mother of the Lord, and for hearing the word of God and obeying it. We must take our cue from her who is the mother and model of the Church, the first and foremost Christian. Let us resolve to hear the word of God and obey it. Thus shall we live in the love of God, and he will come, Father, Son and Spirit, and make his abode within us. In this we shall be like Mary who is the perfect human reflection of him who is the Image of the Unseen God.

“As Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, 'Blessed is the womb that bore you.'..” There is one thing the Christian must do if he is ever to become a true disciple of the Master: he must contemplate the Person and the word of Jesus. Christianity is not simply a Fr. Ted Tyler

doctrine nor simply the embrace of a doctrine, though it includes that. It is not simply a profoundly right course of action, or being an ethical person, though it includes that. Nor is it just care and charity, though it is that too. It is above all a knowledge and love for Jesus — expressed, of course, in prayer, right belief, right action, care and charity. This knowledge and love for Jesus requires that we contemplate him regularly, daily, and that we fill our daily work with the fruit of this regular gaze (by the mind and heart) on the loveable and admirable person of Jesus Christ. We are reminded of this contemplation by our gospel passage today (Luke 11: 27-28). A woman in the crowd had been hearing him speaking, and in the process had been contemplating him. She raised her voice to praise him, by praising his mother: “Happy the womb that bore you!” We too ought be like that woman in her contemplation of the Person of Jesus speaking his word. But our Lord deflects the praise from himself in order to praise the one who hears the word of God and puts it into practice. Undoubtedly the ideal hearer of the word, the one just referred to, was in his mind as he spoke this: Mary his own mother. Mary contemplated her Son to perfection, hearing his words and putting them perfectly into practice.

Let us resolve to be with Jesus regularly, every day contemplating his Person and his word.

You have no idea whether you are making progress, or, if you are, how much. But what use is such a reckoning to you? What is important is that you should persevere, that your heart should be on fire, that you should be more enlightened and descry farther horizons; that you should strive for our intentions, that you should feel them as your own — even though you don’t know what they are — and that you should pray for all of them.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 130 (129): 3-4 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.

Collect May your grace, O Lord, we pray, at all times go before us and follow after and make us always determined to carry out good works. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

(October 9) St Denis, bishop and martyr and his martyr companions (3rd century). St Denis was the first bishop of Paris. He was sent to France by Pope Fabian. He suffered martyrdom with his companions.

St John Leonardi, priest (1541-1609). He studied pharmacy after which he became a priest. He devoted himself to teaching catechism to children. He founded the Order of the Regular Clerks of the Mother of God and suffered many tribulations. Later on, he founded in Rome what became the Institute "De Propaganda Fide" for the propagation of the faith and the formation of missionaries.

Scripture today: Isaiah 25: 6-10a; Psalm 23: 1-3a, 3b-4, 5,6; Philippians 4: 12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22: 1-14

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some Shroud of Turin

more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.' But they paid no attention and went off — one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, ill-treated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' For many are invited, but few are chosen. (Matthew 22: 1-14)

Desires of the Spirit St Paul’s words at the beginning of the Second Reading are important: “I know how to be poor and I know how to be rich. I am ready for anything anywhere: full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty” (Philippians 4:12). St Paul was not greedy, avaricious, envious nor covetous. He accepted what God chose to place in his hands and across his path for the doing of his will, whether "full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty." The one important thing was to love Christ and to do his will. In the Gospel parable (Matthew 22: 1-14) "some ignored the invitation" of the master. Why? They did this because of their preferences, one for "his farm," another for "his business." They coveted other things. We are reminded of what Our Lord said to Martha when she came to him complaining about her sister Mary. Martha was not covetous, but our Lord’s words apply to those who are. “Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about many things. Few are needed, only one.” The Tenth Commandment teaches us that we are not to covet our neighbour’s goods. Covetousness relates to what the heart desires and intends. There have been religions in the history of man which concern man’s observable behaviour and little else. As long as the ceremonies or the observances are kept up, all is well. The religion revealed by our Lord concerns all of man’s activity, and not only activity that is observable. It especially concerns what he chooses to desire. Our religion is above all a religion of the heart, for as our Lord said on one occasion, it is from within a man’s “heart” that there proceeds the good and the bad in his life. Christ came to transform our hearts into the likeness of his own. With the sustaining aid of grace, we must try to conform the desires of our hearts to those of the heart of Christ — and God’s grace will effect what we desire. For example, our Lord commanded that we forgive “from the heart.” He commands that we actually “love” God with all our “heart” and that we “love” our neighbour as ourself. We are not to settle with merely acting towards God and others correctly. Love is a matter of the heart, which is to say, of the will. The roots of a man’s life are found in his heart, and it is our heart that must be sanctified.

Let us remember that our heart is the seat of our desires, and desires arise naturally from the heart. Desire as such is, therefore, good provided it truly serves our nature. God means us to be possessed of desire — for imagine a person who had no desire for anything! For instance, a person who has no desire to eat requires psychiatric and medical attention. A married man who had no desire to earn money is seriously failing his family. God wants us to be persons of great desires. The saint may not desire material prosperity, but he is still a person with powerful desires, but those desires serve his nature wonderfully. They are desires for God and his holy will. So it is an excellent thing to cultivate great desires for what we do not have, provided they are well ordered and are desires for what God wants us to have. We ought strongly desire what God directs us to seek, and what our human nature clearly needs if we are to flourish properly. The problem is that because of our fallen condition, a wholesome inclination to gain things easily becomes disordered, unwholesome and harmful. For instance, a person may have an ambition to make his way in his profession, which will mean greater responsibilities and the opportunity of doing greater good. But he might find himself hoping that a person who occupies a higher position will get sick, so that he will have the chance of gaining that job. He covets his neighbour’s goods and wishes him harm. In 1 Timothy 6:10, St Paul writes that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Greed for more things will stifle and replace the growth of love for God and others in one’s heart. Envy can lead to immensely serious consequences. It involves a sadness at not having another’s goods, and if it leads to wanting or intending serious harm on another, it is a mortal sin. King David even arranged the murder of Uriah because he coveted Uriah's wife — he broke the Ninth Commandment. He was envious of Uriah. We ought struggle against all envy and instead rejoice in another’s progress and good fortune. In this way God will be glorified. St Augustine saw envy as an especially “diabolical sin”, for as the Scriptures tell us, “through the devil’s envy death entered the world” (Wisdom 2:24).

Love for God and neighbour, together with God’s grace, is the one thing we ought passionately desire. All other desires ought be part of and subordinate to this desire. This is the one thing necessary, and it is the Holy Spirit who imparts to us this noble desire for God. Let us nourish and protect it. He gives us the grace to resist all covetousness, and to replace it with love. "Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus", St Paul writes — Christ Jesus who did not cling to his glory as God but gave up his riches that we might be rich. God our Father thus manifested in extraordinary fashion love alone. Let us aim to be like him as his true children.

