Sunday, August 9th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 6:41-51.
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
9 August 2015
” I am the living bread that came down from heaven “
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:41-51.
The Jews murmured about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,”
and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day.
It is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
SUNDAY MASS – Sunday, August 9, 2015
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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
9 August 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Ambrose (c.340-397)
Saint Ambrose (c.340-397), Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church
On the mysteries, 48-49, 58
“I am the bread of life”
It is wonderful that God should have caused manna to rain down for our father and that each day they should have been satisfied with the bread of heaven. Hence it is said: “Man ate the bread of angels” (Ps 77[78],25). Nevertheless, those who ate that bread in the desert have all died. By contrast, this food that you are receiving, this living bread come down from heaven, provides support for eternal life and whoever eats it will never die. This is the body of Christ…
The former manna came from heaven, this came from under heaven ; that was heaven’s gift, this from heaven’s Lord ; that one was subject to corruption if people kept it till the next day, this is incapable of corruption : whoever tastes it devoutly cannot be tainted with corruption. Water flowed from the rock for the Hebrews, blood flows from Christ for you. The water quenched their thirst for a brief moment, but the blood washes you clean for ever. The Hebrews drank and were thirsty again. But once you have drunk you will never thirst again (Jn 4,14). The former was a prefiguration, this is the fullness of truth…
It was a « shadow of things to come » (Col 2,17). Listen to what was made known to our fathers: “They drank, it is said, of the rock that followed them in the desert; now, this rock was Christ” (1Cor 10,4)… As for you, you have known the fulfilment, you have seen the fullness of light, the truth prefigured, the body of the Creator rather than manna from heaven… What we eat and drink the Holy Spirit expresses elsewhere: “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who hope in him” (Ps 33[34],9).
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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
9 August 2015
Saint of the day
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein),
(1891-1942)
Teresa Benedict of the Cross Edith Stein
Nun, Discalced Carmelite, martyr
Co-patron of Europe
(1891-1942)
“We bow down before the testimony of the life and death of Edith Stein, an outstanding daughter of Israel and at the same time a daughter of the Carmelite Order, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a personality who united within her rich life a dramatic synthesis of our century. It was the synthesis of a history full of deep wounds that are still hurting … and also the synthesis of the full truth about man. All this came together in a single heart that remained restless and unfulfilled until it finally found rest in God.”
These were the words of Pope John Paul II when he beatified Edith Stein in Cologne on 1 May 1987.
Who was this woman?
Edith Stein was born in Breslau on the 12th of October 1891, the youngest of 11, as her family were celebrating Yom Kippur, that most important Jewish feast, the Feast of Atonement. “More than anything else, this helped make the youngest child very precious to her mother.” Being born on this day was like a foreshadowing to Edith, a future Carmelite nun.
Edith’s father, who ran a timber business, died when she had only just turned two. Her mother, a very devout, hard-working, strong-willed and truly wonderful woman, now had to fend for herself and to look after the family and their large business. However, she did not succeed in keeping up a living faith in her children. Edith lost her faith in God. “I consciously decided, of my own volition, to give up praying,” she said.
In 1911 she passed her school-leaving exam with flying colours and enrolled at the University of Breslau to study German and history, though this was a mere “bread-and-butter” choice. Her real interest was in philosophy and in women’s issues. She became a member of the Prussian Society for Women’s Franchise. “When I was at school and during my first years at university,” she wrote later, “I was a radical suffragette. Then I lost interest in the whole issue. Now I am looking for purely pragmatic solutions.”
In 1913, Edith Stein transferred to Göttingen University, to study under the mentorship of Edmund Husserl. She became his pupil and teaching assistant, and he later tutored her for a doctorate. At the time, anyone who was interested in philosophy was fascinated by Husserl’s new view of reality, whereby the world as we perceive it does not merely exist in a Kantian way, in our subjective perception. His pupils saw his philosophy as a return to objects: “back to things”. Husserl’s phenomenology unwittingly led many of his pupils to the Christian faith. In Göttingen Edith Stein also met the philosopher Max Scheler, who directed her attention to Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless, she did not neglect her “bread-and-butter” studies and passed her degree with distinction in January 1915, though she did not follow it up with teacher training.
“I no longer have a life of my own,” she wrote at the beginning of the First World War, having done a nursing course and gone to serve in an Austrian field hospital. This was a hard time for her, during which she looked after the sick in the typhus ward, worked in an operating theatre, and saw young people die. When the hospital was dissolved, in 1916, she followed Husserl as his assistant to the German city of Freiburg, where she passed her doctorate summa cum laude (with the utmost distinction) in 1917, after writing a thesis on “The Problem of Empathy.”
During this period she went to Frankfurt Cathedral and saw a woman with a shopping basket going in to kneel for a brief prayer. “This was something totally new to me. In the synagogues and Protestant churches I had visited people simply went to the services. Here, however, I saw someone coming straight from the busy marketplace into this empty church, as if she was going to have an intimate conversation. It was something I never forgot.” Towards the end of her dissertation she wrote: “There have been people who believed that a sudden change had occurred within them and that this was a result of God’s grace.” How could she come to such a conclusion? Edith Stein had been good friends with Husserl’s Göttingen assistant, Adolf Reinach, and his wife.
When Reinach fell in Flanders in November 1917, Edith went to Göttingen to visit his widow. The Reinachs had converted to Protestantism. Edith felt uneasy about meeting the young widow at first, but was surprised when she actually met with a woman of faith. “This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine power it imparts to those who bear it … it was the moment when my unbelief collapsed and Christ began to shine his light on me – Christ in the mystery of the Cross.”
Later, she wrote: “Things were in God’s plan which I had not planned at all. I am coming to the living faith and conviction that – from God’s point of view – there is no chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in God’s divine providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God’s all-seeing eyes.”
In Autumn 1918 Edith Stein gave up her job as Husserl’s teaching assistant. She wanted to work independently. It was not until 1930 that she saw Husserl again after her conversion, and she shared with him about her faith, as she would have liked him to become a Christian, too. Then she wrote down the amazing words: “Every time I feel my powerlessness and inability to influence people directly, I become more keenly aware of the necessity of my own holocaust.”
Edith Stein wanted to obtain a professorship, a goal that was impossible for a woman at the time. Husserl wrote the following reference: “Should academic careers be opened up to ladies, then I can recommend her whole-heartedly and as my first choice for admission to a professorship.” Later, she was refused a professorship on account of her Jewishness.
Back in Breslau, Edith Stein began to write articles about the philosophical foundation of psychology. However, she also read the New Testament, Kierkegaard and Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. She felt that one could not just read a book like that, but had to put it into practice.
In the summer of 1921, she spent several weeks in Bergzabern (in the Palatinate) on the country estate of Hedwig Conrad-Martius, another pupil of Husserl’s. Hedwig had converted to Protestantism with her husband. One evening Edith picked up an autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila and read this book all night. “When I had finished the book, I said to myself: This is the truth.” Later, looking back on her life, she wrote: “My longing for truth was a single prayer.”
On the 1st of January 1922 Edith Stein was baptized. It was the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus, when Jesus entered into the covenant of Abraham. Edith Stein stood by the baptismal font, wearing Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ white wedding cloak. Hedwig washer godmother. “I had given up practising my Jewish religion when I was a 14-year-old girl and did not begin to feel Jewish again until I had returned to God.” From this moment on she was continually aware that she belonged to Christ not only spiritually, but also through her blood. At the Feast of the Purification of Mary – another day with an Old Testament reference – she was confirmed by the Bishop of Speyer in his private chapel.
