September 2005
Twenty
third Sunday of
Ordinary Time 1
Today let us think of St. Rosalia
Scripture today: Ezechiel 33:
7-9; Psalm
95: 1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Romans 13:
8-10; Matthew
18: 15-20
"Son of man, I have appointed you as
sentry to the House of Israel." (Ezechiel 33: 7-9)
We are born into a society and we live out our lives
as members of a society. We work day by day in society, and in our
everyday work we serve society and try to improve it. As we think of
the world of human society around us, we could ask ourselves, is there
some key to help us understand how human society, how our human world,
ought be? What ought be the ultimate goal of man’s efforts in respect
to serving human society? Well, Christ is the Son of God and the image
of the Father. “He who sees me,” our Lord once said, “sees the Father”.
We each of us have the calling from all eternity to be in Christ, and
so to become more and more perfect images of the Father, in the Son. We
are called to be imitators of God, living as befits his children. Just
as that is the case for each of us individually, so too it is the case
for us collectively in society. Mankind in society is called to more
and more transformed into the image of the Father’s only Son. This
applies to the individual. It applies also to the human community as a
whole.
This thought gives us a fundamental perspective when
understanding our life and work. We ought all be striving in our life’s
work to make society around us and the world of mankind more and more a
reflection of the life of the Blessed Trinity. But of course, the world
is riddled profoundly with sin, as is each individual. Now, for the
great majority of persons in society, all talk of sin is unreal. Sin is
regarded as a subjective and purely personal notion. What society
accepts as evident is the presence of various evils, limitations,
defects, but not
sin which would relate such evils to God. God is left out of it, and
any talk of turning to God is looked on as unreal and irrelevant to the
practical moral work of solving society’s evils and needs. But clearly,
if society has the calling to be more and more like God himself, then
it is fundamental that society turn to God. Society as a whole needs to
turn to God. But this requires a religious conversion.
When we read the newspapers and follow national and community
discussions about the ways to meet society’s needs, we ought do all we
can to enter into such a discussion and bring to the conversation
effective solutions. Of course the solutions the Catholic proposes
ought be inspired by the Church’s social teaching. For that reason, we
ought try to know what the Church teaches on the nature of human
society and how it is called to live. But there is one fundamental need
for human society which is almost always overlooked. It is that, not
just individuals but society as such turn to God. And
characteristically, it is this turning to God which is
lacking in human society and culture. God is absent from the conscience
and consciousness of society in our country. Our modern world pursues
its agendas
without reference to God, as if the notion of God were just a private
notion, something purely subjective and a matter of individual personal
opinion. God is banished from the conscience of society at large, and
is regarded as a consideration for the individual conscience alone.
What
God might want for human society is not taken formally into account.
Belief in God is regarded by society as a personal and private matter
entirely.
Society’s ills cannot be solved while this situation
prevails. A new philosophy has to prevail in the social mind, if
society is to achieve its calling. Furthermore, if society is to accept
and acknowledge God (as it must if it is
to achieve its proper calling), then it must also recognise sin and
resolve to turn away from it. Society must convert at the level of the
collective heart and learn to appeal to God for his grace and his help.
The very helplessness that society experiences in the face of evils can
prompt not only individuals but society as a whole to do this. All too
often it does not. The recent hurricane in the United States might do
it.
We shall see. Whatever of that, in our daily life and work let us
remember that a fundamental message we ought bring not only to
individuals, but to society at large, is, repent and turn to God.
Let
each of us remember, then, that in our daily life and work in society
we have a message to bring. It is, turn away from sin, and acknowledge
God and his claims. Let us bear in mind the words of Ezechiel in
respect to our mission
to society: "Son of man, I have appointed you as sentry to
the House of Israel."
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading:
Catechism of the
Catholic Church no.886-889 (Conversion and society)
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“I am in their midst.” (Matthew
18:20)
Commentary from St John
Chrystostom (345-407), Bishop of Antioch, then of
Constantinople, Doctor of the Church (Homily 8 on the Letter to the
Romans, 8)
If I tell you to imitate the apostle Paul, that is not to say: Raise
the dead, heal the lepers. Do better than that: have charity. Have the
love that animated Saint Paul, for that virtue is far superior to the
power to perform miracles. Where there is charity, God the Son reigns
with his Father and the Holy Spirit. He said: “Where two or three are
gathered in my name, there am I in their midst.” The nature of a
friendship that is as strong as it is real, is to enjoy being together.
You will say, are there people who are so miserable that they do not
want to have Christ in their midst? Yes, my children, we ourselves. We
chase him away from our midst when we fight one against the other. You
will say: What are you saying? Don’t you see that we are gathered
together in his name, all within the same walls, inside the same
church, attentive to our pastor’s voice? Not the least dissension in
our unity in song and prayer, listening together to our pastor. Where
is the discord?
I know we are in the same fold and under the same shepherd. That only
makes me weep all the more bitterly…… For if you are calm and quiet at
this moment, when you leave the church, one person criticizes the
other; the one publicly insults the other; this one is devoured by
envy, jealousy or stinginess; another is meditating on revenge, another
on sensuality, duplicity or fraud…… So have respect. Respect this holy
table at which we are all in communion; respect Christ who was
sacrificed for us; respect the sacrifice that is offered on this altar
in our midst.
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A clear sign of lukewarmness is a lack of supernatural “stubbornness”,
of fortitude to keep on working and not stop until you have laid “the
last stone”.
(The Forge, no.489)
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Monday
of the twenty third week
of Ordinary Time 1
Today let us think of St. Bertin
Scripture today:
Colossians
1: 24-2:3; Psalm 62: 6-7,9;
Luke 6: 6-11.
“It makes me happy to suffer
for you, as I am suffering now” (Colossians 1:24-2:3)
One of the most perplexing and perennial of human problems is the
problem of suffering. Suffering is so burdensome, and seemingly so
pointless. Suffering can prompt a person to be angry with God, to
refuse to accept God’s commands, and even to reject the proposition
that God exists. In terms of the attainment of happiness suffering and
evil constitute a great problem.
And yet St Paul tells the Colossians in the first Reading for today
that “it makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now”. So
it is possible to be happy in the midst of suffering. What is it that
enables Paul to be happy in the midst of suffering? The critical factor
is that Paul sees great meaning in
his sufferings: he is suffering for the Church as its “servant”, “to
make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of
his body, the Church.” Suffering is not pointless at all. These brief
remarks of St Paul show us that by means of our suffering we are able
to unite with Christ in
his sufferings for the Church his body. We can "make up all that is
still to be undergone by Christ" for the Church. By his grace, Christ
unites us in our sufferings to himself, and enables us to contribute by
our own
sufferings to what he in his sufferings did for the Church, and as head
of the Church for all mankind.
The person of Christ is everything for the Christian. He
is “the message which was a mystery
hidden for generations and centuries and has now been revealed to his
saints.” That “mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory.” The
proclamation and extension of this message and the hope it contains
gives purpose to the sufferings of the Christian: "It is for this", St
Paul writes, "that I struggle wearily on, helped only by his power
driving me irresistibly."
Let us then suffer as “the servant of
the Church,” suffering in Christ “for the sake of his body, the
Church”, so that all may become "perfect in Christ."
(E.J.Tyler)
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A healing on the Sabbath (Luke
6: 6-11), a symbol of the
fulfillment of creation
Commentary from Saint
Athanasius (295-373), Bishop of Alexandria, Doctor of the Church
(Against the Pagans)
This world is very good as it was made and as we see it, because God
wants it thus. No one could doubt this. If creation were in disorder,
if the universe developed haphazardly, one could doubt that
affirmation. But since the world was made with wisdom and knowledge, in
a reasonable way, since it is decorated with every beauty, the one who
presides over it and who organized it is necessarily none other than
the Word of God……
Because this Word is the good word of the God of goodness, it is the
Word that drew up the order of all things and united contraries with
contraries, making of them one single harmony. It is he, “the power of
God and the wisdom of God,” (1 Cor 1:24), who causes the heavens to
turn and who hangs up the earth without resting it on anything (Heb
1:3). The sun gives light to the earth by means of the light, which it
receives from him, and the moon receives its measure from its light.
Through him, the water is hung in the clouds, rain gives water to the
earth, the sea keeps to its limits, the earth is covered with plants of
every kind (cf. Ps 104)……
The reason why this Word, the Word of God, came to creatures is truly
admirable… The nature of created beings is transitory, weak, mortal;
but because the God of the universe is good and excellent by nature, he
loves humankind… So seeing that of itself, all of created nature passes
and dissolves, in order to avoid that and so that the universe might
not return to nothingness…, God does not abandon it to the fluctuations
of its nature. In his goodness, by his Word, he governs and maintains
all of creation… Thus it does not suffer the lot that would belong to
it if the Word did not preserve it, that is to say annihilation. “He is
the image of the Invisible God, the first-born of all creatures. In him
everything was created… things visible and invisible… It is he who is
head of … the church.” (Col 1:15-18)
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Some hearts are hard, but noble. When they come close to the warmth of
Christ’s Heart, they melt like bronze into tears of love, of
reparation. They catch fire. But lukewarm people have hearts of clay,
of mean flesh. They crack and turn to dust. A sorry sight. Say with me:
“Our Jesus, keep us from being lukewarm. We do not want to be lukewarm.
(The Forge, no.490)
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Tuesday
of the twenty third week of Ordinary Time 1
Today let us think of Blessed Bertrand
Scripture today (as below): Colossians
2: 6-15;
Psalm 145: 1b-2,
8-9, 10-11; Luke
6: 12-19.
“You must live your whole life
according to the Christ you have received” (Colossians 2:6-15)
I remember when I was a child the boy next door said to me that
“Catholics are mad!” By this he meant that anyone following the
Catholic faith is foolish. Thinking back on that family (they were very
good neighbours) I suspect that that boy then and since had very little
or any religious faith. But that does not mean that they did not have a
faith of some kind, some system or range of values they believed in.
The fact is that most people have some faith in something or other,
even though a lot of people do not have what we could call a religious
faith, or a real faith in God. There are some who believe in nothing
that is ultimately positive. I have met elderly persons who believe
that beyond death there will be nothing. But often this nihilism is
itself a form of belief, and usually such persons do have some things
they live for, even if only temporal and passing. The tragedy in all
this is that the God-given tendency towards belief is thrown away on to
what is virtually nothing.
St Paul tells the Colossians that their whole life, their entire
existence, must be lived “according to the Christ you have received”
from the Church as embodied in those who delivered the message to them.
They “must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm in the faith
you have been taught.” The fact is that one’s commitment to the
Catholic Faith as taught by the Church our Mother can be eroded and
replaced by worldly and purely human thinking. St Paul makes this point
when he writes , “Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of
your freedom by some empty, rational philosophy based on the principles
of this world instead of on Christ.”
The Catholic bases his life on
faith in Christ as he is preached and taught by the Church. Let this be
our constant foundation, and let us be ever alert lest the foundation
be eroded.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“He spent the night in communion with
God.” (Luke 6: 12-19)
Commentary from St Augustine
(354-430), Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church
(Letter to Proba on Prayer,
9-10)
When the apostle Paul says: “Present your needs to God,” (Phil 4:6)
that does not mean that we make them known to God, for he knows them
even before they exist; it means rather that we will know whether our
prayers are good by our patience and perseverance before God and not by
prattling before men…… Thus it is not forbidden or useless to pray a
long time when this is possible, that is to say, when it does not
prevent other good and necessary occupations; moreover, in doing these,
we must always pray by desire, as I have said.
For if a person prays for a long time, it is not a rattling prayer (Mt
6:7), as some people think. Talking abundantly is one thing, loving for
a long time is another. For it is written that the Lord himself “spent
the night in prayer” and that he “prayed with all the greater
intensity.” (Lk 22:44) He wanted to give us an example by praying for
us in time, he who with his Father hears our prayers in eternity.
It is said that the monks in Egypt say frequent but very short prayers
that are thrown like arrows, so as to prevent that the vigilant
attention needed by those who pray become relaxed and dissolute by
being prolonged too much…… Prayer does not have to include many words,
but much supplication; thus, it can be prolonged with fervent
attention…… To pray a lot means to knock for a long time and with all
our heart at the door of him to whom we are praying (Lk 11:5f.). For
prayer consists more in groaning and tears than in discourse and words.
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All goodness, all beauty, all majesty, all loveliness, all grace adorn
our Mother. Doesn’t it make you fall in love, to have a Mother like
that?
(The Forge, no.491)
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Wednesday
of the twenty third week of Ordinary Time 1
Today let us think of St. Regina
Scripture today (as
below): Colossians
3: 1-11; Psalm 145:
2-3, 10-11, 12-13ab;
Luke 6: 20-26.
“Let your thoughts be on heavenly
things, not on the things of earth” (Colossians 3: 1-11)
In the mind of the world, religion is generally regarded as irrelevant
and in any case somewhat unreal. The “real” things are those things of
this world only. And for the last few centuries a looming issue in
philosophy has been the very reality of the supernatural -bn despite
the voice of mankind as represented in the religions of man.
Well, St Paul has remarks in our first Reading today that confront this
very modern and Western tendency to dismiss the supernatural. He tells
the Colossians that they “have been brought back to true life with
Christ”, as if without him life is not real and true. Having been
brougth to this true life tat is life in Christ, they “must look for
the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right
hand.” The Christian must seek those things that Christ wishes him to
seek, and in this sense, his thoughts will be heavenly though he be
grappling with the realities of this world. Christ, St Paul tells the
Colossians, “is your life,” and “you too will be revealed in all your
glory with him.” This will be the true life, and that life begins now.
Let us then put on the mind of Christ, and cast away from us everything
“that makes God angry.”
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Blest are you who are weeping.”