Further reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, No.2535-2543 (Covetousness and the Desires of the Spirit)

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Tell him: Jesus, 1 cannot see a single perfect flower in my garden, all are blighted. It seems that all have lost their colour and their scent. Poor me! Face downwards in the muck, on the ground: that’s my place. That’s the way, humble yourself. He will conquer in you, and you will attain the victory.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 130 (129): 3-4 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.

Saint Francis Borgia, named for Francis of Assisi at his birth in 1510, was placed under the tutelage of his uncle, Archbishop of St Francis Borgia

Saragossa, after the death of his mother when he was ten years old. Soon he had to go to the court of Spain, as he was destined to be one of the great lords of that nation. There he remained Christian, modest and virtuous. His noble and beautiful appearance soon brought upon him snares which he succeeded in escaping, setting for himself regimes of prayer and study to escape from the dangers. He wore a hair shirt, and never would enter into any of those games of chance which cause the loss not only of money but of time, the spirit of devotion, and peace of soul. The Empress arranged for him to marry Eleanor de Castro of Portugal, who like himself was very pious. They were blessed with eight children, five sons and three daughters, who continued to practice the virtue of their parents. Having become the Duke of Gandia after his father's death, he became one of the richest and most honoured nobles in Spain. In 1539, there was laid upon him the sad duty of escorting the mortal remains of his once beautiful sovereign, the Empress Isabella, who had died still young, to the royal burial ground at Granada. The coffin had to be opened for him, that he might verify the body before it was placed in the tomb; and so unrecognizable, so astonishing a sight met his eyes that he vowed never again to serve any earthly sovereign, subject to so drastic and terrible a change. It was many years before he could follow the call of his Lord; the emperor named him Captain-General of Catalonia, and sent him to bring to justice a group of bandits who had ravaged the countryside. The poor found in him strong protection against oppression. Vices were banished by his ordinances; he endowed poor girls and assisted families ruined by misery and reversals; he St Francis Borgia

delivered debtors from prisons by paying what they owed. He was in effect the very Christian Viceroy of the Emperor. Saint Francis was relieved of this duty when he asked the Emperor, after the death of his father, to return and govern his subjects at Gandia. In Gandia he again did much public good; he built monasteries, founded hospitals, helped the poor in every possible way. But suddenly, his wife was taken from him. He was told by God that this loss was for both his and her own advantage, and amid his tears he offered his own life and that of his children, if that would please the Eternal Master. After making a retreat according to the Exercises of Saint Ignatius, under Blessed Peter Favre, he made the vows of a Jesuit privately until he could see to the establishment of his children. When he went to Rome with one of them, it was rumoured he would be made a cardinal like two of his brothers. But he wished to avoid all dignities, and succeeded in doing so by leaving Rome as soon as possible. Saint Ignatius made him his Vicar General for Spain, Portugal, and the East Indies, and there was scarcely a city of Spain and Portugal where he did not establish colleges or houses of the Company of Jesus. At the death of Saint Ignatius two years later, the Order chose him to be its General. Then his journeys became countless; to narrate them all would be an impossibility. The Turks were threatening Christendom, and Pope Saint Pius V commissioned two cardinal-legates to go and assemble the European Christian princes into a league for its defence. The holy Pope chose Francis to accompany one of the Cardinals and, worn out as he was, the Saint obeyed at once. The fatigues of the embassy exhausted what little life was left to him. Saint Francis died in the same year as Saint Pius V, happy to do so in the service of God and the Church, when he returned to Rome in October, 1572.

While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here. At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.” (Luke 11:29-32)

Divine patterns One of the many reasons why the moral quality of parenting is so critical is that a child’s parents and what they say, being the first human influences the child knows and accepts into his soul, become patterns and types for the child’s future experience. Those who are like his parents in belief and culture are more readily accepted by the child. The child’s moral standards tend to be those followed and taught by the parents and primary persons of the child’s emerging life. What the child sees and hears in Fr. Ted Tyler

his parents, guardians, educators and early companions tend to be types in the child’s mind for what it is to be human, and for how a human being should act. They are the “myths,” let us say, that provide the basic framework of life. It is not at all easy to transcend and leave behind the influence of these origins. For this reason, a conversion to a different religion or Church, or the passing over to a profoundly different political party, can amount to a great leap which the majority may never take because of the power of fundamental “myths” or paradigms. Those origins, as in the remembered events and persons that constitute them, tend to be the patterns for life ahead. They “make sense” of new persons, events, experiences. Now, this is entirely wholesome and natural. Families, tribes, communities and nations have their “myths,” their remembered origins, their “heroes,” their received paradigms and criteria for life and action. It is the way God has made us to function and to grow — provided, of course, the process is progressively disciplined and guided by correct and objective criteria. We cannot be entirely bound by such paradigms because they themselves are but human and prone to error — at times great and tragic error which must be transcended and renounced. The good news is that in the matter of what is most important of all — religion and our relationship with God — God has not left us with human influences alone. He has revealed himself over time, in fact over a long time. In the process he has provided us with a rich fare of entirely reliable and objective “myths” and paradigms, inspired and historical, which are our guide for true religion.

The greatest and most wondrous Guide given to humanity is the living Person of Jesus Christ, One who walked the earth at a certain point of history, and who lives now in all his glory not only at the right hand of God in heaven, but with us in his body the Church. He is the true and objective “Myth” that gives meaning to everything, but in his case the Myth is a hard and objective Fact. The point I wish to make here, though, is that our Lord himself was preceded by the great origins and history of God’s dealing with his chosen people. These origins and this history constituted a progressively unfolding set of paradigms and pointers to what was coming, namely the Messiah himself. Their purpose was to enable the Promised One to be interpreted and accepted when he came. It was all part of a piece, and a person who was steeped in the Holy Writings and who was submissive to their divine Author, would be equipped to receive the Messiah. Our Lord himself frequently, clearly and with originality showed how he fulfilled the Scriptures, and how the Scriptures pointed to him. He appealed to their figures to illustrate himself. If we ourselves are steeped in the Inspired Writings prior to Jesus Christ, together with a spirit of submission to God who authored them, we shall be equipped in a special way to appreciate his Person and teaching. The figures and events that people those Writings are types of him and his work and teaching. Our Gospel passage today (Luke 11:29-32) offers an illustration of this very important point. There were many who were, in a reluctant and recalcitrant fashion, challenging our Lord to prove his credentials to them by providing them with “signs” from heaven. He dismisses their demand (he was providing such signs continually in his miracles), and appeals to the “sign” of Jonah and Solomon. Both these figures were, in their limited ways, types of the One to come. They illustrated him, and he evoked their memory as inspired illustrations of his divinely-ordained way of working. They are two instances of many other types of the One who would be the Fulfilment of all. Jesus Christ is the New Adam. He is the New Moses. He is The Prophet. Jonah pointed to him, as did Solomon, but he was far more.

Let us enrich our appreciation of Jesus Christ the Lord of all lords, by immersing ourselves in the Gospels first of all, of course, and then in the rest of the New Testament writings, but also in the Inspired Writings before Jesus Christ — the Old Testament. Let us follow the Church’s liturgical practice in respect to the proclamation of the Gospel. She serves up for our contemplation the entire Holy Bible. She points to Christ, but with Moses on one side, and Elijah on the other — and they are conversing with him as they did on the holy Mount. They pointed to him, and were types of him, enabling us to appreciate the One who is the Summit of all.

