June 2006
Pope Benedict XVI's
general prayer intention
for June is: "That Christian families may lovingly welcome
every child who
comes into existence and surround the sick and the aged, who need care
and assistance, with affection."
His mission intention
for June is: "That pastors and the Christian faithful
may consider
inter-religious dialogue and the work of acculturation of the Gospel as
a daily service to promote the cause of the evangelization of
peoples."
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Pentecost Sunday B
(June 4) Today let us think of St. Francis Caracciolo and St Kevin (Saints)
Today: Acts 2:
1-11;
Psalm 104: 1, 24,
29-31, 34; Corinthians 12:
3-7, 12-13 or Galatians 5:
16-25;
Gospel:
John 20:
19-23
or John 15: 26-27;
16: 12-15
“Something appeared to them that
seemed like tongues of fire; these separated and came to rest on the
head of each of them.” (Acts of the
Apostles 2:1-11)
The religion revealed by God is a religion of great hope. We are
told in the Acts of the Apostles that when St Paul was taken to Rome
and held under house arrest there, he invited the Jewish leaders in
Rome to his home. He told them that it was because of the hope of
Israel that he was being held in captivity. That reference to the hope
of Israel gave expression to a distinguishing feature of the religion
which God had revealed. It was a religion which looked forward to great
things that God would do for man in the future. He would establish his
kingdom, his rule, and this would answer man’s deepest longings. Now,
the Scriptures pointed to two blessings which the coming of God's
kingdom would involve, firstly the Messiah, and secondly the
Spirit of God.
In the Old Testament there was a pattern in the saving
actions of God for his people. Firstly, he raised up specially chosen
people who acted with his power and aid. We think of the patriarchs
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We think of great leaders and kings Moses,
certain of the Judges, King David and certain other kings. We think of
the great prophets, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel. Well,
the great one who was coming would be all of these and far more. He
would be
the anointed one, the Messiah, the Christ. But as well as this, there
is a second feature in the pattern of God’s saving activity. Those
great figures of the Old Testament did what they did by the power of
the spirit of God that had been given to them. Moses was great because
he had been given the spirit of Yahweh, as had King David and the great
prophets. Now just as a Messiah had been promised, so too it was
promised that this same spirit of God, active in the great men of the
Old Testament, would be poured out on mankind. This was the other
glorious side to the hope of Israel. The prophet Joel, speaking the
word of God, had said, “I will pour out my spirit on all mankind...
Even on the slaves, men and women, will I pour out my spirit in those
days.”
In the fulness of time it was revealed that the two
expectations were intimately connected. When our Lord was baptized in
the
Jordan by John the Baptist the Holy Spirit came upon him in the form of
a dove. The upshot? The Spirit led our Lord out into the desert to
engage in
conflict with Satan. John the Baptist pointed our Lord out to his
disciples, saying of him that he would baptize the people with
the Holy Spirit. As with his Incarnation and the beginning of his
ministry, so too throughout his public ministry up to and including his
Passion and Death and then on to his Resurrection, our Lord was
constantly acting in the Holy Spirit and by his power. The saving power
of Christ could be said to be the Holy Spirit. God’s plan was revealed
that it is Jesus the Messiah who gives the Spirit of God to
God’s people and to the world. Indeed, Jesus reveals that the Spirit of
God is a distinct person, and indeed like himself, a divine
Person. The two work closely together and with the Father, like three
keys producing a wonderful sound.
Let us remember that our Lord looked to the coming of the Holy
Spirit as the event that would make all the difference to his disciples
and to his work. For nearly three years our Lord strove to bring God’s
chosen people to believe in him. His crucifixion represented the
rejection by the nation’s leaders of the truth to which he bore
witness. His own disciples were left frightened and dispirited. Wherein
lay our Lord’s unshakeable confidence? It lay in the coming of the Holy
Spirit. The divine plan was that when he was glorified he and the
Father would send the Holy Spirit, and this would transform the
Church’s prospects. Accordingly, our Lord told his disciples before he
ascended into heaven that they were to return to Jerusalem to await
what had been promised. Today we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit
on the infant Church and the difference which that coming made. The
Church was born and became God’s witness to the risen Jesus amid
persecution and difficulties. The Church became the body of Christ and
the Temple of the Holy Spirit, a holy people bringing redemption and
sanctification to the peoples of the world.
Let us think today of the Person of the Holy
Spirit, his power and the effect of his presence and action in the
hearts of Christ’s faithful. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit’s time had
come, and has now come. He is the hope of Jesus our Lord, and the hope
of the Church and of all the Church’s members. He is the hope of each
one of us who wish to follow the Master. With the Holy Spirit we can
hope for renewal and holiness. So then, let us entrust ourselves to the
Holy Spirit and resolve to be obedient to his guidance.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading:
Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.702-716
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“You must bear witness as well”
(John
15:
26-27)
Commentary by St
Anthony of Padua (around 1195 – 1231), Franciscan, Doctor of the
Church
(Sermons for
Sundays and the Feasts of the Saints)
Pentecost is a Greek word which means “fiftieth”. This fiftieth day,
celebrated by the Jewish people, is counted from the day on which the
paschal lamb was sacrificed; and that is done, because fifty days after
the exodus from Egypt, the Law was given on the blazing summit of Mount
Sinai. Similarly, in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit came down on
the apostles fifty days after Christ’s Passover and appeared to them in
the form of fire. The Law was given on Mount Sinai, the Spirit on Mount
Zion; the Law on top of the mountain, the Spirit in the Cenacle.
“All the disciples were gathered in one place. Suddenly… there came a
great noise” … As a Psalm says, “There is a stream whose runlets
gladden the city of God.” (Ps 46:5) A great noise accompanied the
coming of the one who came to teach the faithful. Note how this agrees
with what we read in Exodus: “On the morning of the third day there
were peals of thunder and lightning, and a heavy cloud over the
mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the
camp trembled.” (19:16) The first day was the incarnation of Christ;
the second day was his passion; the third day, the Holy Spirit was
sent. This day came: thunder is heard, there was a great noise;
lightning flashed – the apostles’ miracles; a thick cloud – compunction
of heart and repentance – covered the mountain, the people of Jerusalem
(Acts 2:37-38)…
“Tongues as of fire appeared.” Tongues – those of the serpent, of Eve
and Adam, had given death access to this world… That is why the Spirit
appeared in the form of tongues, opposing tongues with tongues, healing
the fatal poison by means of fire… “They began to speak.” That is the
sign of fullness; the full vessel overflows; the fire cannot contain
itself… These diverse tongues are the various lessons that Christ left
us, such as humility, poverty, patience, obedience. We speak in these
various tongues when we give our neighbour an example of these virtues.
The word is alive when the works speak. Let us make our works speak!
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Renew in your own soul the resolution that friend of ours made long
ago: “Lord, what I want is suffering, not exhibitionism.
(The Forge,
no.765)
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What did God create?
Sacred Scripture says, “In the beginning, Gd created the heavens and
the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The Church in her profession of faith
proclaimed that God is the Creator of everything, visible and
invisible, of all spiritual and corporeal beings, that is, of angels
and of the visible world and, in a special way, of man.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.59)
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Monday
of the ninth week of Ordinary Time
(June 5) Saint Boniface,
monk, bishop and martyr. Born in England about the year 673, he
became a monk in the monastery of Exeter, and in 719 he went to Germany
to preach the Faith. He had great success and was consecrated Bishop of
Mainz and with the help of his companions he founded or restored
dioceses in Bavaria, Thuringia and Franconia. He was in repeated touch
with the Pope and had full papal support. He presided over a number of
councils and promulgated ecclesiastical laws. While he was engaged in
the evangelization of Friesland he was killed by the pagans in the year
754, and his body is buried in monastery of Fulda. (Saints)
Scripture today:
2
Peter 1:2-7; Psalm 91: 1-2,
14-16 ;
Mark 12:1-12
“But
to attain this, you will have to do your utmost yourselves, adding
goodness to the faith..”
(2
Peter 1:2-7)
Our passage from the Second Letter
of Peter places before us in beautiful language what God has done for
us. By his power he has brought us to know him. This reference to
knowing God reminds us of our Lord’s
prayer to his heavenly Father at the Last Supper during which he said
that eternal life is knowing the Father and Jesus his Son. God has
enabled us to know him by giving us the gift of faith. He has called
us, our passage states, to glory and to goodness, involving a share in
the divine nature and preservation from the sinful corruption of
the world. We are called to holiness of life and to share in the glory
of God. This bespeaks the grandeur of our calling and it tells, as St
Paul writes elsewhere, of how neither eye has seen nor ear heard what
God has prepared for those who love him. We ought meditate long and
prayerfully on our calling and on the destiny God wills for us,
while attend also to what our passage then goes on to say: “to
attain this, you will have to do your utmost yourselves, adding
goodness to the faith that you have” (2 Peter 1:2-7). That is to say, God has done his utmost
for us, so now we have to do our utmost. Let us linger on that phrase
“our utmost”, because our eventual enjoyment of all that God intends
depends on our doing all we can to cooperate with him. Our
"utmost" means loving God with all our strength, all our heart.
The constant danger for every
practising Christian, including every practising Catholic is precisely
that he will fail to do his “utmost.” Our ever present danger is
mediocrity, settling for a divided heart, wanting what God plans
for us, but wanting as well what we prefer. We cannot do our “utmost”
with a divided heart. We must aim and struggle to love God with all our
heart
and soul and to love other things only in God. God and his holy will is
to be the one thing necessary which we seek day by day, ever struggling
to overcome the attachments that are keeping our heart divided and
mediocre in relation to God. The further peril in this matter is that a
heart divided and only partially belonging to God is ever at risk
should the crisis moment suddenly arrive. Consider the rich young man
whom our Lord looked upon with such love. He was a good young man and
in a burst of generosity had come to our Lord asking what more he
should do to gain eternal life. Our Lord told him what more he should
do: he should sell all and follow him. But he refused and went away
sad. The moment of crisis and decision came and passed him by. He
failed because of his divided heart. The mystery of the human heart is
a great one and is fraught with consequences. In our Gospel passage
today (Mark 12:1-12) our Lord tells the parable of the owner
of the vineyard who sent servants to his tenants to collect his
produce. The tenants were trusted persons, but the landowner’s servants
were rejected by them when they came. The hearts of the tenants
were divided.
A mediocre heart is one that is
liable to refuse God’s will. Let us resolve to do our “utmost” to
acquire the virtues that will strengthen and build on the faith we have
received, adding “understanding to your goodness, self-control to your
understanding, patience to your self-control, true devotion to your
patience, kindness towards your fellow men, to your devotion, and, to
this kindness, love.” (2 Peter 1:2-7) Yes, let us do our "utmost" to further
the plan of
God in our
life.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“I
am the true vine’ (John 15:1) (Mark 12:1-12)
Commentary by St Bonaventure (1221-1274),
Franciscan, bishop, Doctor of the Church
(The Mystical Vine,
chapter 5, 4-5)
O sweet Jesus, in what a state I see
you! Who condemned you to such a bitter death, o very gentle and very
loving, only Savior from our old wounds? Who is leading you to suffer
these wounds that are not only very cruel but also very ignominious?
Sweet vine, good Jesus, this is the fruit your vine gives you…
Until this day of your wedding, you
patiently waited for it to produce grapes, and it only brought forth
thorns (Isa 5:6). It crowned you with thorns and surrounded you with
the thorns of its sins. This vine, which already is no longer yours,
but which has become a foreign vine, how bitter it has become! It
denied you crying: “We have no king but Caesar.” (Jn 19:15) After
chasing you out of the vineyard of your city and your inheritance, the
wine growers put you to death, not with a single blow, but after
weighing you down with the long torment of the cross and torturing you
with wounds from whips and nails… O Lord Jesus…, you yourself surrender
your soul to death – no one can take it from you, it is you who give it
(Jn 10:18)… O admirable exchange! The King gives himself for the slave,
God for the human being, the Creator for the creature, the Innocent for
the guilty.
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To have found the Cross is to have found happiness: it is to have found
you, Lord!
(The Forge,
no.766)
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Who are the angels?
The angels are purely spiritual
creatures, incorporeal, invisible, immortal, and personal beings
endowed with intelligence and will. They ceaselessly contemplate God
face-to-face and they glorify him. They serve him and are his
messengers in the accomplishment of his saving mission to all.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.60
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Tuesday
of the ninth week of Ordinary Time II
(June 6) Saint Norbert,
founder and bishop. Born about the year 1080 in the
Rhineland, he became a canon of the cathedral of Xanten, but later
underwent a conversion from his worldly life and adopted a regular rule
of life and became a priest in 1115. He went through France and Germany
and other places preaching the word of God, and with the help of
companions who had joined him, laid the foundations of the
Premonstatensian Order and set up a number of monasteries. In 1126 he
was elected Archbishop of Magdeburg, in which position he carried out
reforms in the religious life of the people and spread the faith among
the pagans living nearby. He died in 1134. (Saints)
Scripture today:
2
Peter 3:12-15.17-18; Psalm 90: 2-4,
10, 14, 16;
Mark 12:13-17
“What
we are waiting for is what he promised: the new heavens and new earth”.
(2 Pet
3:12-15)
There is no doubt that an enormous
amount of time is spent by a lot of people preparing and making
provision for the future. Children spend fifteen long years or more in
being educated for the future. Married couples work for the future of
their families. People spend a lot of time and money preparing for
their future retirement, and even, with life assurance, for their
death. While this is right and proper - and it could be imprudent not
to prepare for the future in this way - the problem is that a great
number of people set their sights on a very limited future. They do not
think past the few years of this life, years that could be cut short at
any moment. The fact is that none of us knows whether we have a future
in this life. The future that should above all be prepared for is our
eternal future. Life is very short and our future this side of the
grave is very uncertain as we soon discover, but there is no doubt
about our eternity. It is very long. The pressing daily issue is, how
well are we preparing for our eternity, because our eternity could
begin at any moment.
We are reminded of our eternity by
our first reading from the Second Letter of St Peter. The author
reminds us that the Day of God will come, for he has promised it. There
will be “the new heavens and the new earth, the place where
righteousness will be at home.” (2
Peter 3:12-15.17-18) It is for this that we are waiting.
This is one of the fundamental realities that have been unequivocally
revealed to us by God. If we seek and live a life of righteousness,
then we have glory before us, a new heaven and a new earth. Now, if God
has revealed this to us, then we ought meditate on it long and hard.
Consider how much time and effort is put into thinking of our future in
this brief and uncertain life. Far more time ought be given to the
next, eternal life. As the Letter points out, having realized this,
“while you are waiting, do your best to live lives without spot or
stain so that he will find you at peace.” We must do our “best”, and
not settle for half measures, a life of religious mediocrity. Every day
is a new opportunity, so “think of our Lord’s patience as your
opportunity to be saved.” The time we have been granted is the chance
to “go on growing in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and
saviour Jesus Christ.”
So then, now I
begin!
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Whose image is this?”(Mk 12:13-17) In
becoming man, God restored in us the image of the Trinity
Commentary by St Catherine
of Siena (1347-1380), Dominican tertiary, Doctor of the Church,
Co-patroness of Europe (Dialogues,
chapter 13)
Eternal Love…, I ask this grace of you: have mercy on your people in
the name of the eternal love, which pushed you to create the human
being in your image and likeness (Gen 1:26)… You only did that, O
eternal Trinity, because you yourself wanted to let the human being
participate in everything. That is why you gave him memory, so that he
might remember your kindnesses and thus participate in your power, O
eternal Father. That is why you gave him intelligence, so that he might
understand your goodness and thus participate in the wisdom of your
only Son. That is why you gave him will, so that he might love what he
sees and know your truth, and thus participate in the love of your Holy
Spirit. Who pushed you to give such dignity to the human being? The
inexhaustible love with which you looked at your creature in yourself…
[But] because of sin, your creature lost this dignity… Pushed by that
same fire with which you had created us, you then… gave us the Word,
your only Son… He fulfilled your will, eternal Father, when you clothed
him with our humanity, in the image and likeness of our nature. O abyss
of love! Which heart could defend itself for not giving in to your love
when seeing the Most High joining the lowliness of our humanity? We are
your image and you are ours through the union that you consummated in
man by covering your divinity with Adam’s clay (Gen 2:7)… What pushed
you to do that? Love! You, God, became man, and man became God. By that
unspeakable love I beg you, have mercy on your creatures.
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What really makes a person - or a
whole sector of society - unhappy, is the anxiety-ridden, selfish
search for well-being, that desire to get rid of whatever is upsetting.
(The Forge,
no.767)
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In what way are angels present in the
life of the Church?
The Church joins with the angels in
adoring God, invokes their assistance and commemorates some in her
liturgy. “Besides each believer stands an angel as a protector and
shepherd leading him to life” (St Basil the Great).
(Compendium
of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.61)
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Wednesday
of the ninth week of Ordinary Time
(June 7) Today let us think of Blessed Emmanuel Ruiz and
Companions (Saints)
Scripture today:
2 Timothy 1:
1-3.6-12; Psalm 123: 1-2;
Mark 12: 18-27
“Is not this why you go wrong
that you
understand neither the Scriptures nor the power of
God?” (Mark 12: 18-27)
As we think of the religions of mankind it is not hard to see that it
is above all God’s power which man looks to in his prayer and his
worship. His needs lead him to seek divine assistance in all the areas
of life, food, war, health and healing, whatever it may be. Indigenous
religions too are marked by the attempt to access supernatural powers.
Man is usually very aware of his poverty and need, and in the religion
that springs from his very nature he looks to the powers above for aid
and comfort. Revealed religion builds on this foundation, for God in
revealing himself in history revealed his saving power. It is worth
noting that the first of God’s attributes that we profess and extol in
the Creed is his power. We believe in God the Father Almighty, implying
that the first thing we tend to think of and which the Church
places before us for our belief is the almighty power of God. Now,
apart from it being revealed to us that God’s power is without limit,
the further distinctive feature of God’s power as revealed in his words
and deeds is that it manifests the divine mercy. His power is
everlasting and without limit, shown especially in the Incarnation and
in the Atonement. The amazing power of God reveals the richness of his
mercy.
In our Gospel passage today our Lord refers to the power of God
(Mark
12: 18-27). The Sadducees came to him with what they
thought was their trump card against the whole notion of there being a
resurrection from the dead: at the resurrection, whose wife will the
woman be who married seven husbands during the course of her life? Of
course, we know from other contexts in the Gospels that the word
“seven” means a good number. In reply our Lord told them that they went
wrong because they understood neither the Scriptures nor the power of
God. A great deal of our Lord’s public ministry was given over to
displaying the power of God at work in himself. He constantly asked for
belief in him and in his saving power. If we do not understand the
power of God then we, like the Sadducees of our passage, will “go
wrong” and be “very much mistaken”. In our first reading from St Paul’s
second letter to Timothy, we are told of God’s power. Timothy is
exhorted to fan into a flame the gift he received at the laying on of
hands. That gift was “the Spirit of power, and love and self-control.”
