Morning
Offering:
O Jesus, through the most pure heart of Mary, I offer you all the
prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions
of your divine heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass. I
offer them especially for the Holy
Father's intentions:Pope Benedict's general
prayer intention
for November is: "That the testimony of love offered by the saints may
fortify Christians in their devotion to God and their neighbour,
imitating Christ who came to serve and not to be served".
His mission
intention
for November is: "That the Christian communities of Asia ,
contemplating the face of Christ, may know how
to find
the most
suitable ways to announce Him, in full faithfulness to the Gospel, to
the people of that vast continent so rich in culture and ancient
forms of spirituality".
Solemnity
of All Saints
(Saturday of the thirtieth week in
Ordinary Time
II)
(November
1) Feast
of All Saints
The earliest certain observance of a feast in
honor of all
the saints is an early fourth-century commemoration of "all the
martyrs." In the early seventh century, after successive waves of
invaders plundered the catacombs, Pope Boniface IV gathered up some 28
wagonloads of bones and reinterred them beneath the Pantheon, a Roman
temple dedicated to all the gods. The pope rededicated the shrine as a
Christian church. According to Venerable Bede, the pope intended "that
the memory of all the saints might in the future be honored in the
place which had formerly been dedicated to the worship not of gods but
of demons" (On the Calculation of Time). But the rededication of the
Pantheon, like the earlier commemoration of all the martyrs, occurred
in May. Many Eastern Churches still honor all the saints in the spring,
either during the Easter season or immediately after Pentecost. How the
Western Church came to celebrate this feast in November is a puzzle to
historians. The Anglo-Saxon theologian Alcuin observed the feast on
November 1 in 800, as did his friend Arno, Bishop of Salzburg. Rome
finally adopted that date in the ninth century.
This feast first honored martyrs. Later,
when
Christians were free to worship according to their conscience, the
Church acknowledged other paths to sanctity. In the early centuries the
only criterion was popular acclaim, even when the bishop's approval
became the final step in placing a commemoration on the calendar. The
first papal canonization occurred in 993; the lengthy process now
required to prove extraordinary sanctity took form in the last 500
years. Today's feast honors the obscure as well as the famous—the
saints each of us have known.
“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.... [One of the elders] 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 7:9,14).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture
today:
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14; Psalm 24:1-6; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew
5:1-12a
(click
here for
readings)
Now
when Jesus saw
the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples
came to him, and he began to teach them. 
He said:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are
the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the
merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be
called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of
righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you
when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil
against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your
reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who
were before you. (Matthew
5:1-12a)
Today
the Church
thinks of all those who are in Christ and who now enjoy the vision of
God in heaven. Their sanctification is complete. St Paul often refers
to “the saints” and by this he means those who have been justified by
their baptism into Christ and his Church, and whose sanctification is
either proceeding in this life or complete now in heaven. It takes a
lifetime to be sanctified, to be made truly holy.
It is the
great work of grace and our own cooperation, and if either element is
lacking then our sanctification will fail. Today we think of all those
now with Christ in heaven, and whose sanctification is complete. It is,
of course, impossible to be admitted definitively into the presence of
God if one is in the state of sin, or bearing the ongoing effects of
deliberate sin. This must first be purged from our hearts either in
this life or in the next before we can enter our heavenly homeland. So
then, today we think of our heavenly homeland and those who have
reached it. It is a tremendous thought. Amid all the woes and
difficulties and disappointments of this life, we all have something
wonderful ahead of us provided we keep to the track that will take us
there. That track is union with Christ. Ahead of us is heaven, where
every tear will be wiped away. The essence of heaven is, of course, the
direct and ravishing sight of God, whom Augustine describes as Beauty,
Beauty ever ancient and ever new. Whatever beauty we experience in this
life is but a pale reflection of the infinite and unending Beauty that
is God. His goodness is boundless and his truth is utterly splendid.
All words fail and all thoughts are inadequate in respect to the living
eternal God who is now the unending delight of all those in heaven.
They are there because of the work and merits of Jesus Christ. They are
his trophy of victory. By his death on the cross he expiated for the
sins of every man and woman and won for them the gift of the Holy
Spirit, who justifies and makes holy the heart and soul of cooperating
man.
Those
now in heaven
are members of the Church, that portion of the Church which we may call
triumphant for they now enjoy the triumph of Christ’s work for them. By
the power of God’s grace they chose Christ during life and faithfully
lived according to that choice. Numerous of those in heaven the Church
has canonized, infallibly declaring them to be of high holiness and
worthy of imitation in the Christian life. Far more persons, though,
would be in heaven than merely those who have been canonized as saints.
Some unknown to us could well be even holier than some whose reputation
for holiness the Church has known, rigorously studied and formally
canonized after the signs of miracles granted by God in their favour.
Far out ahead of all those in heaven, ahead of every angel, Archangel
or saint, is the Virgin Mary. She is filled with holiness to an extent
we can scarcely imagine and all by the free gift of God and her
unfailing cooperation. She was always full of grace, and is the mother
of God the Son made man. By God’s plan she is the mother of humanity in
the order of grace. Her holy husband Joseph united now eternally with
her in love exercises the protection of his intercession on behalf of
the universal Church. They and all the saints and angels in heaven are
in Christ, and because they are in Christ they are united to all of us
who are in Christ. We and they are members of the great communion of
saints that makes up Christ’s Church. We ought look to their example
and inspiration to help us on the way of fidelity to Christ in all
things. Saint John Vianney, the great and humble parish priest of Ars
in France during the first half of the nineteenth century, used read a
lot of lives of the saints. He recommended the practice to all. Not
only ought we learn from them but we ought pray to them asking for
their intercession. They are with God and so are in a privileged
position to gain for us the favours God would like us to have. St
Alphonsus Ligouri used say that the reason why we do not receive more
from God is that we do not ask for more. The saints can help us by
their intercession and example.
The
greatest
“saint”, of course, is Christ himself. He is the holiest of the holy
and is the very source of holiness for he is God himself, God the Son
become man. But all those who are in him are to a greater or lesser
extent saints in virtue of their union with him. Those now in heaven
are definitively sanctified. They are truly saints and no further
threat to their union with God will ever come. For ever and for ever
they will enjoy the direct vision of God and the company of all those
in heaven. That is the destiny to which we are all called. Let us not
expose that wonderful prospect to any threat by deliberate sin. Let us
renounce sin daily and live for Christ for he is our life now and
hereafter.
(E.J.Tyler)
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They have no faith. But they have plenty of superstitions. We laughed
and at the same time felt sorry when that 'strong character' became
alarmed on hearing a particular word — which, of itself, meant nothing,
but for him was unlucky — or on seeing someone break a mirror!
(The Way, no.587)
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SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 19, 2008 - Continuing the text of the
homily
Benedict XVI gave at
the World Youth Day
closing Mass Sunday morning local time.
As we pray for the confirmands, let us ask that the power of the Holy
Spirit will revive the grace of our own Confirmation. May he pour out
his gifts in abundance on all present, on this city of Sydney, on this
land of Australia and on all its people! May each of us be renewed in
the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgement
and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence, the spirit of
wonder and awe in God's presence!
Through the loving intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church, may this
Twenty-third World Youth Day be experienced as a new Upper Room, from
which all of us, burning with the fire and love of the Holy Spirit, go
forth to proclaim the Risen Christ and to draw every heart to him! Amen.
(Concluded)
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Commemoration
of the Faithful Departed
(31st Sunday in
Ordinary Time A)
(November
2) Commemoration of all
the
Faithful Departed
The Church has
encouraged prayer for the dead from the earliest times as an act of
Christian charity. "If we had no care for the dead," Augustine noted,
"we would not be in the habit of praying for them." Yet pre-Christian
rites for the deceased kept such a strong hold on the superstitious
imagination that a liturgical commemoration was not observed until the
early Middle Ages, when monastic communities began to mark an annual
day of prayer for the departed members. In the middle of the 11th
century, St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny (France), decreed that all Cluniac
monasteries offer special prayers and sing the Office for the Dead on
November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints. The custom spread
from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman Church. The
theological underpinning of the feast is the acknowledgment of human
frailty. Since few people achieve perfection in this life but, rather,
go to the grave still scarred with traces of sinfulness, some period of
purification seems necessary before a soul comes face-to-face with God.
The Council of Trent affirmed this purgatory state and insisted that
the prayers of the living can speed the process of purification.
Superstition still clung to the observance. Medieval popular belief
held that the souls in purgatory could appear on this day in the form
of witches, toads or will-o’-the-wisps. Graveside food offerings
supposedly eased the rest of the dead. Observances of a more religious
nature have survived. These include public processions or private
visits to cemeteries and decorating graves with flowers and lights.
This feast is observed with great fervour in Mexico.
Whether or not one should pray for the
dead is one
of the great arguments which divide Christians. Appalled by the abuse
of indulgences in the Church of his day, Martin Luther rejected the
concept of purgatory. Yet prayer for a loved one is, for the believer,
a way of erasing any distance, even death. In prayer we stand in God's
presence in the company of someone we love, even if that person has
gone before us into death.
“We must not make purgatory into a
flaming
concentration camp on the brink of hell—or even a ‘hell for a short
time.’ It is blasphemous to think of it as a place where a petty God
exacts the last pound—or ounce—of flesh.... St. Catherine of Genoa, a
mystic of the 15th century, wrote that the ‘fire’ of purgatory is God’s
love ‘burning’ the soul so that, at last, the soul is wholly aflame. It
is the pain of wanting to be made totally worthy of One who is seen as
infinitely lovable, the pain of desire for union that is now absolutely
assured, but not yet fully tasted” (Leonard Foley, O.F.M.,
Believing in Jesus). (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today: Wisdom 3:1-9; Psalm 23:1-6; Romans 5:5-11 or Romans 6:3-9; John 6:37-40 (click here for readings)
Jesus
said, All whom the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes
to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to
do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will
of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given
me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that
everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal
life, and I will raise them up at the last day."
(John 6:37-40)
On
November 1 and 2
the whole Church thinks of those who have died and who, in God, live on
still. I have met elderly persons who think that death is the end of
everything for the one who has died. There is no afterlife, so they
think, no more than there is for any dog, cat or any other non-rational
animal. It is not my intention here to discuss this sad opinion except
to say in passing that it goes against the 
voice of
mankind as
illustrated generally in its religions and popular culture. Be all that
as it may, the Church, speaking in the name of Christ, states
unequivocally that every person continues on in his spirit after death,
and at the end of time will be reunited with his body. I remember when
I was a child reading in a book of science the author stating that
matter cannot be created nor destroyed. He was speaking of what man can
and cannot do. We cannot give to matter its existence, nor can we take
from matter its existence. All we can do is change it for better or for
worse in accordance with its capacities. Well, just as in this sense
matter cannot be created nor destroyed, so spirit can neither be
created nor destroyed by man nor by any other created thing. A person
is made up of spirit and matter, body and soul. Together they form the
one human person, the soul or spiritual self informing the body and
giving to it its unifying individuality. When the person dies, the body
remains in the grave but the spiritual self lives on for it cannot be
destroyed by anything in creation. What happens to the spirit has been
revealed to us by God, although human reflection also provides us with
certain intimations of what we can expect. Following death comes the
Judgment by our Creator. The upshot will be either Heaven or Hell. But
today, November 2, All Souls Day, we think of those who strive in life
to be good, often fail and yet continue to try to be good. They die in
God’s friendship, but still they have need of purification if they are
to enter into the happiness of heaven. To be admitted definitively into
the eternal presence of God with the indescribable happiness of an
unending vision of the great and all holy God, they must be entirely
purified of sin. It is God who will in his mercy purify them of any
remnants of sin that remain after death and this stage of purification
the Church commonly calls Purgatory.
Each
year on this
day which we call All Souls Day the whole Church remembers all those of
Christ’s Faithful who have departed this life and who are still being
purified of their sins. The Church especially remembers those who are
forgotten. We pray that their purification will be hastened so that
they may enter the presence of God. We do this on other occasions as
well. At the funeral of a deceased person we pray for the repose of his
soul. Every year in Australia Anzac Day is celebrated in April. On that
day Mass is said for the repose of the souls of those who have died in
war defending the country. Of course it is possible that a person could
have lived his Christian and moral life so well that at death he is
worthy of immediate and definitive admittance into the presence of God.
But we do not presume this, even though we might confidently expect
that due to the power and grace of God he is saved. So we continue to
pray for that person because of the doctrine of Purgatory, that after
death there is probably still a further purification from sin and its
remnants to be undergone. We often pray for our departed friends and
relatives and the Catholic continues to have Masses said for the repose
of his soul. On this day, All Souls Day, the entire Church thinks of
all those still being purified in Purgatory and who, perhaps, have no
one to pray for them. The Church teaches that 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 for them. We can also
help them by almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance. Because the
souls being purified in Purgatory are united to Christ they are also in
communion with us who are also in Christ, just as they are in communion
with those in heaven. Just as we can help one another by our prayers so
we can help those in Purgatory by our prayers, and especially by the
Mass which is Christ’s sacrifice of Calvary made present. We also help
them by gaining indulgences for them, by our acts of charity and by our
acts of self denial - in other words by principal elements of our
entire Christian life offered to God as a prayer for them.
The
Church formally
teaches that we can help those who have died in Christ but who still
need to be purified and sanctified before admittance into the all-holy
presence of God for ever. Let us then act on this teaching given to us
in the name of Christ, and assist in this way by our prayers those who
have gone before us, both known and loved by us, and those unknown,
perhaps being unassisted by anyone now. How many persons may be in the
state we call Purgatory with no one to assist them with their prayers!
Let us then resolve to fill up our lives with this most worthy work of
mercy.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of
the Catholic Church,
no.1030-1032
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Omnia
possibilia sunt credenti. Everything is possible for anyone
who has
faith. The words are Christ's.
How is it that you don't say to him with the Apostles: 'Increase my
faith' ?
(The Way, no.588)
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SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 20, 2008 - Here is the address
Benedict XVI gave Monday morning local time at the
farewell
ceremony for his departure from Australia after concluding Sunday the
23rd World Youth Day. The Pope left Australia for Rome at about 10:30
a.m., local time.
* * *
Dear
Friends,
Before I take my leave, I wish to say to my hosts how much I have
enjoyed my visit here and how grateful I am for your hospitality. I
thank the Prime Minister, the Honourable Kevin Rudd, for the kindness
he has shown to me and to all the participants at World Youth Day. I
also thank the Governor-General, Major-General Michael Jeffery, for his
presence here and for graciously receiving me at Admiralty House at the
start of my public engagements. The Federal Government and the State
Government of New South Wales, as well as the residents and the
business community of Sydney, have been most cooperative in their
support of World Youth Day. An event of this kind requires an immense
amount of preparation and organization, and I know that I speak on
behalf of many thousands of young people when I express my appreciation
and gratitude to you all. In characteristic Australian style, you have
extended a warm welcome to me and to countless young pilgrims who have
flocked here from every corner of the globe. To the host families in
Australia and New Zealand who have made room for the young people in
their homes, I am especially grateful. You have opened your doors and
your hearts to the world's youth, and on their behalf I thank you.
(Continuing)
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Monday of the thirty first
week in Ordinary Time II
(November
3) St. Martin de Porres
(1579-1639)
"Father
unknown" is the cold legal phrase sometimes used on baptismal records.
"Half-breed" or "war souvenir" is the cruel name inflicted by those of
"pure" blood. Like many others, Martin might have grown to be a bitter
man, but he did not. It was said that even as a child he gave his heart
and his goods to the poor and despised. He was the illegitimate son of
a freed woman of Panama, probably black but also possibly of Native
American stock, and a Spanish grandee of Lima, Peru. He inherited the
features and dark complexion of his mother. That irked his father, who
finally acknowledged his son after eight years. After the birth of a
sister, the father abandoned the family. Martin was reared in poverty,
locked into a low level of Lima’s society. At 12 his mother apprenticed
him to a barber-surgeon. He learned how to cut hair and also how to
draw blood (a standard medical treatment then), care for wounds and
prepare and administer medicines.
After a few years in this medical
apostolate, Martin applied to the Dominicans to be a "lay helper," not
feeling himself worthy to be a religious brother. After nine years, the
example of his prayer and penance, charity and humility led the
community to request him to make full religious profession. Many of his
nights were spent in prayer and penitential practices; his days were
filled with nursing the sick and caring for the poor. It was
particularly impressive that he treated all people regardless of their
color, race or status. He was instrumental in founding an orphanage,
took care of slaves brought from Africa and managed the daily alms of
the priory with practicality as well as generosity. He became the
procurator for both priory and city, whether it was a matter of
"blankets, shirts, candles, candy, miracles or prayers!" When his
priory was in debt, he said, "I am only a poor mulatto. Sell me. I am
the property of the order. Sell me." Side by side with his daily work
in the kitchen, laundry and infirmary, Martin’s life reflected God’s
extraordinary gifts: ecstasies that lifted him into the air, light
filling the room where he prayed, bilocation, miraculous knowledge,
instantaneous cures and a remarkable rapport with animals. His charity
extended to beasts of the field and even to the vermin of the kitchen.
He would excuse the raids of mice and rats on the grounds that they
were underfed; he kept stray cats and dogs at his sister’s house. He
became a formidable fundraiser, obtaining thousands of dollars for
dowries for poor girls so that they could marry or enter a convent.
Many of his fellow religious took him as their spiritual director, but
he continued to call himself a "poor slave." He was a good friend of
another Dominican saint of Peru, Rose of Lima.
Racism is a sin almost nobody confesses. Like
pollution, it is a "sin of the world" that is everybody's
responsibility but apparently nobody's fault. One could hardly imagine
a more fitting patron of Christian forgiveness (on the part of those
discriminated against) and Christian justice (on the part of reformed
racists) than Martin de Porres.
Pope John XXIII remarked at the canonization of
Martin (May 6, 1962), "He excused the faults of others. He forgave the
bitterest injuries, convinced that he deserved much severer punishments
on account of his own sins. He tried with all his might to redeem the
guilty; lovingly he comforted the sick; he provided food, clothing and
medicine for the poor; he helped, as best he could, farm labourers and
Negroes, as well as mulattoes, who were looked upon at that time as
akin to slaves: thus he deserved to be called by the name the people
gave him: 'Martin of Charity.'"
(AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture
today:
Philippians 2:1-4; Psalm 131:1-3; Luke 14:12-14 (click here for
readings)
Then Jesus
said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite
your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich
neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be
repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the
lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay
you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
(Luke 14:12-14)
Consider
the following scenario. An older sister who has married and is settled
has resolved to assist her younger brother who is likewise married and
is struggling financially with his young family. At some sacrifice to
herself she gives a sizeable gift of money to her brother who as a
result is able to lay down a deposit for his new home and make a start
on repayments for what is now his own dwelling. It was
a sacrifice
for her to make this gift, and it certainly made a difference to her
brother. Moreover, at least partially she did it for love of God. It
was a real act of charity. However, as time goes on, her brother
gradually forgets the gift that she made. He never again refers to it
and even comes to treat her off-handedly and quite thoughtlessly. She
herself comes to resent his attitude, expecting that he would remember
the sacrifice she made and remain grateful to her for her decisive
assistance to him at a difficult moment of his married life. She
becomes somewhat embittered and gradually they drift apart, he
oblivious to his own neglect and she bitter at her generosity not being
acknowledged. They are both religious people, but the souring of their
love for one another is souring their religious life. Of course it is
reprehensible that he lacks ongoing gratitude for what she did for him,
but it is sad that she is not able to rise above his thoughtlessness
and renew or rather purify the motive for which she made her sacrifice.
At the time she did it for God - at least in large measure, and her
brother’s ongoing lack of acknowledgment could have become the occasion
for her purifying the intent of her past sacrifice as something for God
alone. Indeed, every time we find ourselves disappointed or frustrated
at the attitude of others towards what we have done in good faith and
good intent can be the occasion for a purification of our motive for
having done it. We ought do everything for God, do it well for him, and
when others react unfairly, then our consolation ought be our
continuing to do it and everything else for God.
In our
Gospel passage today our Lord provides us with a slightly different
scenario in his advice to his host. He urges him to do good to those
who cannot do good to him in return. "When you give a luncheon or
dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your
relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back
and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the
poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.
Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection
of the righteous."