After her conversion she went straight to Breslau: “Mother,” she said, “I am a Catholic.” The two women cried. Hedwig Conrad Martius wrote: “Behold, two Israelites indeed, in whom is no deceit!” (cf. John 1:47).
Immediately after her conversion she wanted to join a Carmelite convent. However, her spiritual mentors, Vicar-General Schwind of Speyer, and Erich Przywara SJ, stopped her from doing so. Until Easter 1931 she held a position teaching German and History at the Dominican Sisters’ school and teacher training college of St. Magdalen’s Convent in Speyer. At the same time she was encouraged by Arch-Abbot Raphael Walzer of Beuron Abbey to accept extensive speaking engagements, mainly on women’s issues. “During the time immediately before and quite some time after my conversion I … thought that leading a religious life meant giving up all earthly things and having one’s mind fixed on divine things only. Gradually, however, I learnt that other things are expected of us in this world… I even believe that the deeper someone is drawn to God, the more he has to `get beyond himself’ in this sense, that is, go into the world and carry divine life into it.”
She worked enormously hard, translating the letters and diaries of Cardinal Newman from his pre-Catholic period as well as Thomas Aquinas’ Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate. The latter was a very free translation, for the sake of dialogue with modern philosophy. Erich Przywara also encouraged her to write her own philosophical works. She learnt that it was possible to “pursue scholarship as a service to God… It was not until I had understood this that I seriously began to approach academic work again.” To gain strength for her life and work, she frequently went to the Benedictine Monastery of Beuron, to celebrate the great feasts of the Church year.
In 1931 Edith Stein left the convent school in Speyer and devoted herself to working for a professorship again, this time in Breslau and Freiburg, though her endeavours were in vain. It was then that she wrote Potency and Act, a study of the central concepts developed by Thomas Aquinas. Later, at the Carmelite Convent in Cologne, she rewrote this study to produce her main philosophical and theological oeuvre, Finite and Eternal Being. By then, however, it was no longer possible to print the book.
In 1932 she accepted a lectureship position at the Roman Catholic division of the German Institute for Educational Studies at the University of Munster, where she developed her anthropology. She successfully combined scholarship and faith in her work and her teaching, seeking to be a “tool of the Lord” in everything she taught. “If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him.”
In 1933 darkness broke out over Germany. “I had heard of severe measures against Jews before. But now it dawned on me that God had laid his hand heavily on His people, and that the destiny of these people would also be mine.” The Aryan Law of the Nazis made it impossible for Edith Stein to continue teaching. “If I can’t go on here, then there are no longer any opportunities for me in Germany,” she wrote; “I had become a stranger in the world.”
The Arch-Abbot of Beuron, Walzer, now no longer stopped her from entering a Carmelite convent. While in Speyer, she had already taken a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. In 1933 she met with the prioress of the Carmelite Convent in Cologne. “Human activities cannot help us, but only the suffering of Christ. It is my desire to share in it.”
Edith Stein went to Breslau for the last time, to say good-bye to her mother and her family. Her last day at home was her birthday, 12 October, which was also the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Edith went to the synagogue with her mother. It was a hard day for the two women. “Why did you get to know it [Christianity]?” her mother asked, “I don’t want to say anything against him. He may have been a very good person. But why did he make himself God?” Edith’s mother cried. The following day Edith was on the train to Cologne. “I did not feel any passionate joy. What I had just experienced was too terrible. But I felt a profound peace – in the safe haven of God’s will.” From now on she wrote to her mother every week, though she never received any replies. Instead, her sister Rosa sent her news from Breslau.
Edith joined the Carmelite Convent of Cologne on the 14th of October, and her investiture took place on the 15th of April, 1934. The mass was celebrated by the Arch-Abbot of Beuron. Edith Stein was now known as Sister Teresia Benedicta a Cruce – Teresa, Blessed of the Cross. In 1938 she wrote: “I understood the cross as the destiny of God’s people, which was beginning to be apparent at the time (1933). I felt that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take it upon themselves on everybody’s behalf. Of course, I know better now what it means to be wedded to the Lord in the sign of the cross. However, one can never comprehend it, because it is a mystery.” On the 21st of April 1935 she took her temporary vows. On the 14th of September 1936, the renewal of her vows coincided with her mother’s death in Breslau. “My mother held on to her faith to the last moment. But as her faith and her firm trust in her God… were the last thing that was still alive in the throes of her death, I am confident that she will have met a very merciful judge and that she is now my most faithful helper, so that I can reach the goal as well.”
When she made her eternal profession on the 21st of April 1938, she had the words of St. John of the Cross printed on her devotional picture: “Henceforth my only vocation is to love.” Her final work was to be devoted to this author.
Edith Stein’s entry into the Carmelite Order was not escapism. “Those who join the Carmelite Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God for everyone.” In particular, she interceded to God for her people: “I keep thinking of Queen Esther who was taken away from her people precisely because God wanted her to plead with the king on behalf of her nation. I am a very poor and powerless little Esther, but the King who has chosen me is infinitely great and merciful. This is great comfort.” (31st of October 1938)
On the 9th of November 1938 the anti-Semitism of the Nazis became apparent to the whole world.
Synagogues were burnt, and the Jewish people were subjected to terror. The prioress of the Carmelite Convent in Cologne did her utmost to take Sister Teresia Benedicta a Cruce abroad. On New Year’s Eve 1938 she was smuggled across the border into the Netherlands, to the Carmelite Convent in Echt in the Province of Limburg. This is where she wrote her will on 9th of June 1939: “Even now I accept the death that God has prepared for me in complete submission and with joy as being his most holy will for me. I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death … so that the Lord will be accepted by His people and that His Kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.”
While in the Cologne convent, Edith Stein had been given permission to start her academic studies again. Among other things, she wrote about “The Life of a Jewish Family” (that is, her own family): “I simply want to report what I experienced as part of Jewish humanity,” she said, pointing out that “we who grew up in Judaism have a duty to bear witness … to the young generation who are brought up in racial hatred from early childhood.”
In Echt, Edith Stein hurriedly completed her study of “The Church’s Teacher of Mysticism and the Father of the Carmelites, John of the Cross, on the Occasion of the 400th Anniversary of His Birth, 1542-1942.” In 1941 she wrote to a friend, who was also a member of her order: “One can only gain a scientia crucis (knowledge of the cross) if one has thoroughly experienced the cross. I have been convinced of this from the first moment onwards and have said with all my heart: ‘Ave, Crux, Spes unica’ (I welcome you, Cross, our only hope).” Her study on St. John of the Cross is entitled: “Kreuzeswissenschaft” (The Science of the Cross).
Edith Stein was arrested by the Gestapo on the 2nd of August 1942, while she was in the chapel with the other sisters. She was to report within five minutes, together with her sister Rosa, who had also converted and was serving at the Echt Convent. Her last words to be heard in Echt were addressed to Rosa: “Come, we are going for our people.”
Together with many other Jewish Christians, the two women were taken to a transit camp in Amersfoort and then to Westerbork. This was an act of retaliation against the letter of protest written by the Dutch Roman Catholic Bishops against the pogroms and deportations of Jews. Edith commented, “I never knew that people could be like this, neither did I know that my brothers and sisters would have to suffer like this… I pray for them every hour. Will God hear my prayers? He will certainly hear them in their distress.” Prof. Jan Nota, who was greatly attached to her, wrote later: “She is a witness to God’s presence in a world where God is absent.”