"This news is about the Son of God .... it is about Jesus Christ our Lord” Both in living our Catholic Faith and in bringing Fr. Ted Tyler

it to others (which as disciples of the Lord ought be our ambition), we need to have a clear idea of just what our Catholic Faith — which is the Gospel — is about. Catholicism is not a simple matter, for it is rich and many-sided. Nevertheless, at its heart and in its broad outline, there need be no doubt in our minds as to what we are talking about when we speak of the Gospel. The Gospel, as St Paul tells us in today’s first reading, “is about the Son of God.” It is “about Jesus Christ our Lord.” The person of Jesus in all he revealed himself to be is “the Good News that God promised long ago through his prophets in the Scriptures.” The call of the Gospel is, as St Paul continues to the Romans (Romans 1: 1-7), that we “belong to Jesus Christ,” and in this way to become “saints.” This call is addressed to all, including “to all the pagans.” It is a call to faith in his Person, a faith which involves obedience to him as to God revealing: it is “the obedience of faith.”

Our lives ought be profoundly marked by the spirit of obedience, obedience to God in Christ, to him who is the Head of the Church which speaks in his name. Cardinal Newman once wrote that the essence of religion is authority and obedience. Let us then entrust ourselves entirely to Jesus, making his full revelation the shining light of every aspect of our lives.

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I understood you very well when you ended up saying: “Quite honestly, I haven’t even made the grade of being a donkey — the donkey that was the throne of Jesus when he entered Jerusalem. I’m just part of a disgusting heap of dirty tatters that the poorest rag-picker would ignore.” But I told you: all the same, God has chosen you and wants you to be his instrument. So your wretchedness — which is a genuine fact — should turn into one more reason for you to be thankful to God for calling you.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 130 (129): 3-4 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.

(October 11) Saint Firmin, son of a senator, was a native of Pampeluna in Navarre. With his father he was taught the Christian faith by Honestus, a disciple of Saint Saturninus, the bishop of Toulouse, himself the disciple of Saint Peter the Apostle. Firmin, who had been confided by his father to Honestus for his education and had accompanied him on his apostolic journeys, was eventually consecrated bishop by Saint Honoratus, successor to Saint Saturninus at Toulouse. Firmin received the mission to preach the Gospel in the remoter parts of the Occident, or Gaul; thus he preached in the regions of Agen, Angers, and Beauvais. In what is now Clement-Ferrand, after long discussions with two ardent idolaters, he won them over. Error, wherever he passed, seemed to flee before him, as if the infernal powers feared to undertake a combat with this formidable adversary who was sure to defeat them. He had not yet suffered persecution. Desiring martyrdom, he decided to go to a centre of paganism in the north, in what is now Normandy, near Lisieux. There he was arrested and imprisoned for a time by the pagans. When delivered, he continued on towards the north, to a region where Saint Denys of Paris had baptized many. He confirmed the Christians in their faith, and went wherever a soul might have need of him. The Roman authorities heard of him and arrested him; the Saint generously confessed Jesus Christ in their presence. Again he was imprisoned, but released when the prefect and his successor both died suddenly. He was obliged, however, to flee secretly.

When he arrived at Amiens, he placed his residence there and founded a large church of faithful disciples. Amiens conserves the memory of the day he arrived and preached fearlessly there beside a temple of Jupiter, at a site where now the Basilica of Our Lady stands. He taught aloud the salutary doctrine of Christianity to all who came to listen. Many conversions followed, even among the authorities of the city, including the senator. He continued his preaching in that region for a number of years, while the pagan temples became literally deserted. And then two Roman officials, Longulus and Sebastian, heard of him and came to the city. The pagan priests saw their opportunity, when all the city residents were convoked to appear before the visitors. The two officials explained that the capital penalty was decreed for those who did not obey the imperial edicts, not offering incense to the gods and honouring them. The pagan priests then told them of one who always refused to do so, and Saint Firmin, after an eloquent defence of the religion of Christ, was imprisoned. He finally saw his most ardent desire fulfilled when certain soldiers decided on their own to accomplish the imperial orders, and came with swords to his prison at night, where they decapitated the bishop. He died, filled with joy at their coming. This occurred under the reign of Trajan in the first years of the second century. The holy bishop remains in the greatest honour in the city of Amiens. (Source: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 11.)

After Jesus had spoken, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home. He entered and reclined at table to eat. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal. The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.” (Luke 11:37-41)

Christ’s way I cannot imagine John the Baptist being invited to dine at the home of a Pharisee, nor can I imagine the Baptist acting on such an invitation. He dwelt in the wilderness, clothed with camel’s hair and belt, eating locusts and wild honey. He became widely known as the prophet of the day, calling for repentance and announcing that the promised time had come. Out into the desert came people from Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee and other parts in order to hear him and to be baptized — which is to say, to express sorrow for sin and to receive from him a symbolic gesture of God’s pardon. To him there also came the Pharisees and Sadducees “for baptism” (Matthew 3:7), but it seems that their motive was scarcely sincere: they received from John a withering denunciation. “You brood of vipers!” he called them. There is no mention of their inviting him to dine at their sumptuous homes. But such is not the style of John’s successor, the One who, like Elisha following Elijah, succeeded John’s demise, and who manifestly had, as it were, a double portion of his spirit. John declared that he, John, was not worthy to carry the Messiah’s sandals (Matthew 3:11). This follows his words to the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 3: 7-10), suggesting that they heard this declaration. John knew that Jesus surpassed him in holiness (“I need to be baptized by you” Matthew 3:14), and once he had begun, Jesus in fact far outstripped him (“all are coming to him,” John’s disciples reported, John 3: 26). But what do we see? Jesus is actually invited by the Pharisees to dine with them. Our incident today is not the only one of its kind. On an earlier occasion in the same Gospel we read how our Lord compared his own style of life with that of the Baptist: “For John the Baptist came eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, he has a demon; the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Luke 7:33-35). Our Lord’s regimen was not that of the Baptist. He did not live on locusts and wild honey, nor did he dress in camel’s hair, nor live in the wilderness — and this was in order to gain hearts. But then, immediately after this contrast between himself and John, we read that “one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table” (Luke 7:36).