(Luke 14:12-14)
In our earlier example, even though the older sister did not help her
younger brother simply in order to receive from him an ongoing
acknowledgment of her generosity to him, nevertheless the event proved
that her motives were mixed. She wanted to do this for God and to help
her brother, but she also, without realizing it, had some self-seeking
elements among her motives. Our Lord tells his host to beware of this
mixed motivation. Lean rather to that kind of assistance that
necessarily precludes the possibility of recompense. Of course, our
Lord is not saying that we must never assist when there is hope of
return being made to us, but he is clearly pointing to the importance
of purity of motive. We ought do things for God and for him alone, even
if we do receive and perhaps must recompense in some form from those we
assist. The ambition of our daily life in all its detail ought be to do
well whatever we do out of love for God and a truly disinterested love
for neighbour. This is an immense challenge because self-interest
pervades so much of our life. The challenge of life is, through the
power of God’s grace and our persevering effort, to purify our heart of
self-serving interest. God does, of course, want us to be busy and to
fill our life with good works. But more than anything he wants us to do
what we are doing out of genuine love. Now, adversity and
disappointment provide us with the occasion for purifying our motives.
They help us to forego the disappointed intention, and assist us to
bring to the fore and make exclusive the intention which has God for
its object.
Our
Gospel passage today points to our Lord’s summary of the entire Law and
the Prophets. The Law and the Prophets, he said, hangs on these two
commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart,
mind, soul and strength. That is the first commandment. The second is
like it. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Our Lord went on to
give a new commandment. He said that we are to love one another as he
has loved us. Let us aim at the perfection of love in all that we do,
rooting out by the help of his grace self-seeking motives that spoil
our offering to God.
(E.J.Tyler)
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When you hear your success being applauded, let there also sound in
your ears the laughter you provoked with your failures.
(The Way, no.589)
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SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 20, 2008 - Concluding the address
Benedict XVI gave
Monday morning local time at the farewell ceremony for his departure
from Australia after concluding Sunday the 23rd World Youth Day. The
Pope left Australia for Rome at about 10:30 a.m., local time.
The principal actors on the
stage over these last few days, of course, have been the young people
themselves. World Youth Day is their day. It is they who have made this
a global ecclesial event, a great celebration of youth and a great
celebration of what it is to be the Church, the people of God
throughout the world, united in faith and love and empowered by the
Spirit to bear witness to the risen Christ to the ends of the earth. I
thank them for coming, I thank them for their participation, and I pray
that they will have a safe journey home. I know that the young people,
their families and their sponsors have in many cases made great
sacrifices to enable them to travel to Australia. For this the entire
Church is grateful.
As I look back over these stirring days,
there are many scenes that stand out in my mind. I was deeply moved by
my visit to the Mary MacKillop Memorial, and I thank the Sisters of
Saint Joseph for the opportunity to pray at the Shrine of their
Co-Foundress. The Stations of the Cross in the streets of Sydney were a
powerful reminder that Christ loved us "to the end" and shared our
sufferings so that we could share his glory. The meeting with the young
people at Darlinghurst was a moment of joy and great hope, a sign that
Christ can lift us out of the most difficult situations, restoring our
dignity and enabling us to look forward to a brighter future. The
meeting with ecumenical and interreligious leaders was marked by a
spirit of genuine fraternity and a deep desire for greater
collaboration in building a more just and peaceful world. And without
doubt, the gatherings at Barangaroo and Southern Cross were high-points
of my visit. Those experiences of prayer, and our joyful celebration of
the Eucharist, were an eloquent testimony to the life-giving work of
the Holy Spirit, present and active in the hearts of our young people.
World Youth Day has shown us that the Church can rejoice in the young
people of today and be filled with hope for the world of tomorrow.
Dear friends, as I depart from Sydney, I ask God
to look down lovingly upon this city, this country and all its
inhabitants. I pray that many of their number will be inspired by
Blessed Mary MacKillop's example of compassion and service. And as I
bid you farewell with deep gratitude in my heart, I say once again: May
God bless the people of Australia!
(Concluded)
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Tuesday of the thirty first week in Ordinary Time II
(November 4) Saint Charles Borromeo, bishop (1538-1584)
The name of
St. Charles Borromeo is associated with reform. He lived during the
time of the Protestant Reformation, and
had a hand
in the reform of the whole Church during the final years of the Council
of Trent. Although he belonged to a noble Milanese family and was
related to the powerful Medici family, he desired to devote himself to
the Church. When his uncle, Cardinal de Medici, was elected pope in
1559 as Pius IV, he made Charles cardinal-deacon and administrator of
the Archdiocese of Milan while he was still a layman and a young
student. Because of his intellectual qualities he was entrusted with
several important offices connected with the Vatican and later
appointed secretary of state with full charge of the administration of
the papal states. The untimely death of his elder brother brought
Charles to a definite decision to be ordained a priest, despite
relatives’ insistence that he marry. He was ordained a priest at the
age of 25, and soon afterward he was consecrated bishop of Milan.
Because of his work at the Council of Trent he was not allowed to take
up residence in Milan until the Council was over. Charles had
encouraged the pope to renew the Council in 1562 after it had been
suspended 10 years before. Working behind the scenes, St. Charles
deserves the credit for keeping the Council in session when at several
points it was on the verge of breaking up. He took upon himself the
task of the entire correspondence during the final phase. Eventually
Charles was allowed to devote his time to the Archdiocese of Milan,
where the religious and moral picture was far from bright. The reform
needed in every phase of Catholic life among both clergy and laity was
initiated at the provincial council of all his suffragan bishops.
Specific regulations were drawn up for bishops and other clergy: If the
people were to be converted to a better life, these had to be the first
to give a good example and renew their apostolic spirit. Charles took
the initiative in giving good example. He allotted most of his income
to charity, forbade himself all luxury and imposed severe penances upon
himself. He sacrificed wealth, high honours, esteem and influence to
become poor. During the plague and famine of 1576 he tried to feed
60,000 to 70,000 people daily. To do this he borrowed large sums of
money that required years to repay. When the civil authorities fled at
the height of the plague, he stayed in the city, where he ministered to
the sick and the dying, helping those in want. Work and the heavy
burdens of his high office began to affect his health. He died at the
age of 46.
St. Charles made his own the words of Christ: "...I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me" (Matthew 25:35-36). Charles saw Christ in his neighbour and knew that charity done for the least of his flock was charity done for Christ. "Christ summons the Church, as she goes her pilgrim way, to that continual reformation of which she always has need, insofar as she is an institution of men here on earth. Consequently, if, in various times and circumstances, there have been deficiencies in moral conduct or in Church discipline, or even in the way that Church teaching has been formulated—to be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself—these should be set right at the opportune moment and in the proper way" (Decree on Ecumenism, 6, Austin Flannery translation). (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today: Philippians 2:5-11; Psalm 22:26b-32; Luke 14:15-24 (click here for readings)
When one of
those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed are
those who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God." Jesus replied:
"A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.
At the time of the banquet he
sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for
everything is now ready.' "But they all alike began to make excuses.
The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it.
Please excuse me.' "Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of
oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.' "Still
another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.' "The servant came
back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house
became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets
and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind
and the lame.' " 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been
done, but there is still room.' "Then the master told his servant, 'Go
out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that
my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited
will get a taste of my banquet.' " (Luke 14:15-24)
One of the
intriguing beliefs that are found in the religions of man is that at
death man passes from one life to another on this earth. He
transmigrates. I suppose its origin is man’s instinct that human life
does not end with death but that in his inner self he lives on in
another state. Perhaps the difficulty in imagining life beyond this
world has prompted the image in certain religions of
man passing at death to another form of life in this world. This
transmigration from one life to another in this world has involved
certain doctrines of karma, a doctrine in which the force generated by
a person’s actions in one life determines his destiny in the next.
Perhaps the origin of this notion is man’s instinct - in reality
arising from his conscience - that a judgment on his life will come and
that judgment will bring consequences for the hereafter. Such instincts
can mutate into images that are far indeed from what has been divinely
revealed. God has revealed that the gift of life is a precious one-off
gift and everything depends on how it is lived. Each person has but one
shot, and not, as the doctrine of transmigration and karma would have
it, several. There is but one life for each, and whether he or she
likes it, there will be an examination at the end of it carrying
enormous consequences for the individual who has lived that one life.
At the end of life all will be examined, high or low. I have known
highly educated persons, including professional philosophers, who
reject the notion of there being a God. I have read of philosophers of
world standing who have in cavalier fashion dismissed religion and even
objective morality. They appear unaware of the enormity of the stakes
that are involved, and of how it would be, to say the least, safer for
them to live as if God existed and as if a judgment followed death.
After all, those who do live as if God exists appear happier in this
life, and if there is an eternity, their prospects of happiness in the
next are clearly on a surer basis.
But now, granted that following this life there is the judgment of God, every day counts for we cannot know when this life will end. Every day counts and what counts in every day is our response to the call and the will of God as manifested in what appears to be our duty. Speaking in the concrete, this means taking our stand with Christ, the living Jesus who is God incarnate. It means accepting his invitations and calls as they come to us day by day. Now, what is the danger in all of this? The danger is that we will find excuses to avoid doing what we do not want to do - which is our duty. It is this pattern of finding excuses and secretly justifying ourselves in the avoidance of duty that is described in our Gospel today. Let us listen to our Lord’s parable. "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.' "But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.' "Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.' "Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.' "The servant came back and reported this to his master." Numerous times each day we can secretly rationalize or rather justify to ourselves our avoidance of duty, and duty comes in all its tiny forms every day. It is especially the small duty which we are prone to excuse ourselves from. Then our conscience ceases gradually to enlighten us as to our duty because we are forever finding excuses for the avoidance of it. The consequences of a lifetime of doing this are enormous, and our parable today alludes to it. "Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.'" (Luke 14:15-24) Let us not deceive ourselves by allowing a pattern of excuses to grow in our life.
What is the answer to this tendency to avoid the doing of our God-given duties and to excuse and justify ourselves, as did those in our Gospel parable today? The answer is to live constantly in the presence of God. He is always near, closer to us than we are to ourselves. He sees all, and he who loves us and gives us moment by moment the gift of life, will be our judge. We have but one life and God’s judgment on our life is unavoidable. Let us not blind ourselves to what we are doing by allowing a pattern of excuses to fill up our days.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Don't wish to be like the gilded weather-cock on top of a great building: however much it shines, and however high it stands, it adds nothing to the solidity of the building.
Rather be like an old stone block hidden in the foundations, underground, where no one can see you: because of you the house will not fall.
(The Way, no.590)
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SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 20, 2008 - Here is the address Benedict XVI gave Sunday evening local time at a meeting with benefactors and organizers of World Youth Day. The youth event's closing Mass was held a few hours earlier.
* * *
Your
Eminence,
Dear Friends,
As my visit to Australia draws to a close, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped make this World Youth Day a success. This evening, in a particular way, my thanks go to you, who have so generously supported this event both materially and spiritually. Cardinal Pell has alluded to the great sacrifices which you have made in organizing this wonderful day in the life of the Church. I thank you personally, not only for those sacrifices, but even more for the confidence you have shown in our young people and your trust in God's grace at work in their hearts. Let us pray that the investment which so many of you have made in them will bear fruit in their own lives, for the life of Christ's Church and for the future of our world!
In these days, through the work of the organizing committee and the cooperation of so many private individuals, businesses and corporations, and local authorities, young people from throughout the world have been given the opportunity to experience the beauty of this country and the warm hospitality of the Australian people. In return, they have enriched this land by their witness to the love of Christ and the power of his Spirit at work in the Church.
(Continuing)
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Wednesday of the thirty
first week in Ordinary Time II
(November
5) Venerable Solanus Casey
(1870-1957)
Barney Casey became one of Detroit’s best-known priests even though he
was not allowed to preach formally or to hear confessions! Barney came
from a large family in Oak Grove, Wisconsin. At the age of 21, and
after he had worked as a logger, a hospital orderly, a streetcar
operator and a prison guard, he entered St. Francis Seminary in
Milwaukee—where he found the studies difficult. He left there and, in
1896, joined the Capuchins in Detroit, taking the name Solanus. His
studies for the priesthood were again arduous. On July 24, 1904, he was
ordained, but because his knowledge of theology was judged to be weak,
Father Solanus was not given permission to hear confessions or to
preach. A Franciscan Capuchin who knew him well said this annoying
restriction "brought forth in him a greatness and a holiness that might
never have been realized in any other way." During his 14 years as
porter and sacristan in Yonkers, New York, the people there recognized
him as a fine speaker. "For, though he was forbidden to deliver
doctrinal sermons," writes his biographer, James Derum, "he could give
inspirational talks, or feverinos, as the Capuchins termed them"
(18:96). His spiritual fire deeply impressed his listeners. Father
Solanus served at parishes in Manhattan and Harlem before returning to
Detroit, where he was porter and sacristan for 20 years at St.
Bonaventure Monastery. Every Wednesday afternoon he conducted
well-attended services for the sick. A co-worker estimates that on the
average day 150 to 200 people came to see Father Solanus in the front
office. Most of them came to receive his blessing; 40 to 50 came for
consultation. Many people considered him instrumental in cures and
other blessings they received.
Father Solanus’ sense of God’s providence inspired many of his
visitors. "Blessed be God in all his designs" was one of his favorite
expressions. The many friends of Father Solanus helped the Capuchins
begin a soup kitchen during the Depression. Capuchins are still feeding
the hungry there today. In 1946 in failing health, he was transferred
to the Capuchin novitiate in Huntington, Indiana, where he lived until
1956 when he was hospitalized in Detroit. He died on July 31, 1957. An
estimated 20,000 people passed by his coffin before his burial in St.
Bonaventure Church in Detroit.
At the funeral Mass, Father Gerald, the provincial, said: "His was a
life of service and love for people like me and you. When he was not
himself sick, he nevertheless suffered with and for you that were sick.
When he was not physically hungry, he hungered with people like you. He
had a divine love for people. He loved people for what he could do for
them —and for God, through them." In 1960 a Father Solanus Guild was
formed in Detroit to aid Capuchin seminarians. By 1967 the guild had
5,000 members—many of them grateful recipients of his practical advice
and his comforting assurance that God would not abandon them in their
trials. He was declared Venerable in 1995.
James Patrick Derum, his biographer, writes that eventually Father
Solanus was weary from bearing the burdens of the people who visited
him. "Long since, he had come to know the Christ-taught truth that pure
love of God and one’s fellowmen as children of God are in the final
event all that matter. Living this truth ardently and continuously had
made him, spiritually, a free man—free from slavery to passions, from
self-seeking, from self-indulgence, from self-pity—free to serve wholly
both God and man" (The Porter of St. Bonaventure’s, page 199).
Father Maurice Casey, a brother of Father Solanus, was once in a
sanitarium near Baltimore and was annoyed at the priest-chaplain there.
Father Solanus wrote his brother: "God could have established his
Church under supervision of angels that have no faults or weaknesses.
But who can doubt that as it stands today, consisting of and under the
supervision of poor sinners—successors to the ‘poor fishermen of
Galilee’ #151; the Church is a more outstanding miracle than any other
way?" (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today: Philippians
2:12-18; Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14; Luke 14:25-33
(click
here for readings)
Large
crowds were travelling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: "If
anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife
and children,
brothers and sisters—yes, even life itself—such a person cannot be my
disciple. “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot
be my disciple. "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you
first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to
complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish
it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began
to build and wasn't able to finish.' "Or suppose a king is about to go
to war against another king. Won't he first sit down and consider
whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming
against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a
delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for
terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up
everything you have cannot be my disciples. (Luke 14:25-33)
On one
occasion (Luke 9: 7-8) Herod the tetrarch had heard about all that our
Lord was doing. Various reports were reaching him about our Lord: some
were even saying that John whom Herod had executed had risen from the
dead. Others were saying that he was Elijah or one of the other
prophets come back to life. We read that Herod wanted to see Jesus. We
read how on another occasion our Lord referred to
Herod as a fox. The only time Herod got to see Jesus was during our
Lord’s Passion, and our Lord refused to speak to him. It reminds us
that it is one thing to have some curiosity about our Lord, or to think
of him for one reason or another. It is quite another thing to have the
faith in him that pleases God. On another occasion we read that an
official of the Roman army - a centurion, no less - sent a request to
our Lord via intermediaries that he come and heal his servant. Our Lord
immediately got up to go to his dwelling. On the way the centurion
evoked from our Lord the highest praise for his faith. In our Gospel
passage today great crowds were following our Lord. They did not just
want to see him, they were actually following him. But undoubtedly
there were a variety of motives at work in their doing so. The mere
fact that they were there, the mere fact that they had come to see him
and the mere fact that they were actually following him was not enough.
Our Lord was looking for total discipleship, a faith that would put his
person and his teaching before all else to which they were attached.
What our Lord asked from those who followed in his footsteps was their
whole heart. And so we read that “turning to them he said: ‘If anyone
comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters—yes, even life itself—such a person cannot be my
disciple’.” Our Lord, of course, is not asking that we literally hate
our parents and family. He is asking that in everything he be loved
above all, even to the point, if necessary, of doing what might go
right against what spouse and children want, if he and his teaching
require it.
Our Lord
immediately adds a very stark image. All his hearers would have been
familiar with the terrible execution by crucifixion. Some, perhaps
many, may have seen a condemned man being led out carrying his own
cross to the place of his execution. Our Lord likens discipleship to
that. He is looking for many disciples, and indeed after his
resurrection he would instruct his disciples to go to the whole world
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them
his commands. But what kind of discipleship was our Lord seeking? Just
being a member of the crowd that followed along? No. He says to the
crowd that “whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be
my disciple.” He is looking for a vast throng of disciples carrying
their cross after him, with him leading the way. It reminds us of that
other occasion when a rich young man came to him eagerly and asked what
he needed to do to gain eternal life. Our Lord replied that if he
wished to be perfect, let him go and sell all he owned and give to the
poor, and then return and follow him. The young man went away sad, for
he had many possessions. It means being prepared to give up everything
for him and for his teaching. What other master required this kind of
sacrifice of his disciples? It is so easy to follow along with the
flow, without deep conviction. So our Lord requires that his disciples
understand clearly what the following of him entails. Discipleship must
be carefully considered and with eyes open generously undertaken. To
bring out his point our Lord tells a parable. “"Suppose one of you
wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost
to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the
foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will
ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to
finish.' "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king.
Won't he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten
thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty
thousand?” (Luke 14:25-33)
Just so, our Lord insists, no one can be his disciple unless he gives
his heart wholly to him, with no strings attached.
This
means becoming attached wholly to Christ and detached from all else -
in the sense that whatever be our attachments, such as to spouse,
family, work and whatever, all this must be part of and subject to our
attachment to Christ. It is the great project of life for the
Christian, to be Christ’s disciple on Christ’s terms and not on one’s
own terms. What does this mean in concrete detail? Well, let us begin
with our daily duties, our daily work. Everything we should do each
day, let us do it for Christ in the way he would want, in accordance
with his teaching, done as well as we can and out of love for him.
(E.J.Tyler)
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The more I am exalted, Jesus, the more I want you to humble me in my
heart, showing me what I have been, and what I will be if you leave me.
(The Way, no.591)
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SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 20, 2008 - Continuing the address
Benedict XVI gave
Sunday evening local time at a meeting with benefactors and organizers
of World Youth Day. The youth event's closing Mass was held a few hours
earlier.
I am sure, dear friends, that your own participation in the
preparations for this World Youth Day has given you a particular
experience of the Holy Spirit's power. No doubt while planning this
great international gathering, and trying to face every possible
eventuality, you had your moments of worry and concern, and even fear
and trepidation about how things would finally turn out! Now, in
retrospect, you can see the abundant harvest which the Spirit has
brought forth from your prayers, your perseverance and your hard work.
How many good seeds have been sown in these short days!
Dear friends, Saint Paul, who devoted his entire life to the service of
the Gospel, reminds us that "it is more blessed to give than to
receive" (cf. Acts 20:35). Your generosity and sacrifice have been an
essential, yet often hidden, ingredient in the success of this World
Youth Day. May the spiritual joy, the satisfaction and the fulfilment
that we have all experienced in these days, be an unfailing source of
blessings in your own lives. May you never doubt the truth of our
Lord's promise that, whenever we give our creativity, energy,
resources, and our very selves to him, we will gain them back
abundantly (cf. Mt 19:29)! With these sentiments I express once more my
heartfelt gratitude and thanks to each of you. I commend you and your
families to the loving intercession of Our Lady of the Southern Cross,
Help of Christians, and cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a
pledge of strength and peace in Jesus her divine Son.
