(Solemnity of all saints to thirty fourth week Ordinary Time)
Pope Benedict
XVI's
general prayer intention
for the month of November is:
"That there will be an end to all forms of terrorism throughout the world."
Pope Benedict XVI's missionary prayer intention for November is:
"That through the effort of believers, together with the living forces of society, the new and old chains which prevent the development of the African continent may be broken."
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Solemnity of All Saints
(November 1) All the saints in Heaven Today we celebrate the feast of all the unknown saints who are now in heaven. The Church reminds us that sanctity is within everyone’s reach. Through the communion of saints we help one another achieve sanctity. (Saints)
Scripture: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14; Psalm 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12a
I, John, saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the children of Israel. After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.” All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They prostrated themselves before the throne, worshipped God, and exclaimed: “Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honour, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?” I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14)
Today, the feast of all those who are in Heaven, known and unknown, canonized and uncanonized, we think of our heavenly homeland. What a bright prospect is ahead of us! What a revelation God has granted us of our final end! Consider the darkness that has enshrouded so many of the religions of man
in this matter. So many
indigenous religions and so many religions of civilized peoples over
the course of human history have had little to say of the Afterlife,
with not very much to look forward to. The saying of the Romans is
famous: Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die! I have
known people, elderly people included, who have thought that this life
is the only life we shall enjoy and that after this brief span our lot
is no different from that of a dog or cat. Our end is our grave.
Oblivion follows the years of life. The Old Testament shows evidence of
an advancing revelation from God as to the Afterlife, but even in the
Gospels our Lord is confronted by puzzles from the Sadducees who did
not believe in a resurrection. He roundly defeated them in debate and
told them that they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.
It is Christ who reveals the glorious destiny of the one who does not
die in unrepented mortal sin. There are two alternatives that
ultimately face each human being. He will be eternally saved or
eternally lost. His personal judgment follows his death and then he
goes to his merited place. Those who are saved will be purified of the
stains of sin in Purgatory if this is necessary, and then there is
heaven, and forever.Heaven forever! Let us think very frequently of the homeland that God has prepared for us. Our Lord at the Last Supper told his disciples that he was going to prepare them a place so that where he is they would be too. That is the principal feature of heaven. It is where Christ is, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit and all those who are in God. It will, presumably be an unimaginably vast family filled with utter love and joy. We shall see God face to face, him who is infinite beauty, goodness and love. There will be no end to the joy which will flow from this for God is without limit in all that he is. What a terrible catastrophe to miss out on this divinely predestined eternity! What then is the path to glory? The path to glory lies in the faithful following of Christ each day, taking up our cross with love in the knowledge that this is the path he followed. “If any man wishes to be my disciple let him take up his cross every day and follow in my footsteps.” Our Lord instructed his disciples time and again in the great point that the Son of Man had to suffer if he was to enter into his glory. At Tabor he was transfigured in glory, with the voice of the Father pointing to him. It was a prefiguring of his glory, and Moses and Elijah conversed with him about the passing he was to accomplish in Jerusalem. By suffering as he did he opened up glory to all his brothers of the human race. We received the grace to accompany him along his divine path, and this we do by perseveringly fulfilling the will of God in our daily duties. The thought of heaven with Christ will give us courage to persevere daily along the way of Christ.
Heaven is our homeland. Life is short and eternity long. Let us use the days and moments remaining to us to make sure that the eternity that will certainly come will be spent with God and all the saints.
(E.J.Tyler)
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"I believe in the communion of saints" (The Creed) Comment by St Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Dominican tertiary, Doctor of the Church, co-patron of Europe (The Dialogue, chapter 41)
God said to saint Catherine: The just soul, for who finishes life in the affection of charity and the bonds of love, cannot increase in virtue, her time having come to an end, but she can always love with the affection with which she comes to me, and the measure that is measured to her (Lk 6:38). She always desires me, and loves me, and her desire is not in vain—being hungry, she is satisfied, and being satisfied, she is still hungry, but the tediousness of satiety and the pain of hunger are far from her. In love, the blessed souls rejoice in my eternal vision, participating in that good that I have in myself, everyone according to their measure, that is, so say, the measure of love with which they have come to me is measured out to them.
Because they have lived in love of me and of their neighbour, they are united together in love… They rejoice and exult, participating in each other’s good with the affection of love, besides the universal good that they enjoy all together. And the saints rejoice and exult with the angels with whom they are placed… They have a special participation with those whom they closely loved with particular affection in the world. With this affection they grew in grace and increased virtue; each one was the occasion for the other to manifest the glory and praise of my name… In everlasting life, they have not lost their love, but keep it still. The joy they have at the happiness of others increases their own happiness with more abundance.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Make up your mind to set the world ablaze — you really can do it — with a love that is pure, and so you will make all mankind happy by bringing them really closer to God.
(The Forge, no.916)
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How can we help the souls being purified in purgatory?
Because of the communion of saints, the faithful who are still pilgrims on earth are able to help the souls in purgatory by offering prayers in suffrage for them, especially the Eucharistic sacrifice. They also help them by almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance. (CCC 1032)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.211)
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The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)
(Thursday of the thirtieth week of Ordinary Time)
(November 2) The Church, after rejoicing yesterday with our brothers who are in heaven, today prays for all who, in the purifying suffering of purgatory, await the day when they will join the company of the saints. The celebration of the Mass, which is the sacrifice of Calvary, renewed on our altars, has ever been for the Church the principal means of fulfilling the great commandment of charity towards the dead. We can also relieve their sufferings through our prayers, suffrages, and penances. Even after death, links with our fellow-travellers and brothers are not broken. (Saints)
Scripture today: Wisdom 3:1-9; Psalm 25: 6 and 7b, 17-18, 20-21;
Romans 5:5-11 or Romans 6:3-9; John 6:37-40
Jesus said to the crowds: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” (John 6:37-40)
Today we think of those souls who are in Purgatory. A recently produced (2006) American movie, Love’s Abiding Joy, tells the story, set in the nineteenth century USA west, of one family’s perseverence and the tragedies that test their faith. Particularly poignant is the portrayal of the death of the family’s infant. It shows the immense impact of the experience of death. Why is there death at all? We can only gain an answer to this burdensome mystery by turning to
Revelation. Death
entered the world as a result of man’s rebellion against God at the
beginning. St Paul tells us that “the wages of sin are death”, and
presumably the appearance of death in the world was a reflection of a
spiritual death that appeared in heaven itself long before when certain
angels rebelled against God. The demons lost the life of God and they
now live a form of spiritual death expressed in their undying hatred of
God and of all that is good. Our Lord says in one of the Gospels that
the devil is a liar and a murderer. So then, death became part of man’s
condition at the beginning when he chose to sin. But now, God sent our
Saviour and in principle death has been overcome. The one who believes
in Jesus and
who lives according to that belief will not die. At various times our
Lord spoke of death in the Gospels. He wept at the death of Lazarus his
friend, but he had referred to it earlier as a sleep. Lazarus is
asleep, he said to his disciples. When he went to the house of the
young girl who had died, he told the mourners that she was not dead but
asleep. True death in the mind of Christ is eternal death and it is
from this that he has freed us. Our Lord in today’s Gospel tells us that “this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day” (John 6: 37-40). Those who have died in Christ and who are not yet perfect need to be purified from all sin before being admitted into the presence of the infinitely holy and beautiful God. Only thus will they be able to be utterly united to him face to face in unending joy. They sleep in death, they are not yet in the presence of God, and they are being mercifully purified of their sins. They are in Purgatory, certain of being saved and with a bright future ahead of them. Christ will raise them to heaven. However, they are entirely unable to hasten their purification (whereas we who live this side of the grace are able to advance in merit by cooperating with grace). We are able to assist the faithful departed by our prayers, our Masses, our penances, and by the Indulgences we can gain for them. We can intercede for them and it is an immense act of charity to do so. The more souls in Purgatory whom we assist in their path to heaven the more friends we shall have there in heaven praying for us during our pilgrimage in this life and during our own time of purification in Purgatory. The doctrine of Purgatory is one which we ought share with as many as possible, including non-Catholics and non-Christians, so as to encourage them to pray for their departed relatives and friends.
There must be so many in Purgatory who have no one to pray for them, possibly millions. Let us pray for the souls in Purgatory today and throughout life for in terms of assisting themselves, they are helpless. They depend on our prayers. Let us not forget nor fail them.
(E.J.Tyler)
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"He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive" (Luke 20:38)
Commentary by Saint Aphrahate (?-345), Monk and Bishop in Nineveh, near Mosul (in modern Iraq)
(Demonstrations, n 22)
The upright and righteous and good and wise fear not nor tremble at death, because of the great hope that is before them. They at every time are mindful of death, their exodus, and of the last day in which the children of Adam shall be born. Paul, the apostle said:— But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin, and thus death came to all the children of Adam"(Rm 5:14.12) …Thus, death came to all people from Moses until the world shall end. Yet Moses preached that its kingdom is made void; death hoped that he would bind fast all people and would be king over them for ever…, but when the Holy One called Moses from the bush he said thus to him: "I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob" (Ex 3,6). When death heard this utterance, he trembled and feared and was terrified and knew… that God is king of the dead and of the living, and that it is appointed to the children of Adam to come forth from his darkness. And observe that our Redeemer Jesus also, when he repeated this utterance to the Sadducees, thus said: "He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive" (Lk 20:38)…
When Jesus, the slayer of death, came, and clothed himself in a body from the seed of Adam, and was crucified and tasted death. When death perceived that he had come down unto him, he was shaken from his place, and he closed his gates. Then Christ burst his gates, and entered into him, and began to despoil all his possessions. But when the dead saw light in the darkness, they lifted up their heads from the bondage of death, and looked forth, and saw the splendour of the Messiah King … And death saw that his darkness was beginning to be done away, and some of the righteous who were sleeping arose to ascend with him, then he made known to him that when he shall come in the fulness of time, he will bring forth all the prisoners from his power, and they shall go forth to see the light.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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In modico fidelis! — faithful in little things. My son, your job is not just to save souls but to bring them to holiness, day after day, giving to each moment — even to apparently ordinary moments — the dynamic echo of eternity.
(The Forge, no.917)
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In what does hell consist?
Hell consists in the eternal damnation of those who die in mortal sin through their own free choice. The principal suffering of hell is eternal separation from God in whom alone we can have the life and happiness for which we were created and for which we long. Christ proclaimed this reality with the words, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire” (Matthew 25:41). (CCC 1033-1035, 1056-1057)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.212)
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Friday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 3) St Martin de Porres (1579-1639) Born in Lima (Peru), he was the son of a Spanish father and a coloured mother. As a young man he learnt the art of a dispenser of medicines, and afterwards when he joined the Dominican Order as a lay brother he practised this for the sake of the poor. He lived a life of fasting, prayer, and penance, and was very devoted to the Blessed Sacrament and the sick and the poor. (Saints)
Scripture: Philippians 1:1-11; Psalm 111:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Luke 14:1-6
On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy. Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking, “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath or not?” But they kept silent; so he took the man and, after he had healed him, dismissed him. Then he said to them “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” But they were unable to answer his question. (Luke 14:1-6)
One of the constant sources of conflict between our Lord and his enemies among the Scribes and Pharisees was our Lord’s observance of the Sabbath. He observed the Sabbath, but as we see in today's Gospel (Luke 14:1-6) he disregarded the rules insisted on by the Scribes and Pharisees. The instances of this conflict as reported in the Gospels show them interpreting the Sabbath “day of
rest” in a way that,
among other things,
disregarded charity towards the needy. In this, as in
everything, Christ is our model as to the fulfilling of the law of God.
As he said to them on another occasion, the Son of Man is Lord even of
the Sabbath. But the issue of the Sabbath observance in today’s
Gospel also invites us to
consider how we ourselves are observing the Sabbath Day, the Lord’s
Day. Our danger is that we will hardly observe it at all. Our Lord in
no way abrogated the Sabbath, and the Church instructs
the faithful to be very careful indeed about making the Lord’s Day a
day of religious observance. It is to be a day given over more to the
Lord and to his friendship. It ought be a day when we
recuperate our lives and resume our service of God with renewed zest
and joy, setting aside our normal work in order to make him the primary
object of the day. If we do this, our entire week with its daily work
will be much more easily sanctified. The danger in our modern secular culture is that Sunday can become more and more just another working day of the week, with Sunday Mass fitted in somewhere and the business of the week carrying on once Mass is over. Sunday is the Lord’s Day and it should be observed as such. Of course, nothing can be done if one’s employer requires work on a Sunday under pain of losing the job, but in great numbers of cases it is the personal choice of people to work on Sundays simply to earn more money - while saying that it is “needed” and so “necessary”. Parents easily encourage their children to adopt this attitude and the true and valuable sense of the Sunday is often almost entirely lost from the family. The family gradually reduces the observance of the Sunday simply to getting to Mass and nothing more. The purpose of the Church’s insistence that servile work be avoided and that it be a “day of rest” is that Sunday become the “Lord’s Day” in one’s life. Of course, Mass is the heart and soul of the Sunday observance, but all too often even this is quite perfunctory. Many families hardly prepare at all for participation in Mass and as a result often it has involved scarcely any encounter with our Lord and immersion in his life and grace.
Contemplate how our Lord observed the Sabbath. Contemplate the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph observing the Sabbath during those years at Nazareth. Consider how, were Jesus a visible presence within your own family, how you and your family would see him observing it. Let us then resolve to recover in our own personal life and in the life of our families the observance of the Sunday in the way the Church asks that it be observed. Every Sunday ought be the Lord's Day, a day given to him. It is one of the ten commandments that we remember to make holy the Sabbath day. There is no doubt that a true observance of the Sunday will be a powerful means of growing in holiness and sanctifying the week that follows it. It will contribute to the making of saints.
(E.J.Tyler)
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"On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees" (Luke 14:1-6)
On the meaning of the Sabbath: from The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§ 345-349)
The Sabbath - the end of the work of the six days. the sacred text says that "on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done", that the "heavens and the earth were finished", and that God "rested" on this day and sanctified and blessed it. (Gn 2:1-3) These inspired words are rich in profitable instruction:
In creation God laid a foundation and established laws that remain firm, on which the believer can rely with confidence, for they are the sign and pledge of the unshakeable faithfulness of God's covenant. For his part man must remain faithful to this foundation, and respect the laws which the Creator has written into it.
Creation was fashioned with a view to the Sabbath and therefore for the worship and adoration of God. Worship is inscribed in the order of creation. As the rule of St. Benedict says, nothing should take precedence over "the work of God", that is, solemn worship. This indicates the right order of human concerns.
The Sabbath is at the heart of Israel's law. To keep the commandments is to correspond to the wisdom and the will of God as expressed in his work of creation.
The eighth day. But for us a new day has dawned: the day of Christ's Resurrection. the seventh day completes the first creation. the eighth day begins the new creation. Thus, the work of creation culminates in the greater work of redemption. the first creation finds its meaning and its summit in the new creation in Christ, the splendour of which surpasses that of the first creation.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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We cannot separate the seed of doctrine from the seed of piety. The only way to inoculate your work of sowing doctrine against the germs of ineffectiveness is by being sincerely devout.
(The Forge, no.918)
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In what does hell consist?
Hell consists in the eternal damnation of those who die in mortal sin through their own free choice. The principal suffering of hell is eternal separation from God in whom alone we can have the life and happiness for which we were created and for which we long. Christ proclaimed this reality with the words, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire” (Matthew 25:41) (CCC 1033-1035; 1056-1057)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.212)
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Saturday of the thirtieth week of Ordinary Time II
(November 4) Saint Charles Boromeo, bishop (1538-1584) Born in Italy, he was a doctor in law, a cardinal and Archbishop of Milan. He was one of the chief agents of the successful conclusion of the Council of Trent and the drafting of the Catechism. In his diocese, he zealously applied the spirit of the Council, established Sunday schools, houses for orphans and the poor, and renewed the moral life of the clergy and religious. He established diocesan seminaries, for which he wrote rules that became the model. (Saints)
Scripture: Philippians 1:18b-26; Psalm 42:2, 3, 5cdef; Luke 14:1, 7-11
On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honour at the table. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honour. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:1, 7-11)
It is often stated that true religion is incompatible with violence, and that men of good will everywhere have an instinctive sense that this is so. Whence comes the sense of this? Perhaps it springs from the
natural
conscience, from
an innate sense that man should acknowledge God (and so be religious)
and that God is good (and therefore prohibits violence). Perhaps. It is
also often stated that true religion is incompatible with pride. That
is to say that men of good will everywhere have an instinctive sense
that a proud man is not very religious. Whence comes this sense of
things? Perhaps it comes down to man’s instinctive sense of what God is
like, and this in turn may derive from his natural conscience and its
sense of the good. Perhaps - that is my own personal speculation.
In
our Gospel today we have our Lord’s teaching on humility, given in “the
home of one
of the leading Pharisees”, which is to say to a religious leader among
the people. Our Lord noticed how he and his friends “were choosing the
places of honour at the table.” He went on to give a brief parable
showing that pride leads to a fall. Our Lord’s lesson was that
“everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles
himself with be exalted” (Luke 14:11).In the way of Christ humility is absolutely fundamental. St Paul tells us that although he was in “the form of God” Christ Jesus did not cling on to this exalted condition but humbled himself and became as men are, and indeed lowlier still even to the point of accepting death on a cross. God is revealed as being profoundly humble. Our Gospel scene today shows our Lord, the infinite God made man, calmly accepting silent hostility and the affront of suspicions. In his incarnation and entire life he chooses the lower place, embodying his own teaching given in today’s Gospel. He humbled himself by choosing the way of witnessing to the truth that he knew would lead to humiliation, and for this he was exalted by the Father. Furthermore, inasmuch as Christ is the image of the unseen God, the humility of Jesus reflects the humility of the Father, and in turn this divine humility is the very Spirit of God who is the life of God. At our baptism into the life of Christ we received the gift of the Holy Spirit and with this gift comes the grace to live a life of humility, the humility which Christ lived. So then, let us recognize that in order to live in Christ we must fight resolutely against the pride which is so much part of our fallen condition. We fight against pride by consistently accepting and choosing the more lowly place in imitation of the Master. If the higher place comes our way then we accept it for the greater glory of God, but the fight against pride and the choice of humility must go on.
The spiritual masters teach that the path to humility is the path of humiliation. To follow this path we need to have constantly before us the example of our Saviour, and the constant assistance of his grace. In our choice of humility let us start by being resolutely grateful, especially when little humiliations come. Let us recognize that we are entirely the beneficiary of God’s goodness. If we give thanks to him and praise him always, in good times and especially in bad, we shall be well on the way towards living a life of Christ-like humility.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Commentary by St Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), Cistercian monk and doctor of the Church
(Sermon 37 on the Song of Songs)
If each of us could clearly see the truth of our condition in God's sight, it would be our duty to depart neither upwards nor downwards from that level, but to conform to the truth in all things. Since God's judgment however, is now in darkness and his word is hidden from us… So, it is certainly the better thing, the safer thing, to follow the advice of him who is truth, and choose for ourselves the last place. Afterwards we may be promoted from there with honour… If you pass through a low doorway you suffer no hurt however much you bend, but if you raise your head higher than the doorway, even by a finger's breadth, you will dash it against the lintel and injure yourself. So also a man has no need to fear any humiliation, but he should quake with fear before rashly yielding to even the least degree of self-exaltation.