It is said, incidentally, that the Pharisees did not readily invite those outside their class to dine with them. That they invited Jesus suggests the esteem which Jesus of Nazareth was commanding among many of them. He was victorious in any encounter with them over the meaning of the Scriptures, and he spoke with an authority that far transcended — in the eyes of the people — that of the scribes. All addressed him as “Rabbi,” even the scribes. We read in John’s Gospel of Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees, addressing Jesus as “Rabbi” and acknowledging that he and at least many of his colleagues knew that he, Jesus, came from God. His works made this obvious (John 3: 2). Not only did Jesus command a respect which could not be dismissed nor ignored, but he unhesitatingly confronted them, attacked them, and silenced them when needed. Yet he is invited to dine with them — in Luke 7: 36 it is to the house of Simon the Pharisee, and in our Gospel today (Luke 11:37-41), it is to another of the Pharisees. It appears that others of their class were present, and some lawyers too, for our Lord denounces many of both groups during the meal (11: 39-52). It would seem that our Lord’s whole manner and lifestyle drew people to his company — even, in a sense, those who were his enemies. They extended invitations to him and he accepted those invitations. There was nothing about our Lord which kept people at a distance from him, with the one exception of their deliberate and unrepented sin. The tax collectors and sinners wanted to be with him and to hear him. He dined with them too. The grand exceptions were the hardening higher echelons of the Pharisee, Sadducee and lawyer classes, in a word the Temple aristocracy and their coterie. Our Lord was not bending to them. He was the Truth, and the Way and the Life, and even Pilate could see that the “chief priests” had handed him over to him for condemnation because of their envy (Mark 15:10). The only thing that kept people separated from Jesus Christ was their sin. He himself drew people to him, including, as we see in the Gospels, many of the Pharisees themselves. We read that “indeed, among the rulers also many believed in him” but they feared the consequences of this being known (John 12:42-43).

Our Gospel today shows our Lord being invited to the house of a Pharisee, and his accepting this invitation. Our Lord, whom even the demons called the Holy One of God, and whom the people and the scribes and Pharisees themselves addressed as Rabbi, dines in the home of a well-to-do Pharisee. It speaks volumes of his missionary style and his divine magnanimity. Jesus Christ loves all, but most especially the lowly and repentant. How he wished to see the Pharisees, the lawyers, the Sadducees and all the leaders, repent! He made himself all things to all men in order that he might save some — as St Paul described himself as doing (1 Corinthians 9:22). Let us every day take our place in the company of our divine Friend and Master, and resolve to live in him.

“That is why such people are without excuse: they knew God and yet refused to honour him” In today's first reading (Romans 1: 16-25), St Paul refers to culpable ignorance of the truth about God. He tells us that it is most serious because “what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them since God himself has made it plain.” Of course, St Paul was referring to ignorance in an almost universally religious environment. The context was pagan but religious — the unseen world was accepted and taken for granted as a reality. Our own culture does not take this for granted at all — it is one that verges on an agnosticism and practical atheism which can make it difficult for some to attain belief. In modern philosophical discussion, for example, it is a great question whether there is a supernatural realm at all. Nevertheless, what St Paul says about the ignorance of men in respect to God is a warning to all the ages: “people are without excuse: they knew God and yet refused to honour him as God or to thank him.” And why is this, in St Paul’s inspired account? Men “keep the truth imprisoned in their wickedness.” So at root, it is a moral matter, a matter of moral disposition. God’s anger is directed against the “impiety and depravity of men” that leads them to “ refuse to honour him as God.” The problem concerns the moral inclinations of the heart, what a person wants.

Cardinal Newman wrote towards the end of his life that of ourselves we are unable to change the fundamental starting points and assumptions of our moral and religious life. We must pray that God will give us the right starting points. Those starting points are moral, and they dispose us to accept the truth. Without them even the truth that is “plain” will not be accepted.

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Mary’s humble song of joy, the Magnificat, recalls to our minds the infinite generosity of the Lord towards those who become like children, towards those who abase themselves and are sincerely aware that they are nothing.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 130 (129): 3-4 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.

(October 12) Saint Wilfrid Archbishop of York (634-709) (Picture: 11th century manuscript Life of St Wilfrid)

It was the glory of the great Saint Wilfrid to fasten securely the happy links which bound England to Rome. He was born about the year 634 of an excellent Christian family; at that time a brightly burning torch was seen over the house of his father, shedding light all Life Of St Wilfrid 11th Century Manuscript

Life Of St Wilfrid 11th Century Manuscript

along the street where the house was, without doing any damage. This was regarded as a presage that the newborn babe would one day be a brilliant light in the Church. Wilfrid was brought up by the Celtic monks at Lindisfarne in the rites and usages of the British Church. Yet even as a boy Wilfrid longed for perfect conformity with the Holy See in discipline as well as in doctrine, and at the first opportunity he set out for Rome. When his devotion and his desire for instruction in the difficulties of the liturgy were satisfied, he was ready to return to England. On his way he visited the archbishop of Lyons, Saint Chamond, who had very kindly received him on his route to Rome. Before re-embarking for England, Wilfrid received the tonsure and remained with him for three years, until his death. At home once more, he built a monastery at Stamford, and made of another one at Ripon a strictly Roman monastery under the rule of Saint Benedict. There he was ordained a priest, and after having governed it as Abbot for five years, he was consecrated a bishop in France. He again remained for a time across the Channel, and then found, when he returned to England, that another had replaced him in his newly assigned see of York. That bishop, whose position was more than doubtful, was persuaded to retire when the Archbishop of Canterbury visited Northumbria; Wilfrid was thereby reinstated in 669. He enforced the Roman obedience in his see and founded many monasteries of the Benedictine Order.

As Bishop of York he had to combat the passions of wicked kings, the cowardice of worldly prelates, the errors of holy men. He was twice exiled and once imprisoned; finally the difficulties were settled with the aid of Roman authority. In 686 he was called back to his diocese of York, where eventually he swept away the abuses of many years and a too national system, and substituted instead a vigorous Catholic discipline, modeled and dependent on Rome. When the large see of York was definitively divided and suffragan dioceses established, Saint Wilfrid was given two smaller sees but not York. He decided to accept the settlement reached with other British ecclesiastics, since the principle of Roman authority had been vindicated. He died October 12, 709, amid the monks of Ripon and was buried in this monastery. A monk of the monastery of Ripon who had worked with Saint Wilfrid for forty years wrote the first biography of the former Abbot and Archbishop. The greater part of his relics were transferred to the cathedral of Canterbury in the year 959. Trust in the Vicar of Christ is an instinct planted in us for the preservation of the Faith. It follows necessarily upon the reign of our Saviour’s divine love in our hearts. Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 12; Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894); The Catholic Encyclopedia, edited by C. G. Herbermann with numerous collaborators (Appleton Company: New York, 1908).

Jesus said, Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practised the latter without leaving the former undone. Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the market-places. Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it. One of the experts in the law answered him, Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also. Jesus replied, And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. (Luke 11:42-46)

Self-importance I have never delved seriously into the history of empirical psychology as a discipline, but it is clear that over the last several decades the theme of self-esteem has attained a considerable prominence. Self-esteem is a term used in psychology to indicate a person’s appraisal of his or her own worth. It includes beliefs about oneself, such as “I am competent in this or that,” or “I am no good at the job I am doing,” and various emotions such as despair, shame, satisfaction or triumph. Importantly, such Fr. Ted Tyler

statements as “I am a bad person, and I feel bad about myself in general,” ring alarm bells in the mind of the psychologist. Such a person’s “self-esteem” is low, and that is deemed not to be good. In popular discourse, self-esteem refers to how much you value yourself and how important you think you and your accomplishments are. Now, it is obvious that this is a fairly fundamental matter in the life and happiness of the human being. Any thing has a certain objective importance simply because it exists. Being has value. In the case of the animal, self-esteem will not be an issue because strictly speaking there is no consciousness of self. A dog is conscious of many things including the friendliness of its own master or fellow-animals, but is not conscious of itself. That is to say, it has no power of strict self-awareness (which would imply a spiritual self), and so there is no capacity to be aware of its own value. Self-esteem is not an issue. But human beings are aware of themselves as distinct entities, and so possess an innate sense of personal value for the simple reason that they are aware that they exist. That which exists has value. Further, the human being senses what is the manifest fact, namely that he is of far greater importance than many other things around him, and of equal importance — in a fundamental sense — to other human beings. Hence it is to be expected that the human being will have a degree of self-esteem, and will expect that his value as a human being will be acknowledged by others. If this is lacking, it is a disorder and he will feel it. The next plain fact is that all too often this is not acknowledged. Many will regard him as of little value.