(Concluded)
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Thursday of the thirty
first week in Ordinary Time II
(November
6) St. Nicholas Tavelic
and Companions (d. 1391)
Nicholas and his three companions are
among the 158 Franciscans who have been martyred in the Holy Land since
the friars became custodians of the shrines in 1335. Nicholas was born
in 1340 to a wealthy and noble family in Croatia. He joined the
Franciscans and was sent with Deodat of Rodez to preach in Bosnia. In
1384 they volunteered for the Holy Land missions and were sent there.
They looked after the holy places, cared for the Christian pilgrims and
studied Arabic. In 1391 Nicholas, Deodat, Peter of Narbonne and Stephen
of Cuneo decided to take a direct approach to converting the Muslims.
On November 11, 1391, they went to the huge Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem
and asked to see the Qadi (Muslim official). Reading from a prepared
statement, they said that all people must accept the gospel of Jesus.
When they were ordered to retract their statement, they refused. After
beatings and imprisonment, they were beheaded before a large crowd.
Nicholas and his companions were canonized in 1970. They are the only
Franciscans martyred in the Holy Land to be canonized.
Francis presented two missionary
approaches for his friars. Nicholas and his companions followed the
first approach (live quietly and give witness to Christ) for several
years. Then they felt called to take the second approach of preaching
openly. Their Franciscan confreres in the Holy Land are still working
by example to make Jesus better known. In the Rule of 1221, Francis
wrote that the friars going to the Saracens (Muslims) "can conduct
themselves among them spiritually in two ways. One way is to avoid
quarrels or disputes and 'be subject to every human creature for God's
sake' (1 Peter 2:13), so bearing witness to the fact that they are
Christians. Another way is to proclaim the word of God openly, when
they see that is God's will, calling on their hearers to believe in God
almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Creator of all, and in the
Son, the Redeemer and Saviour, that they may be baptized and become
true and spiritual Christians" (Ch. 16). (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture
today:
Philippians 3:3-8a; Psalm 105:2-7; Luke
15:1-10
(click
here for readings)
Now
the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes
sinners and eats with them." Then Jesus told them this parable:
"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't
he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost
sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on
his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours
together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I
tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven
over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who
do not need to repent. "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and
loses one. Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house and search
carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her
friends and neighbours together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have
found my lost coin.' In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in
the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
(Luke 15:1-10)
One of
the great books on the philosophy and the phenomenology of religion was
Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy.
In it Otto describes the experience of the holy that the religions of
man embody in their rites and myths. He says that the holy is
experienced as tremendum et fascinans, awesome and
winning. It is perceived as power and beauty, might and goodness. The
numinous overawes and yet draws. The
discussion about the experience of the numinous in religions is almost
endless, and I remember reading a British anthropologist
(Evans-Pritchard) who wrote that the religions of man (and he was
speaking especially of indigenous religions) cannot be simplified to
rule. Whatever of all that, if we take Otto’s proposal and bring it to
bear on revealed religion, how great must be our surprise at the figure
of Christ the Son of God made man! The great and infinite God was made
flesh and dwelt among us. St John writes that we saw his glory, the
glory of the only-begotten Son of God. Now, would we not expect him to
be, as Otto puts it,
tremendum et fascinans? There are many earthly
rulers who surround themselves with such an air. But consider what we
read in today’s Gospel passage. “Now the tax collectors and sinners
were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the
teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with
them".” St Paul writes in one of his Letters that the Son possessed the
form and glory of God but he did not cling to it but gave it all up and
became as we men are and humbler still, even to death on a cross. What
was the meaning of this? The meaning of it was that the love of God was
being revealed. St John writes in one of his Letters that God is love.
Christ in his humility and accessibility was revealing the life and
character of God. He is utter love, and that is what the tax collectors
and sinners were sensing very profoundly. They were drawn to him though
they knew they were sinners.
Jesus
is God and here in our passage today we have the Pharisees
uncomprehendingly criticizing him for his love. Their charge in effect
is, the way you are acting is uncharacteristic of God who hates sin and
cannot associate himself with it. Sinners therefore are not loved but
punished. God separates himself from sinners and will not come near to
them. We Pharisees do not sin, and so God is near to us but not to
them. There are many things we could say about this attitude. In
respect to God’s separation from sin and from sinners, there is of
course a certain truth in what they said - and for this very reason
they were seduced into murmuring against the Son of God himself. But
they had not understood the revelation of God’s love both in the Old
Testament and in the person of Jesus. God’s holiness is a holy love and
it led him to send his Son to save the world from sin. God’s holiness
leads him to give himself for the salvation of sinners. His love leads
him to expiate for the sin of the world. And so our Lord proceeds to
tells two parables illustrating the love of God for sinners. God is
like the shepherd who seeks out the stray, or the woman who searches
till she finds her coin. The sinner is like the sheep that has wandered
off, or like the coin that has been mislaid. Both are precious to their
owners. The shepherd leaves the rest of the flock and pursues the
straying sheep till he finds it. “I tell you that in the same way there
will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over
ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. The woman will
not give up till she has found her coin. “ In the same way, I tell you,
there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner
who repents."
(Luke 15:1-10) What
this means is that the attitude of the Pharisees is absolutely unlike
that of God, and it means that our attitude ought be like that of
Jesus. We must never accept sin, either in our own life or in the life
of others. But we must love the sinner.
Let us
hate sin and out of love for God avoid sin. If we sin, let us repent.
Let us, though, love the sinner and do all we can to assist him to turn
to God and repent from his sin. In everything our model is Jesus, Jesus
the sinless one who loved sinners. He gave his life in expiation for
the sin of the world, and by his gift of the Holy Spirit we are able to
turn away from sin and live for God. Because of grace, each and every
sinner has the chance to turn from sin and gradually attain holiness of
life.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Don't forget that you are a... dust-bin. That's why if by any chance
the divine Gardener lays his hands on you, and scrubs and cleans you,
and fills you with magnificent flowers, neither the scent nor the
colour that embellish your ugliness should make you proud.
Humble yourself: don't you know that you are the rubbish bin?
(The Way, no.592)
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SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 20, 2008 - Here is the address
Benedict XVI gave Monday morning local time at a meeting
with the volunteers who worked at World Youth Day. The Pope left
Australia for Rome at about 10:30 a.m., local time.
* * *
Dear Friends in Christ,
I thank Cardinal Pell for his kind words and I am pleased to have this
opportunity to bid farewell to all of you and to say what a wonderful
experience this week has been. During these days we have been able to
witness at first hand the joy that so many thousands of young people
find in their faith, and we have been able to offer praise and
thanksgiving to God for his goodness to us. We have had a taste of the
warmth and generosity of Australian hospitality, and we have glimpsed
something of the glorious scenery of this beautiful continent. It has
truly been a week to remember.
(Continuing)
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Friday of the thirty first
week in Ordinary Time II
(November
7) St. Didacus (1400-1463)
Didacus is living proof that God "chose
what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak
in the world to shame the strong" (1 Corinthians 1:27). As a young man
in Spain, Didacus joined the Secular Franciscan Order and lived for
some time as a hermit. After Didacus became a Franciscan brother, he
developed a reputation for great insight into God’s ways. His penances
were heroic. He was so generous with the poor that the friars sometimes
grew uneasy about his charity. Didacus volunteered for the missions in
the Canary Islands and labored there energetically and profitably. He
was also the superior of a friary there. In 1450 he was sent to Rome to
attend the canonization of St. Bernardine of Siena. When many friars
gathered for that celebration fell sick, Didacus stayed in Rome for
three months to nurse them. After he returned to Spain, he pursued a
life of contemplation full-time. He showed the friars the wisdom of
God’s ways. As he was dying, Didacus looked at a crucifix and said: "O
faithful wood, O precious nails! You have borne an exceedingly sweet
burden, for you have been judged worthy to bear the Lord and King of
heaven" (Marion A. Habig, O.F.M., The Franciscan
Book of Saints, p. 834). San Diego, California, is
named for this Franciscan, who was canonized in 1588.
"He was born in Spain and gained no
outstanding reputation for learning, but like our first teachers and
leaders unlettered as men count wisdom, an unschooled person, a humble
lay brother in religious life. [God chose Didacus] to show in him the
abundant riches of his grace to lead many on the way of salvation by
the holiness of his life and by his example and to prove over and over
to a weary old world almost decrepit with age that God's folly is wiser
than men, and his weakness is more powerful than men" (Bull of
Canonization).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture
today:
Philippians
3:17—4:1; Psalm 122:1-5; Luke 16:1-8 (click here for
readings)
Jesus
told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of
wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, 'What is
this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you
cannot be manager any longer.' "The manager said to himself, 'What
shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough
to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg — I know what I'll do so that, when I
lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.' "So he
called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How
much do you owe my master?' " 'Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,' he
replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and
make it four hundred and fifty.' "Then he asked the second, 'And how
much do you owe?' " 'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told
him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.' "The master commended
the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of
this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the
people of the light. (Luke
16:1-8)
There
is great talent and intelligence at work in society. In politics we see
certain people skilled in debate and shrewd in their political and
parliamentary tactics. One politician falls and another succeeds him.
It could be a presidential campaign between two rival candidates. One
has the advantage because the other’s party has held office and has
been unpopular in the process. But that disadvantaged
candidate at
times shows remarkable adroitness in moves he makes which nullify the
advantage of the other. He maintains a neck-to-neck pace which
surprises all observers. In the business world, a person rises from
rags to riches because of his business shrewdness. He arrived in the
country as an immigrant with few means. He made a start with a loan
from relatives and after forty years has an extensive chain of family
businesses. All recognize his intelligence. His son proves to have even
more intelligence and builds his father’s business into a commercial
empire. But now let us ask, if this is all such persons achieve in
life, are such persons really so smart? They do not appear to take into
account that at any point their life could suddenly end, and then what?
What will be the real advantage to them of all their efforts and
achievements? Have they considered their real future, the future that
follows this life? And again, other persons gain wealth by shrewd but
dishonest means. They might quietly defraud, or could be ruthless in
their treatment of colleagues and underlings. Their intelligence is put
to immoral use and they gain much as a result. They may never be
brought to book for what they have done, but in the long haul what will
they have achieved? Where, then, is their intelligence? So many of our
efforts are expended for the sake of a future that is all too near and
all too brief. That future might be a happy retirement. It could be for
our children. All these things have a certain value, but if their value
is restricted to this world only, it is limited indeed. All too often
we do not ask ourselves whether the world we see is the only world,
whether it really is the main world, and how suddenly we could find
ourselves in the world beyond.
I once
read a biography of a person who left the priesthood and who worked for
the rest of his life in University teaching. The biography was
well-written and interesting, especially in its descriptions of the
departments in the universities he was associated with. But it was a
sad case of intelligence being ultimately unintelligent. He lost the
greatest of pearls. Those little persons who live for God and who
attain sanctity are really far smarter. However, there are those who
have the light but who squander it. In our Gospel passage today our
Lord tells the parable of a manager who received notice from his master
of termination of employment. Very shrewdly he immediately set about
making friends with his master’s debtors. He did so by reducing the
debt of each so that when his employment ended he was left with many
friends who perhaps willingly or from a sense of obligation set about
assisting him in his new situation. The master, when he realized what
had happened, shook his head with a smile of wonderment at the
shrewdness of his former employee. That employee knew how to select his
goals and how to achieve them. Our Lord finishes by saying that “the
people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind
than are the people of the light.”
(Luke 16:1-8) That
is to say, all too often those who know what are the true goals of life
and who know by the gift of faith and a good religious education what
should be sought in life do not take advantage of this light they have
been given. They do not set themselves the goal to which God is calling
them. That goal is sanctity. Alternatively, they do not take the means
that will bring them to this goal. The overriding goal is union with
Christ in love here during life so as to be with him in love forever in
heaven. This is our hope, a hope for a present good which will flower
in abundant life hereafter. It is the hope of countless little and
ordinary people.
Christ
described himself as the Light of the world. The one who follows him
will not walk in the darkness, whereas the one who refuses to walk with
him will indeed be in the dark. Christ is the light of men and if we
wish to avoid blindness, we must take our stand with him. Taking our
stand with him let us then study well what it means to walk with him.
It means living a systematic spiritual life according to the Church’s
teaching, being prepared to live according to that teaching no matter
what the cost.
(E.J.Tyler)
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The day you see yourself as you are, you will think it natural to be
despised by others.
(The Way, no.593)
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SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 20, 2008 - Continuing the address
Benedict XVI gave
Monday morning local time at a meeting with the volunteers who worked
at World Youth Day. The Pope left Australia for Rome at about 10:30
a.m., local time.
None of this would have been possible, though, without a great deal of
preparation and sheer hard work during the period leading up to World
Youth Day. I want to thank all of you for the generous commitment of
time and energy you have made, in order to ensure the smooth running of
each of the events we have celebrated together. They have all required
careful coordination, involving civil authorities, police and first aid
agencies, as well as church personnel and a vast array of volunteers,
marshals and stewards. Your efforts have prepared the ground for the
Spirit to come down in power, forging bonds of unity and friendship
among young people from widely differing backgrounds, and rekindling
their love for Jesus Christ and his Church. In the crowds that have
assembled here in Sydney we have seen a vivid expression of the
unity-in-diversity of the universal Church, a vision in microcosm of
the united human family that we long to see. In the power of the
Spirit, may these young people make that vision a reality in the world
of tomorrow.
(Continuing)
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Saturday of the thirty
first week in Ordinary Time II
(November
8) Blessed John Duns
Scotus (c. 1266-1308)
A humble man, John Duns Scotus has been one of the
most influential Franciscans through the centuries. Born at Duns in the
county of Berwick, Scotland, John was descended from a wealthy farming
family. In later years he was identified as John Duns Scotus to
indicate the land of his birth; Scotia is the Latin name for Scotland.
John received the habit of the Friars Minor at Dumfries, where his
uncle Elias Duns was superior. After novitiate John studied at Oxford
and Paris and was ordained in 1291. More studies in Paris followed
until 1297, when he returned to lecture at Oxford and Cambridge. Four
years later he returned to Paris to teach and complete the requirements
for the doctorate. In an age when many people adopted whole systems of
thought without qualification, John pointed out the richness of the
Augustinian-Franciscan tradition, appreciated the wisdom of Aquinas,
Aristotle and the Muslim philosophers—and still managed to be an
independent thinker. That quality was proven in 1303 when King Philip
the Fair tried to enlist the University of Paris on his side in a
dispute with Pope Boniface VIII. John Duns Scotus dissented and was
given three days to leave France. In Scotus’s time, some philosophers
held that people are basically determined by forces outside themselves.
Free will is an illusion, they argued. An ever practical man, Scotus
said that if he started beating someone who denied free will, the
person would immediately tell him to stop. But if Scotus didn’t really
have a free will, how could he stop? John had a knack for finding
illustrations his students could remember! After a short stay in Oxford
he returned to Paris, where he received the doctorate in 1305. He
continued teaching there and in 1307 so ably defended the Immaculate
Conception of Mary that the university officially adopted his position.
That same year the minister general assigned him to the Franciscan
school in Cologne where John died in 1308. He is buried in the
Franciscan church near the famous Cologne cathedral.
Drawing on the work of John Duns Scotus,
Pope Pius IX solemnly defined the Immaculate Conception of Mary in
1854. John Duns Scotus, the "Subtle Doctor," was beatified in 1993.
Father Charles Balic, O.F.M., the foremost
20th-century authority on Scotus, has written: "The whole of Scotus's
theology is dominated by the notion of love. The characteristic note of
this love is its absolute freedom. As love becomes more perfect and
intense, freedom becomes more noble and integral both in God and in
man" (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 1105).
Intelligence hardly guarantees holiness. But John Duns Scotus was not
only brilliant, he was also humble and prayerful—the exact combination
St. Francis wanted in any friar who studied. In a day when French
nationalism threatened the rights of the pope, Scotus sided with the
papacy and paid the price. He also defended human freedom against those
who would compromise it by determinism. Ideas are important. John Duns
Scotus placed his best thinking at the service of the human family and
of the Church. (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture
today:
Philippians 4:10-19; Psalm 112:1b-2, 5-6, 8a and 9; Luke
16:9-15
(click
here for readings)
Jesus
told his disciples, I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for
yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into
eternal
dwellings. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted
with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be
dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling
worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have
not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you
property of your own? "No one can serve two masters. Either you will
hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and
despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." The Pharisees,
who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to
them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others,
but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in
God's sight. (Luke
16:9-15)
It is
very possible for a person to be unaware of the natural tendency in him
to love money. He uses money, he possesses it, he works to gain it, and
all along he can think that he is quite detached from it. If he thinks
this, he does not know himself. Detachment from money needs to be
worked at constantly if it is to be acquired. Let him notice the
difficulty he has in giving money away, at least in any quantity. He
may say that he needs it and that this is the reason why he parts with
little of it. But notice how he readily parts with his money if there
is something he would really like to have, suggesting that he does not
really need it except for his own purposes. That our Gospel passage
today is about the love of money is shown in the last couple of
sentences. After our Lord had finished speaking by saying that you
cannot serve both God and Money, the Pharisees sneered at him, for, St
Luke tells us, they loved money. The Pharisees were the respectable
people, the religious people. Their case shows that everyone tends to
love money. We are part of a material world and we depend on material
things for security, for enjoyment and for so much else. Having money
enables us to use the things of this world for our various needs, and
so we tend to love money. It gives us the power and the security to do
much of what we like. We tend to be attached to it and to go to great
lengths to gain it and the love of it tends to supplant other things in
our life. The first thing we ought do, then, is to recognize this fact
and to recognize the disorder this can lead to. The disorder lies in
its coming to occupy the place the one great Love ought to have in our
hearts, the love of God and neighbour. It is possible to love and serve
Money rather than, or to a certain extent more than, God. If God is to
command the love of our whole heart we must be vigilant lest those
things we tend to love encroach on our love for God, and indeed replace
it. Money can virtually become a god in our life, at least to a greater
or lesser extent. We can make it the source of our security, serving
our ego. As our Lord says, “what people value highly is detestable in
God’s sight.” (Luke
16: 15)
The
Christian looks to Christ as the love of his life and as his example in
life. To begin with, the love of money can indeed interfere with the
call of Christ. We remember the rich young man who came to Jesus asking
what he must do to attain eternal life. Our Lord looked on him with
love and said, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you own and
give to the poor, and come, follow me.” But the rich man went away sad,
for he had much wealth. He loved money and could not bring himself to
break with it, even for such an invitation as this. Christ himself is
the exemplar of one who left aside riches and trod the path of poverty.
St Paul writes that Christ from all eternity had been rich and he made
himself poor that we might become rich. He tells us that though he
enjoyed the “form” and glory of God he did not hold on to this but
became as we are and humbler still, even to death on the cross. Christ
was God, and yet was born in a stable and grew up in modest
circumstances. During his public ministry he told one prospective
disciple that while the birds of the air have nests, the Son of Man had
nowhere to lay his head. He died on a cross. His path was the path not
of money and riches but of poverty and humiliation, and all out of love
for the Father and for mankind. Christ taught his disciples to live a
life of poverty of spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit, he said.
Love for him has led many of Christ’s Faithful to renounce the
independent use of material possessions and to live a life of material
poverty. They have made themselves free to pursue the love of Christ
with all their heart. Every Christian ought ponder carefully his or her
use of and attachment to material possessions, and in particular to
Money. It would be a good thing to determine how much of one’s income
will be given to the poor and to the work of God, and then to keep to
that. If it is just left to chance, or rather to decisions made ad hoc
and on the spur of the moment, we may find ourselves rarely giving to
the poor, and all because of a secret love for money that is sapping
our love for God.
Our
Lord urges us to use our money to gain friends in eternity. If we help
the poor, if we assist the work of the Church which is to save souls,
we shall be gaining friends who will help us from heaven. How sad it
would be if all that we gain or earn is used for passing pleasures or
false security, when it could be used for things that have an eternal
significance, and all because of our secret love of money. Let us,
rather, take Christ as our example and follow him along the path of
poverty of spirit.