St Paul urges him to rely “on the power of God who has saved us and
called us to be holy” (2 Timothy 1:
1-3.6-12). Every baptized and confirmed member of the
Church has received “the Spirit of power”, the Holy Spirit, imparting
divine grace which brings the power of God to bear in our
sanctification.
Let us rejoice that we have ready access to the grace of God through
the gift of the Holy Spirit. By that grace the power of God is at work
in our souls. Let us rely on that sanctifying power.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“I believe in the resurrection of the
body” (Creed) (Mark 12: 18-27)
Commentary by St Justin
(100 – 160), Philosopher, Martyr (Treatise on the
Resurrection, 2.4.7-9)
Those who are in error say that there is no resurrection of the body,
because it is impossible that the body, after having been destroyed and
reduced to dust, could return to its integrity. According to them, the
salvation of the body is not only impossible but even harmful: they
accuse the body, denounce its faults, make it responsible for sins.
They thus say that if this body is to rise, its faults will also rise…
Moreover, the Saviour said: “When people rise from the dead, they
neither marry nor are given in marriage but live like angels in
heaven.” But they say that the angels have no body, they do not eat or
become united. Thus, they say, there will be no resurrection of the
body…
How blind are the eyes of the intellect alone! For they have not seen
“the blind recover their sight, cripples walk” on earth (Mt 11:5),
thanks to the Savior’s word…so as to make us believe that the body will
rise and be complete at the resurrection. If on this earth he healed
the infirmities of the body and returned its integrity to the body, how
much more will he do this at the time of the resurrection, so that the
body might rise without fault, completely… Those people seem to me to
be ignorant of divine action as a whole, at the origin of creation, in
the making of the human being; they do not know why earthly things were
made.
The Word said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Gen
1:26)… It is obvious that the human being, made in the image of God,
had a body. So what absurdity to claim that the body made by God
according to his own image is despicable, without any merit! It is
obvious that the body is precious in the eyes of God because it is his
work. And because the beginning of his plan for the rest of creation
can be found there, it is what is most precious in the eyes of the
creator.
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The
way of love has a name: it is Sacrifice.
(The Forge,
no.768)
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What does Sacred Scripture teach about the
creation of the visible world?
Through the account of the “six days” of creation Sacred Scripture
teaches us the value of the created world and its purpose, namely, to
praise God and to serve humanity. Every single thing owes its very
existence to God from whom it receives its goodness and perfection, its
proper laws and its proper place in the universe.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.62)
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Thursday
of the ninth week of Ordinary Time
(June 8) Today let us think of St. Medard and St. Gildard (Saints)
Scripture today: 2 Timothy 2:
8-15;
Psalm 25: 4-5ab, 8-9, 10 and 14;
Mark 12: 28-34
“So I bear it all for the sake of
those who are chosen, so that in the end they may have the salvation
that is in Christ Jesus and the eternal glory that comes with it.”
(2 Timothy
2:8-15)
In his great book, Apologia
Pro Vita Sua, John Henry Newman writes of the evil and suffering
that abounds in our world. Were it not for his unshakeable conviction
of the reality of God drawn from other grounds, he writes, the
spectacle of this evil would lead him away from theism. Well then,
hardships are an inevitable part of life and whether we believe in God
or not, hardships will have to be borne. It is a universal feature of
the world. The question is, will our inevitable hardships have meaning
and will they serve to issue in lasting and valuable fruit? This is one
of the many fundamental human questions on which the light of Christ
has been shed. Inasmuch as Christ was burdened with the sins of all
mankind, in the nature of the case the scale of his sufferings is
utterly incalculable because of the incalculable burden he carried. But
those sufferings had inexhaustible meaning and everlasting fruit. They
issued in the salvation of the world. All that remained was for that
saving work to be applied to individual man. It is therefore difficult
to think of a more meaningful suffering than that which is endured in
union with Christ and for the sake of bringing his salvation to the men
and women of the ages. Is it possible so to suffer? Indeed it is, and
this is an essential element in the Good News of the Gospel.
St Paul in his second letter to Timothy gives witness to this very
point. In our first reading today he tells Timothy that it is on
account of “the Good News that I carry” that “I have my own hardships
to bear, even to being chained like a criminal” (2 Timothy 2:8-15).
St Paul bears his hardships willingly, and he gives us his driving
motive. It is “for the sake of those who are chosen, so that in the end
they may have the salvation that is in Christ Jesus and the eternal
glory that comes with it.” Now every member of Christ’s faithful is
called to share in this work of Paul, which is the work of Christ and
the Church. Paul had his share in the work, each of us has ours. The
particular form this share in the work will take will depend on
the particular vocation of each. But the hardships inherent in
each person’s calling ought constantly be seen in the light of Christ,
and borne for the the salvation of all and the eternal glory that
comes with it. What sustains all this? Sustaining the calling of each
and the hardships associated with that calling is love, the love of God
and love of neighbour. Our Lord in his incisive answer to his
questioner in our Gospel today places love at the forefront of God’s
will and of our response (Mark 12: 28-34).
The first and greatest commandment to be fulfilled in life is: “you
must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
with all your mind and with all your strength.” Secondly, “you must
love your neighbour as yourself.”
Let us resolve to live a life of love for God by serving (in the manner
appropriate to our calling) the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, and
by orienting our hardships to that lofty end. As St Paul tells us in
our passage today, “Here is a saying that you can rely on: If we have
died with him, then we shall live with him. If we hold firm, then we
shall reign with him.”
(E.J.Tyler)
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“You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart” (Mark 12: 28-34)
Commentary by St Bernard (1091-1153),
Cistercian monk and Doctor of the Church
(Treatise on the
Love of God, chapters 8-10)
The first and greatest commandment
is this: “You shall love the Lord your God.” But our nature is weak. In
us, the first degree of love is to love ourselves before anything else,
for ourselves… In order to prevent us from sliding too far down on that
slope, God gave us the precept to love our neighbor as ourselves… But
we see that this is not possible without God, without recognizing that
everything comes from him and that without him, we can do absolutely
nothing. So at this second degree, the human being turns to God, but so
far he only loves God for himself and not for God…
But you would have to have a heart
of stone or metal not to be touched by the help which God gives us when
we turn to him in trials. In times of trial, it is impossible for us
not to taste how good he is (Ps 34:9). And quickly, we begin to love
him more because of the goodness we find in him, rather than for the
sake of our own interests… When we have arrived at this point, it is
not difficult to love our neighbor as ourselves… We love the others as
we are loved, as Jesus Christ loved us. That is the love of the person
who says with the psalmist: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.”
(Ps 118:1) Give thanks to the Lord, not because he is good to us, but
simply because he is good, love God for God and not for ourselves. That
is the third degree of love.
Happy are they who were able to rise
up to the fourth degree of love: to no longer love themselves except
for love of God… When will my soul, drunken with the love of God,
forgetting itself, considering itself as nothing more than a broken
vessel, when will it rush to God in order to lose itself in him and to
no longer be anything but one single spirit with him (1 Cor 6:17)? When
will it be able to cry out: “Though my flesh and my heart waste away,
God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps 73:26)? Holy
and happy are they who could experience something like that during this
mortal life, even though rarely, even though only once. That is not a
human happiness, it is already to dwell in heaven.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cross, the Holy Cross, is heavy. First there are my sins.
Then the
sad truth of our Mother the Church’s suffering. For so many Catholics
are apathetic: they want, without really wanting. Also those we love
are separated from us, for all kinds of reasons. And other people or we
ourselves are suffering illness and trials. The Cross, the Holy Cross,
is heavy. “May the most just, the most lovable Will of God be done, be
fulfilled, be praised and exalted above all things for ever! Amen.”
(The Forge,
no.769)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the place of the human person in
creation?
The human person is the summit of visible creation in as much as he or
she is created in the image and likeness of God.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.63)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday
of the ninth week of Ordinary Time
(June 9) St
Ephraem of Syria, Deacon and Doctor of the Church. Born of a
Christian
family in Nisibis, Mesopotamia in about the year 306, he was ordained a
deacon and worked both in his own country and at Edessa where he laid
the foundations of the School of Theology. He lived a life of
asceticism though at the same time he did not neglect the ministry of
preaching; and he wrote a number of works to refute the errors in
doctrine current at the time. He wrote poems and hymns about the
mysteries of Christ and the Virgin Mary. He was a poet, orator, holy
monk, and had a great devotion to the Mother of God. He died in the
year 373. (Saints)
Scripture today:
2 Timothy 3:
10-17; Psalm
119: 157, 160-161, 165-166, 168;
Mark 12: 35-37
“.. keep to what you have been taught
and know to be true; remember who your teachers were”.
(2 Timothy 3:
10-17)
From the earliest years of the Church, the Church’s leaders manifested
a
profound concern for right teaching. It was a concern for the Truth
that saves, and we see this concern in St Paul’s passage to Timothy in
today’s first reading. St Paul insists on himself as the authority for
the teaching which Timothy has received, reminding Timothy that “you
know
what I have taught, how I have lived, what I have aimed at”. All his
sufferings have stemmed from his devotion to Christ. So then, Paul
continues to Timothy, “you must keep to what you have been taught and
know to be true; remember who your teachers were”. He is obviously
contrasting the true teachers with others who competed for the
allegiance of many and who did not embody and represent the Church as
did Paul. But there is another source of teaching, the “holy
scriptures” which, inasmuch as Paul was referring to the Scriptures
Timothy had known as a child, in this context are to be understood as
the Old Testament. All Scripture is “inspired by God and can
profitably be used for teaching, for refuting error, for guiding
people’s lives and teaching them to be holy.” From them we “learn the
wisdom that leads to salvation.” (2 Timothy 3:
10-17)
So then let us be very clear in our minds as to the sources
we are to turn to in drinking from the wells of Revelation. Often in
discussion about religious issues the appeal is made, where is this or
that contained in Scripture? The assumption is that Scripture alone,
with the reader alone judging and interpreting its content, is the
source to be relied on. But no, for as with Timothy, so too all the
Church’s children are to look to the authenticated teachers, and are to
remember what they taught and know to be true. Cardinal Newman once
wrote that the essence of religion is authority and obedience, and this
has to be said of the spirit of Catholicism. Its spirit is
one of love, but the obligations are clear. As we read St Paul’s words
we can see that there was no doubt in his mind as to the obedience his
audience owed to his teaching. He was their teacher, and they were
obliged to give him their obedience in respect to what he taught as
coming from God. Scripture too provides “the wisdom that leads to
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Let us then take
practical and daily steps to draw constantly from Scripture and our
true teachers, those who represent the Church and her magisterium.
Reading behind the lines of our first passage today, we can see that
Paul had a horror of wrong teaching. In this he was very authoritarian
and refused to discuss other interpretations that conflicted with his
own because he knew he spoke God's word. He was, we could say with
tongue-in-cheek, bigoted. It was a holy
bigotry born of love for Jesus and his saving word. Let us make sure we
remember who our true teachers are, and in the light of what they say,
let us constantly draw our nourishment from the holy Scriptures. In a
word, let us love revealed Truth and reject all that contradicts it.
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“David himself addresses him as
‘Lord’” (Mark 12: 35-37)
Commentary from The
Catechism of the Catholic Church (§ 446-451)
In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the ineffable Hebrew
name YHWH, by which God revealed himself to Moses (cf. Ex 3:14), is
rendered as Kyrios, “Lord”. From then on, “Lord” becomes the more usual
name by which to indicate the divinity of Israel’s God. The New
Testament uses this full sense of the title “Lord” both for the Father
and – what is new – for Jesus, who is thereby recognized as God Himself
(cf. 1 Cor 2:8).
Jesus ascribes this title to himself in a veiled way when he disputes
with the Pharisees about the meaning of Psalm 110, but also in an
explicit way when he addresses his apostles (cf. Mt 22:41-46; Acts
2:34-36; Heb 1:13; Jn 13:13). Throughout his public life, he
demonstrated his divine sovereignty by works of power over nature,
illnesses, demons, death, and sin.
Very often in the Gospels people address Jesus as “Lord”. This title
testifies to the respect and trust of those who approach him for help
and healing (cf. Mt 8:2; 14:30; 15:22…). At the prompting of the Holy
Spirit, “Lord” expresses the recognition of the divine mystery of Jesus
(cf. Lk 1:43; 2:11). In the encounter with the risen Jesus, this title
becomes adoration: “My Lord and my God!” It thus takes on a connotation
of love and affection that remains proper to the Christian tradition:
“It is the Lord!” (Jn 20:28; Jn 21:7)
By attributing to Jesus the divine title “Lord,” the first confessions
of the Church’s faith affirm from the beginning that the power, honor,
and glory due to God the Father are due also to Jesus, because “he was
in the form of God,” (cf. Acts 2:34-36; Rom 9:5; Tit 2:13; Rev 5:13;
Phil 2:6) and the Father manifested the sovereignty of Jesus by raising
him from the dead and exalting him into his glory (cf. Rom 10:9; 1 Cor
12:3; Phil 2:9-11).
From the beginning of Christian history, the assertion of Christ’s
lordship over the world and over history has implicitly recognized that
man should not submit his personal freedom in an absolute manner to any
earthly power, but only to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Caesar is not “the Lord” (cf. Rev 11:15; Mk 12:17; Acts 5:29). “The
Church …believes that the key, the center, and the purpose of the whole
of man’s history is to be found in its Lord and Master.”
Christian prayer is characterized by the title “Lord,” whether in the
invitation to prayer (“The Lord be with you.”), its conclusion
(“through Christ our Lord”), or the exclamation full of trust and hope:
Maran atha (“Our Lord, come!”), or Marana tha (“Come, Lord!”) – “Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus!” (1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:20)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When you walk where Christ walked; when you are no longer just resigned
to the Cross, but your whole soul takes on its form - takes on its very
shape; when you love the Will of God; when you actually love the Cross
... then, only then, is it He who carries it.
(The Forge,
no.770)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What kind of bond exists between created
things?
There exists an interdependence and a hierarchy among creatures as
willed by God. At the same time, there is also a unity and solidarity
among creatures since all have the same Creator, are loved by him and
are ordered towards his glory. Respecting the laws inscribed in
creation and the relations which derive from the nature of things is,
therefore, a principle of wisdom and a foundation for morality.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.64)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday
of the ninth week of Ordinary Time
(June 10) Today let us think of St. Getulius and Companions,
as well as St Ithamar
(Saints)
Scripture today:
2
Timothy 4: 1-8; Psalm 71: 8-9,
14-17, 22;
Mark 12: 38-44
“Proclaim the message and, welcome or
unwelcome, insist on it. Refute falsehood...”(2 Tim 4:1-8)
One of the notable characteristics of modern Western thought and
culture is scepticism in respect to the truth and knowing the truth.
This is not just a philosophical position discussed in academic circles
and university departments of philosophy. A real doubt has long become
prevalent as to the power of the mind to know objective truth in the
realm of religion. Indeed, many assume that there is no such objective
truth at all. It is just a matter of taste, temperament or expedience,
and that truth is simply truth for me. It is my truth or your truth or
his truth, but it cannot be said to be the objective truth. To stand
for objective truth in religion for the real possibility of knowing it
is deemed to be arrogant, dogmatic (which in a sense it is), and the
beginning of intolerance. Conversely, there are many persons who do not
realize how difficult it is to attain religious truth, the truth about
God and what he has revealed. Now, in fact one of the distinguishing
characteristics of the Christian religion - and it is very evident in
the New Testament - is its firm assertion that there is an objective
religious truth, a truth about God and his plan that has been revealed
and is clearly knowable. The decisive factor in its being
(easily) knowable is the authority granted to the Church to teach the
truth that has been revealed. That authority is a gift of the Spirit to
the Church guiding the Teaching Church and enabling Christ’s faithful
to accept that magisterium and to be firm in renouncing error.
In today’s first reading St Paul solemnly warns Timothy of this very
point (2 Timothy 4: 1-8).
Timothy is one of the Church’s teachers and St Paul tells him it is his
duty to insist on the message whether it is welcome or not. It is a
matter of truth and falsehood, and he is to refute falsehood and
correct error. The way St Paul speaks when it comes to “the truth” it
is very black and white. St Paul tells him that he must expect to
encounter the desire for novelty as well as the desire for teachers not
according to the Truth but according to personal taste. He
implies that, as in his own case, the trials Timothy will endure will
come from the opposition to the Truth, and that opposition is bound to
come. So then, let us take to heart this fundamental aspect of the
Christian life. Our life is to be rooted and grounded on the Truth that
God has revealed and which the Church in the persons of her
authenticated teachers proclaims. A real clarity of knowledge ought be
sought and a privileged source for this clear knowledge is the Church’s
catechisms, and especially in our day the Catechism of the
Catholic Church. It can be used as an excellent source of
spiritual reading too. I would especially suggest taking for meditation
each day a question and answer from the new Compendium of
that Catechism. By making the Church’s doctrine our staple, we will be,
as St Paul puts it in our passage, “careful always to choose the right
course.” I invite you, dear visitor, to make the Scriptures and the
Catechism a fundamental resource for growing in Christ.
Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the
mouth of God. That word will be found in Holy Scripture and the
Church’s Catechism.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“She, from her poverty, has contributed
all she had, her whole livelihood.” (Mark 12: 38-44)
Comment by St Anselm
(1033-1109), Monk, Bishop, Doctor of the Church
(Letter 112 to Hugh the Recluse)
In the kingdom of heaven, everyone together and as one single person
will be one single king with God, for all will want only one thing and
their wish will be fulfilled. From the height of heaven, this is the
good thing God declares to be on offer.
If someone wonders what it costs, this is the answer: the one offering
a heavenly kingdom, does not need any earthly money. No one can give
God anything other than what already belongs to him, since everything
that exists is his. Nevertheless, God does not give something so great
without putting a price on it. God does not give it to the person who
doesn’t appreciate it. For nobody gives something that is dear to him,
to someone who does not value it. Therefore, although God does not need
your goods, he also does not have to give you something so great, if
you do not deign to love it. All he asks is love, without which nothing
obliges him to give anything. So love, and you will receive the
kingdom. Love, and you will possess it… So love God more than yourself,
and you will already begin to have what you wish to possess completely
in heaven.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join your suffering, your Cross that comes from within or from without,
to the Will of God, by saying a generous Fiat! (Let it
be!). And you will be filled with joy and with peace.