So self-esteem has been an important issue for every individual since the dawn of human history. The trouble is that fallen man tends not only to deny to others the esteem that is their due. He also seeks for himself the esteem of others to a degree entirely disproportionate to his merits, and in ways that are disordered. As a matter of fact, this sort of thing began in heaven long before the human race appeared. Splendid and lustrous angels, worthy of the highest esteem because of their endowments received from the Creator, wished to be esteemed with the honour due to God. I will not serve, was their cry. Creatures though they knew themselves to be, entirely dependent on the ongoing creative act of God, they nevertheless demanded a position equal to that of God. Their self-esteem was monstrously wilful and it was their terrible undoing. Thus Lucifer, the bearer of light, became Satan, the prince of darkness. At the dawn of history he was found to be in the Garden tempting the Woman with his characteristic temptation: to be a god like the one God. The crash was terrible, and it left human nature in the sorry state with which we are so familiar. Our self-esteem has been derailed, and we tend to grasp for it in overwhelming abundance, and are in constant unhappiness at the portion of it we are served. Self-esteem is indeed a fundamental matter in human flourishing, but the question is, what are its true sources? The most objective esteem we enjoy is not that which we have for ourselves, nor that which comes from our fellow human beings. It is the esteem which God has for us, whom he sustains out of love. The fact is that we are nothing, absolutely nothing without him, and all that we are and have in any positive sense is his gift. We are living proofs of his divine esteem for us, and our self-esteem ought be derived from the fact of his love for us. It is a love that creates, redeems and sanctifies us. On our part, what can we show but daily infidelities — but the answer to this is to make constant acts of humility and trust in the love of God which is his pure gift. Our self-esteem is based in him, not in ourselves. No matter how poor we are in ourselves, the rock of our self-esteem lies in God.

In our Gospel passage today, our Lord castigates the Pharisees for making themselves the object of esteem rather than God: “Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the market-places. Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it” (Luke 11:42-46). They were creatures of self-importance. Our Lord said elsewhere that we ought come to him and learn from him, for he is meek and humble of heart, and we shall find rest for our souls (Matthew 11:28-30). We are to choose the lowly place, as our best place before God. More precisely, we are to seek to live in the truth, in this case, the truth of ourselves. We are creatures of God, and he is the Source of all.

“Your stubborn refusal to repent is only adding to the anger God will have towards you” There is one element in the Christian life that is truly pivotal. It is repentance. The prophets continually preached repentance and threatened the direst Fr. Ted Tyler

consequences if the people did not repent. Jonah’s mission was to call the Ninevites to repentance. They responded to the call and were spared the consequences of their sins. John the Baptist preached repentance, and our Lord began his public ministry by preaching a call to repent, for, he said, the Kingdom of God was at hand. St Paul in the first reading for today solemnly warns the one who stubbornly refuses to repent. The judgment of God is coming. St Paul unambiguously speaks “that day of anger when his just judgments will be made known. He will repay each one as his works deserve.” God is good, and his goodness is shown in his patience and toleration allowing time for the sinner to repent. What ought we take from these words? The failure to repent can be a matter of stubbornness. For instance, our Lord time and again (including in the Lord’s Prayer) stresses the imperative need to forgive. But do we try to forgive, and from the heart? If we do not, he tells us, we shall not be forgiven. Now, are we facing up to this, or are we secretly refusing to forgive, stubbornly hanging on to grievances? There may be many things, such as almsgiving, or penance, or whatever else we find difficult in the spiritual life and which we are forever refusing to come to terms with. On several fronts, we may be stubbornly, if secretly, refusing to repent.

Now I begin! Let us pray for the spirit of repentance to fill our spiritual life, enabling us to repent from the deliberate venial sins to which we are stubbornly yet secretly attached.

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God is very pleased with those who recognize his goodness by reciting the Te Deum in thanksgiving whenever something out of the ordinary happens, without caring whether it may have been good or bad, as the world reckons these things. For everything comes from the hands of our Father: so though the blow of the chisel may hurt our flesh, it is a sign of Love, as he smooths off our rough edges and brings us closer to perfection.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 130 (129): 3-4 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.

(October 13) St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) (Picture on right: face of St Margaret Mary)

Margaret Mary was chosen by Christ to arouse the Church to a realization of the love of God symbolized by the heart of Jesus. Her early years were marked by sickness and a painful home situation. "The heaviest of my crosses was that I could do nothing to lighten St Margaret Mary Alacoque

the cross my mother was suffering." After considering marriage for some time, Margaret entered the Order of Visitation nuns at the age of 24. A Visitation nun was "not to be extraordinary except by being ordinary," but the young nun was not to enjoy this anonymity. A fellow novice (shrewdest of critics) termed Margaret humble, simple and frank, but above all kind and patient under sharp criticism and correction. She could not meditate in the formal way expected, though she tried her best to give up her "prayer of simplicity." Slow, quiet and clumsy, she was assigned to help an infirmarian who was a bundle of energy. On December 21, 1674, three years a nun, she received the first of her revelations. She felt "invested" with the presence of God, though always afraid of deceiving herself in such matters. The request of Christ was that his love for humankind be made evident through her. During the next 13 months he appeared to her at intervals. His human heart was to be the symbol of his divine-human love. By her own love she was to make up for the St Margaret Mary Alacoque

coldness and ingratitude of the world—by frequent and loving Holy Communion, especially on the first Friday of each month, and by an hour's vigil of prayer every Thursday night in memory of his agony and isolation in Gethsemane. He also asked that a feast of reparation be instituted. Like all saints, Margaret had to pay for her gift of holiness. Some of her own sisters were hostile. Theologians who were called in declared her visions delusions and suggested that she eat more heartily. Later, parents of children she taught called her an impostor, an unorthodox innovator. A new confessor, Blessed Claude de la Colombiere, a Jesuit, recognized her genuineness and supported her. Against her great resistance, Christ called her to be a sacrificial victim for the shortcomings of her own sisters, and to make this known. After serving as novice mistress and assistant superior, she died at the age of 43 while being anointed. "I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus."