(E.J.Tyler)
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You are humble not when you humble yourself, but when you are humbled
by others and you bear it for Christ.
(The Way, no.594)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 20, 2008 - Continuing the address
Benedict XVI gave
Monday morning local time at a meeting with the volunteers who worked
at World Youth Day. The Pope left Australia for Rome at about 10:30
a.m., local time.
I shall have an opportunity at the airport to thank the representatives
of the civil authorities. Here I want to express my deep gratitude to
all the bishops, priests, men and women religious, chaplains, teachers,
lay associations, ecclesial movements, host families, schools and
parish communities who have given so much to make World Youth Day a
success. I thank particularly Bishop Anthony Fisher and Mr Danny Casey,
who have worked so hard to coordinate all the different activities. We
read in the Acts of the Apostles that "it is more blessed to give than
to receive" (20:35) - but I trust that you will nevertheless have
received much from those you have served so generously in the course of
our celebrations. To all of you, I say a sincere and heartfelt "thank
you".
(Continuing)
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Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran
Basilica in Rome
Thirty second Sunday of Ordinary
Time A
Prayers
this week: Let
my prayer come before you, Lord; listen, and answer me.
(Psalm
87: 3)
God of power and mercy, protect us from all harm. Give us freedom of
spirit and health in mind and body to do your work on earth.
We
ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the
Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
(November
9)
Dedication of St. John Lateran
Most Catholics think of St. Peter’s as the pope’s main church, but they
are wrong. St. John Lateran is the pope’s church, the cathedral of the
Diocese of Rome where the Bishop of Rome presides. The first basilica
on the site was built in the fourth century when Constantine donated
land he had received from the wealthy Lateran family. That structure
and its successors suffered fire, earthquake and the ravages of war,
but the Lateran remained the church where popes were consecrated until
the popes returned from Avignon in the 14th century to find the church
and the adjoining palace in ruins. Pope Innocent X commissioned the
present structure in 1646. One of Rome’s most imposing churches, the
Lateran’s towering facade is crowned with 15 colossal statues of
Christ, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and 12 doctors of the
Church. Beneath its high altar rest the remains of the small wooden
table on which tradition holds St. Peter himself celebrated Mass.
Unlike the commemorations of other Roman churches
(St. Mary Major, Saints Peter and Paul), this anniversary is a feast.
The dedication of a church is a feast for all its parishioners. St.
John Lateran is, in a sense, the parish church of all Catholics, for it
is the pope's parish, the cathedral church of the Bishop of Rome. This
church is the spiritual home of the people who are the Church.
"What was done here, as these walls were rising, is reproduced when we
bring together those who believe in Christ. For, by believing they are
hewn out, as it were, from mountains and forests, like stones and
timber; but by catechizing, baptism and instruction they are, as it
were, shaped, squared and planed by the hands of the workers and
artisans. Nevertheless, they do not make a house for the Lord until
they are fitted together through love" (St. Augustine, Sermon 36). (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture:
Ezechiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12;
Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9; 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17; John 2:13-22
(click
here for readings)
When
it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and
others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of
cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he
scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! Stop turning
my Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is
written: "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then responded
to him, "What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all
this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it
again in three days." They replied, "It has taken forty-six years to
build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But
the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the
dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the
scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22)
There
are many things we are reminded of by this scene of our Lord so
vigorously cleansing the Temple of its mercantile activities. What it
reminded his disciples of was the words of Scripture, “Zeal for your
house will consume me.” (John
2:13-22)
They were profoundly impressed by our Lord’s love for his
Father and his zeal for the honour and glory of his Father. On another
occasion our
Lord, speaking
of his heavenly Father, said that he always did what pleased him. My
food, he once said, was to do the will of him who sent me. He wished
always to glorify his Father’s name. Now, he himself asks for a similar
love and zeal from his disciples. The love and zeal he had for his
Father, he wishes his disciples to have for him, and in union with him,
for his heavenly Father. So the contemplation of our Lord’s zeal for
his Father’s glory in ridding his Father’s house of all that debased it
invites us to contemplate a life of union with Jesus in living
zealously for the glory of God. We glorify God by giving our lives to
the person of Jesus, for he is God the Son become man. He who sees me,
Jesus said, sees the Father. The Father and I are one, he said on
another occasion. So in loving Jesus with all our heart and in being
zealous for him, we are loving the Father and being zealous for him.
Every baptized person is called to such a life. Baptism is the
foundation of the universal call to holiness. However, God calls
different persons to live this call in different ways. One hallowed way
of loving Jesus and being zealous for him, a way that has been actively
recommended by the Church, and a vocation granted to very many of the
baptized, is that of consecrated life. By that I mean the call to and
the embrace of a way of life formally consecrated to Christ that has
been blessed and sanctioned by the Church for this. Ever since the
early Church there have been many who have consecrated their lives to
Christ publicly and who renounce some of the most precious things in
life as part of this consecration. They live out this profession either
singly or together with others in community. So it is to this very day.
The consecrated life is a highly valued vocation in the life of
Christ’s Church.
Let us
consider for a moment what the Church calls the consecrated life. The
consecrated life is a state of life recognized and sanctioned by the
Church. It is a free response to a special call from Christ by which
those consecrated to him give themselves completely to God and strive
for the perfection of charity moved by the Holy Spirit. This
consecration is characterized by the practice of what the Church calls
the evangelical counsels. If any one of Christ’s Faithful sense within
his or her heart the call and attraction to a life consecrated in this
special way that is sanctioned and recommended by the Church, such a
call ought be carefully guarded and nourished because it can through
neglect or distraction be lost. That would be a tragedy. Our Lord
called various of his disciples to leave all and to follow him. Many of
them did just this, leaving everything to follow him. Judas received
this call and initially responded but in the event turned out very
badly. He squandered a priceless call to consecrate himself completely
to Christ and his mission. On another occasion a good young man came to
our Lord and asked what more he needed to do to gain life everlasting.
Our Lord said to him that if he wished to be perfect, he should go and
sell all he had and give to the poor, and then to come back and follow
him. He was inviting him to consecrate his whole life to the love and
following of him. The young man turned away sad because he was attached
to his possessions. This same call Christ extends to very many of his
disciples in every age, including our own, and such a call if accepted
and lived generously enriches the Church and mankind. God calls some
men and women to follow the Lord Jesus in a life of celibacy for the
sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. These persons renounce the great good of
matrimony to concentrate on the things of the Lord and seek to please
him. They become a sign of the absolute supremacy of Christ’s love and
of the ardent expectation of his glorious return. The consecrated life
as sanctioned by the Church takes various forms. There are those who
live a life not only of celibacy consecrated to Christ but also of
poverty and obedience in community, again for the sake of Christ and
his Church.
The
consecrated life participates in the mission of the Church by means of
a complete dedication to Christ and to one’s brothers and sisters
witnessing to the hope of the heavenly Kingdom. This is not to speak of
the other kinds of special consecration to Christ such as that which
occurs in the ordained priesthood. It is all a sharing in the love and
the zeal of Christ himself as we see it manifested in our Gospel scene
today. Let us recognize in our hearts the grandeur of such a calling,
pray for its increase in the Church, and for the sake of Christ and his
Church honour those whom the Lord thus calls.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no. 914-933, 1618-1620
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If you knew yourself, you would find joy in being despised and your
heart would weep before honours and praise.
(The Way, no.595)
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SYDNEY, Australia, JULY 20, 2008 - Concluding the address Benedict XVI gave Monday
morning local time at a meeting with the volunteers who worked at World
Youth Day. The Pope left Australia for Rome at about 10:30 a.m., local
time.
As I set off on my journey back to Rome, I shall treasure the memory of
the many grace-filled events we have experienced together: from my
first encounter with the young people at Barangaroo, through the
meetings at Darlinghurst and Saint Mary's Cathedral, to the Youth Vigil
at Southern Cross Precinct and the Final Mass there yesterday. I pray
that you too will take many precious memories and spiritual insights
away with you, and will return to your homes and families with fresh
zeal to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the power of the Spirit,
go forth now to renew the face of the earth!
As I bid you a fond farewell, I commend all of you to the loving
intercession of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, Help of Christians, I
invoke upon you the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I assure
you of my continued prayers. God bless the young people of our world
and God bless the people of Australia!
(Concluded)
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Monday of the thirty
second week in Ordinary Time II
(November
10) St. Leo the Great (d.
461)
With apparent strong conviction of the
importance of the Bishop of Rome in the Church, and of the Church as
the ongoing sign of Christ’s presence in the world, Leo the Great
displayed endless dedication in his role as pope. Elected in 440, he
worked tirelessly as
"Peter’s
successor," guiding his fellow bishops as "equals in the episcopacy and
infirmities." Leo is known as one of the best administrative popes of
the ancient Church. His work branched into four main areas, indicative
of his notion of the pope’s total responsibility for the flock of
Christ. He worked at length to control the heresies of Pelagianism,
Manichaeism and others, placing demands on their followers so as to
secure true Christian beliefs. A second major area of his concern was
doctrinal controversy in the Church in the East, to which he responded
with a classic letter setting down the Church’s teaching on the nature
of Christ. With strong faith, he also led the defence of Rome against
barbarian attack, taking the role of peacemaker. In these three areas,
Leo’s work has been highly regarded. His growth to sainthood has its
basis in the spiritual depth with which he approached the pastoral care
of his people, which was the fourth focus of his work. He is known for
his spiritually profound sermons. An instrument of the call to
holiness, well-versed in Scripture and ecclesiastical awareness, Leo
had the ability to reach the everyday needs and interests of his
people. One of his Christmas sermons is still famous today.
At a time when there is widespread
criticism of Church structures, we also hear criticism that bishops and
priests—indeed, all of us—are too preoccupied with administration of
temporal matters. Pope Leo is an example of a great administrator who
used his talents in areas where spirit and structure are inseparably
combined: doctrine, peace and pastoral care. He avoided an "angelism"
that tries to live without the body, as well as the "practicality" that
deals only in externals. (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture
today: Titus
1:1-9; Psalm 24:1b-6; Luke 17:1-6
(click here for readings)
Jesus said to
his disciples: "Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come,
but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for you to
be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around your neck than for
you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.
"If a brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they
repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day
and seven times come back to you saying 'I repent,' you must forgive
them." The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" He replied,
"If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this
mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey
you. (Luke
17:1-6)
Two
centuries ago slavery was legal, with all the suffering this inflicted
on so many who were enslaved, especially black Africans. Gradually the
injustice of this took hold and due, among other things, to the
pressure of various Christians in society, slavery was finally outlawed
by legislation. It took some time for this to happen in the various
countries, but at least in theory the injustice of slavery is now recognized in
the world. It is seen that it is no answer to say that you have your
opinion on the matter, but I have mine and I have a right to act on my
opinion. This kind of relativism is unacceptable. But such is not the
case with various other forms of injustice, such as abortion. Millions
of unborn human beings are put to death every year and it is counted as
civilly legal. The answer often given by politicians is that, yes, I
personally recognize that abortion is morally wrong, but I cannot
impose this on those who do not recognize it. They have their opinion
and I have mine, and really, I do not have the right to impose my
opinion. Meanwhile countless numbers of the unborn are subject to the
threat of death and are in fact put to death. Just as slavery was once
the injustice that was allowed by civil legislation and was finally
overcome despite the great inconveniences it caused to those who
depended on slavery, so the evil of abortion will be challenged until
it is overcome despite the inconveniences this will involve. I mention
abortion as an instance of how we can become blind to crimes. Society
too, in its legislation, can be blind to crimes. But there is something
else related to crime to which we and all of society can be even more
blind. It is sin. We can be blind to sin. We can fail to recognize even
the very existence of sin, and even if we do recognize the existence of
sin we can very easily have a cavalier attitude to it. This is because
sin is an offence not simply against our fellow human beings in society
whom we see, but is an offence against God, and God, being spirit, is
one whom we cannot see. So it is a case of out of sight, out of mind.
We do not think of sin because we do not see, nor do we want to see,
God.
But
Christ speaks with the utmost seriousness of sin and of leading others
into sin. In our Gospel today we read that “Jesus said to his
disciples: ‘Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but
woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for you to be
thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around your neck than for you
to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves’.”
(Luke 17:1-6) Society
can punish actions that are not only not crimes but that are great
benefits, such as bearing witness to the truth that has been revealed
by God. Christ was punished for bearing witness to the truth about
himself and God’s saving plan, and there have been countless Christians
who have been subjected to the same lot. Society can also sanction and
support by legislation things that are immensely harmful to human
beings and to society itself, such as abortion and embryonic stem cell
research. But there is no error, no blindness in what God sanctions and
punishes. He asks that in all our thoughts, words and deeds, his will
be obeyed and that we avoid sin. The most serious thing that can happen
to us is that we deliberately commit sin. Many terrible things can
happen to a person. He can be deprived of food, clothing and shelter.
He can, due to accidents and catastrophe, lose his very life. He can
see members of his own family suffer and die. But these are not the
worst things that can happen to him, for in everything he is held in
the hand of God. God holds him in being, and ultimately, as our Lord
says, we are to fear not the temporal and bodily disasters and
reversals that can overtake us, but him who has power to cast both body
and soul in hell because of our sins. It is only sin which can bring
this about - deliberate, unrepented, serious sin. So then as our Lord
says in the Gospel of today, we must be vigilant. We must watch out
lest we pick up from our society and culture the impression that sin
does not exist, or if it exists, that it does not matter. We must live
constantly in the presence of God and strive to do his will, avoiding
sin.
Every day,
perhaps at the end of the day, let us examine our consciences,
reviewing the day especially for deliberate sin, whether minor or
major, in thought, word or deed. We can sin seriously and not so
seriously in thought, or in word, or in deed. We must at all costs
avoid deliberate sin. We must avoid offending God who loves us so much
as our Father and who is all-holy. If we do sin, we must sincerely
repent. Every day offers the opportunity of obeying God and of doing
his will. Let us not squander the gift of life by filling it up with
deliberate, unrepented and constant sin.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Don't worry if they see your defects; the offence against God and the
scandal you may give; that is what should worry you.
Apart from this, may you be known for what you are and be despised.
Don't be sorry to be nothing, since then Jesus will have to be
everything for you.
(The Way, no.596)
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PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 -
Benedict XVI's address
in Paris to the world of culture, delivered at the recently restored
College of the Bernardines.
I would like to speak with you this evening of the origins of western
theology and the roots of European culture. I began by recalling that
the place in which we are gathered is in a certain way emblematic. It
is in fact a placed tied to monastic culture, insofar as young monks
came to live here in order to learn to understand their vocation more
deeply and to be more faithful to their mission. We are in a place that
is associated with the culture of monasticism. Does this still have
something to say to us today, or are we merely encountering the world
of the past? In order to answer this question, we must consider for a
moment the nature of Western monasticism itself. What was it about?
From the perspective of monasticism's historical influence, we could
say that, amid the great cultural upheaval resulting from migrations of
peoples and the emerging new political configurations, the monasteries
were the places where the treasures of ancient culture survived, and
where at the same time a new culture slowly took shape out of the old.
But how did it happen? What motivated men to come together to these
places? What did they want? How did they live?
(Continuing)
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Tuesday of the thirty second week in Ordinary Time II
(November 11) St. Martin of Tours (316?-397)
A conscientious objector who wanted to be a monk; a monk who was manipulated into being a bishop; a bishop who fought paganism as well as pleaded for mercy to heretics — such was Martin of Tours, one of the most popular of saints and one of the first not to be a martyr. He was born of pagan parents in what is now Hungary and was raised in Italy. The son of a veteran, he was forced to serve in the army against his will at the age of 15. He became a Christian catechumen and was baptized at 18. It was said that he lived more like a monk than a soldier. At 23 he refused a war bounty from the emperor with the words, "I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight. But I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight." After great difficulties, he was discharged and went to be a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers. He was ordained an exorcist and worked with great zeal against the Arians. He became a monk, living first at Milan and later on a small island. When Hilary was restored to his see after exile, Martin returned to France and established what may have been thefirst French monastery near Poitiers. He lived there for 10 years, forming his disciples and preaching throughout the countryside. The people of Tours demanded that he become their bishop. He was drawn to that city by a ruse—the need of a sick person—and was brought to the church, where he reluctantly allowed himself to be consecrated bishop. Some of the consecrating bishops thought his rumpled appearance and unkempt hair indicated that he was not dignified enough for the office. Along with St. Ambrose, Martin rejected Bishop Ithacius’s principle of putting heretics to death—as well as the intrusion of the emperor into such matters. He prevailed upon the emperor to spare the life of the heretic Priscillian. For his efforts, Martin was accused of the same heresy, and Priscillian was executed after all. Martin then pleaded for a cessation of the persecution of Priscillian’s followers in Spain. He still felt he could cooperate with Ithacius in other areas, but afterwards his conscience troubled him about this decision. As death approached, his followers begged him not to leave them. He prayed, "Lord, if your people still need me, I do not refuse the work. Your will be done."
Martin's worry about cooperation reminds us that almost nothing is either all black or all white. The saints are not creatures of another world: They face the same perplexing decisions that we do. Any decision of conscience always involves some risk. If we choose to go north, we may never know what would have happened had we gone east, west or south. A hypercautious withdrawal from all perplexing situations is not the virtue of prudence; it is, in fact, a bad decision, for "not to decide is to decide." (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today: Titus 2:1-8, 11-14; Psalm 37:3-4, 18 and 23, 27 and 29; Luke 17:7-10 (click here for readings)
"Suppose one
of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to
the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit
down to eat'? Won't he rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself
ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and
drink'? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to
do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do,
should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty'."
(Luke 17:7-10)
When Charles
Darwin’s Origin of Species came
out in England it caused a tempest of controversy. Many religious
people were entirely unprepared for it and regarded it as directly
undermining fundamental Christian dogmas. John Henry Newman had no such
problem. Interestingly, his letters show that in respect to evolution
he regarded the distinctive characteristic of
the human
being as not so much "intellect" as conscience. In the context of the
evolution controversy I think he was thinking of what "intellect" would
be without any element of conscience. It would not be intellect as in
the human being but a high form of animal awareness and calculation,
higher than that which obtains in the animals of our experience. That
is to say, Newman could envisage the evolution - all under the power
and guidance of God, of course - of certain animals to a very high
stage. He could envisage animals evolving by the hand of God to the
point of possessing a higher and more acute instinct, awareness and
calculation than that exhibited by any we know. In this scenario, once
such animal could have been brought to the point where a further touch
of the divine power and love would have endowed it with an immortal and
human soul. The most notable element it would then exhibit would be a
conscience, a moral sense, a sense not only of the existence and nature
of things but of what was right and wrong, of what should be done and
what should be avoided. All that is mere conjecture, but certainly
Newman allowed for the hypothesis of what we might call a theistic
evolution, and in allowing for this he considered the paramount
characteristic in the human being to be the sense of duty, the moral
sense, the conscience. This view is of course very much open to
question, but I myself tend to think that in practical terms the most
important capacity we possess is indeed our moral sense. It is this
which more than anything we must develop and act upon. If we must
choose, it is more important that we have a developed conscience than
that we have a well developed intellect.
I mention the centrality of the sense of duty as an introduction to our Gospel passage today. Our Lord is reminding his hearers that the truly important thing in life is that we do our duty. If we do our duty we will be rewarded, but we ought not be especially proud of ourselves for merely having done our duty, nor ought we expect to be highly commended for it. After all, it is simply our duty. Let us listen to our Lord’s words once again. ""Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Won't he rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty'." (Luke 17:7-10) We ought cultivate humility in the careful and constant fulfilment of our duty. Let us take our Lord’s words as reminding us of the fundamental place in life of duty. Almost every exercise of free choice involves the perception of some element of duty. This perception of duty that we are capable of is a marvellous capacity and it can take us to holiness. What is holiness? One of the reasons why the present Pope chose the name Benedict was because of his regard for Pope Benedict XV, who was Pope during World War I. Now Pope Benedict XV defined holiness. He said it involves the obedient and consistent fulfilment of our duties of life. He put the entire emphasis of holiness on the fulfilment of duty, done in obedience to and love for God. So in perceiving our duty, and in taking steps to know our duty, we are taking steps to attain holiness of life. The next step is faithfully to do our duty once we have come to know it. In this sense conscience is a marvellous capacity. If by God’s grace we act on it, it will unite us to God.