So then, beware of comparing yourself with your betters or your inferiors, with a particular few or with even one. For how do you know but that this one person, whom you perhaps regard as the vilest and most wretched of all, whose life you recoil from and spurn as more befouled and wicked, not merely than yours, for you trust you are a sober-living man and just and religious, but even than all other wicked men; how do you know, I say, but that in time to come, with the aid of the right hand of the Most High, he will not surpass both you and them if he has not done so already in God's sight? That is why God wished us to choose neither a middle seat nor the last but one, nor even one of the lowest rank; for he said, "Sit down in the lowest place," that you may sit alone, last of all, and not dare to compare yourself, still less to prefer yourself, to anyone.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Just as all the powerful machinery in dozens of factories is brought to a standstill and rendered useless when the electricity fails, so does apostolate cease to bear fruit when prayer and mortification fail, for they are what move the Sacred Heart of Christ.
(The Forge, no.919)
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How can one reconcile the existence of hell with the infinite goodness of God?
God, while desiring “all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9), nevertheless has created the human person to be free and responsible; and he respects our decisions. Therefore, it is the human person who freely excludes himself from communion with God if at the moment of death he persists in mortal sin and refuses the merciful love of God. (CCC 1036-1037)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 213)
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Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time II (B)
(November 5) Today let us think of Saint Sylvia (Saints)
Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Psalm 18: 2-3, 3-4, 47, 51; Hebrews 7: 23-28; Mark 12: 28b-34
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, 'He is One and there is no other than he.' And 'to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself' is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
(Mark 12:28b-34)
In some societies there is enormous pressure on the young to attain academic success during school and then at university. From the parents’ point of view, so much of their children’s “success” in life depends on it. In our own society and culture there are various criteria of “success” that are brought to bear on
people, and it is not
hard to be made to feel that one has been a failure. It has been said
that youth is the time of hopes while maturity is the time of regrets,
for very many people look back on their lives and mostly see failures
and lost opportunities. So then, success and failure in life is a
universal issue, and life is commonly judged in terms of success or
failure. The question is though, in what does success and failure
consist?
Society considers a person successful if he has attained considerable
eminence (and therefore remuneration) in his chosen profession,
or exercises considerable influence in society, or has had a very happy
marriage, or has had a very contented life, or few worries with his
children, or any one of many such things. A successful life is deemed
to be a
life of contentment and satisfaction, and to a point there is some
truth
in this. But what has God to say about it? What is the path to ultimate
success which if followed cannot go wrong in the final analysis? That
path is the one revealed by God, for he gives the key to life and all
reality. God has revealed that the key consists in loving him by keeping his commandments. This key opens the door of ultimate success to all. One can attain the highest positions in society, one can attain considerable influence over others, one can lead a fairly happy life free of the misfortunes of many other people, and yet in the sight of God be a failure. This will happen if a person makes little attempt to find and do the will of God. Now, what is the will of God for every one of us? Our Lord in today’s Gospel tells us (Mark 12:28b-34). In the first instance we are commanded to love God with our whole being, and secondly we are to love our neighbour as ourself. A person can be very eminent in his professional service of others while failing to perform this service with much love. A person can enjoy a fortunate life in the eyes of people and yet be lacking in love for God. On the other hand a person of relatively modest and even meagre abilities may experience many failures in life due to it being rarely given him to occupy a suitable niche, and yet his life may be one of great advance in divine love. He may be hidden from the notice of society around him and even dismissed as something of a “nobody”, and yet the one thing necessary may be growing in him, which is divine love. If this is happening, a “nobody” such as this will be a success in the eyes of God.
The heart and soul of a successful human and Christian life is love. That is the teaching of our Lord, and it is therefore the key to a successful life in ultimate terms. A person who is striving to love God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself will, of course, use his talents for God and others in as professional and competent a way as possible. This loving dedication of himself may bring him “success” as society regards it, but that worldly acclaim will be considered by him as basically a side-issue. He knows that his true success ultimately lies in the degree of love for God and neighbour that informs his life and all he does. However, whatever be the worldly success that comes to this or that person, the average person in society is a little person. He is what we commonly call a “nobody”. The unnoticed ones often experience bad luck, misfortune for a variety of reasons such as the loss of employment, bad health and financial difficulties. At times there could be some marriage difficulties and problems with the children in the family. But despite all these upsets and disappointments and failures, the so-called “nobody” can attain true success in life. That success consists in growing in a profound and humble love of God and love of neighbour whatever be his circumstances. This, more than anything, is the project to set one's eyes on. Time and again we see this love in the little people, while it is often lacking in the rich and successful. It is this striving for divine love which is open to all of us, rich and the poor alike, the influential and the nobodies. Life’s true goal is the holiness that consists in the love of Christ, and using the means to attain it.
At the end of life with moments to go before we appear before the judgment of God, the only thing which will matter will be the degree to which we love God with all our heart. That in turn will depend on the extent to which in our ordinary daily duties over the course of life we have striven to love God with our whole being and our neighbour as ourself. In this way is the ordinary life of the little person transformed into a life of ultimate grandeur. Let us take the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as our model of perfect love in the ordinary life.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.1822-1829
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Loving God produces the love of our neighbour (Mark 12:28b-34)
Commentary by Saint Francis of Sales (1567-1622), Bishop in Geneva and doctor of the Church
(Treatise on the Love of God, 10:11)
As God created man to his own image and likeness (Gn 1:26), so did he appoint for man a love after the image and resemblance of the love which is due to his own divinity. He said: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart; this is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Why do we love God? "The cause for which we love God," says S. Bernard, "is God Himself;" as though he had said: we love God because he is the most sovereign and infinite goodness. And why do we love ourselves in charity? Surely because we are the image and likeness of God; and whereas all men are endowed with the same dignity, we love them also as ourselves, that is, as being holy and living images of the divinity.
For it is on that account… that he makes no difficulty to call himself our father, and to call us his children; it is on that account that we are capable of being united to his divine essence by the fruition of his sovereign goodness and felicity; it is on that account that we receive his grace, that our spirits are associated to his most Holy Spirit, and made in a manner participant of his divine nature (2P 1:4)... And therefore the same charity which produces the acts of the love of God produces at the same time those of the love of our neighbour. And even as Jacob saw that one same ladder touched heaven and earth, serving the angels both for descending and ascending (Gn 28:12), so we know that one same charity extends itself to both the love of God and our neighbour.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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If you follow faithfully the promptings of grace, you will yield good fruit, lasting fruit for the glory of God. To be a saint necessarily entails being effective, even though the saint may not see or be aware of the results.
(The Forge, no.920)
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In what does the final judgment consist?
The final or universal judgment consists in a sentence of happiness or eternal condemnation, which the Lord Jesus will issue in regard to the “just and the unjust” (Acts 24:15) when he returns as the Judge of the living and the dead. After the last judgment, the resurrected body will share in the retribution which the soul received at the particular judgment. (CCC 1038-1041, 1058-1059)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.214)
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Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 6)Today let us think of St Leonard and St Bertile (Saints)
Scripture: Philippians 2:1-4; Psalm 131:1bcde, 2, 3; Luke 14:12-14
On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees. He said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbours, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14:12-14)
Let us place ourselves in the scene of today’s Gospel. Our Lord had been invited to the home of a leading Pharisee. There are other scenes in the Gospel in which our Lord is shown in dining in the home of a Pharisee, which indicates that even though they were among his most blind and persistent enemies, he
graciously accepted
invitations from them too. Our Lord came to save all. For instance, he
dined
with a leading tax collector such as Zacchaeus, with other publicans
and sinners, with friends such as Martha, Mary and Lazarus, and with
Scribes and Pharisees, including leading Pharisees. So there he is in
the home of the leading Pharisee, and his words of spiritual advice to
the Pharisee are given to us. We can imagine our Lord speaking calmly,
perhaps quietly, and all the while smiling as he spoke. He directs his
remarks to his host, but of course the others who are present would be
listening and taking in his words. Our Lord is saying to the Pharisee
that when it comes to showing hospitality and liberality he ought have
a preference for showing it to “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the
blind” (Luke
14:12-14). We can just imagine how much of a surprise this
teaching would have been to our Pharisee and how unused he would have
been
to the very thought of it. But he had before him not only One who
taught this doctrine but who in his practice exemplified it. It was
precisely the scribes and the Pharisees who criticised our Lord for
associating and dining even with the “sinners”. Let us ask ourselves if there is any sense in which we follow our Lord’s teaching in this respect. Our Lord’s meaning is plain: we ought have a special desire to help and favour the poor and the unfortunate. If our Lord were to be dining in our house, perhaps he would find need to direct this same teaching to us, that “when you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbours, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:12-14). Of course, in our attempts to follow our Lord closely each day we must be practical. Nevertheless, is it the case that there is virtually nothing in our Christian life of what our Lord is asking for in today’s Gospel? The danger is that in relation to those aspects of Christian teaching which we find uncomfortable or perplexing (such as favouring the poor and the unfortunate) we might shelve the matter and never really try to make Christ’s teaching part of our life. Perhaps what our Lord says at the end of his remarks to the Pharisee may assist us to act: “Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” We will be repaid abundantly in heaven for anything we do to the least. Let us keep our eyes on our heavenly goal while we spend ourselves in a Christlike service of God here below.
In the 25th chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel our Lord describes the Last Judgement. How we treat the needy will be a most decisive factor in how we are judged. The Judge will say to us that “whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine you did to me.” The Christian religion is a religion involving the service and following of Christ who loves and identifies with the needy. If we neglect them we neglect the person of Christ. If we love and serve them, we are loving and serving him.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“When you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” (Luke 14:12-14)
Commentary by Saint Gregory Nazianzen (330-390), Bishop, Doctor of the Church
On love of the poor, 4-6
The first and the greatest of the commandments, that on which the Law and the prophets are based (Mt 22:40), is love, which it seems to me brings its greatest proof in love of the poor, in tenderness and compassion for one’s neighbour. Nothing gives as much honor to God as mercy, for nothing is more like him. “Mercy and truth go before him,” (Ps 89:15) and he prefers mercy to judgment (Hos 6:6). Nothing attracts the kindness of the Friend of humankind as much as kindness towards human beings (Wis 1:6); his reward is just, he weighs and measures mercy.
We must open our heart to all who are poor and to all who are unhappy, whatever their suffering might be. That is the meaning of the commandment which requires us to “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” (Rom 12:15) Since we are also human beings, is it not right and proper for us to be kind towards those who are like us?
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Rectitude of intention consists in seeking "only and in all things'' the glory of God.
(The Forge, no.921)
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When will this judgment occur?
This judgment will come at the end of the world and only God knows the day and the hour. (CCC 1040)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.215)
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Tuesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 7) Today let us think of Saint Carina and her Companions (Saints)
Scripture: Philippians 2:5-11; Psalm 22:26b-27, 28-30ab, 30e, 31-32; Luke 14:15-24
One of those at table with Jesus said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’ The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’ The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled. For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’” (Luke 14:15-24)
Many different metaphors are used in Scripture to describe heaven. In our Gospel passage today both the one speaking to Jesus and Jesus himself speaking in reply refer to heaven as a banquet. Perhaps the use of this image in this context also indicates the joy that typically radiated from our Lord as he reclined with the
others at the meal. In
any case, one of those at table with Jesus observed that those who
dined in the Kingdom of God would be blessed, the point being that
heaven is the object of all man’s yearnings for happiness. In reply our
Lord told a parable. God is like a man who gave a great feast and
wanted many to come. But when the invitation went out those who were
especially invited all of them had excuses. Presumably our Lord was
directing his parable in particular to those of God’s chosen people who
ought especially to have been aware of God’s election of them. They all
had reasons for declining to come. That is to say, they were not
interested. Their desires were for things other than the banquet
and the company of the master. So they were passed over and the
invitation went out to
“the highways and hedgerows” - to the generality of men, which is to
say, to all men. All are called to be disciples of Christ. All are
called to the Kingdom of God, and we are among their number. Our Lord’s
parable is a pointer to the mission he would give to his disciples as
he was about to ascend to heaven. They were to go to the whole world
and make disciples of all the nations.Though we are all called to holiness and to membership in the Kingdom, the basic issue will be the same as that presented in the Gospel of today. Are we prepared to take up the invitation in earnest, or will our hearts be attached to other interests, as were the hearts of those who were invited in the Gospel (Luke 14:15-24)? Our partaking of the banquet God plans for us for all eternity will depend on whether we truly want to be there. We must develop a great desire for what God is offering each of us. We must want it. The story is often mentioned of how the sister of Saint Thomas Aquinas once asked him what is the path that takes on to sanctity. Thomas’s reply was, really want it! God will not force us to the banquet, and if we are not interested then others will be invited, and they may well be extremely interested. How, then, do we come to have the interest which those in the parable lacked? Our interest will come if we grow in love, if we acquire a true love of Jesus, and this can only come by contemplating his person and his teaching. We have to spend time with Jesus, gazing on him with the eyes of the heart, dwelling on his exalted teaching, contemplating the plan of God for us. God is love and we have to come to know the love of God for us, and this is revealed in the person of Jesus. We need to come to know the heart of Christ for his heart is the heart of God. As St Teresa of Avila points out, we come to the knowledge and love of God through the humanity of Christ.
It gets down to this: we shall arrive at the banquet being prepared for us if we love Jesus genuinely, with a love that leads to obedience to his commandments. If you love me, our Lord said, you will keep my commandments. So let us make the love of Christ the daily goal of our life. With that love we will accept the invitation with a full heart and thus arrive at the Kingdom.
(E.J.Tyler)
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The apostolate — which is a sure sign of spiritual life —means being constantly on the lookout so as to supernaturalize each detail of the day, whether big or small, by putting the love of God into everything one does
(The Forge, no.922)
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What is the hope of the new heavens and the new earth?
After the final judgment the universe itself, freed from its bondage to decay, will share in the glory of Christ with the beginning of “the new heavens” and a “new earth” (2 Peter 3:13). Thus, the fullness of the Kingdom of God will come about, that is to say, the definitive realization of the salvific plan of God to “unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). God will then be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28) in eternal life. (CCC 1042-1050, 1060)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.216)
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Wednesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 8) Today let us think of Saint Godfrey (Saints)
Scripture today: Philippians 2:12-18; Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14; Luke 14:25-33
Great crowds were travelling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’ Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? (Luke 14:25-33)
Our Gospel scene today opens with the spectacle of “great crowds” travelling with Jesus. Let us think of those who were caught up in the throng and who were surging along for so many different reasons. Some perhaps enjoyed the novelty, others were looking for a cure, others were fascinated by our Lord’s
unique teaching and
authority, others were curious to watch some striking cures. On one
occasion, for instance, our Lord was being followed by a crowd and they
approached the town of Nain. We remember what happened - our Lord
raised a young man from the dead and gave him back to his mother. All
this gave to our Lord a great fame and many followed him because of his
fame, his authoritative teaching, and for the good he unhesitatingly
did. But were
they his disciples? Hardly. In respect to his “disciples” we remember
the effect of our Lord preaching his doctrine of the Eucharist: most of
those who were his disciples at that point left him, saying that that
teaching was simply too much. So then, the great crowds were travelling
with Jesus for a variety of reasons, and could hardly be regarded as
anything like true disciples. Perhaps we could view that scene of the
crowds following Jesus as something of a snapshot of much of human
history since the time of our Lord. There have been and are and will be
very many travelling along in the proximity of Jesus, but that
proximity with him does
not make of them his disciples. What then does make one a disciple of
Jesus?We have the answer to this question in our Gospel passage today (Luke 14:25-33). True discipleship involves giving Christ our whole heart, and expressing this by fidelity to him under very difficult circumstances. It was precisely when he had these great crowds behind him that our Lord turned to them and told them the conditions for being his disciple. It involves much more than simply following along behind, moving in some proximity with him. It involves more than simply being among those who are Christians. Discipleship involves more than simply membership in the Church by baptism, essential as this fundamental requirement is. Discipleship involves being “full-on” in the gift of one’s heart to Jesus as Lord. Our Lord expresses it a graphic metaphor: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Our Lord is using expressions intended to strike deeply into our religious imagination. He wants our whole heart and nothing less, and anything that prevents this is to be set aside. This is the first commandment, he told a questioner on another occasion, that “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” This is what it means to be his disciple. This love will be expressed in a close following of him in the midst of daily difficulties and when circumstances are very difficult: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:25-33).
Let us imagine ourselves in that great crowd of people following along after Jesus. Let us imagine our Lord turning to the crowd and uttering the words we read in our Gospel today, and let us imagine him looking into our eyes while he is saying this. Let us allow his words to penetrate our hearts as a loving invitation to follow him with our whole heart. Let us not be like the good young man who, laden with his interests and many possessions, having heard Christ's invitation turned away sad.
(E.J.Tyler)
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As a bookmark for whatever book he happened to be reading, he always used a strip of paper with the following phrase written on it in a bold and energetic hand: Ure igne Sancti Spiritus! —Inflame with the fire of the Holy Spirit! You could almost say that, rather than writing the words, he had engraved them. O Christian, I wish I could leave this divine fire emblazoned upon your soul, burning on your lips and setting alight everything you do.
(The Forge, no.923)
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What is the meaning of the word “Amen” with which we conclude our profession of faith?
The Hebrew word “Amen”, which also concludes the last book of Sacred Scripture, some of the prayers of the New Testament, and the liturgical prayers of the Church, expresses our confident and total “yes” to what we professed in the Creed, entrusting ourselves completely to him who is the definitive “Amen” (Revelation 3:14), Christ the Lord. (CCC 1061-1065)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.217)
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Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome
(Thursday of the thirty first week of Ordinary Time II)
(November 9) The Lateran basilica is the cathedral of the Pope’s diocese of Rome. It was built in the time of Constantine and was consecrated by Pope Sylvester in 324. This feast became a universal celebration in honour of the basilica called “the mother and mistress of all churches of Rome and the world” as a sign of love for and union with the See of Peter. (Saints)
Ezechiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9; 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11,16-17; John 2:13-22
Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, Zeal for your house will consume me. At this the Jews answered and said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his Body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22)
Today the universal Church celebrates the Feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. Every diocese commemorates the dedication of its own Cathedral, and in the Australian Ordo of the Liturgical Year the date of the dedication of every diocesan Cathedral in the country is noted. Why is this? The Cathedral is the
seat
or See (“kathedra” in Greek) of the Bishop of the diocese, the chair
from
which he
teaches and governs, the altar at which he celebrates the Eucharist and
dispenses
the Sacraments, and the place from which he exercises his unifying
ministry as a successor of the Apostles. In this sense it may be said
that within the diocese Christ as head of his body is especially
present and active where the Bishop has his Chair. With good reason,
then, the local Church celebrates the dedication of the Cathedral. But
of course the local Church makes present the more fundamental ecclesial
reality which is the universal Church, and this it is able to do by
being in full communion with the Church Catholic. Christ founded his
“Church” on the
rock of Simon Peter, and his “Church” was to be brought to all the
nations. Christ’s “Church” - his disciples gathered around Peter and
the Apostles - were charged with the mission of going to the whole
world and making disciples of all the nations. Thus the Catholic Church
is prior to the founding of any local diocesan Church, and the Catholic
Church is made present and embodied in the local (Catholic) Church.