(The Forge,
no.771)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What
is the relationship between the work of creation and the work of
redemption?
The work of creation culminates in the still greater work of
redemption, which in fact gives rise to a new creation in which
everything will recover its true meaning and fulfillment.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.65)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
Holy Trinity (B)
(June 11) Saint
Barnabas, apostle. Born in the island of Cyprus, he was
one of the first converts in Jerusalem and preached at Antioch. It was
Barnabas who introduced St Paul to the other apostles, paving the way
for the broad apostolate which required the approval of the pillars of
the Church. He became a companion of St Paul and went with him on his
first missionary journey, and took part in the Council of Jerusalem. He
returned to his native land to preach the Gospel and died a martyr to
the faith during Nero’s reign. His name is included in the Roman
Canon. (Saints)
Scripture today: Deuteronomy
4:32-34.39-40; Psalm 33; Romans
8:14-17; Matthew 28:16-20
“Baptise them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:16-20)
Prior to the coming of our Lord the chosen people of
Israel had a very notable characteristic among the peoples of the
ancient world. They believed in only one God. The normal thing among
cultures and people was to believe in many gods, each of whom had a
sphere of influence and a certain level of power. In this, the heavenly
realm of the gods was not unlike the human realm with its
different authorities and powers. There was little or no idea of
the
universe being drawn from nothing at the will of the heavenly powers,
let
alone from a single divine power. The universe was seen not so much as
created but as a given, while being controlled in various ways by
higher powers who themselves had various origins.
In a sense this religious polytheism was to be
expected at least on the popular level because it harmonised with man’s
experience of human authority and power. Popular religion looked very
much like a projection of human experience. By contrast, when some
ancient thinkers examined and then with good reason rejected these
popular beliefs as untenable, they proposed atheism or agnosticism
instead. A few philosophers gained some notion of a single ultimate
source (eg., Pure Act) but it was largely an abstraction. That is to
say, there was
hardly any instance
of true monotheism, a religious world-view that understood all reality
as
coming from the free decision of one, necessary, unlimited and personal
being. It would
have been so hard to imagine (as it still is) everything we see and
everything we cannot see, including all the heavenlyl realm that there
may be, coming in all its being and variety from the free decision of
one necessary supreme being.
But this is exactly what was revealed to the chosen people
through the patriarchs and the prophets, and made clear in the gradual
unfolding of the history of salvation. That there is one almighty God
who is the Father and origin of all; that he is all-holy and
all-powerful; that he is rich in mercy and compassion; that he gives us
our life and sustains it constantly; that he commands us to love him
and to live a holy life according to his revealed commandments, all
this is an
astonishing revelation and an immensely novel doctrine in the history
of man’s religions. It was the vocation of the children of Israel to
bear witness to the one all-holy and almighty God in a world
worshipping numerous un-holy and very limited gods. It is obvious, for
instance, that Mahomet in the seventh century after Christ drew
(consciously or unconsciously) on this
notion of the one God of Judaism and Christianity to explain his own
religious experiences. We ought always treasure this revelation, and
base our lives on it, looking to the one God for everything and
striving to live
for his glory alone. Novel as this was, many elements of this doctrine
of the
one God are theoretically attainable by the natural powers of man’s
mind, even though in fact man only rarely attained the knowledge of
some elements of it.
But
the arrival of Jesus our Lord brought a spectacularly new revelation
far beyond man's powers,
one that our Lord revealed only gradually. That there is only one
all-holy God who calls us to a communion of life with him by leading a
holy life in accord with his revealed commandments, our Lord of course
solemnly reaffirmed. He came to fulfill the teaching of
the Law and the Prophets, not to do away with it. He fulfilled it
by
revealing that the one God is three Persons calling us not just to obey
but to share their divine
life. There is the Father who is the eternal origin of all. He, though,
from all eternity has begotten his only Son. The Son, distinct from the
Father as a Person because he is the Son, is the image of
the Father and has received from the Father all that the Father is in
his divine being. He is therefore the same as the Father not in his
personhood but in his divine being. He is the one God as is the Father.
But there a further revelation.
The Father and the Son are united in limitless love with one another
and this
infinite love is a third divine Person who, being their love, proceeds
forth
from the Father and the Son. He is like the eternal sigh of love
between the Father and the Son, their eternal embrace, and is called
the Holy Spirit by our Lord and by the
sacred Scriptures. Together with the Father and the Son he is
to be adored and glorified. Distinct as a Person, he is the same one
God as is the Father and
the Son, the same in being as them both. God is one in being, three
divine Persons each of whom is the one God.
All this directly involves us. The grandeur of it is that
we are called by our baptism
to share in this life of love between the three divine Persons. Here on
earth we have been granted a share in the life of the holy Trinity. Our
calling is to grow daily in this life by the grace of the Holy Spirit,
requiring of us that we live in faith, and according to the Faith. By
our baptism we are enabled to live as God’s children. So let us today
celebrate who God is, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and what he has done
for us in making us his children and calling us to share in his
holiness both now and hereafter. Let us take all practical steps to
ensure that this dream of God the most holy Trinity, this plan that he
has revealed for each of us both here and hereafter, is fully realized.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading:
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no.232-248
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“One
God, one Lord, in the trinity of persons and the unity of their nature”
(Preface of today)
Commentary by St Anthony of Padua (around
1195 – 1231), Franciscan, Doctor of the Church
(Sermons for Sundays and the Feasts of the Saints)
The Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit are of one substance and inseparably equal. Their unity is in
their essence, their plurality in the persons. The Lord openly showed
the unity of the divine essence and the trinity of persons when he
said: “Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit.” He did not say “in the names”, but “in the name”, by
which he showed the unity of essence. But he then used three names in
order to show that there are three persons.
In this Trinity can be found the
supreme origin of all things, perfect beauty, very blessed joy. As
Saint Augustine said in his book on true religion, the supreme origin
is God the Father, from whom all things come, from whom proceed the Son
and the Holy Spirit. The very perfect beauty is the Son, the truth of
the Father, who is not dissimilar to him in anything, whom we venerate
with the Father and in the Father, who is the model for all things,
because everything was made through him and everything relates to him.
The very blessed joy, the sovereign goodness is the Holy Spirit who is
the gift of the Father and of the Son; and we must believe and hold
that this gift is exactly like the Father and the Son.
When we look at creation, we end up
with the Trinity which is of one single substance. We understand one
single God: the Father from whom we are, the Son by whom we are, the
Holy Spirit in whom we are - the Origin to whom we run; the model whom
we follow; the grace which reconciles us.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are unmistakable signs of the true Cross of Christ: serenity, a
deep feeling of peace, a love which is ready for any sacrifice, a great
effectiveness which wells from Christ’s own Side. And always - and very
evidently - cheerfulness: a cheerfulness which comes from knowing that
those who truly give themselves are beside the Cross, and therefore
beside Our Lord.
(The Forge,
no.772)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In what sense
do we understand man and woman as created “in the image of God”?
The human person is created in the image of God in the sense that he or
she is capable of knowing and of loving their Creator in freedom. Human
beings are the only creatures that God has willed for their own sake
and has called to share, through knowledge and love, in his own divine
life. All human beings, inasmuch as they are created in the image of
God, have the dignity of a person. A person is not something but
someone, capable of self-knowledge and of freely giving himself and
entering into communion with God and with other persons.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.66)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday
of the tenth week of Ordinary Time II
(June 12) Today let us think of Saint John Sahagun
(Saints)
Scripture today:
1 Kings
17:1-6; Psalm
121: 1-8;
Matthew 5:1-12
“How happy are the poor in spirit;
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy the gentle...”
(Matthew 5:1-12)
There is a feature of the universe which we take for granted but which
should be a cause of wonderment. It is the general impulse towards
wellbeing. Of course, as is obvious, there are together with this
impulse the
seeds of decay and destruction. Let us consider this drive towards
a certain flourishing, this impulse towards wellbeing. The seed sprouts
and grows into a shrub, or a tree, or a flower, whatever it may be. The
newborn insect, bird or animal grows and reaches its level of life and
perfection. And as we gaze at the inanimate universe we see a
beauty and an order that could be viewed as the parallel of the
wellbeing in living things. Even the inanimate realm seems to have a
kind of tendency towards its own wellbeing or perfection. Let us call
this vast
tendency in creation an impulse towards what by analogy we might call
happiness. It is surely the imprint of the happiness of the Creator,
who in giving existence gives with that gift the impulse towards a
flourishing of the gift. In creating man, the jewel and crown of
the visible universe, God gives to him a special desire for happiness
and abundant life, for it is accompanied by the power freely to choose
the best that is possible for him. That best is to find his happiness
in communion with his Creator.
What, then, will bring man happiness? Ordinary human experience and
mature reflection makes it evident that immorality and sin cannot bring
a flourishing wellbeing and happiness to him. It can only be the good,
that which is objectively good. Well, Christ our Lord tells us of the
good that will make us happy, and what he tells us does not square with
what “the world” of common opinion dictates. The reason of course is
that the world of common opinion is a fallen world and its judgments
as to what brings happiness are affected accordingly. No, our Lord
gives us the true understanding of happiness and it is contained in our
Gospel passage
today which sets forth Christ’s beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12).
The happy and fortunate ones are the poor in spirit, the gentle, those
who “mourn”, those who hunger and thirst for what is right, the
merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who suffer for the
cause of right, and those who are persecuted for the sake of Christ. To
understand these striking and surprising pathways to happiness it is
best to view them with the aid of a key. That key is surely that these
are descriptions of the mind and heart of Christ himself. St Paul
writes in one of his Letters that we are to “let this mind be in you
which was in Christ Jesus.” The beatitudes of St Mattew’s Gospel spell
out for us the mind of Christ, and they help us understand what the
imitation of Christ involves. Imitating Christ means being poor in
spirit, gentle, hungering and thirsting for justice, pure in heart, and
so forth.
Let us prayerfully dwell on our Lord’s words in our Gospel today. They
tell us of his mind and his practice. They describe the virtues of the
heart that
are to be cultivated by the one who wishes to follow in his footsteps
and to imitate him. They let us know the results of being transformed
into
his image.
(E.J.Tyler)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Blest are the pure of heart: they shall
see God.” (Matthew 5:1-12)
St Augustine
(354-430), Bishop of Hippo (in North Africa) and Doctor of the
Church (Sermon 53)
We want to see God, we seek to see him, we ardently desire to see him.
Who does not desire this? But note what the gospel says: “Blest are the
pure of heart: they shall see God.” Do what is necessary in order to
see him. To compare it with something from material reality, how can
you want to contemplate the rising sun if your eyes are sick? If your
eyes are healthy, that light will be a pleasure for you; if they are
sick, it will be torture for you. You will surely not be allowed to see
with an impure heart what one can only see with a pure heart. You will
be moved away, put at a distance, you will not see.
How often did the Lord proclaim people to be “blest”? What reasons for
eternal happiness did he cite, what good works, what gifts, what merits
and what rewards? No other beatitude says, “They shall see God.” This
is what the others say: “How blest are the poor in spirit: the reign of
God is theirs. Blest are the lowly; they shall inherit the land. Blest
are the sorrowing; they shall be consoled. Blest are they who hunger
and thirst for holiness; they shall have their fill. Blest are they who
show mercy; mercy shall be theirs.” So none other asserts, “They shall
see God.”
The vision of God is promised to people with a pure heart. This is not
without a reason, since the eyes that allow us to see God are in the
heart. Those are the eyes the apostle Paul was talking about when he
said: “May he enlighten your innermost vision” (Eph 1:18). So at the
present time, because of their weakness, those eyes are enlightened by
faith; later, because of their strength, they will be enlightened by
vision… “Now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror; then we shall see
face to face.” (1 Cor 13:12)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You must always be aware of and thankful for that favour of the King
which throughout your life marks your flesh and your spirit with the
royal seal of the Holy Cross.
(The Forge,
no.773)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For what purpose did God create man and
woman?
God has created everything for them; but he has created them to know,
serve and love God, to offer all of creation in this world in
thanksgiving back to him and to be raised up to life with him in
heaven. Only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of
the human person come into true light. Man and woman are predestined to
reproduce the image of the Son of God made Man, who is the perfect
“image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.67)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday
of the tenth week of Ordinary Time
(June 13) St Anthony of Padua,
priest and doctor of the Church (1195-1231). Born in Lisbon,
Portugal. He became a canon regular of St Augustine but after being
ordained a priest he joined the Franciscan Friars Minor so that he
might preach the Gospel among the people of Africa. He was known for
his profound knowledge of theology and for his power of convincing. His
preachings carried him from the north of Africa to Italy and France
where he brought many heretics back to the Faith. He became the first
theologian of his Order and wrote a number of sermons which are
renowned for their doctrine and gentleness. He is known as the
Evangelical Doctor because he based all that he said on the texts of
the Gospels. He died in Padua. (Saints)
Scripture today:
1 Kings 17: 7-16; Psalm 4: 2-5, 7-8;
Matthew 5: 13-16
“I have ordered a widow to give you
food.” So he went off to Sidon. (1 Kings 5: 13-16)
One of the features of the material universe is that it is in constant
motion, constant change. In respect to animal life, one aspect of this
constant change is that the insect, bird and animal world is in a
constant state of activity to gain what it needs for survival and
development. Passing to the world of man, this general law translates
into the general law of work. Man needs to work. His life is full of
work and if he is to prosper, he has to work at it. Prosperity will not
just come, and if it comes to a person who has not worked for it,
normally it has come because of the work of others. So work is a
constant requirement for man and as St Paul says in one of his Letters,
if a man will not work, let him not eat. But work is not just a
requirement, it is man’s joy. That is to say, if a person is not
working in life for what he needs or what he judges to be important, he
will not be happy, and if his life is marked by good work and the
achievements that come with good work, his life will attain a true
level of happiness while mixed, of course, with frustration.
There is a great joy in achievement, provided what is achieved is
something good.
However, the fact is that very many face an apparent lack of
achievement in life. Life can be full of sorrows and disappointments,
and if not full of them, it can have its fair share of them. Moreover,
the average person will sooner or later experience his own deficiencies
and limitations, and sense that his achievements will inevitably fall
far short of his hopes. What attitude should we take to this prospect?
Our first reading today from the first book of Kings tells us of an
event in the life of Elijah the prophet that reminds us of the power of
God. It is the power of God which we must put our faith in, not our own
powers. If our own power is the basis of our hopes and our happiness,
normally bitterness and disappointment will be ahead of us. In our
passage from the story of Elijah “the country had no rain.” It is a
picture of so much of human life. The word of the Lord came to Elijah
and told him to go to a Sidonian town, one outside the land of Israel,
and hence one where the prophet would normally expect little
hospitality. But there, God said to him, he would be given food.
Indeed, the food would come from a widow, typically the representative
of the poor. He did so, and even though the widow had practically
nothing and was ready to die because of her lack of prospects, he
received food from her and she herself prospered (1 Kings 5: 13-16).
The lesson? One lesson is that however weak our resources in life to
achieve our work’s goals, God is our strength and our stay.
In all our work in life let us depend on God who is the Worker par
excellence. He will be working in us and through us, and even if it
seems we have not done much despite our very best efforts, God will
achieve his purposes and give to our efforts the value he intended. We
are called to work in dependence on him and as his collaborators. If
our resources are meagre, let us think of Elijah going to the widow.
God will use us for his gloy as as he thinks fit, just as he used the
poor widow to look after the great Elijah.
(E.J.Tyler)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“It gives light
to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others” (Matt. 5: 13-16)
Comment by St Jose-Maria Escriva
(1902-1975), Priest, Founder (Homily of April 5, 1957)
The Lord described his disciples’
mission as filling the world with light, being salt and light, carrying
the good news of God’s love to the furthest confines of the earth. It
is to this that all Christians must dedicate their life in one way or
another… The grace of faith was not given us so as to remain hidden,
but on the contrary, in order to shine before people…
Some will perhaps ask themselves how
they can communicate this knowledge of Christ to others. I shall
answer: with naturalness, with simplicity, by living exactly as you do
in the midst of the world, devoted as you are to your professional work
and to the care of your family, participating in all the noble
aspirations of people, respecting the legitimate freedom of each
person… Ordinary life can be holy and filled with God. The Lord calls
us to sanctify our usual tasks, because that is also where Christian
perfection dwells.
Let us not forget that almost all
the days Mary spent on this earth were spent in a way very like the
days of millions of other women who are also dedicated to their family,
to the education of their children, to household tasks. All of that,
which many wrongly consider to be insignificant and of no value, Mary
sanctified even to the smallest detail… An ordinary blessed life, which
can be so full of the love of God! For this is what explains the life
of Mary: her love lived to the point of forgetting herself, completely
happy as she was to be in her place where God wanted her. That is why
her smallest gesture was never banal, but on the contrary, can be seen
as full of meaning… It is up to us to try to be like her in the exact
circumstances in which God wants us to live.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That friend of ours wrote: “I carry a little Crucifix. Its
Crucified is
worn by use and by the kisses it receives. It was left to my father
when his mother, who had used it, died. It’s a poor thing and much the
worse for wear, so I would not have the nerve to give it away to
anyone. That’s why when I see it my love for the Cross will grow.”
(The Forge,
no.774)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why does the human race form a unity?
All people form the unity of the human race by reason of the common
origin which they have from God. God has made “from one ancestor all
the nations of men” (Acts 17:26). All have but one Saviour and are
called to share in the eternal happiness of God.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.68)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday
of the tenth week of Ordinary Time
(June 14) Today let us think of Saint Vitus
(Saints)
Scripture today:
1 Kings 18:
20-39; Psalm
16: 1-2, 4-5, 8, 11;
Matthew 5: 17-19
“Then the fire of the Lord fell and
consumed the holocaust and word and licked up the water in the
trench... they cried ‘the Lord is God’.”