(Luke 6: 20-26)
Commentary from Isaac of the
Star (? –– around 1171), Cistercian monk
(Sermon 2 for the Feast of All Saints, 13-20)
“Blest are the sorrowing; they shall be consoled.” (Mt 5:5) With that
word, the Lord wants to let us hear that tears are the path of joy. By
way of desolation, a person goes to consolation; in losing one’s life,
one finds it, in rejecting it, one possesses it, in hating it, one
loves it, in despising it, one keeps it (Mt 16:24f.). If you want to
know yourself and to control yourself, enter into yourself and do not
seek outside… Enter into yourself, sinner, return to where you are in
your heart… The person who enters into himself will discover himself in
the distance, like the prodigal son, in an unfamiliar region, in a
strange land, where he will sit and weep when he remembers his father
and his country (Lk 15:17)?…
“Adam, where are you?” (Gen 3:9). Perhaps still in the shadow so as not
to see yourself. You are sewing leaves of vanity together to cover your
shame, looking at what is around you and what belongs to you… Look
inside, look at yourself… Go into yourself, sinner, return to your
soul. See and weep over this soul that is prone to vanity, to
agitation, and that cannot free itself from its captivity… It is
obvious, brothers, we live outside of ourselves, we forget ourselves
every time we become dissipated in fun or distractions, when we enjoy
ourselves with what is futile. And that is why Wisdom is always
concerned with inviting us to the house of repentance rather than to
the house of festivities, that is to say, calling a person who was
outside of himself back to himself by saying: “Blest are you who are
weeping,” and in another passage: “Woe to you who laugh now.”
My brothers, let us groan in the presence of the Lord whose goodness
leads him to forgive; let us turn towards him “with fasting and weeping
and mourning,” (Joel 2:12) so that one day… his consolation might give
joy to our souls. For blessed are they who weep, not because they weep,
but because they will be consoled. The weeping is the way; the
consolation is the beatitude.
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We are in love with Love. That is why Our Lord doesn’t want us to be
dry, still, lifeless. He wants us to be steeped in his tenderness!
(The Forge, no.492)
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Thursday
of the twenty third week of Ordinary Time 1
(September 8) The
Feast of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Today the Church celebrates the dawning of the Redemption over the
world when the Mother of the Saviour was born.
Scripture today: Micah 5: 1-4a;
or Romans 8: 28-30;
Psalm 13: 6ab, 6c;
Matthew 1:
1-16, 18-23
“I say this to you who are listening:
love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Lk 6:27)
There are many things that characterise the authentically religious
man. All would agree that he is sincere and that he acts in a way that
is
consistent with the dictates of his conscience. He also places God at
the centre of his concerns. But there is one feature that especially
characterises the mind and conscience of the Christian. That feature is
love for the man who causes him injury.
That feature of the Christian life is very notable because it appears
to go clean contrary to nature, and appears to be quite beyond the
capacity of nature and purely natural virtue. And yet Christ lays it
down as his personal command in his well-known words: “I say this to
you who are listening:
love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse
you, pray for those who treat you badly.” Our Lord is asking his
disciples to go beyond the norm: “If you love those who love you, what
thanks can you expect? Even sinners love those who love them.” He asks
his disciples to imitate their Farther in heaven, “for he himself is
kind tot he ungrateful and the wicked. Be compassionate as your Father
is compassionate.”
It comes down also to one’s image and notion of God. Our Lord revealed
in his own person a God who is “compassionate” and “kind”. Our life’s
work is to love as Jesus loved us, and for this we need the grace won
for us by him. It is beyond our natural capacity to love as Jesus loved
- that is to say, to love our enemies. It is beyond nature, but if by
the grace of God it is practised and lived, nature will be wonderfully
fulfilled by such a life: “a full measure, pressed down, shaken
together, and running over, will be poured into your lap.”
Today is the feast of the
birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is our
mother and our model in all that pertains to the Christian life, most
especially the life of Christian love. Let us think of how, standing at
the foot of the cross at Calvary, she loved those who injured her Son,
forgave them utterly, and joined with her Son in interceding for the
redemption of the world.
(E.J.Tyler)
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The birth of the new Eve Comment from Saint Bernard
(1091-1153), monk and Doctor of the Church
(Praise of the Virgin Mother; Homily 2, §§3)
Rejoice, Adam, our father, and above all you, Eve, our mother. You were
parents to all of us and at the same time our murderers. You who doomed
us to death even before we were born, be comforted now. One of your
daughters –– and what a daughter! –– will comfort you…… So come, Eve,
run to Mary. May the mother run to the daughter. The daughter will
answer for her mother and will wipe away her fault…… For the human race
will now be raised up by a woman.
What did Adam say in times past? “The woman whom you put here with me
–– she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” (Gen 3:12) Those
were nasty words, which increased his fault rather than wiping it away.
But divine Wisdom triumphed over so much malice. After vainly trying to
give birth to the opportunity to forgive by questioning Adam, God now
finds that opportunity in the treasure of his inexhaustible goodness.
He gives the first woman a substitute, a wise woman in the place of the
one who was foolish, a woman who is as humble as the other was proud.
Instead of the fruit of the tree of death, she offers to humankind the
bread of life. She replaces this bitter and poisonous nourishment with
the sweetness of an eternal food. So Adam, change your unjust
accusation to an expression of gratitude and say: “Lord, this woman
whom you gave me offered me the fruit of the tree of life. I ate of it;
its flavour was sweeter than honey from the comb (Ps 19:11), because by
means of this fruit, you gave me back life.” So that is why the angel
was sent to a virgin. Oh admirable Virgin, worthy of all honours! Woman
whom we must venerate infinitely among all women, you repair the fault
of our first parents, you give life back to all their descendants.
(E.J.Tyler)
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See if you can understand this apparent contradiction. At thirty years
of age, that man wrote in his diary: “I’m not young any more.” When he
was over forty, he wrote again: “I will stay young till I‘m eighty: if
I die before that, I’ll think I haven’t done my stint.” Whenever he
went he took with him, in spite of the passing years, the mature
youthfulness of Love.
(The Forge, no.493)
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Friday
of the twenty third week of Ordinary Time 1
Let us
think today
of Saint Peter Claver, priest
Scripture today: 1 Timothy 1: 1-2,
12-14; Psalm 16: 1b-2a
and 5, 7-8, 11; Luke 6: 39-42.
“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who
has given me strength” 1 Timothy 1:
1-2, 12-14
A couple of years ago a priest whom I knew well died in another
country. I heard that before he died he expressed gratitude to God for
the gift of life. Included in his gratitude for life would have been
his gratitude for baptism and the gift of faith, together with the gift
of a share in the Catholic priesthood. Thinking of his gratitude and
that of others like
him, we realize that there is so much that we take for granted, and are
not grateful for. We remember our Lord’s words when only one of the ten
lepers returned to give thanks for their healing: “The other nine,
where are they?” God expects us to be grateful.
St Paul in our first reading today gives thanks to “Christ Jesus our
Lord, who has given me strength, and who judged me faithful enough to
call me into his service”. He acknowledges that “mercy was shown me.”
He is grateful. Each one of us might never have even existed. None of
us needed to be. And granted we have the gift of life, we need not have
been granted the gift of the Christian and Catholic faith. We might
never have been placed “in Christ.” All that we have is pure gift. As
St Paul says in another of his Letters, before the world began, God
chose us, chose us in Christ to be holy and full of love in his sight.
We have every reason to be profoundly grateful.
Let us dwell constantly on the immense benefits we have been granted,
and thank and praise God accordingly. Let us banish bitterness from our
hearts and be
filled with a holy gratitude for God’s mercy.
(E.J.Tyler)
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"When fully trained, every
disciple will be like his teacher" Luke 6: 39-42
Commentary from Saint Cyril of
Alexandria (380-444), Bishop, Doctor of the Church
(Commentary on the Gospel according to Luke, 6)
“The disciple is not above his master.” Why do you judge when the
Master does not yet judge? For he did not come to judge the world, but
to have mercy on it. If we hear it in this sense, the word of Christ
becomes: “If I don’t judge, don’t you judge either, you who are my
disciple. It is possible that you are guilty of more serious faults
than the person you are judging. How great will be your shame when you
become aware of this!”
The Lord teaches us the same thing in the parable when he says: “Why
look at the speck in your brother’s eye?” He convinces us by means of
irrefutable arguments not to want to judge the others and rather to
search our own hearts. Then he asks us to free ourselves from the
passions that are installed there by asking God for that grace. Because
it is he who heals the broken-hearted and who rescues us from our
spiritual illnesses. For if the sins that overwhelm you are greater and
more serious than those of the others, why do you reproach them without
worrying about your own?
All who want to live piously, and above all those who have the
responsibility to teach others, will necessarily profit from this
precept. If they are virtuous and temperate, giving an example of
evangelical life by their actions, they will reprimand with gentleness
those who have not yet resolved to act similarly.
-----------------------------------------
How well I understand that question put by a soul in love with God:
“Have I made any grimace of distaste, has there been anything in me
which could have hurt you, my Lord, my Love?” Ask your Father-God to
grant us the grace to be constantly demanding in that way.
(The Forge, no.494)
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Saturday
of the twenty third week of Ordinary Time 1
Today let us think of St. Nicholas of Tolentino
Scripture today: 1 Timothy 1:
15-17; Psalm 113: 1b-2,
3-4, 5 and 6-7;
Luke 6: 43-49.
“Here is a saying you can rely
on...Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” 1 Tim 1:15
It has been said that youth is the time of dreams whereas age is the
time of regrets. That, of course is a simplification, but it does bring
out that with the years often comes the disappointment of past mistakes
and unrealized dreams. For the enthusiastic Christian the years bring a
deeper sense of personal sinfulness and limitation - and this is a
great advance. The danger with youth is that one’s hopes can so easily
rest on oneself and on one’s own powers. With the years come the
opportunity to base one’s hopes on God and his power. That is to
say, disappointment with one’s own powers and dreams, and the
insights of greater experience, can offer the chance to entrust oneself
with greater abandon to the saving power of God.
St Paul tells Timothy in our first reading (1 Timothy 1:
15-17) that “Here
is a saying that
you can rely on and nobody should doubt: that Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners. I myself am the greatest of them.” That is a
saying we can bank on when we think of past disappointments, various
failures, and personal sinfulness and limitations. Christ has come to
raise me up from all this and bring me to glory by means of my daily
work for him. It is his power that will do it. I must begin again! I
pick up the pieces and start afresh, full of hope in the saving power
of God. In the Gospel for today our Lord speaks of the rock on which we
must build the house. That rock is the power of God sustaining me in
the doing of his will. The secret is to be ever starting afresh, full
of hope.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“He is like the man who when he built
his house ...laid the foundations on rock.” Luke 6: 43-49
Commentary from St Augustine
(354-430), Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Sermon 179)
Brothers, the apostle Saint James spoke to people who were zealous for
the word of God, saying: “Act on this word. If all you do is listen to
it, you are deceiving yourselves.” (Jas 1:22) You would neither be
fooling the Author of the word nor the one announcing it; you would be
fooling yourselves…… And it would be very useless if the preacher
announced the word of God outside and didn’t first of all listen to it
within himself in order to put it into practice……
Who puts the word into practice interiorly? The person who keeps
himself from evil desire. Who observes it exteriorly? The one who is
“sharing…… (his) bread with the hungry.” (Isa 58:7) Our neighbour sees
what we do, but God alone is witness to why we are doing it. So “act on
this word. If all you do is listen to it, you are deceiving
yourselves.” You will neither deceive God nor his minister. I cannot
read in your heart, but God, who plumbs the heart, sees what human
beings cannot see. He sees your zeal in listening, your thoughts, your
resolutions, the progress you make through his grace, your
attentiveness in prayer, the requests you make of him so as to obtain
what you are lacking, and your thanksgiving so as to thank him for his
blessings……
Think upon this, brothers! If it is praiseworthy to listen to the word,
how much more is it praiseworthy to put it into practice. If you don’t
listen to it, you are living in negligence and you won’t build
anything. If you listen to it without putting it into practice, you
will build nothing but ruins. Where this is concerned, the Lord gave us
a good comparison: “Anyone who hears my words and puts them into
practice is like the wise man who built his house on rock.” To listen
and to put into practice means building on the rock…
To listen without putting into practice means building on sand. To
refuse even to listen means that nothing is built.
---------------------------------------------
Have you seen the affection and the confidence with which Christ’s
friends treat him? In a completely natural way the sisters of Lazarus
‘blame’ Jesus for being away: “We told you! If only you’d been here!”
Speak to him with calm confidence: “Teach me to treat you with the
loving friendliness of Martha, Mary and Lazarus and as the first Twelve
treated you, even though at first they followed you perhaps for not
very supernatural reasons.”
(The Forge, no.495)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twenty fourth Sunday
of Ordinary Time A
Today let
us think of St. Adelphus
Scripture today: Sirach
27:30--28:7;
Ps 103: 1-2, 3-4,
9-10, 11-12; Rom. 14: 7-9; Matt 18: 21-35.
“That is how my heavenly Father will
deal with you unless you each forgive your brother”
Sooner or later every person will experience
injuries of one kind or another. This hurt will often lead to
resentment, dislike, even hatred, and the desire for revenge, depending
on a person’s temperament. This is very human, and is an experience
that is shared by people irrespective of their religion or their lack
of religion. But the Christian is a disciple of Christ, one who
learns from
our Lord what God wants, and strives to put it into practice. “It is
not those who say to me Lord, Lord, who will enter the kingdom of
heaven, rather the one who hears the word of God and puts it into
practice.” If we want to build our spiritual life on rock, as we are
told in another part of the Gospel, we must listen to our Lord’s words
and act on them. If we do not
act on them, we are building on sand.
In today’s Gospel (Matthew 18:
21-35) our Lord
is asked by Simon Peter, “Lord, how
often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? Not just once or a few
times, but even many times? (i.e., ‘as often as seven times’?)” Jesus
answered, “Not even many times, I tell you, but without limit
(i.e.,‘seventy-seven times).” Our Lord’s command is that we forgive
without limit. It is especially this which will characterise the true
Christian, one who is truly a follower of Christ.
This is an immensely demanding requirement of true discipleship.