Communion with
the universal Church is immensely important for every Catholic and
every local Church. It is a
cardinal point of Catholic faith.This is why we celebrate every year the dedication of the Cathedral of St John Lateran. It is the Cathedral of the diocese of Rome. It is the locale of the Chair or See of the Bishop of Rome from which he governs and teaches, and with this See every other chair of the Catholic Church must be in full communion. Christ as Head of the universal Church is especially present in the Chair of Rome, and any chair that loses its communion with the Chair of Rome is by that fact separated from full membership in the Catholic Church. That is why in the life of the Christian and in the life of every local Church there is a very important question to be asked. It is, “What does Rome say?” What the Chair of Rome teaches is the authoritative guide to the life of the Catholic Church for through that Chair the voice of Christ is authoritatively heard in each generation. What Jesus the Master revealed is presented again and again and is applied to the age. All of this we recognize and renew in our celebration of the Feast of the dedication of the Roman Cathedral of St John Lateran, the Chair of the Bishop of Rome. All Christians are called by Christ to be in full communion with this Bishop as he teaches and ministers as Christ’s universal Vicar, having authority and jurisdiction over the universal Church. So today we think of Christ present in the person of the Pope, Successor of Saint Peter the Rock of Christ’s Church, the visible foundation of the unity of the universal Church. The unseen Christ is the rock of the Church, and the Pope as his vicar is its visible rock. If we wish to be in communion with Christ and his Church, we must be in communion with the Pope. Our communion ought be heartfelt too. Pope St Pius X once wrote that it not possible to be holy if we do not love the Pope.
On this Feast day - and let us note that it is a Feast day in the Liturgical Year - let us renew that most important element of our Catholic faith which is our love for and religious obedience to the See of Saint Peter, recognizing in the Pope and his teaching the presence and activity of Jesus the Church's Head. Many saints - Saint Thomas More is but one example - have died for the doctrine that the Pope is the universal pastor of the Catholic Church. All must recognize this as a linchpin of Catholic life.
(E.J.Tyler)
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You should try to have the holy shamelessness of a child who knows that his Father God always sends him what is best. That is why he doesn't worry when even the apparently most essential things are lacking; and with complete serenity he says: At least I still have the Holy Spirit with me.
(The Forge, no.924)
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What is the liturgy?
The liturgy is the celebration of the mystery of Christ and in particular his paschal mystery. Through the exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ the liturgy manifests in signs and brings about the sanctification of humankind. The public worship which is due to God is offered by the Mystical Body of Christ, that is, by its head and by its members. (CCC 1066-1070)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.218)
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Friday of the thirty-first week of Ordinary Time II
(November 10) St Leo the Great, pope and doctor of the Church (died 451). During his pontificate the Council of Chalcedon (451) defined that there is in Christ one divine person and two natures, divine and human. It was a confirmation of his Epistola Dogmatica (Tome) to the Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople. He vigorously defended the unity of the Church. He pushed back the onrush of the barbarians under Attila the Hun. (Saints)
Scripture today: Philippians 3:17-4:1; Psalm 122:1-2, 3-4ab, 4cd-5; Luke 16:1-8
Jesus said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.’ He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’ Then to another he said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.’ And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.” (Luke 16:1-8)
There have been many influential teachers in the world. Names that come immediately to mind are Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, Mahomet, and many others besides. Transcending them all is the person of Jesus whose teaching is the truth in absolute terms. It is interesting
to notice, incidentally,
that when we
compare the method of teaching of our Lord to that of, say, some of the
greatest of philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, our Lord is
notable for his simplicity of expression. It is accessible to all and
it has, furthermore, a living voice to explain its sense
authoritatively through the
ages. That voice is the teaching magisterium (authority) of the
Catholic Church, the oracle of Christ for each generation. Christ’s
teaching is concrete, pictorial, expressed in everyday language, and
constantly illustrated with images. People love to think pictorially
and
with the aid of images. They enjoy “comic strips”, movies, plays,
literature, stories. Observe how our Lord commonly uses parables,
and he uses one such in today’s Gospel. The parable, embodying his
teaching, is the story of a devious steward who shrewdly takes
advantage of his
final days in his job to secure his future - at the expense of his
master. He knew how to attain his goal. The point our Lord is making is
that we must learn how to attain our eternal goal. We ought be shrewd
in our grasp of what steps will
bring us to eternal life here and hereafter. All too often, our Lord
tells us, those who live for this world are much more astute in
attaining their goals than those who have the light of Revelation are
in attaining theirs. So then, what are the steps to be taken to attain the end God plans for us? Firstly, we must be clear about our goal. The dishonest steward knew very clearly what his goal was: it was security after the looming termination of his employment. Our goal is security in heaven, an eternity with the infinite, all-holy and all-loving God. More exactly, our goal is the fulness of eternal life that God has planned for each of us, that measure of holiness to which we are called. Each of us is called to the perfection of the Christian life, loving God with our whole heart and mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourself, with Christ as our model, and with his grace and life as our wherewithal. That is our goal, and if we are to achieve it - and while eternity is long, life is very short - we must be shrewd in selecting and using the means to get there. We must take the necessary steps to reach personal holiness in Christ. Otherwise our allotted time will rapidly pass and we will go to God with nothing to show. The steps are clear to all. We must give ourselves to Christ totally and nourish our union with him by daily personal prayer, by regular spiritual reading, by devoutly partaking of the Sacraments, especially the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, we must work in a dedicated and Christ-like way at our daily duties and responsibilities thoroughly and perseveringly, and we must strive to do all with love. We must take concrete steps to attain sanctity.
Let us learn from our Lord’s story of the dishonest steward to be an achiever of God's goals for us. Let us take on board not the dishonesty of the steward but his shrewdness in choice of means to attain his goal. Let us make God’s plan for us our daily goal, and let us shewdly and perseveringly use the means Christ has given to us to attain it.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Please say a prayer each day for the following intention: that all of us Catholics may be faithful and determined to struggle to be saints. It is so obviously reasonable. What else are we to desire for those we love, for those who are bound to us by the strong ties of the faith?
(The Forge, no.925)
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What place does the liturgy occupy in the life of the Church?
The liturgy as the sacred action par excellence is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed and it is likewise the font from which all her power flows. Through the liturgy Christ continues the work of our redemption in, with and through his Church. (CCC 1071-1075)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.219)
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Saturday of the thirty-first week of Ordinary Time II
(November 11) Saint Martin of Tours, bishop (316-397) Born to pagan parents in Hungary, he was first a soldier before he was baptized. He founded a monastery in France and later became Bishop of Tours. He sent missionaries to evangelize the country and to educate the clergy. (Saints)
Scripture today: Philippians 4:10-19; Psalm 112:1b-2, 5-6, 8a and 9; Luke 16:9-15
Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And he said to them, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.” (Luke 16:9-15)
To a very great extent the course of human history and the lives of individuals revolve around the quest for wealth and material possessions. This is natural because man is part of the material world while not being reducible to it, and so he needs material things. Because he is material he needs material goods for his own consumption, for his protection and for his future livelihood. Even though tremendous mistakes
have
been made by
certain thinkers who have reduced the laws and goals of
human history to merely economic ones, nevertheless much
of human life and history is indeed economic. That having been said,
it is fundamental for man to
come to grips with the correct attitude to wealth and material
possessions. For this, as for everything, we above all look to our Lord
for what God has revealed, and our Gospel passage today provides us
with
much food for thought. Firstly, our Lord makes clear, we must use our
wealth in the light of our true destiny. Our homeland is in heaven, and
our Lord tells us to “make friends for yourselves with dishonest
wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal
dwellings” (Luke
16:9-15).
Wealth will eventually fail, and it tends to lead us into wrong. So it
is “tainted”. Being
alert to this, we must use it well so that we “make friends”, the kind
of friends who will welcome us into eternity. That is to say, in all
our use of money we must use it in a way
pleasing to God so that it will take us to him. This point regarding the proper use we make of money and material possessions leads to the deeper point set forth in typically graphic manner by our Lord. “No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Our Lord asks for our whole heart. As he says elsewhere in the Gospel, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” Material possessions can, due to the fallen condition of our hearts and their profound inclination to assume the first place ahead of God, easily be used to support this form of self-idolatry. We only have to look at human history to see that the quest for material possessions can very easily lead to the delusion that we are secure, that we do not need God, and indeed that we are gods. Consider the ancient emperors and kings who arrogated to themselves a divine status, kings such as several of the Pharoahs, Alexander the Great and some of his successors, and several of the Roman Caesars. Their possessions and dominions (gained often by massacre and seizure) fed this delusion. For this reason wealth tends to be “dishonest” or “tainted” as our Gospel passage puts it, because of the way we use and regard it. If we love money, it will act dishonestly with us and will taint us. We cannot, our Lord teaches, love both God and mammon. Rather we must love God and use money and possessions in the loving service of God and our neighbour.
Let us ponder our Lord’s words today in respect to our attitude towards money and material possessions. The world tends to set its heart on material wealth. The Pharisees, who loved money, laughed at our Lord’s teaching. We are not likely to laugh at it but the danger is that we could quietly ignore it. If we do, we shall never attain the holiness to which we are called.
(E.J.Tyler)
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When I am told that there are people dedicated to God who are no longer striving with fervour for sanctity, I think that — if there is any truth in this — their lives are heading towards great failure.
(The Forge, no.926)
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In what does the sacramental economy consist?
The sacramental economy consists in the communication of the fruits of Christ’s redemption through the celebration of the sacraments of the Church, most especially that of the Eucharist, “until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). (CCC 1076)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.220)
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Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time B
(November 12) St Josaphat, bishop and martyr (1580-1623). Born in Ukraine (Russia) of Orthodox parents, be became a Catholic and a Basilian monk. Chosen bishop he worked faithfully for the unity of the Church until he was martyred by a mob. (Saints)
Scripture: 1 Kings 17:10-16; Psalm 146:7, 8-9, 9-10; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44 or 12:41-44
In the course of his teaching Jesus said to the crowds, "Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honour in synagogues, and places of honour at banquets. They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation." He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, "Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood." (Mark 12:38-44)
Let us notice in our Gospel passage who are the people our Lord chooses to comment on. In the first couple of sentences he speaks of the scribes. They studied the Scriptures and the Law and were respected and given places of honour at banquets and in synagogues. They loved the honour they were accorded. But let us note that our Lord also says that they devoured the houses of widows while simultaneously
appearing religious. So
in the midst of all their religious observance they avariciously
“devoured” the possessions of the poor (indeed, their very houses) -
how they did this we are not told. They may have used their skill in
the Law subtly to defraud widows or prey on their religious spirit,
convincing
them to give of their means far beyond anything the Law intended.
Perhaps they did this while projecting the image of piety. In any case
they had no true love for the poor which had been commanded by God in
the Old Testament. Such were the scribes, or at least those of them
whom our
Lord chose to indict. Then the scene shifts to a poor widow, which is
to say to a representative of those our Lord said were materially
oppressed by the scribes. Our Lord is seated there in the Temple
observing how
“many rich people put in large sums” into the Temple treasury, and he
was not impressed. All they had done was to put in what they did not
need anyway. But then there came forward a poor widow, unnoticed, and
with practically nothing to offer. But all that tiny sum she had -
which
was “her whole livelihood” - she put into the treasury for the worship
and honour of God (Mark
12:38-44).When the Church canonizes a holy person she is not intending to say that the only saints are those who have been formally canonized. Great as is the holiness of the one who is canonized, there is nothing to prevent us from presuming that not only are there other equally holy persons in heaven who are unknown to us, but quite possibly many whose sanctity exceeds that of several who have been canonized. They would be among those whom the Church thinks of on the Feast of All Saints just before All Souls Day. Well then, our Lord holds up before us this poor widow who gave to God everything she had to live on. She was poor, very poor. She was completely detached from the material possessions she had, and totally attached to God and his interests. She wanted to see God honoured and glorified in his Temple, and she gave everything she had for that purpose. She had no husband, no children of hers are mentioned, and she is unknown. She had lived her life and now she was undoubtedly drawing near to its end. She was a very holy person, and our Lord holds her up for the edification of his disciples. She was an excellent example of what the Hebrew Old Testament calls the “anawim”, the holy poor of Yahweh who depend on him entirely for everything. She was poor in spirit and poor in material possessions and so the Kingdom of heaven was hers. How our Lord would have loved and admired her! There must have been many such in the history of God’s people, for we remember how when the infant Jesus was brought to the Temple he was met by the widow prophetess Anna who spent all her time in the Temple. She too was an example of the holy poor of Yahweh.
Our Lord did not ask his disciples to be as poor as the widow, but he did expect them to be just as detached as she was from material possessions. He expects of his disciples that they love the poor and that they resolutely avoid the love of money and avarice. They are to avoid being like the scribes who were looked on as good and religious while loving money and disregarding the poor, indeed prospering materially while the poor languished. Our Lord asks us to be like him in his love for the poor and the needy. We remember how when he was approaching the town of Nain and a large number of persons were following him. Suddenly there came out a funeral procession, the funeral of an only son of a widow. Full of compassion he stepped forward, raised the dead young man and gave him back to his mother. Our Lord loved the poor and educated his disciples to love the poor. We remember how when Judas left the Last Supper, some thought that perhaps he had gone to give something to the poor. In fact, in his very Incarnation the Son of God, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, chose to become poor for our sakes so that we might be rich. He became as men are and lowlier still, dying on a cross. Let us ask our Lord for the grace to be poor in spirit, to love the poor just as he loved the poor, and always to serve the poor knowing that in loving and serving them we love and serve Christ.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2443-2449
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“Who are these that fly like clouds, and like doves to their nesting places?”, asks the Prophet. And a certain author comments: “Clouds come up from the sea and from rivers, and after circling about or following their course for a certain length of time, return once more to their source.” And I say to you that this is what you have to be: a cloud which makes the world fertile, making it live the life of Christ. Those divine waters will bathe and drench the very depths of the earth, and filter out the many impurities without themselves being dirtied. They shall give forth sparkling springs which will later become streams and mighty rivers able to slake the thirst of mankind. Afterwards you shall return to your shelter, to your boundless Sea, to your God, knowing that the fruits will continue to ripen thanks to the supernatural watering done by your apostolate, and to the fruitfulness of the waters of God which will last until the end of time.
(The Forge, no.927)
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In what way is the Father the source and the goal of the liturgy?
Through the liturgy the Father fills us with his blessings in the Word made flesh who died and rose for us and pours into our hearts the Holy Spirit. At the same time, the Church blesses the Father by her worship, praise, and thanksgiving and begs him for the gift of his Son and the Holy Spirit. (CCC 1077-1083, 1110)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.221)
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Monday of the thirty second week of Ordinary Time II
(November 13) Let us think of St Francis Xavier Cabrini and St Stanislaus Kostka (Saints)
Scripture today: Titus 1:1-9; Psalm 24:1b-2, 3-4ab, 5-6; Luke 17:1-6
Jesus said to his disciples, “Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the one through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him.” And the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Luke 17:1-6)
The worst thing that happened in heaven long before the appearance of man was sin. Some angels sinned. The result was catastrophic for them: they were cast out of God’s presence and were entirely ruined. The worst thing that has ever happened on earth, and it happened right at the dawn of human history, was sin. The first human beings, our first parents, sinned. They rebelled against God and, like some angels long before, they chose to
place themselves before
God in their own estimation. The result was catastrophic for
them. They were cast out of God’s presence and were ruined - not
entirely, but their prospects were doomed because sin brought death.
Thanks be to God, a Saviour was promised who would take away the sin of
the world. The point that is being made here, however, is that the
worst
thing
in the world is and was and will be sin. If sin had not made its
appearance, how different the angelic world and the world of humankind
would be! But granted that sin is part of mankind there is a certain
inevitability about its continuation. It is now inevitable that sin
will be present in the world till the end of time. Men will commit sin,
serious sins and venial sins. Just as Satan prompted man to sin and
just as Eve in turn prompted Adam to sin, so man
will continue to be prompted to sin by Satan, and by other men and
women,
and by his own sinful inclinations. Now, in our Gospel today our Lord
issues a warning. He says that “things that cause sin will
inevitably occur, but woe to the one through whom they occur.” It is a
terrible thing that we can lead others to sin and that they can tempt
us to sin. It is what Satan did at
the beginning and it has been happening ever since.Saint Teresa of Avila (16th century Spain) writes in her Life that “if by the help of God the beginner strives to reach the summit of perfection, I do not believe he will ever go to Heaven alone but will always take many others with him: God treats him like a good captain, and gives him soldiers to go in his company” (Ch.11). By earnestly striving to love God with all our heart we shall lead others to him. Likewise if we are negligent in our love and service of God, and if we move through life resting in our sins with little spirit of repentance, then our course will have its due effect on others. Others will be prompted to sin by the very sight of our mediocrity and our sins. Our Lord gives a stark warning in today's Gospel: “It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Be on your guard!” (Luke 17:1-6). We must be on our guard lest we deliberately or thoughtlessly lead others astray, for thoughtlessness can be entirely reprehensible. Furthermore, we must be on guard lest we be led astray ourselves by the bad example of others and what they suggest. This can happen in the midst of a family and in the midst of one’s marital life when one spouse prompts the other to do what goes against the teaching of the Church. The spouse being thus tempted must be on guard. Just as Eve was responsible for her sin though its prompting came from Satan, and just as Adam was responsible for his sin though its prompting came from Eve, so too whatever be the source of temptation the responsibility will be ours if we sin. So we must be on guard against all occasions and temptations to sin. As our Lord says, "Be on your guard!"
Let us renounce sin and all that can lead to sin. Let us be on guard lest we lead others to sin and to negligence in whatever pertains to God. Let us be on guard against whatever might tempt us in our turn to sin. The worst thing in our life is sin and the worst thing in the world in sin. The greatest thing that we can do for ourselves and for others is to avoid sin and love God.
(E.J.Tyler)
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My child, offer him even the sorrows and sufferings of other people.
(The Forge, no.928)
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What is the work of Christ in the liturgy?
In the liturgy of the Church, it is his own paschal mystery that Christ signifies and makes present. By giving the Holy Spirit to his apostles he entrusted to them and their successors the power to make present the work of salvation through the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments, in which he himself acts to communicate his grace to the faithful of all times and places throughout the world. (CCC 1084-1094)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.222)
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Tuesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 14) Today let us think of St. Sidonius and St. Laurence O'Toole (Saints)
Scripture today: Titus 2:1-8, 11-14: Psalm 37:3-4, 18 and 23, 27 and 29; Luke 17:7-10
Jesus said to the Apostles: “Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’” (Lk 17:7-10)
One of the most heartening developments within the body of the Church in recent decades is the growing realization that all are called to personal holiness. This call comes with baptism. This means that the fundamental decision of life for the Christian is to seek to be a saint in the measure intended by God. The further question then is, along what path shall I pursue this goal? Shall I pursue it married to this or
that person, or as a
single person, or as a priest or a
consecrated religious, or in one of the many other states of life
approved and proposed by the Church? It may not be my calling to seek
sanctity as a priest, but whatever be my calling it is sanctity I must
seek. So there is the fundamental call to holiness arising from
baptism, and there is the more particular call to follow the
concrete path I take to arrive there. Now granted these basic
considerations, there is the further question of what constitutes the
essence of sanctity itself. It is very important that we consider
this because we need to know exactly what we are trying to do each day
in living a good and holy life. There is in man the instinctive desire
to be good, even though he has other far less worthy desires competing
with this very noble one. As St Paul writes in his Letter to the
Romans, I dearly love God’s law, but there is another law fighting
against this within me. What then is it to live a good and holy life in
the sight of God?The Church has answered this question. It is that sanctity consists in the abiding fulfilment of our duties of state out of loving obedience to God. The fulfilment of duty is at the heart of authentic sanctity. We need to refine our sense of what is our God-given duty and we need to be persevering in the fulfilment of it for the glory of God alone. The stress on love - loving God - is very wholesome and essential, but there is this danger that the ideal of love for God can be disconnected from the reality of duty. Sanctity consists in loving God precisely by fulfilling our duties. It means doing our God-given work on earth with love for him and with persevering thoroughness. Our Lord tells us that “if you love me you will keep my commandments.” This is surely what Cardinal Newman meant when he once wrote that authority and obedience is of the essence of religion. He was referring to the centrality of duty in authentic religion. All of this is what our Lord was alluding to when he says in the Gospel passage today that “so should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do’.” (Lk 17:7-10) Being very pleasing to God involves striving to do "all you have been commanded" to do. This means too that sanctity does not consist in great and notable deeds, but in doing very well the work that God has placed before us, no matter how ordinary and hidden it may be. Our Lady’s life was hidden and scarcely noticed, as was that of St Joseph - and indeed as was that of our Lord during the thirty yeas of his life at Nazareth.