Christ speaks to St. Margaret Mary: "Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love. In return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in this sacrament of love.... I come into the heart I have given you in order that through your fervour you may atone for the offences which I have received from lukewarm and slothful hearts that dishonour me in the Blessed Sacrament" (Third apparition). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus said to the experts in the law, Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed Shroud of Turin

them. So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, God in his wisdom said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.' Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all. Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering. When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say. (Luke 11: 47-54)

Sinful blindness In our Gospel passage, our Lord charges the “lawyers” — and the “Pharisees” were among them (Luke 11: 42-44) — with approving “of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.” Our Lord was saying that their action of building the tombs of the prophets killed by their forefathers was, without their realizing it, symbolic of their being at one with “the deeds of your forefathers.” Stephen, just before his martyrdom by stoning, refers to this tradition of rejection of the prophets: “Was there any prophet whom your fathers did not persecute? In their day, they put to death those who foretold the coming of the just One” (Acts 7:52). St Paul, who at the time had approved of Stephen’s stoning, also mentions this. He writes to the Thessalonians: “For you, brothers, ... also have suffered the same things from your countrymen as they did from the Jews; who both killed the Lord Jesus Christ and their own prophets, and drove us out; they displease God, and oppose everyone” (1 Thessalonians 2:14-15). These are references to a perceived motif, a received tradition. Jesebel had persecuted the prophet Elijah. In Jeremiah 26, at the end of his withering prophecy in the court of the house of the Lord, “the priests and the prophets” arrested Jeremiah and presented him to the princes and to the people for capital punishment — but this demand was rejected. Subsequently he suffered much. In the same chapter reference is made to the prophet Uriah the son of Shemaiah (27:20-24) who was killed for what he prophesied. In 2 Chronicles 24: 20-22, Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest received the spirit of prophecy, and prophesied before the people that God was abandoning them. At the king’s order he was stoned to death in the Temple of the Lord. In the same inspired Book we are given something of a comment on the history of the reception given to the prophets: “Early and often did the Lord, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the Lord against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16).

Our Lord was saying that his enemies were part of this perceived tradition. The point is that Christ told them in no uncertain terms that they were culpably blind. They were of the same class as their “forefathers,” though they sanctimoniously maintained and honoured the resting places of the martyred prophets. It is this blindness which we must contemplate. This dialogue between our Lord and the Pharisees and scribes took place, as presented by Luke, in the house of a Pharisee who had invited him to dine with him. We ought not imagine our Lord as speaking in uncontrolled anger — such is scarcely in accord with his consummate self-control and holy bearing. I imagine our Lord speaking in low tones within the room where all were reclining at table. I imagine him with face manifesting a holy peace, utterly unruffled at the formidable array of personages before him. He was master of the room and all knew it. I even imagine a slight smile as he speaks slowly and clearly, perhaps even slightly shaking his head in a semi-hopeless gaze at the blindness of his audience of Pharisees and scribes. St John tells us in his Gospel that he knew what was in the heart of man (John 2: 25). He knew them all, and they could not touch him unless he allowed it. He spoke with point: “Woe to you Pharisees!” he said in quiet and emphatic tone, striking at the heart of all. “Woe also to you lawyers!” he continued, turning his sovereign gaze on them. The setting was direct, even somewhat intimate in the sense that it was within the familiar setting of a formal meal. There was no public embarrassment before the populace. The Pharisee had invited him and scribes were among the guests. It would seem that the occasion included but our Lord and them — perhaps some of our Lord’s disciples were there. Our Lord used the special occasion to be unmistakably clear, and he hoped that his words would penetrate the hardness of their blinded hearts. But it was to no avail. We read that “When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say” (Luke 11: 47-54).

The lesson we must take from the whole incident is that we ought be on guard against a similar blindness and hardness of heart. Let us not say, this cannot happen to me! It probably already is happening to us, to some extent. We probably already suffer from some such moral blindness. We need the grace of God and an opening to the light of the Holy Spirit. That grace is available to us in the word of God and the Sacraments of the Church. Let us make it our business to obtain this grace and to remain in the state of grace, all the while praying for the light of God to guide us and to keep us from culpable error. “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful!”
(E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection: (Luke 11: 47-54)

“The scribes and the Pharisees began a furious attack on him” Our Lord, as we read in today’s Gospel (Luke 11: 47-54), solemnly warned the leaders of the people of the judgment of God that was coming on them: alas for you! he said to them. In response “the scribes and the Pharisees began a furious attack on him...setting traps to catch him out in something he might say.” This opposition from the leaders of the people did not cease to grow, and it culminated in his crucifixion. Our Lord failed to win them over to the truth he proclaimed and bore witness to by the gift of his life. What was the meaning of this failure and the sacrifice it led to? The failure was redemptive. In the mounting hostility lay the beginnings of a salvific victory. St Paul in our first reading from Romans (Romans 3: 21-30) tells us that both Jew and pagan are redeemed “in Christ Jesus who was appointed to sacrifice his life so as to win reconciliation by faith.” God, he writes elsewhere, was reconciling the world to himself in Christ’s gift of his life to the witness of the truth. The effect of this sacrifice is the reconciliation of all, Jews and pagans, to God. It is offered to all as a free gift, a grace. How does it come to all? By what means does it reach the individual? It “comes through faith to everyone, Jew and pagan alike, who believes in Jesus Christ.” Our Gospel today shows our Lord’s enemies resolutely refusing to believe in his word, the word of truth. Their response was personal hostility.

Salvation comes to us through giving to Jesus our belief in him and in all he reveals. This means, as our Lord says elsewhere, “hearing the word of God and putting it into practice.” This is the obedience of faith that is to be preached to all.

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When human beings have work to do, they try to use the right tools for the job. If I had lived in another century, I would have written with a quill pen: now I use a fountain pen. But when God wants to carry out some piece of work, he uses unsuitable means, so that it can be seen that the work is his. You have heard me say this very often. So you and I, who are aware of the massive weight of our failings, should tell him: “Lord, wretched as I am, I still understand that in your hands I am a divine instrument.”

Entrance Antiphon Ps 130 (129): 3-4 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.

The most reliable information about this saint comes from his enemy St. Hippolytus, an early antipope, later a martyr for the Church. A negative principle is used: If some worse things had happened, Hippolytus would surely have mentioned them. Callistus was a slave Pope St Callistus

in the imperial Roman household. Put in charge of the bank by his master, he lost the money deposited, fled and was caught. After serving time for a while, he was released to make some attempt to recover the money. Apparently he carried his zeal too far, being arrested for brawling in a Jewish synagogue. This Pope St Callistus

time he was condemned to work in the mines of Sardinia. He was released through the influence of the emperor's mistress and lived at Anzio (site of a famous World War II beachhead). After winning his freedom, Callistus was made superintendent of the public Christian burial ground in Rome (still called the cemetery of St. Callistus), probably the first land owned by the Church. The pope ordained him a deacon and made him his friend and adviser. He was elected pope by a majority vote of the clergy and laity of Rome, and thereafter was attacked by the losing candidate, St. Hippolytus, who let himself be set up as the first antipope in the history of the Church. The schism lasted about 18 years. Hippolytus is venerated as a saint. He was banished during the persecution of 235 and was reconciled to the Church. He died from his sufferings in Sardinia. He attacked Callistus on two fronts—doctrine and discipline. Hippolytus seems to have exaggerated the distinction between Father and Son (almost making two gods) possibly because theological language had not yet been refined. He also accused Callistus of being too lenient, for reasons we may find surprising: (1) Callistus admitted to Holy Communion those who had already done public penance for murder, adultery, fornication; (2) he held marriages between free women and slaves to be valid—contrary to Roman law; (3) he authorized the ordination of men who had been married two or three times; (4) he held that mortal sin was not a sufficient reason to depose a bishop; (5) he held to a policy of leniency toward those who had temporarily denied their faith during persecution. Callistus was martyred during a local disturbance in Trastevere, Rome, and is the first pope (except for Peter) to be commemorated as a martyr in the earliest martyrology of the Church. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Luke 12:1-7)