But not only is it immensely demanding but there is a lot at stake in
it. For our Lord says that God’s forgiveness of us will depend on our
forgiveness of one another. Our Lord finishes the parable he tells us
in today’s gospel with the words, “And in his anger the master handed
him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt. And that is
how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your
brother from your heart.” And in the Lord’s Prayer, which our Lord
himself taught his disciples, we are instructed to ask our heavenly
Father that
he forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against
us. That is to say, Our Lord lays it down as presumed by our heavenly
Father that in asking Him to forgive us we have already forgiven those
who have offended us.
How can we possibly do this, when we think of the injuries we
have suffered? We cannot do it on our own. The sense of injury could be
constant and deep, and the refusal to forgive and the
holding on to resentment and even hatred could be long-lasting and even
life-long. We could go through life never forgiving a particular
person, or perhaps even several persons. Now, to the extent that we do
nothing to overcome that resentment and refusal to forgive, to that
extent will God not forgive us. So there is a lot at stake in our
deciding with a full heart to forgive each and every one who has
injured us in any way. To the extent that we do not, our spiritual life
will have reached a blockage.
How are we to learn to forgive? Firstly, we must remember that
our Lord wants us to
forgive. So out of love for him we too should
resolve to want to forgive. Love for Jesus ought lead us to forgive.
Daily we ought be wanting to forgive out of
love for Jesus and in order to be good children of our heavenly Father.
Secondly we ought remember all that God has forgiven us, all our sins
and failings. In the parable of today the master forgave the servant an
astronomical sum of money. And then this servant forgot all his master
had forgiven him when he cruelly refused to forgive his fellow
servant. It would have helped him to remember all he had been forgiven.
Thirdly, we ought recognise our helplessness in being quite unable to
forgive. We ought place our desire to forgive and our helplessness in
doing so constantly before the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. He
gives us the grace to put on the mind of Christ, to forgive as Christ
forgave, to be like God our Father in his kindness to sinners,
including to us who are sinners too. Day after day we ought be
entrusting our difficulty in forgiving to God and his grace, telling
him we want to forgive, praying for the one who has injured us, and
asking God to help us. Each day we ought be forgiving more.
By the end of our lives how good it will be to leave this life having
forgiven from the heart every person who has ever injured us in any
way. To do this we need God’s grace and a daily effort to do God’s will.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading:
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no.2838-2845
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Should you not have dealt mercifully
with your fellow servant, as I dealt with you?”Mt 18:21-35
Comment from St Isaac the
Syrian (7th century), Monk in Ninive, near Mosul in present-day
Iraq
(Spiritual Discourses, 1st
Series, no. 58)
On the one hand, compassion, and on the other the judgment of simple
equity; if they dwell in one and the same soul, they are like a person
who adores God and idols in one and the same house. Compassion is the
contrary to the judgment of simple justice. Judgment that is simply
equitable implies the equal sharing out of a similar measure for
everyone. It gives to each what he deserves, no more; it does not lean
towards one side or the other, does not discern in the sharing out. But
compassion arises because of grace, it leans towards all beings with
the same affection, it does not accept to give simple retribution to
those who are worthy of punishment, and it fills beyond all measure
those who are worthy of good.
Thus compassion is on the side of justice; judgment that is simply
equitable is on the side of evil…Just as a grain of sand does not weigh
as much as a lot of gold, God’s equitable justice does not weigh as
much as his compassion. The sins of all flesh are like a handful of
sand falling into the great ocean compared to God’s providence and
mercy. Just as an abundantly flowing spring cannot be stopped up by a
handful of dust, so the Creator’’s compassion cannot be overcome by the
malice of creatures. The person who remains resentful while praying is
like a person who sows into the sea and hopes to gather in a harvest.
-----------------------------------------------
How I like to think of John, leaning his head on Christ's breast! It is
like giving up one's intelligence lovingly, difficult though this is,
to let it be set on fire by the flame of the Heart of Jesus.
(The Forge, no.496)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday
of the twenty fourth week of Ordinary Time 1
Today let us think
of Blessed Apollinaris
Scripture today: 1 Timothy 2: 1-8; Psalm 28: 2, 7,
8-9; Luke 7: 1-10.
"My advice is that, first of all,
there should be prayers offered for everyone" 1 Timothy 2: 1-8
I knew one lady of advanced years who used to be constantly arranging
for Masses to be said for various faithful departed. When at length she
died one person said to me that she was convinced that God had given to
that lady a long life in order that those many Masses for the faithful
departed would be said. All people need the prayers of others. Praying
for the living and the dead is a great charity.
St Paul writes in his first Letter to Timothy today that “there should be prayers
offered for everyone - petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving - and
especially for kings and others in authority” (1 Timothy 2: 1-8). There may be many things we are unable
to do for particular people, but at least we can pray for them. The
elderly and the sick can pray for others and offer up their sufferings
for the benefit of others living and dead. If we work, then our
professional work by means of which we earn our living can be
accompanied by our prayers for the ones we are serving in our work. The
doctor can pray that his work will have success in the lives of his
patients. The builder can pray for those he serves professionally. We
ought fill our lives with prayer for others. "Especially", St Paul
writes, we ought pray for those with the responsibility of exercising
authority over others.
Let us fill our lives with prayer, prayer of adoration, praise and
thanksgiving, and, very importantly, prayer of petition for everyone,
and especially for those in authority.
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I am not worthy to have you enter my
house.” Luke 7: 1-10
Commentary from Saint Francis
of Assisi (First Rule,
17)
In the love that is God, I beg all my brothers – those who preach,
those who pray, those who work manually, clerics and lay brothers – to
make every effort towards being humble in all things; not to glorify
themselves, to find their joy or to become interiorly proud because of
good words and good actions, which God sometimes says or does in them
or through them. According to the Lord’s word: “Do not rejoice…… in the
fact that the devils are subject to you.” (Luke 7: 1-10) Let us be firmly convinced of the fact
that of ourselves we have only faults and sins. Let us rather rejoice
in trials when, in our soul and in our body, we have to bear all kinds
of tribulations in this world for eternal life.
Brothers, let us thus beware of all pride and vainglory; let us beware
of the wisdom of this world and of selfish prudence. The person who is
enslaved by his selfish tendencies puts a great deal of effort into
making speeches, but much less into passing on to action. Instead of
seeking the interior religion and sanctity of the spirit, he desires an
external religion and sanctity that are very visible to the eyes of
human beings. It is of them that the Lord said: “You can be sure of
this much, they are already repaid.” (Mt 6:2) On the contrary, the
person who is docile to the Lord’s spirit wants to humiliate what is
selfish, vile and abject in the flesh. He puts great effort into being
humble and patient, purely simple and in true peace of spirit. What he
always desires above everything is filial fear of God, the wisdom of
God, and the love of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
God loves me. And John the Apostle writes: “Let us love God, then,
since God loved us first.” As if this were not enough, Jesus comes to
each one of us, in spite of our patent wretchedness, to ask us, as he
asked Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these
others?” This is the moment to reply: “Lord, you know all things, you
know that I love you!” adding, with humility, “Help me to love you
more. Increase my love!”
(The Forge, no.497)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday of the twenty fourth
week of Ordinary Time 1
(September 13) St John
Chrysostom, bishop and doctor of the Church (349-407). Born in
Antioch. He was a great genius, whose powerful eloquence earned him the
name Chrysostom, “the golden-mouthed”. He entered monastic life and
then became a priest. As Archbishop of Constantinople, he distinguished
himself for his preaching and his abundant writings about Catholic
doctrine ad Christian life. He died in exile.
Scripture today:
1 Timothy 3:
1-13; Psalm 101:
1b-2ab, 2cd-3ab, 5,6; Luke 7: 11-17.
“A dead man was being carried out for
burial, the only son of his mother” (Luke 7: 11-17)
There is much evil and suffering in the world. Why there is this
suffering is a great mystery, but there are many other great mysteries
too. For instance, why is there not nothing? The reply of many to a
question such as this is that the reality we see around us simply is,
as if no
further explanation is needed for the fact that things are. Others go
on to add that the presence of evil and suffering ought be considered
in the same way - that this is just how things are. Reality has no
ultimate sense in it. But man is instinctively religious and tends to
insist that there must be some ultimate rationality
in the universe, and searches for that rationality. But what the
ultimate rationality behind evil and suffering is, escapes us.
Accounting adequately for suffering defies our natural capacity. We
need
light from above. In
our Gospel
passage today our Lord “went to a town called Nain” and “when he was
near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried
out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow” (Luke 7: 11-17).
Our Lord’s compassion was immediate. He stopped the funeral procession
and, comforting the widow, raised the dead man and “gave him to his
mother”.
At a word our Lord made right the suffering that had come upon the
widow. He had all the pwer and love to do it. Now, why did he not do
the same for a great number of other widows both then and since? He had
the power. We do not know. Why did he not put an end to other forms of
suffering that he released particular people from during his public
ministry? We do not know. Why does not God put an end to all suffering?
We do not know. Why did Christ have to suffer (in the plan of God) and
so enter into his glory? We do not know.
When God does hear the cry of the one who suffers by putting an end to
a particular burden, he shows he has the love and the power needed to
save. What we ought do is have faith in him and sanctify our suffering
in union with Jesus who by his obedient suffering saved the world.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Young man, I bid you get up.” (Luke 7: 11-17)
Commentary from St Augustine
(354-430), Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Sermon 98)
Let no one who is Christian doubt that even now dead people rise.
Certainly, every human being has eyes by which he can see dead people
rising in the way this widow’s son whom we just heard about in the
gospel rose. But not everyone can see people who are spiritually dead
rise. For that, it is necessary to have already risen interiorly. It is
greater to raise someone who is to live forever than to raise someone
who will have to die again.
The young man’s mother, this widow, was transported with joy at seeing
her son rise. Our mother the Church also rejoices when she sees her
children’’s spiritual resurrection every day. The widow’s son was dead
with the death of the body; but these latter are dead with the death of
the soul. People wept tears over the visible death of the former; but
people were not concerned by the invisible death of the latter; they
didn’t even see it. The only one who did not remain indifferent is the
one who knew these deaths; only the one who could give life back to
them knew these deaths. For if the Lord had not come to raise the dead,
the apostle Paul would not have said: “Awake, O sleeper, arise from the
dead, and Christ will give you light.” (Eph 5:14)
-------------------------------------------
“Love means needs and not sweet words.” Deeds, deeds! And a resolution:
I will continue to tell you often, Lord, that I love you. How often
have I repeated this today! But, with your grace, it will be my conduct
above all that shows it. It will be the little things of each day
which, with silent eloquence, will cry out before you, showing you my
Love.
(The Forge, no.498)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Feast of the
Triumph of the Cross of Christ (September
14)
The public veneration of the Holy
Cross dates from the fourth century. Today the Church
commemorates the rescue of the true Cross of Christ by Emperor
Heraclius in a victory over the Persians. Our Mother the Church sings
of the triumph of the Holy Cross, the instrument of our salvation. In
order to follow Christ, the Christian must take up his cross and become
obedient with Christ, who was obedient until death, even death on the
Cross. We are identified with Christ on the Cross. We become
co-redeemers, sharing in Christ’s Cross. (Saints)
Today: Numbers 21:
4b-9; Psalm 78: 1bc-2,
34-35, 36-37, 38; Philippians 2:
6-11; John 3: 13-17
“Being
as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a
cross” Ph. 2: 6-11
An essential component of good
work is selecting the right means to attain the end of the project in
hand. If a military general hopes to attain victory he must be skilled
in selecting the right means to do it. All this is obvious. When
historians examine the work of various personalities in history and
consider why they achieved their goals, they can point to causes that
account for certain results. But in respect to the greatest event in
the history of the world, the salvation of mankind, it is difficult to
understand how the cause of it achieved its result. The cause of the
redemption of man was the Passion and Death of the Messiah. Christ
became man and dwelt among us especially to suffer and to die. He
“became as men are: and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even
to accepting death, death on a cross. But God raised him high” (Philippians 2:
6-11). Now, why was it that Christ’s
sufferings achieved the redemption of mankind? Why did the Messiah have
to suffer in order to enter into his glory, and to open up to all of us
a share in that glory? We do not know, it is a mystery. But fact it is:
obedience in suffering is the path to glory. Whether we understand it
or not, we have in the Cross the key to salvation, sanctification,
glory. The task of life is to embrace in obedience the Cross in
union with Christ.
Now it is at Mass that all that
Christ won for us by his Cross is made available to us. The Mass is the
Cross of Christ made present. At Mass we are able to be with Christ as
given to the Father on our behalf, given in that same act of surrender
he effected at Calvary. In Holy Communion we unite ourselves with him
in his self-gift. Just as Calvary was the high point and greatest
expression of our Lord’s whole life, so Mass is the high point and
greatest expression of our life. Let us put everything into our Sunday
- or better still, our daily - Mass. Just as Calvary was the triumph
and exaltation of Christ’s Cross, so the Mass is the moment when the
triumph and exaltation of Christ’s Cross is made present. Let us ask
God during Mass for the grace of a deep love for the Cross and an
appreciation of how central it must be in our Christian life.
(E.J.Tyler)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
cross, tree of life
Commentary from Saint Theodore the
Studite (759-826), Monk in Constantinople
How beautiful is the sight of the
cross! Its beauty is not a mingling of evil and good, like in former
times the tree in the Garden of Eden. It is entirely admirable, “good
for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.” (Gen
3:6) It is a tree that gives life and not death, light and not
blindness. It makes people enter Eden and not leave it. This tree upon
which Christ went up like a king on his triumphant chariot, has lost
the devil who had power over death, and has rescued the human race from
enslavement to the tyrant. On this tree, like an elite fighter, the
Lord, wounded in his hands, his feet and his divine side, healed the
wounds of sin, that is to say, our nature that was wounded by Satan.
After being put to death by means
of the wood, we have found life by means of the wood. After being
deceived by means of the wood, we have driven back the deceitful
serpent by means of the wood. What surprising exchanges! Life instead
of death, immortality instead of corruption, glory instead of shame.