The Holy Family fulfilled the duties of their state and vocation simply, humbly and to perfection. Let us contemplate them and ask the Holy Spirit for the wisdom to know what goodness and holiness of life consists in. It consists in the loving fulfilment of our duty, for the glory of God.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Woes? Setbacks deriving from one thing or another? Can't you see that this is the will of your Father-God, who is good and who loves you — loves you personally — more than all the mothers in the world can possibly love their children?
(The Forge, no.929)
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How does the Holy Spirit work in the liturgy of the Church?
The very closest cooperation is at work in the liturgy between the Holy Spirit and the Church. The Holy Spirit prepares the Church to encounter her Lord. He recalls and manifests Christ to the faith of the assembly. He makes the mystery of Christ really present. He unites the Church to the life and mission of Christ and makes the gift of communion bear fruit in the Church. (CCC 1091-1109, 1112)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.223)
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Wednesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 15) St Albert the Great, bishop and doctor of the Church (1206-1280). German by birth, he studied in Padua and Paris. He entered the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans) and taught Theology. In Paris St Thomas was his pupil. A man of great wisdom and encyclopaedic knowledge, he became a bishop and worked to establish peace among peoples and cities. (Saints)
Scripture today: Titus 3:1-7; Psalm 23:1b-3a, 3bc-4, 5, 6; Luke 17:11-19
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he travelled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? (Luke 17:11-19)
There are a number of beautiful features to the event described in our Gospel passage today. What a forlorn spectacle that presented itself to our Lord as he entered this village on the border between Samaria and Galilee! There were ten lepers in a hopeless condition. Infected with this terrible disease which cut them off from all others, they had banded
together
for mutual
support and friendship. But their plight was hopeless. Then the only
one who could possibly help them drew near and they cried out to him
asking for pity. It is surely an image of a far more deadly disease
which affects us profoundly not only now but forever hereafter. That
disease is sin and there is only one who can liberate us from it, Jesus
Christ. The events of our Gospel passage today constitute a parable
about sin and its cleansing, about the merciful power of
Christ, and his mission to bring redemption to afflicted man. His
almighty power was manifested in his pity and mercy, and all ten were
cleansed
as they made their way to show themselves to the priests as the Law of
Moses required. But the climax of the passage comes in the reaction of
the lepers themselves to their own cleansing. What indeed had happened
to the other nine? Where were they? They seem to have gone off
rejoicing and forgetting the giver of the gift. It was a
Samaritan, a heretic, one who did not practice the true and revealed
religion who
returned glorifying and praising God and thanking Jesus. (Luke 17:11-19)We ought, in the presence of Jesus, ask ourselves if we are aware of the predicament we are in, in the grip of sin as we are. We are not completely under the power of sin of course, because we have been baptised into Christ. But to the extent that we have not surrendered ourselves to his friendship to that extent are we in the grip of the leprosy of sin. Sin is the one great ogre we must gradually do away with or it will do away with us, and to the extent that we have not renounced sin to that extent are we under its power. Do we realize our predicament? The Servant of God Pope Pius XII taught that the characteristic sin of our age is the loss of the sense of sin. The lepers understood their predicament, but do we? - for it is only Christ our Lord who can cleanse us. Now, just as he drew near and liberated the lepers from their terrible disease, so too by means of the Sacraments and his word he comes to us liberating us of our sinful situation. Grace is constantly available to us, and our response ought be that of the Samaritan leper who returned glorifying God and thanking our Lord. That is to say, together with the sense of sin there ought be in our life an abiding attitude of praise and gratitude for all that God has done and is doing for us in the person of his divine Son, our one and only Saviour. Every day our attitude to our Lord ought be like that of the grateful Samaritan leper, but especially at that highest moment for offering God thanks and praise which is the Mass, when we unite ourselves with our Lord in his prayer of self-offering to the Father.
The foundation of all religion is humility, and humility is the foundation of all authentic Christian holiness. How can we grow in humility? Start by being deeply grateful and full of enduring praise for the work of God in us. He has saved us from sin and has called and empowered us to be like his Son.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Sincerely examine the way you are following the Master. Ask yourself if your self-surrender is of a dry, officious type, with a faith that has no sparkle to it; if there is no humility or sacrifice, nor any good works throughout your day; if you are all show and pay no attention to the details of each moment|... In a word, if you lack Love. If this is the case, your ineffectiveness should come as no surprise to you. React right away, and be led by the hand of Our Lady.
(The Forge, no.930)
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What are the sacraments and which are they?
The sacraments, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, are efficacious signs of grace perceptible to the senses. Through them divine life is bestowed upon us. There are seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.
(CCC 1113-1131)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.224)
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Thursday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 16) St Margaret of Scotland (1046-1093). Born in Hungary, she was married to King Malcolm III of Scotland. They had eight children. St Gertrude, virgin (1256-1301) Born at Eisleben (Germany), she was received into the Cistercian nunnery. She studied literature and philosophy and applied herself as well in prayer and contemplation. She introduced devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which, centuries later, would spread throughout the Church. (Saints)
St Gertrude, virgin (1256-1301) Born at Eilsleben in Thuringia, as a girl she was brought up by the Cistercian nuns at Helfta, where she did well at her studies especially philosophy and the humanities. She gave herself to God and progressed in a wonderful manner along the paths of perfection, spending her time in prayer and contemplation. (Saints)
Scripture today: Philemon 7-20; Psalm 146:7, 8-9a, 9bc-10; Luke 17:20-25
Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus said in reply, “The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.” Then he said to his disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. There will be those who will say to you, ‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’ Do not go off, do not run in pursuit. For just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.” (Luke 17:20-25)
It has been said that one of the enduring objections of Judaism to the claim that Jesus is the Messiah is the obvious fact that a divinely established universal peace has not come to the earth. Where is the Kingdom of God if the Messiah has already come? What did Jesus of Nazareth actually achieve as to the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth, the Kingdom long prophesied and expected, the Kingdom described by
Isaiah
and the prophets?
If this is what we are to look for from the Messiah, we can understand
this difficulty of our Jewish friends, if this is
indeed one of their difficulties. The Jew who is versed in his
Scriptures will
approach the person of Jesus with certain expectations. Those
expectations are nourished by his own reading of
the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) and in the light of
traditional
Jewish commentary on these Scriptures. Now, the acceptance of
Jesus
and his teaching involves
acceptance of his claim that he and he
alone is the Messiah. The historic Catholic
Church
comes announcing its teaching and with its Tradition as to the true
meaning of these Scriptures. Indeed, that Catholic Tradition simply
makes present Christ’s own teaching as to their true meaning. Our Lord
himself was continually endeavouring to correct misapprehensions
among
the people and his own disciples as to the teaching of the Law, the
Psalms and the Prophets about the Messiah and the Kingdom of God which
he was establishing. The four Gospels lay out before us the teaching of
our Lord on God’s Kingdom, its nature, and on being part of it. To
accept fully his teaching about the Kingdom, of course, we must accept
him
and his teaching about himself, that he is the Christ (the Messiah) the
Son
of God. Our Gospel today shows some of the religious leaders of the people asking our Lord when the Kingdom of God would come. They expected it to be observed like any other kingdom. It would be God’s own kingdom, and God would be king. What could possibly be better than that God establish his own kingdom by means of his Anointed One the Messiah? All would then be well. Our Lord in his public ministry was not only teaching about the imminence and arrival of this promised Kingdom, but he was giving a taste of it in his spectacular miracles of healing, casting out demons, feeding the multitudes, walking on the sea to bring security to those struggling in difficulty, calming the storm, raising the dead, and teaching God’s word with unheard-of authority. But these indications were just signs, as St John in his Gospel expresses it. The Kingdom of God was something far deeper and more decisive for mankind and the universe. The Messiah had come to take away the sin of the world by his death and resurrection. Immediately after his resurrection he gave to his apostles the power to take away sins, and before he ascended into heaven he charged his disciples to go everywhere preaching the forgiveness of sins in his name. The Kingdom of God is not a kingdom of this world, it is within. As our Lord tells the Pharisees, “The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:20-25) In fact, the Kingdom of God is present and found embodied in the person of Jesus, who claimed to be and showed that he is the Messiah. It is by being in him, and by his being in us, that we enter the Kingdom and abide in it.
The Kingdom of God is open to all, high and low. The Kingdom of God is within you if you choose to be in Christ. We are in Christ when we accept him and his teaching and are baptised into his Church. “No one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born again by water and the Holy Spirit”, our Lord told Nicodemus (John 3). Being in Jesus and thus receiving his grace through the gift of the Holy Spirit empowers us to seek and grow in the holiness to which we are called. The Kingdom of God is holiness in Christ, a holiness to be brought to all men. This is the Kingdom of God, and its fulness comes in eternity when it will have no end.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:20-25)
Commentary by Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873-1897), Carmelite, Doctor of the Church
(Autobiographical Manuscript A, 84 r̊)
It is above all the Gospel which supports me during my prayer. There I find all that my poor little soul needs. There, I always discover new lights, hidden and mysterious meaning.
I understand and know from experience “that the reign of God is in our midst”. Jesus doesn’t need books or scholars to teach souls, he who is the Scholar of scholars teaches without the noise of words. I have never heard him speak, but I feel that he is in me. He guides me at every moment, he inspires me with what I have to say or do. Just when I need it, I discover lights that I had not seen yet. Most often, this does not happen above all during my prayer, but rather in the midst of my day’s occupations.
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Whenever you are in need of anything, or are facing difficulties, whether great or small, invoke your Guardian Angel, asking him to sort the matter out with Jesus, or to carry out the particular service you may require.
(The Forge, no. 931)
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What is the relationship of the sacraments to Christ?
The mysteries of Christ’s life are the foundations of what he would henceforth dispense in the sacraments, through the ministers of his Church. (CCC 1114-1116)
“What was visible in our Saviour has passed over into his mysteries.”(St Leo the Great)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.225)
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Friday of the thirty second week of Ordinary Time II
(November 17) Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, religious (1207-1231) She was the daughter of the King of Hungary and a prayerful mother. After her husband’s death she devoted herself to the poor and the sick. (Saints)
Scripture today: 2 John 4-9; Psalm 119:1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 18; Luke 17:26-37
[Chosen Lady:] I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father. But now, Lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing a new commandment but the one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another. For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning, in which you should walk. Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist. Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense. Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son. (2 John 4-9)
One of the themes of St John’s inspired writings is his emphasis on “the truth”. In the prologue of his Gospel he tells us that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. “We saw his glory, ... full of grace and truth... through Jesus Christ grace came to us, and truth” Christ brought the truth. Indeed, he is the
truth.
He told his
disciples that “I am the Way,
the Truth and the Life”. Before Pontius
Pilate Christ stated that he had been born into the world to bear
witness to the truth. The one who belongs to the truth listens to his
voice.
In our first reading today from his Second Letter (2
John 4-9) St
John tells the one to whom
he is writing that “I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children
walking in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father.” What
does this walking in the truth involve? In his Letter St
John lays
down two fundamental aspects of this “walking in the truth.” The first is not “a new
commandment
but the one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another.”
How great a proportion of Christian history has seen a violation of
this fundamental commandment! Our Lord said that “by this will all men
know that you are my disciples, that you love one another as I have
loved you”, and observers admired the Christians of the early centuries
of persecution, exclaiming “how they love one another!” Yet even from
Apostolic times - for we read of it in the Letters of St Paul - strife
appeared in the Christian community. This strife was a notorious
feature of the life of the Church in the fourth century after the peace
of Constantine, and time and again it has recurred in the Church’s
history.The second aspect of “walking in the truth” is to “remain in the teaching of Christ” (2 John 4:9). It is to adhere to the whole truth about Jesus as proclaimed by the Church. St John here in our passage today mentions how “many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist.” In later times “many deceivers” would not “acknowledge Jesus Christ as” being anything but flesh. They would not acknowledge his divinity. In even later times again many would not acknowledge this or that aspect of Christ’s teaching as propounded by the Church, and thus have many of Christ’s disciples failed to remain at one with his body. At this point of time in human history the spectacle of Christianity is far from what Christ intended, "that they all be one". Vast seas of Christian people are separated one from the other, ocean from ocean. The Church of the Apostles with Peter at its head is the largest of the Communions but how many are separated from her, from her who has Christ for her founder and head! The task of Christian reunion is great beyond imagining and it is something which only the Spirit of God can achieve. But what each of us can do is at least walk in the truth of Christ as taught by his Church, and live the commandment to love one another, and in the spirit of love to profess this truth to others.
Let each of Christ’s faithful go about his or her daily life fully resolved “to walk in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father.” This means loving one another and remaining in the teaching of Christ. “Abide in my love” our Lord commanded his disciples. This is the challenge facing every one of us and if we rise to it it will take us to holiness and to the bearing of much fruit, fruit that will last.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they ate and drank, they bought and sold”(Lk 17:26-37)
St Gregory of Nyssa (335-395), Monk and Bishop (Homily 11 on the Song of Songs)
The Lord gave his disciples important recommendations so that they might shake off like dust everything earthly in their nature and might thus be raised to the desire for supernatural realities. According to one of these recommendations, those who turn towards life on high must be stronger than sleep and must always remain watchful… I am talking about the drowsiness that arises among those who are plunged in life’s lie through illusory dreams such as honors, riches, power, pomp, the fascination of pleasure, ambition, the thirst for enjoyment, vanity and everything that their imagination leads superficial people to seek madly. All these things pass away with the fleeting nature of time; they belong to the domain of appearances… Hardly have they seemed to exist when they disappear like the waves of the sea…
So that our minds might be free of these illusions, the Word invites us to shake this deep sleep from the eyes of our soul, so that we might not slip away from the true realities by becoming attached to that which has no consistency. That is why he suggests that we be watchful when he says: “Let your belts be fastened around your waists and your lamps be burning ready.” (Lk 12:35) For when the light shines before our eyes, it chases sleep away, and when our kidneys are held tight by a belt, they prevent the body from succumbing to it… The person who has fastened the belt of temperance lives in the light of a pure conscience; the trust of a child illuminates his life like a lamp… If we live like that, we will enter into a life that is like that of the angels.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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God is right there in the centre of your soul, and mine, and in the soul of everyone who is in a state of grace. He is there for a purpose, that our salt may increase, that we may acquire more light and that from the place we each find ourselves in we may be able to share out these gifts from God to others. And how can we share out these gifts from God? With humility and piety, and by being very united to our Mother the Church. Do you not recall the vine and the branches? How fruitful is each branch when united to the vine! What large bunches of grapes! And how sterile the broken-off branch that dries up and becomes lifeless!
(The Forge, no.932)
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What is the link between the sacraments and the Church?
Christ has entrusted the sacraments to his Church. They are the sacraments “of the Church” in a twofold sense: they are “from her” insofar as they are actions of the Church which is the sacrament of Christ’s action; and they are “for her” in as much as they build up the Church. (CCC 1117-1119)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 226)
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Saturday of the thirty second week of Ordinary Time II
(November 18) Dedication of the Basilicas of St Peter and St Paul, apostles The anniversaries of these basilicas were celebrated as early as the twelfth century. Both were completed in the fourth century. The St Peter’s Basilica was built atop his tomb and was rebuilt in the seventeenth century. St Paul’s Basilica in the Ostian Way was built also over his tomb and was rebuilt in the nineteenth century. (Saints)
Let us also think of Saint Rose Philippine (Saints)
Scripture today: 1 John 5-8: Psalm 112:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Luke 18:1-8
Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, ‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.’” The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:1-8)
Not long back I read of how a young man was going for a job interview and he knew there would be plenty of competition. Large numbers were interested in the position, and so he was understandably feeling discouraged. His mother said to him that while lots would be applying, she expected that few would be praying for God’s help and favour. Her son had a very good reason for applying for the job - it was
important
to his future
career, and it was in line with his qualifications. So she told him
that she was going to pray earnestly for his success, and she asked him
to pray too. His interview went ahead as did the others. The upshot was
that he was offered the job. I know of another mother who wanted to
help one of her grown-up sons. A monster bazaar for a Catholic
missionary charity was being held in her suburb, and a car was being
raffled. She bought a ticket for the car and began praying. She prayed
perseveringly and had a strange confidence that God would give her the
car. She won the car and donated it to her son. Of course, one cannot
regard such examples of God answering prayer as the paradigm for all
prayers of petition. Only God knows the true answer to our prayers, the
answer that meets the need we are presenting to him. Only he knows that
at times what we are choosing to ask for is not in our long-term
interest at all. There was a well-known Spanish duke in the sixteenth
century whose beloved wife lay dying. The duke prayed to God for her
recovery, and the message from on high came to him that if he persisted
in his prayer it would be granted, but it would not be the best of
courses of action. The duke left it to God. His wife died, he
subsequently became a Jesuit priest, the Superior General of his Order,
and a canonized saint. He is Saint Francis Borgia.In our Gospel today (Luke 18:1-8) our Lord tells his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. It is clear from the parable that our Lord is speaking especially of the prayer of petition. Saint Alphonsus Ligouri taught that an immense amount depends on the prayer of petition, and that the reason why so many people do not receive the blessings they could is because they simply do not ask for them. His point is that God wants us to ask for a lot, especially for those blessings he has revealed he means us to have. Does God want us to fill our days asking for material benefits we do not need, when we leave entirely out of our concerns the great benefits he wants us to have? Those benefits are the blessings of redemption and sanctification. “This is the will of God,” St Paul tells us in one of his Letters, “your sanctification”. There is nothing more important than this that we acquire holiness of life while we still have breath. God does want us to have our “daily bread”, the bread of the material things we need - such as a job, perhaps a car to fulfill our responsibilities, success in exams, a good salary for the family and so forth. But he also wants us to be persevering in our quest for sanctity, in our conquest of personal faults, in our putting on the mind of Christ, in our growth in faith, hope and charity. These are the necessary goals that God wants for us and which require great gifts of grace as well as personal effort. For these blessings we need to pray constantly and never lose heart. When we look back on life I am sure one of the things we already regret and which we will regret at the end of life is that we have failed to be persevering in our request to God for the gifts of grace necessary for holiness. When it comes to prayer we give up on God too much.