Fear him! In one of his notable sermons on Advent, Newman preached on Reverence, which he described as a belief in God’s presence (December 2, 1838). He states that while we gain but a glimmering of the glory of the Lord here in this life — we see through a glass darkly — nevertheless we “know in part.” That is, we have a duty to “realize” the presence of Christ. This is an important theme in the thought of John Henry Newman — he distinguishes between a notional knowledge of something and its realization. One Fr. Ted Tyler

has a realization of it when it is apprehended as a reality. In our realization of the all-holy God, we are aware of his presence. In this Anglican sermon written at the height of the Oxford Movement, it is reverence, consisting of a species of awe and fear, which is the proper response to God’s presence. What is interesting is Newman’s comment on “the present day.” He writes that “awe and fear are at the present day all but discarded from religion.” Indeed, whole societies “make it almost a first principle to disown the duty of reverence” — and we as children of the Church “do not feel the want of it.” A holy fear of God is something we are ashamed to admit to, and it is ridiculed. Newman is saying that reverence is rejected as a key to human existence. But, Newman asserts, reverence is indeed a key to human existence in this world, and there are, he proposes, two classes of persons who especially lack it. There are those who consider that sin is no great evil in itself, and there are those who think that it is no great evil in them because of their faith. Both views of sin, paradoxically, can spring from viewing God as a God of “love,” meaning by this a God who is merely benevolent and merciful, whatever the creature might do. God himself does not take sin seriously. So it is that God is commonly regarded without fear. Whatever one may do, God will wink at it for that is the kind of being he is. As we might put it, he is “a good fellow,” and so — if he exists — we should have nothing to worry about from him. As the Oxford Movement gained fame in the 1830s, Newman was visited by some like-minded men of Cambridge. They told him of the religious ethos of many at Cambridge, and Newman remarked to them that what those individuals lacked, and what they needed, was fear. He meant that they needed to fear God more.

That was the character of much of religion in Newman’s day, and the situation is still of that order. We are nonchalant about the all-holy and almighty God. Reverence is dismissed. On the other hand, there is in modern secular culture an alternative view of the key human posture in the face of existence. That key is deemed to be dread and anxiety, and there are currents of philosophy which are dominated by this theme. To all of this, Newman, beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2010, proposes Reverence. Were we to have the sight of God, and of Jesus Christ realized as being God made man, we would experience awe and reverence. We would realize the holiness of God and our own unworthiness. In proportion, then, as we realize and believe that God is present, we shall have similar feelings, and not to have similar feelings of true and profound reverence is an indicator that to that extent we have failed to realize his presence. There is a sense in which we have a duty to feel as if we had seen him — which is to say, to have faith. If it is a sin to be destitute of faith, it is to that extent a sin to be destitute of reverence for God who, we know by faith and reflection, is present to us. Further, the day will come when we shall find ourselves literally and in full sight in the presence of God — and this thought would make anyone afraid who has any sense of who God is. The “fear of God” in Newman’s thought is not an abject terror. It does, indeed, include the feeling of a sinner before his judge. It includes also the feeling of a creature before his Maker. But it especially involves the filial fear of a child of God before his all-holy and good Father who has sent his Son as our Redeemer. It is fear of offending him. It involves awe, wonder, thanks and praise — all this is included in the feeling of reverence before the unseen God who is realized as being present. We stand before him who is unseen. One of the key indicators of human existence is, then, reverence. It is this which ought characterize the basic life of our soul. It is very easy for modern man to lack reverence before reality, and most seriously, before God. If we lack reverence before God, it may indicate that we do not realize that he truly exists and that he utterly transcends every creature.

Godly fear is a duty, Newman taught. Reverence is a sign of authentic belief in the reality and presence of God, and it follows from faith. Scripture abounds in commands to fear the living God. In our Gospel today, our Lord says: “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” But, paradoxically, this “fear” of God will lead us not to fear, for “the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Luke 12:1-7).

Hypocrisy Our Lord consistently had harsh words for hypocrites. In today's Gospel he told the crowds to be on “guard against the yeast of the Pharisees — that is, their hypocrisy” (Luke 12: 1-7). Hypocrisy is a form of living in falsehood and it is entirely opposed to the spirit of Christ who is the truth. It seeks to project an impression of moral goodness, while the reality within is the contrary of this impression. Our Lord tells the crowds that all that is hidden — the hidden evil that hypocrisy conceals — will be uncovered and made clear in the full light of God’s day. What then ought we do to overcome hypocritical tendencies within ourselves, the tendency to try to impress others and to gain their moral admiration by projecting a false impression? We must live in the presence of God who sees all, and aim to gain his approval rather than that of men. We must fear displeasing God rather than man, knowing that he alone is the one who matters and who cares for us. He alone has power to bring ultimate and final punishment on us because of our deeds. Our Lord tells his “friends” not to fear those who can cause mere temporal suffering and discomfort. Rather “fear him who, after he has killed, has the power to cast into hell.”

Let us constantly remember that God sees all, to the innermost depths of the heart. He, the Reader of our hearts and our heavenly Father, is the one who will be our judge. There is no escaping his judgment. Let us then shun all hypocrisy within us and live in the truth before God and others.

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We will dedicate all the exertions of our life, great and small, to the honour of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I am moved when I recall the work of those brilliant professionals — two engineers and two architects — cheerfully moving furniture into a student residence. When they had put a blackboard into a classroom, the first thing those four artists wrote was: Deo omnis gloria! — all the glory to God. Jesus, I know that this pleased you greatly.

Entrance Antiphon Ps 130 (129): 3-4 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel.