Rightly did the apostle Paul exclaim: “May I never boast of anything
but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Gal 6:14)…… Beyond all
wisdom, this wisdom, which blossomed on the cross, rendered stupid the
pretences of the wisdom of this world (1 Cor 1:17f.)……
By the cross, death was killed and
Adam was returned to life. By the cross, all the apostles were
glorified, all the martyrs were crowned, all the saints sanctified. By
the cross, we have put on Christ and been stripped of the old man (Eph
4:22). By the cross, we have been brought back as Christ’’s sheep and
have been gathered together in the sheepfold on high.
-------------------------------------
We men don’t know how to show
Jesus the gentle refinements of love that some poor, rough fellows -
Christians all the same - show daily to some pitiful little creature -
their wife, their child, their friend - who is a sp0oor as they. This
truth should help us react.
(The Forge, no.499)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday
of the twenty fourth
week of Ordinary Time 1
(September 15) Our Lady of Sorrows
This feast has its origin
in that Christian devotion which associates Mary the mother of Jesus
with the Passion of her Son. Pope Pius VII extended this devotion to
the whole Church, and in 1912 St Pius X fixed te feast on this day,
within the octave of the Nativity of the mother of the Virgin. Our
Mother the Virgin Mary teaches us to live, together with her, beside
the
Cross of her Son. In her suffering as co-redeemer, she reminds us of
the tremendous malice of sin and shows us the way of true repentance.
Today
let us also think of St.
Catherine of Genoa
Scripture today: 1 Timothy 4:
12-16; Psalm 111: 7-8,
9, 10; John 19:
25-27 or Luke 2: 33-35
“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother
and his mother's sister, Mary..” (John 19:25-27)
Our scene today takes us back
nearly 2000 years ago to a backwater of the Roman Empire, on a small
rise outside the walls of Jerusalem. Three men were being crucified and
one of them claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah. In front of him was
a small group that included his mother. The one being crucified knew that he
was the protagonist in a great cosmic drama going on at that very
moment, and it was all hinging on his very Cross. He was mankind's true
sacrifice to God for its sins. He knew he was the offerer and the
victim. By his obedient suffering he would save the world from sin and
unite it in principle to God.
One other person present at that
scene knew this too. That person was his mother. But she was not
just a knowing spectator. She was utterly united with her Son, the
Suffering Servant of God before her. She shared in his sufferings and
in his entire attitude to God his Father. Inasmuch as precisely by his
obedient suffering he redeemed mankind, by her obedient suffering in
union with him, she shared in his work of redeeming mankind. and in
this she would be the mother and model of a host of children. Just as
God is the sole creator of the world and yet man may, by his daily work
collaborate with God in his creative work, so too Mary collaborated
with her Son in the redemption of the world. She did this in her hidden
situation on the hill of Calvary, unnoticed but incalculably effective
in her union with the Redeemer.
So too the ordinary Christian of
any time, place and calling may collaborate with Jesus in the
redemption of the world by his or her daily obedience, especially by
that
obedience that is marked by suffering. St Paul writes that by his
sufferings he was able "to make up for all that has still to be
undergone by Christ for the sake of his body the Church"
(Colossians 1:24). The ordinary Christian,
whatever be his situation
and work in life, may stand with Mary at the foot of the Cross, notably
at Mass where Calvary is made truly present. This union with
the Redeemer is especially effected in Holy Communion. Let us day by
day be united with Mary our Mother and our Model at the foot of the
Cross, and let us in Christ contribute by our daily work and our
obedient
suffering to the redemption of mankind.
(E.J.Tyler)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“There is your mother.”
(John 19:
25-27)
Commentary from Saint Bonaventure
(1221-1274), Franciscan, Doctor of the Church
(The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit,
Conference VI, 15-21)
The glorious Virgin paid our ransom as a courageous woman who loved
with the compassionate love of Christ. In Saint John it is said: “When
a woman is in labour she is sad that her time has come.” (Jn 16:21) The
Blessed Virgin did not feel the pain that precedes childbirth because
she did not conceive following the sin of Eve, against whom the curse
was spoken. She felt her pain later: she gave birth under the cross.
The other women know bodily pain, she felt that of the heart. The
others suffer from a physical change; she from compassion and love.
The Blessed Virgin paid our ransom as a courageous woman who loved the
world and above all the Christian people with merciful love. “Can a
mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her
womb?” (Isa 49:15) This can make us understand that the entire
Christian people has come forth from the womb of the glorious Virgin.
What a loving Mother we have! Let us take our Mother as our model and
let us follow her in her love. She had compassion for souls to such an
extent that she counted all material loss and every physical suffering
as nothing. “(We) have been purchased …… at a great price.” (1 Cor 6:20)
-----------------------------------------------------
The Love of God is so
attractive,
and so fascinating, that there are no limits to its growth in the life
of the Christian.
(The Forge, no.500)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday
of the twenty fourth week of Ordinary Time 1
(16 September) St Cornelius, pope, and Cyprian, bishop, martyrs.
Pope Cornelius (3rd century) defended the faith against the Novatian
heresy and, helped by St Cyprian, confirmed his authority. He died in
exile. Cyprian was born in Carthage and became its bishop. He was a
staunch defender of the Faith and ecclesiastical discipline. He
suffered martyrdom during the persecution of Valerian. Their names are
included in the Roman Canon.
Scripture today:
1 Timothy 6:
2c-12; Psalm 49: 6-7,
8-10, 17-18, 19-20; Luke 8: 1-3.
“With him went the Twelve, as well as
certain women... Mary..Joanna, Susanna..” (Luke 8: 1-3)
Consider the beautiful Gospel scene of today with its picture of the
Church in germ. Jesus and the Twelve were constantly on mission
proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom of God. With them went “as
well certain women, ... Mary surnamed the Magdalene..Joanna... Suzanna,
and several others”. Our Lord accepted them into his company and they
travelled with the large group, supporting them from their own
resources. Contemplate the simple faith and love of those women, and
the community life, let us call it, of the whole band. They loved Jesus
and listened to his teaching, allowing it to permeate their minds and
hearts. The Church was their in germ, gathered around Jesus.
Countless ordinary faithful in one generation after another continue to
associate with Jesus in his work as head of the Church. They continue
quietly in this company, giving of their means, living in his
friendship, and listening to his doctrine as members of the Church. St
Paul in the first reading tells Timothy that it is this doctrine that
must be taught and handed on. “Anyone who teaches anything different
and does not keep to the sound doctrine which is that of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the doctrine which is in accordance with true religion, is
simply ignorant and must be full of self-conceit.” (1 Timothy 6: 2c-12).
Let us live day by day with Jesus in the life of the Church,
supporting in every way the work of the spread of the Kingdom, filling
our hearts with his living doctrine as it is preached by those
appointed to represent him.
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The Twelve accompanied him, and also
some women” (Luke 8: 1-3)
Commentary from Pope John
Paul II (Mulieris
dignitatem, §§27)
In the history of the Church, even from earliest times, there were
side-by-side with men a number of women, for whom the response of the
Bride to the Bridegroom's redemptive love acquired full expressive
force. First we see those women who had personally encountered Christ
and followed him. After his departure, together with the apostles, they
"devoted themselves to prayer" in the upper room in Jerusalem until the
day of Pentecost. On that day the Holy Spirit spoke through "the sons
and daughters" of the People of God…… (cf. Acts 2:17). These women, and
others afterwards, played an active and important role in the life of
the early Church, in building up from its foundations the first
Christian community — and subsequent communities — through their own
charisms and their varied service…… St. Paul speaks of their "hard
work" for Christ, and this hard work indicates the various fields of
the Church's apostolic service, beginning with the "domestic Church."
For in the latter, "sincere faith" passes from the mother to her
children and grandchildren, as was the case in the house of Timothy
(cf. 2 Tim 1:5).
The same thing is repeated down the centuries, from one generation to
the next, as the history of the Church demonstrates. By defending the
dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honour and
gratitude for those women who — faithful to the Gospel — have shared in
every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are
the holy martyrs, virgins, and mothers of families, who bravely bore
witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition
by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel……
The witness and the achievements of Christian women have had a
significant impact on the life of the Church as well as of society.
Even in the face of serious social discrimination, holy women have
acted "freely," strengthened by their union with Christ……
In our own days too the Church is constantly enriched by the witness of
the many women who fulfill their vocation to holiness. Holy women are
an incarnation of the feminine ideal; they are also a model for all
Christians, a model of the "sequela Christi," an example of how the
Bride must respond with love to the love of the Bridegroom.
---------------------------------------------------
You cannot behave like a naughty child, or like a madman. You have to
be strong, a child of God. You have to be calm in your professional
work and in your dealings with others, with a presence of God which
makes you give perfect attention to even the smallest details.
(The Forge, no. 501)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday
of the twenty fourth week of Ordinary Time 1
(September 17) St Robert Bellarmine, bishop and
doctor of the Church (1542-1621). Born in Italy, he was a
Jesuit, a bishop and a cardinal. A professor of theology in Louvain and
Rome, Robert Bellarmine was one of the ablest and most effective
theologians of the Church against Protestantism.
Scripture today:
1 Timothy 6:
13-16; Psalm 100: 1b-2,
3, 4, 5; Luke 8: 4-15
“I put to you the duty of doing all
that you have been told, with no faults or failures” (1 Tim
6:13)
What Paul tells Timothy to do and the spirit with which he was to do it
applies to every Christian: “Before God the source of all life and
before Jesus Christ ... I put to you the duty of doing all that you
have been told, with no faults or failures, until the Appearing of our
Lord Jesus Christ”. Cardinal Newman was of the view that what
especially marks out the human being is his conscience or sense of
duty. Every person is endowed with a sense of duty, though this sense
can be snuffed out or even scarcely developed. But if it is developed
(and it is itself a moral obligation to do so) then that sense of duty
can take a person to his perfection. So it is vitally important that a
person do his duty - part of which is precisely to develop one’s
conscience.
Well then, St Paul puts to the reader the duty of doing all he has been
told. In effect this means putting into effect all that our Mother the
Church tells us is our duty. Our Lord in the Gospel parable today
speaks of those who, being “rich soil”, yield a harvest (Luke 8: 4-15).
They are those who “with a noble and generous heart” have “heard the
word of God and take it to themselves and yield a harvest through their
perseverence.” We must persevere in doing our duty well, really
well, the daily work God has given to us. It means doing it “all...with
no faults or failures” (1 Timothy 6:
13-16), doing our duty as perfectly as we
can. St Josemaria Escriva taught that the path to sanctity consists in
doing our work as perfectly as we can out of love for God and in this
way making it something holy and acceptable to God.
(E.J.Tyler)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bearing fruit through
perseverance Luke 8: 4-15
Commentary from Saint
Gregory the Great (around 540-604), Pope and Doctor of the
Church
(Homilies on the Gospel, 1,15)
Be watchful so that the word you have received might resonate in the
depth of your heart and dwell there. Take care that the seed not fall
upon the path for fear that the evil spirit might come and take the
word away from your memory. Take care that the rocky soil does not
receive the seed and produce good actions that are lacking the roots of
perseverance. For many rejoice when they hear the word and prepare to
undertake good works. But when trials have hardly begun to assail them,
they give up what they had undertaken. Thus, the rocky soil lacked
water, so much so that the wheat germ could not bear the fruit of
perseverance.
But the good earth gives fruit through patience. Let us understand by
this that our good works can be of value, if we patiently bear the
trouble caused by our neighbour. Moreover, the more we advance towards
perfection, the more we have to endure trials. Once our soul has
abandoned the love of the present world, the hostility of this world
increases. That is why we see many toiling under a heavy burden (Mt
11:28) although their works are good…… But according to the word of the
Lord, “they bear fruit through their constancy” by bearing these trials
humbly, so much so that after having toiled, they will be invited to
enter into the peace of heaven.
---------------------------------------------
If bare justice is done, people may feel hurt. Always act, therefore,
for the love of God, which will add to that justice the balm of a
neighbourly love, and will purify and cleanse all earthly love. When
you bring God in, everything becomes supernatural.
(The Forge, no.502)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twenty
fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time A
Today
let us also think of St.
Joseph of Cupertino
Isaiah 55:
6-9; Psalm 145: 2-3,
8-9, 17-18; Philippians 1:
20c-24, 27a; Matthew 20: 1-16a
“Why be envious because I am generous?”
Matthew 20: 1-16a
It has been said that youth is the time of hopes and dreams and
late adulthood is the time of regrets. Whatever about that
generalisation, it is obvious that when a person is young he or she
will have hopes of a bright future. When that same person reaches
advanced years, the danger will be that he may hope for very little. In
both cases, God’s powerful grace can easily be forgotten. Our
main hope should lie in the power of God and in the free gift of his
grace.
In our Gospel passage today (Matthew 20:
1-16a) the master of the vineyard goes out at
various times of the day to look for workers for his vineyard. At
different stages of the day he finds people standing idle and sends
them into his vineyard, including those he found at the very last hour,
the eleventh hour of the day. But what happened at the end of the day
when the work was over? The last employed received a full wage, one
denarius, which was payment for a full day’s work. What is our Lord’s
point here? The point that our Lord makes is the point we must
take from it. He finishes his parable making the point that God will be
generous: “Why be envious because I am generous?” the master says to
the others. If we respond to God’s invitation we can count on his
generosity, and God expresses his generosity in his gift of grace. We
benefit from God’s generosity when we receive his grace. It is by the
power of his grace that God does for us all he has promised and
intends. It is on his grace that we must depend whether we are young or
old, and not primarily on our own strength. God is generous with his
power and his grace, and this is the message of today’s gospel.
What then, is the grace of God? When we refer to God’s
grace, we refer to our share in God's life and the help that
continually stems from this. This supernatural help coming from God is
free and undeserved, and it enables us to respond to his call to live
and work as his children. At our baptism we are raised to a share in
the life of the Blessed Trinity and become members of Christ the Head
of the Church, members of God’s family the Church. This share in God’s
life increases with the subsequent sacraments provided it is
accompanied by the effort on our part to live a holy life. Without the
grace of God we would be totally in our sins and quite unable to rise
above the incapacity of our fallen human nature, which would mean that
we would be unable to reach our homeland in heaven.