Let us resolve to be persevering in prayer. There is so much to pray for. Let us pray perseveringly for the souls in Purgatory. How many there await our prayers and Masses who have no one to pray for. Let us pray for all those who are in material need, and how many in the world are in this situation, a situation far more dire than our own. Let us pray for the coming of the Kingdom, for the advance of the mission of the Church which is to make the Heart of Christ known and loved more and more. Let us not give up on the prayer of petition. So much depends on it.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“The necessity for them to pray always and never to lose heart.” (Luke 18:1-8)
Commentary by Master Eckhart (1260-1327), Dominican theologian (Spiritual Conversations)
Someone asked me the following: Many people would like to withdraw completely from the world and to live in solitude so as to find peace there, or to remain in church. Could it be that this is the best one can do? I say: No! And this is why.
The person with an upright attitude is at ease everywhere and with everybody; but the person who is lacking in integrity is uncomfortable everywhere and with everybody. The person who possesses God alone has in mind only God, and all things become God alone for him. Such a person carries God in all he does and in every place, and that person’s every activity takes on a divine character…
Certainly, for this, zeal and love are necessary as well as attentive watchfulness over one’s conscience, vigilant, true and effective intelligence, which directs our entire spiritual attitude where things and people are concerned. One cannot acquire that intelligence through an evasive attitude by fleeing from things in order to find refuge in solitude, far away from the external world. On the contrary, one has to learn an interior solitude wherever and with whomever one might be. One has to learn to penetrate to the bottom of things so as to take hold of God there… That is how we must be filled with the presence of God, remodeled after the form of the God of love, and we must be entirely one with him, so that God’s presence might illuminate us without our least effort.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Jesus, may my poor heart be filled from the ocean of your love, with waves which can cleanse me and expel all my wretchedness. Pour those most pure and ardent waters of your Heart into mine, until my desires for loving you are fully satisfied and I can no longer hold back my response to your divine ardour. My heart shall surely break then, dying for Love, and pour out that Love of yours which, in irresistible and most fertile, life-giving torrents, will reach other hearts that will beat through contact with these living waters, with the pulsating force of Faith and Charity.
(The Forge, no.933)
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What is the sacramental character?
It is a spiritual “seal” bestowed by the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders. It is a promise and guarantee of divine protection. By virtue of this seal the Christian is configured to Christ, participates in a variety of ways in his priesthood and takes his part in the Church according to different states and functions. He is, therefore, set apart for divine worship and the service of the Church. Because this character is indelible the sacraments that impress it on the soul are received only once in life.
(CCC 1121)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.227)
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Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time B
(November 19) Today let us think of Saint Barlaam (Saints)
Scripture: Daniel 12:1-3; Psalm 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11; Hebrews 10:11-14, 18; Mark 13:24-32
Jesus said to his disciples: "In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. "And then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in the clouds' with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky. "Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the gates. Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. "But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13:24-32)
During the last couple of years there has been discussion and controversy in New South Wales about the importance of history in education. It has been claimed that too few of the young gain a sense of Australian history and of the history of the world. A connected aspect of this discussion has been the very nature of historical study. What is it that we are seeking to achieve in the study of history and in the
teaching of history?
Setting aside the particular question of history in schools and
universities, I wonder how many professional students of history emerge
with anything resembling a philosophy of history, a view of the basic
elements that drive human history and of where human history is
heading. There have been many philosophies of human history and a fair
proportion of them have been disastrous - consider Marx, for instance,
or Hegel. Whatever of that personal observation, a knowledge of the
overarching
framework within which human history is played out is accessible to the
simplest Christian believer. It is not something which the Christian
presumes to work out by himself alone, but is derived directly from his
acceptance of the person of Christ and his teaching. The fundamental
issue in the history of mankind and in the life of every human person
is the choice of what is good and the rejection of what is wrong.
Within this basic moral and religious context, human history with its
convolutions, its rises and its falls, its successes and its failures,
is heading towards a definite climax. That climax is the
final coming of Jesus to judge the living and the dead. Christ is the
Lord of history and his Lordship will then be manifest. The issue in
human history is the acceptance or rejection of Christ as the Lord of
lords and
King of kings, played out in moral and religious choice.It is of his final coming at the end of the world that our Lord speaks in today’s Gospel passage (Mark 13:24-32). We are almost at the end of the Church’s Liturgical Year. We profess every Sunday in the Nicene Creed that at the end of the world Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, and then of his kingdom there will be no end. No human being will escape this event and the course of each of us will be profoundly affected by it. Our eternal destiny will be decided and confirmed. We shall be either saved or lost, and forever. Let us not dismiss this as being in the mythical future. One of the very striking experiences of life is how one's sense of time changes as time passes. Time is a fascinating feature of our mortal reality, and one of its stunning qualities is its rapidity. Time passes, and it passes quickly, very quickly. Indeed, so quickly does it pass that it can produce a kind of cynicism in a person as to the value of the good things of life such as friendships, holidays and other blessings. These good things will soon pass away. Life will pass quickly and at the end of our life we shall probably look back with a species of wonderment at the speed with which childhood, youth, adulthood, middle age and its sequel have all passed away. All that is now left is a little time before we are gone. So it is with all of human history. Time on the grand scale will also pass rapidly. Consider this. There are many elderly persons in the world who have reached their century in age. If we imagine the lives of twenty such persons, one being born when the other dies, this sucession of a mere twenty persons places us back in the time of our Lord two millennia ago. The history of the world passes quickly and each of us will see its end when Christ will come again. The issue is, how shall we have lived in relation to the choice for Christ, Christ who is the Lord? What will be the upshot for us of this final judgment?
As we ponder our Lord’s words in which he predicts that he will come in the clouds amid power and glory (Mark 13:24-32), let us understand that each day of our life is the opportunity we have to make a difference to eternity. If we live with him we shall reign with him, and that his kingdom will have no end is the one certain thing about the history of the world. The world will end with the coming of the kingdom of God in Christ. Let us so live that we will be found worthy of a place in that eternal kingdom.
(E.J.Tyler)
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"When you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the gates." (Mark 13:24-32)
Comment by John Henry Newman (1801-1890), priest, founder of a religious community, theologian
Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 4, n̊22 (Edited by W.J. Copeland)
Our Saviour gave this warning when He was leaving this world,—leaving it, that is, as far as His visible presence is concerned. He looked forward to the many hundred years which were to pass before He came again. He knew His own purpose and His Father's purpose gradually to leave the world to itself, gradually to withdraw from it the tokens of His gracious presence. He contemplated, as contemplating all things, the neglect of Him which would spread even among his professed followers… He foresaw the state of the world and the Church, as we see it this day, when His prolonged absence has made it practically thought, that He never will come back…
He mercifully whispers into our ears, not to trust in what we see, not to share in that general unbelief, not to be carried away by the world, but to "take heed, watch, pray," and look out for His coming. Surely this gracious warning should be ever in our thoughts, being so precise, so solemn, so earnest. He foretold His first coming, yet He took His Church by surprise when He came; much more will He come suddenly the second time, and overtake men, now that He has not measured out the interval before it, as then He did, but left our watchfulness to the keeping of faith and love… We are not simply to believe, but to watch; not simply to love, but to watch; not simply to obey, but to watch; to watch for what? for that great event, Christ's coming.
Whether then we consider what is the obvious meaning of the word, or the Object towards which it directs us, we seem to see a special duty enjoined on us, such as does not naturally come into our minds. Most of us have a general idea what is meant by believing, fearing, loving, and obeying; but perhaps we do not contemplate or apprehend what is meant by watching… Now what is watching? … I conceive it may be explained as follows: To watch for Christ… with Christ...
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Practise and live the Holy Mass! You may be helped by a consideration which that priest, in love, used to repeat to himself: ``Is it possible, my God, to take part in the Holy Mass and not be a saint?'' And he would continue, ``Each day, in fulfilment of an old promise, I will remain hidden in the Wound of Our Lord's Side!'' Shouldn't you do the same?
(The Forge, no.934)
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What is the relationship between the sacraments and faith?
The sacraments not only presuppose faith but with words and ritual elements they nourish, strengthen, and express it. By celebrating the sacraments, the Church professes the faith that comes from the apostles. This explains the origin of the ancient saying, “lex orandi, lex credendi,” that is, the Church believes as she prays. (CCC 1122-1126, 1133)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.228)
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Monday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 20) Today let us think of Saint Bernward (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 1:1-4; 2:1-5; Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6; Luke 18:35-43
As Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” He shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” The people walking in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!” Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him; and when he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God. (Luke 18:35-43)
Our Gospel scene today tells us how one man’s life was completely changed. He was in the most miserable situation one would ordinarily imagine. He was blind, isolated, helpless, sitting by the roadside simply begging. There were no formal unemployment or sick benefits and one would suspect he was
without
close family to look after him. Where would he have been living, and
how long had
he been in this position? How many would have extended to
him real pity and help? If we imagine some of these aspects of his
situation we can appreciate the desperation that would have filled his
life. He asked some in the crowd that was surging past him what was
happening and he was told that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. Our
Lord had not
seen him nor was our Lord told about him. But the blind man
vociferously
made his presence felt - indeed he made a great nuisance of himself, so
much so that he was told to be silent. But he
kept calling out to Jesus to do something for him because he knew this
was his one chance for liberation from his predicament. Jesus heard his
pleas, stopped and asked that he be brought to him. We read the
wonderful sequel: he was cured at a word from our Lord and he followed
along after Jesus praising and glorifying God. Our text suggests that
he became a disciple of our Lord. His life was changed in that he
received his precious sight, and he went on, we suspect, to live a life
of faith in Jesus. It all began by his appealing insistently to Jesus as he was passing by (Luke 18:35-43). He did not let our Lord simply pass on. How many in the crowd had the faith which our Lord was constantly looking for? We are not told, but this blind beggar had it. He was acutely conscious of his pitiable situation of blindness and he had faith in our Lord’s goodness and power. If only he could reach Jesus and make himself heard, all would be well! He is an example for every man. Despite the enormous evil in the world it is surprising how many people do not feel the need for God, or if they do feel the need they do not have much faith in him. So the first thing we ought learn from the blind man is our very need for God. Inasmuch as the miracles of our Lord are signs of his power to heal and raise up from the disease and death of sin, the fundamental thing we ought strive to learn from our blind man today is a true sense of sin. We need to grasp that we are spiritually blind and therefore spiritually helpless. We need the Light of the world to dispel the darkness of our souls. We need Christ to give us light and wisdom as to our true predicament, and having this light we need the grace and the faith to turn with persistent faith to Christ, as did the blind man. All too commonly we lack a true knowledge of ourselves and our sinful condition, and we lack the faith to appeal to Christ who every day is present. If we do not turn to him he will, as it were, pass us by for he will not impose himself on us.
Let us learn to make our own the prayer of the blind man: Jesus, son of David (which is to say, Messiah, Christ), have pity on me! The great spiritual writer in the early Church, Cassian, recommended the following prayer: Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner! Let say it over and over in one form or another, appealing to God who is rich in mercy. As St Thomas Aquinas wrote, God manifests his almighty power in his mercy.
(E.J.Tyler)
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He shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” (Luke 18:35-43)
Commentary by Symeon the New Theologian (around 949 – 1022), Orthodox monk (Ethics 5)
My friend, you have learned that the Kingdom of Heaven is in you (Lk 17:21), if you wish, and that all the eternal goods are in your hands. So hurry to see, to take hold of and to obtain within yourself the goods that are reserved… Groan, prostrate yourself. Like the blind man in the past, you now also say: “Have mercy on me, Son of God, and open the eyes of my soul so that I might see the Light of the world that you are, oh my God (Jn 8:12), and that I too might become a child of that divine light (Jn 12:36). Oh clement one, send the Consoler upon me, as well, so that he himself might teach me (Jn 14:26) what concerns you and what is mine, oh God of the universe. Dwell in me, too, as you said, so that I in turn might become worthy to dwell in you (Jn 15:4). Let me know how to enter into you and to know that I possess you in myself. Oh invisible One, deign to take form in me so that, seeing your inaccessible beauty, I might bear your image, oh heavenly One, and I might forget all visible things. Give me the glory that the Father gave you (Jn 17:22), oh merciful One, so that, resembling you like all your servants, I might share your divine life according to grace and I might be constantly with you, now and always and forever.”
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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You can do so much good, and yet also so much harm! You will do good if you are humble and you give yourself cheerfully, with a spirit of sacrifice: good for yourself and for your fellow men, and for that good Mother of yours, the Church. But how much harm you will do if you allow yourself to be led by your pride.
(The Forge, no.935)
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Why are the sacraments efficacious?
The sacraments are efficacious ex opere operato (“by the very fact that the sacramental action is performed”) because it is Christ who acts in the sacraments and communicates the grace they signify. The efficacy of the sacraments does not depend upon the personal holiness of the minister. However, the fruits of the sacraments do depend on the dispositions of the one who receives them. (CCC 1127-1128, 1131)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.229)
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Tuesday of the thirty third week of Ordinary Time II
(November 21) The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary With Christians of the East, the Latin Church recalls the early tradition stating that as a small child Mary was presented to the Lord by her parents in the Temple. This celebration expresses the total dedication of Mary to God’s service and her obedience to God’s plans. We too are called to serve God joyfully and without seeking any human glory in return. (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 3:1-6, 14-22; Psalm 15:2-3a, 3bc-4ab, 5; Luke 19:1-10
At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:1-10)
Yesterday’s Gospel presented us with the story of the blind man who insisted on seeing Jesus. He would not allow those around him to silence him in his clamour for our Lord. The result was that Jesus stopped and called him to him. He was cured, and - significantly - he followed Jesus along the road giving glory to God. In our Gospel passage today we have another example of one who took steps to see
Jesus
as he was passing by. The blind man was disregarded by people, perhaps
helped in his begging, but he was certainly among the unacknowledged
and the outcast because of his blindness. Our seeker for Jesus today
was of a different class altogether. He was “a chief tax collector and
a wealthy man”, and being a chief tax collector was - and was
regarded as - a “sinner”. Nevertheless he “was seeking to see who Jesus
was” (Luke 19:1-10). We remember how the
Gospel tells us that Herod too sought to see Jesus, but his attitude
was utterly different. When at length he did see Jesus (during our
Lord’s passion) our Lord would not speak to him. This was not the case
with Zacchaeus who wanted to see Jesus, “but he could not see him
because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and
climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass
that way.” So Jesus was passing by and Zacchaeus was not going to let
the opportunity pass. That his attitude was admirable (though he was “a
sinner”) is clear from the very fact that our Lord stopped when he
reached the tree where Zacchaeus was, looked up and cheerily invited
himself to Zacchaeus’ home for a meal. Imagine the smile on our Lord’s
face! He knew he was in the presence of “a sinner” who obscurely longed
to
repent. He was not disappointed. Zacchaeus indeed repented, and we may
presume he became a disciple.The knowledge of and friendship with Jesus was the greatest thing that happened to Zacchaeus. It was the fulfilment of his heart’s desires and it led to a radical change of direction in his life. What happened to Zacchaeus in subsequent years we do not know, but his name is given and we may presume he went on to be a true member of the Christian community. That Jesus came into his life was a great act of mercy by God and it all began by Zacchaeus deciding to run ahead, climb up the tree and be there as Jesus approached. He was eager to see Jesus, and undoubtedly thought himself too unworthy to hope for an introduction. Indeed he was unworthy as we all are. St John the Baptist said to his hearers that he was not worthy to kneel down and undo our Lord’s sandal-straps. But at least, thought Zacchaeus, I can go ahead and be able to see Jesus. Just as Jesus ordered that the blind man be brought to him, so too now our Lord genially took the initiative of stopping, looking up with bright friendliness and in good humour told Zacchaeus he was going to follow him there and then to his home for something to eat. How kind is God! How understanding and merciful! It is this divine love and mercy which our Lord embodied and revealed. He is the God of all mercy and here we have God the Son in action saving those who were lost. But it began by Zacchaeus wanting to see Jesus, and (without quite realizing it) wanting to repent and be reconciled to God. He was sick of himself and his sins. He wanted to be a friend of God. He placed himself in Jesus’ way, and the grace of God brought him into the friendship of Jesus. Let us learn from Zacchaeus that whatever be our past and our lack of response, we can always start again. We do it by going to Jesus, trusting in his love.
St Paul tells us in one of his Letters that “this is the will of God, your sanctification.” Sanctity comes through knowing, loving and serving Christ. At the Last Supper our Lord said that “eternal life is this, to know you Father, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Sanctity and eternal life began in the case of Zacchaeus with his meeting with Jesus. St Paul wrote, for me Christ is life. Let us make Christ our life.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Zacchaeus, hurry down!” (Luke 19:1-10) Comment by John Tauler (around 1300-1361), Dominican (Sermon 68)
In the gospel, we read that Zacchaeus wanted to see Our Lord, but that he was too small of stature. So what did he do? He climbed a dried up fig tree. That is what people still do. Someone wants to see the one who works marvels and who causes a whole tumult in him. But he isn’t big enough, he is too small. So what to do? He has to climb a dried up fig tree. The dead fig tree symbolizes the death of the senses and of nature and the life of the inner person, which carries God.
What does Our Lord say to Zacchaeus? “Hurry down.” You have to come down, you must not hold back a single drop of consolation from all your impressions in prayer, but come down in your pure nothingness, in your poverty, in your powerlessness… If, from the moment truth has given you some light, there is still some natural attachment in you, you don’t yet possess it, it has not yet become your own; nature and grace still work together and you have not attained perfect abandonment …; this is not yet full purity. That is why God invites such a person to come down, that is to say, he calls him to complete renunciation, to complete detachment from nature, in everything in which nature still possesses something of its own. “For I mean to stay at your house today; today salvation has come to this house.” May this today of eternity come to us!
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Please don't let yourself become bourgeois, for if you do, you will be a hindrance. You will become a dead weight for others in the apostolate and, above all, a source of suffering for the Heart of Christ. You must not stop doing apostolate, nor must you abandon your effort to do your work as best you can, or neglect your life of piety. God will do the rest.
(The Forge, no.936)
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For what reason are the sacraments necessary for salvation?
For believers in Christ the sacraments, even if they are not all given to each of the faithful, are necessary for salvation because they confer sacramental grace, forgiveness of sins, adoption as children of God, conformation to Christ the Lord and membership in the Church. The Holy Spirit heals and transforms those who receive the sacraments. (CCC 1129)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.230)
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Wednesday of the thirty third week of Ordinary Time II
(November 22) Saint Ceilia, virgin and martyr (3rd century). Cecilia, patron saint for music, is one of the seven martyr women mentioned in the Roman Canon. A noble Roman virgin, she was martyred under Marcus Aurelius for her unwillingness to sacrifice to the gods. (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 4:1-11; Psalm 150:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6; Luke 19:11-28
While people were listening to Jesus speak, he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return. He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’ His fellow citizens, however, despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, ‘We do not want this man to be our king.’ But when he returned after obtaining the kingship, he had the servants called, to whom he had given the money, to learn what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, ‘Sir, your gold coin has earned ten additional ones.’ He replied, ‘Well done, good servant! You have been faithful in this very small matter; take charge of ten cities.’ Then the second came and reported, ‘Your gold coin, sir, has earned five more.’ And to this servant too he said, ‘You, take charge of five cities.’ Then the other servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your gold coin; I kept it stored away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man; you take up what you did not lay down and you harvest what you did not plant.’ He said to him, ‘With your own words I shall condemn you, you wicked servant. You knew I was a demanding man, taking up what I did not lay down and harvesting what I did not plant; why did you not put my money in a bank? Then on my return I would have collected it with interest.’ And to those standing by he said, ‘Take the gold coin from him and give it to the servant who has ten.’ But they said to him, ‘Sir, he has ten gold coins.’ He replied, ‘I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.’” After he had said this, he proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem. (Luke 19:11-28)
Many people - perhaps a great number - pass through life without really thinking deeply as to the objective purpose of life. Their assumption is that the purpose of life is simply that which one chooses. The attitude here is similar to the post-modernist attitude to truth.