(October 15) Saint Teresa of Jesus, virgin and doctor of the Church (1515-1582)

Teresa lived in an age of exploration as well as political, social and religious upheaval. It was the 16th century, a time of turmoil and reform. She was born before the Protestant Reformation and died almost 20 years after the closing of the Council of Trent. The gift St Teresa Of Avila

of God to Teresa in and through which she became holy and left her mark on the Church and the world is threefold: She was a woman; she was a contemplative; she was an active reformer. As a woman, Teresa stood on her own two feet, even in the man's world of her time. She was "her own woman," entering the Carmelites despite strong opposition from her father. She is a person wrapped not so much in silence as in mystery. Beautiful, talented, outgoing, adaptable, affectionate, courageous, enthusiastic, she was totally human. Like Jesus, she was a mystery of paradoxes: wise, yet practical; intelligent, yet much in tune with her experience; a mystic, yet an energetic reformer. A holy woman, a womanly woman. Teresa was a woman "for God," a woman of prayer, discipline and compassion. Her heart belonged to God. Her ongoing conversion was an arduous lifelong struggle, involving ongoing purification and suffering. She was misunderstood, misjudged, opposed in her efforts at reform. Yet she struggled on, courageous and faithful; she struggled with her own mediocrity, her illness, her opposition. And in the midst of all this she clung to God in life and in prayer. Her writings on prayer and contemplation are drawn from her experience: powerful, practical and graceful. A woman of prayer; a woman for God. Teresa was a woman "for others." Though a contemplative, she spent much of her time and energy seeking to reform herself and the Carmelites, to lead them back to the full observance of the primitive Rule. She founded over a half-dozen new monasteries. She travelled, wrote, fought — always to renew, to reform. In her self, in her prayer, in her life, in her efforts to reform, in all the people she touched, she was a woman for others, a woman who inspired and gave life. Her writings, especially The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle, have helped generations of believers. In 1970, the Church gave her the title she had long held in the popular mind: doctor of the Church. She and St. Catherine of Siena were the first women so honoured. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus said, I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say. (Luke 12:8-12)

The Holy Spirit As is well known, Islam places Muhammad at the end of a long prophetic tradition beginning from Abraham (indeed, from Adam). Its holy book, the Koran, is said by Islam to be the Final Testament. I do not get the impression that the numerous inspired books making up the Hebrew Bible — what the Christian calls the Old Testament — and the books making up the New Testament — especially the Gospels — are used in practice by the Muslim as a source of access to Revelation. Rather, the Koran (with its own summaries, comments quotations and interpretations of Old and New Testament events and teachings) is, in practice, all that is used and acknowledged by the Muslim. Virtually, it is seen to be complete in itself. Muslims believe the Koran to be verbally revealed through the angel Jibri-l (Gabriel) from God to Muhammad gradually over a period of approximately twenty-three years beginning in 610 CE, when Muhammad was forty, and concluding in 632 CE, the year of his death. Muslims further believe that the Koran was memorized, recited and exactly written down by Muhammad’s companions after each revelation was dictated by him. The present form of the Koran text is accepted as the original version compiled by the first Caliph, Abu Bakr. I say all this as a kind of introduction to the contrasting Christian approach — which, of course, does not allow that the Koran is among the Inspired Writings, nor that Muhammad is one of the line of Prophets. In Christian teaching, divine Revelation in a public sense was concluded definitively in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s Word and contains in himself every heavenly blessing. However, the Christian, steeped in the Gospels and in the New Testament writings, looks lovingly and constantly to the Old Testament also. The Church is always referring to the Revelation that preceded the coming of him in whom dwells the fulness of the godhead bodily. The Church lovingly treasures the first glimmers in the Old Testament of what is gradually being revealed there, and which bursts into full view in the Person and teaching of Jesus Christ. Now the Person of the Spirit of God, to whom our Lord refers in today’s Gospel, is a case in point.

The idea of the Spirit of God is not, I think, found in Hellenist thought — it is a biblical theme. The “spirit of God” (or “wind,” “breath”) meets us in the opening verses of the Old Testament (Genesis 1:2), just as it does in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew (1: 18). It is, then, no more a startling novelty for the author of Genesis, than it is for Matthew. But of course, while it is common to both Testaments, the number of references to the “Spirit of God” in the New much surpasses the number in the Old. The point here, though, is that there is a manifest continuity between the two. Jesus Christ and the writers of the New Testament speak of the “Holy Spirit” as a divine Person and they identify the “Holy Spirit” with the “Spirit of God” of the older books — which they, especially Christ himself, venerate so highly. The doctrine that God revealed himself gradually and progressively to his chosen people over the course of history is assumed and appreciated, and it is endorsed by Christ himself in his constant references to the Scriptures. He is their Fulfilment and their Interpretation, while far surpassing the mere letter of those Inspired Writings. So it is that the Church takes the Hebrew Scriptures very seriously, and looks to them for a fuller appreciation of what the Saviour later revealed. So, when our Lord refers to the “Holy Spirit” (as in today’s Gospel), let us in our minds set his teaching within the context of the whole sweep of divine Revelation — though this is not something I have the space to develop here. In our Gospel today our Lord refers to the Holy Spirit with the utmost love and reverence. The enormity of an offence against the Holy Spirit is stressed — indeed to the point of his declaring that “anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” Just what our Lord is referring to here has been variously discussed, but it puts us on guard to have a profound reverence for the divine Person of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord also tells us that the Holy Spirit will be the greatest Support for the Christian in his mission: “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say” (Luke 12: 8-12).

Let us resolve to love the Holy Spirit, as does Jesus our Saviour himself. He is God, the same one God that the Father is, and that the Son our Lord is. He is a distinct and living Person, a divine Self that is other than the Father and the Son, the Self who proceeds from the Father and the Son as their mutual Love. His divine being is their divine being, which is the one and only God. He, the third divine Person is the one God, as is the Father and the Son — and his mission is to sanctify the Church and each of the Church’s children, and through the ministry of the Church with Christ her head, to sanctify the world. Let us entrust ourselves to him, then, and be led by him.

“Though it seemed Abraham’s hope could not be fulfilled, he hoped and he believed” St Paul teaches us that Abraham is the father of all those who belong to his faith. He is “our father in the eyes of God, in whom he put his faith, and who brings the dead to life and calls into being what does not exist” (Romans 4: 13, 16-18). Our salvation and sanctification depend on God and his active mercy, and not on us. Faith recognises this and relies on it totally, despite all. Despite the odds, God can sanctify. This enlivens hope and makes it undying. The temptation will be over the course of life to think that personal sanctification is impossible not only to our weak selves, but also to God. It involves a temptation to think that God is not the God that Revelation — the Revelation of Abraham our father in faith — proclaims. There is no doubt that personal sanctity, the sanctification of the mind and the heart after the likeness of Christ, will seem to be impossible. Our Lord himself alluded to this on one occasion when he said to his disciples, “To man it is impossible, but not to God.” St Paul writes in our first reading today that “though it seemed Abraham’s hope could not be fulfilled, he hoped and he believed.” So too, the same thing could be said of the great project of each Christian’s life, which is to become a saint in the measure planned by God. We are called to believe and hope in the power of God and his grace, whatever be the apparent odds.

Every day as we begin again the work of doing God’s will in the midst of the ordinariness of daily life, let us resolve to have faith. This is faith not in ourselves but in the power of God who desires to transform us into the image of his Son. In this faith, and with the grace given to us in the life of the Church, we actively give our wholehearted cooperation, never giving up on God.

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Wherever you may happen to be, remember that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. Be sure that anyone who wants to follow him cannot attempt to act in any other way.

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27th Week of Ordinary Time A-1	2 Guardian Angels	3	4	5	6	7	8
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