This gift of God’s grace is sanctifying. It sanctifies us,
making us holy with the holiness of Christ. That grace is habitual
which confirms in us an habitual desire and capacity to live in keeping
with God’s call, and opens us to profit from God’s various
interventions every day of our lives. Those numerous interventions of
God we call his actual graces. They enlighten and inspire us to be more
and more generous in fulfilling his will. Christ by his death on the
Cross won for us a share in the grace of God, and it is on this grace
that we depend totally for our salvation and sanctification. Mary the
mother of Jesus was full of grace, and she was faithful to God’s grace
in everything. She is our Mother in this and can obtain for us more and
more of the grace of the Holy Spirit. She is also our Model in what it
means to live a life of grace.
The one thing that matters is that we always be in the
state of grace, which means that we always live in the friendship of
God and do our best every day to avoid any deliberate sin. God is
generous in his gift of grace, and this we read in today’s Gospel. So
we ought especially try to avoid any deliberate venial sin, because
that will weaken the life of grace in us. If ever we sin deliberately,
we ought immediately make an act of contrition, and confess it in our
next regular Confession. Let us build up our life of prayer, our
reception of the sacraments, and our Christ-like service, looking to
God’s grace and learning to live by it. It is the grace of God
that will enable us to be faithful to his will and to our God-given
work in life.
God is generous with his grace, so let us trust in the grace of God,
always beginning again.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no. 1996-2005 (Grace)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“You too go along to my vineyard”
Matthew 20: 1-16a
Anonymous 9th century author in present-day Italy (Homily
for Septuagesima, 4-7)
My beloved, persevere in the good works you have begun…… Unfortunate
people serve an earthly king, thus putting their life in danger and
facing enormous difficulties for a benefit that passes and disappears
very quickly. Why would you not serve the king of heaven so as to
obtain the happiness of the Kingdom? Since by faith the Lord has
already called you to his vineyard, that is to the unity of the holy
Church, live, behave in such a way that, thanks to God’s generosity,
you might receive the coin, that is to say, the happiness of the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Let no one despair because of the greatness of his sins and say: “The
sins in which I persevered until old age and even extreme old age are
many; now I will no longer be able to obtain forgiveness, above all
since it is the sins that have left me, not I who have rejected them.”
May that person absolutely not despair of divine mercy, for some are
called to God’’s vineyard at the first hour, others at the third,
others at the sixth, others at the ninth, others at the eleventh. That
is to say that some are led to God’s service when they are children,
others when they are adolescents, others in their youth, others in old
age, others in extreme old age.
Thus let no one despair, regardless of how old he is, if he wants to
turn back to God… Work faithfully in the Church’s vineyard to receive
the salary of eternal happiness and to reign with Christ forever and
ever.
------------------------------------------------------
Love Our Lord passionately. Love him madly. Because if there is Love
there - when there is love - I would dare to say that resolutions are
not needed. My parents - think of yours - did not need to make any
resolutions to love me: and what an effusion of tenderness they showed
me, in little details every day. With that same human heart we can and
should love God.
(The Forge, no.503)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday
of the
twenty fifth week of Ordinary Time 1
(19
September) St Januarius,
bishop and martyr (4th century). Bishop of
Benevento (Italy). He died a martyr in Naples during the persecution of
Diocletian. His dried blood contained in a phial liquifies several
times each year.
Scripture today:
Ezra 1:
1-6; Psalm 125; Luke 8: 16-18.
“So take care how you hear; for anyone
who has will be given more” (Luke 8: 16-18)
There is one scene in the Passion of our Lord we ought consider: it is
his meeting with Herod. Pilate decided to send our Lord over to Herod.
Herod was delighted as he had wanted to see and hear our Lord for some
time. He had heard a lot about him. He was very curious. But what did
our Lord do when he was brought before Herod? He refused to say a word.
Herod plied him with questions and wanted him to work a miracle. But
our Lord maintained his silence. Herod’s whole attitude that was at
work in his desire to hear and see our Lord was sinful. That is one
instance that exemplifies what our Lord warns in today’s Gospel: “Take
care how you hear; for anyone who has will be given more; from anyone
who has not, even what he thinks he has will be taken away.”
On another occasion our Lord said, “It is not those who say to me,
Lord, Lord, who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but rather the one
who does the will of my Farther in heaven.” Our hearing of the word of
God in Scripture and in the life and Tradition of the Church must be
filled with the desire to do God’s will, to put that word into
practice. In this we have constantly before us in the life of the
Church the example of Mary, the Church’s mother and model. He heard the
word, and said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me
according to thy word.” Let us yearn to hear and understand the word of
God so as to be able obediently to put it into practice in our daily
life. In this way our ordinary life will achieve its grandeur, as did
the ordinary life of Mary, of Joseph, and of our Lord during those
thirty years at Nazareth when together they lived the ordinary life of
typical townspeople.
Let us take care how we hear (Luke 8: 16-18).
For if we have the attitude God looks for in his children, we shall be
given more. If we do not, even what we think we have may be taken away
from us.
(E.J.Tyler)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The lamp on the lamp stand
Commentary from Saint John
Chrysostom (around 345-407), Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(Homily 15 on St. Matthew )
“Men do not light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket.”
Through these words, Jesus again encourages his disciples to lead an
irreproachable life by advising them to constantly watch over
themselves, because they are placed in the sight of all humankind like
athletes in a stadium, who are seen by the whole world (1 Cor 4:9).
He told them: “Don’t tell yourselves: ‘Now we can stay sitting here
quietly, we are hidden in a little corner of the world,’” for you will
be visible to all humankind, like a city on top of a mountain (Mt
5:14), like a light in the house that has been placed on the lamp
stand…… I have lit the light of your torch, but it’s up to you to see
to its upkeep, not just to your personal advantage, but also in the
interest of all who will see it and who through it will be led to the
truth. The worst wickedness won’t put a shadow over your light if you
live with the vigilance of those who are called to bring the whole
world to good. Thus, may you respond to the sanctity of your ministry
by your life so that God’’s grace might be announced everywhere.”
-----------------------------------------------
Love is sacrifice; and sacrifice for Love’s sake is a joy.
(The Forge, no.504)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday
of
the twenty fifth week of Ordinary Time 1
Today let us think of the
Korean martyrs: St. Andrew Kim Taegon & St. Paul Chong
Hasang
The Christian faith was
introduced in Korea during the 17th
century through the zeal of a group of lay persons. But from the very
beginning these Christians suffered under terrible persecutions that,
over the course of the nineteenth century, gave the Church many
martyrs. Outstanding among these were the first Korean priest and
devoted Church pastor, Andrew Kim of Taegu, and the lay apostle Paul
Chong of Hasang. Among the Korean martyrs who struggled valiantly for
Christ were bishops and priests, but for the most part they were laity,
men and women, married and single, young and old.
Readings today:
Ezra 6:
7-8.12.14-20; Psalm 121; Luke 8: 19-21
“They finished the building in
accordance with the order of the God of Israel” (Ezra 6:12)
When we consider the history of human societies and cultures we cannot
but notice what is virtually the universal presence of religion. Man
could be described as - yes, the rational animal, but more properly as
- he religious animal. He worships. Equally central in the organisation
of cities and towns is the presence of the place of worship, the
temple. It gathers the society or the community and gives expression to
his religious life. The temple or place of worship is a notable feature
of man in community. What can be said of this in the light of
Revelation? Perhaps it can be understood as a pointer to the religion
that God would reveal, an indication of what nature, human nature, is
oriented towards when it comes to Revelation.
One of the features of revealed religion is the great emphasis placed
on the Temple of God. In our first reading from the Old Testament book
of Ezra King Darius orders the reconstruction of the Temple of God in
Jerusalem. No pains are to be spared in the work of its restoration.
Detailed descriptions are given of the work and efforts that went into
it. The prophet Haggai’s work was to inspire the task ahead. The Temple
during the whole life of the chosen people of God up to and including
the life of our Lord himself was of the utmost imortance, and this was
in accord with the revealed plan of God.
As we think of the place of the Temple in the religion of the Old
Testament, let us remember its even greater emphasis (but in a
different way) in the New. Our Lord described himself as a Temple -
“destroy this temple and in three days I shall raise it up.” He was
referring to the temple that was his body. The Christian Church has its
focus in the place of worship where Christ resides in his tabernacle.
The Eucharist is there, and the Eucharist is the summit and the source
of the entire Christian life, whether of the Church or of the
individual member of the Church. Let us resolve to consider the church
where we live, the church wherein dwells the Eucharistic Jesus, the
centre and focus of our lives, and of the life of our parish. To do
this is in accord with the plan of God for the religion he revealed.
(E.J.Tyler)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary, mother of Christ, mother of the
Church
Commentary from St Augustine
(354-430), Bishop and Doctor of the Church (On holy virginity, 5)
He who is the fruit of one holy Virgin is the glory and honour of all
the other holy virgins; for like Mary, they are themselves the mothers
of Christ if they do the will of his Father. The glory and happiness of
Mary in being the mother of Jesus Christ shines forth above all in the
Lord’s words: “Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is brother
and sister and mother to me.” (Mt 12:50)
Thus he shows the spiritual relationships, which attach him to the
people whom he redeemed. His brothers and sisters are the holy men and
women who partake with him in the heavenly inheritance. His mother is
the entire Church, because by God’s grace, she brings forth the members
of Jesus Christ, that is to say, those who are faithful to him. His
mother is also every holy soul that does the will of his Father and
whose fruitful charity is made manifest in those whom it brings forth
for him until he himself is formed in them (Gal 4:19)……
Mary is certainly the mother of the members of the Body of Christ, that
is to say, our mother, because in her charity she cooperated in
bringing forth in the Church the faithful who are the members of this
divine head, whose mother she truly is according to the flesh.
------------------------------------
Answer this question in your heart: How often each day does your will
ask you to set your heart on God, to give him your expressions of love
and your actions? This is a good way to measure the intensity and
quality of your love.
(The Forge, no.505)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday
of
the twenty fifth week of Ordinary Time 1
Feast of St
Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist. Also called Levi, he was the
son of Alphaeus. He was a publican, that is, a tax collector for the
Romans. His profession was hateful to the Jews. Nevertheless, our lord
called him to be one of the Twelve. Matthew’s vocation reminds us that
sanctity is not reserved for privileged persons. All states in life,
all professions, all noble tasks may be sanctified, as the Church
teaches. Matthew is one of the Twelve Apostoles. We do not know details
of his evangeliation or of his martyrdom which perhaps took place in
Persia. Tradition unanimously acknowledges him as the author of the
first Gospel, written in Aramaic, the language that our Lord himself
spoke, and translated into Greek afterwards. St Matthew’s name appears
among the other apostles in the Roman Canon.
Scritpure today:
Ephesians 4:
1-7.11-13; Psalm 18; Matthew 9:
9-13
“As Jesus was walking on he saw a man
named Matthew sitting by the customs house, and he said to him, ‘Follow
me’. And he got up and followed him." (Matthew 9:9)
How beautiful is this scene! Our Lord calls the least likely to a
position so critical for the future of his Church, to be one of the
Twelve. But at the heart of the call is the simple invitation to
Matthew to follow him, and to do so totally. This invitation our Lord
extends to each of us who are baptised, even if we do not, of course,
have the precise role of Matthew. We are all called to follow our Lord
and to do so with the utmost dedication and a full heart. What does it
entail? It entails many things but St Paul puts it so when he exhorts
the reader to ‘let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.’
Let us consider this: that we put on the mind of Christ. Our Lord
expresses it this way: ‘Come to me, all you that labour and are over
burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
from me for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’ Following our
Lord closely means above all endeavouring to live in a thorough-going
way the virtues of Christ, and our Lord does us the favour of telling
us which virtues are especially important: his humility and his
meekness, virtues which fallen man finds particularly hard to work at.
As we think of the history of mankind and of our own personal history,
let us frankly recognise the prevalence of pride. Our pride has to be
replaced with Christ-like humility, and with that humility, meekness.
The very occasions when our pride is hurt by others offers the occasion
to work at humility, by accepting the humiliation. The cultivation of
gratitude is a great counter to pride. Above all, frequent acts of
sorrow for sin and fervently and frequently approaching the Sacrament
of Penance will offer regular opportunities for humility to be
cultivated, together with the grace of God to sustain our efforts.
Let us accept with St Matthew Christ’s invitation to follow him in mind
and spirit daily.
(E.J.Tyler)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Follow me.” Matthew 9: 9-13
Commentary from Saint Bede
the Venerable (around 673-735), Monk, Doctor of the Church
(Homilies on the Gospels I,
21)
“Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his post where taxes were collected.
He said to him, ‘Follow me.’” He didn’t see him so much with the eyes
of the body as with the interior gaze of his mercy…… He saw the
publican, and because he saw him with a gaze that has mercy and
chooses, “he said to him: ‘Follow me,’” that is to say, imitate me. By
asking him to follow him, he invited him less to walk behind him than
to live as he did; “for the man who claims to abide in him (must)
conduct himself just as he [Jesus] did.” (1 Jn 2:6)
Matthew “got up and followed him.” There is nothing surprising in the
fact that, at the Lord’s first pressing call, the publican abandoned
his search for earthly profits and disregarding temporal goods, adhered
to him whom he saw to be without any riches. It is because the Lord,
who called him from outside by his word, touched him at the most
intimate depth of his soul by spreading there the light of spiritual
grace. That light must have made Matthew understand that the one who
was calling him to leave his temporal goods on earth was able to give
him an incorruptible treasure in heaven.
------------------------------------
Be convinced, my child, that God has a right to ask us: Are you
thinking about me? Are you aware of me? Do you look to me as your
support? Do you seek me as the Light of your life, as your shield...,
as your all? Renew, then, this resolution: In times the world calls
good I will cry out: ‘Lord!’ In times it calls bad, again I will cry:
‘Lord!’