On the 7th of August, early in the morning, 987 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. It was probably on the 9th of August that Sister Teresia Benedicta a Cruce, her sister and many other of her people were gassed. When Edith Stein was beatified in Cologne on the 1st of May 1987, the Church honoured “a daughter of Israel”, as Pope John Paul II put it, “who, as a Catholic during Nazi persecution, remained faithful to the crucified Lord Jesus Christ and, as a Jew, to her people in loving faithfulness.”
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Sunday, August 2nd. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 6:24-35.
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
2 August 2015
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:24-35.
When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.”
So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”
So they said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”
So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
SUNDAY MASS – August 2, 2015
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Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
2 August 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint John-Paul II
Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
Encyclical « Ecclesia de Eucharistia », 1 (trans. © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
“I am the bread of life”
The Church draws her life from the Eucharist. This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church. In a variety of ways she joyfully experiences the constant fulfilment of the promise: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20), but in the Holy Eucharist, through the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, she rejoices in this presence with unique intensity. Ever since Pentecost, when the Church, the People of the New Covenant, began her pilgrim journey towards her heavenly homeland, the Divine Sacrament has continued to mark the passing of her days, filling them with confident hope.
The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that the Eucharistic sacrifice is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (LG 11). “For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our passover and living bread (1Cor 5,7; Jn 6,51). Through his own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he offers life to men” (Vatican II PO 5). Consequently the gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love.
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Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
2 August 2015
Saint of the day
St. Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop († 371)
SAINT EUSEBIUS
Bishop
(† 371)
St. Eusebius was born of a noble family, in the island of Sardinia, where his father is said to have died in prison for the Faith. The Saint’s mother carried him and his sister, both infants, to Rome.
Eusebius having been ordained, served the Church of Vercelli with such zeal that on the episcopal chair becoming vacant he was unanimously chosen, by both clergy and people, to fill it. The holy bishop saw that the best and first means to labor effectually for the edification and sanctification of his people was to have a zealous clergy.
He was at the same time very careful to instruct his flock, and inspire them with the maxims of the Gospel. The force of the truth which he preached, together with his example, brought many sinners to a change of life. He courageously fought against the heretics, who had him banished to Scythopolis, end thence to Upper Thebais in Egypt, where he suffered so grievously as to win, in some of the panegyrics in his praise, the title of martyr.
He died in the latter part of the year 371.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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Monday, May 18th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 16:29-33.
Monday of the Seventh week of Easter
18 May 2015
‘ But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.’
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 16:29-33.
The disciples said to Jesus, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech.
Now we realize that you know everything and that you do not need to have anyone question you. Because of this we believe that you came from God.”
Jesus answered them, “Do you believe now?
Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone. But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”
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Monday of the Seventh week of Easter
18 May 2015
Commentary of the day
Chaldean liturgy
Hymn for the office of the second day of « Ba’oussa », of Saint Ephrem (© Pontifical Council for christian unity)
“That you might have peace in me”
O Lord, your mercy is eternal. O Christ, all-merciful, grant us your grace; stretch out your hand and come to help all those who are tempted, you who are good. Have pity on all your children and come to help them. Grant us, merciful Lord, to be sheltered in the shadow of your protection and to be delivered from evil and from the followers of the Evil one.
My life has been crumpled like a spider’s web; in times of distress and trouble we have become like outcasts and our years have withered under wretchedness and misfortune. Lord, you who calmed the sea with a word, in your mercy calm the confusions of the world, uphold the universe stumbling under the weight of its sins.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. O Lord may your merciful hand rest on those who believe and confirm your promise to the apostles: “I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Mt 28,20). Be our help as you were theirs and, by your grace, save us from all evil; grant us security and peace that we might give you thanks and ever adore your holy Name.
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Monday of the Seventh week of Easter
18 May 2015
Saint of the day
St. Venantius, Martyr (+ 250)
SAINT VENANTIUS
Martyr
(+ 250)
St. Venantius was born at Camerino in Italy, and at the age of fifteen was seized as a Christian and carried before a judge. As it was found impossible to shake his constancy either by threats or promises, he was condemned to be scourged, but was miraculously saved by an angel. He was then burnt with torches and hung over a low fire that he might be suffocated by the smoke. The judge’s secretary, admiring the steadfastness of the Saint, and seeing an angel robed in white, who trampled out the fire and again set free the youthful martyr, proclaimed his faith in Christ, was baptized with his whole family, and shortly after won the martyr’s crown himself.
Venantius was then carried before the governor, who, unable to make him renounce his faith, cast him into prison with an apostate, who vainly strove to tempt him. The governor then ordered his teeth and jaws to be broken, and had him thrown into a furnace, from which the angel once more delivered him. The Saint was again led before the judge, who at sight of him fell headlong from his seat and expired, crying, “The God of Venantius is the true God; let us destroy our idols.” This circumstance being told to the governor, he ordered Venantius to be thrown to the lions; but these brutes, forgetting their natural ferocity, crouched at the feet of the Saint. Then, by order of the tyrant, the young martyr was dragged through a heap of brambles and thorns, but again God manifested the glory of His servant; the soldiers suffering from thirst, the Saint knelt on a rock and signed it with a cross, when immediately a jet of clear, cool water spurted up from the spot.
This miracle converted many of those who beheld it, whereupon the governor had Venantius and his converts beheaded together in the year 250. The bodies of these martyrs are kept in the church at Camerino which bears the Saint’s name.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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Friday, May 15th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 16:20-23a.
Friday of the Sixth week of Easter
15 May 2015
“Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 16:20-23a.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.
When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.
So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.
On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”
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Friday of the Sixth week of Easter
15 May 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Saint Gregory of Nyssa (c.335-395), monk and Bishop
First address on the Resurrection : PG 46, 603
The birth of the new creation (Rm 8,22)
Now the reign of life has come and the power of death overturned. Another birth has appeared together with another life, another way of being, a transformation of our very nature. This birth is not the result of “the will of man nor the desire of the flesh, but of God” (Jn 1,13)…
“This is the day the Lord has made” (Ps 118[117],24). It’s a very different day from those in the beginning because on this day God creates a new heaven and a new earth, as the prophet says (Is 65,17). Which heaven? The firmament of faith in Christ. Which earth ? A true heart, as the Lord says: earth that is saturated with the rain that falls on it and that brings forth an abundant harvest (Lk 8,15). In this creation the sun equals the pure life; the stars are the virtues; the air is transparent behaviour; the sea is the rich depths of wisdom and knowledge; the grass and herbage are God’s solid doctrine and teachings where the flock – that is, the people of God – finds pasture; the fruit-bearing trees are the practice of the commandments. On this day true man was created, made in the image and likeness of God (Gn 1,27).
Is this not an entire world that is begun for your sake in “the day the Lord has made” ?… The greatest privilege of this day of grace is that it has destroyed the sufferings of death and given birth to the firstborn from the dead (Col 1,18)…, he who says: “I am going to your Father and to my Father, to my God and to your God” (Jn 20,17). O what excellent, what good news! He who for our sakes became like us to make us his brothers and sisters, carries his own humanity to the Father so as to bear all humankind along with him.
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Friday of the Sixth week of Easter
15 May 2015
Saint of the day
St. Isidore the Farmer
(1070-1130)
St. Isidore the Farmer
(1070-1130)
Isidore has become the patron of farmers and rural communities. In particular he is the patron of Madrid, Spain, and of the United States National Rural Life Conference.