There
is no objective
truth (about religion or whatever), there is simply the truth one
chooses or finds suitable. That is to say, there is simply the truth
that “works”. So too, the purpose of life is the purpose that “works”
and that brings contentment and fulfilment. It is an underlying
philosophy very akin to utilitarianism involving the rejection of
objective moral absolutes. So life is simply about what one chooses,
and there is no ultimate
and absolute meaning to life which is applicable and valid for
everyone. Now the problem with this view is that it risks immense
consequences because if there is a God who judges us, and if he
has sent his Son with a revelation, if all this is the reality then we
cannot escape the ultimate
consequences of our actions. We must live in the light of reality.
Whatever might be one’s opinion, if one
walks across the road in the line of an oncoming car then the results
will be terrible. So it is most important that our actions be in line
with the ultimate meaning of things as we know it to be through
revelation. If a person has not embraced divine revelation but knows of
it, then it is critically important that he investigate with great
moral seriousness this revelation and what it means for life. In our
Gospel today our Lord gives us in very simple terms the ultimate
meaning of life and, indeed, of human history. It is all about the
coming of God’s Kingdom and our preparation for it by means of our
daily work.We are told in our Gospel passage today that “while people were listening to Jesus speak, he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately” (Luke 19:11-28). The great purpose of human history and of the life of every man and woman is the coming of the Kingdom of God. It is this which was long foretold, and it is this which our Lord announced and indeed established here on earth. Its fulness is what we await and work for, and its definitive arrival is when Christ comes again. But in practical terms what does this mean for the life of each individual? Our parable today tells us that it means working for the master who is coming. “A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return. He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return’.” There we have it in a nutshell. Our Lord wants us to use all that he has given us to serve his interests until he returns. That return occurs at our death and at the end of time. That is what life is about. The parable describes the return of the king and his judgment on each of his servants. Its upshot depended on how well each used the wealth he had been entrusted with and the punchline comes with the judgment on the person who had been entrusted with least. It is possible to overlook the seriousness of the judgment of God on each and every person, including the least. We think of our Lord’s love for and consideration of the least endowed and the downtrodden, but that love will not do away with God’s judgment on all, including the least.
To the one to whom much has been given much will be expected, but to all something has been given and so to all there will be a proportionate expectation. Most of us are “little” persons, in the eyes of the world, “nobodies” perhaps, but God will judge us all, and his judgment will be directed at how we have used what we have been given to work in the service of his interests. No matter how limited our talents, let us then set to work for Christ, knowing that life is short and eternity long. "I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away" (Luke 19:11-28).
(E.J.Tyler)
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He called ten of his servants and ... told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’ (Luke 19:11-28)
Human Work and the Kingdom of God: Pope John Paul II (Homily for Luxemburg Workers, May 1985)
When God created humankind, man and woman, God told them: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen 1:28) That is, so to speak, God’s first commandment, which is connected with the very order of creation. Thus, human work corresponds with God’s will. When we say, “Thy will be done,” let us also include these words about the work which fills every day of our life. We become aware of the fact that we are in accord with that will of the Creator when our work and the human relations that it brings with it are penetrated with the values of initiative, courage, trust, solidarity, which are so many reflections of our divine resemblance…
The Creator gave the human person the power to subdue the earth. Thus, he asks him to bring the area that has been entrusted to him under control through his own work, to exercise all his abilities so as to be able to develop his own personality and the whole community in a good way. Through his work, the human person obeys God and responds to God’s trust. That is not foreign to the request in the Our Father: “Thy kingdom come.” The human person acts in such a way that God’s plan might be realized, aware of having been made in the likeness of God and thus of having received from God his strength, his intelligence, his aptitudes for bringing about a community of life through the disinterested love he has for his brothers and sisters. All that is positive and good in the life of the person develops and connects with his true goal in the kingdom of God. You chose your motto well: “Kingdom of God, human life,” for God’s cause and the human cause are connected with one another. The world is advancing towards the kingdom of God thanks to God’s gifts, which make human dynamism possible. In other words, to pray that God’s kingdom might come is to stretch out with all one’s being towards that reality, which is the ultimate goal of human work.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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From time to time you have to deal with souls as you would with a fire in the hearth, giving it a good poke to get rid of the embers, which are what shine most but are causing the fire of the love of God to die down.
(The Forge, no.937)
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What is sacramental grace?
Sacramental grace is the grace of the Holy Spirit which is given by Christ and is proper to each sacrament. This grace helps the faithful in their journey toward holiness and so assists the Church as well to grow in charity and in her witness to the world.
(CCC 1129, 1131, 1134, 2003)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.231)
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Thursday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 23) St Clement 1, pope and martyr (died about 97). He was the third pope after St Peter. He wrote the famous epistle to the Corinthians, commanding them to seek peace and unity. We see in it the Providence of God who gives us a clear if incipient example of the Pope’s universal jurisdiction in the first century. (Saints)
St Columban, abbot (died about 615) An Irish monk, he went to France and founded many monasteries which he ruled with strict discipline. (Saints)
Blessed Miguel Pro: Mexican Jesuit priest, martyred in Mexico, 1928 (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 5:1-10; Psalm 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b; Luke 19:41-44
As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44)
Opportunities of enormous significance occur during passing moments. Early in the Gospel of St John we read that John the Baptist was with two of his disciples and Jesus was passing by. John pointed him out to his disciples and said, “There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” At this, those two disciples followed Jesus. They heard John’s word and made the split-second decision to
follow
Jesus. Our Lord
stopped, looked around, and asked them what they wanted. They answered
by asking where he stayed, and our Lord invited them to come and see.
That changed their entire lives. The Apostolic College began to be
formed. What would have happened if the two had heard John the
Baptist’s words, and simply looked without following Jesus? It was a
moment of opportunity that came and they seized it before it passed.
Others failed to take the opportunity presented to them. We remember
how promising was the case of the rich young man who came eagerly to
our Lord asking what more he needed to do to win eternal life. He was
an excellent young man who had kept God’s commandments since his
boyhood. He made an excellent impression on our Lord and our Lord
looked on him and loved him. His reward? Our Lord offered him a
priceless opportunity, that he leave all and give his many possessions
to the poor and then that he come and follow him. Who knows what he may
have been as a disciple of our Lord and the role he may have played in
the early Church and in Christ’s mission! But he went away sad, for he
had much wealth. It was a tragedy. Many other examples could be given
of Christ passing by, as it were, and with it of opportunities seized
or opportunities lost. In our Gospel passage today our Lord weeps over the city he so much loved. Its inhabitants were blind. A great visitation from God was going on before their very eyes in the person of Jesus their Saviour, and yet they were blind. “You did not recognize the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:41-44). The ultimate consequences would be catastrophic: “For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you”. Let us set aside the case of the children of Israel and in particular the case of the city of Jerusalem which was so completely sacked by the Romans some forty years later, and consider the pattern of opportunities used or lost in the life of each individual. Graces come constantly. They are calls from God, his summonses, his invitations to friendship and service of him. The greatest invitation, as we see in the Gospels, is to personal friendship with Jesus. As St Paul tells us, in Christ we receive every heavenly blessing, and before the foundation of the world God chose us in Christ to be holy and full of love in his sight. That is the primordial and most important invitation we receive in life and if that invitation is not taken up, our blindness is tragic. Let us then dispose ourselves to hear the calls of God and to respond generously. This we do by observing faithfully a spiritual rule of life, daily prayer, generous participation in the Sacraments, spiritual reading especially of the Sacred Scriptures, and serving God in our daily work. If we do all this we shall be disposing ourselves to seize the opportunities with which God visits us.
Let us not live in such a way that Jesus will weep over us as he did over the city of Jerusalem. Let us not, as St Paul puts it, make the Holy Spirit sad. Christ loved me and gave himself up for me, St Paul writes. Each of us can say the same. The city of Jerusalem could have said the same, but it did not recognize the time of its visitation. Let us not be blind. If we are faithful to the light more light will be granted us, and that light will take us on to holiness in Christ.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Coming within sight of the city, Jesus wept over it” (Luke 19:41-44)
Commentary by Origen (185 – 253), Priest and theologian (Homily 38 on Luke)
When our Lord and Savior was near Jerusalem, within sight of it, he wept over it: “If only you had known the path to peace this day; but you have completely lost it from view! Days will come upon you when your enemies encircle you with a rampart.” … Someone might perhaps say: “The meaning of these words is clear. In fact, they have come true where Jerusalem is concerned; the Roman army besieged and destroyed it, wiping it out, and the time will come when no stone will be left on a stone.”
I do not deny it. Jerusalem was destroyed because of its blindness, but I do ask: did not the weeping of Jesus have something to do with our Jerusalem? For we are the Jerusalem over which Jesus wept, we who imagine that we have such a penetrating gaze upon things. If, after having been instructed in the mysteries of truth, after having received the word of the Gospel and the Church’s teaching, and after being given the vision of the mysteries of God, one of us sins, he will provoke lamentation and weeping, for no one weeps over a pagan, but rather over the one who, having once been part of Jerusalem, ceases to be so.
There is weeping over our Jerusalem, for “the enemies will encircle it” because of its sins, that is to say, the adverse powers, the evil spirits. They will build a rampart around it; they will besiege it, and “they will not leave a stone on a stone.” That is what happens when, after long continence and several years of chastity, a person falls, overcome by the seduction of the flesh… So that is the Jerusalem over which tears are shed.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Let us go to Jesus in the Tabernacle where we can get to know him and assimilate his teaching, and then be able to hand out this food to souls.
(The Forge, no.938)
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What is the relationship between the sacraments and everlasting life?
In the sacraments the Church already receives a foretaste of eternal life, while “awaiting in blessed hope, the appearing in glory of our great God and Saviour Christ Jesus” (Titus 2:13). (CCC 1130)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.232)
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Friday of the thirty third week of Ordinary Time II
(November 24) Saint Andrew Dung-Lac, priest and martyr, and his companions, (1745-1862) (Saints)
Saints Flora & Mary (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 10:8-11; Psalm 119:14, 24, 72, 103, 111, 131; Luke 19:45-48
Jesus entered the temple
area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying
to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you
have made it a den of thieves.” And every day he was teaching in the
temple area. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the
people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death, but they could
find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were
hanging on his words. (Luke
19:45-48)Consider the profound reverence displayed by Jesus our Lord for the Temple in our Gospel today (Luke 19:45-48). The Temple was his Father’s house, the abode of the Most High whose Son he was. This event is a further manifestation of how his heavenly Father was the object of his heart’s whole love. In all of this our Lord summed up and embodied the entire Law and the Prophets. We remember the enormous undertaking the
building of the Temple
was during the reign of King Solomon and how the work was denied to
David and entrusted to his son. The Temple was the centre thereafter of
the life of the chosen people. At the return of the exiles some
centuries later the rebuilding of the Temple was commanded by God and
held up by the prophets as of central importance for the life of the
restored population. God dwelt among his people and was to be located
in his Temple. We remember how the parents of Jesus traveled to the
Temple each year and how the boy Jesus went up with them at the age of
twelve. On that occasion he stayed behind and was subsequently found in
the midst of the doctors. He replied to his parents’ wonderment by
referring to his Father. Did they not know he was to be found in the
house of his Father, engaged in his Father's affairs? Our Lord
from his childhood was filled with the awareness of his divine Sonship
and of his unique relationship with his Father. We can only imagine the
love and reverence with which he traveled to the Temple of Jerusalem on
this occasion, to the house of his heavenly Father. The Temple of Jerusalem was a pointer to something much greater to come. In the account of the cleansing of the Temple given to us by St John our Lord replied to his critics by saying that in three days he would raise up the Temple if they destroyed it. He was speaking of the Temple of his body. His own person was the abode of the entire Godhead, and the Church he would establish would be his body. The Church our Lord founded on the Apostle Peter and the others of the Twelve is the new Temple, the new dwelling place of God the Holy Trinity. Just as Christ taught in the Temple, so he continues teaching in the Temple which is his body the Church. He teaches in every parish church where the word of God is taught and preached, and the Sacraments are administered - most especially in the Holy Eucharist. In every parish church there is the Real Presence of our Lord in the Tabernacle, his entire risen reality, both human and divine. If the Temple of Jerusalem was the dwelling place of God, how much more so is the Catholic Church, and in particular every parish church where there is a Tabernacle with the Real Presence! Our Lord’s reverence within the Temple is a powerful example to each of us in our day. How often is the Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist almost forgotten by those who enter the Catholic churches of our land, be it for Mass or for other devotional activities. It is so easy to neglect the aids and signs of reverence, the sign of the cross with the holy water, the genuflection before the Tabernacle, the immediate kneeling down to pray, the careful custody of eyes and the avoidance of conversation. All of these things show the reverence the person of faith displays towards God who is there. It involves an active faith, a faith that is deliberately protected and nourished.
Let us be disciples of the Master in truth by imitating his profound reverence whenever we enter a Catholic church, realizing what is at the heart of every Catholic church, the presence of God the Son made Man. With him there is the Father and the Holy Spirit. Would anyone who observed us in a Catholic church have the impression that there is something extraordinary there? Would that observer say, if told that Catholics believe that the risen Jesus in all his human and divine reality is truly there, say, “Oh, that figures! I cannot help but notice the profound reverence of Catholics in their churches”. Would he say this of us? No? Well, now I begin!
(E.J.Tyler)
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"My house shall be a house of prayer" (Luke 19:45-48)
Commentary from The Roman Missal (Preface of Dedication of a church)
Father, all-powerful and
ever-living God,
we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks.
We thank you now for this house of prayer
in which you bless your family
as we come to you on pilgrimage.
Here you reveal your presence
by sacramental signs,
and make us one with you
through the unseen bond of grace.
Here you built your temple of living stones,
and bring the Church to its full stature
as the body of Christ throughout the world,
to reach its perfection at last
in the heavenly city of Jerusalem,
which is the vision of your peace.
In communion with all the angels and saints
we bless and praise your greatness
in the temple of your glory:
"Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might."
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks.
We thank you now for this house of prayer
in which you bless your family
as we come to you on pilgrimage.
Here you reveal your presence
by sacramental signs,
and make us one with you
through the unseen bond of grace.
Here you built your temple of living stones,
and bring the Church to its full stature
as the body of Christ throughout the world,
to reach its perfection at last
in the heavenly city of Jerusalem,
which is the vision of your peace.
In communion with all the angels and saints
we bless and praise your greatness
in the temple of your glory:
"Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might."
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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When you hold Our Lord in your breast and you taste the delights of his Love, promise him that you will strive to change the course of your life in whatever way is necessary, so that you can bring him to the masses of people who do not know him, who live without ideals and who, unfortunately, go on behaving like animals.
(The Forge, no.939)
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Who acts in the liturgy?
In the liturgy it is the whole Christ (Christus Totus) who acts, Head and Body. As our High Priest he celebrates with his body, which is the Church in heaven and on earth. (CCC 1135-1137, 1187)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.233)
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Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 25) Today let us think of Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 11:4-12; Psalm 144:1, 2, 9-10; Luke 20:27-40
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything. (Luke 20:27-40)
When we think of it, what could be of greater importance than knowing something of the hereafter? In the history of human thought the
hereafter
has been
shrouded in mystery. Consider what Buddhism says of the hereafter, and
of the great cycle of reincarnation which human life is caught up in
according to that system. Consider the hopeless vagueness of life
beyond death in very many indigenous religions. Were man to have no
other light than that which he can attain by his own reason, or no
other light than that provided him by the various religions of history,
death would seem to be a sad end indeed to the precious blessing of
life. Any philosophical claim that life is pointless because of the
darkness of death would carry with it a certain rationality. So for
this alone ought we be immensely grateful to God for his revelation.
With this revelation we are able to live our lives in the light of what
we know will happen after life is over. It has been revealed that when
life finishes each individual soul goes to God its Creator to be
personally judged on all that it has done. Whatever a man has thought,
said or done will be subject to this divine scrutiny and then there
will be either heaven or hell. So the final thing facing every person
after death will be the judgment of God and the upshot of that will be
either admission into his presence or banishment from it. Perhaps one
could say that this revelation fits in with what our conscience
intimates. Our conscience intimates, perhaps, a future judgment,
but the possession of a revelation from Christ is a tremendous
blessing. It is a great light which ought shape everything we do. We
ought live, if we are to be in any way prudent, in the light of what
will most surely come, the judgment of God determining our eternity.But more has been revealed about the afterlife than this. Inherent in the revelation that a divine judgment follows death is, of course, the revelation that we shall rise again. We read in the Gospels how there were schools of religious thought in Judaism that accepted a resurrection from the dead and there were others that did not. Our Gospel today shows two such opposite schools interacting with our Lord: The Sadducees challenged our Lord with a question that implied scepticism as to the resurrection, and the scribes commended him for teaching that affirmed the resurrection. The nature of the resurrection, though, was absolutely obscure for those who accepted it. Our Lord clarifies and confirms that there is indeed a resurrection for judgment but he goes further. In his teaching as it is brought to us by the Church, our Lord reveals that there will be not only a resurrection of the spirit of man for judgment bringing reward or condemnation, but there will also be a resurrection at the end of time of both body and soul. The whole man will eventually rise again for judgment. We shall be judged not only in our souls but in our bodies too. We shall rise at the end of time to life or to death. We shall rise body and soul sharing in the risen life of Christ himself as did our Lady, or we shall rise body and soul in an eternal death. None of us can escape eternity in our whole person, and this eternity is a wonderful prospect of life in its fulness for the entire man. We shall be with God in the fulness of our being. This full resurrection, more complete than that which occurs after we die, will come to pass at the end of time. It is preceded by the solemn judgment of God. We are so lucky to have a clear revelation about it, because it enables us to live in the light of it day by day.
Let us accept with gratitude the revelation brought to us by Christ and mentioned by him in today’s Gospel passage (Luke 20:27-40) that we shall rise again. After death we rise in our soul for our individual judgment by God. Then at the end of time when Christ comes again to judge we shall rise in our body and soul for our final judgment, and all mankind will be thus judged. Then there will be unending life with God or death apart from him. Let us so live as to be found worthy of a place in the presence of our Father in heaven.
(E.J.Tyler).
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"He is not God of the dead, but of the living" (Luke 20:27-40)
Commentary from Vatican Council II (On the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et Spes, § 18)
It is in the face of death that the riddle a human existence grows most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person. He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavors of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety; for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life which is inescapably lodged in his breast.