(The Forge, no.506)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday of
the twenty fifth week of Ordinary Time 1
Today let us think of St.
Thomas of Villanova
Scripture today:
Haggai 1:
1-8; Psalm 149; Luke 9: 7-9.
‘But Herod said, ‘..who is this I hear
such reports about?’ And he was anxious to see him.(Lk 9:9)
Herod was very desirous to see Jesus. He was superstitious and puzzled
at all the reports coming in about Jesus: he ‘had heard about all that
was being done by Jesus’, and there were various views as to who he
was. Eventually he did see Jesus during his Passion when Pilate sent
our Lord over to him to be judged. But our Lord refused to speak to
Herod. Herod was granted no relationship with our Lord at all because
his dispostions were utterly unworthy of it. It reminds us that it is
not enough to want to be religious, to want to have a relationship with
God, to want to get to heaven. We can want all this for the wrong
reasons, as did Herod. We are reminded of that parable our Lord told of
the master inviting numerous people to the wedding feast. When the
master came in one was found not wearing a wedding garment. He was cast
outside into the darkness.
But by contrast consider Zacchaeus the leading tax collector in Jericho
when our Lord was passing through. He wanted to see Jesus too and
because he was short of stature he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed
the tree to get a better view of our Lord who was to pass by that way.
When our Lord reached the tree he looked up and saw Zacchaeus. Our Lord
himself spoke and began the relationship. He asked Zacchaeus to come
down as he was to dine in his house that day. Zacchaeus hurried down
and welcomed the Lord joyfully promising to change his whole way of
life. Our Lord rejoiced at the saving of a soul, ‘because this man too
is a son of Abraham.’ Zacchaeus had the dispositions out Lord was
looking for. What were those dispositions, which were so lacking in
Herod? Obviously faith, but also the sense of sin and the readiness to
repent. He recognised in our Lord and in friendship with him the answer
to the need of his soul for pardon and a new life.
Let us ask for the grace of a deep sense of personal sinfulness, a
lively faith in Christ as our Saviour, and a humble trust in his
merciful love, a love that will take the inititative in drawing us into
his friendship. His friendship is eternal life both here and hereafter.
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Herod wanted to see Jesus (Luke 9: 7-9)
Comment from St Isaac the
Syrian (7th century), Monk in Ninive, near Mosul in present-day
Iraq
How can created beings contemplate God? The vision of God is so
terrible that Moses himself said that he feared and trembled. For when
the glory of God appeared on Mount Sinai (Ex 20), the mountain smoked
and trembled with fear under the impact of the revelation; the animals
that drew near the slopes died. The children of Israel prepared; they
purified themselves for three days, following the order of Moses, so as
to be worthy to hear God’’s voice and to see his revelation. But when
the time came, they could neither take on the vision of his light nor
receive the strength of his thundering voice.
But now that by his coming he has poured forth his grace onto the
world, he did not come down in an earthquake or in fire or by
announcing himself with a terrible and strong voice, but rather like
the dew on the fleece (Judg 6:37), like a drop falling gently onto the
earth. He came among us in another form. For he covered his greatness
with the veil of the flesh. He made a treasure of this flesh. He lived
among us in that flesh, which his will had formed for himself in the
womb of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, so that when we saw him as
belonging to our human race and living among us, we might not be
troubled by fear in contemplating him. That is why those who have
surrounded themselves with the garment in which the Creator appeared,
that is this body with which he covered himself, have put on Christ
himself (Gal 3:27). For they wanted to carry in their inner person (Eph
3:16) the same humility with which Christ revealed himself to his
creation and lived in it, as he reveals himself now to his servants.
Instead of the garment of external honour and glory, they have clothed
themselves with this humility.
----------------------------------
I don’t want you ever to lose your supernatural outlook. Even though
you see your own meannesses, your evil inclinations - the clay of which
you are made - in all their raw shamefulness, God is counting on you.
(The Forge, no.507)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday
of the
twenty fifth week of Ordinary Time 1
Today let us think of St.
Constantius, St Pio de Petrelcina (Padre Pio).
Scripture today:
Haggai
1:15-2:9; Psalm 42; Luke 9:
18-22
"But take courage now, Zerubbabel .. -
it is the Lord who speaks. To work! I am with you"
(Haggai 1:15-2:9)
Deism was the philosophy that acknowledged the existence of God but
looked on him as having begun the work of creation, and then as having
left it to continue on its own resources. While we do not hear much of
deism now, I tend to think it is the hidden philosophy of very many
without their being aware of it. In the lives of many who would not
explicitly deny the existence of God, God is out there somewhere but
that is as far as acknowledgeing him goes. Perhaps the decisive
element in true belief in God is a true belief in his power. If a
person believes in the power of God to the extent of appealing to it
and counting on it, then we may say that person has a living belief, a
conviction that God is a reality who matters.
In the Christian life we are commanded by our Lord to be perfect as our
heavenly Father is perfect. We are to work on growing in the perfection
of love, with him as our model. It will make all the difference to our
perseverence in this endeavour if we believe in the power of God, his
saving and sanctifying power. In the first reading of today the word of
the Lord was addressed to the prophet Haggai. He was to go to
Zerubbabel and to Joshua and command them to set to work on the
rebuilding of the Temple, which had long been in ruins. ‘Who is there
among you that saw this Temple in its former glory? And how does it
look to you now?’ The danger was that the task would seem too great.
But God would be with them, so, to work! ‘Courage, all you people of
the country! - it is the Lord who speaks. To work! I am with you.. and
my spirit remains among you. Do not be afraid!’ These words ought
inspire us in the Christian life at every point, for each Christian is
a Temple of the Holy Spirit. No matter how great the work of personal
sanctification, God is with us and it is he with all his power who
commands us to begin and to get to work.
St Josemaria Escriva would say that the secret to perseverence is
always: ‘Now I begin!’
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The Son of Man must suffer…, be
rejected… and killed, and rise from the dead.” Lk 9: 18-22
Comment from Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI] (Der
Gott Jesu Christi, chap. 2,4)
Being human means to go towards death; being human means to have to
die…… Living in this world means dying. “He became man.” (Creed). So
that means that Christ also went towards death. The contradiction that
is part and parcel of human death reached its extreme acuteness in
Jesus, because for him who is in total communion with the Father, the
absolute isolation of death is utter absurdity. On the other hand, for
him death also is a necessity; for the fact that he was with the Father
was at the source of the lack of understanding, with which human beings
saw him; it was at the source of his solitude in the midst of the
crowds. His condemnation was the ultimate act of non-understanding, of
the rejection of the person who was not understood into a zone of
silence.
At the same time, we can see something of the interior dimension of his
death. For the human person, dying is always at one and the same time a
biological event and a spiritual one. In Jesus, the destruction of the
bodily means of communication ruptured his dialogue with the Father. So
what was broken in the death of Jesus Christ was more important than in
any other human death; there, what was torn away was the dialogue that
is the entire world’’s true axis.
But just as this dialogue made him lonely and was the basis for his
death’s monstrosity, so the resurrection is already fundamentally
present in Christ. Through it, our human condition is brought into the
Trinitarian exchange of eternal love. It can never disappear again;
beyond the threshold of death, it rises again and creates its fullness
anew. Thus, only the resurrection reveals the ultimate, decisive nature
of that article of our faith: “He became man”…… Christ is fully human;
he remains so forever. Through him, the human condition has entered
into God’s very being. That is the fruit of his death.
----------------------------------
Live as the others around you live, with naturalness, but
‘supernaturalising’ every moment of your day.
(The
Forge, no.508)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday
of the
twenty fifth week of Ordinary Time 1
Today
let us think of St. Pacific
of San Severino, Our
Lady of Ransom
Scripture today:
Zechariah 2:
5-9.14-15a; Response:
Jeremiah 31:10,
11-12ab, 13; Luke 9:
43-45
"At a time when everyone was full of
admiration ... Jesus said to his
disciples: ... The Son of Man is going to be handed over into the power
of men." (Luke 9: 43-45)
It is natural to find joy in one’s work and when the work is well done
it is natural to be complimented for it. In our Lord’s case we are told
that during his public ministry people said that he had done all things
well. It must be presumed that throughout his life he did all things
well, including during the long period of his hidden years at Nazareth.
It is obvious that during his years at Nazareth our Lord blended in
normally and well with his wider family and the community at Nazareth.
This success at blending normally was also an instance of our Lord
doing all things well. In a way consonant with our Lord’s
characteristic normality during his years at Nazareth he must have been
recognised as one who did all things well, and for this he would have
been admired. He would have been respected as an excellent human being
and yet our Lord would have been wonderfully natural and normal.
So then, in our Gospel passage our Lord is being admired: ‘everyone was
full of admiration for all he did.’ But in this situation our Lord
reminds his disciples that an ignominious end was coming to him. As his
closest associates they, perhaps, were being carried away by all the
adulation coming to their master. Our Lord reminds them of what he
would refer to repeatedly that the Son of Man would have to suffer to
enter into his glory. If our Lord chose to remind them of the cross
during the so-called good times of his work and ministry, we ought
allow him to remind us of the cross during our good times. As his
disciples we ought keep the Cross ever before us, knowing that it is
especially when the Cross comes that there is most opportunity to be at
one with the Master in his saving work. Our Lord was increasingly
insistent on this point as the culminating moment of his life
approached. The culminating moment was not the moment of most
admiration from the people, but the moment of greatest rejection and
suffering.
Let us pray for the grace to be able to keep the Cross of Christ at the
forefront of our life.
(E.J.Tyler)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our title of glory: the Son of Man
delivered into the hands of men Luke 9: 43-45
Comment from St Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1274), Dominican theologian, Doctor of the Church
Saint Paul said: “May I never boast of anything but the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ!” (Gal 6:14) See, says Saint Augustine, where the
wise according to the world believed he had found shame, the apostle
Paul discovered a treasure; what to the other seemed folly, for him
became wisdom (1 Cor 1:17f.) and a title of glory.
For each person draws glory from what makes him great in his own eyes.
If he believes that he is a great person because he is wealthy, he
glories in his goods. The person who sees greatness for himself only in
Jesus Christ, places his glory in Jesus alone. That is the case for the
apostle Paul: “The life I live now is not my own; Christ is living in
me.” (Gal 2:20) Also, he glories only in Christ, and above all in the
cross of Christ. That is because all the motives for glory that a
person might have are gathered together in the cross.
There are people who glory in the friendship of the great and powerful.
Paul needed only the cross of Christ to discover there the most obvious
sign of God’’s friendship. “It is precisely in this that God proves his
love for us: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
(Rom 5:8) No, there is nothing that shows better God’’s love for us
than the death of Christ. Saint Gregory exclaimed: “Oh inestimable
testimony of love! In order to redeem the slave, you handed over the
Son.”
--------------------------------------------
In order to be able to judge with rectitude of intention, we need a
pure heart, zeal for the things of God and love for souls, free from
prejudices. Think about it.
(The Forge, no.509)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twenty
sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time A
Today let us think of Blessed Herman the Cripple,
and Saint Finbar
Today: Ezechiel
18: 25-28; Psalm
25:4-5,8-9,10,14; Philippians 2:
1-11; Matthew 21: 28-32.
“He answered, ‘I will not go’, but
afterwards thought the better of it and went.” (Mt 21: 28-32)
On merit in the Christian life:
Perhaps the first thing we think of when thinking of God is his
great power. In the Creed we state that we believe in God the Father
Almighty. He is almighty, yet he has called us to collaborate with him
by working on what he has created. The result is that while everything
comes from the creative hand of God, at the same time by our work we
gain the merit of improving the world. Yet we can do this only by the
power, the creative power, of God.
Something parallel happens in the work of our salvation and
sanctification. Only God saves. He alone can sanctify. Yet we have been
given the freedom to work with God for our salvation and
sanctification, and we can do this only by his power. The work is truly
our own, while being at the same time the work of God. We attain
holiness and get to heaven only by the grace of God, yet we do for our
part merit a place in heaven: it is a reward. God truly rewards us for
our fidelity. Yet in all of this fidelity and exercise of choice we
depend on the power and the grace of God. Our work and consequently
what we merit depends on the work and the grace of God, without which
nothing would be possible for us. There is both the grace of God and
our merit.
In the early Church there was a priest by the name of Pelagius
who fell into a serious error. He taught that if only a man would put
all his effort into it, he could achieve salvation and sanctity. What
is lacking in almost everyone is a total personal effort. But Pelagius’
error was to say that this personal effort, and not the grace of God,
was all that was needed. This was a great heresy, and St Augustine
devoted himself to exposing the error of it. He wrote extensively on
the power and the necessity of the grace of God. Grace, Augustine
taught, is virtually everything. With man it is impossible, but with
the grace of God all is possible.
But while we acknowledge this, our Gospel today invites us to
remember our own part in all this. The Church teaches that by our
efforts we can merit. This is to insist on the importance of our own
collaboration. We merit the reward of eternal life in heaven by
choosing to be perseveringly faithful. It is God’s work, but it is our
work too.
In today’s Gospel our Lord tells the story of a man and his two
sons. The man asked the first to go and work in his vineyard. The son
refused, but then repented and went to work in his father’s vineyard.
The other son was asked to do the same. This second son replied that he
would, but then did not go at all. Our Lord is talking here of the
critical importance of what we actually choose to do, though of course
for this we depend totally on his gift of grace. Our place in heaven
and the eternal reward we finally merit will depend on our being like
the son who actually did what the father wanted. The important thing is
the doing. All indeed depends on the help and grace of God, but without
our
cooperation the grace of God will not bear fruit because God made us
free. So all will depend on what, with God’s grace, we actually choose
to do. In this sense our salvation and sanctification depend on us. We
merit our eternal reward,
though this is made possible only by the gift of God’s grace.