(1 Kings 18:
20-39)
As we consider the history of man’s religions, the prophet Elijah has
to be counted among the great personalities of religion. Standing
almost alone at a critical point in Israel’s religious history when the
worship of “strange gods” held a powerful attraction among the chosen
people, singlehandedly he turned the situation around. We have in our
first reading today the account of an extraordinary event the like of
which is probably unknown in the annals of history. Elijah summoned
Israel together and challenged the people to make a choice for Yahweh
or Baal (1 Kings 18:
20-39). He alone was left a prophet of the Lord,
while the prophets of Baal were four hundred and fifty. He then
challenged these prophets to call on their god to consume and accept
the sacrifice that he had prepared. While they fruitlessly called on
their god from morning to midday and into the afternoon, he mocked and
pilloried
their invocations. Finally when they were done, Elijah called the
people closer to him, and at a simple brief prayer offered by him to
the Lord the fire of Yahweh descended and consumed the sacrifice. It
was a miracle of high drama that vindicated the religion of Yahweh and
indicted that of Baal. With this, Elijah had the prophets of Baal
secured and executed. At a stroke he inflicted an immense blow to the
enticing false religion of the time. It was by no means the end of the
problem but it manifested the glory of the Lord and made of Elijah a
great prophet.
Elijah was great in turning his people back to God, and was one of
those
who embodied the virtues which revealed religion fosters. He is one to
whom we should look for inspiration and example in living a life of
faith, including Christian faith. It was predicted that in some sense
he would come again, and our Lord told his disciples that indeed he had
come again. He was, as they realized, referring to John the Baptist.
The angel Gabriel had told Zechariah that his great son would turn his
people back to God “in the spirit and power of Elijah”. We remember
that Elijah appeared conversing with Christ at the Transfiguration.
Elijah, then, is very much associated with the Messiah and important to
the Christian. The Carmelite religious families look to him for
inspiration and intercession. As we think of the spectacular event
described in our passage today from the first book of Kings, let us
think of Elijah’s indomitable faith. Nothing shook it, even though the
world was against him. He was alone and yet he was rock-like in his
adherence to the Lord God of Israel. His faith led him to be utterly
certain that the Lord would hear his prayer to vindicate with a great
miracle his testimony about the one true God. This faith gave him
courage and assurance amid isolation and opposition. So let us think of
the centrality of faith in God and how it must be profound and
unshakable. Let us pray that our faith will grow strong and let us
protect it from anything
that could undermine it. It is the foundational gift of the Holy Spirit
without which we cannot grow in the religion that has been revealed by
God.
Elijah points to the one God as the entire basis of life. Let us place
all our faith in the Lord and give no quarter to any other gods in our
life, no matter how widely they are followed and worshipped.
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I have come, not to abolish, but to
fulfill” (Matthew 5: 17-19)
Comment by St Augustine
(354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
(Treatise on the Psalms, 149)
Brothers, let us “sing to the Lord a new song.” (Ps 149:1) To the old
man, the old song; to the new man, a new song. The Old Testament is an
old song, the New Testament a new song. The first covenant concerns
mostly temporal and earthly promises. People who remain attached to the
things of the earth still sing an old song. In order to sing the new
song, a person must love eternal things. That love is both new and
eternal; it is always new, because it never grows old.
But if we think about it, this love is very old. How could it be new?
My brothers, was eternal life born yesterday? Eternal life is Christ,
and as God, he was not born yesterday. For “In the beginning was the
Word… and the Word was God. He was present to God in the beginning.
Through him all things came into being, and apart from him nothing came
to be.” (Jn 1:1f.) If he made what is old, what is he other than
eternal, co-eternal with the Father? It is we who, by sin, have fallen
into old age… Human beings have become old as a consequence of sin. It
is by God’s grace that we are renewed. All who are thus renewed in
Christ sing a new song, for they are beginning to be established in
eternal life.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a priest who prayed in a moment of affliction: “Jesus, let
whatever Cross You want come to me. I resolve here and now to receive
it joyfully, and I bless it with all the richness of my blessing as a
priest.”
(The Forge,
no.775)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How do the soul and body form a unity in
the human being?
The human person is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. In man
spirit and matter form one nature. This unity is so profound that,
thanks to the spiritual principle which is the soul, the body which is
material becomes a living human being and participates in the dignity
of the image of God.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.69)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday
of the tenth week of Ordinary Time
(June 15) Today let us think of St Aurelian
(Saints)
Scripture today:
1 Kings 18:
41-46;
Psalm 65:10, 11, 12-13;
Matthew 5: 20-26
“But I say to you, whoever is angry with his
brother will be liable to judgment.”(Matthew 5:20-26)
Let us for a moment consider the state of the world in its darker
aspect. There is hunger, plenty of natural disasters, disease and
sickness of various forms. But most would agree that the greatest
source of evil and suffering springs from conflict between human
beings. Its cause and its symptom is principally
anger. One man is angry with another, one group is angry with another,
one community or nation is angry with another, one entire civilization
is angry with another. Usually anger is justified in the mind of the
one who is angry by his pointing to injustice. He has been unjustly
dealt with and so his anger is justified. But anger brings no happiness
and usually leads to further injustice. Anger can lead to a world war.
So then, inasmuch as a fundamental need of mankind is for happiness, it
would seem obvious from ordinary human reflection that the problem of
anger and how to deal with it is fundamental for the prosperity of
mankind. Man must learn to overcome his anger. One person said to me
recently that as a policy he tries to look on the good side of other
people because if he does not he will be angry with them and this will
make it very difficult for him to live with them and get on with them.
He was pointing to the need to find a way to deal with anger.
In fact anger has eternal repercussions. Our Lord in today’s Gospel (Matthew 5: 20-26)
tell us that “You have learnt how it was said to our ancestors: you
must not kill; ... But I say this to you: ... if a man calls (his
brother) ‘Renegade’ he will answer for it in hell fire.” Our Lord,
presumably, in warning of this eternal sanction is referring to the one
who
with full awareness and full
consent gives expression in speech to an anger that leads to great
harm. He is making it very clear that this kind of anger is grossly
offensive to God. The key to an understanding of anger (as with
everything) is to
consider it in the light of Christ. Our Lord was angry at times, but it
was a holy anger. We
remember how he looked around in anger on the scribes and Pharisees
because of their stubbornness of heart, and proceeded to cure the man
with the withered hand. He angrily drove out the buyers and sellers
from the Temple. In both these cases his anger was a holy anger at the
spectacle of sin, and it was a manifestation of the wrath of Yahweh
which is repeatedly referred to in the Old Testament. This anger was
the reaction of divine love in the face of deliberate sin. There is a
just and godly anger, a Christ-like anger, but given our fallen nature
this is not the kind of anger that is usual with us. Usually when we
are angry
we are sinning against God and neighbour.
Let us in this matter recognize how easily, how unjustly, and how
unnecessarily we can be angry with our brother, how harmful it is, and
how displeasing this anger is to God. Above all, let us resolve to put
on the mind of Christ who, in response to the way people treated him,
was meek and forgiving. That is to say, we ought resolve to imitate our
Lord in the virtues of his divine heart, in the virtues of him who
said, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” Let us
resolve to be Christlike. In this as in everything Christ is the model
for every man and for all
of humanity.
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Go first to be reconciled with your
brother” (Matthew 5: 20-26)
Commentary by St John
Chrysostom (around 345-407), Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(Homilies on the 1st Letter to the Corinthians, no. 27)
The Church does not exist so that we remain divided when we come to it,
but rather, so that our divisions might be made extinct. That is what
the assembly means. Thus, if we have come for the Eucharist, let us not
do anything that is in contradiction to the Eucharist, let us not hurt
our brother. You have come to give thanks for the kindnesses you have
received; don’t separate yourself from your neighbor.
Christ offered his body to everyone without distinction when he said:
“Take and eat, all of you.” Why do you not admit everyone to your own
table? ... You are remembering Christ and you disdain the person who is
poor? ... You are taking part in this divine meal; you should be the
most compassionate of all people. You have drunk the Lord’s blood and
you do not acknowledge your brother? But if you have ignored him until
now, at this table you must acknowledge him. We must all be in the
Church as in one common house: we form only one body. We have only one
baptism, one single table, one single source, as well as one single
Father (cf. Eph 4:5; 1 Cor 10:17).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When you receive a hard knock, a Cross, you should not be downcast.
Rather the reverse: with a happy face you should give thanks to God.
(The Forge,
no.776)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where does the soul come from?
The spiritual soul does not come from one’s own parents, but is created
immediately by God and is immortal. It does not perish at the moment
when it is separated from the body in death and it will be once again
reunited with the body at the moment of the final resurrection.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.70)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday
of the tenth week of Ordinary Time
(June 16) Today let us think of St. John Francis Regis
(Saints)
Scripture today:
1 Kings 19:
9.11-16; Psalm 27: 7-9,
13-14;
Matthew 5: 27-32
“And after the fire there came the
sound of a gentle breeze. And when Elijah heard this, he covered his
face with his cloak...” (1 Kings 19:
9.11-16)
There are several scenes of high drama and true beauty in the inspired
story of the prophet Elijah. Our scene in today’s first reading (1 Kings 19:
9.11-16) is well
known and often quoted, and with good reason. Perhaps the greatest
manifestation of the presence of Yahweh the God of Israel is that of
Sinai when (hundreds of years before our scene today) Moses received
the Ten Commandments on the tablets of stone.
There were peals of thunder, dense cloud, a loud trumpet blast, the
mountain was wrapped in smoke and shook violently (Exodus 19:16-18).
God had descended in the form of fire. “To the eyes of the sons
of Israel the glory of Yahweh seemed like a devouring fire on the
mountain top” (Exodus 24: 17). The entire people saw the spectacle and
were struck with awe. God showed forth his glory and his power in the
phenomena that the account in Exodus describes. It was, we might say, a
one-off event that was in the nature of the case remembered by the
children of Israel as associated with the Covenant established on
Sinai. It was the likes of this that made the entire exodus from
slavery in Egypt so mythic in the best sense of the word. The
historical events
in which God manifested his presence formed the defining "myth" of the
children of Israel.
But another lesson had to be understood and that was that God is
present in everyday life calling each to his proper vocation within
salvation history. God is present in the ordinary, the little and
unnoticed events. He has to be sought and found in all things, not just
in the spectacular events which in his merciful providence he chooses
occasionally to operate. This is where today’s event in Elijah’s career
has so much to teach us. Precisely at “Horeb, the mountain of God”
(presumably the mountain of Sinai where dramatic phenomena occurred
centuries before) God reveals himself to Elijah not in
“a mighty wind so strong that it tore the mountains”, nor “in the
earthquake”, nor “in the fire.” No, this time God reveals himself to
his prophet in “the sound of a gentle breeze”. God reveals himself in
an unobtrusive, ordinary, gentle and soothing event, an event that was
in
no way startling and which could easily have passed by unnoticed. But
Elijah, when he heard this “he covered his face with his cloak and went
out and stood at the entrance of the cave.” (1 Kings 19:
9.11-16) Elijah recognized the Lord God of Israel in
the sound of the gentle breeze - and we should learn to do the same,
and with the same profound reverence that Elijah manifested. It was
here, at this simple moment, that he received his call to return, to go
back and anoint two kings and the prophet Elisha as his successor.
Let us practise every day the sense of the presence of God. He is
constantly present and he sees all. He is always summoning us to
respond to his calls in our everyday duty. He is ever giving us his
grace to respond to his love and his call to participate in his saving
work. Let us draw inspiration from the prophet Elijah to find God in
everyday life and in this way to discover the grandeur of the ordinary
life. The glory of God and his daily call is present in the mundane
course of each day.
(E.J.Tyler)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
demands of Christ and joy of heart (Matthew 5: 27-32)
Commentary by John Paul II
(Discourse to young people in the Netherlands, May 14, 1985)
Dear Youth, you tell me that you
often think the Church is an institution that does nothing but
promulgate rules and laws… And you conclude that there is a deep
discrepancy between the joy that issues from the word of Christ and the
feeling of oppression that the Church’s rigidity gives you.. But the
Gospel shows us a very demanding Christ who invites to a radical
conversion of the heart, to detachment from the goods of the earth, to
forgiveness of offenses, to love of the enemy, to patient acceptance of
persecutions and even to the sacrifice of one’s own life out of love
for our neighbor. Where the particular area of sexuality is concerned,
we know the firm position he took in defending the indissolubility of
marriage and his condemnation even as regards the simple adultery
committed in the heart. And could anyone not be impressed when faced
with the precept to “tear out one’s eye” or to “cut off one’s hand”
when these members are an occasion of “scandal”? …
Moral licentiousness does not make
people happy. Similarly, the consumer society does not bring joy of
heart. The human being only fulfills himself to the extent to which he
is able to accept the demands which flow from his dignity as a being
created “in the image and likeness of God” (Gen 1:27). That is why, if
the Church today says things that are not pleasing, it is because it
feels obliged to do so. It does so out of a duty to fidelity…
So is it not true that the gospel
message is a message of joy? On the contrary! It is absolutely true.
And how is that possible? The answer can be found in one word, one
single word, one short word, but its contents are as vast as the sea.
And that word is love. It is perfectly possible to reconcile the
stringency of the precept and joy of heart. The person who loves does
not fear sacrifice. And he even seeks in sacrifice the most convincing
proof of the authenticity of his love.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday I saw a picture which moved me profoundly, a picture
of Jesus
lying dead. An angel was kissing his left hand with an inexpressible
devotion. Another, at the Saviour’s feet, was holding a nail torn out
of the Cross. In the foreground with his back to us there was a tubby
little angel weeping as he gazed at Christ. I prayed to God that they
would let me have the picture. It is beautiful. It breathes devotion. I
was saddened to hear that they had shown it to a prospective buyer who
had refused to take it, saying, “It’s a corpse!” To me, You will always
be Life.
(The Forge,
no.777)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What relationship has God established
between man and woman?
Man and woman have been created by God in equal dignity insofar as they
are human persons. At the same time they have been created in
reciprocal complementarity insofar as they are masculine and feminine.
God has willed them one for the other to form a communion of persons.
They are also called to transmit human life by forming in matrimony
“one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). They are likewise called to subdue the
earth as “stewards” of God.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.71)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday
of the tenth week of Ordinary Time
(June 17) Today let us think of Saints Teresa and Sancia of
Portugal (Saints)
Scripture today: 1 Kings 19:
19-21; Psalm 16: 1-2, 5,
7-10;
Matthew 5: 33-37
“... Elisha ... then rose, and
followed Elijah and became his servant.” (1 Kings 19:
19-21)
We have in our first reading today the account of a very beautiful and
inspiring event. It is the call of Elisha and his eager and immediate
response. Elijah has come from the mount of Horeb, “the mountain of
God” where he stood in the presence of the Lord and received his
command to anoint two kings and Elisha as his successor. In our passage
today he comes upon Elisha ploughing behind twelve yoke of oxen, and
casts his mantle over him inviting him to join him in his life and to
be his servant. Elisha reveals his nobility and generosity of soul
immediately, for he “left his oxen and ran after Elijah”, asking to be
allowed to say good-bye to his parents before following him. Then he
abandoned his possessions “and followed Elijah and became his servant.”
(1
Kings 19: 19-21) Elisha went on to be Elijah’s
successor as prophet, and the suggestion is that he was given a double
portion of his spirit. Elisha’s call and his generous response reminds
us of the call by Christ of his first disciples who left all to follow
him.
Just as Elijah has been a source of inspiration for many Christians and
for, for instance, the Carmelite Orders, so Elisha can be a source of
inspiration for us all especially today as we think of his response to
his divine vocation as a prophet of the Lord. He did not fail God but
was his true servant. We too every day are called to live our vocation
generously. In our case it will probably be lived out in the ordinary
course of a seemingly mundane life that will pass unnoticed beyond our
immediate circle. It will, for instance, involve simple honesty and
genuineness in our ordinary speech - and this is something our Lord
refers to in today’s Gospel passage. “All you need say is ‘Yes’ if you
mean yes, ‘No’ if you mean no; anything more than this comes from the
evil one.” (Matthew 5:
33-37) Behind this directive is surely the summons
to live every day in the silent presence of God who is our Father and
our Judge, governing the course of all our actions in the light of the
fact of his presence. Every day, be it in our speech, in our actions,
or in our inmost thoughts, God is there calling us just as Elijah
called Elisha. Our response to the numerous little calls of every day
ought be in the line of that of Elisha and Christ’s first disciples,
generous and immediate.
All of us who are baptized have received a call to holiness. It is a
matter of responding to the personal invitation by Christ to follow him
and to be his servant and friend. Let us think of Elisha. He provides a
type of what it means to be such a disciple.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I tell you”: The old Law
fulfilled by the one who gives the new Law: comment from a Greek 4th
century homily, inspired by the Treatise on Easter by St Hippolytus of Rome
(d.235), Priest and Martyr
The Law given to Moses is a collection of various teachings and
imperatives, a collection that is useful to everyone as regards what it
is good to do in this life, and a mystical reflection of the customs of
life in heaven: a torch and a lamp, a fire and a light, replicas of the
lamps on high. The Law of Moses is the itinerary of piety, the rule for
honest morals, the brake put on the first sin, the outline of the truth
to come (Col 2:17)… The Law of Moses is a teacher for piety and a guide
for righteousness, a light for the blind and a proof for the foolish,
an educator for children and a mooring for the imprudent, a bridle for
the stiff-necked, and a constraining yoke for the impatient.
The Law of Moses is Christ’s messenger, the precursor of Jesus, the
herald and prophet of the great King, a school of wisdom, a necessary
preparation and a universal teaching, a doctrine that came at its time
and a temporary mystery. The Law of Moses is a symbolic and enigmatic
summary of future grace, announcing in images the perfection of truth
that is to come. Through the sacrifices, it announces the Victim;
through the blood, the Blood; through the lamb, the Lamb; through the
dove, the Dove; through the altar, the High Priest; through the Temple,
the dwelling place of divinity; through the altar’s fire, the full
“light of the world” (Jn 8:12) that comes down from on high.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lord, I have no qualms in repeating this thousands of times: I want to
keep you company, suffering with you, in the humiliations and cruelties
of your Passion and your Cross.
(The Forge,
no.778)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What was the original condition of the
human person according to the plan of God?
In creating man and woman God had given them a special participation in
his own divine life in holiness and justice. In the plan of God they
would not have had to suffer or die. Furthermore, a perfect harmony
held sway within the human person, a harmony between creature and
Creator, between man and woman, as well as between the first human
couple and all of creation.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.72)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Body
and Blood of Christ (B)
(June 18) Let us also think of St. Elizabeth of Schoenau
(Saints)
Scripture: Exodus 24:
3-8; Psalm 116: 12-13,
15-18;
Hebrews 9: 11-15; Mark 14:12-16.22-26
“He broke it and gave it to them,
‘Take it,’ he said ‘this is my body.’ Then he took a cup...’.”