Every day let us resolve to live in God’s friendship. What did our Lord say about this? He said that if you love me you will keep my commandments. Christ is God incarnate, and our duty is above all to do his will, for his will is the will of God. On another occasion our Lord looked around at his disciples and said, here are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my mother and sister and brother. Let us then resolve to live according to our duty, done for love of God and neighbour. Duty is the fuel and manifestation of true love.
(E.J.Tyler)
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If you were to obey the impulses of your heart and the dictates of reason, you would always be flat on the ground, prostrate, like a filthy worm, ugly and miserable, before that God who puts up with so much from you.
(The Way, no.597)
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PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
First and foremost, it must be frankly admitted straight away that it was not their intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past. Their motivation was much more basic. Their goal was: quaerere Deum. Amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential - to make an effort to find what was perennially valid and lasting, life itself. They were searching for God. They wanted to go from the inessential to the essential, to the only truly important and reliable thing there is. It is sometimes said that they were "eschatologically" oriented. But this is not to be understood in a temporal sense, as if they were looking ahead to the end of the world or to their own death, but in an existential sense: they were seeking the definitive behind the provisional. Quaerere Deum: because they were Christians, this was not an expedition into a trackless wilderness, a search leading them into total darkness. God himself had provided signposts, indeed he had marked out a path which was theirs to find and to follow. This path was his word, which had been disclosed to men in the books of the sacred Scriptures. Thus, by inner necessity, the search for God demands a culture of the word or - as Jean Leclercq put it: eschatology and grammar are intimately connected with one another in Western monasticism (cf. L‘amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu). The longing for God, the désir de Dieu, includes amour des lettres, love of the word, exploration of all its dimensions. Because in the biblical word God comes towards us and we towards him, we must learn to penetrate the secret of language, to understand it in its construction and in the manner of its expression. Thus it is through the search for God that the secular sciences take on their importance, sciences which show us the path towards language. Because the search for God required the culture of the word, it was appropriate that the monastery should have a library, pointing out pathways to the word. It was also appropriate to have a school, in which these pathways could be opened up. Benedict calls the monastery a dominici servitii schola. The monastery serves eruditio, the formation and education of man - a formation whose ultimate aim is that man should learn how to serve God. But it also includes the formation of reason - education - through which man learns to perceive, in the midst of words, the Word itself.
(Continuing)
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Wednesday of the thirty
second week in Ordinary Time II
(November
12) St. Josaphat
(1580?-1623)
In 1967, newspaper photos of Pope Paul VI embracing Athenagoras I, the
Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, marked a significant step toward
the healing of a division in Christendom that has spanned nine
centuries. In 1595, when today’s saint was a boy, the Orthodox bishop
of Brest-Litovsk (famous in World War I) in Belarus and five other
bishops representing millions of Ruthenians, sought reunion with Rome.
John Kunsevich (Josaphat became his name in religious life) was to
dedicate his life and suffer his death in the same cause. Born in what
was then Poland, he went to work in Wilno and was influenced by clergy
adhering to the Union of Brest (1596). He became a Basilian monk, then
a priest, and soon was well known as a preacher and as an ascetic. He
became bishop of Vitebsk (now in Russia) at a relatively young age, and
faced a difficult situation. Most monks, fearing interference in
liturgy and customs, did not want union with Rome. By synods,
catechetical instruction, reform of the clergy and personal example,
however, Josaphat was successful in winning the greater part of the
Orthodox in that area to the union. But the next year a dissident
hierarchy was set up, and his opposite number spread the accusation
that Josaphat had "gone Latin" and that all his people would have to do
the same. He was not enthusiastically supported by the Latin bishops of
Poland. Despite warnings, he went to Vitebsk, still a hotbed of
trouble. Attempts were made to foment trouble and drive him from the
diocese: A priest was sent to shout insults to him from his own
courtyard. When Josaphat had him removed and shut up in his house, the
opposition rang the town hall bell, and a mob assembled. The priest was
released, but members of the mob broke into the bishop’s home. He was
struck with a halberd, then shot and his body thrown into the river. It
was later recovered and is now buried at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
He was the first saint of the Eastern Church to be canonized by Rome.
His death brought a movement toward Catholicism and unity, but the
controversy continued, and the dissidents, too, had their martyr. After
the partition of Poland, the Russians forced most Ruthenians to join
the Russian Orthodox Church.
The seeds of separation were sown in the fourth century when the Roman
Empire was divided into East and West. The actual split came over
relatively unimportant customs (unleavened bread, Saturday fasting,
celibacy). No doubt the political involvement of religious leaders on
both sides was a large factor, and doctrinal disagreement was present.
But no reason was enough to justify the present tragic division in
Christendom, which is 64 percent Roman Catholic, 13 percent Eastern
Churches (mostly Orthodox) and 23 percent Protestant, and this when the
71 percent of the world that is not Christian should be getting the
witness of unity and Christlike charity from Christians! (AmericanCatholic.org)
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Scripture today: Titus
3:1-7; Psalm 23:1b-6; Luke 17:11-19 (click here for
readings)
Now on
his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria
and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had
leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud
voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" When he saw them, he said,
"Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were
cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising
God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked
him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed?
Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to
God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your
faith has made you well."
(Luke 17:11-19)
Our
scene from the Gospel today has much to teach us indeed. I have often
wondered whether the average person asks God for much. I tend to doubt
it. If at times he does ask God for things, I tend to think he gives up
on asking if the answer to his request is not quickly forthcoming. A
little detail in our Gospel scene is illuminating in this regard. We
are told that when the lepers asked our Lord to have pity on them, our
Lord’s response was simply that they go and show themselves to the
priests. He did not, on that occasion - as he did on many other
occasions - immediately cure them. They did not see an immediate cure
of their leprosy. It was only “as they went” that they were cured. We
are not told if it was soon after our Lord told them to go, or some
time after while on the way there. For some reason our Lord chose to
effect the cure not immediately but later. When the lone Samaritan
returned to give thanks with all his heart to our Lord, our Lord told
him that his faith had saved him. This faith had been shown in his, and
their, leaving our Lord to go to the priests while believing our Lord’s
word and perhaps the greater faith of the Samaritan had saved him in
greater ways still. The general point ought be borne in mind that, as
our Lord says elsewhere, we ought pray always and never lose heart. The
world is in need of the mercy and the compassion of God, and we who
believe in Christ ought be the world’s intercessors, calling down by
our faith-filled prayers the healing mercy of Christ. The picture of
the ten lepers appealing to Christ for pity is surely a picture of the
world and we are part of that world. The leprosy is above all the
leprosy of sin with all its manifold implications for all aspects of
life. Sin has not made us totally corrupt, for there is some good in
man still. But like the lepers it has left us profoundly wounded and we
need redemption. This redemption has been effected by Christ, and our
hope is that Christ by the gift of his Holy Spirit will continue to
apply the fruits of his redemption to each of us. For this we must
appeal to God.
So it
is that the prayer of petition is so very important. We must persist in
asking from God for all our needs. If this is to happen we must have a
lively sense of our true needs and a lively sense of the reality and
presence of God. If we are living a comfortable life the danger is that
we shall lose sight of our true condition, of the leprosy that is
there, and content ourselves with continuing in a comfortable life. So
let us resolve humbly to persist in laying our petitions before God for
our own sakes and for the sake of so many others who need our prayers
even if they do not recognize this. But our passage today portrays more
than the petition of the lepers. It shows the one leper who came back
to our Lord thanking him and praising God. Let us notice a detail in
this respect. The leper came back and, praising God, threw himself at
the feet of Jesus and thanked him (Luke
17:11-19). What was it that our Lord chose to
highlight in this turn of events? First of all, he emphasized the
praise of God offered by the leper. Secondly he expressed
disappointment that the others had forgotten the God who did them the
favour they had requested. The Samaritan leper had asked and had
received. He had then returned to thank, to praise, to adore. Not only
ought we fill up our lives with the prayer of petition both for
ourselves and for so many others we know and do not know, but we ought
fill up our lives also with thanks and praise, especially praise for
all that God has in his compassion done for us. So many people allow
their lives to fill up with bitterness at hurts endured. Rather, we
ought think of the good things God has done for us. He has given us
life and existence. In his Son Jesus Christ he has died for us and
opened the gates of heaven. He has done so many things which ought
encourage us to pray for more, and it ought encourage us to thank him
and to adore him. How happy would the lives of people be were they to
be filled with gratitude and praise for all that God has done! The
grateful person, the person who praises, is a happy person. Let us then
ask God for what we need and do so with persistence, and thank and
praise him continually for all he has done.
Our
Gospel scene presents in a dramatic picture what each of us and all
mankind ought be doing before the person of Jesus Christ. He is the one
who can help us, so let us all turn to him. We ought, as our Lord says,
pray always and never lose heart. He will answer our prayers in the way
that is best, but if we give up on praying for our needs, then our
lives will not be enriched as it would be. But let us also be like the
Samaritan leper who returned with thanks and praise. This will please
God.
(E.J.Tyler)
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How great the value of humility! — Quia respexit humilitatem...
It is not of her faith, nor of her charity, nor of her immaculate
purity that our Mother speaks in the house of Zachary. Her joyful hymn
sings:
'Since he has looked on my humility, all generations will call me
blessed.'
(The Way, no.598)
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PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict
XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered
at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
Yet in order to have a full vision of the culture of the word, which
essentially pertains to the search for God, we must take a further
step. The Word which opens the path of that search, and is to be
identified with this path, is a shared word. True, it pierces every
individual to the heart (cf. Acts 2:37). Gregory the Great describes
this a sharp stabbing pain, which tears open our sleeping soul and
awakens us, making us attentive to God (cf. Leclercq, p. 35). But in
the process, it also makes us attentive to one another. The word does
not lead to a purely individual path of mystical immersion, but to the
pilgrim fellowship of faith. And so this word must not only be
pondered, but also correctly read. As in the rabbinic schools, so too
with the monks, reading by the individual is at the same time a
corporate activity. "But if legere and lectio
are used without an explanatory note, then they designate for
the most part an activity which, like singing and writing, engages the
whole body and the whole spirit", says Jean Leclercq on the subject
(ibid., 21).
(Continuing)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday of the thirty
second week in Ordinary Time II
(November
13) Saint Frances Xavier
Cabrini, virgin (1850-1917)
Frances Xavier Cabrini was the first
United States citizen to be canonized. Her deep trust in the loving
care of her God gave her the
strength
to be a valiant woman doing the work of Christ. Refused admission to
the religious order which had educated her to be a teacher, she began
charitable work at the House of Providence Orphanage in Cadogno, Italy.
In September 1877, she made her vows there and took the religious
habit. When the bishop closed the orphanage in 1880, he named Frances
prioress of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Seven young
women from the orphanage joined with her. Since her early childhood in
Italy, Frances had wanted to be a missionary in China but, at the
urging of Pope Leo XIII, Frances went west instead of east. She
travelled with six sisters to New York City to work with the thousands
of Italian immigrants living there. She found disappointment and
difficulties with every step. When she arrived in New York City, the
house intended to be her first orphanage in the United States was not
available. The archbishop advised her to return to Italy. But Frances,
truly a valiant woman, departed from the archbishop’s residence all the
more determined to establish that orphanage. And she succeeded. In 35
years Frances Xavier Cabrini founded 67 institutions dedicated to
caring for the poor, the abandoned, the uneducated and the sick. Seeing
great need among Italian immigrants who were losing their faith, she
organized schools and adult education classes. As a child, she was
always frightened of water, unable to overcome her fear of drowning.
Yet, despite this fear, she travelled across the Atlantic Ocean more
than 30 times. She died of malaria in her own Columbus Hospital in
Chicago.
The compassion and dedication
of Mother Cabrini is still seen in hundreds of thousands of her fellow
citizens, not yet canonized, who care for the sick in hospitals,
nursing homes and state institutions. We complain of increased medical
costs in an affluent society, but the daily news shows us millions who
have little or no medical care, and who are calling for new Mother
Cabrinis to become citizen-servants of their land. At her canonization
on July 7, 1946, Pius XII said, "Although her constitution was very
frail, her spirit was endowed with such singular strength that, knowing
the will of God in her regard, she permitted nothing to impede her from
accomplishing what seemed beyond the strength of a woman." (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture
today:
Philemon 7-20; Psalm 146:7-10; Luke
17:20-25
(click
here for readings)
Once, having
been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus
replied, "The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be
observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because
the kingdom of God is in your midst." Then he said to his disciples,
"The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the
Son of Man, but you will not see it. People will tell you, 'There he
is!' or 'Here he is!' Do not go running off after them. For the Son of
Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up
the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things
and be rejected by this generation. (Luke 17:20-25)
Our
Lord appeared publicly preaching a Kingdom and asked all to repent in
preparation for its arrival. It was near at hand. The danger he was
fully aware of was that the people would interpret this to be a new
political kingdom inaugurated by God to bring freedom to his people
from all political oppression and domination. There had been important
precedents in the past. The prophets had threatened the people
with invasion
and destruction if they did not repent. They did not, and true to
prediction, they were invaded, conquered, and deported. The holy city
was sacked and the Temple destroyed. The people lived in subjection.
Then a new prophecy came. God would free his people and bring them back
to their homeland which would be rebuilt. This happened. A similar
prophecy had occurred centuries before even this. Moses was sent by God
to tell the people that he was taking them out of slavery into a
promised land. They would be politically free and able to serve him in
the manner he wanted. This happened. Centuries before this, God had
called Abraham from his own land and had led him to a land he said he
would give to him and to his descendants. And now our Lord comes
preaching God’s Kingdom. The danger is that the people, subject as they
are to the Romans, will think what our Lord is promising is a new
political kingdom, one in which the people will be set free finally
from all subjection. In our Gospel passage today we see some of the
Pharisees coming to our Lord and asking when the Kingdom of God would
come. They and the people are in danger of failing to discern that all
the temporal liberations God had wrought for them in the past were
types of something far deeper and greater. They were pointers to
liberation from sin. Thus is was that John the Baptist had pointed out
to some of his disciples that Jesus was the Lamb of God who would take
away the sin of the world. Sin was the true oppression, and God was
coming to set his people free.
One of
the interesting things that seems to have quickly happened after the
life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ is the falling into
relative disuse of the expression, the Kingdom of God. It is present in
the Lord’s Prayer: we pray that our Father’s Kingdom will come. But the
Church does not seem to have continued to use the expression very much
in her preaching after Pentecost. Why is this? It is surely because the
nature of the Kingdom had by then become abundantly clear. The Kingdom
of God subsisted in the person of Jesus, and one entered this Kingdom
by entering into union with him and by sharing his life and living
according to his teaching. A kingdom is a rule, a reign, a subjection
to the authority of another. So too with the Kingdom of God. It is the
reign, the rule of God and subjection to Him. Sin is the refusal of
that rule. God sent his only begotten Son to us, and he was the
embodiment of subjection to the will of his heavenly Father. I always
do what pleases him, he said. On another occasion he challenged his
enemies, Can any of you convict me of sin? The Father himself said,
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. The whole life of God
was present in the person of Jesus because, as St Paul writes, the
fullness of the Godhead abides in Jesus bodily. The Kingdom of God was
fully present in the person of Jesus, and gradually this had to be made
clear to the people. But it would only be made clear in, through and
after his passion, death, resurrection and ascension. The Holy Spirit
came at Pentecost and filled the infant Church with light and they
understood what Jesus had done. In him they had entered the Kingdom of
God that had been promised. It was a Kingdom that had begun in him here
on earth, it would extend in time and would reach its fulfilment in
heaven. Where is this Kingdom? It is, as I said, in Jesus, and where is
Jesus? Jesus is present in his body the Church. So the Church, founded
on the Apostles with Peter at their head, is the bearer of God’s
Kingdom.
As our
Lord says in our Gospel passage today, the Son of Man “must suffer many
things and be rejected by this generation.” (Luke
17:20-25) His passion and death made it
possible for each of us to enter the Kingdom of God by receiving a
share in the life of Christ. By baptism we have received the gift of
the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Christ and the Father. Let us
resolve to live in union with him and to bring this Kingdom to those
around us.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You are dust — fallen and dirty. Even though the breath of the holy
Spirit should lift you above all the things of the earth and make you
shine like gold, as your misery reflects in those heights the sovereign
rays of the Sun of Justice, do not forget the lowliness of your state.
An instant of pride would cast you back to the ground; and, having been
light, you would again become dirt.
(The Way, no.599)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict
XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered
today at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
And once again, a further step is needed. We ourselves are brought into
conversation with God by the word of God. The God who speaks in the
Bible teaches us how to speak with him ourselves. Particularly in the
book of Psalms, he gives us the words with which we can address him,
with which we can bring our life, with all its highpoints and
lowpoints, into conversation with him, so that life itself thereby
becomes a movement towards him. The psalms also contain frequent
instructions about how they should be sung and accompanied by
instruments. For prayer that issues from the word of God, speech is not
enough: music is required. Two chants from the Christian liturgy come
from biblical texts in which they are placed on the lips of angels: the
Gloria, which is sung by the angels at the birth of Jesus, and the
Sanctus, which according to Isaiah 6 is the cry of the seraphim who
stand directly before God. Christian worship is therefore an invitation
to sing with the angels, and thus to lead the word to its highest
destination. Once again, Jean Leclercq says on this subject: "The monks
had to find melodies which translate into music the acceptance by
redeemed man of the mysteries that he celebrates. The few surviving
capitula from Cluny thus show the Christological symbols of the
individual modes" (cf. ibid. p. 229).
(Continuing)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday of the thirty
second week in Ordinary Time II
(November
14) St. Gertrude
(1256?-1302)
Gertrude, a Benedictine nun in Helfta (Saxony),
was one of the great mystics of the 13th century. Together with her
friend and teacher St. Mechtild, she practiced a spirituality called
"nuptial mysticism," that is, she came to see herself as the bride of
Christ. Her spiritual life was a deep personal union with Jesus and his
Sacred Heart, leading her into the very life of the Trinity. But this
was no individualistic piety. Gertrude lived the rhythm of the liturgy,
where she found Christ. In the liturgy and Scripture, she found the
themes and images to enrich and express her piety. There was no clash
between her personal prayer life and the liturgy. Gertrude's life is
another reminder that the heart of the Christian life is prayer:
private and liturgical, ordinary or mystical, always personal.
"Lord, you have granted me your secret friendship by opening
the sacred ark of your divinity, your deified heart, to me in so many
ways as to be the source of all my happiness; sometimes imparting it
freely, sometimes as a special mark of our mutual friendship. You have
so often melted my soul with your loving caresses that, if I did not
know the abyss of your overflowing condescensions, I should be amazed
were I told that even your Blessed Mother had been chosen to receive
such extraordinary marks of tenderness and affection" (Adapted from The
Life and Revelations of Saint Gertrude).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today: 2
John 4-9; Psalm 119:1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 18; Luke
17:26-37 (click here for
readings)
"Just
as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the
Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in
marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and
destroyed them all. "It was the same in the days of Lot. People were
eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the
day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and
destroyed them all. "It will be just like this on the day the Son of
Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with
possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the
field should go back for anything. Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries
to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will
preserve it. I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed;
one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain
together; one will be taken and the other left." "Where, Lord?" they
asked. He replied, "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will
gather."
(Luke 17:26-37)
When I
was young we used to have what we called parish missions. The parish
priest would arrange for priests of religious orders to come to the
parish, and, as we would say, give a mission. It would last a couple of
weeks, and it amounted to a spiritual retreat for the parish. They were
very effective and many used to comment (with tongue in cheek) about
the “fire and brimstone” preaching that often characterized
the mission. As with most such popular comments, it was a caricature.
However, there was indeed a wholesome reminder during the preaching of
what we might call the Last Things: Death, God’s Judgement, Heaven and
Hell. We were reminded of the awful prospect of Hell, and what it is
that will take a person to Hell. There is only one thing that can take
a person to Hell, and that is deliberate, unrepented mortal sin. The
thought of this can be very salutary to a person who blithely takes his
future prospects to be more or less indicated by what he can see. There
have been some great conversions in the past that have been
significantly assisted by the thought of Hell. One of the great
religious movements in England was the rise of the Evangelical movement
during the 1730s. Some scholars consider it the greatest revival of
Protestantism since the Reformation of the sixteenth century. It
involved Wesley, Whitefield, and many others. Central to the life of
the Revival was the conversion, the conversion away from sin to faith
in Christ and the Atonement he brought by his cross. Now very often
what powerfully assisted this conversion was the thought of God’s
judgment on sin and the prospect of Hell. The sinner was actively
encouraged to think of Hell. The century produced many notable stories
of conversion, including autobiographies. One of the most famous was
that written by John Newton (An Authentic Narrative),
the author of the hymn, "Amazing Grace". The thought of God’s judgment
brought him to the point of accepting in faith the grace of Christ.