When he was barely old enough to wield a hoe, Isidore entered the service of John de Vergas, a wealthy landowner from Madrid, and worked faithfully on his estate outside the city for the rest of his life. He married a young woman as simple and upright as himself who also became a saint—Maria de la Cabeza. They had one son, who died as a child.
Isidore had deep religious instincts. He rose early in the morning to go to church and spent many a holiday devoutly visiting the churches of Madrid and surrounding areas. All day long, as he walked behind the plow, he communed with God. His devotion, one might say, became a problem, for his fellow workers sometimes complained that he often showed up late because of lingering in church too long.
He was known for his love of the poor, and there are accounts of Isidore’s supplying them miraculously with food. He had a great concern for the proper treatment of animals.
He died May 15, 1130, and was declared a saint in 1622 with Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila and Philip Neri. Together, the group is known in Spain as “the five saints.”
From American Catholic
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Wednesday, May 6th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 15:1-8.
Wednesday of the Fifth week of Easter
6 May 2015
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 15:1-8.
Jesus said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.
By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
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Wednesday of the Fifth week of Easter
6 May 2015
Commentary of the day
John Tauler
John Tauler (c.1300-1361), Dominican
Sermon 7
Pruned so as to bear fruit
The vinegrower goes to his vineyard to cut the wild shoots. If he didn’t do this and left them on the good branches, his vine would only produce sour, bad wine. This is what a nobleman or a noblewoman must do: they must prune themselves of all that is out of order, uproot entirely all their ways of being and inclinations, whether they be those of joy or suffering, that is to say, they must cut off their bad faults. This will not break either head or arm or leg!
But hold back your knife until you have seen what you have to cut. If the vinegrower didn’t know the art of pruning, he would cut everything, both the good branch, which will soon give raisins, and the bad branch, and he would ruin the vineyard. That is what certain people do. They don’t know their job. They leave the vices, the bad inclinations, which are deeply rooted in nature, and they prune and trim poor nature itself. Nature in itself is good and noble: what do want to cut away from it? When the time comes for the fruit, that is to say, for divine life, you won’t have anything left but nature in ruins.
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Wednesday of the Fifth week of Easter
6 May 2015
Saint of the day
Bl. Anna Rosa Gattorno (1831-1900)
BLESSED ANNA ROSA GATTORNO
(1831-1900)
“My love, what can I do to make the whole world love you? … Make use once again of this wretched instrument to renew the faith and the conversion of sinners”.
This generous outburst, uttered at the feet of her ‘Supreme Good’ – who drew her ever closer to him – constituted the deepest yearning of Anna Rosa Gattorno’s heart, leading her to offer her life totally in a continuous sacrifice for the glory and pleasure of the Father.
She was born in Genoa on 14 October 1831 into a deeply Christian, well-to-do family of good name. She was baptized the same day in the parish of S. Donato and received the names Rosa, Maria, Benedetta.
In her father Francesco and her mother Adelaide Campanella, like their other five children, she found the first models for her moral and Christian life. When she was 12 years old, she was confirmed at S. Maria delle Vigne by Cardinal Archbishop Tadini.
As a young girl she was educated at home, as was the custom in rich families at that time. With her serene and loveable character, open to piety and charity, she was nonetheless firm and knew how to react to the confrontations of the political and anticlerical climate of the time, which did not spare even some members of the Gattorno family.
At the age of 21 Rosa married her cousin Gerolamo Custo (5 November 1852), and moved to Marseilles. Unforeseen financial difficulties very soon upset the happiness of the new family which was forced to return to Genoa in a state of poverty. More serious misfortunes were looming: their first child, Carlotta, after a sudden illness was left deaf and dumb for life; Gerolamo’s attempt to find fortune abroad ended with his return, aggravated by a fatal illness; the happiness of the other two children was deeply disturbed by her husband’s disappearance which left her a widow less than six years after their marriage (9 March 1858) and, a few months later, by the loss of her youngest little son.
The succession of so many sad events in her life marked a radical change which she called her “conversion” to the total gift of herself to the Lord, to his love and to love of neighbour. Purified by her trials and strengthened in spirit, she understood the true meaning of pain and was confirmed in the certainty of her new vocation.
Under the guidance of her confessor, Fr. Giuseppe Firpo, she made private perpetual vows of chastity and obedience on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception 1858; followed by vows of poverty (1861) in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, as a Franciscan tertiary. Since 1855, she had also obtained the benefit of daily communion, which was uncommon in those days. She remained constantly anchored to this source of grace and, encouraged by ever growing intimacy with the Lord, she found support, missionary fervour, strength and zeal in service to her brothers and sisters.
In 1862, she received the gift of hidden stigmata, perceived most intensely on Fridays.
As a faithful wife and exemplary mother, never depriving her children of anything – always following and loving them tenderly – with greater availability she learned to share in the sufferings of others, giving herself in apostolic charity: “I dedicated myself with greater zeal to pious works and to visiting hospitals and the poor sick at home, helping them by meeting their needs as much as I could and serving them in all things”.
The Catholic associations in Genoa competed for her, so that although she loved silence and concealment, her genuinely evangelising way of life was remarked by all.
Progressing on this path, she was made president of the “Pious Union of the New Ursulines Daughters of Holy Mary Immaculate”, founded by Frassinetti, and was entrusted with the revision of the Rule destined for the Union at the express wish of Archbishop Charvaz.
On that precise occasion (February 1864), redoubling her prayers to Christ Crucified, she received the inspiration for a new Rule, her own specific Foundation.
Fearful of being forced to abandon her children she prayed, made acts of penance and asked advice. Fra Francis of Camporosso, a lay Capuchin, who is hom a saint, to whom she also expressed her apprehension before the serious troubles that were imminent, supported and encouraged her, as did her confessor and the Archbishop of Genoa.
However, feeling her maternal duties more and more acutely, she sought authoritative confirmation in the words of Pius IX, with the secret hope of being relieved. The Pontiff, at an audience on 3 January 1866, instead enjoined her to start her foundation immediately, adding: “This Institute will spread in all the parts of the world as swiftly as the flight of the dove. God will take care of your children: you must think of God and his work” She therefore accepted to do the Lord’s will, and as she then wrote in her Memoirs: “I generously offered them to God and repeated to him Abraham’s words: ‘Here I am, ready to do your divine will’…. Having offered myself for his Work, I received immense consolations…”.
Overcoming the resistance of her relatives and, to the disappointment of her Bishop, leaving the associations in Genoa, she founded her new religious family in Piacenza, and named it definitively “Daughters of St. Anne, mother of Mary Immaculate” (8 December 1866). She was clothed on 26 July 1867 and on 8 April 1870 made her religious profession, together with 12 sisters.
Fr. Tornatore, a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, collaborated with her in the Institute’s development. Expressly requested, he wrote the Rule and was then considered Co-Founder of the Institute.
Entrusting herself totally to divine Providence and motivated from the start by a courageous charitable impulse, Rosa Gattorno began with a spirit of motherly dedication to consolidate God’s Work as the Pope had called it and as she too, chosen to cooperate in it, would always call it, attentively caring for any form of suffering and moral or material poverty, with the one intention of serving Jesus in his painful and injured members and of “evangelising first and foremost with life”.