Although the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. In addition, that bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man who was ruined by his own doing is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour. For God has called man and still calls him so that with his entire being he might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death He freed man from death. Hence to every thoughtful man a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time faith gives him the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death; faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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"Where charity and love are found, there is God'' we sing in the liturgical hymn. Here is what a certain soul noted down: "Fraternal love is a great and marvelous treasure. It is not simply a consolation — which it certainly often has to be — but it really brings home the certainty of having God close to us, and shows itself in the charity our neighbours have for us and in the charity which we have for them.''
(The Forge, no.940)
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Who celebrates the heavenly liturgy?
The heavenly liturgy is celebrated by the angels, by the saints of the Old and New Testament, particularly the Mother of God, by the Apostles, by the martyrs, and by the “great multitude which no one could number from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” (Revelation 7:9). When we celebrate the mystery of our salvation in the sacraments we participate in this eternal liturgy.
(CCC 1138-1139)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.234)
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Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King
(Thirty-Fourth or Last Sunday in Ordinary Time B)
(November 26) Saint Leonard of Port Maurice and Saint Sylvester Gozzolina (Saints)
Scripture today: Daniel 7:13-14; Psalm 93:1, 1-2, 5; Revelation 1:5-8; John 18:33b-37
Pilate said to Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?" Pilate answered, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here." So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." (John 18:33b-37)
I remember years ago being told by a priest many years older than myself that one reason why, in his view, the feast of Christ the King had never taken on was because people of our age had little feeling for royalty and kingship. It was a feast - so he thought - that depended
too much on the concept
of kingship as it had been exercised in ages now gone. When he told me
this I thought there was good reason in what he said, but then I
remembered that the kingship of Christ is a profoundly scriptural
notion. It is with very good reason that the feast of Christ the King
was instituted by the Church, for it sets forth something quite central
in
the mission of our Lord. The kingship of the Messiah had been
long predicted by the prophets and the Scriptures spoke at length about
the coming King and the Kingdom of God which he would establish. All
Israel looked forward to this future King, and because of the renown of
this prediction other nations of the ancient world also whispered and
murmured about
it. We remember that the Wise Men from the East came searching for the
King who had been born. The problem was that the expected King was the
object of many wild hopes of a very political character, and our Lord
fled on one occasion from the crowd because they wanted to come and
take him by force and make him King. The Messiah was deemed by many to
be a political liberator. Even our Lord’s closest disciples after his
very resurrection thought that he was going now to “restore” the
kingdom of Israel. It took the coming of the Holy Spirit for them to
understand that Christ’s kingdom was not of this world, and that is
exactly what our Lord told Pilate during his Passion. (John 18:33b-37)After his resurrection our Lord told his disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him. They were to go, therefore, to the whole world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The book of Revelation refers to our Lord as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. So many of the kings and lords of human history have founded their kingships on lies and on force. Our Lord referred to them once when he said that the kings of this world make their authority felt. They demanded to be served at times as if they were gods, and we only have to think of the likes of Alexander the Great and many of the Roman Caesars to appreciate that. Not so with you, our Lord told his disciples. Our Lord is King in that he is the Truth, and all who belong to the truth listen to him. We remember how at his transfiguration on the Mount the Father stated that he was his beloved Son and all were to listen to him. He is the ultimate authority for all that is true, and the truth that he utters is the truth that comes from God. So then, with love the Christian follows Jesus as his King, as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. On him we can base our entire life and every aspect of it. In bringing him to the notice of the world around us we bring the One in whom is every heavenly blessing. It is most important that we understand this in the face of competing claims. Let us take the case of Islam which claims for its founder the highest status in God's plan. Cardinal Newman once wrote that in this sense it is a type of the Antichrist. For the sake of the whole world, including for the adherents of Islam, each Christian must be convinced that Christ is the King of kings.
This is the last week of the Liturgical Year. Let us renew in our hearts our conviction of the supreme position occupied by Jesus. He is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. All who belong to the truth listen to his voice. Let us bring his person and his voice every day to the world around us. This we do by our example and our active influence on others.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Jesus answered, 'My kingdom does not belong to this world'.....” (John 18:36)
Commentary by St Augustine (354-430), bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and doctor of the Church
Tractate 115 on the Gospel of John, 2 (translated from the French)
Listen everybody, Jews and Gentiles… Listen, all the kingdoms of the earth! I am not preventing you from ruling over this world, “my kingdom is not of this world.” (Jn 18:36) So don’t be afraid with that senseless fear which seized Herod when my birth was announced to him… “No,” the Savior says, “my kingdom is not of this world.” All of you, come to a kingdom, which is not of this world; come by faith. May you not be made cruel by fear. It is true that the Son of God, speaking of the Father, says in a prophecy: “Through him, I was established as king on Zion, his holy mountain.” (Ps 2:6) But that Zion and that mountain are not of this world.
And what is his kingdom? It is they who believe in him, those to whom he says: “You are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” But he nevertheless wants them to be in the world; he prays to his Father: “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but to protect them from the evil one.” (Jn 17:15) For he did not say: “My kingdom is not in this world,” but rather: “It is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over.”
For his kingdom really is here on earth until the end of the world, until the harvest of weeds is mingled with the good seed (Mt 13:24f.)… His kingdom is not from here, for he is like a traveler in this world. To those over whom he reigns, he says: “You do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” (Jn 15:19) So they did belong to this world when they were not yet his kingdom, and they belonged to the prince of this world (Jn 12:3)… All who are born of Adam’s sinful race belong to this world; all who were reborn in Jesus Christ belong to his kingdom and no longer belong to this world. For “God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.” (Col 1:13)
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Shun public display. May your life be known to God, for holiness passes unnoticed, even though it is most effective.
(The Forge, no.941)
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How does the Church on earth celebrate the liturgy?
The Church on earth celebrates the liturgy as a priestly people in which each one acts according to his proper function in the unity of the Holy Spirit. The baptized offer themselves in a spiritual sacrifice; the ordained ministers celebrate according to the Order they received for the service of all the members of the Church; the bishops and priests act in the Person of Christ the Head. (CCC 1140-1144, 1188)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.235)
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Monday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 27) Today let us think of Saint Maximinus (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 14:1-3, 4b-5; Psalm 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6; Luke 21:1-4
When Jesus looked up he saw some wealthy people putting their offerings into the treasury and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins. He said, “I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.” (Luke 21:1-4)
We have only one life and that means that we have only one opportunity to do all the good we can. Once it is over, our chance to do good is gone forever. So every day counts. As time slips by a sense of futility comes over many persons as they look
back
and see so little good done, and as they look forward and seem to see
so little opportunity for good in the future. That is to say, most
people come to see that they are very, very limited. The daily round of
the average man or woman’s life is fairly repetitive, often without
results, and even seeming to be a little meaningless. One saint
drew attention to the village donkey which day after day went round and
round pulling the stone. But by doing this it drew the water for the
village. The entire village depended on that donkey for its water. The
saint pointed out that the limited round of activities of each person’s
life has its importance in God's providence for the world. In our
Gospel scene today (Luke 21:1-4) our Lord looks up and
sees some wealthy people putting their offerings into the treasury -
and undoubtedly what they put in was impressive for many observers. But
then there came forward a poor, unnoticed widow who put on two small
coins. It was a symbol of her life. She had hardly anything to offer
God or to others. She must have felt a profound sense of personal
limitation. She had practically nothing to show, practically nothing to
give, practically nothing to offer. But, our Lord said, what made her
life so impressive was that she gave all she had to live on, and in
this gift she gave her entire self. The thought of the poor widow and Christ’s praise of her ought give every man and woman a great hope and joy. No matter what life brings, whether it be success or failure, good fortune or bad, health or sickness, all God is asking for is our best efforts and our love. It is as simple and as difficult as that. The well-endowed must give lovingly and for a pure motive of his best, as must the poorly endowed. Let us see today’s Gospel as the other side of that parable our Lord told of the master who returned and called each of his servants to account. Finally he came to the one who had been entrusted with the least, and it was discovered that this one had not put his master’s money to work. He had buried the little money he had been given and he could not even return it to the master with interest. He was punished for being wicked and lazy. Being of little talent and having few opportunities is no excuse for not serving Christ our Master with all our powers. We must, that is to say, avoid being like the lazy servant, and strive to be like the widow of our Gospel today. We must give to God and to his service all we have to live on, our entire wherewithal. We must use every day to serve God with thoroughness in the fulfilment of our daily responsibilities, which is to say our daily work on our own selves and our spiritual life, our daily work for our family and those whom we serve in our professional work. No matter how much we might be regarded as “nobodies” in our life’s circumstances, we can serve God with persevering excellence, giving back to God all he has given to us to enable us to serve him.
Let us place ourselves in the hands of Mary the mother of Jesus and Joseph his foster-father. Their lives were lived in a very ordinary and obscure round of daily responsibilities. They were “nobodies” like the vast majority of the human race. And yet within this daily round of work and prayer how total was their gift of themselves to God! They more than any others show to us all the grandeur that is possible for the ordinary life. Let us love the ordinary life which God has in his goodness deigned to grant us, and let us by the holiness we gradually acquire make it a worthy offering to God, an offering very much like the offering to God that came from the poor widow of today’s Gospel.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“This poor widow ...., from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.” (Luke 21:1-4)
Commentary by Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), Hermit and Missionary in the Sahara
Meditations on the Holy Gospels (1898-1899)
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Lk 23:46) That was our Master’s, our Beloved’s last prayer. May it be ours. And may it not only be the prayer of our last moment, but that of all our moments: “Father, I place myself into your hands; Father, I entrust myself to you; Father, I abandon myself to you. Father, do with me as pleases you; whatever you do with me, I thank you. Thank you for everything. I am ready for everything, I accept everything, I thank you for everything so long as your will is done in me, my God, so long as your will is done in all your creatures, in all your children, in all whom your heart loves. I want nothing else, my God. Into your hands I commend my soul, I give it to you, my God, with all the love of my heart, because I love you, and because in my love I need to give myself, to place myself into your hands beyond all measure. I place myself into your hands with infinite trust, because you are my Father.”
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Try to ensure that people don't notice when you lend a helping hand; try not to be praised or seen by anyone... so that, being hidden like salt, you may give flavour to your normal surroundings. And thus, as a result of your Christian outlook, you will be helping to give to everything about you a natural, loving and attractive tone.
(The Forge, no.942)
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How is the liturgy celebrated?
The celebration of the liturgy is interwoven with signs and symbols whose meaning is rooted in creation and in human culture. It is determined by the events of the Old Testament and is fully revealed in the Person and work of Christ.
(CCC 1145)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.236)
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Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 28) Today let us think of Saint James of the Marches (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 14:14-19; Psalm 96:10, 11-12, 13; Luke 21:5-11
I, John, looked and there was a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud one who looked like a son of man, with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud, “Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe.” So the one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven who also had a sharp sickle. Then another angel came from the altar, who was in charge of the fire, and cried out in a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Use your sharp sickle and cut the clusters from the earth’s vines, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and cut the earth’s vintage. He threw it into the great wine press of God’s fury. (Revelation 14:14-19)
Perhaps the greatest eighteenth century Anglican philosopher of religion was Bishop Joseph Butler. In his Analogy of Religion he tells us that the notion of religion in general and of Christianity in particular includes the thought of a future state and a personal judgment on all our behaviour. As a result of this divine judgment we shall be rewarded or punished. Cardinal Newman, who was
influenced somewhat by
Butler, stated that the first principle of religion is the thought of a
judgment as contained in the feeling of conscience. So the idea of
religion in the minds of these two thinkers has a judgment at its
centre. Whether this is valid is open to discussion because there are
many “religions” (as we regard and call them) which do not seem to have
much of a notion of a judgment. I am thinking of many indigenous
religions, and some world religions such as Buddhism. Whatever of that
observation arising from our modern knowledge of the religions of man,
at least it is undeniable that the thought of a judgment is one of the
starting points of our Western religious sense. It has its roots in the
natural conscience and in the great religious heritage we have received
from Catholic Christianity. The Catholic Church and the Faith it
transmitted greatly shaped the Western mind and heart, and with it its
sense of religion. At the heart of this sense is the thought of a
judgment, the judgment of God which Christ came to prepare us for by
his redemptive death and resurrection. It is this which our first
reading from the Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse) speaks of so
vividly today. The inspired author sees in his vision that the time for
reaping is coming. The harvest of the earth is ripe, and so the cutting
of
the vines begins. The angel then throws what is cut into the “great
wine press of God’s fury.” (Revelation
14:14-19)This week is the last week of this Liturgical Year and the Church invites us to think of the Last things, the final event in the life of each one of us, and of the whole world. That final event will be the passing away of our present scene and the arrival of the judgment of God. After that, all will be settled and our chance will have gone. It will be a matter of either heaven or hell. What can possibly compare in importance with this final judgment of God? Consider the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War. Would those who were convicted of war crimes and of crimes against humanity have done what they did if they had known beyond the slightest doubt that within a very few years they would be tied, convicted and executed or imprisoned for their deeds? If they were to have done what they did despite knowing for certain their inglorious end how much more demonic would have been their course! Would Napoleon Bonaparte have waged his many European wars and savaged so many people (including, incidentally, the papacy) if he had foreseen for certain his miserable end on the island of St Helena? Such persons would not have followed their sad course if they had grasped its ultimate upshot - and this shows the importance of the thought of a judgment in life and in religion. There have been saints who kept on their desk a skull, reminding them of death and the judgment of God that will come. It is very foolish to forget the judgment of God because every one of our actions will be subject to the divine scrutiny. We must strive to live in such a way as to be prepared. Our Lord repeatedly tells us in the Gospels to watch because we do not know the day nor the hour when we shall be called to the judgment of God. Were not God to have revealed that he is a God rich in mercy there would be the temptation to fear and despair.
Let us strive to live in a holy way, while entrusting ourselves to the mercy of God. The temptation of our day is to forget the judgment of God, and to lose the sense of sin. Let us pray to God for the grace to remember what he has revealed, that our present world will pass away and that his judgment will surely come. With this in mind let us seek holiness of life, entrusting ourselves to the infinite mercy of our heavenly Father.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Be not perturbed when you hear of wars and insurrections.” (Luke 21:5-11)
Commentary by Pope Benedict
XVI (20th World Day of Youth, Homily for the Vigil)The saints show us the way to attain happiness, they show us how to be truly human. Through all the ups and downs of history, they were the true reformers who constantly rescued it from plunging into the valley of darkness; it was they who constantly shed upon it the light that was needed to make sense - even in the midst of suffering - of God's words spoken at the end of the work of creation: "It is very good".
One need only think of such figures as St Benedict, St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa of Avila, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Charles Borromeo, the founders of 19-century religious orders who inspired and guided the social movement, or the saints of our own day - Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein, Mother Teresa, Padre Pio. In contemplating these figures we learn what it means "to adore" and what it means to live according to the measure of the Child of Bethlehem, by the measure of Jesus Christ and of God himself.
The saints, as we said, are the true reformers. Now I want to express this in an even more radical way: only from the saints, only from God does true revolution come, the definitive way to change the world.
In the last century we experienced revolutions with a common programme - expecting nothing more from God, they assumed total responsibility for the cause of the world in order to change it. And this, as we saw, meant that a human and partial point of view was always taken as an absolute guiding principle. Absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism. It does not liberate man, but takes away his dignity and enslaves him.
It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true. True revolution consists in simply turning to God who is the measure of what is right and who at the same time is everlasting love. And what could ever save us apart from love?
Dear friends! Allow me to add just two brief thoughts.
There are many who speak of God; some even preach hatred and perpetrate violence in God's Name. So it is important to discover the true face of God. The Magi from the East found it when they knelt down before the Child of Bethlehem. "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father", said Jesus to Philip (Jn 14: 9). In Jesus Christ, who allowed his heart to be pierced for us, the true face of God is seen. We will follow him together with the great multitude of those who went before us. Then we will be travelling along the right path.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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For this world of ours to set its course in a Christian direction — which is the only one worth while — we have to exercise a loyal friendship with all men, based on a prior loyal friendship with God.
(The Forge, no.943)
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From where do the sacramental signs come?
Some come from created things (light, water, fire, bread, wine, oil); others come from social life (washing, anointing, breaking of bread). Still others come from the history of salvation in the Old Covenant (the Passover rites, the sacrifices, the laying on of hands, the consecrations). These signs, some of which are normative and unchangeable, were taken up by Christ and are made the bearers of his saving and sanctifying action. (CCC 1146-1152, 1189)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.237)
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Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time II
(November 29) Today let us think of Saint Saturninus (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 15:1-4; Psalm 98:1, 2-3ab, 7-8, 9; Luke 21:12-19
I, John, saw in heaven another sign, great and awe-inspiring: seven angels with the seven last plagues, for through them God’s fury is accomplished. Then I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire. On the sea of glass were standing those who had won the victory over the beast and its image and the number that signified its name. They were holding God’s harps, and they sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: “Great and wonderful are your works, Lord God almighty. Just and true are your ways, O king of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, or glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All the nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Revelation 15:1-4)
A few years ago there died a priest I had known for many years, one who was recognized by all as a fine priest indeed. He died in Spain, and I was told that before he died he said that he was grateful for the gift of life. How grateful we ought be for this gift, the gift of life! None of us need necessarily have come into existence, and that we did at all was dependent on many circumstances coming
together in the
providence of God. But now, many wonder if it is such a good thing to
have lived. I
remember some thirty five years ago when I was teaching religion in a
state secondary school a girl in the front row put up her hand and said
that “life is a bitch!” Life is a bitch. She did not sound as if she
was grateful to be alive, and she certainly did not sound as if she was
expecting very much from life. So then, what is there to expect from
life? We can expect many things from life, both good and bad, and in
the lives of many there are misfortunes upon misfortunes. But a great
revelation has been given to us by God, and it is that an eternity with
him awaits us if we are patient and persevering in doing and being
good. None of the sufferings of this life will be comparable to the
eternity of happiness that will succeed this life if we place our faith
in God and strive to please him. Moreover, if we do place our faith in
God this faith will bring happiness here on earth as well. On one
occasion Simon Peter asked our Lord what they who had left everything
and followed him would receive in return. Our Lord replied that anyone
who leaves all to follow him will receive a hundredfold in this life
(not without persecutions and difficulties, though) and eternal life
hereafter. God promises us happiness here on earth if we cast our lot
with him (though not the happiness this world promises) and eternal
happiness hereafter. We ought think often of heaven. Our first reading today from the book of Revelation describes in beautiful terms the joy of heaven. “On the sea of glass were standing those who had won the victory over the beast and its image and the number that signified its name. They were holding God’s harps, and they sang the sone of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb” (Revelation 15:1-4). This is what God plans for us, but the way to it is by passing through our time of testing and trial. Our life is a time of testing, a time when our choice for the good and for God is put to trial. Like any test God wants us to win the victory over the trials that are part and parcel of the testing. Christ himself was tested in every way and in this he was standing in for all mankind, including each of us. He won the victory, and the fruits of that victory are available for us empowering us to follow in his footsteps. That path is the path of the cross, a path of trial and God wants us, with the aid of his grace, to win the victory. Our passage from Revelation today presents those in heaven who had won the victory over the beast and its image. So then, let us think often of heaven and let us do so in a way that leads to action. It is by means of action that we shall get there, just as it is by means of action that any soldier and any army gains the victory. Christ gives us the weapons and he is our leader inspiring us and conferring on us the strength we need for every temptation. Let us be grateful for the great gift of life that puts is in the running for the eternal blessing of heaven. Just think! Heaven will never end! In a million years, in ten million years, in one hundred million years, heaven will still be just beginning for those who are there. Inasmuch as God is limitless in beauty and goodness our joy will be inexhaustible and unending in his presence, face to face. We ought be grateful for the gift of life.