I
mention all this as an introduction to our Gospel passage today. I do
not think any prophet from the Old Testament right up to John the
Baptist in the New spoke of Hell as much as our Lord did. He was
explicit about the fact of Hell and of what leads to it. Hell will be
the outcome of God’s judgment on those who die unrepentant in the state
of grave and mortal sin. Let us listen to our Lord’s words in today’s
Gospel
(Luke 17:26-37),
which provide a variant on this theme. Our Lord says, "Just as it was
in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.
People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up
to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them
all. "It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and
drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot
left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and destroyed them
all.” Then our Lord continues even more starkly, “It will be just like
this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is
on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them.
Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember
Lot's wife! Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever
loses their life will preserve it.” One of the great manuals of
Christian renewal is the Spiritual Exercises of
St Ignatius of Loyola. Following his initial statement of the principle
and foundation of the Christian life, he invites the reader to
contemplate the great fact of sin. Especially he takes pains to induce
the one meditating to consider the consequences of sin and the eternal
punishment of Hell. How foolish it is to forget the possibility of
Hell. We have no idea of who may be buried in Hell, except for the evil
spirits, but it is a real possibility for man. He has freedom. He can
seriously abuse this freedom by knowingly committing serious sin. He
can die in this state unrepentant. The judgment of God follows.
I have
seen public advertisements depicting in comic form both Satan and the
Hell to which he belongs. Hell is no laughing matter. God sent his
only-begotten Son to lay down his life amid incalculable suffering
precisely to save mankind from Hell. Let us resolve to avoid sin and to
live for God by following as closely as we can the person and example
of Jesus our Saviour.
(E.J.Tyler)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You... proud? About what?
(The Way, no.600)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict
XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered
at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
For Benedict, the words of the Psalm: coram angelis psallam
Tibi, Domine - in the presence of the angels, I will sing
your praise (cf. 138:1) - are the decisive rule governing the prayer
and chant of the monks. What this expresses is the awareness that in
communal prayer one is singing in the presence of the entire heavenly
court, and is thereby measured according to the very highest standards:
that one is praying and singing in such a way as to harmonize with the
music of the noble spirits who were considered the originators of the
harmony of the cosmos, the music of the spheres. The monks have to pray
and sing in a manner commensurate with the grandeur of the word handed
down to them, with its claim on true beauty. This intrinsic requirement
of speaking with God and singing of him with words he himself has
given, is what gave rise to the great tradition of Western music. It
was not a form of private "creativity", in which the individual leaves
a memorial to himself and makes self-representation his essential
criterion. Rather it is about vigilantly recognizing with the "ears of
the heart" the inner laws of the music of creation, the archetypes of
music that the Creator built into his world and into men, and thus
discovering music that is worthy of God, and at the same time truly
worthy of man, music whose worthiness resounds in purity.
(Continuing)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday of the thirty
second week in Ordinary Time II
(November
15) St. Albert the Great
(1206-1280)
Albert the Great was a 13th-century
German Dominican who influenced decisively the stance of the Church
toward Aristotelian philosophy brought to Europe by the spread of
Islam. Students of philosophy know him as the master of Thomas Aquinas.
Albert’s attempt to understand Aristotle’s writings established the
climate in which Thomas Aquinas developed his synthesis of Greek wisdom
and Christian theology. But Albert deserves recognition on his own
merits as a curious, honest and diligent scholar. He was the eldest son
of a powerful and wealthy German lord of military rank. He was educated
in the liberal arts. Despite fierce family opposition, he entered the
Dominican novitiate. His boundless interests prompted him to write a
compendium of all knowledge: natural science, logic, rhetoric,
mathematics, astronomy, ethics, economics, politics and metaphysics.
His explanation of learning took 20 years to complete. "Our intention,"
he said, "is to make all the aforesaid parts of knowledge intelligible
to the Latins." He achieved his goal while serving as an educator at
Paris and Cologne, as Dominican provincial and even as bishop of
Regensburg for a time. He defended the mendicant orders and preached
the Crusade in Germany and Bohemia. Albert, a Doctor of the Church, is
the patron of scientists and philosophers.
An information glut faces us Christians today in all branches of
learning. One needs only to read current Catholic periodicals to
experience the varied reactions to the findings of the social sciences,
for example, in regard to Christian institutions, Christian life-styles
and Christian theology. Ultimately, in canonizing Albert, the Church
seems to point to his openness to truth, wherever it may be found, as
his claim to holiness. His characteristic curiosity prompted Albert to
mine deeply for wisdom within a philosophy his Church warmed to with
great difficulty.
"There are some who desire knowledge
merely for its own sake; and that is shameful curiosity. And there are
others who desire to know, in order that they may themselves be known;
and that is vanity, disgraceful too. Others again desire knowledge in
order to acquire money or preferment by it; that too is a discreditable
quest. But there are also some who desire knowledge, that they may
build up the souls of others with it; and that is charity. Others,
again, desire it that they may themselves be built up thereby; and that
is prudence. Of all these types, only the last two put knowledge to the
right use" (St. Bernard, "Sermon on the Canticle of Canticles").
(AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today: 3
John 5-8; Psalm 112:1-6, Luke 18:1-8 (click here for
readings)
Then
Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always
pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who
neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow
in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice
against my adversary.' "For some time he refused. But finally he said
to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care what people think,
yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets
justice, so that she won't eventually come and attack me!' " And the
Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God
bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and
night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they
get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he
find faith on the earth?" (Luke
18:1-8)
I
remember over forty years ago attending a lunch-time address at Sydney
University given by a priest member of the department of Philosophy
there. The priest gave his address on prayer and there were a couple of
professors of Philosophy attending, and they themselves were not
theists. I remember at one point the speaker gave an example of a
person praying for something (say, for rain).
Then the thing
for which he was praying happened. He said that the fact of rain
following prayer would make it so probable that prayer caused the rain
as to be in effect certain. This line of reasoning did not convince the
professional philosophers there. Whatever of that example, there is no
doubt that the usefulness of prayer is doubted by a great many people,
and not only unbelieving philosophers. Their experience, they say, is
of prayer being futile. What they pray for is not granted, and they are
not convinced that what they are praying for, if it comes, would not
have come anyway had they not been praying for it at all. We could, of
course, think of very many whose testimony is the opposite. I have
often been with people who have suddenly lost something. They cannot
find it despite their diligent efforts. Then someone says, we must pray
to St Anthony for his intercession, the patron saint of those who have
lost things. They are convinced from their own experience of the power
of prayer in this situation. That is one tiny example. One of the great
events in modern Australian history was the World Youth Day of 2008,
including as it did the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. For months the ones
who were at the head of the organization of this event were asking
communities of nuns to pray that there would be good weather. They did
pray for this, and prayed persistently. The weather was outstanding,
and just as the week of events ended, heavy clouds began to appear and
soon rain came. There was no doubt in the minds of those concerned that
the good weather was the answer to prayer.
It
comes down to faith. The Christian believes in the power of prayer
above all on the word of Christ. The prophets had faith in the power of
prayer. Consider Elijah and the spectacular event of his confrontation
with the 400 prophets of Baal. He challenged them to prepare their
sacrifice and to call on their god to consume it. They did so from
morning till afternoon, but to no avail. Elijah prepared his sacrifice,
and with a single prayer to God fire fell from heaven and consumed the
sacrifice. It was God’s answer to Elijah’s prayer of faith. There is no
prophet who spoke so much about prayer as Christ, and there is none who
spoke as he did about faith in God when asking for something. Let us
hear our Lord’s words once again. He begins with a parable. "In a
certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what
people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to
him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' "For some
time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't
fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps
bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't
eventually come and attack me!' " In the parable, the most obvious
element is the persistence of the widow and the effect on the corrupt
judge of her importunity. He gave in to her request. Our Lord
continues, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God
bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and
night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they
get justice, and quickly.”
(Luke 18:1-8) Our Lord is
saying that God will most certainly answer our prayers. He will not
delay indefinitely. Of course, we must take into account as well his
teaching as given elsewhere in the gospels. What we ask for may go
right against our best interests. But what our Lord is telling us here
is that we should persist in our requests. We ought not give up on God,
basically for lack of faith. And that is precisely how our Lord ends
his instruction on this occasion, with an appeal for faith. He says,
But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
The Letter to
the Hebrews tells us that Christ is constantly at the right hand of his
Father interceding for us. He is our High Priest. All the angels and
saints in Heaven share in his unceasing intercession. We are called to
share in the same intercession and prayer. Let us pray constantly and
never lose heart, as our Lord says elsewhere. Let us not give up on God
in our petitions offered to him.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pride? Why Before long — years, days, — you will be a heap of rotting
flesh: worms, foul-smelling liquids, filthy shreds of cloth, and no
one, on earth, will remember you.
(The Way, no.601)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict
XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered
today at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
In order to understand to some degree the culture of the word, which
developed deep within Western monasticism from the search for God, we
need to touch at least briefly on the particular character of the book,
or rather books, in which the monks encountered this word. The Bible,
considered from a purely historical and literary perspective, is not
simply one book but a collection of literature, which came into being
in the course of more than a thousand years and in which the inner
unity of the individual books is not immediately recognizable. On the
contrary, there are visible tensions between them. This is already the
case within the Bible of Israel, which we Christians call the Old
Testament. It is only rectified when we as Christians link the New
Testament writings as, so to speak, a hermeneutical key with the Bible
of Israel, and so understand the latter as the journey towards Christ.
With good reason, the New Testament generally designates the Bible not
as "the Scripture" but as "the Scriptures", which, when taken together,
are naturally then regarded as the one word of God to us. But the use
of this plural makes it quite clear that God's word only comes to us
here through the human word and through human words, that God only
speaks to us through the mediation of human agents, their words and
their history. This means again that the divine element in the word and
in the words is not self-evident. To say this in a modern way: the
unity of the biblical books and the divine character of their words
cannot be grasped by purely historical methods. The historical element
is seen in the multiplicity and the humanity. From this perspective one
can understand the formulation of a medieval couplet that at first
sight appears rather disconcerting: littera gesta docet - quid
credas allegoria (cf. Augustine of Dacia, Rotulus
pugillaris, I). The letter indicates the facts;
what you have to believe is indicated by allegory, that is to say, by
Christological and pneumatological exegesis.
(Continuing)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thirty third Sunday of Ordinary
Time A
Prayers
this week:
The
Lord says: my plans for you are peace and not disaster; when you call
to me, I will listen to you, and I will bring you back to the place
from which I exiled you.
(Jn
29: 11.12.14)
Father of all that is good, keep us faithful in serving you, for to
serve you is our lasting joy. We
ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the
Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
(November
16) St. Margaret of
Scotland (1050?-1093)
Margaret of Scotland was a truly
liberated woman in the sense that she was free to be herself. For her,
that meant freedom to love God and serve others. Margaret was not
Scottish by birth. She was the daughter of Princess Agatha of Hungary
and the Anglo-Saxon Prince Edward Atheling. She spent much of her youth
in the court of her great-uncle, the English king, Edward the
Confessor. Her family fled from William the Conqueror and was
shipwrecked off the coast of Scotland. King Malcolm befriended them and
was captivated by the beautiful, gracious Margaret. They were married
at the castle of Dunfermline in 1070. Malcolm was good-hearted, but
rough and uncultured, as was his country. Because of Malcolm’s love for
Margaret, she was able to soften his temper, polish his manners and
help him become a virtuous king. He left all domestic affairs to her
and often consulted her in state matters. Margaret tried to improve her
adopted country by promoting the arts and education. For religious
reform, she instigated synods and was present for the discussions which
tried to correct religious abuses common among priests and others, such
as simony, usury and incestuous marriages. With her husband, she
founded several churches. Margaret was not only a queen, but a mother.
She and Malcolm had six sons and two daughters. Margaret personally
supervised their religious instruction and their other studies.
Although she was very much caught up in the affairs of the household
and country, she remained detached from the world. Her private life was
austere. She had certain times for prayer and reading Scripture. She
ate sparingly and slept little in order to have time for devotions. She
and Malcolm kept two Lents, one before Easter and one before Christmas.
During these times she always rose at midnight for Mass. On the way
home she would wash the feet of six poor persons and give them alms.
She was always surrounded by beggars in public and never refused them.
It is recorded that she never sat down to eat without first feeding
nine orphans and 24 adults. In 1093, King William Rufus made a surprise
attack on Alnwick castle. King Malcolm and his oldest son, Edward, were
killed. Margaret, already on her deathbed, died four days after her
husband.
There are two ways to be charitable: the "clean
way" and the "messy way." The "clean way" is to give money or clothing
to organizations that serve the poor. The "messy way" is dirtying your
own hands in personal service to the poor. Margaret's outstanding
virtue was her love of the poor. Although very generous with material
gifts, Margaret also visited the sick and nursed them with her own
hands. She and her husband served orphans and the poor on their knees
during Advent and Lent. Like Christ, she was charitable the "messy
way."
"When [Margaret] spoke, her conversation was with the salt
of wisdom. When she was silent, her silence was filled with good
thoughts. So thoroughly did her outward bearing correspond with the
staidness of her character that it seemed as if she has been born the
pattern of a virtuous life" (Turgot, St. Margaret's confessor). (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20,
30-31; Psalm 128:1-5; 1 Thess 5:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30
(click
here for readings)
Jesus said to
his disciples, "Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who
called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave
five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each
according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who
had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work
and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold
gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a
hole in the ground and hid his master's money. "After a long time the
master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The
man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five.
'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I
have gained five more.' "His master replied, 'Well done, good and
faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put
you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
"The man with two bags of gold also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you
entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.' "His
master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been
faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.
Come and share your master's happiness!' "Then the man who had received
one bag of gold came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard
man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have
not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in
the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' "His master replied,
'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not
sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should
have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned
I would have received it back with interest. " 'Take the bag of gold
from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For those who have
will be given more, and they will have an abundance. As for those who
do not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw
that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth.' (Matthew
25:14-30)
The
gospel passage the Church has assigned for this Sunday is full of
implications for the life of man. It speaks of how God has entrusted
talents and opportunities for good to each according to a certain
measure, and of the judgment that will be given on how each has used
what has been received. That each person has been granted the capacity
to do good is obvious. There are opportunities ahead of each
individual, whatever be his circumstances. But let us consider our
Lord’s parable as a reminder of a very important truth, the doctrine of
the communion of saints. When we think of the master entrusting to the
servants his property, each according to a certain measure, let us
especially think of how Christ entrusts to each of the baptized a share
in his saving grace. The first great gift of grace we have been given
is the gift of faith, faith in Christ, accompanied by hope and charity.
Faith is the foundation of the entire Christian life and it is the gift
that we all, all those who are in Christ, share. We share in a common
faith, and this constitutes a tremendous communion among us all. There
are obviously degrees of this gift, some having been granted a greater
portion of faith than others, but whatever be the measure given to us,
the question is, how are we using it? Are we using it to the full? A
person may be granted a great gift, but he may greatly neglect it. We
have also been granted the Sacraments, the Sacrament not only of
Baptism but of Confirmation, of Matrimony for those who are married,
and other Sacraments besides. This too is part of the bag of gold
entrusted by the master to his servants in today’s parable. The
Sacraments make up the talents given to each. Are we making good use of
them, approaching them with a lively faith and seeing in them precious
moments of encounter with Christ, and living out in daily life the
graces we receive in them? This common share we have received in the
Sacraments constitutes a source of communion among us, for the Church
on earth is the communion of those who receive the Sacraments -
beginning with Baptism and culminating in the Eucharist, which is the
person of Christ himself.
At the
root of this communion is the love which “does not seek its own
interests” (1 Corinthians 13:5) but leads the faithful to “hold
everything in common” (Acts 4:32), even to put one’s own material goods
at the service of the most poor. The Church is in this way the great
communion of what St Paul calls the saints. They share in the gifts of
grace bestowed by Christ which he won for us by his death and
resurrection. Each member of the Church receives these gifts each
according to a certain measure, but with the responsibility to use them
for good to the greatest effect he is capable of. In the parable (Matthew 25:14-30),
the man to whom the master entrusted five bags of gold came back with
five more to give to his master. We too ought so live that others will
gain and grow in the graces Christ has won for our salvation. In the
case of spiritual goods with which Christ has endowed us, the more we
give them away - which is to say, the more we use them in the service
of others and for their spiritual good, the more they will actually
grow. The more our faith is used in the service of others, the more we
give it to others, as it were, the more it will grow within us. So the
gifts of grace which Christ won for us and which he gives us in and
through his Church are not only the foundation of the great communion
that exists among all the Church’s members, but they are to be used in
the service of the Church’s communion. The Church is the communion of
saints. This communion of saints is deepened and extended when the
gifts of grace we have received are used in the service of the Church’s
communion and for the honour and glory of God. Moreover, the communion
which constitutes the Church embraces not only those still on earth,
but those in heaven and those being purified in Purgatory for their
final entry into heaven. All of these together form in Christ one
family, the Church, to the praise and glory of the Trinity. Our parable
today teaches us to think often of the abundant blessings we have all
received from Christ our redeemer, including the blessing of a common
homeland in heaven, provided we do use as best we can the gifts God has
given to us.
During
the Nicene Creed which we recite every Sunday at Mass we state that we
believe in the communion saints. We are part of a great communion of
all those who are in Christ by grace. We share so much in common,
especially these gifts of grace, coming to us constantly in and through
the ministry of the Church. Our responsibility is to use these gifts in
the service of this great communion and so that as many as possible
will come to be part of this communion. Let us value profoundly the
doctrine and the reality of the communion of saints, all those who are
in Christ.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of
the Catholic Church no.946-959
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For all your learning, for all your fame, your eloquence and power, if
you are not humble, you are worth nothing. Cut out, root out that
self-complacency which dominates you so completely. — God will help you
— and then you will be able to begin working for Christ, in the lowest
place in his army of apostles.
(The Way, no.602)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict
XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered
today at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
We may put it even more simply: Scripture requires exegesis, and it
requires the context of the community in which it came to birth and in
which it is lived. This is where its unity is to be found, and here too
its unifying meaning is opened up. To put it yet another way: there are
dimensions of meaning in the word and in words which only come to light
within the living community of this history-generating word. Through
the growing realization of the different layers of meaning, the word is
not devalued, but in fact appears in its full grandeur and dignity.
Therefore the Catechism of the Catholic Church can rightly say that
Christianity does not simply represent a religion of the book in the
classical sense (cf. par. 108). It perceives in the words the word, the
Logos itself, which spreads its mystery through this multiplicity. This
particular structure of the Bible issues a constantly new challenge to
every generation. It excludes by its nature everything that today is
known as fundamentalism. In effect, the word of God can never simply be
equated with the letter of the text. To attain to it involves a
transcending and a process of understanding, led by the inner movement
of the whole and hence it also has to become a process of living. Only
within the dynamic unity of the whole are the many books one book.
God's word and action in the world are only revealed in the word and
history of human beings.
(Continuing)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday of the thirty third
week in Ordinary Time II
(November
17) St. Elizabeth of
Hungary (1207-1231)
In her short life Elizabeth manifested such great love for the poor and
suffering that she has become the patroness of Catholic charities and
of the Secular Franciscan Order. The daughter of the King of Hungary,
Elizabeth chose a life of penance and asceticism when a life of leisure
and luxury could easily have been hers. This choice endeared her in the
hearts of the common people throughout Europe. At the age of 14
Elizabeth was married to Louis of Thuringia (a German principality),
whom she deeply loved; she bore three children. Under the spiritual
direction of a Franciscan friar, she led a life of prayer, sacrifice
and service to the poor and sick. Seeking to become one with the poor,
she wore simple clothing. Daily she would take bread to hundreds of the
poorest in the land, who came to her gate. After six years of marriage,
her husband died in the Crusades, and she was grief-stricken. Her
husband’s family looked upon her as squandering the royal purse, and
mistreated her, finally throwing her out of the palace. The return of
her husband’s allies from the Crusades resulted in her being
reinstated, since her son was legal heir to the throne. In 1228
Elizabeth joined the Secular Franciscan Order, spending the remaining
few years of her life caring for the poor in a hospital which she
founded in honour of St. Francis. Elizabeth’s health declined, and she
died before her 24th birthday in 1231. Her great popularity resulted in
her canonization four years later.