Various works came into being for the poor and the sick with any form of illness, for lonely, elderly or abandoned persons, the little and the defenceless, adolescents, and young girls “at risk” for whom she arranged appropriate instruction and subsequent integration in the working world. In addition, she soon opened schools for the people and for the education of the children of the poor, and other works of human and evangelical advancement in accordance with the greatest needs of the time and with an effective presence in ecclesial and civil life. “Servants of the poor and ministers of mercy” she called her daughters, and she urged them to accept, as a sign of the Lord’s favour to serve their brethren with love and humility: “Be humble … only think that you are the lowliest and the most wretched of all creatures who render service to the Church… and have the grace to belong to her”.
Less than 10 years after its foundation, the Institute obtained the Decree of Praise (1876), and its definitive approval in 1879. For the Rule, it had to wait until 1892.
Highly esteemed and appreciated by all, she also worked in Piacenza with Bishop Scalabrini, who has now been beatified, and in particular in the institute for deaf-mutes which he founded.
However Mother Rosa Gattorno was not spared humiliations, difficulties and tribulations of all kinds. Despite this, the Institute spread rapidly, in Italy and abroad, thus achieving the Foundress’ ardent missionary desire: “Oh my Love! How I feel myself burning with the desire to make you known and loved by all! I would like to attract all the world, to give to all, to appease all … I would like to go everywhere and shout out for everybody to come and love you”. To be “Jesus’ voice” and to bring all people the message of the love that saves was and always remained her heart’s deepest desire. In 1878, she was already sending the first Daughters of St. Anne to Bolivia, then to Brazil, Chile, Peru, Eritrea, France and Spain. In Rome, where her work began in 1873, she organised boys’ and girls’ schools for the poor, nursery schools, assistance for the new-born babies of workers in the tobacco factory, houses for former prostitutes, serving women, nurses for home care, etc. There she also had the Generalate built, with its adjacent church.
In all, at her death there were 368 houses in which 3,500 sisters were carrying out their mission.
The secret of her journey of holiness, of the dynamism of her charity and of the strength of mind with which she could face all obstacles with firm faith and guide the Institute with full dedication, courage and far-sightedness for 34 years, was her continuous union with God and total, trusting abandonment in him: “Although I am in the midst of such a torrent of things to do, I am never without the union with my Good”; her attention and docility to the impulses of the Spirit; her deep and loving participation in Christ’s Passion; her ceaseless prayers for the conversion of sinners and the sanctification of all mankind.
She had a deep sense of belonging to Church and was ever humble, devout and obedient to the directives of the Pope and the hierarchy.
With her fondness of St. Anne, she had a special love for Mary, to whom she entirely entrusted herself, in order to belong totally to God and totally to her brethren.
A pure and simple instrument in the hands of the “superfine Craftsman”, conformed to the Poor Christ and with him, a victim of love, she fulfilled in her life the desire she inculcated in her daughters: “To live for God, to die for him and to spend life for love”.
She lived like this until February 1900, when she caught a dangerous form of influenza and rapidly deteriorated: her health, sorely tried by her acts of penance, frequent exhausting journeys and an enormous mass of correspondence, worries and serious disappointments, no longer resisted. On 4 May she received the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, and two days later, on 6 May, at 9.00 a.m., having ended her earthly pilgrimage, she died a holy death in the Generalate.
The fame of holiness which had surrounded her during her life, spread after her death and grew unimpeded all over the world.
As an expression of a rare plan of God, in her three-fold experience of wife and mother, widow and then religious and Foundress, in her mission of service to humanity and to extending the kingdom Rosa Gattorno brought great honour to the “feminine genius”. Although she was ever faithful to God’s call and a genuine teacher of Christian and ecclesial life, she remained essentially a mother: of her own children, whom she constantly followed, of the Sisters, whom she deeply loved, and of all the needy, the suffering and the unhappy, in whose faces she contemplated the face of Christ, poor, wounded and crucified.
Her charism has spread in the Church with the birth of other forms of evangelical life: Sisters of Contemplative Life; a Religious Association of Priests; the Secular Institute and the Ecclesial Movement for the Laity, which are active in the Church in almost all the parts of the world.
She was beatified by John Paul II on April 9, 2000 at Rome.
– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Tuesday, May 5th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 14:27-31a.
Tuesday of the Fifth week of Easter
5 May 2015
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 14:27-31a.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.
I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me,
but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me. Get up, let us go.
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Tuesday of the Fifth week of Easter
5 May 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint John-Paul II
Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
Message for the World Day of Peace 2002, § 14-15 (trans. © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
“My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you”
Prayer for peace is not an afterthought to the work of peace. It is of the very essence of building the peace of order, justice, and freedom. To pray for peace is to open the human heart to the inroads of God’s power to renew all things. With the life-giving force of his grace, God can create openings for peace where only obstacles and closures are apparent… To pray for peace is to pray for justice…
To pray for peace is to pray for justice, for a right-ordering of relations within and among nations and peoples. It is to pray for freedom, especially for the religious freedom that is a basic human and civil right of every individual. To pray for peace is to seek God’s forgiveness, and to implore the courage to forgive those who have trespassed against us.
No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness: this is what in this Message I wish to say to believers and non-believers alike, to all men and women of good will who are concerned for the good of the human family and for its future. No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness: this is what I wish to say to those responsible for the future of the human community, entreating them to be guided in their weighty and difficult decisions by the light of man’s true good, always with a view to the common good. No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness: I shall not tire of repeating this warning to those who, for one reason or another, nourish feelings of hatred, a desire for revenge or the will to destroy.
…May a more intense prayer rise from the hearts of all believers for the victims of terrorism, for their families so tragically stricken, for all the peoples who continue to be hurt and convulsed by terrorism and war. May the light of our prayer extend even to those who gravely offend God and man by these pitiless acts, that they may look into their hearts, see the evil of what they do, abandon all violent intentions, and seek forgiveness. In these troubled times, may the whole human family find true and lasting peace, born of the marriage of justice and mercy!
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Tuesday of the Fifth week of Easter
5 May 2015
Saint of the day
St. Antoninus, Bishop (1389-1459)
SAINT ANTONINUS
Bishop
(1389-1459)
Antoninus, or Little Antony, as he was called from his small stature, was born at Florence in 1389. After a childhood of singular holiness, he begged to be admitted into the Dominican house at Fiesole; but the Superior, to test his sincerity and perseverance, told him he must first learn by heart the book of the Decretals, containing several hundred pages. This apparently impossible task was accomplished within twelve months; and Antoninus received the coveted habit in his sixteenth year.
While still very young, he filled several important posts of his Order, and was consulted on questions of difficulty by the most learned men of his day; being known, for his wonderful prudence, as “the Counsellor.” He wrote several works on theology and history, and sat as Papal Theologian at the Council of Florence.
In 1446 he was compelled to accept the archbishopric of that city; and in this dignity earned for himself the title of “the Father of the Poor,” for all he had was at their disposal. St. Antoninus never refused an alms which was asked in the name of God. When he had no money, he gave his clothes, shoes, or furniture. One day, being sent by the Florentines to the Pope, as he approached Rome a beggar came up to him almost naked, and asked him for an alms for Christ’s sake. Outdoing St. Martin, Antoninus gave him his whole cloak. When he entered the city, another was given him; by whom he knew not. His household consisted of only six persons; his palace contained no plate or costly furniture, and was often nearly destitute of the necessaries of life. His one mule was frequently sold for the relief of the poor, when it would be bought back for him by some wealthy citizen.
He died embracing the crucifix, May 5th, 1459, often repeating the words, “To serve God is to reign.”