(Mark
14:12-16.22-26)
We have all heard it repeatedly taught that
the Eucharist is the summit and the source of life in Christ for each
of us and for the entire Church. I suspect that for many Catholic
people it takes a long time to realize this truth because we all tend
to live by sight rather than by faith. That is to say, because the Holy
Eucharist is a still, small object to human sight and consequently has
only a moderate visual impact, we unconsciously tend to give it only a
moderate importance. Let us compare our sense of the importance of the
Holy Eucharist with our appreciation of the importance of other things.
Take the matter of having a job. Imagine if there were no unemployment
benefits and a person were to lose his job or were unable to find one.
Would not this be viewed as an immensely serious loss, because how
would he then live? But what of the Eucharist, which our Lord said is
our bread from heaven, such that if we do not eat of it we will die,
die in a supernatural and eternal sense? On this feast of the Body and
Blood of Christ we ought ask ourselves to what extent we are hungering
after Jesus himself, and whether we really do recognize that here on
earth Jesus in the first instance is the Eucharistic Jesus. There is a
danger that a person who even comes to Mass every Sunday may not be
very interested in the Holy Eucharist. Our feast today is the
opportunity to pray for the grace to grow in our appreciation of the
Eucharist, which is the heart of our faith and of the life of the
Church.
St John tells us in his Gospel that Christ taught the doctrine of
the Eucharist in the synagogue at Capernaum. He taught that his flesh
would be real food and his blood real drink, and that if a person did
not eat his flesh and drink his blood that person would have no life in
him. As a result, many of his disciples left him. So it has often been
ever since, because this doctrine can only be accepted on the word of
Christ and not on what we can see or reason out for ourselves. I think
the danger for the practising Catholic who comes to Mass each Sunday is
not that he will formally reject the doctrine, but that he will have a
casual attitude to it, which means he will not regard the Eucharistic
Jesus very seriously. He will walk past or drive past the church
without even thinking of the presence of Jesus, or live out his week in
the vicinity of the parish church without thinking of the presence of
Jesus and without making anything like a spiritual communion with him.
He will tend not to think much of the presence of Jesus in the
tabernacle even when he is inside the church, but think of other things
he can actually see or hear. For instance, there will not be a hushed,
prayerful silence before the tabernacle, but talk and plenty of
distraction. He may leave early before Mass finishes. He might rarely
think of coming to Mass more often than
the minimum of each Sunday. That is to say, he will accept in
theory the centrality of the Eucharist when it is mentioned in a homily
and would never dream of denying it, but the danger is of not having a
vivid realization of its truth. This profound appreciation is what he
has to acquire and deepen as time goes on. As with every truth of the
faith it will require more prayer, spiritual reading and reflection. It
will require an exercise of faith.
The Eucharist is Jesus himself (Mark
14:12-16.22-26). For this reason it is the Church’s
greatest treasure and a principal reason for being a Catholic. Now,
together with his very own person, Jesus in the Eucharist makes present
the greatest act ever done for man and for each of us, namely what our
he did at Calvary. He makes present the giving of himself in
perfect obedience to the Father on our behalf, that very same act of
self-offering that he made at Calvary. The circumstances of course are
different - there are no hammer blows and no actual nailing up on the
Cross - but the essential act of Christ’s person on that occasion, the
essential thing he did, is the same. It is not repeated because it was
of infinite value. No, it is the same and is made present here and now
at Mass. That unique act of self-offering at Calvary and continually
present now in heaven is re-presented to us at Mass
so that each of us can become part of it and one with it. In uniting
ourselves with our Lord in the Eucharist we receive
into our hearts and souls the redeeming and sanctifying fruits of his
sacrifice of himself at Calvary. Jesus gives himself to us, we are
taken up into him, and in the process we receive a marvellous share in
the life of God which is the fruit of the sacrifice of Calvary. So let
us pray for the grace to realize this and to make the Eucharist the
summit and source of our Christian life.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading:
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no.1333-1344
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adoring the Body of Christ: by St John Chrysostom (345 –
407), Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(Homilies on the 1st
Letter to the Corinthians, no. 24,4)
In order to draw us towards loving him more, Christ gave us his body as
our food. So let us go to him with great love and fervour… The magi
adored this body when Jesus lay in a manger. These pagans, these
foreigners left their homeland and their house, set out on a long
journey in order to adore him with fear and trembling. Let us at least
imitate these foreigners, we who are citizens of heaven…
You yourselves no longer see him in a manger but on the altar. You no
longer see a woman holding him in her arms, but the priest who is
offering him, and the Spirit of God, with all his generosity, is
gliding above the offerings. You not only see the same body that the
magi saw, but in addition you know his power and his wisdom, and after
all the initiation to the mysteries that was given you with precision,
you are not ignorant of what he accomplished. So let us awake, and let
us awaken in us the fear of God. Let us show much more piety for the
Body of Christ than these foreigners did…
What is offered on this table strengthens our soul, gathers together
our thoughts, upholds our assurance. It is our hope, our salvation, our
light, our life. If we leave the earth armed with this sacrament, we
shall enter the sacred courts with confidence… But why speak of the
future? Already in this world, the sacrament transforms earth into
heaven. So open heaven’s doors… and then you will see what I have just
said. I will show you here on earth what is most precious in heaven.
What I am showing you is neither the angels nor the archangels nor the
heaven of heavens, but him who is their master.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find the Cross is to find Christ.
(The Forge,
no.779)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How should we understand the reality of
sin?
Sin is present in human history. This reality of sin can be understood
clearly only in the light of divine revelation and above all in the
light of Christ the Saviour of all. Where sin abounded, he made grace
abound all the more.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.73)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday
of the eleventh week of Ordinary Time II
(June 19) Saint
Romuald, abbot. Born at Ravenna about the middle of the tenth
century (a low period in the papacy), he embraced the life of a hermit.
For many years he went from place to place seeking true solitude and
built a number of small monasteries. He fought against the depraved
morals of many of thee monks at the time and by the exercise of virtue
advanced along the path of perfection. He was the founder of the
Camaldolese monks. He died about the year 1027. (Saints)
Scripture today:
1 Kings 21:
1-16; Psalm 5:
2-7; Matthew 5: 38-42
"Get up and eat; cheer up; ... I
will get you the vineyard of Naboth of Jezreel myself."
(1 Kings 21: 1-16)
Before the spectacle of profoundly divergent faiths and world views,
such as those of Christianity, Islam and atheism, one could wonder what
basis can there be for dialogue and the forging of a foundation for
social harmony. It would seem to be important to begin with some
commonly accepted starting point. Perhaps that starting point could be
the human conscience and its awareness of moral obligation. Whatever
about that as a proposal, it is surely undeniable that all faiths and
world-views would
accept the fundamental importance of the conscience and its dictates.
The problem, of course, is the divergent ways the conscience is formed
and what are perceived to be the principles of right action. That
problem granted, nevertheless all
would accept that in principle the prudent conscience should be
followed, whatever be our divergence when it comes to specifics. No one
would say that the dictates of the prudent
conscience ought be avoided, set aside, explained away, and in general
disobeyed. The voice of conscience is commonly accepted as having a
sacred character, though it itself is subject to the higher
and more absolute principle, namely the truth. It is by respecting the
sacredness of the prudent and properly formed conscience that the
truth may
reign supreme.
Well then, let us observe what is recounted in today’s first reading
from the first book of Kings. Ahab king of Samaria wanted the vineyard
of Naboth of Jezreel because it was close by his palace. Naboth would
not sell it because it was an ancestral inheritance. Ahab took the
refusal badly and returned to his home profoundly despondent, sharing
his disappointment with Jezebel his wife. One suspects that Ahab did so
because he thought his (ruthless) wife would find a way to get the
vineyard for
him. And so it was, with Jezebel engineering the death of Naboth and
the appropriation of the property by Ahab. There is no doubt that Ahab
collaborated in a terrible crime. He avoided coming to terms with the
dictates of his conscience, leaving the matter to his unscrupulous wife
(1
Kings 21: 1-16). A great evil was perpetrated because
the genuine and obvious dictates of the conscience were put out of
sight. They were explained away and avoided in the secret recesses of
Ahab’s heart in order to get what he wanted. And how common an
experience is this! The history of the world from the dawn of the
appearance of man has been marked by the violation of the demands of
the conscience, the neglect of its authority, and the avoidance of its
demands. The result is that evil overcomes goodness, beauty and truth.
Cardinal Newman in his
famous Letter to
the Duke of Norfolk called the conscience the
"aboriginal vicar of Christ", meaning that in nature it is the
fundamental representative and herald of God’s will and word. If it is
truly
respected and if
the myriad of subterfuges of the conscience are kept in view, it will
lead to God. Man has in him that which calls him to do what he knows to
be true and right. It is called the conscience. Let us resolve every
day to do
whatever before God we know to be our
duty, making sure that we take all prudent steps, those steps the
Church places before us, truly to know our objective duty. Let us be on
guard
against explaining away, avoiding, keeping out of sight, distorting,
let alone
disobeying the dictates of a properly enlightened
conscience. It is the natural herald of God.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Hand him your coat as well”
(Matthew
5: 38-42)
Comment from St
Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873-1897), Carmelite,
Doctor of the Church
“Vivre d’amour”[Living of Love] and “Pourquoi je t’aime, O Marie”[Why I
love you, Mary]
To live of Love is to give
without measure,
without demanding a salary here below.
Ah! I give without counting, very sure
that when you love, you don’t write a bill!
To the Divine Heart, overflowing with tenderness,
I have given all … lightly I run.
I no longer have anything except my only wealth:
To live of Love.
To live of Love is to banish all fear,
every memory of past faults.
I see no trace of my sins,
in an instant, love burned it all!
Divine flame, o very sweet blaze,
in your hearth I settle down to stay.
In your fire I am at ease to sing (cf. Dan 3:51):
“I live of Love!”…
“To live of Love, what strange madness,”
The world tells me. “Ah! Stop singing,
don’t lose your perfume, your life.
Know how to use them usefully!”
To love you, Jesus, what a fruitful loss!
All my perfume is yours without return.
I want to sing while leaving this world:
“I am dying of Love!”
* * *
* *
To love is to give all and to give oneself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jesus, may your Divine Blood enter my veins, to make me live the
generosity of the Cross at every moment.
(The Forge,
no.780)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What was the fall of the angels?
This expression indicates that Satan and the other demons, about which
Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church speak, were angels,
created good by God. They were, however, transformed into evil because
with a free and irrevocable choice they rejected God and his Kingdom,
thus giving rise to the existence of hell. They try to associate human
beings with their revolt against God. However, God has wrought in
Christ a sure victory over the Evil One.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.74)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday
of the eleventh week of Ordinary Time
(June 20) Today let us think of St Alban, St Julius and St Aaron (Saints)
Scripture today:
1 Kings 21:
17-29; Psalm 51: 3-6,
11, 16;
Matthew 5: 43-48
“There never was anyone like Ahab for
double dealing and for doing what is displeasing to the Lord, urged on
by Jezebel his wife.” (1 Kings 21:
17-29)
In yesterday’s passage from the first book of Kings we were introduced
to the figure of Ahab and his wife Jezebel. He was presented in that
passage as a scheming murderer and thief, hiding in cowardly fashion
behind his ruthless spouse who did his dirty work very willingly. Today
the
prophet Elijah confronts him with his deeds and pronounces the
punishment of God upon him and his wife and upon his House. An obvious
lesson that springs forth from our inspired page today is the lesson
about sin. God punishes man’s sins. Yet there is a further lesson that
is also spread right across the Old Testament and it is
that God looks kindly on the repentant sinner while upholding his
justice. What Elijah said was overpowering to Ahab, reducing him
to devastation of spirit. He believed Elijah and accepted that the
prophesied punishment would indeed come. It humbled him before God, and
his unreal and cocksure confidence at his ill-gotten gains vanished.
The result? God looked with favour on his response. “Then the word of
the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, ‘Have you seen how Ahab has
humbled himself before me? Since he has humbled himself before me, I
will not bring the disaster in his days’.” Yet the sin would not go
unpunished: “I will bring the disaster down on his House in the days of
his son.” (1 Kings 21:
17-29)
God withheld part of his sentence on a bad man who humbled himself and
repented to some extent. Our passage tells us that “there never was
anyone like Ahab for double dealing and for doing what is displeasing
to the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife.”Yet at this point he
repented. The pattern of forgiveness coming upon repentance is repeated
right across the pages of Holy Scripture. It is a feature of the God of
revelation. He is a holy God who hates sin but who will forgive the
repentant. A person may look back on his life and see many disasters
and much that can only be described as displeasing to God, with sin and
neglect repeated time and again. But he lives still and that is the
opportunity to repent. That he is not yet condemned is a sign of God’s
loving patience and invitation to him to repent. In every life there is
much to repent of, well, now is the favourable time, as St Paul writes
in one of his Letters, now is the hour of salvation. Salvation comes
with repentance and belief in the good news of God’s love. At the very
beginning of our Lord’s public ministry his preaching consisted of a
call to repent and believe the good news. On rising from the dead the
first great power he gave to his Apostles was the power to forgive
sins. The good news is that God forgives, and we have an instance of it
- limited in scope as it is - in our story of Ahab today. It points to
the grand forgiveness of sins to come. What God asks for is that we
repent.
So then, now I begin! Let us pray for the gift and the grace of
repentance. Our repentance ought be daily. With this we can be ever
starting again and in humble fashion always looking forward to the
mercy of God, God who is a God of blessings and kindness. So, let us
repent!
(E.J.Tyler)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“This will prove that you are sons of
your heavenly Father, for his sun rises on the bad and the good.”
Gregory
of Narek (944 – 1010), Armenian monk and poet (Book of Prayers,
no.74)
Many are my debts, beyond all
number,
but they are not as surprising as your mercy.
Many are my sins,
but they are still less compared to your forgiveness…
What can a little darkness do
to your divine light?
How can a little bit of obscurity be a rival
to your rays, you who are so great!
How can the concupiscence of my fragile body
be weighed against the passion of your cross?
In the eyes of your kindness, o Almighty,
what can the sins of all the universe appear to be?
See, they are… like a drop of water,
which disappears immediately
in the downpour of your abundant rain…
It is you who give the sun
to the bad and the good,
and who makes it rain for both indiscriminately.
For some, peace is great
because they await the reward…
But you forgive out of mercy
those who preferred the earth:
together with the first, you give them a remedy of life;
you still await their return to you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Look at Jesus hanging dead on the Cross, and pray. In this way the Life
and Death of Christ can become the model and the spur of your life, and
of your answer to the Will of God.
(The Forge,
no.781)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What was the first human sin?
When tempted by the devil, the first man and woman allowed trust in
their Creator to die in their hearts. In their disobedience they wished
to become “like God” but without God and not in accordance with God
(Genesis 3:5). Thus, Adam and Eve immediately lost for themselves and
for all their descendants the original grace of holiness and justice.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.75)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday
of the eleventh week of Ordinary Time II
(June 21) Saint
Aloysius Gonzaga, religious. Born in 1568 near Mantua in
Lombardy, of the noble family of Castiglione, he was brought up piously
by his mother and had a vocation to the religious life. He resigned his
birthright to his brother and at Rome entered the Society of Jesus.
While working among the sick in a hospital he was stricken by the
plague and died in 1591. (Saints)
Scripture today:
2 Kings 2:
1.6-14; Psalm 31: 20-21,
24;
Matthew 6: 1-6.16-18
“Elisha answered, ‘Let me inherit a
double share of your spirit’. ‘Your request is a difficult one’ Elijah said.” (2 Kings 2:
1.6-14)
The story of Elijah is one of action and great
dedication to Yahweh God. Today we begin our reading of the second book
of Kings and Elijah is drawing near the end of his prophetic career.
His servant and successor, Elisha, accompanies him to his noble end
when he is taken to God. Before Elijah goes he asks Elisha, “Make your
request. What can I do for you before I am taken from you?” Elisha
answers, “Let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” (2 Kings 2:
1.6-14) Of course, the spirit of Elijah was the Holy
Spirit, given to him for the worthy conduct of his prophetical calling.
Elijah replied, “Your request is a difficult one”, and he could not
guarantee that it would be granted. In the event it was granted, and
this final event in the life of Elijah when this request was granted to
Elisha is a pointer to the work of the Messiah to come. The Messiah
would be the Anointed one, the one who would possess the spirit of
priesthood, prophecy and kingship par excellence and who would pass
this on to the people. In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit was granted
to certain
prophets, kings and priests, but this prized gift
was only given to certain chosen ones. The request of Elisha is surely
symbolic of the need of God’s people and of all mankind for a share in
the Spirit of God, and of the plea of man for this gift that would
sustain and renew him and assist him in doing the work and the will of
God. The plea was answered when the Messiah
came. As St John the Baptist said in pointing to Christ, he would
baptize in the Holy Spirit.
We the baptised who live in the new dispensation brought by Christ have
all received of the Holy Spirit. As Christ was preparing to be taken up
he too spoke of the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit would come when he
had been glorified. On the morning he rose from the dead he told Mary
Magdalene that he was ascending to the Father. On the evening of that
very day he
appeared to the Eleven and breathed on them the gift of the Holy Spirit
empowering them to share in his mission and to take away sins. At
Pentecost the Holy Spirit was sent to the infant Church enabling it
to evangelize with effect and to bring
this gift of the Spirit to each of us. In a sense it has been so easy
for us. Elisha requested a gift of Elijah that was uncommon, even
rare, and quite unable to be guaranteed. In our case this precious gift
comes at a simple request and it comes infallibly with the sacrament of
Baptism. And how full of power this Gift is, enabling us to attain
holiness of
life and a profound union with God! It is the Spirit of God himself who
comes at our Baptism, and then again at our Confirmation. Let us then
treasure the gift! Elisha did not squander such a gift but by
means of it fulfilled his vocation worthily and with constant
dedication. Let us take our cue from that. We look to the Messiah,
Christ the Lord for whom Elijah and Elisha were preparing long before.
A new life has been granted us, a share in the life of God. Let us do
all we can to bring it to fruition in holiness and apostolate.
All of this is done by fulfilling our daily duties and sanctifying
everything that makes up the calling which God in his providence has
granted us. Ours may be an ordinary life, but the ordinary life, as the
Holy Family at Nazareth teaches us, has a great though hidden
grandeur.