Let us all through life remember the last things we shall have to face. Those things are, death, God’s judgment and then heaven or hell. Let us today meditate on the first reading from the book of Revelation which speaks of heaven. Let us think of our Lord's words in the Gospel that the sufferings of life are the "opportunity to bear witness" and that "your endurance will win you your lives" (Luke 21:12-18). Let us, with this thought, every day resolutely choose the good and all that God wants of us. Let us choose Christ for our Lord and Master, and be led by him through the Cross to eternal glory, the glory of our heavenly homeland.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“By patient endurance you will save your lives.” (Luke 21:12-19)
Commentary by Saint Cyprian (200-258), Bishop of Carthage and Martyr
The benefits of patient endurance, 13.15
For our salvation, our Lord and Master gave us this commandment: “Whoever holds out till the end will escape death.” (Mt 10:22) … The very fact that we are Christians grounds our faith and our hope. But so that hope and faith might bear fruit, patient endurance is necessary. We do not seek the glory that is here below, but the future glory. The apostle Paul warned us: “In hope we were saved. But hope is not hope if its object is seen; how is it possible for one to hope for what he sees? And hoping for what we cannot see means awaiting it with patient endurance.” (Rom 8:24-25) In another passage, Paul gave the same teaching to the righteous who work so that God’s gifts might bear fruit in order to prepare greater treasures for themselves in heaven…: “While we have the opportunity, let us do good to all… Let us not grow weary of doing good; if we do not relax our efforts, in due time we shall reap our harvest.” (Gal 6:10.9)… And when Paul talked about charity, he added perseverance and patient endurance: “Love is patient; love is kind. Love is not jealous, it does not put on airs… Love is not prone to anger; neither does it brood over injuries… There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.” (1 Cor 13:4-7) He thus shows that love is capable of persevering to the end, since it can bear all things. Finally, Paul said in another passage: “Bear with one another lovingly. Make every effort to preserve the unity which has the Spirit as its origin and peace as its binding force.” (Eph 4:2-3) Thus he shows that brothers can preserve neither unity nor peace if they do not encourage one another by bearing with one another, and if they do not maintain the bond of concord by means of their patient endurance.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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You have heard me speak many times about the apostolate ad fidem. I still think the same way. What a marvelous field of work awaits us throughout the world with those who do not know the true faith and who, nonetheless, are noble, generous and cheerful.
(The Forge, no.944)
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What is the link between the actions and the words in the celebration of the sacraments?
Actions and words are very closely linked in the celebration of the sacraments. Indeed, even if the symbolic actions are already in themselves a language, it is necessary that the words of the rite accompany and give life to these actions. The liturgical words and actions are inseparable both insofar as they are meaningful signs and insofar as they bring about what they signify. (CCC 1153-1155, 1190)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.238)
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Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle
(Thursday of the thirty fourth week of Ordinary Time II)
(November 30) Saint Andrew, Apostle. Born at Bethsaida, Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist before he became a follower of Christ, to whom he also brought his brother, Peter. With Philip he presented the Greeks to Christ before his Passion. Before the miracle in the desert, he pointed out to Christ the boy carrying the loaves and fishes. After Pentecost he preached the Gospel in many lands and is said to have been put to death by crucifixion at Achaia (Greece). (Saints)
Today let us also think of Saint Maura (Saints)
Scripture today: Romans 10:9-18; Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 11; Matthew 4:18-22
As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-22)
Today, the feast of St Andrew (2006), Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the feast of St Andrew with the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople in Istanbul. Ever since the great meeting between Pope Paul VI and the Patriarch of Constantinople many decades ago the Holy See has sent delegations to celebrate the feast of St Andrew together with the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople. In like
manner, the Orthodox
send a delegation to Rome each year for the feast of St Peter and St
Paul. Today we think of the Gospel scene of how our Lord,
“walking by the
Sea of Galilee”, “saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and
his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He
said to them, ‘Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men’.” (Matthew
4:18-22)
The two were called together, they lived out their lives together in
full
union in Christ as did the other Apostles, and now, two thousand years
later, the Christian world finds itself in such disunity. This
Christian disunity is a
terrible tragedy, and it has profoundly hampered the Christian witness
to the person of Christ. Imagine how powerful would that witness be if
the Christian world were united in one Fold under one Shepherd! Our
Lord prayed at the Last Supper that they would all be one so that the
world would believe that he is the One whom the Father has sent. That
was Christ’s prayer, and so it should be our constant prayer too. The
project of Christian unity may seem beyond imagining in its scale and
difficulty, but inasmuch as Christ prayed for it, so too we should pray
for it with confidence in the power and the love of God. So much is at
stake for the redemption of the world. Great as are the efforts of so
many zealous members of Christ’s faithful, so much more fruitful would
the efforts of all be were all one. So on this feast of Saint Andrew, brother of Simon Peter the first of the Popes, let us dream dreams of Christian unity. Let us think back to the beginnings, to the calling of the Twelve by Christ, and to the call of the two brothers, Simon and Andrew. Each of us can pray for Christian unity in union with the Supreme Pontiff the successor of Saint Peter, and we can do our little bit each day and throughout our lives to advance the communion which ought exist between all those who believe in Christ. Let us spread kindness everywhere, kindness and respect for those who are not in full communion with us. Let us imagine ourselves working for this in union with the Successor of Peter, doing it on our small stage which has its place in the overarching Providence of God.. When we come before the judgment seat of God what shall we have to show for ourselves in respect to this wish and prayer of Christ for the unity of all Christians? Shall we have contributed to it, or shall we have hindered it in various ways in our limited sphere of influence? Furthermore, during his visit to Turkey the Pope is stressing the responsibility we all have not only to contribute to the unity of all Christians, but to a greater unity between those who profess faith in one God. A great issue of our day is the relations between Islam and the West, including Islam and Christianity. Let us remember that Islam looks to the God of Abraham, and sees itself as within the religious tradition that stems from him. That ought be a source of mutual understanding and cooperation. Ever since the Second Vatican Council the Popes have taught us that we have a responsibility to build on this common ground and construct a civilization of love.
Let us ask for the grace to use the time we have at this point of human history and of the history of the Church to build up a true communion between all God’s children and all those who believe in Christ. We have a responsibility to do this, and we shall be judged on the degree to which we have fulfilled it.
(E.J.Tyler)
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St Andrew: First one to be called; first one to witness
Comment by St John Chrysostom (345-407), bishop and doctor of the Church (Homily on the Gospel of Saint John, 19,1)
After Andrew had remained with Jesus (John 1,39) and had learned what he did learn, he did not keep his treasure concealed for himself, but hastened to run quickly to his brother Simon Peter to share with him the good things that he had received.
Consider what he told his brother: “We have found the Messiah (which interpreted is Christ)” (John 1,41). Do you perceive, in these words, the fruit of what he had learned in such a short time? It shows, at once, the authority of the Teacher who taught his disciples, and their own enthusiasm and will to learn from him since the very beginning.
Indeed Andrew's eagerness, his zeal in wanting to spread immediately such a good news, supposes a soul who was longing to see the accomplishment of the many prophecies concerning Christ. It is a mark of brotherly kindness, of loving kinship, of genuine good will: to hasten to stretch out a helping hand to one another in spiritual matters...”We have found the Messiah”, he says; not any messiah, but “the Messiah”, the one Christ they were awaiting.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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I often feel like crying out to so many men and women in offices and shops, in the world of the media and in the law courts, in schools, on the factory floor, in mines and on farms and telling them that, with the backing of an interior life and by means of the Communion of Saints, they ought to be bringing God into all these different environments, according to that teaching of the Apostle: ``Glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his presence.''
(The Forge, no.945)
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What are the criteria for the proper use of singing and music in liturgical celebrations?
Since song and music are closely connected with liturgical action they must respect the following criteria. They should conform to Catholic doctrine in their texts, drawn preferably from Sacred Scripture and liturgical sources. They should be a beautiful expression of prayer. The music should be of a high quality. Song and music should encourage the participation of the liturgical assembly. They should express the cultural richness of the People of God and the sacred and solemn character of the celebration. “He who sings, prays twice” (Saint Augustine). (CCC 1156-1158, 1191)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.239)
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Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
(December 1) Today let us think of St. Florence, St. Eligius, (Saints)
Blessed brother Charles of Jesus, priest (1858-1916) (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 20:1-4, 11—21:2; Psalm 84:3, 4, 5-6a and 8a; Luke 21:29-33
I, John, saw an angel come down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the abyss and a heavy chain. He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, which is the Devil or Satan, and tied it up for a thousand years and threw it into the abyss, which he locked over it and sealed, so that it could no longer lead the nations astray until the thousand years are completed. After this, it is to be released for a short time. Then I saw thrones; those who sat on them were entrusted with judgment. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image nor had accepted its mark on their foreheads or hands. They came to life and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. Next I saw a large white throne and the one who was sitting on it. The earth and the sky fled from his presence and there was no place for them. I saw the dead, the great and the lowly, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. Then another scroll was opened, the book of life. The dead were judged according to their deeds, by what was written in the scrolls. The sea gave up its dead; then Death and Hades gave up their dead. All the dead were judged according to their deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the pool of fire. (This pool of fire is the second death.) Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the pool of fire. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 20:1-4, 11—21:2)
One of the things a study of history can bring home to us is that our deeds have consequences. An assassination led to the First World War. The decision to oust the dictator Saddam Hussein led to the Iraq War and its unforeseen mayhem and murderous insurgency. The
list of awesome
consequences following on certain actions could be lengthened almost
indefinitely. The decisions we take and the things we do profoundly
affect the course of our life here on earth, so it ought be no surprise
to us that the same God who created this world with its natural and
moral laws has revealed that our deeds in this life will have immense
consequences for the hereafter. Our deeds shape and have results for
our course not only in this world but in the next. That is one reason
why the classic Protestant position of salvation by faith alone (and
not by works) has to be expressed extremely carefully, and if it is
not,
such a position must necessarily be rejected. Of course, it is Christ
and his grace
that saves us, and therefore our salvation will come only by faith in
him. But this can be presented in a way that in effect states that our
good deeds are not necessary for salvation. That is to say, even if we
continue to sin and not repent we shall be saved if only we trust in
Christ. This cannot be allowed and our passage from the Book of
Revelation is one of many that could be provided that show how our
salvation does indeed depend enormously on what we actually do. At the
end, our passage tells us, “another scroll was opened, the book of
life. The dead were judged according to their deeds, by what was
written in the scrolls. The sea gave up its dead; then Death and Hades
gave up their dead. All the dead were judged according to their deeds.”
(Revelation
20:1-4,
11—21:2) Yes, our life this side of the grave depends on our deeds, and our eternity hereafter will depend on our deeds. The course of history and of eternity depends on what we actually do, on the exercise of our own power of free choice. The merits and the grace of Christ won for us by his Death and Resurrection empower us to choose for him perseveringly, but it is on our own deeds thus assisted and transformed that everything will hinge. God will not be judging Christ on whom we place our faith - he will be judging us, each of us personally, and judging each and every one of our deeds. If God were to take us now, what would be the upshot? Were the book of life to be suddenly opened, what would be found to be written in it concerning our “deeds”? We were made to know, love and serve God here on earth and thus to see and enjoy him forever in heaven. Therefore, what will count in our deeds is precisely the extent to which we have loved and served God in the doing of them. When we make our choices - and we make them daily and countlessly - the deeds which will count in our favour when the book of life is opened are those which have been chosen in accord with God’s will, and then performed in a way pleasing to him. God sees the heart constantly. He our Judge knows what we have chosen to do and why we have chosen it and how we have done it. Our “deeds” are being written down constantly in “the book of life”, to use the imagery of the inspired Book of Revelation, and one day that book will be opened. What is found in it will determine our eternity. What an eternity it will be! “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 20:1-4, 11—21:2).
Let us realize the power we have been granted in the power of personal and free choice. The ultimate issue is whether we are choosing what pleases God or what displeases him. It is as simple, as constant, and as difficult as that. We must aim to be persevering and excellent in our choice for good and for God. Our deeds determine our course in this life, and they will determine our course in the next. Let us pray for the grace to remember this day by day throughout the time we have been granted.
(E.J.Tyler)
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The example of the fig tree (Luke 21:29-33) Commentary by John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890),
Priest, Founder of a religious community, Theologian (Plain and Parochial Sermons IV, 13)
Once only in the year, yet once, does the world which we see show forth its hidden powers, and in a manner manifest itself. Then the leaves come out, and the blossoms on the fruit trees, and flowers; and the grass and corn spring up. There is a sudden rush and burst outwardly of that hidden life which God has lodged in the material world. Well, that shows you, as by a sample, what it can do at God's command, when He gives the word. This earth, which now buds forth in leaves and blossoms, will one day burst forth into a new world of light and glory, in which we shall see Saints and Angels dwelling. Who would think, except from his experience of former springs all through his life, who could conceive two or three months before, that it was possible that the face of nature, which then seemed so lifeless, should become so splendid and varied? … So it is with the coming of that Eternal Spring, for which all Christians are waiting. Come it will, though it delay; yet though it tarry, let us wait for it, "because it will surely come, it will not tarry." (Heb 10:37) Therefore we say day by day, "Thy kingdom come;" which means,—O Lord, show Thyself; manifest Thyself; Thou that sittest between the cherubim, show Thyself; stir up Thy strength and come and help us (Ps 80:3).
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Those of us who bear in our hearts the truth of Christ have to put this truth into the hearts, and minds and lives of others. Not to do so would show a love of comfort and bad tactics too. Think it over once again: Did Christ ask you permission before coming into your soul? He left you free to follow him, but he was the one who sought you out, because he chose to.
(The Forge, no.946)
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What is the purpose of holy images?
The image of Christ is the liturgical icon par excellence. Other images, representations of Our Lady and of the Saints, signify Christ who is glorified in them. They proclaim the same Gospel message that Sacred Scripture communicates by the word and they help to awaken and nourish the faith of believers. (CCC 1159-1161, 1192)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.240)
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Saturday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time II
(December 2) Today let us think of Saint Bibiana (Saints)
Scripture today: Revelation 22:1-7; Psalm 95:1-2, 3-5, 6-7aba; Luke 21:34-36
John said: An angel showed me the river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the street, On either side of the river grew the tree of life that produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month; the leaves of the trees serve as medicine for the nations. Nothing accursed will be found anymore. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will look upon his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more, nor will they need light from lamp or sun, for the Lord God shall give them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true, and the Lord, the God of prophetic spirits, sent his angel to show his servants what must happen soon.” “Behold, I am coming soon.” Blessed is the one who keeps the prophetic message of this book. (Revelation 22:1-7)
Not long back there was a television show which presented the effects of the Jewish holocaust on the memories of some Jewish victims in Australia in their old age. Particularly sad were those whose memories were fading and who were suffering from dementia. They could not control their memories and so became progressively trapped in horrible flashbacks which dominated their imaginations. Thus trapped, they had
nothing
to look forward
to. Cases such as these manifest the importance of a healing of
memories and of the cultivation of a profound hope. The healing of
memories is an extensive issue and not one I wish to comment on here.
But the cultivation of hope relates directly to our
first reading today from the Book of Revelation. In our passage, “an
angel” shows John a glimpse of heaven, in which he sees the throne of
God and of the Lamb, together with the river of life-giving water
(perhaps
the Holy Spirit) flowing from the throne.
The servants of God
“will look upon his face, and his name will be on their forehead.”
Imagine! In heaven we shall look upon the face of God. It has been
revealed that this is the wonderful destiny God has chosen for us. For
those judged worthy, for God’s “servants”, heaven will consist above
all in seeing God face to face forever and ever. God is infinite
beauty, infinite holiness, infinite love, and everything about him is
unending and inexhaustible in depth and richness of being. An eternity
will never exhaust the utter fascination we shall feel in his presence,
and millions of years from now the person in heaven will still be
simply beginning his life of unending and utter joy. “Night will be no
more, nor will they need light from lamp or sun, for the Lord God shall
give them light, and they shall reign forever and ever.” (Revelation
22:1-7)All our life we ought be cultivating this hope, the hope of being with God in heaven forever. It is surely a hope that can sustain us in whatever trials come our way, even the worst. Consider the sufferings that have come the way of so many saints, from terrible health to terrible persecution, often unto death. Their hope sustained them. This hope depends on our faith, because it is precisely due to our faith in Christ and in his word as expressed in the word of Scripture and the teaching of the Church that we entertain this hope. Our hope depends on our cultivating a lively Catholic faith, and this faith and hope ought show itself in a life of constant charity. It is the life of charity - love for God and for our fellow man - that will win for us a place in heaven. But then, without hope why would we live in this way? So much depends on hope! Our Lord in the Gospel today tells us to be “vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:34-36) Our hope will lead us to be vigilant at all times, guarding against sin and its occasions, being ever ready to bear witness to the person of Jesus and his teaching. I am convinced that too little thought is given to our future prize which is heaven. Too few people think of it. They think of this life alone, and when they think of the future they think of their future in this life. They think of future promotions in their work, they think of the future of their children, they think of their future retirement and the hoped-for joys of this retirement. For all of these future hopes they make provision but they do not think sufficiently of heaven, which ought be their supreme hope. Our Lord told us at the Last Supper that he was going to prepare a place for us so that where he is we would be too.
We have reached the last day of the Liturgical Year, with the new Liturgical Year to begin tomorrow, the first Sunday of Advent. The Church invites us to think of the very end. The very end is eternity, and if we live in a way pleasing to God it will be an eternity of unending bliss with him in heaven. This is our hope. Let us live according to it.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength ...to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:34-36)
Commentary by St Hippolytus of Rome (? – 235), Priest and Martyr (The Apostolic Tradition, 41)
Pray before your body rests in bed. And then, around the middle of the night, get up, wash your hands with water, and pray. If your wife is there, both of you pray together. If however, she is not yet a believer, withdraw to another room to pray, then return to your bed. Do not be lazy for prayer… We must pray at that hour, for the elders from whom we have this tradition taught us that at that hour the whole of creation is resting for a moment from praising the Lord. The stars, the trees and the waters stop for an instant, and the whole choir of angels who serve God praise him at that hour with the souls of the just. That is why the believers must hasten to pray at that hour. The Lord also testified to this when he said: “At midnight someone shouted, ‘The groom is here! Come out and greet him!’” (Mt 25:6) And he goes on and says: “Keep your eyes open, for you know not the day or the hour.” (25:13) When the cock crows in the morning, when you get up, pray again.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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With our acts of service we can prepare an even greater triumph for the Lord than that of his entry into Jerusalem. For there will be no repetition of the Judas episode, or that of the Garden of Gethsemane, or of that dark night. We will succeed in setting the world alight with the flames of that fire which he came to cast upon the earth. And the light of Truth — which is our Jesus — will enlighten men's minds with a brightness that never fades.
(The Forge, no.947)
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What is the center of the liturgical season?
The center of the liturgical season is Sunday which is the foundation and kernel of the entire liturgical year and has its culmination in the annual celebration of Easter, the feast of feasts. (CCC 1163-1167, 1193)
(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.241)
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