Elizabeth understood
well the lesson Jesus taught when he washed his disciples' feet at the
Last Supper: The Christian must be one who serves the humblest needs of
others, even if one serves from an exalted position. Of royal blood,
Elizabeth could have lorded it over her subjects. Yet she served them
with such a loving heart that her brief life won for her a special
place in the hearts of many. Elizabeth is also an example to us in her
following the guidance of a spiritual director. Growth in the spiritual
life is a difficult process. We can play games very easily if we don't
have someone to challenge us or to share experiences so as to help us
avoid pitfalls.
"Today, there is an inescapable duty to
make ourselves the neighbour of every individual, without exception,
and to take positive steps to help a neighbour whom we encounter,
whether that neighbour be an elderly person, abandoned by everyone, a
foreign worker who suffers the injustice of being despised, a refugee,
an illegitimate child wrongly suffering for a sin of which the child is
innocent, or a starving human being who awakens our conscience by
calling to mind the words of Christ: 'As long as you did it for one of
these, the least of my brethren, you did it for me' (Matthew 25:40)" (Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 27,
Austin Flannery translation). (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture today: Revelation
1:1-4; 2:1-5; Psalm 1:1- 4 and 6; Luke 18:35-43
(click
here for readings)
As
Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside
begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening.
They told him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by." He called out,
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Those who led the way rebuked
him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of
David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be
brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, "What do you want
me to do for you?" "Lord, I want to see," he replied. Jesus said to
him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you." Immediately he
received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the
people saw it, they also praised God.
(Luke 18:35-43)
Our
Gospel scene today presents us with the scene of a person who may be
said to symbolize the profound weakness of man. He was blind. What
could he or anyone else do about his blindness? He could not work for a
living, for he was blind. He was a burden on others, for he was blind.
How could he ever gain what he needed, for he was helpless in his
blindness. He may even have been bereft of any family or
relatives interested in looking after him for, after all, there he was
all alone by the roadside begging. That man could be said to represent
countless numbers of persons who suffer one form or other of the evils
prevalent in the world. It may be that they are blind, it may be that
they are lame or dumb or deaf, it may be that they are deprived of
family or property or food or employment. The helplessness of the blind
man reminds us of the evil in the world. But his helplessness
symbolized also the helplessness of others. Take the most powerful man
in the world at the time - let us say, Caesar - and ask, what for all
his power could he have done to deliver the blind man from his
blindness even had he been disposed to do something for him? Nothing.
He could not have rescued the blind man from his affliction, no matter
how many resources he brought to bear on the task. Very many of the
powerful of the world are not disposed to exercise their power for the
benefit of the poor and needy, but those who are so disposed will very
quickly discover how limited is their power in the overcoming of evil.
So we could say that the blind man represents the poverty and
powerlessness of mankind. There is a further thing we could say. It is
that the religions of man are a manifestation of precisely these
features of human experience. In his misery and powerlessness man cries
out to the powers above asking that they come to his aid. Inasmuch as
this shapes so much of religion and inasmuch as religion shapes so much
of civilization, it is, we could say, the blind man sitting by the
roadside who shapes so much of civilization and history.
Yes,
we could say that the history of man is encapsulated in the image of
the blind man sitting by the roadside, and his religion and
civilization is encapsulated in his cry for help. From generation to
generation there is a perennial cry for help arising from the masses of
mankind and this cry shapes the contours of civilization and religion.
But our Gospel scene to day introduces a decisively new phenomenon. It
is that within the scene of the blind man by the roadside begging,
Jesus Christ is passing by. Moreover a crowd is following in train. It
is a picture of the history of man. Man is sunk in his helplessness and
there is no one to help him. A crowd is passing by and the word is
uttered, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by”. That is the word that is
uttered from generation to generation by those following Jesus of
Nazareth and the response of the blind man is, or should be, the
response of man in every generation. He called out, "Jesus, Son of
David, have mercy on me!" (Luke
18:35-43) Caesar and those in power might be
powerless to help even if they were disposed to help, but this time the
cry for relief is answered. Jesus of Nazareth has both the power,
effortless and unlimited power, and the will to use it for the relief
of those in need. His power is shown in mercy. “Those who led the way
rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son
of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be
brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, "What do you want
me to do for you?" "Lord, I want to see," he replied. Jesus said to
him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you".” But of course
the plight of the blind man is a symbol of the much deeper plight that
plagues the entire human race, the plight of sin. Sin is man’s
fundamental problem and it is the need for liberation from sin which is
obscurely at the root of his religions. Jesus of Nazareth is, from
generation to generation passing by and it is he who saves man from his
sin. He is the only one by whom man may be saved. No one comes to the
Father except through him.
The
Dalai Lama visited Mao Tse Tung in the 1950s hoping to negotiate the
status of Tibet. At the end of his visit to Bejing Mao said to the
Dalai Lama that religion is poison. Mao was sunk in a far deeper
blindness than the blind man of our Gospel today. The prayer of the
blind man is one of the best prayers in all of the Scriptures: Jesus,
have pity on me! Let us be like the blind man and follow Jesus along
the road, but while we follow let us pray that same prayer. There is so
much in us that needs to be healed, especially sin and all its
remnants. We need to be brought to holiness. Jesus is the only one who
can do it.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That false humility is laziness. Such humbleness is a handy way of
giving up rights that are really duties.
(The Way, no.603)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict
XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered
at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
The whole drama of this topic is illuminated in the writings of Saint
Paul. What is meant by the transcending of the letter and understanding
it solely from the perspective of the whole, he forcefully expressed as
follows: "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor 3:6). And
he continues: "Where the Spirit is there is freedom (cf. 2 Cor 3:17).
But one can only understand the greatness and breadth of this vision of
the biblical word if one listens closely to Paul and then discovers
that this liberating Spirit has a name, and hence that freedom has an
inner criterion: "The Lord is the Spirit. Where the Spirit is there is
freedom" (2 Cor 3:17). The liberating Spirit is not simply the
exegete's own idea, the exegete's own vision. The Spirit is Christ, and
Christ is the Lord who shows us the way. With the word of Spirit and of
freedom, a further horizon opens up, but at the same time a clear limit
is placed upon arbitrariness and subjectivity, which unequivocally
binds both the individual and the community and brings about a new,
higher obligation than that of the letter: namely, the obligation of
insight and love. This tension between obligation and freedom, which
extends far beyond the literary problem of scriptural exegesis, has
also determined the thinking and acting of monasticism and has deeply
marked Western culture. It presents itself anew as a task for our
generation too, vis-á-vis the poles of subjective arbitrariness and
fundamentalist fanaticism. It would be a disaster if today's European
culture could only conceive freedom as absence of obligation, which
would inevitably play into the hands of fanaticism and arbitrariness.
Absence of obligation and arbitrariness do not signify freedom, but its
destruction.
(Continuing)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday of the thirty
third week in Ordinary Time II
(November
18)
Dedication of the Basilicas of St Peter and St Paul
St. Peter’s is probably the most famous
church in Christendom. Massive in scale and a veritable museum of art
and architecture, it began on a much humbler scale. Vatican Hill was a
simple cemetery where believers gathered at St. Peter’s tomb to pray.
In 319
Constantine
built on the site a basilica that stood for more than a thousand years
until, despite numerous restorations, it threatened to collapse. In
1506 Pope Julius II ordered it razed and reconstructed, but the new
basilica was not completed and dedicated for more than two centuries.
St. Paul’s Outside the Walls stands near the Abaazia delle Tre Fontane,
where St. Paul is believed to have been beheaded. The largest church in
Rome until St. Peter’s was rebuilt, the basilica also rises over the
traditional site of its namesake’s grave. The most recent edifice was
constructed after a fire in 1823. The first basilica was also
Constantine’s doing. Constantine’s building projects enticed the first
of a centuries-long parade of pilgrims to Rome. From the time the
basilicas were first built until the empire crumbled under “barbarian”
invasions, the two churches, although miles apart, were linked by a
roofed colonnade of marble columns.
Peter, the rough fisherman
whom Jesus named the rock on which the Church is built, and the
educated Paul, reformed persecutor of Christians, Roman citizen and
missionary to the Gentiles, are the original odd couple. The major
similarity in their faith-journeys is the journey’s end: Both,
according to tradition, died a martyr’s death in Rome—Peter on a cross
and Paul beneath the sword. Their combined gifts shaped the early
Church and believers have prayed at their tombs from the earliest days.
“It is extraordinarily interesting that
Roman pilgrimage began at an…early time. Pilgrims did not wait for the
Peace of the Church [Constantine’s edict of toleration] before they
visited the tombs of the Apostles. They went to Rome a century before
there were any public churches and when the Church was confined to the
tituli [private homes] and the catacombs. The two great pilgrimage
sites were exactly as today—the tombs, or memorials, of St. Peter upon
the Vatican Hill and the tomb of St. Paul off the Ostian Way” (H.V.
Morton, This Is Rome). (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture
today:
Revelation 3:1-6, 14-22; Psalm 15:2-5; Luke 19:1-10
(click
here for readings)
Jesus
entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of
Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He
wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see
over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see
him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he
looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must
stay at your house today." So he came down at once and welcomed him
gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be
the guest of a sinner." But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord,
"Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor,
and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four
times the amount." Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this
house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man
came to seek and to save what was lost." (Luke 19:1-10)
In his
book Changing Orders: Scenes of Clerical and
Academic Life (Brandl & Schlesinger, 2008)
Paul Crittenden writes, among other things, of his years studying
Philosophy at Oxford during the 1960s and of the philosophers teaching
there at that time. For the first term his thesis supervisor was the
well-known philosopher Guilbert Ryle, author of The
Concept of Mind. Crittenden tells us that at one session Ryle
told him that the theological dimension of his thesis was “outside his
domain for, although his grandfather was the first Anglican bishop of
Liverpool, he had been brought up without religious belief and had no
interest in the topic” (p.281). So for that theological aspect, he
kindly referred him to Austin Farrer. In effect Ryle was saying that he
was not interested in the person of Christ. With respect, for all his
talent as a philosopher, in absolute terms this was sad for he was
deprived of what the most ordinary of persons who have discovered and
come to love Christ have gained. I say this to introduce our Gospel
passage today. We are told that “Jesus entered Jericho and was passing
through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax
collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because
he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and
climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that
way.” Zacchaeus was, in the estimation of the people, less than
ordinary despite his wealth and standing with the Roman authorities. He
collaborated with them and was unjust and oppressive in his profession
as a chief tax collector. But he was interested in Jesus and this is
not the case with our non-theist philosopher. So Zacchaeus ran ahead,
and as we heard in the Gospel passage our Lord himself took the
initiative of stopping, looking up, engaging in a welcoming
conversation with him, and invited himself into Zacchaeus’ home.
Zacchaeus was converted and embarked on a new life. It all began with
Zacchaeus being interested in Jesus. Without that interest nothing
would have happened.
There
is something more serious involved in this. It has to do with
fundamental dispositions, for when Zacchaeus joyfully told our Lord
that he was going to give generously to the poor and return fourfold
any ill-gotten gains he had, our Lord said that "Today salvation has
come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.”
(Luke 19:1-10)
That is to say, Zacchaeus had the moral dispositions that made of him a
true son of Abraham. It was because of his moral attitudes and
dispositions that he had responded to the arrival of Jesus in Jericho,
had run ahead to see him and had risen so wonderfully to Christ’s entry
into his life. He was interested because he was a true son of Abraham
despite his sinful life to that point. He was ready to repent and
accept the gift of Christ’s friendship with all that this required. The
fact that Zacchaeus’ name is given in Luke’s Gospel may indicate that
Zacchaeus became a disciple of Christ and a well-known member of the
early Church. Simon of Cyrene, who assisted Christ carry his cross, is
reported in the Gospel by name, together with the name of his two sons
(Rufus and Alexander) which might also indicate that he too was well
known in the early Church. Our point here, though, is that the interest
in Christ which led him to take steps to see him sprung from his being,
as our Lord put it, a true son of Abraham. It all depended on his basic
dispositions, his moral posture amid his sinful life to that point. He
wanted, deep down, to change and to live in God. The chance came with
the meeting with Jesus, and he responded. We are reminded of the
parable our Lord tells elsewhere of the seed being sown in the field.
Some seed fell on the footpath, others among thorns, others on rocky
ground, while others again fell on good soil. Christ’s smile and
invitation to Zacchaeus to come down from the tree led to a harvest in
his life. He had been a sinner, but was fundamentally good soil. The
seed fell and it produced a harvest. In the case of the one who has no
interest, this is not so.
Only
God can know the fundamental moral attitude that marks our heart and
soul. We ought pray that he make of us good soil that will receive well
the seed he might sow there. Let us, though, be like Zacchaeus and run
ahead to see him. That is to say, let us take all measures we can to be
with Jesus and to appreciate his person and mission. Let us not be such
that what has to be said of us is, that person is not interested. We
are called to be profoundly interested. God wants us to love him with
all our heart, and he, God, in all his fullness, is found in Jesus.
(E.J.Tyler)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Humbly acknowledge your weakness so that, with the Apostle, you can
say: 'It is when I am weak that I am strong'.
(The Way, no.604)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict
XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered
at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
Thus far in our consideration of the "school of God's service", as
Benedict describes monasticism, we have examined only its orientation
towards the word -towards the "ora". Indeed, this is the starting point
that sets the direction for the entire monastic life. But our
consideration would remain incomplete if we did not also at least
briefly glance at the second component of monasticism, indicated by the
"labora". In the Greek world, manual labour was
considered something for slaves. Only the wise man, the one who is
truly free, devotes himself to the things of the spirit; he views
manual labour as somehow beneath him, and leaves it to people who are
not suited to this higher existence in the world of the spirit. The
Jewish tradition was quite different: all the great rabbis practised at
the same time some form of handcraft. Paul, who as a Rabbi and then as
a preacher of the Gospel to the Gentile world was also a tent-maker and
earned his living with the work of his own hands, is no exception here,
but stands within the common tradition of the rabbinate. Monasticism
took up this tradition; manual work is a constitutive element of
Christian monasticism. Benedict in his Rule does not speak specifically
about schools, although in practice, he presupposes teaching and
learning, as we have seen. He does, however, speak explicitly about
work (cf. Chap. 48). And so does Augustine, who dedicated a book of his
own to monastic work. Christians, who thus continued in the tradition
previously established by Judaism, must have felt further vindicated by
Jesus's saying in Saint John's Gospel, in defence of his activity on
the Sabbath: "My Father is working still, and I am working" (5:17). The
Graeco-Roman world did not have a creator God; according to its vision,
the highest divinity could not, as it were, dirty his hands in the
business of creating matter. The "making" of the world was the work of
the Demiurge, a lower deity. The Christian God is different: he, the
one, real and only God, is also the Creator. God is working; he
continues working in and on human history. In Christ, he enters
personally into the laborious work of history. "My Father is working
still, and I am working." God himself is the Creator of the world, and
creation is not yet finished. God is working. Thus human work was now
seen as a special form of human resemblance to God, as a way in which
man can and may share in God's activity as creator of the world.
Monasticism involves not only a culture of the word, but also a culture
of work, without which the emergence of Europe, its ethos and its
influence on the world would be unthinkable. Naturally, this ethos had
to include the idea that human work and shaping of history is
understood as sharing in the work of the Creator, and must be evaluated
in those terms. Where such evaluation is lacking, where man arrogates
to himself the status of god-like creator, his shaping of the world can
quickly turn into destruction of the world.
(Continuing)
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Wednesday of the thirty
third week in Ordinary Time II
(November
19) St. Agnes of Assisi
(1197-1253)
Agnes was the sister of St. Clare and her first
follower. When Agnes left home two weeks after Clare’s departure, their
family attempted to bring Agnes back by force. They tried to drag her
out of the monastery, but all of a sudden her body became so heavy that
several knights could not budge it. Her uncle Monaldo tried to strike
her but was temporarily paralyzed. The knights then left Agnes and
Clare in peace. Agnes matched her sister in devotion to prayer and in
willingness to endure the strict penances which characterized their
lives at San Damiano. In 1221 a group of Benedictine nuns in Monticelli
(near Florence) asked to become Poor Clares. St. Clare sent Agnes to
become abbess of that monastery. Agnes soon wrote a rather sad letter
about how much she missed Clare and the other nuns at San Damiano.
After establishing other Poor Clare monasteries in northern Italy,
Agnes was recalled to San Damiano in 1253 when Clare was dying. Agnes
followed Clare in death three months later. Agnes was canonized in 1753.
God must love irony; the world is so full of it.
In 1212, many in Assisi surely felt that Clare and Agnes were wasting
their lives and were turning their backs on the world. In reality,
their lives were tremendously life-giving, and the world has been
enriched by the example of these poor contemplatives.
Charles de Foucald, founder of the Little Brothers
and Sisters of Jesus, said: "One must pass through solitude and dwell
in it to receive God’s grace. It is there that one empties oneself,
that one drives before oneself all that is not God, and that one
completely empties this little house of our soul to leave room for God
alone. In doing this, do not fear being unfaithful toward creatures. On
the contrary, that is the only way for you to serve them effectively"
(Raphael Brown, Franciscan Mystic,
p. 126).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture
today:
Revelation 4:1-11; Psalm 150:1b-6; Luke 19:11-28
(click
here for readings)
While
they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because
he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God
was going to appear at once. He said: "A man of noble birth went to a
distant country to have himself appointed king and then to
return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. 'Put
this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.' "But his subjects
hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this
man to be our king.' "He was made king, however, and returned home.
Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order
to find out what they had gained with it. "The first one came and said,
'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.' " 'Well done, my good servant!'
his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small
matter, take charge of ten cities.' "The second came and said, 'Sir,
your mina has earned five more.' "His master answered, 'You take charge
of five cities.' "Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is
your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid
of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put
in and reap what you did not sow.' "His master replied, 'I will judge
you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am
a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did
not sow? Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I
came back, I could have collected it with interest?' "Then he said to
those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one
who has ten minas.' " 'Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!' "He
replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but
as for those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over
them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.' " After Jesus had
said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
(Luke 19:11-28)
The
parable our Lord narrates in our Gospel passage today is occasioned by
the thought people had “that the kingdom of God was going to appear at
once.” Our Lord turns their thoughts in a different direction. It is
notable how often the thought of God’s judgment features in our Lord’s
teaching. In the parable, the climax is reached when the king returns
to ask for an account of his servants. Then, having
rewarded and
punished accordingly, he goes on to judge and punish those of his
subjects who had rejected him. That final judgment is the backdrop of
the parable, and it is the backdrop of our Lord’s own ministry and of
the lives of each one of us. Whether we be servant or subject we each
of us will be judged. The next thing we notice in the parable is that
all are divided into two groups. There are those (the servants) who
have a special responsibility to administer on behalf of the king, and
there are those (the subjects) who are subject to this administration.
Perhaps we could put it this way. The servants of the king represent
all those who exercise a responsibility coming from him, while the
subjects of the king represent all those subject to his rule. Inasmuch
as all bear certain responsibilities from the king and inasmuch as all
are also subject to him, we might even say that the parable considers
the judgment of God on all as related to two aspects of life. God will
judge us on how well we have tried to fulfil the responsibilities he
has given us, and he will also judge us on the degree of our love for
him in the doing of our duties. The two, of course, are profoundly
interrelated. These fundamental factors if borne in mind bring a
profound unity to every aspect of life. You know, there is a meaning in
everything and those who fail to grasp that meaning will progressively
experience an emptiness in life that will be especially sad. I have
often known and seen people whose lives are empty and unsatisfied
because they do not see the purpose in all things. That purpose,
expressed in simple terms in our parable today, is to love and serve
God in everything here on earth, and to experience the reward of seeing
and enjoying him forever in heaven.
So
then, let us meditate a little on our Lord’s parable. The king wants
results, or at least the earnest attempt to gain results. “A man of
noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king
and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten
minas. 'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back'.” (Luke 19:11-28) There
are major religions in the world that are not noted for active service.