(E.J.Tyler)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“ Go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in
private” (Matt 6:
1-6.16-18)
Commentary by St [Padre] Pio
de Pietrelcina (1887-1968), Capuchin (GF, 173; Ep 3, 982-983)
Be assiduous in prayer and meditation. You told me you had already
begun. That is a great consolation for a father who loves you as
himself! So continue to progress in this exercise of love of God. Take
another step every day: at night by the weak light of a lamp, in the
midst of weakness and in spiritual dryness; or by day, in joy and the
illumination that dazzles the soul……
If you can, speak to the Lord in prayer, praise him. If you cannot
manage that because you have not yet progressed enough in the spiritual
life, do not worry. Go to your room and close the door and place
yourself in God’’s presence. He will see you and will appreciate your
presence and your silence. Then he will take you by the hand, will
speak to you, will take a hundred steps along the paths of the garden
of prayer, and there you will find consolation. Remaining in God’’s
presence simply in order to show our will to acknowledge that we are
his servants is an excellent spiritual exercise, which will make us
progress on the way of perfection.
When you are united with God through prayer, look at who you are in
truth. If you can, speak to him, and if that is impossible for you,
stop and remain before him. Don’’t make any other effort.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the moment of sorrow or expiation, remember this: the Cross is the
symbol of the redeeming Christ. It has ceased to be the symbol of evil,
becoming instead the sign of victory.
(The
Forge, no.782)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is original sin?
Original sin, in which all human beings are born, is the state of
deprivation of original holiness and justice. It is a sin “contracted”
by us not “committed”; it is a state of birth and not a personal act.
Because of the original unity of all human beings, it is transmitted to
the descendants of Adam “not by imitation, but by propagation”. This
transmission remains a mystery which we cannot fully understand.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.76)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday
of the eleventh week of Ordinary Time II
(June 22) Saint
Paulinus of Nola, bishop. Born at Bordeaux in France in the year
355, he rose high in public services, married and had a son. But
wishing to embrace a more austere life he received baptism, gave up his
worldly goods and in 393 he began to live the monastic life at Nola in
Campagna. He became bishop of Nola where he did much to promote the
veneration of St Felix of Nola, helping the pilgrims and doing what he
could to relieve the misery of that time. He composed a number of poems
which are outstanding for their literary quality. He died
431. (Saints)
Also
Saint John
Fisher, bishop and Cardinal, and Saint Thomas More, martyrs.
John Fisher
was born in the year 1469. He studied theology at the
University of Cambridge in England and was ordained priest. He was
appointed Bishop of Rochester. His life was austere and he became an
outstanding pastor of his flock, often visiting them. He was an eminent
theologian and wrote against the doctrinal errors of his time. (Saints)
Thomas
More was born in the year 1477. He studied at the University
of Oxford, married and had a son and three daughters. He was a great
lawyer and was appointed Chancellor of the kingdom. He wrote a number
of works about civil affairs and in defence of the Catholic religion,
and some spiritual works as well. (Saints)
Both resisted King Henry VIII on ‘the great matter’ of the
dissolution of his marriage and on the issue of the Pope alone being
head of the
Church. On the king’s orders they were executed in the year 1535,
Fisher on 22 June and More on July 6. While Fisher had been held in
prison he was created a cardinal of the Church by Pope Paul III
Scripture today:
Ecclesiasticus
48: 1-15; Psalm 97: 1-7;
Matthew 6: 7-15
“This is how you are to pray: ‘Our Father who art in heaven" (Matthew 6: 21-30)
There is an old saying that familiarity breeds
contempt. Perhaps we could modify the harshness of that by saying that
familiarity leads us to take for granted what we are familiar with. We
take other persons for granted - because of our
familiarity with them. We
can take for granted the members of our own family and fail to observe
normal courtesies, and indeed we can be thoughtlessly very
discourteous towards them. We can take for granted the things of God
too, and the blessings God has bestowed upon us. This familiarity can
lead us to overlook the blessings these gifts of God contain. Take
a simple example. Our Lord taught us a prayer, his own prayer, the only
prayer he set out explicitly to teach us in response to a request from
his disciples. It is the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father (Matthew 6: 21-30).
How we take
this prayer for granted! I suspect that for great numbers of
Christians, Catholics included, it is regarded unconsciously as but one
prayer among so many with no special status in their lives. It is
included in books of prayers, and taught to our children assiduously
but in much the same manner as other prayers are taught. We need to
stop, consider, and recover a sense of the sacredness of this special
prayer.
One way of doing this is to consider the circumstances in which we came
to have it. It came from the Lord.
Yes, the Our Father came from the Lord Jesus himself. The disciples, we
are told elsewhere in the Gospel, seeing our Lord at prayer and
probably often seeing how he prayed, approached him and asked him to
teach them how to pray, just as John the Baptist taught his disciples.
And so the Lord taught them his prayer. In our Gospel today (Matthew 6: 21-30),
St Matthew includes the Lord’s prayer among other instructions our Lord
gave, suggesting that Our Lord often taught them this prayer perhaps
with some slight variations which appear in the slightly divergent
accounts of the Gospels. The point I am suggesting here, though, is
that it ought be constantly remembered that this particular prayer came
from the lips of the Lord Jesus himself. It came from God the Son. How
precious it is, then! This is reflected in the long tradition of
commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer offered by the Church Fathers, the
great saints and theologians. Since it came from Jesus himself,
not
only has it great power before God, but it is a prayer to be prayed in
a special sense in union with Jesus himself. It is always said publicly
at Mass with the risen Jesus in our midst, as we approach
the moment of receiving him in Holy Communion. It would be a very good
prayer to be saying over and over again in union with Jesus during the
many minutes with him following our reception of Holy Communion.
What a wonderful remote preparation for death it would be if during the
years of life we have learnt to pray the Lord's Prayer truly lovingly
and
profoundly, such that it becomes the prayer of our dying moments when
we surrender our souls to God, together with the heartfelt forgiveness
of others in our life which it emphasises.
(E.J.Tyler)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“This is
how you are to pray: ‘Our Father who art in heaven" (Matthew 6: 21-30)
Commentary by St Teresa of Avila
(1515-1582), Carmelite, Doctor of the Church
The Way of
Perfection, chapter 27
Our Father who art in Heaven. O my Lord, how You do show Yourself to be
the Father of such a Son; and how Your Son does show Himself to be the
Son of such a Father! May you be blessed forever and ever! This favor
would not be so great, Lord, if it came at the end of the prayer. But
at the beginning, You fill our hands and give a reward so large that it
would easily fill the intellect and thus occupy the will in such a way
one would be unable to speak a word.
Oh, daughters, how readily should perfect contemplation come at this
point! Oh, how right it would be for the soul to enter within itself in
order to rise the better above itself that this holy Son might make it
understand the nature of the place where He says His Father dwells,
which is in the heavens….
O Son of God and my Lord! How is it that you give so much all together
in the first words? Since You humble Yourself to such an extreme in
joining with us in prayer… For You desire that He consider us His
children …In being Father He must bear with us no matter how serious
the offenses. If we return to Him like the prodigal son, He has to
pardon us. He has to console us in our trials. He has to sustain us in
the way a father like this must. For, in effect, He must be better than
all the fathers in the world because in Him everything must be
faultless. And after all this He must make us sharers and heirs with
You…
My Jesus, You have spoken, as a favoured son, for Yourself and for us…
Well, daughters… does it seem right to you now that even though we
recite these first words vocally we should fail to let our intellects
understand and our hearts break in pieces at seeing such love?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among the ingredients of your meal include
that most delicious of ingredients, mortification.
(The Forge,
no.783)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What other consequences derive from
original sin?
In consequence of original sin human nature, without being totally
corrupted, is wounded in its natural powers. It is subject to
ignorance, to suffering, and to the dominion of death and is inclined
toward sin. This inclination is called concupiscence.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.77)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday
of the eleventh week of Ordinary Time II
Scripture today:
2 Kings 11:
1-4.9-18.20; Psalm 131;
Matthew 6: 19-23
“If then, the light inside you is
darkness, what darkness that will be!” (Matthew 6: 19-23)
Our first reading from the second book of Kings provides us with an
instance of what our Lord is referring to in our Gospel today. He
refers to our spiritual perception being diseased and as a result
darkness reigning within. In our first reading we are presented with an
example of how low in the history of God’s people the throne could
sink. The queen mother Athaliah learned that her son was dead and
“promptly did away with all those of royal stock”. It was a terrible
massacre of almost all in the royal line, and she promptly assumed the
throne.. The worship of Baal was allowed. But due to the quick thinking
of Jehosheba who had spirited away one of the royal children, together
with the careful planning and decisive action of Jehoiada the priest,
the situation was turned around
(2
Kings 11: 1-4.9-18.20).
The picture we get is of stark contrasts within the life of God’s
people at this stage of its history: evil and infidelity right up to
the throne, and by contrast fidelity and goodness of life in the
priesthood and among many of the sons of Israel. It was an episode that
represents so much of human life and society and the great struggle
between good and evil. On the one hand there were those who thought
only of this world’s goods. On the other those who thought of God and
what he wanted. In that picture we are presented with our own choice.
It is to do good, or to do evil. It is to love and obey God, or to
disregard him and to sin.
All this can be very easily related to our Lord’s words in today’s
Gospel passage (Matthew 6: 19-23).
Our Lord puts before us a simple choice, that between storing up riches
and benefits for ourselves here on earth, or storing up riches and
benefits in heaven. Do the latter and do not do the former, our Lord
tells us. When one thinks of it, it is a marvel that so many of us do
not look ahead to what is to come. So many of us think simply of this
life, and yet ordinary human experience makes it abundantly clear that
this life passes so very quickly. A few short years and it is all gone,
and what then? What greater foolishness could there be than
simply to
store up treasures for ourselves in this life, even if we are not
filled with the thought of the next. The testimony of Christ and the
Church is that all of us will meet Death, God’s Judgment and then
either heaven or hell. Even if a person is not entirely convinced of
this, ordinary prudence would suggest to him that he take its
probability into account and prepare for eternity. It is simply very
foolish not to store up treasures in heaven, because we are talking
about an eternity. Where does such foolishness come from? In our Gospel
passage today our Lord intimates for us the answer. Our sight is
diseased. “But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be all
darkness. If then, the light inside you is darkness, what darkness will
that be!” We must ask God to preserve us in his grace so that we can
see with clear vision what is truly the best, together with the
constant desire to live according to it.
Let us keep steadfastly before us, day by day, our true homeland and
let us shape our whole life by it. Life is short, eternity long.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To do great mortifications some days, and nothing on others, is not the
spirit of penance. The spirit of penance means knowing how to overcome
yourself every single day, offering up both great and small things for
love, without being noticed.
(The Forge,
no.784)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the first sin, what did God do?
After the first sin the world was inundated with sin but God did not
abandon man to the power of death. Rather, he foretold in a mysterious
way in the “Protoevangelium” (Genesis 3:15) that evil would be
conquered and that man would be lifted up from his fall. This was the
first proclamation of the Messiah and Redeemer. Therefore, the fall
would be called in the future a “happy fault” because it “gained for us
so great a Redeemer” (Liturgy of the Easter Vigil).
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.78)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (B)
(June 23)
Scripture today:
Hosea 11:
1.3-4.8-9; Isaiah 12:2-6; Ephesians 3: 8-12.14-19;
John 19:31-37
"One of the soldiers pierced his side
with a lance; and immediately their came out blood and
water." (John 19:31-37)
If we think of the broad sweep of man’s religions, it is not easy
to think of a religion in which the deity loves man with a selfless
love,
a love which is free, unearned, moral and undying. This kind of loving
deity is surely a
distinctive feature of the revealed religion of Judaism and
Christianity. What was revealed to Abraham, Moses and the prophets was
marvellously fulfilled by and in Jesus Christ. God is love. This is a
truth which would seem to require a revelation because there is much in
the visible
universe which seems to belie it. The hurts and sorrows of this life
can overwhelm and smother any sense in a person that love is behind and
at the
source of the universe, as some of the greatest Christian lights have
not hesitated to admit. In his Apologia Pro Vita Sua
the great Cardinal
Newman readily conceded that were it not for his prior and inner
conviction of the reality of God the sight of the world’s evils
would lead him away from theism. So into this situation of a world
profoundly disfigured by sin and suffering and evil of various
kinds, has come a great piece of good news. It is that whatever be the
appearances, the Creator of all is a God of love. This love has been
revealed by Jesus Christ whose heart, a very human heart full of love,
is the heart of God himself. If we want to know the love of God, we
look to the heart of Jesus Christ pierced by a lance.
How beautiful are some of the passages in the prophets in which God
gives utterance to the love he has for his people! In our first reading
today from Hosea God tells us that “I was like someone who lifts an
infant close against his cheek; stooping down to him I gave him his
food. How could I treat you like Adamah...? My heart recoils from it” (Hosea 11:
1.3-4.8-9). It was this love which our Lord came to
reveal, and which St Paul in our second reading tells us we must be
planted in and built on. For this we need the grace of God and that is
what St Paul prays for in our passage today. To help us live in this
love and grow in it, let us keep
before us the figure of Christ crucified as presented to us by St John
in his Gospel passage today. It is Christ dead on the cross for me,
pierced with a lance (John 19:31-37).
St Paul says elsewhere, Christ loved me and delivered himself up for
me. He loved me, each of us should repeat, and he died for me. He did
not simply die for the whole world in general, no, he died for me as
if I were the only one he died for. Let us pray for the grace to
appreciate this. If there are profound hurts in a person’s life
causing such indignation, grief and bitterness as to make it difficult
to accept that God is full of love, let that person pray persistently
for
healing. God has revealed that he loves each of us with an infinite,
undying and personal love. Let us pray for the grace to appreciate and
accept this, and to be able to love in similar manner. Let us pray for
the grace also to be able to bring this
good news to others.
The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a day of renewed
discovery of the central tenet of our faith, that the God we worship is
a God whose personal life is one of triune love, a love revealed in the
heart of Christ. That love we are called to make our own both here and
everlastingly
hereafter.
(E.J.Tyler)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If we join our own little things, those insignificant or big
difficulties of ours, to the great sufferings of Our Lord, the Victim
(He is the only Victim!), their value will increase. They will be come
a treasure, and then we will take up the Cross of Christ gladly and
with style.
And then every suffering will soon be overcome: nobody,
nothing at all, will be able to take away our peace and our
cheerfulness.
(The Forge,
no.785)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the Good News for humanity?
It is the proclamation of Jesus Christ, the “Son of the living God”
(Matthew 16:16), who died and rose from the dead. In the time of King
Herod and the Emperor Caesar Augustus, God fulfilled the promises that
he made to Abraham and his descendants. He sent “his Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so
that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.79)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
Birth of St John the Baptist
(June 24) Born six months before our Lord, John the Baptist was the son
of Zachary and Elizabeth, cousin of our Lady. He was the last and
greatest of the prophets. As the forerunner of the Saviour his mission
was to prepare the chosen people for the coming of the Messiah. When
Jesus came, John bore witness to him before his own disciples and
invited them to follow him. (Saints)
Scripture today: Isaiah 49: 1-6; Psalm
139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 14c-15; Acts 13: 22-26;
Luke 1: 57-66.80
“And indeed the hand of the Lord was
with him. Meanwhile the child grew up..”(Lk 1:57-66.80)
In recent weekdays (the tenth and eleventh week II of Ordinary Time) we
have been following the story of Elijah. He was a great prophet and a
legendary figure in the imagination of the people, but it is clear from
our Lord’s words that John the Baptist was greater. He was the Elijah
who was to
come back and turn the hearts of the people to their God. So great was
he
before God that his parents had an archangel sent to visit them from
heaven
to tell them of his coming birth. Our Gospel passage today (Luke 1:
57-66.80) tells us of his birth and of the
exceptional circumstances that accompanied it. His name had clearly
been given to him from on high and Zachary’s speech returned when with
Elizabeth he
insisted on this name. The child came into this world with a work to do
and he was favoured with high gifts to enable him to do it. As our text
says, the hand of
the Lord was with him. What ought we think of when we think of the
birth of John the Baptist? I would suggest we
think of one who was born into this world favoured with an
exceptionally important mission, and who went on to fulfil it.
Now, each of us have been born into the world with our own place in the
salvific plan of God. We may not know in great detail how our place
fits into God’s
plan, but we do have our work to do for him. John was greatly favoured
and so are we, each of us. St Paul tells us in one of his Letters
that before the world began God chose us, chose us in Christ to be holy
and full of love in his sight. Each of us has our own calling and
with it our work to do in life, our mission as unfolded to us by the
Providence of God. John was exceptionally faithful to his calling, and
we are called to be faithful too. If we have failed time and again,
then now is the time to begin anew. The birth of John the Baptist
celebrates the beginning of his life and his life’s work. This very day
as we celebrate St John the Baptist’s birth can be the a new beginning
in our life’s work. Let us start again, today, and the hand of the Lord
will be with us too. The Spirit of God has been given to us at our
Baptism and at our Confirmation, the same Spirit of God who came to
John when Elizabeth his mother was visited by the Virgin Mary. So then,
with St John the Baptist as my inspiration and intercessor before God,
now I begin!
Let us every day do our work, however humble it may appear in our own
eyes and in the eyes of those around us, knowing that just as John the
Baptist’s life and work had its place in God’s salvific plan, so will
ours too. Whatever it is, we have our work and our mission. Let us do
it as well as we can in all its humdrum and seemingly unimportant
detail, and let us do it for the purest love of God that is given to
us. As St Ignatius of Loyola would put it, ad maioram dei gloriam, all
for the greater glory of God!
(E.J.Tyler)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“There was a man named John sent by
God, who came as a witness .. to the light” (Jn 1:6-7)
The Syrian Liturgy: Hymn attributed to St Ephrem (306 – 373),
Deacon and Doctor of the Church
In you, John, we recognize a new Moses, for you saw God, no longer in
symbols but very clearly. We see you as a new Joshua: you did not cross
the Jordan from one side to the other, but with the Jordan’s water, you
let people cross over from one world to the other… You are the new
Samuel, who did not anoint David, but who baptized the Son of David.
You are the new David; you weren’t persecuted by the evil king Saul,
but you were killed by Herod. You are the new Elijah; in the desert,
you were not nourished by ravens with bread, but by God with
grasshoppers and honey. You are the new Isaiah; you did not say: “The
virgin shall be with child and bear a son” (Isa 7:14), but you
proclaimed to everyone: “She has borne the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world.” (cf. Jn 1:29)…
Blest are you, John, chosen by God, you took hold of your Master, who
grasped in your hands the flame whose brilliance makes the angels
tremble. Morning star, you showed the world the true Morning. Joyful
dawn, you manifested the day of glory. Gleaming lamp, you showed the
Light without equal. Messenger of the Father’s great reconciliation,
the archangel Gabriel was sent before you to announce you to Zachary as
a fruit that was well beyond his expectations… The greatest among the
children of men (Mt 11:11), you came before the Emmanuel, before him
who goes beyond every creature. Firstborn of Elizabeth, you precede the
Firstborn of all creation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To
be an apostle you have to bear within you Christ crucified, as St Paul
teaches us.