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Monday, May 4th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 14:21-26.
Monday of the Fifth week of Easter
4 May 2015
Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 14:21-26.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him, “Master, (then) what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.
I have told you this while I am with you.
The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name–he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you.
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Monday of the Fifth week of Easter
4 May 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint John of the Cross
Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591),
Carmelite, Doctor of the Church
The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book 2, ch. 22
(trans. ©Washington Province of Discalced Carmelite Friars, Inc.)
“The word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me”
The chief reason in the Old Law that the inquiries made of God were licit, and the prophets and priests appropriately desired visions and revelations from him, was that at that time faith was not yet perfectly grounded, nor was the Gospel law established… But in this era of grace, now… there is no reason for inquiring of him in this way, or expecting him to answer as before. In giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word—and he has no more to say. This is the meaning of that passage where Saint Paul says to the Hebrews…: “God formerly spoke to our fathers through the prophets in many ways and manners, now, finally, in these days he has spoken to us all at once in his Son” (Heb. 1,1-2)…
Those who now desire to question God or receive some vision or revelation are guilty not only of foolish behavior but also of offending him by not fixing their eyes entirely on Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty. God could answer as follows: “If I have already told you all things in my Word, my Son, and if I have no other word, what answer or revelation can I now make that would surpass this? Fasten your eyes on him alone because in him I have spoken and revealed all and in him you will discover even more than you ask for and desire… On that day when I descended with my Spirit on Mount Tabor proclaiming: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: hear him” (Mt 17,5), I gave up these methods of answering and teaching… Hear him because I have no more faith to reveal or truths to manifest. If I spoke before it was to promise Christ. If they questioned me, their inquiries were related to their petitions and longings for Christ in whom they were to obtain every good, as is now explained in all the doctrine of the evangelists and apostles.
Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Monday of the Fifth week of Easter
4 May 2015
Saint of the day
The English Martyrs
The English Marytrs
Today the Church celebrates English Men and Women martyred for the Catholic Faith 1535-1680 and beatified or canonised by the Holy See.
On this day in 1535 there died at Tyburn three Carthusian monks, the first of many martyrs, Catholic and Protestant, of the English reformation. Of these martyrs, forty two have been canonised and a further two hundred and forty two declared blessed, but the number of those who died on the scaffold, perished in prison, or suffered harsh persecution for their faith in the course of a century and a half cannot now be reckoned.
They came from every walk of life; there are among them rich and poor, married and single, women and men.
They are remembered for the example they gave of constancy in their faith, and courage in the face of persecution.
Liturgy Office England & Wales
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Friday, April 17th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 6:1-15.
Friday of the Second week of Easter
17 April 2015
There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:1-15.
Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.
A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.
Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.
The Jewish feast of Passover was near.
When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”
He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do.
Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little (bit).”
One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,
There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?
Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.
Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted.
When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.”
So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”
Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.
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Friday of the Second week of Easter
17 April 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Augustine (354-430)
Saint Augustine (354-430),
Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Homilies on Saint John’s gospel, 24, 1.6.7; CCL 36, 244 (©Friends of Henry Ashworth)
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”
Governing the entire universe is a greater miracle than feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread, yet no one marvels marvel at it. People marvel at the feeding of the five thousand not because this miracle is greater, but because it is out of the ordinary. Who is even now providing nourishment for the whole world if not the God who creates a field of wheat from a few seeds? Christ did what God does. Just as God multiplies a few seeds into a whole field of wheat, so Christ multiplied the five loaves in his hands. For there was power in the hands of Christ. Those five loaves were like seeds, not because they were cast on the earth but because they were multiplied by the one who made the earth.
This miracle was presented to our senses in order to stimulate our minds… and so make us marvel at “the God we do not see because of his works, which we do see” (Rom 1,20). For then, when we have been raised to the level of faith and purified by faith, we shall long to behold, though not with our eyes, the invisible God whom we recognize through what is visible. This miracle was performed for the multitude to see; it was recorded for us to hear. Faith does for us what sight did for them. We behold with the mind what our eyes cannot see; and we are preferred to them because of us it was said: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jn 20,29).
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Friday of the Second week of Easter
17 April 2015
Saint of the day
St. Anicetus, Pope and Martyr (+ 173)
SAINT ANICETUS
Pope, Martyr
(+ 173)
St. Anicetus succeeded St. Pius, and sat about eight years, from 165 to 173. If he did not shed his blood for the Faith, he at least purchased the title of martyr by great sufferings and dangers. He received a visit from St. Polycarp, and tolerated the custom of the Asiatics in celebrating Easter on the 14th day of the first moon after the vernal equinox, with the Jews. His vigilance protected his flock from the wiles of the heretics Valentine and Marcion, who sought to corrupt the faith in the capital of the world.
The first thirty-six bishops at Rome, down to Liberius, and, this one excepted, all the popes to Symmachus, the fifty-second, in 498, are honored among the Saints; and out of two hundred and forty-eight popes, from St. Peter to Clement XIII. seventy-eight are named in the Roman Martyrology. In the primitive ages, the spirit of fervor and perfect sanctity, which is nowadays so rarely to be found, was conspicuous in most of the faithful, and especially in their pastors. The whole tenor of their lives breathed it in such a manner as to render them the miracles of the world, angels on earth, living copies of their divine Redeemer, the odor of whose virtues and holy law and religion they spread on every side.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Tuesday, April 14th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 3:7b-15.
Tuesday of the Second week of Easter
14 April 2015
No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 3:7b-15.
Jesus said to Nicodemus: “’You must be born from above.’
The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus answered and said to him, “How can this happen?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this?
Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.
If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
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Tuesday of the Second week of Easter
14 April 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Basil
Saint Basil (c.330-379)
Monk and Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia,
Doctor of the Church
Treatise on the Holy Spirit, 14 (©St Vladimir’s Seminary press, 1980)
“So that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”
Typology points out what is to be expected, indicating through imitation what is to happen before it happens. Adam was a type of Him who was to come (Rom 5,14); “the Rock was Christ” (1Cor 10,4) typologically, and the water from the rock was a type of the living power of the Word, for He says, “If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink.” (Jn 7,37) The manna was a type of the living bread which came down from heaven (Jn 6,41), and the serpent suspended on the pole was a type of the saving passion accomplished on the cross (Nm 21,8f.), since the life of every one who looked at the serpent was preserved. Similarly, the history of Israel’s exodus was recorded to typify those who would be saved through baptism. The firstborn of the Israelites were saved… through grace given to those who were marked with blood. The blood of the lamb is a type of the blood of Christ…
At the time of the exodus, the sea and the cloud led the people from amazement to faith, but they also typified the grace which was yet to come. “Whoever is wise, let him understand these things”: how the baptism in the sea, which brought about Pharaoh’s demise typifies the washing which makes the devil’s tyranny depart. The sea killed the enemy in its waves, and baptism kills the enmity between us and God. The people emerged from the sea unharmed, and we come up from the water as alive from the dead, saved by the grace of Him Who has called us. The cloud is a shadow of the Spirit’s gifts, for He cools the flames of our passions through the mortification of our bodies.
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Tuesday of the Second week of Easter
14 April 2015
Saints of the day
St. Peter Gonzales, Dominican Priest (1190-1246)
Saint Peter Gonzalez
Dominican Priest
(1190-1246)
Peter Gonzales, also known as St. Elmo or St. Telmo, was born to a Castilian family of nobility. He was educated by his uncle, the Bishop of Astorga, named canon of the local cathedral, famous for his penances and mortifications, joined the Dominican Order, preached and made chaplain of the court of King St. Ferdinand III.