Rather than active service, their distinguishing mark is active
contemplation. While the religion of Christ emphasizes the active
contemplation of God, it also emphasizes the active service of God. The
ten servants were told to put to work the money they had been given. We
remember another parable our Lord told of the master of the vineyard
going out at various times of the day and finding people sitting idle
in the market place. Each time he saw idle people he invited them to go
and work in his vineyard. What this means is that we must work at our
responsibilities and work at them for God. That is to say, we must
learn to work and to pray, to work while praying and to pray while
working. Now of course, if we are ever to do this, we must set time
apart just to pray. We shall never learn to make of our work a prayer
if we put very little time exclusively into prayer as such. So let us
be very careful about our daily times of prayer. I know one elderly
person in her late eighties who not only goes to Mass every day in her
local church, but who carefully prays at various times each day. At the
end of the day, elderly as she is, she kneels down beside her bed and
prays fervently before getting into bed. She knows, as we all ought
know, that the present day may be our last. The present night may be
our last. The times of formal prayer deepen our relationship with
Christ and we are able to bring that deepened relationship with Christ
into the fulfilment of all our duties of state, making all our work a
real prayer offered to God. Our work itself, thus transformed, itself
will then deepen our relationship with Christ further. In that way we
sanctify our work and through it we sanctify others and ourselves.
Let us
especially take note of the servant in the parable who did nothing to
advance his master’s interests. He lost everything. Let us also ponder
carefully the king’s final words: 'I tell you that to everyone who has,
more will be given, but as for those who have nothing, even what they
have will be taken away. But those enemies of mine who did not want me
to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.'
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Father, how can you listen to such filth?' you asked me, after a
contrite confession.
I said nothing, and thought that if your humility makes you feel like
that, — filth: a heap of filth! — we may yet turn all your weakness
into something really great.
(The Way, no.605)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict
XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered
at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
We set out from the premise that the basic attitude of monks in the
face of the collapse of the old order and its certainties was quaerere
Deum - setting out in search of God. We could describe this
as the truly philosophical attitude: looking beyond the penultimate,
and
setting out in search of the ultimate and the true. By becoming a monk,
a man set out on a broad and noble path, but he had already found the
direction he needed: the word of the Bible, in which he heard God
himself speaking. Now he had to try to understand him, so as to be able
to approach him. So the monastic journey is indeed a journey into the
inner world of the received word, even if an infinite distance is
involved. Within the monks' seeking there is already contained, in some
respects, a finding. Therefore, if such seeking is to be possible at
all, there has to be an initial spur, which not only arouses the will
to seek, but also makes it possible to believe that the way is
concealed within this word, or rather: that in this word, God himself
has set out towards men, and hence men can come to God through it. To
put it another way: there must be proclamation, which speaks to man and
so creates conviction, which in turn can become life. If a way is to be
opened up into the heart of the biblical word as God's word, this word
must first of all be proclaimed outwardly. The classic formulation of
the Christian faith's intrinsic need to make itself communicable to
others, is a phrase from the First Letter of Peter, which in medieval
theology was regarded as the biblical basis for the work of
theologians: "Always have your answer ready for people who ask you the
reason (the logos) for the hope that you all have" (Logos, the reason
for hope, must become Apo-logia, word must become answer - 3:15). In
fact, Christians of the nascent Church did not regard their missionary
proclamation as propaganda, designed to enlarge their particular group,
but as an inner necessity, consequent upon the nature of their faith:
the God in whom they believed was the God of all people, the one, true
God, who had revealed himself in the history of Israel and ultimately
in his Son, thereby supplying the answer which was of concern to
everyone and for which all people, in their innermost hearts, are
waiting. The universality of God, and of reason open towards him, is
what gave them the motivation-indeed, the obligation-to proclaim the
message. They saw their faith as belonging, not to cultural custom that
differs from one people to another, but to the domain of truth, which
concerns all people equally.
(Continuing)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday of the thirty third
week in Ordinary Time II
(November
21) Feast of the
Presentation of Mary
Mary’s presentation was
celebrated in Jerusalem in the sixth century. A church was built there
in honour of this mystery. The Eastern Church was more interested in
the feast, but it does appear in the West in the 11th century. Although
the feast at times disappeared from the calendar, in the 16th century
it became a feast of the universal Church. As with Mary’s birth, we
read of Mary’s presentation in the temple only in apocryphal
literature. In what is recognized as an unhistorical account, the
Protoevangelium of James tells us that Anna and Joachim offered Mary to
God in the Temple when she was three years old. This was to carry out a
promise made to God when Anna was still childless. Though it cannot be
proven historically, Mary’s presentation has an important theological
purpose. It continues the impact of the feasts of the Immaculate
Conception and of the birth of Mary. It emphasizes that the holiness
conferred on Mary from the beginning of her life on earth continued
through her early childhood and beyond.
It is sometimes difficult for
modern Westerners to appreciate a feast like this. The Eastern Church,
however, was quite open to this feast and even somewhat insistent about
celebrating it. Even though the feast has no basis in history, it
stresses an important truth about Mary: From the beginning of her life,
she was dedicated to God. She herself became a greater temple than any
made by hands. God came to dwell in her in a marvellous manner and
sanctified her for her unique role in God's saving work. At the same
time, the magnificence of Mary redounds upon her children. They, too,
are temples of God and sanctified in order that they might enjoy and
share in God's saving work.
"Hail, holy throne of God, divine
sanctuary, house of glory, jewel most fair, chosen treasure house, and
mercy seat for the whole world, heaven showing forth the glory of God.
Purest Virgin, worthy of all praise, sanctuary dedicated to God and
raised above all human condition, virgin soil, unploughed field,
flourishing vine, fountain pouring out waters, virgin bearing a child,
mother without knowing man, hidden treasure of innocence, ornament of
sanctity, by your most acceptable prayers, strong with the authority of
motherhood, to our Lord and God, Creator of all, your Son who was born
of you without a father, steer the ship of the Church and bring it to a
quiet harbour" (adapted from a homily by St. Germanus on the
Presentation of the Mother of God). (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture:
Revelation 10:8-11; Psalm
119:14, 24, 72, 103, 111, 131; Luke 19:45-48
(click
here for readings)
When Jesus
entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were
selling. "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be a house
of prayer'; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" Every day he was
teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law
and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. Yet they
could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his
words.
(Luke 19:45-48)
My
recollection is that when I was a child a special reverence was
observed in the church. As I recall, when in the church people did not
talk freely and they dressed well as if they were attending a special
occasion. At the present time, what is quite striking is the ease with
which people do talk in church before and after a religious service
and, at times, even during it. Dress is far more casual than it used to
be. Now, there
is a much greater participation in Mass than there used to be, but all
things considered I am not sure that there is a greater level of
reverent prayer now than previously. I tend to think we have slipped -
and certainly the proportion of people who go to church now has slipped
from what it used to be. All up, I think that society has declined in
its sense of God and his presence, and we who are members of Christ’s
Faithful and who are children of our culture are in danger of being
affected by this. We too can suffer a loss of the sense of God’s
presence in our life, and in particular his presence in the church. For
the Catholic in particular this is serious, because the Catholic should
know, and should take special efforts to bear in mind, that Christ is
present in the Church in a uniquely real way. He is present in his full
human and divine reality in what we call the Blessed Sacrament,
preserved in the Tabernacle night and day. For this reason the local
Catholic church in an altogether special sense is the house of God.
Christ abides in that church in the Blessed Sacrament, kept in the
Tabernacle. For this reason we ought cultivate as a point of personal
and religious policy a special reverence whenever we are in the church.
We ought also visit the church for prayer often, perhaps daily. Christ
is there in his full risen reality, but hidden under the appearance of
bread. A person who maintains a reverent practice whenever he is in the
church is obviously doing a great service to God and others, for the
presence of God there can be forgotten.
It is
in this context that our Gospel passage today has a special relevance
to us in our day. Our Lord was appalled by the lack of reverence in the
Temple, his Father’s House. His whole soul was filled with love for his
heavenly Father. The Father! With what love and feeling our Lord would
have uttered those words. The second of the Ten Commandments warns
against taking the name of the Lord God in vain. With what reverence
our Lord, eternal Son of the Father, would have uttered his name! We
read in the Gospels of how our Lord would spend the whole night in
prayer to God. We can scarcely imagine what would have gone on during
such nights. Think of the intimacy and interchange between Christ and
his heavenly Father during those hours on the mountain. Our thoughts go
back to Christ’s childhood. His mother Mary and his foster-father
Joseph found him in the Temple after three days of searching. What did
Christ say in explanation? Did you not know that I must have been in my
Father’s house - or another rendering might be, did you not know that I
must be about my Father’s affairs? Whatever was the precise reply, it
expresses an ineffable love for his heavenly Father. On the day of his
resurrection from the dead, he says to Mary Magdalene that he is
ascending to his Father and theirs, his God and theirs. His love and
reverence for his heavenly Father knew no bounds. Christ is mankind’s
example of love for and reverence for God. In our Gospel passage today
he enters the Temple and sees the market activity thriving within. As
we read, he began to drive out those who were selling. "It is written,"
he said to them, " 'My house will be a house of prayer'; but you have
made it 'a den of robbers'."
(Luke 19:45-48) Thereupon he taught every day
in the Temple. We surely also have there an allusion to his constant
presence in the temple that is every church where his sacramental
presence is preserved. Let us pose this question: what can I do to help
spread faith in Christ? Many things, but one is to be truly reverent
whenever you are in the church. Your reverence will remind others of
the reality and presence of Christ.
Indeed,
every time we turn to God in prayer our attitude ought be one of
profound reverence. I tend to think that while there is the danger of
not praying, a special danger lies in not being reverent when we do
pray. Our physical reverence, the way we stand when at prayer, the way
we kneel when at prayer, the way we comport ourselves physically not
only will manifest the degree of our prayer, but will itself affect and
influence it. It will certainly influence the prayer of others around
us.
(E.J.Tyler)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Humility is another good way to arrive at interior peace. He has said
so: 'Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart: and you will
find rest for your souls.'
(The Way, no.607)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Continuing Benedict
XVI's address in Paris to the world of culture, delivered
at the recently restored College of the Bernardines.
Our present situation differs in many respects from the one that Paul
encountered in Athens, yet despite the difference, the two situations
also have much in common. Our cities are no longer filled with altars
and with images of multiple deities. God has truly become for many the
great unknown. But just as in the past, when behind the many images of
God the question concerning the unknown God was hidden and present, so
too the present absence of God is silently besieged by the question
concerning him. Quaerere Deum - to seek God and to
let oneself be found by him, that is today no less necessary than in
former times. A purely positivistic culture which tried to drive the
question concerning God into the subjective realm, as being
unscientific, would be the capitulation of reason, the renunciation of
its highest possibilities, and hence a disaster for humanity, with very
grave consequences. What gave Europe's culture its foundation - the
search for God and the readiness to listen to him - remains today the
basis of any genuine culture. Thank you.
(Concluded)
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Saturday of the thirty
third week in Ordinary Time
(November
22) Saint Cecilia, virgin
and martyr (3rd century)
Although Cecilia is one of the most famous of the Roman martyrs, the
familiar stories about her are apparently not founded on authentic
material. There is no trace of honour being paid her in early times. A
fragmentary inscription of the late fourth century refers to a church
named after her, and her feast was celebrated at least in 545.
According to legend, Cecilia was a young Christian of high rank
betrothed to a Roman named Valerian. Through her influence Valerian was
converted, and was martyred along with his brother. The legend about
Cecilia’s death says that after being struck three times on the neck
with a sword, she lived for three days, and asked the pope to convert
her home into a church. Since the time of the Renaissance she has
usually been portrayed with a viola or a small organ. Like any good
Christian, Cecilia sang in her heart, and sometimes with her voice. She
has become a symbol of the Church's conviction that good music is an
integral part of the liturgy, of greater value to the Church than any
other art. In the present confused state of Church music, it may be
useful to recall the following words of Vatican II: “Liturgical action
is given a more noble form when sacred rites are solemnized in song,
with the assistance of sacred ministers and the active participation of
the people.... Choirs must be diligently promoted, but bishops and
other pastors must ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be
celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to
contribute that active participation which is rightfully theirs....
Gregorian chant, other things being equal, should be given pride of
place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music,
especially polyphony, are by no means excluded.... Religious singing by
the people is to be skilfully fostered, so that in devotions and sacred
exercises, as also during liturgical services, the voices of the
faithful may ring out” (Constitution on the Liturgy,
112-118). (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture
today: Revelation
11:4-12; Psalm 144:1, 2, 9-10; Luke 20:27-40
(click
here for readings)
Some
of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with
a question. Teacher, they said, Moses wrote for us that if a man's
brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the
widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers.
The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then
the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no
children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection
whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her? Jesus
replied, The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But
those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the
resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage,
and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are
God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. But in the
account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls
the Lord 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob'. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him
all are alive. Some of the teachers of the law responded, Well said,
teacher! And no-one dared to ask him any more questions. (Luke 20:27-40)
One of
the most striking features of modern Western thought - that is, the
thought of the last couple of centuries in Western culture - has been
the rise of Naturalism. The Supernatural has become the object of
scepticism and suspicion. What is real is what can be felt, touched,
tasted, seen, smelt and heard - which is to say, what can be
empirically tested and verified. Anything beyond what we might call the
Natural is doubtful indeed and cannot be trusted. This belief is
understandable for while it is evident that the material world is real,
the unseen world, though real, is obviously not as evident precisely
because it is unseen. The assumption that the Supernatural is basically
a figment of the imagination is seen in various disciplines. We see it
in secular anthropology and archaeology where while religion is
acknowledged as fundamental to societies in human history it is
scarcely taken to represent a perception of truth. It is understood to
have other functions. Be all that as it may one upshot of Naturalism is
the further assumption that life beyond the grave is hardly real. The
real is this life and all its opportunities, while the Afterlife is
barely worth planning for. This is one reason among very many why
Christ’s teaching is immensely relevant to our day. More than any other
prophet, Christ taught about the Afterlife. In our Gospel today we are
presented with a group of the day, the Sadducees, who, we are told,
taught that there is no resurrection. The basis of their objection? If
their question to our Lord was representative of their thought, their
argument would seem to be based on an appeal to common sense, or, we
might say, to ordinary reason. It did not involve a formal denial of
Scripture, but in appealing to reason it purported to show that
Scripture could not have taught this doctrine. How like the mentality
of the modern age! In reality their objection was crass. Their
objection ran, How would a woman comport herself with the several
husbands she had during life?
Our
Lord’s response was simple and given with sovereign ease. Incidentally,
one of the many things we notice about our Lord in the Gospels was the
absolute ease with which he answered all questions and objections. No
one, no one among the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the
leaders and others could in any way get the better of him in debate.
Attacked right and left, he dealt with all with princely assurance. We
are told in one part of the Gospels that word went around that he had
completely silenced the Sadducees, which probably means that he
completely defeated all their appeals to reason alone. No one could
master our Lord in verbal dispute and finally all his enemies could do
was secretly arrest him, secretly try him and condemn him, and quickly
put him to death. Of course, our Lord freely submitted to this for it
was the divine salvific will that in this manner he bear witness to the
truth. But now, back to our Gospel passage in which once again our Lord
deals with the objections put before him (Luke
20:27-40). Heaven is not a place where people
live a marital life, he said. This, incidentally, he would have made
plain to Mahomet had Mahomet approached Jesus. “Those who are
considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection
from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can
no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children,
since they are children of the resurrection.” But then our Lord makes a
surprising comment on a famous passage of the Scriptures, the
revelation of God to Moses at the Burning Bush. God not only revealed
to Moses his mission, but he also revealed, our Lord explains, that
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were still alive, though gone from sight. God
said he was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - and because he is not
a God of dead people, what he said meant that these three Patriarchs
who had died were still alive. So the doctrine of the Resurrection from
the dead is vindicated by God’s word. So striking was this comment that
St Luke writes that no one dared try to trick him again.
Let us
take to heart our Lord’s formal teaching that the dead will rise again.
The Afterlife is very very real. Life is short, and at the end of life
we shall die. Following our death, God will judge us on all our
choices, be they in respect to thoughts, words or deeds. Following that
judgment there will be an eternity of heaven or an eternity of hell.
Christ in effect condemns the Naturalist philosophy and vindicates the
Supernatural. Let us embrace his teaching and live it out daily.
(E.J.Tyler)
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It is not a lack of humility to be aware of the progress of your soul.
Then you can thank God for it.
But don't forget that you are a poor beggar, wearing a good suit... on
loan.
(The Way, no.608)
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PARIS, SEPT. 12, 2008 - Here is the discourse Benedict XVI gave at the
Elysée Palace upon meeting with authorities of France.
Mr President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
Standing here on French soil for the first time since Providence called
me to the See of Peter, I am moved and honoured by the warm reception
which you have extended to me. I am particularly grateful to you, Mr
President, for the cordial invitation to visit your country and for the
courteous words of welcome which you have just offered me. The visit
which Your Excellency paid to me in the Vatican nine months ago is
still fresh in my memory. Through you I extend my greetings to all the
men and women who live in this country, which boasts a history of a
thousand years, a present marked by a wealth of activity, and a future
of promise. I wish them to know that France is often at the heart of
the Pope’s prayers; he cannot forget all that she has contributed to
the Church in the course of twenty centuries! The principal reason for
my visit is the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the apparitions
of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes. It is my desire to join the multitude of
countless pilgrims from the whole world who during this year are
converging on the Marian shrine, filled with faith and love. It is this
faith and this love that I will celebrate here in your land during
these four days of grace which have been granted to me.
(Continuing)
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The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus
Christ the King
(Thirty fourth Sunday in Ordinary
Time A)
Prayers
this week:
The
Lamb who was slain is worthy to receive strength and divinity, wisdom
and power and honour: to him be glory and power for ever.
(Revelation
5:12; 1:6)
Almighty and merciful God, you break the power of evil and make all
things new in your Son Jesus Christ, the King of the universe. May all
in heaven and earth acclaim your glory and never cease to praise you.
We
ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the
Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
(November
23) Blessed Miguel Agustín
Pro (1891-1927)
ˇViva Cristo Rey! (Long live Christ the
King!) were the last words Father Pro uttered before he was executed
for being a Catholic priest and serving his flock. Born into a
prosperous, devout family in Guadalupe de Zacatecas, he entered the
Jesuits in 1911 but three years later fled to Granada, Spain, because
of religious persecution in Mexico. He was ordained in Belgium in 1925.
He immediately returned to Mexico, where he served a Church forced to
go “underground.” He celebrated the Eucharist clandestinely and
ministered the other sacraments to small groups of Catholics. He and
his brother Roberto were arrested on trumped-up charges of attempting
to assassinate Mexico’s president. Roberto was spared but Miguel was
sentenced to face a firing squad on November 23, 1927. His funeral
became a public demonstration of faith. He was beatified in 1988.
In 1927 when Father Miguel Pro was executed, no one could have
predicted that 52 years later the bishop of Rome would visit Mexico, be
welcomed by its president and celebrate open-air Masses before
thousands of people. Pope John Paul II made additional trips to Mexico
in 1990, 1993 and 1999. Those who outlawed the Catholic Church in
Mexico did not count on the deeply rooted faith of its people and the
willingness of many of them, like Miguel Pro, to die as martyrs.
During his homily at the beatification
Mass, Pope John Paul II said that Father Pro “is a new glory for the
beloved Mexican nation, as well as for the Society of Jesus. His life
of sacrificing and intrepid apostolate was always inspired by a
tireless evangelizing effort. Neither suffering nor serious illness,
neither the exhausting ministerial activity, frequently carried out in
difficult and dangerous circumstances, could stifle the radiating and
contagious joy which he brought to his life for Christ and which
nothing could take away (see John 16:22). Indeed, the deepest root of
self-sacrificing surrender for the lowly was his passionate love for
Jesus Christ and his ardent desire to be conformed to him, even unto
death.” (AmericanCatholic.org)
click on centre arrow
Scripture: Ezechiel
34:11-12, 15-17; Psalm 23:1-3, 5-6; 1 Cor 15:20-26, 28; Matt 25:31-46
(click
here for readings)
When
the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will
sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered
before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a
shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his
right and the goats on his left. Then the