(The Forge,
no.786)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How is the Good News spread?
From the very beginning the first disciples burned with the desire to
proclaim Jesus Christ in order to lead all to faith in him. Even today,
from the loving knowledge of Christ there springs up in the believer
the desire to evangelize and catechize, that is, to reveal in the
Person of Christ the entire design of God and to put humanity in
communion with him.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.80)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time B
(June 25) Today let us think of Blessed Jutta of Thuringia
(Saints)
Scripture today:
Job
38:1.8-11; Psalm 107: 23-26, 28-31; 2
Corinthians 5:14-17; Mark 4:35-41
“‘Master, do you not care? We are
going down!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind.”
(Mark
4:35-41)
Today’s Gospel account of the disciples caught up in the storm
reminds us that there are many situations in life which cause powerful
reactions within us. A wife or mother loses her spouse or child,
causing a profound emotional reaction that lasts for years to
come. A person has some physical condition that causes concern and the
results of the test are bad, or perhaps they are very good. The
reaction to the result either way is deeply felt. We are all aware of
what we might call our passions, our deeper or stronger feelings. Story
after story in the literatures of the world, be they in poems, drama or
novels, speak of the passionate friendship between man and woman, a
friendship at times good and even holy, at times evil and sinful.
One’s
work in life and all that touches on it can involve deep feelings,
passionate emotions. It could be a work of scientific discovery, or
developing a business, or designing a work of architecture, or
educating one’s children, or making peace between parties in conflict,
or political action. Or again, think of the feelings a person has when
his work is stolen by someone and that person gets the credit.
God has given us deep and at times powerful feelings, and the
deciding issue in how we feel about anything is where our heart lies,
which is to say what or who we really love. If one profoundly loves and
desires something or someone, one’s emotions will be part and parcel of
that love, just as they will be of any hate. Emotions and feelings are
part and parcel of the heart of man, and he is called to give his whole
heart to God and to all that is good. Fear or anger will be the
response to the prospect of losing what one loves. I remember years ago
a young boy who refused to go to the local Catholic School because he
feared what his companions of his own age in the street where he lived
would think and say to him. Fear was a powerful feeling in him. At this
point of time the World Cup is in progress in Germany. The reactions to
the games are passionate. These passionate feelings we have are part of
our human psyche and we must gain a Christian understanding of
them and in that light integrate them into our Christian life.
Our Gospel passage (Mark 4:35-41) prompts
us to consider this matter, because the disciples found themselves in a
situation which aroused in them profound emotions. They were out in the
middle of the Sea of Galilee and were terrified at the storm which
seemed about to engulf them. Jesus was in their midst, but sound
asleep. We could regard the storm itself as not only the cause but also
a great symbol of the
emotional storm that was going on within their minds and hearts. But
there was another element in our scene that is full of symbolism too.
They were not
alone in the storm, for Jesus was there in their midst, silent and
asleep yet fully in command. Jesus is the reference point for
all that deeply moves us.
God created us to know and love what is good, above all the
supreme good which is himself. He wants us to love himself and all that
is good ardently and passionately. That is why he gave us what are
called our passions. Of themselves they are neither good nor evil. They
provide strength to our choices and totality to our response. The
important thing is our deliberate choice, what we deliberately desire
or consent to. Our passions and emotions are
meant to be ordered by right judgment, and thus ordered, are to give
vitality
and power to our choice and desire for God and all that God wants.
When our Lord said that the first commandment is to love
God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, he was including in
the word “strength” our passions and emotions. He wants us
to love God passionately, with all our being.
What we are talking about is the human heart knowing and loving
with all its various powers. The model for the human heart is the
heart of Christ. We should aim to put on the mind of Christ and by the
grace of the Holy Spirit to live in him and to be more and more like
him at the level of the heart. God’s plan is that by being devoted to
the heart of Christ, which is to say to the mind and heart and soul and
entire inner person of Christ, we will by God’s grace come to be like
him at
that deepest level. Just as Christ our Lord was in his entire inner
life wholly surrendered to the will of his heavenly Father with all his
mind, heart and strength, so ought this be our ideal. It is God’s ideal
for us, and if we work perseveringly at it, by his grace it will be.
Let us guard our emotions and direct them to the love of God and
the fulfilment of his will, denying them any satisfaction that involves
drawing us into sin. Let us always remember that whatever be the storm,
Christ with all his divine power is nearby awaiting our faith.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading:
Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.1762-1770
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then he asked them, “Why are you so terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?”
(Mark
4:35-41)
Comment of an ancient Greek
homily (wrongly attributed to Origen (185 – 253), Priest and
Theologian
His disciples drew near to him, woke him and said: “Help, Lord, we are
perishing!” … O blest, o true disciples of God, you have the Lord your
Savior with you and you are afraid of danger? Life is with you, and you
are worried about your death? You wake from his sleep the Creator who
is present with you, as if even asleep, he could not calm the waves and
stop the storm?
What answer do the beloved disciples give to that? We are very small
children who are still weak. We are not yet strong men… We have not yet
seen the cross. The Lord’s passion, his resurrection, his ascension
into heaven, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, have not yet
given us solidity… The Lord is right to tell us: “Why are you so
terrified? Why are you lacking in faith?” Why are you lacking in
strength? Why this lack of trust? Why so little recklessness when you
have Trust with you? Even if death were to irrupt, should you not bear
it with great constancy? In all that happens, I will give you the
necessary strength, in every danger, in every trial, including the
soul’s departure from the body… If in dangers my strength is necessary
in order to bear everything courageously, how much more necessary is it
in the presence of life’s temptations so as not to fall!
Why be troubled, you people of little faith? You know that I am
powerful on earth; why don’t you believe that I am also powerful over
the sea? If you acknowledge me as true God and the Creator of
everything, why don’t you believe that I have power over all I have
created? “He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea: ‘Quiet! Be
still!’ The wind fell off and everything grew calm.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s true: when the Holy Cross comes into our lives it unmistakably
confirms that we are his, Christ’s.
(The Forge,
no.787)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the meaning of the name
'Jesus'?
Given by the angel at the time of the Annunciation, the name “Jesus”
means “God saves”. The name expresses his identity and his mission
“because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Peter
proclaimed that “there is no other name under heaven given to men by
which we can be saved” (Acts 4:12).
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.81)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday
of the twelfth week of Ordinary Time II
(June 26) Today let us think of Saint Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer
(born 1902, died 26 June, 1975)
Let us also think of Blessed
Raymond Lull
(Saints)
Scripture today:
2 Kings
17:5-8.13-15.18;
Psalm 60: 3-5,
12-13;
Matthew 7:1-5
“This happened because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their
God”
(2 Kings
17:5-8.13-15.18)
We know, of course, that there is a God who is love and that he is the
Lord and
Sustainer of all that exists. All things occur within the framework of
his almighty providence. But so very much occurs that seems to be
contrary to what one would expect a God of power and love to allow.
Consider the Jewish holocaust of World War II. Where was God when this
was happening? Consider what is now referred to as 9/11, the loss of
life in the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in the United States on
that occasion.
Where was God and why did he permit it? We have no idea. However,
Scripture does give us revealed instances of God’s judgment on history
and on why he allowed disaster to fall even on those he had chosen in a
special way. In our first reading today from the second book of
Kings the inspired author tells us of the invasion of Israel by
Shalmaneser king of Assyria. He eventually captured Samaria and
deported the Israelites to Assyria. It was a tremendous disaster, and
the author tells us that “there was none left but the tribe of Judah
only.” To what a pass things had come since the days of King David!
Had we been there, we might have asked, where was God when
this happened? Why did he permit it? The author tells us: it was
“because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God... They
worshipped other gods, they followed the practices of the nations...
They despised his laws...” (2 Kings
17:5-8.13-15.18)
This explanation of why these particular events happened is
revealed by God in Holy Writ. There are other historical disasters that
are commented on in the pages of Scripture too. For instance, Christ
foretold the
destruction of Jerusalem and said it was because the people had not
accepted the day of salvation. However, in respect to the numerous
other disasters that have come upon man both
collectively in society and in his personal life, we do not
have the benefit of God’s
word. We can ponder on what Scripture suggests, though, when
thinking of the visitation on man of reversals and disaster. Scripture
suggests that there
is no one answer. Our reading today suggests one possibility, that when
something happens to us involving suffering it may have been
permitted by God in view of our sins or at
least as a warning to repent of them. On one occasion our Lord was
asked if those who
had recently been killed suffered this mishap because they were greater
sinners than others. Our Lord said no, but that unless people repented
they too would perish. Or again, on another occasion our Lord was asked
if a man
born blind had this affliction because of his own sins or those of his
parents. Our Lord said he was born blind in order that the works of God
might be displayed in him. The general point that emerges is that God
allows this or that disaster or affliction for a variety of reasons,
and that whatever is allowed has its place in his plan. The ultimate
end of the action of God in history and in our own lives is his glory,
and our happiness is to be found in that.
The greatest “disaster” was the putting to death of the Son of God made
man. In moral terms this was an outrage of epic and indeed cosmic
proportions. No one was as innocent as he, and no one has suffered as
he
suffered because he was
expiating for the sins of the entire world. The scale of suffering he
endured was
therefore incalculable, unimaginable. Let us ask our original question:
where was God while this was happening?
It has been revealed that God was permitting the destruction of the
all-holy Jesus for the divine
glory and for the salvation and happiness of man. So in any suffering
that
comes our way let us follow in the footsteps of Jesus and unite
ourselves to him. In that way the mystery of suffering will produce its
abundant fruit.
(E.J.Tyler)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Then you will see clearly
to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5)
Commentary by Dorotheus of
Gaza (around 500 - ?), Monk in Palestine (Letter no.1)
Some people change every food they absorb into a bad mood, even if the
food is healthy. The fault does not lie in the food but in their
temperament, which changes the food. Even so, if our soul has a bad
disposition, everything harms it; it transforms even useful things into
things that are harmful to it. If you throw a little bit of bitter
herbs into a pot of honey, won’t they change the whole pot by making
all the honey bitter? That is what we do: we spread a little of our
bitterness and we destroy our neighbour’s good by looking at him
according to our bad disposition.
Other people have a temperament that transforms everything into a good
mood, even bad food… Pigs have a very good constitution. They eat pods,
date seeds and garbage. But they transform that food into succulent
meat. In the same way, if we have good habits and a good state of the
soul, we can benefit from everything, even from what is not beneficial.
The Book of Proverbs says it very well: “The one who sees with
gentleness will obtain mercy.” And in another place: “For the foolish
person, everything is contrary.”
I heard it said of a brother that if, when he went to see someone else,
he found his cell in a state of neglect and in disorder, he told
himself: “How happy is this brother to be completely detached from
earthly things and to carry his spirit on high so well that he doesn’t
even have the time to tidy his cell!” If he then went to another
brother and found his cell tidy, clean, and in good order, he told
himself: “This brother’s cell is as clean as his soul. As is the state
of his soul, so is the state of his cell!” He never said of anyone:
“This one is untidy,” or: “That one is frivolous.” Because of his
excellent state, he benefited from everything. May God in his goodness
also give us a good state so that we might benefit from everything and
never think badly of our neighbour. If our malice inspires us to pass
judgment or to be suspicious, let us quickly transform that into a good
thought. For with God’s help, not seeing what is bad in our neighbour
brings forth kindness.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cross is not pain, or annoyance, or bitterness. It is the holy wood
on which Jesus Christ triumphs .... and where we triumph too, when we
receive what He sends us with cheerful and generous hearts.
(The Forge,
no.788)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why is Jesus called “Christ”?
“Christ” in Greek, “Messiah” in Hebrew, means the “anointed one”. Jesus
is the Christ because he is consecrated by God and anointed by the Holy
Spirit for his redeeming mission. He is the Messiah awaited by Israel,
sent into the world by the Father. Jesus accepted the title of Messiah
but he made the meaning of the term clear: “come down from heaven”
(John 3:13), crucified and then risen, he is the Suffering Servant “who
gives his life as a ransom for the many” (Matthew 20:28). From the name
Christ comes our name of Christian.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.82)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday
of the twelfth week of Ordinary Time II
(June 27) Saint
Cyril of Alexandria, bishop and doctor of the Church (370-444).
Cyril entered a monastery, became a priest and then in 412 succeeded
his uncle as Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt. He fought strenuously
against the teachings of Nestorius and took the lead at the Council of
Ephesus to defend the oneness of the Person of Jesus Christ and the
divine maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He an acute and profound
theologian and wrote many works to explain and defend the Catholic
faith. (Saints)
Scripture today:
2 Kings 19:
9-11.14-21.31-35.36; Psalm 48: 2-4,
10-11;
Matthew 7: 6.12-14
“That same night
the angel of the Lord went out and struck down ...the Assyrian camp.”
(2
Kings 19:9-11.14-21.31-35.36)
We have before us in our first reading a famous page
in the Old Testament story of Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet.
Sennacherib the king of Assyria was at the door of the holy city with
his vast army. He knew that Hezekiah was placing his trust in Yahweh
his God and that this was the engine of his resistance. He sent his
message ridiculing this religious hope because, he asserted, “you have
learnt by now what the kings of Assyria have done to every country,
putting them all under the ban. Are you likely to be spared?” It was an
insult to the power of Israel’s God and to the religion revealed by
him. There was no doubt that all the odds appeared stacked against the
city and that humanly it looked hopeless. Hezekiah placed the letter
from Sennacherib before the Lord and asked him to save them from the
hand of the Assyrians. It was a pure prayer of faith and appeal
to the fidelity and the power of God. The answer came from the
prophet Isaiah assuring Hezekiah that God would protect the city. And
so it was. The angel went forth and the Assyrians were sent packing and
devastated (a plague?). (2 Kings
19:9-11.14-21.31-35.36)
This passage teaches us the power and faithfulness of God and of the
effectiveness of prayer to him. Both these doctrines are taught
repeatedly in the Scriptures. God is all-powerful and ever faithful.
Our prayers will be heard. But this does not mean that the power
of prayer and the faithfulness of Almighty God will be manifested in
the same way as it was in our passage today. Time and again in the
history of nations and individuals, good people carefully prepare for
good causes and accompany them with constant prayer, and yet they are
allowed by God to fail. Other needs and good causes also accompanied
with constant prayer succeed. One could point to many specific
instances of this mystery. Where is God when the failures and
disasters occur? The ways of the Lord are inscrutable and life is
very complex. What the instances in Scripture such as those of today’s
passage reveal to us is that whatever be the course of events, God is
the one and only true God, and that if we trust him and appeal to him
and endeavour to do his will, he will save. What this will mean in the
concrete we cannot say. We are reminded of St Thomas More who said that
even if he were to lose his head he would come to no harm. As the
psalmist writes, though I pass through the valley of darkness I fear no
evil.
Let us resolve to place our faith in God absolutely. In this way we
shall be following in the footsteps of the Master who trusted in his
heavenly Father right to the end. Then came the resurrection and the
glory, and with this the redemption of the world. Whatever be the
temptations against faith in the face of the circumstances of life, let
us repeat that prayer of the person appealing to Jesus to heal his son:
“Lord I do believe. Help my unbelief.”
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Treat others the way you would have
them treat you.
This is the Law and the Prophets.”(Mt.7)
Comment by St Vincent de Paul
(1581-1660), priest and founder (Conversation of May 4,1659)
What is the first act of charity? What does a heart animated by charity
produce? What comes out of it that is different to a person who has no
charity? It is to act towards each person as we would reasonably want
others to act towards us. That is how charity can be summed up. Is it
true that I do to my neighbour as I would wish him to do? Ah! That
calls for a big examination of conscience…
Let us look at the Son of God: what a heart of charity, what a flame of
love! My Jesus, please tell us a little what drew you from heaven to
come to suffer earth’s curse, so many persecutions and torments that
you received. O Saviour, O source of love, humbled to the point of
becoming like us, to the point of infamous torture, you who love your
neighbour more than yourself. You came to expose yourself to all our
woes, to take on the form of a sinner, to lead a life of suffering, and
to suffer a shameful death for us. Is there any love like it? … Only
Our Lord is so smitten with love of creatures that he left his Father’s
throne to come and take a body that was subjected to infirmities.
And why? So as to establish love of neighbour among us by his example
and his word… O my friends, if we had a little of that love, would we
remain with our hands in our laps? … Oh no! Charity cannot remain idle;
it makes us busy for the salvation and consolation of our brothers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You have come to see that, after the Holy Sacrifice, it is on your
Faith and your Love, on your penance, your prayer and your activity,
that the perseverance, and even the life on earth of your people to a
great extent depend. Bless the Cross: the Cross that He - my Lord Jesus
- and you and I bear.
(The Forge,
no.789)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In what sense is Jesus the Only Begotten
Son of God?
Jesus is the Son of God in a unique and perfect way. At the time of his
Baptism and his Transfiguration, the voice of the Father designated
Jesus as his “beloved Son.” In presenting himself as the Son who “knows
the Father” (Matthew 11:27), Jesus affirmed his singular and eternal
relationship with God his Father. He is “the Only Begotten Son of God”
(1 John 4:9), the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He is the
central figure of apostolic preaching. The apostles saw “his glory as
of the Only Begotten of the Father” (John 1:14).
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.83)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday
of the twelfth week of Ordinary Time II
(June 28) Saint
Irenaeus, bishop and martyr. Born about the year 130, he
was brought up at Smyrna a disciple of St Polycarp, bishop of that
city. By the year 177 he was a priest at Lyons in France and shortly
afterwards he succeeded the martyred St Pothinus as bishop of that
city. In his writings he sought to defend the Catholic faith against
all errors, especially those of the Gnostics. Tradition has it that he
was martyred about the year 202. (Saints)
Scripture today:
2 Kings
22:8-13; 23:1-3; Psalm 119: 33-37,
40;
Matthew 7:15-20
“Beware of false prophets .. .. You
will be able to tell them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15-20)
There are several warnings in the Old Testament against false prophets.
In the New Testament our Lord warns against them and we have an
instance of this warning in today’s Gospel (Matthew 7:15-20).