He converted and influenced the soldiers of his country, evangelized, and died on Easter Sunday. Peter evangelized throughout his country and all along the coast.
He had a special fondness for sailors. He used to visit them aboard their ships, preaching the Gospel and praying for their needs.
From Catholic Online
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Tuesday of the Second week of Easter
14 April 2015
Saints of the day
St. Benezet (1165-1184)
SAINT BENEZET, or Little Bennet
(1165-1184)
St. Benezet kept his mother’s sheep in the country, and as a mere child was devoted to practices of piety. As many persons were drowned in crossing the Rhone, Benezet was inspired by God to build a bridge over that rapid river at Avignon. He obtained the approbation of the bishop, proved his mission by miracles, and began the work in 1177, which he directed during seven years.
He died when the difficulty of the undertaking was over, in 1184.
This is attested by public monuments drawn up at that time and still preserved at Avignon, where the story is in everybody’s month. His body was buried upon the bridge itself, which was not completely finished till four years after his decease, the structure whereof was attended with miracles from the first laying of the foundations till it was completed in 1188.
Other miracles wrought after this at his tomb induced the city to build a chapel upon the bridge, in which his body lay nearly five hundred years. But in 1669 a greater part of the bridge falling down through the impetuosity of the waters, the coffin was taken up, and being opened in 1670 in presence of the grand vicar, during the vacancy of the archiepiscopal see, the body was found entire, without the least sign of corruption; even the bowels were perfectly sound, and the color of the eyes lively and sprightly, though, through the dampness of the situation, the iron bars about the coffin were much damaged with rust.
The body was found in the same condition by the Archbishop of Avignon in 1674, when, accompanied by the Bishop of Orange and a great concourse of nobility, he performed the translation of it, with great pomp, into the Church of the Celestines, this Order having obtained of Louis XIV. the honor of being intrusted with the custody of his relics till such time as the bridge and chapel should be rebuilt.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Image from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monday, March 30th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 12:1-11.
Monday of Holy Week
30 March 2015
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and
anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 12:1-11.
Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him.
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
Then Judas the Iscariot, one (of) his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said,
Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?
He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions.
So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial.
You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
(The) large crowd of the Jews found out that he was there and came, not only because of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
And the chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus too,
because many of the Jews were turning away and believing in Jesus because of him.
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Monday of Holy Week
30 March 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Augustine (354-430)
Saint Augustine (354-430),
Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Sermons on Saint John’s Gospel, no.50, 6-7
“You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me”
This is the historical event, now let us look for the symbol. Whoever you are, if you want to be faithful, pour precious perfume on the Lord’s feet along with Mary. This perfume is uprightness… Pour perfume on the feet of Jesus: follow in the Lord’s footsteps by a holy way of life. Wipe his feet with your hair: if you have more than enough, give to the poor and in this way you will have wiped the Lord’s feet… Perhaps the Lord’s feet on earth are in need. Indeed, isn’t it about his members he will say at the end of the world: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Mt 25,40)?
“And the house was filled with its fragrance.” That is to say, the world has been filled with the renown of this woman, for the sweet fragrance is her good name. People who associate the name of Christian with a dishonest life injure Christ…; if God’s name is blasphemed by bad Christians, it is praised and honored, on the other hand, by the good: “For in every place we are the aroma of Christ” (2Cor,14-15). And it is said in the Song of Songs: “Your name is oil poured out” (1,3).
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Monday of Holy Week
30 March 2015
Saint of the day
St. John Climacus, anchorite (6th-7th centuries)
SAINT JOHN CLIMACUS
Anchorite
(6th-7th centuries)
John made, while still young, such progress in learning that he was called the Scholastic. At the age of sixteen he turned from the brilliant future which lay before him, and retired to Mt. Sinai, where he put himself under the direction of a holy monk. Never was novice more fervent, more unrelaxing in his efforts for self-mastery. After four years he took the vows, and an aged abbot foretold that he would some day be one of the greatest lights of the Church.
Nineteen years later, on the death of his director, he withdrew into a deeper solitude, where he studied the lives and writings of the Saints, and was raised to an unusual height of contemplation. The fame of his holiness and practical wisdom drew crowds around him for advice and consolation. For his greater profit he visited the solitudes of Egypt.
At the age of seventy-five he was chosen abbot of Mt. Sinai, and there “he dwelt in the mount of God, and drew from the rich treasure of his heart priceless riches of doctrine, which he poured forth with wondrous abundance and benediction.”
He was induced by a brother abbot to write the rules by which he had guided his life; and his book called the Climax, or Ladder of Perfection, has been prized in all ages for its wisdom, its clearness, and its unction.
At the end of four years he would no longer endure the honors and distractions of his office, and retired to his solitude, where he fell asleep in the Lord.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
30 March 2015
Sunday, March 29th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 14:1-72.15:1-47.
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B
29 March 2015
A woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard.
She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 14:1-72.15:1-47.
The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were to take place in two days’ time. So the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way to arrest him by treachery and put him to death.
They said, “Not during the festival, for fear that there may be a riot among the people.”
When he was in Bethany reclining at table in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head.
There were some who were indignant. “Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil?
It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages and the money given to the poor.” They were infuriated with her.
Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me.
The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have me.
She has done what she could. She has anticipated anointing my body for burial.
Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went off to the chief priests to hand him over to them.
When they heard him they were pleased and promised to pay him money. Then he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.”
The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover. When it was evening, he came with the Twelve.
And as they reclined at table and were eating, Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.”
They began to be distressed and to say to him, one by one, “Surely it is not I?”
He said to them, “One of the Twelve, the one who dips with me into the dish.
For the Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”
While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will have your faith shaken, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be dispersed.’
But after I have been raised up, I shall go before you to Galilee.”
Peter said to him, “Even though all should have their faith shaken, mine will not be.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Amen, I say to you, this very night before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.”
But he vehemently replied, “Even though I should have to die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all spoke similarly.
Then they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”
He took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be troubled and distressed.
Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch.”
He advanced a little and fell to the ground and prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass by him; he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.”
When he returned he found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?
Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
Withdrawing again, he prayed, saying the same thing.
Then he returned once more and found them asleep, for they could not keep their eyes open and did not know what to answer him.
He returned a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is to be handed over to sinners.
Get up, let us go. See, my betrayer is at hand.”
Then, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders.
His betrayer had arranged a signal with them, saying, “The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him and lead him away securely.”
He came and immediately went over to him and said, “Rabbi.” And he kissed him.
At this they laid hands on him and arrested him.
One of the bystanders drew his sword, struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his ear.
Jesus said to them in reply, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs, to seize me? Day after day I was with you teaching in the temple area, yet you did not arrest me; but that the scriptures may be fulfilled.” And they all left him and fled.
Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him,
but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked.
They led Jesus away to the high priest, and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together.
Peter followed him at a distance into the high priest’s courtyard and was seated with the guards, warming himself at the fire.
The chief priests and the entire Sanhedrin kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus in order to put him to death, but they found none.
Many gave false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree.
Some took the stand and testified falsely against him, alleging,
We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands and within three days I will build another not made with hands.’ Even so their testimony did not agree.
The high priest rose before the assembly and questioned Jesus, saying, “Have you no answer? What are these men testifying against you?”
But he was silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him and said to him, “Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?”