All this is to say that we ought be constantly praying for the
grace of God to enable us to do his will, but then resolutely
deciding
to do it. What we actually do is critically important. For instance, a
person is often resentful and unforgiving,
angry and bearing grudges for years. The problem can be that he himself
in his heart of hearts does nothing about it. He prays, prays and prays
- which is good. But he does not actually make the effort and the leap
of forgiving, because he secretly does not want to. His own action in
the matter is lacking. He does not exercise the freedom he has been
given. Perhaps he expects God to change him by his grace and forgets
that he must decide to change - as did the son in the Gospel who said
he would not but did. This applies to the immensely important work of
putting on the virtues of the heart, so that we acquire the mind of
Christ - by his grace, of course.
So then, let our Gospel today remind us that we are called not
only to acknowledge God’s grace, but to act according to it. We are
meant
(by the grace of God) to merit our reward. If we act, we shall be
rewarded accordingly.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church no.2006-2011 (Merit)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Obedient to the Father, following the
Son
(Matthew
21: 28-32)
Comment by St Teresia
Benedicta of the Cross [Edith Stein] (1891-1942), Carmelite,
Martyr, Co-patroness of Europe (Exaltation of the Cross)
“Your will be done!” That was the Saviour’s entire life. He came into
the world in order to do the Father’s will, not only to atone for the
sin of disobedience through his obedience (Rom 5:19), but also to bring
humankind back to their vocation on the path of obedience.
It is not given to the creature to be free by being his own master; the
creature is called to be in accord with God’’s will. If he submits to
it by his own free will, he is given free participation in the
fulfilment of creation. If he refuses, the free creature also loses his
freedom. The human person’s will still keeps its ability to decide
freely, but he is under the charm of creatures who push and pull him in
directions that take him away from developing his nature in the way God
wants and that take him away from the goal that he had set himself in
his original freedom. In addition to this original freedom, he loses
steadiness in his resolution. He becomes changeable and indecisive,
torn this way and that by doubts and scruples, or hardened in his
aberration.
There is no remedy for that other than the path of following Christ,
the Son of Man, who not only immediately obeyed the heavenly Father,
but who also submitted to men who showed him the Father’s will.
Obedience as God wants it frees our will from being enslaved by all the
bonds of creatures and brings it back to freedom. Thus it is also the
path towards purity of heart.
------------------------------------------------------
I heard some people I knew talking about their radio sets. Almost
without realising it, I brought the subject round to the spiritual
area: we have got a strong earth, too strong, and we have forgotten to
put up the aerial of the interior life. That is why there are so few
souls who keep in touch with God. May we never be without our
supernatural aerial.
(The Forge, no.510)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday
of the twenty sixth week of Ordinary Time 1
(September 26) Saints Cosmas
and Damian, martyrs. From early writings there is evidence that
the tomb of Cosmas and Damian was at Cyrrhus in Syria where a basilica
was built in their honour. They may have been martyred in the time of
Diocletian. Their veneration spread from there to Rome and then
throughout the Church. Their names appear in the Roman Canon.
Scripture today:
Zechariah
8: 1-8; Psalm 102: 16-18,
19-21; 29 and 22-23; Luke 9: 46-50
“The Lord of hosts says this. Now I am
going to save my people ... I will bring them back”
(Zechariah
8: 1-8)
So much of what God asks of us appears to be beyond
our powers - and, indeed, it is beyond our powers. God asks of us that
we dedicate ourselves to the work he has given us in life and to try to
achieve success and do good in it. He also asks that we be apostolic in
the midst of our everyday work and endeavour to bring the souls of
those around us closer to him and to his friendship. Above all, he
wants us to seek and attain sanctity. This is the most difficult goal,
and were it to depend on our own powers alone it would be, of course,
impossible. The danger is that we may well give up through lack of
faith in the power and the presence of God.
In our first reading today the prophet Zechariah utters very consoling
prophecies to the people of God. He promises that God will renew
Jerusalem. That is his plan: “the squares of the city will be full of
boys and girls playing in the squares.” Our passage tells us that the
temptation was not to believe that God could do this: “If this seems a
miracle to the remnant of this people (in those days), will it seem one
to me?” God promises his people that “I will bring them back to live
inside Jerusalem. They shall be my people and I will be their God”. God
was asking for faith from his people, faith in his plan for them, and
the readiness to act according to it.
We too must keep before us the plan of God for us. St Paul tells us
very plainly: “This is the will of God: your sanctification.” If it is
God’s plan to bring us to holiness, we must constantly believe that it
is possible, and act accordingly. In every respect that we find our
thoughts, words and deeds at variance with this plan we ought then and
there repent and start again, trusting not in ourselves but in his
saving will and power. It is this faith in God which will give us hope
and the love to open ourselves constantly to his grace, always
beginning again.
So, now I begin!
(E.J.Tyler)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“We tried to stop him because he is
not of our company.” Luke 9: 46-50
Commentary from Pope John
Paul II (Ut
unum sint, 15)
"There can be no ecumenism worthy of the name without a change of
heart."
The Council calls for personal conversion as well as for communal
conversion. The desire of every Christian Community for unity goes hand
in hand with its fidelity to the Gospel. In the case of individuals who
live their Christian vocation, the Council speaks of interior
conversion, of a renewal of mind.
Each one therefore ought to be more radically converted to the Gospel
and, without ever losing sight of God's plan, change his or her way of
looking at things. Thanks to ecumenism, our contemplation of "the
mighty works of God" (mirabilia Dei) has been enriched by new horizons,
for which the Triune God calls us to give thanks: the knowledge that
the Spirit is at work in other Christian Communities, the discovery of
examples of holiness, the experience of the immense riches present in
the communion of saints, and contact with unexpected dimensions of
Christian commitment. In a corresponding way, there is an increased
sense of the need for repentance: an awareness of certain exclusions
which seriously harm fraternal charity, of certain refusals to forgive,
of a certain pride, of an unevangelical insistence on condemning the
"other side," of a disdain born of an unhealthy presumption. Thus, the
entire life of Christians is marked by a concern for ecumenism; and
they are called to let themselves be shaped, as it were, by that
concern.
------------------------------------------
Is it true that I pay more attention to trifles and trivialities, that
bring me nothing and from which I expect nothing, than I do to my God?
Who am I with, when I am not with God?
(The Forge,
no.511)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday of
the twenty sixth week of Ordinary Time 1
(September 27) St Vincent de
Paul, priest (1581-1660). Born in France, he was a priest who
dedicated himself to evangelization of the poor, the unfortunate and
the suffering. Together with Louise de Marillac, he founded the
Congregation of the Daughters of Charity. He also founded the
Congregation of the Priests of the Mission (known here as the
Vincentians). His life remained deeply rooted in humility in spite of
his worldwide fame.
Scripture today:
Zechariah 8:
20-23; Psalm 86; Luke 9: 51-56.
“But he turned and rebuked them, and
they went off to another village.” Luke 9: 51-56
Our Lord once said to his disciples that the great men of this world
make their authority felt, and that this was not to happen among them.
Great men of this world impose themselves on others and get their way -
and are concerned for their own precedence. Now, it is a cause of
wonder how different from this was the way that our Lord trod. Just
consider! He was not only a man, a great man, but in the first place
God. He was a divine person. Yet throughout the Gospels we see him
refraining from using his divine power for his own advantage, and
instead following the path of humility, meekness, courtesy. Our
Lord was the supreme gentleman.
Consider our Gospel passage today and the detail it contains of our
Lord’s reaction to the rudeness and lack of hospitality of the
Samaritans. He was on his way to Jerusalem (and to his death) and
“because he was making for Jerusalem”, the “people would not receive
him.” Our Lord’s disciples James and John reacted in the way so many
Christians have reacted in the face of things done that are wrong and
disrespectful of God. They wanted the perpetrators severely punished.
But our Lord was humble, meek and respectful. In matters that related
to his own interest and convenience he was entirely accommodating.
Instead, he and his disciples “went off to another village.”
Let us then resolve to be like Christ in the many situations of life
that involve a personal affront. Let us not initiate a duel over it,
rather let us be Christ-like gentlemen.
(E.J.Tyler)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Jesus turned toward them…… to
reprimand them.” Luke 9: 51-56
Comment from St Isaac the
Syrian (7th century), Monk in Ninive, near Mosul in present-day
Iraq
(Spiritual Discourses, 2nd
Series, no. 10,36)
When someone has been made worthy to taste God’s love, he usually
forgets everything because of its sweetness, for once he has tasted
that love, everything visible seems to him to be of no interest. His
soul joyfully draws near to the beautiful love of people without
distinction. He is never troubled by their weaknesses, which do not
frighten him, just like the blessed apostles who, in the midst of all
the evils which they had to bear from their torturers, were completely
incapable of hating them and did not tire of loving them. This was
shown by facts when, in the end, they even bore death so as to meet
them again one day in heaven.
And yet, they were the same people who a little earlier had begged
Christ to make fire come down from heaven on the Samaritans, who had
only refused to welcome them in their village. But once they had
received the gift of tasting God’s love, they were made perfect even to
the point of loving the wicked.
----------------------------------------------
Tell him: Lord, I want nothing other than what You want. Even those
things I am asking you for at present, if they take me an inch away
from your Will, don’t give them to me.
(The Forge, no.512)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday
of the twenty sixth week of Ordinary Time 1
(28 September) St
Wenceslaus, martyr (907-930) Duke of Bohemia. After many trials
in governing his people, he suffered martyrdom at the hands of his
brother.
St Lorenzo Ruiz and his
companions, martyrs. In the 17th century (1633-1637) Lorenzo
Ruiz and his companions shed their blood for Christ in Nagasaki, Japan.
These martyrs were members of the Order of St Dominic. They were nine
priests, two religious, two sisters, and there laymen. Among the latter
was Lorenzo Ruiz, a family man from the Philippines. They abundantly
lowed the missionary seed of Christianity with the example of their
life and death. (Saints)
Scripture today:
Nehemiah 2:
1-8; Psalm 137: 1-2,
3, 4-5, 6; Luke 9: 57-62
“This the king granted me, for the
kindly favour of my God was with me.” (Nehemiah 2: 1-8)
I remember years ago attending a lunch-time seminar at Sydney
University. A priest who was a member oft he Philosophy department of
the Faculty of Arts was giving a paper on prayer. He was defending the
proposition that prayers can be known to have been answered. In his
audience were two professors of Philosophy, both of whom were at least
agnostics, possibly atheists. The priest’s paper aroused much
discussion. The topic being discussed was no mere academic question but
a very existential one. Many people begin with prayer for something
they want and need, but give up because, they think, they see no
results.
In our first reading to day from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah,
Nehemiah is asked by the King, “What is your request?” Nehemiah tells
us that “I called on the God of heaven and made this reply to the
King.” The King granted his request and at the end of the passage
Nehemiah gives the reason for his success: “for the kindly favour of my
God was with me.” So the passage is very much about God answering
prayer.
Towards the end of his life Cardinal Newman, in remarking on the matter
of God answering our prayers, suggested that God seems to answer our
prayers mainly by extension. By this he meant that God seems generally
to stretch the natural forces that are at work so as to grant the
object of our prayers. In this way he respects as much as possible the
natural laws of the world that he himself has instituted and sustained.
If this is the case I suppose it accounts for the fact that often we do
not realize that God has answered our prayers till after the event - it
has come silently and unobserved. Newman went on to suggest that we
pray for what appears to us as the likely will of God.
Whatever about Newman’s theory of God’s activity by extension, it is
surely right that we seek to pray for what appears to be in conformity
with God’s will. But of course God’s will is full of surprises, it is
merciful and abundantly generous and can be presumed to be flexible and
reflective of his power. God wants us to ask for all that we need
and to have confidence in his power. What would have happened to the
wedding feast at Cana had not Mary asked her Son to do something? So
let us pray and petition with confidence and faith, but at the same
time trying to know and be submissive to the God who wishes to hear the
prayers of his children.
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his
head.” Luke 9: 57-62
Comment from A companion of
St. Francis of Assisi (13th century) (Sacrum commercium, 22)
Oh Lady Poverty, the son of the sovereign Father became “enamoured of
(your) beauty” (Wis 8:2) ……, and knew that you would be the most
faithful companion. Before coming down from his light-filled homeland,
it was you who prepared a suitable place for him, a throne for him to
sit on, a bed where he could rest: the most pure Virgin of whom he was
born. From the moment of his birth, you were at his bedside; he was
laid “in a manger, because there was no room for them in the place
where travellers lodged.” (Lk 2:7) And you always accompanied him while
he was on earth: “The foxes have lairs, the birds of the sky have
nests, but he had no place to lay his head.” When, after letting the
prophets speak in his name, he himself began to teach, you were the
first whom he praised: “How blest are the poor in spirit: the reign of
God is theirs.” (Mt 5:3)
Then, when he chose some friends for himself to be his witnesses for
the salvation of humankind, he didn’t call rich trades people but
modest sinners, so as to show everyone how much his esteem for you,
Lady Poverty, was to engender love for you. Finally, as if a brilliant
and final proof of your value, your nobility, your courage, your
pre-eminence over the other virtues was needed, you were the only one
to stay attached to the King of glory when the friends whom he had
chosen had abandoned him.
You, his faithful companion, his tender lover, you didn’t leave him
even for one moment; you became even more attached to him because you
saw him scorned more, and that more universally…… You alone comforted
him. You didn’t leave him “even unto death, death on a cross,” (Phil
2:8), when he was naked, with his arms outstretched, his hands and feet
nailed, …… so much so that he had nothing left to show of his glory
except you.
------------------------------------------------
The secret of being effective, at root, lies in your piety, a sincere
piety. This way you will pass the whole day with Him.
(The Forge, no.513)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday
of the twenty sixth week of Ordinary Time 1
Scripture today:
Nehemiah
8:1-4.5-6.7-12; Psalm 18; Luke 10:1-12
There is an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt. This saying
goes too far of course, but it does highlight the fact that all too
often we can fail to respect and indeed reverence things we are often
in contact with. This applies to our contact with friends, close
relations, and even the most sacred things in our religion, such as the
word of God and the Sacraments. For instance, let us consider our
attitude to the word of God.