St Paul speaks at various times of false teachers who will deceive
Christ’s flock. It is obviously part of revealed teaching that some
will come claiming to speak the truth of God but who will do so
falsely. They will be convincing, impressive, and perhaps (blindly)
sincere, but nevertheless still false. This is what Christ’s disciples
must expect and in fact this has happened time and again in the
Church’s history. What is to be the criterion by which to measure a
false from a true prophet? Our Lord tells us emphatically in our
passage today that we
shall be able to tell them by their fruits. Let us go on to consider
the fruits. They will be shown in both doctrine and in their way of
life. The doctrine of a true prophet will harmonize with what the
Church teaches, and his
way of life will harmonize with what the Church sets forth as a true
Christian life. The priority will be the truth of his doctrine because
it is his teaching which will be the immediate and pressing issue. All
this is to say that the true prophet thinks in union with the
Church.
Many years ago a visiting priest from overseas captured great attention
in the Church in Australia. His teaching was striking and accompanied
with what appeared to be miracles. In what he said during a retreat he
gave to a considerable number of priests I noticed some departures from
the doctrinal emphasis the Church gives in her teaching. A year later I
read that back in the United States he left the priesthood. As we look
back over the history of
the Church one of the most notable and recurring problems has been that
of true and false prophets. Almost every age has had its problems of
false teaching, with the Church compelled to point this out and to take
disciplinary action against the false teacher. It has led to ecumenical
councils, encyclicals, schisms, heresies. The entire complexion of the
Church has altered as a result of this perennial problem. Consider the
fourth century when Arius began his career. If success in numbers were
to be the criterion of a true prophet, Arius would have been
vindicated. But his doctrine was profoundly wrong. And so it has been
through the centuries. Vast divisions have arisen within the ranks of
Christ’s faithful and so we have in our day immense sections of the
Christian world at variance with one another in their doctrine and way
of life. In this phenomenon we have before our eyes the fruits of false
prophecy. All of Christ’s faithful are called to think with the Church,
and prophets must also. If they do not they stand revealed as false.
Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel remind us to look on the living
teaching Church as Christ’s Oracle, the prophet of God in our day,
because the Church is none other than Christ’s body and he is her head.
Let us receive and transmit her teaching with reverence and love
knowing that it comes from the Lord.
(E.J.Tyler)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Just so, every good tree bears
good fruit" (Matthew 7:15-20)
Comment by Blessed Teresa of
Calcutta (1910-1997), Foundress. (No Greater Love)
If someone feels that God is asking him to become involved in reforming
society, that is a matter between him and his God. We all have the duty
to serve God where we feel called to do so. I feel called to serve
individuals, to love each human being. I never think in terms of
masses, of a group, but always according to persons. If I thought of
the crowds, I would never undertake anything. It is the person who
counts. I believe in face to face encounters.
The fullness of our heart becomes visible in our actions: how I behave
with this leper, how I behave with this dying person, how I behave with
this homeless person. Sometimes, it is more difficult to work with
down-and-outs than with the people who are dying in our hospices, for
the latter are at peace, waiting to go to God soon. You can draw near
to the sick person, to the leper, and be convinced that you are
touching the body of Christ. But when it is a drunk person yelling, it
is more difficult to think that you are face to face with Jesus hidden
in him. How pure and loving must our hands be in order to show
compassion for those beings!
To see Jesus in the spiritually most deprived person requires a pure
heart. The more disfigured the image of God is in a person, the greater
must our faith and our veneration be in our search for the face of
Jesus and in our ministry of love for him… Let us do so with a sense of
profound gratitude and with piety. Our love and our joy in serving must
be in proportion to the degree to which our task is repugnant.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jesus, I want to be a blazing fire of Love-madness. I want it to be
sufficient for me just to be present in order to set the world on fire
for miles around, with an unquenchable flame. I want to know that I am
yours. Then, let the Cross come ... This is the marvellous way: to
suffer, to love, and to believe.
(The Forge,
no.790)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the meaning of
the title “Lord”?
In the Bible this title regularly designates God as Sovereign. Jesus
ascribed this title to himself and revealed his divine sovereignty by
his power over nature, over demons, over sin, and over death, above all
by his own Resurrection. The first Christian creeds proclaimed that the
power, the honour, and the glory that are due to God the Father also
belong to Jesus: God “has given him the name which is above every other
name” (Philippians 2:9). He is the Lord of the world and of history,
the only One to whom we must completely submit our personal freedom.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.84)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saints
Peter and Paul, Apostles
(June 29) The Church founded by Christ has St Peter and St Paul as its
principal pillars.
Peter
was chosen by Christ to be his first Vicar on earth, endowed with
powers of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt 16:13-19), and
charged with the role of Shepherd of Christ’s flock (John 21:15-17). In
Peter and his successors, the visible sign of unity and communion in
faith and charity has been given. Divine grace led Peter to profess
Christ’s divinity. St Peter suffered martyrdom under Nero in AD 66 or
67. He was buried at the hill of the Vatican, where excavations have
revealed his tomb on the very site of the Basilica of St Peter. (Saints)
Paul was
chosen to form part of the apostolic college by the risen Christ
himself on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-16). An instrument selected
to bring Christ’s name to the gentiles, he is one of the greatest of
missionaries, the advocate of the pagans. He was beheaded in the Tre
Fontane along the Via Ostiense and buried nearby, where the basilica
bearing his name now is. (Saints)
Scripture today: Acts of the
Apostles 12:1-11; Psalm 33; 2 Tim 4: 6-8.17-18; Matt
16:13-19
“‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I
am?’ Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said ‘the Son
of the living God.’” (Matthew 16:13-19)
For quite some time there has been an attitude in some religious
circles that puts little store on exact religious knowledge. In the
wider community, of course, there is very little importance put on it
because of the plurality of our society, and in a sense this is quite
understandable. Society has to function harmoniously with full
allowance made for great divergencies in religious doctrine. This
practical social and political liberalism in society can easily lead
from a tolerance of religious diversity to a
widespread relativism in respect to religious truth which can be every
bit as dogmatic as
any religious doctrine. That is to say, there can become prevalent in
society an intolerance of all religious dogma, of the very idea of
dogma and of any claim by anybody to the possession of objective
religious truth.
It can amount to a dictatorship of relativism, and Pope Benedict XVI
has written that this is one of the most widespread problems of our
day. The allowance that society must make for various religious
positions has insidiously led to an assumption that truth is simply
relative to each person, and that objective truth about anything either
does not exist or is unattainable. This unconscious (and at times
deliberate) philosophical position can find its way into considerable
portions of Christ’s faithful, and manifest itself in a dislike for
objective doctrine, the doctrine of the Church about God and his plan
as insistently set forth by the Church’s pastors. When this happens in
a person, the
spirit of the world has displaced the mind of Christ.
That religious doctrine is very important to our Lord himself is
abundantly clear from our Gospel passage today, the feast of St Peter
and St Paul. In our passage today it is a matter of the fundamental
doctrine we must start with, answering to the question, who is Jesus?
Is Jesus just another great
religious leader and founder in the line of many others such as
Abraham, Moses, the Hebrew prophets? Is he to be classed with famous
figures beyond the chosen people of God, such as Zoroasthra, Buddha,
Confucius, and Mahomet? Our Gospel passage today (Matthew
16:13-19) shows our Lord asking his disciples who
men say he is. That he asks such a question shows that it is very
important to God and to Christ that the question be answered and that
the answer be correct. The disciples tell him that people say he is a
great prophet. But that is not enough, for our Lord asks them, “But who
do you say I am?” The point here, I suggest, is that the mere fact that
our Lord asks this question ought make us pause and reflect on the
widespread assumption of our time that a true and absolutely objective
answer is not important, and even that it is objectionable to claim
dogmatically to have the answer. By his very question Christ is showing
that dogma is part of the Christian religion and that to be among his
disciples one must adhere to correct dogma. The correct dogma came in
the answer given by Simon, that he, Jesus, is the Messiah and the Son
of God. Our Christian faith is doctrinal.
Having heard the answer our Lord proceeded to institute the means for
the preservation of revealed truth in the Church till the end of time.
That means, as every Catholic knows, lies in the teaching ministry and
charism of Peter and his successors. Let us throughout our life put
great spiritual store on religious doctrine as set forth by the
Church's living magisterium and make it the basis of our
knowledge of God and his plan. As our Lord said at the Last
Supper, eternal life is this, to know you Father and Jesus Christ whom
you have sent. We will not know the living God if we are not concerned
to know the Church’s dogma.
(E.J.Tyler)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“When you are older … another will …
carry you off against your will” (John 21:18)
Commentary by St Leo the
Great (? – around 461), Pope and Doctor of the Church
(Sermon 82/69 for the Anniversary of the Apostles Peter and Paul)
You were not afraid to come to this city of Rome, o holy apostle Peter!
… You were not afraid of Rome, the mistress of the world, you who in
the house of Caiaphas took fright when faced with the high priest’s
servant girl. So was the power of the emperors Claudius and Nero less
than Pilate’s judgment or than the fury of the Jewish leaders? It is
because the power of love triumphed in you over the reasons to fear.
You did not think you had to fear those whom you had been sent to love.
You had already received this intrepid charity when the love you
professed for the Lord was strengthened by his threefold question (Jn
21:15f.)… And so that your trust might grow, there were the signs of so
many miracles, the gift of so many charisms, the experience of so many
marvelous works… Thus, without doubting in the fruitfulness of the task
and without remaining ignorant of the time you still had to live, you
brought the trophy of Christ’s cross to Rome, where through divine
predestination, both the honour of authority and the glory of martyrdom
awaited you.
Saint Paul came to this same city. With you, he was an apostle, a
chosen instrument (Acts 9:19) and teacher of the nations (1 Tim 2:7).
He came to be with you in this time when already all innocence, all
freedom, all modesty were oppressed under Nero’s power, who in his
madness was the first to decree a general and terrible persecution
against the Christian name, as if God’s grace could have been stopped
by massacring saints… But “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the
death of his faithful ones.” (Ps 116:15) No cruelty could destroy the
religion founded through the mystery of Christ’s cross. The Church is
not reduced but rather enlarged through persecutions; the field of the
Lord is constantly clothed with a greater harvest when the seeds that
fall alone are born again as many (Jn 12:24). What a lineage those two
divinely sown plants produced as they developed! Thousands of martyr
saints, imitating the two apostles’ triumph, ... crowned this city with
a diadem adorned with countless jewels.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When you are ill, offer up your sufferings with love, and they will
turn into incense rising up in God’s honour, and making you holy.
(The Forge,
no.791)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why did the Son of God become man?
For us men and for our salvation, the Son of God became incarnate in
the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. He did so
to reconcile us sinners with God, to have us learn of God’s infinite
love, to be our model of holiness and to make us “partakers of the
divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church,
no.85)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday
of the twelfth week of Ordinary Time II
(June 30) The
First Martyrs of the Church of Rome. The Church celebrates this
memorial in memory of the martyrs in the persecution under Nero at
about 64 AD. Many Christians were killed with atrocious torments. They
were people of all professions and levels of society. This celebration
reminds us that all Christians are called to seek sanctity. (Saints)
Scripture today:
2 Kings
25:1-12; Psalm 137:
1-6; Matthew 8:1-4
“He burned down the Temple of the
Lord, the royal palace and all the houses”. (2 Kgs 25:1-12)
Our first reading from the second book of Kings presents us with a
disaster of the first order for the chosen people of Israel.
Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon captured the king fleeing from
Jerusalem, executed his sons before his eyes, blinded him, and sent him
off in chains to Babylon. He then stormed the holy city and utterly
destroyed it. It would have seemed to the populace to be almost the end
of the world. They were deported to Babylon like their miserable king,
and the land was left with a pitiable remnant to keep up something of
the country’s agriculture (2 Kings 25:1-12).
The smoking debris appeared to be the end, and the Scriptures tell us
that all this came to pass because of the sins and infidelity of the
people. However, it was not the end. The chosen people would slowly
rise again by the power of God and in the years to come prophetic
tradition and religious life would resume once more. Above all, the
Messiah would come forth from the people and, with the Messiah, the
hope
of the world. Out of the monumental crash of God’s chosen people would
come the world’s redemption, and with it an ultimate brightness for
man’s future.
From this falling and rising, from this death and resurrection, from
this despair and bright hope, let us think of the all-encompassing and
powerful providence of God. All of history is in the hand of God for he
is the Creator and the Lord of all. Inasmuch as he is almighty he will
achieve his purposes. How he will do so in the midst of disaster
and evil we cannot say, but the thought of the redemption of mankind
that God achieved by means of the chosen people of Israel ought give us
confidence in his power and in his loving mercy. What a disaster was
the sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar! Yet the promise given to
Abraham that the nations of the earth would be blessed by him in due
course came to pass. Our Lord’s own life and death and resurrection
encapsulated the divine pattern of victory coming forth from defeat. So
then, let us think of the power of
God in history as we think of our first reading today. We can trust in
the
power of God and believe in the One who is Almighty. Because of this we
can pray for the world, for the Church, for the countless trouble spots
that are perennially flaring up and burning in conflagration, and for
ourselves. When
trouble strikes us and our lives pass through valleys of darkness and
we see little ahead, or when we look back and see much that we regret,
let us renew our faith in the power and loving mercy of God who brings
all things together finally for those who trust in him and love him. So
let us trust him.
Let us never allow the thought of our sins and mistakes lessen our
confidence in the loving power of God our Father. Today’s first reading
surely nourishes this faith. As Mary our mother proclaimed, “My soul
proclaims the greatness of the Lord!” Yes, God is great!
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Jesus touched him and said, ‘I do
will it. Be cured.’” (Matthew 8:1-4)
Commentary by St Symeon the
New Theologian (949 – 1022), Orthodox monk (Hymn no. 30)
Before the divine light shone,
I did not know myself.
Then seeing myself in darkness and in prison,
caught in a quagmire,
covered in filth, wounded, my flesh swollen…,
I fell to the feet of him who had illumined me.
And he who had illumined me
touched my bonds and my wounds with his hands;
where his hand touched and where his finger drew near,
immediately my bonds fell,
the wounds disappeared, as well as all filth.
The stain on my flesh disappeared…
so much so that he made it similar to his divine hand.
Strange marvel: my flesh, my soul and my body
have a part in divine glory.
As soon as I had been purified and freed of my bonds,
there he was, stretching out a divine hand to me;
he drew me completely out of the quagmire,
he embraced me, he hugged me
and covered me with kisses (cf. Lk 15:20).
And he took me on his shoulders,
me, who was totally exhausted
and who had lost my strength (cf. Lk 15:5),
and he led me out of my hell…
That is the light that carries and upholds me;
it draws me to a great light…
He lets me contemplate by what strange remodelling
he himself has remoulded me (Gen 2:7) and has torn me from corruption.
He has given me immortal life
and has clothed me in an immaterial and luminous garment.
He has given me sandals and
an incorruptible and eternal ring and crown (cf. Lk 15:22).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a child of God, with his grace in you, you have to be a strong
person, a man or woman of desires and achievements. We are not hothouse
plants. We live in the middle of the world, and we have to be able to
face up to all the winds that blow, to the heat and the cold, to rain
and storms, but always faithful to God and to his Church.
(The Forge,
no.792)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What does the word “Incarnation” mean?
The Church calls the mystery of the wonderful union of the divine and
human natures in the one divine Person of the Word the “Incarnation”.
To bring about our salvation the Son of God was made “flesh” (John
1:14) and became truly man. Faith in the Incarnation is a distinctive
sign of the Christian faith.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.86)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday
of the twelfth week of Ordinary Time II
(July 1) (Saints)
Scripture today:
Lamentations
2:2.10-14.18-19; Psalm 74: 1-7,
20-21;
Matthew 8:5-17
“The Lord has consumed without pity all the
dwellings of Jacob;...in dishonor
her king and her princes.”
(Lamentations
2:2.10-14.18-19)
One of the most revealing things about a culture and a society is what
is not mentioned in its public and normal discourse, and it requires a
lot of alertness to notice this. In our Western culture, and especially
as it is represented by our own country of Australia, where is the word
“sin” ever mentioned in any public sense? It can be the object of
research - for instance a person could be known to be researching the
notion of sin in Dante - and such a topic would be viewed with respect.
It is of course a respectable “in-house” matter for discourse within
the life of the Church. But beyond these personal and (in a public
sense) very restricted circles “sin” is scarcely part of society’s
shared vocabulary. If it is mentioned at all it is done so
apologetically or in a detached manner, implying when referred to that
there is little objective reality in “sin”, but that it is rather a
personal and very subjective notion. That is to say, one of the most
widespread assumptions of the modern era is that while there is plenty
of crime and wrongdoing, there is no sin. The reason for this is that,
were the fact and indeed the enormity of sin in the world to be
publicly admitted, it would be tantamount to admitting publicly the
fact of a great and holy God. It is because God is silently
assumed to be marginal to reality that sin is silently excluded from
public discourse.
One of the greatest needs of modern man is to recover a vivid sense of
the reality and the enormity of sin. As children of our culture we too
must be on guard lest we silently grow in a sense not of sin, but of
being largely free of sin. Perhaps it is especially in our day that
this has to be worked at. We need to pray for the grace to appreciate
the fact of sin and its seriousness, and work at coming to a personal
realization of it. Our first reading today can help us in this (Lamentations
2:2.10-14.18-19). It is a passage from the book of
Lamentations in which the inspired author laments repeatedly and at
length the utter destruction that had been visited upon the holy city
and the kingdom. Nebachudnezzar had done his work and we have before us
the sorrowful picture of the devastation which God had allowed. The
picture describes the facts, but behind the facts was the sin and
infidelity of God’s chosen people. They had come to this pass because
of their sins. That is the teaching of the inspired account. If we want
to imagine the effects of sin, this passage before us today is one of
those which will help us. The destruction there portrayed is the sort
of thing that sin brings man and society to in history, and it is a
pointer to the ultimate ramifications of sin. In our Gospel today our
Lord refers to the ultimate alternatives, when some will take their
places with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while
others will be turned out into the dark where there will be weeping and
grinding of teeth. Our first reading describes the weeping in Jerusalem
because of sin. It is a portent of the final weeping and grinding of
teeth which sin brings man to unless it is renounced.
Let us pray over our first reading from the book of Lamentations,
thinking of its true meaning. It presents the effects of sin. Both the
Old Testament and the New teach us in bold and very clear strokes that
sin is an immense phenomenon in society and in the heart of every man.
It must be recognized and with the power of Christ fought and overcome,
and replaced with God's life and holiness. It is the main issue in the
world.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Insults hurt so much, even though you want to love
them. Don’t be surprised: offer them to God.
(The Forge,
no.793)
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In what way is Jesus Christ true God and
true man?
Jesus is inseparably true God and true man in the unity of his divine
Person. As the Son of God, who is “begotten, not made, consubstantial
with the Father,” he was made true man, our brother, without ceasing to
be God, our Lord.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.87)
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