In the first reading from the book of Nehemiah (Nehemiah
8:1-4.5-6.7-12) 'All the people gathered as one man
on the square before the Water Gate.' Then Ezra the priest brought the
Law before the assembly' and 'he read from the book from early
morning till noon: all the people listened attentively to the Book of
the Law.' Notice how the people listened attentively. Our passage
reminds us of the grandeur of the inspired word of God as given to us
in the Scriptures, and of the loving and active attention we, both
individually and as the Church, ought accord to it. As Kierkegaard once
wrote, we ought read or listen to the Scriptures as we would to a
letter coming to us from a friend. The friend is living, and the words
of the inspired text are the vehicle of his living communication to his
people, the Church. We listen to those words as members of the living
spouse of the living Bridegroom.
In our Gospel passage today (Luke 10:1-12)
our Lord instructs his disciples to announce his word to the towns and
villages he himself was to visit. The message was 'The Kingdom of God
is very near to you.' There was a severe warning to those who chose not
to attend to the message being brought to them: 'it will not go as hard
with Sodom as with that town.' Again we are reminded of how we ought
listen to the word of God.
Let us then orient our whole life to hearing the word of God with
reverence and faith, and putting it assiduously and perseveringly into
practice. The one who does this, our Lord tells us, is the one who
builds his house on rock.
(E.J.Tyler)
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A resolution: to “keep up”, without interruption as far as you can, a
loving and docile friendship and conversation with the Holy Spirit.
Come O Holy Spirit, and dwell in my soul!
(The
Forge, no.514)
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Feast
of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.
(September 29)
The liturgy celebrates the
feast of these three archangels who are venerated in the
Church's tradition.
Michael ('Who is like God?')
was the archangel who fought against Satan and all his evil angels,
defending all the friends of God. He is the protector of all humanity
and reminds us of the real existence of the devil and of diabolical
activity. To protect us from the snares of the devil, it is good to
have recourse to St Michael. Gabriel
('Strength of God') announced to Zechariah the coming birth of john the
Baptist and to Mary the birth of Jesus. His greeting to the Virgin,
'Hail, full of Grace' is one of the most familiar and frequent prayers
of the Christian people. Raphael
('Medicine of God') is the archangel who took care of Tobias on
his journey. Every person on his pilgrimage through this life has
a guardian angel with a mission similar to that of Raphael. (Saints)
Daniel 7: 9-10,
13-14 or Apocalypse 12:
7-12ab; Psalm 138: 1-2ab,
2cde-3, 4-5; John 1: 47-51
"War broke out in heaven;
Michael and his angels battled against the dragon." Apoc. 12:7-12ab
As we pass through life it is of the utmost
importance that we come to
understand the ultimate issues, and at the very least identify what
they are. Many people do not attain this explicit perception, and so
pass from year to year striving for things that ultimately are
ephemeral and lacking in importance. We have to make choices, and
willy-nilly we shall be working for one thing or another. Our life will
derive its significance from what we choose and work for.
An ultimate issue of life and one that is played out each day in the
life of individuals and societies is the struggle between good and
evil. It is a struggle that began in heaven itself. It also appeared
again at
the very dawn of human history when evil won a notable and most
significant victory over our first parents. It reached its climax in
the drama of our Lord's
life when good won an overwhelming victory of eternal significance. It
continues to be played out now and will continue to the end of time
when, whatever be the victories of evil, good will gain its triumph and
evil will be conquered finally. This will be due to the victory of good
in Christ. So we know in advance the final upshot because it has been
revealed. It is of the utmost importance that in our life we gather
with Christ because those who do not gather with him will be scattered.
Let us consider today what may be considered the opening round of this
great and ultimate struggle. As we read in the today's reading from the
book of the Apocalypse, it began in heaven itself, the abode of God.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and
Raphael, each of whom feature in Sacred Scripture by
name. The book of the Apocalypse or Revelation tells us that 'war broke
out in heaven, when Michael and his angels attacked the dragon. The
dragon fought back with his angels but they wee defeated and driven out
of heaven.' Some angels had refused obedience to God and to the good,
and a struggle ensued with those, such as our archangels of today, who
chose for God. They accepted his will. We know that God and those who
are with and in God, accepting and obeying his will as
it is revealed by Christ and his body the Church, will gain the
ultimate victory.
These are the ultimate issues of life and they are played out each day
in the lives of all of us because all of us have been given an
intellect,
the power of choice, and a conscience. Life is short and eternity long,
so we must use every day to gain the victory. The Archangels are our
friends by their example, by their prayers on our behalf before God,
and by their active assistance (in God) to us over the course of our
life. Let us make the choice they made, calling on their help and their
prayers, so that we may reign with them forever in heaven.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Bless the Lord, O you his angels, ……
his servants that do his will.” (Psalm 103:20-21)
Commentary from Saint Bernard
(1091-1153), Cistercian monk and Doctor of the Church
(1st Sermon for the feast of Saint Michael)
Today we are celebrating the feast of the holy angels…… But what can we
say about these angelic spirits? This is our faith: we believe that
they enjoy the presence and the vision of God, that they possess
endless happiness, the goods of the Lord that “eye has not seen, ear
has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned on man.” (1 Cor 2:9) So
what can a simple mortal say on this subject to other mortal human
beings, he who is incapable of imagining such things? …… If it is
impossible to speak of the glory of the holy angels in God, we can at
least speak about the grace and the love they show us. For they not
only enjoy incomparable dignity; they are also of a most kind
helpfulness…… If we cannot understand their glory, we become all the
more closely attached to the mercy with which these citizens of heaven,
these princes of paradise who are familiar with God, are filled.
The apostle Paul himself, who contemplated the heavenly court with his
own eyes and who knew its secrets (2 Cor 12:2), tells us that all the
angels “are ministering spirits, sent to serve those who are to inherit
salvation” (Heb 1:14). Don’t consider that to be incredible, since the
Creator, the King of the angels himself “has not come to be served but
to serve –– to give his life in ransom for the many.” (Mk 10:45) So
which angel would despise such a service, towards which the one whom
the angels serve in heaven went forward with eagerness and joy?
-------------------------------------------------
Repeat to yourself, with all your heart, and with ever-increasing love,
and more when you are in front of the Tabernacle or have the Lord
within your breast: “No one can hide from his warmth.” May I not flee
from you, may I be filled with the fire of your Holy Spirit.
(The Forge, no.515)
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Friday
of the twenty sixth week of Ordinary Time 1
(September 30) St Jerome,
priest and doctor of the Church (340-420). Born in Dalmatia
(Yugoslavia) he studied in Rome where he was baptized. He chose
monastic life, went to Syria and was ordained priest. He went back to
Rome as secretary of Pope Damasus, who commissioned him to revise the
Latin text of the Bible. He went to Bethlehem to work on this project.
His work is now known as the Vulgate (superseded in recent years by the
New Vulgate) which the Church adopted as her official version. He wrote
many other works, mostly commentaries on the books of the
Bible. (Saints)
Scripture today:
Baruch
1: 15-22; Psalm 79: 1b-2,
3-5, 8-9;
Luke
10: 13-16
“To us the look of shame we wear
today... because we have sinned in the sight of the Lord”
Baruch
1: 15-22
Pope Pius XII many years ago made a judgment on the modern era which
has been repeated by the Church on different occasions since. He said
that the sin of the modern world is the loss of the sense of sin. The
sense of personal sinfulness and of the evil of sinning has been
largely lost - we do not have the sense what we are sinners, and the
sins we commit do not seem to us to be very wrong at all. Furthermore,
the loss of this sense of sin is itself sinful and morally blameworthy
- it is not just a chance fact that happens to be the case. On both
counts a great change of heart is needed. This is a particularly
serious matter because God sent his Son to save the world precisely
from sin, and if we have little realization of sin we shall feel little
need for our Saviour Jesus Christ. Our hearts will be hard with self
satisfaction.
Our first reading today from the book of Baruch (Baruch
1: 15-22) provides us with a
magnificent Old Testament confession of personal sinfulness. It
expresses the best of the soul of God’s people when moved by the Holy
Spirit. All the citizens of Jerusalem and the people of Judah with its
rulers, priests, prophets and ancestors included, confess their guilt
and disobedience before God and his commandments. The disasters that
have come upon them are recognised as having been judgments on sin.
It is essential that we recognise our sinfulness if we are ever to
repent of it and be saved and sanctified. Our Lord on one occasion when
hearing of the accidental death of several persons said that while
their death did not mean that they were greater sinners than others in
Jerusalem, unless people repented they too would perish. The wages of
sin, St Paul writes in Romans, are death. Christ came to liberate us
from the power of sin and by his grace to sanctify us.
Let us begin by praying for a genuine sense of sin. This sense of sin
is a grace to be prayed for, and it will enable us - if we are faithful
to it - to confess our sins both from the heart and in the Sacrament of
Penance, and amend. This amendment must be ongoing all through life
till we are admitted by our Father into heaven. What a grace to die
truly penitent!
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Listen, my people, …… I beg you, I
your God.” (Psalm 50:7) (Luke
10: 13-16)
Comment from Clement of
Alexandria (150 –– around 215), Theologian (Protrepticus, 9)
“Oh, that today you would hear his voice: ‘Harden not your hearts as
during the days in the desert, where your fathers tempted me…… They
shall not enter into my rest.’” (Ps 95:7-11) The grace of God’s promise
is abundant if today we hear his voice, for that today extends to each
new day, so long as people continue to say “today”. That today remains
until the end of time, as does the possibility to learn. At that
moment, the real today, God’s unending day will be mingled with
eternity. Thus, let us always obey the voice of the divine Word, the
Word of God become flesh, for the ever present today is the image of
eternity, and the day is the symbol of light. And the Word in which we
see God is light for humankind (Jn 1:9).
It is thus natural that grace abounds for those who believed and
obeyed, and it is natural that God is irritated with those who did not
believe……, who did not acknowledge the Lord’s ways……, and that God
threatens them…… Thus the Hebrews wandered around in the desert; they
did not enter the place of rest because of their unbelief……
Because the Lord loves humankind, he invites everyone to “come to know
the truth” (1 Tim 2:4), and he sends them the Holy Spirit, the
Paraclete…… So listen, you who are far away and you who are near (Eph
2:17). The Word does not hide from anyone. He is our common light, he
shines for all people. So let us hasten towards salvation, towards the
new birth. Let us hasten to be many who come together in one single
flock, in the unity of love. And that multitude of voices, …… of people
who obey a single master, the Word, will find rest in the Truth itself
and will be able to say “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15).
----------------------------------------------------
“Burn me with the fire of your Holy Spirit,” you cried. You then added:
“My poor soul needs to fly again as soon as possible, and not stop
flying until it rests in God!” I think your desires are admirable. I
will pray for you often to the Paraclete. I will invoke him
continually, so that he may nestle in the centre of your being,
presiding and giving a supernatural tone to all your actions and words,
thoughts and desires.
(The Forge, no.516)
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Saturday
of the twenty sixth week of Ordinary Time 1
(October 1) St
Therese Martin of the Child Jesus (1873-1897). Born in France.
While very young, she entered the monastery of the Carmelites of
Lisieux. She was outstanding for her humility, simplicity and
confidence in God. She offered her life for the salvation of souls and
for the Church. (Saints)
Scripture today:
Baruch
4: 5-12, 27-29; Psalms 69: 33-35,
36-37; Luke 10: 17-24.
“Take courage, my children, call on
God: he who brought disaster on you will remember
you.” (Baruch
4: 27-29)
As mentioned when commenting on yesterday’s reading from the book of
Baruch, a deep consciousness of sin is one of the foundations of the
Christian life - a sense of our own sinfulness and of our incapacity to
overcome sin without the grace of God. But this alone is not
sufficient. We must also have a living faith in Christ’s power over our
sinfulness, 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 exercise their will, 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) it
is the power of Christ over Satan that the disciples were
exulting in. It is this power which we must open ourselves up to in
respect to our spiritual life, and then collaborate with it “ten times
as hard.” If we do this the result will be a harvest.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Everything has been given over to me
by my Father.” (Luke 10: 17-24)
Commentary from Saint
Irenaeus of Lyon (130 –– 208), Bishop, Theologian and Martyr
(Against the Heresies, IV,
6,3-7)
No one can know the Father without the Word of God, that is to say,
unless the Son reveals him, nor can anyone know the Son without the
Father wanting it. The Son fulfills this desire of the Father’s, for
the Father sends him, whereas the Son is sent and comes. The Father is
utterly invisible and unlimited in relationship to us, and his Word
makes him known. And as inexpressible as he is, his Word expresses him.
Reciprocally, only the Father knows the Word……
The Word reveals God the Creator already by means of creation. Through
the world, the Word reveals the Lord who put the world in order;
through what has been shaped, the Word reveals the Artist who shaped
it, and through the Son, the Word reveals the Father who begot him.
Many agree on this, but nevertheless all do not believe. Similarly, the
Word announced itself and announced the Father through the Law and the
prophets: the whole people heard, but nevertheless, not all believed.
Finally, through the intervention of the Word become visible and
palpable (1 Jn 1:1), the Father showed himself, and even if not
everyone believed in him that did not mean that the Father was less
visible in the Son (Jn 14:9)……
So when the Son serves the Father, he leads all things to their
perfection from the beginning until the end, and without him no one can
know God…… Since the beginning, the Son, who is present to the work he
shaped, reveals the Father to all for whom the Father wants and when he
wants and as he wants. Everywhere and always, there is only one God the
Father, only one Word, only one Spirit, and only one salvation for
everyone who believes in him.
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When you celebrated the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross you
asked Our Lord with the most earnest desire of your heart, to grant you
his grace so as to “exalt” the Holy Cross in the powers of your soul
and in your senses. You asked for a new life; for the Cross to set a
seal on it, to confirm the truth of your mission; for the whole of your
being to rest on the Cross! We shall see.....
(The Forge, no.517)
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