Then Jesus answered, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.'”
At that the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further need have we of witnesses?
You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as deserving to die.
Some began to spit on him. They blindfolded him and struck him and said to him, “Prophesy!” And the guards greeted him with blows.
While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the high priest’s maids came along.
Seeing Peter warming himself, she looked intently at him and said, “You too were with the Nazarene, Jesus.”
But he denied it saying, “I neither know nor understand what you are talking about.” So he went out into the outer court. (Then the cock crowed.)
The maid saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.”
Once again he denied it. A little later the bystanders said to Peter once more, “Surely you are one of them; for you too are a Galilean.”
He began to curse and to swear, “I do not know this man about whom you are talking.”
And immediately a cock crowed a second time. Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had said to him, “Before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.” He broke down and wept.
As soon as morning came, the chief priests with the elders and the scribes, that is, the whole Sanhedrin, held a council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.
Pilate questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He said to him in reply, “You say so.”
The chief priests accused him of many things.
Again Pilate questioned him, “Have you no answer? See how many things they accuse you of.”
Jesus gave him no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.
Now on the occasion of the feast he used to release to them one prisoner whom they requested.
A man called Barabbas was then in prison along with the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion.
The crowd came forward and began to ask him to do for them as he was accustomed.
Pilate answered, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?”
For he knew that it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed him over.
But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead.
Pilate again said to them in reply, “Then what (do you want) me to do with (the man you call) the king of the Jews?” They shouted again, “Crucify him.”
Pilate said to them, “Why? What evil has he done?” They only shouted the louder, “Crucify him.”
So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them and, after he had Jesus scourged, handed him over to be crucified.
The soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the praetorium, and assembled the whole cohort.
They clothed him in purple and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him.
They began to salute him with, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
and kept striking his head with a reed and spitting upon him. They knelt before him in homage.
And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him out to crucify him.
They pressed into service a passer-by, Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.
They brought him to the place of Golgotha (which is translated Place of the Skull).
They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it.
Then they crucified him and divided his garments by casting lots for them to see what each should take.
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.
The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”
With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left.
Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross.”
Likewise the chief priests, with the scribes, mocked him among themselves and said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.
Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him.
At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.
And at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “Look, he is calling Elijah.”
One of them ran, soaked a sponge with wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to take him down.” Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom.
When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” There were also women looking on from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome.
These women had followed him when he was in Galilee and ministered to him. There were also many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.
When it was already evening, since it was the day of preparation, the day before the sabbath,
Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council, who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God, came and courageously went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
Pilate was amazed that he was already dead. He summoned the centurion and asked him if Jesus had already died. And when he learned of it from the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.
Having bought a linen cloth, he took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.
Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses watched where he was laid.
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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B
29 March 2015
At the Procession with palms – gospel mt 21:1-11
and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives,
Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them,
“Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately you will find an ass tethered,
and a colt with her.
Untie them and bring them here to me.
And if anyone should say anything to you, reply,
‘The master has need of them.’
Then he will send them at once.”
This happened so that what had been spoken through the prophet
might be fulfilled:
Say to daughter Zion,
“Behold, your king comes to you,
meek and riding on an ass,
and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had ordered them.
They brought the ass and the colt and laid their cloaks over them,
and he sat upon them.
The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road,
while others cut branches from the trees
and strewed them on the road.
The crowds preceding him and those following
kept crying out and saying:
“Hosanna to the Son of David;
blessed is the he who comes in the name of the Lord;
hosanna in the highest.”
And when he entered Jerusalem
the whole city was shaken and asked, “Who is this?”
And the crowds replied,
“This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.”
From
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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B
29 March 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Ephrem of Salamis
Attributed to Saint Ephrem of Salamis (? – 403), Bishop
1st Homily for the Feast of Palms
“See, your king shall come to you, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.” (Zech 9:9)
“Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion.” Be filled with joy, Church of God. “See, your king shall come to you.” (Zech 9:9) Go out to meet him, hasten to contemplate his glory. This is the world’s salvation: God comes to the cross, and the Desired of the nations (Hag 2:7) enters Zion. The light is coming. Let us cry out with the people: “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Lord God has appeared to us who were sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death (Lk 1:79). He appeared as the resurrection of those who have fallen, the liberation of captives, the light of the blind, the consolation of the afflicted, rest for the weak, spring for those who thirst, avenger of the persecuted, redemption of those who are lost, union of the divided, doctor for the sick, salvation of those who have gone astray.
Yesterday, Christ raised Lazarus from the dead; today he is going to his own death. Yesterday, he tore off the strips of cloth that bound Lazarus; today he is stretching out his hand to those who want to bind him. Yesterday, he tore that man away from darkness; today, for humankind, he is going down into darkness and the shadow of death. And the Church is celebrating. She is beginning the feast of feasts, for she is receiving her king as a spouse, for her king is in her midst.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B
29 March 2015
Saints of the day
St. Gladys,
Hermit
(5th century)
Saint Gladys
Hermit
(5th century)
Gladys was born in Wales in the 5th century. She was one of the 24 children of Brychan of Brecknock, wife of Saint Gundleus, and mother of Saints Cadoc and, possibly, Keyna.
It is said that after their conversion by the example and exhortation of their son, she and Gundleus lived an austere life.
When Gundleus died, Gladys moved to Pencanau in Bassaleg and lived as a hermit.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year B
29 March 2015
Saints of the day
Sts. Jonas, Barachisius and Co,
Martyrs
(4th century)
IMAGE OF THE CATHOLIC ALL SAINTS
SAINTS JONAS, BARACHISIUS
and their Companions
Martyrs
(4th century)
King Sapor, of Persia (modern Iran), in the eighteenth year of his reign, raised a bloody persecution against the Christians, and laid waste their churches and monasteries. Jonas and Barachisius, two brothers of the city Beth-Asa, hearing that several Christians lay under sentence of death at Hubaham, went thither to encourage and serve them. Nine of that number received the crown of martyrdom.
After their execution, Jonas and Barachisius were apprehended for having exhorted them to die. The president entreated the two brothers to obey the king of Persia, and to worship the sun, moon, fire, and water. Their answer was, that it was more reasonable to obey the immortal King of heaven and earth than a mortal prince. Jonas was beaten with knotty clubs and with rods, and next set in a frozen pond, with a cord tied to his foot. Barachisius had two red-hot iron plates and two red-hot hammers applied under each arm, and melted lead dropped into his nostrils and eyes; after which he was carried to prison, and there hung up by one foot. Despite these cruel tortures, the two brothers remained steadfast in the Faith.
New and more horrible torments were then devised under which at last they yielded up their lives, while their pure souls winged their flight to heaven, there to gain the martyr’s crown, which they had so faithfully won.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Saturday, March 28th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 11:45-56.
Saturday of the Fifth week of Lent
28 March 2015
“You know nothing, nor do you consider that it is better for you that
one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 11:45-56.
Many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him.
But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs.
If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.”
But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing,
nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.”
He did not say this on his own, but since he was high priest for that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,
and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
So from that day on they planned to kill him.
So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples.
Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves.
They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?”
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Saturday of the Fifth week of Lent
28 March 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Bernard (1091-1153)
Saint Bernard (1091-1153), Cistercian monk and doctor of the Church
28th Homily on the Song of Songs
“It is better that one man should die instead of the people”
The darkening of one makes many bright… “It is better,” said Caiaphas, “for one man to die for the people, than for the whole nation to be destroyed.” It is better that one be darkened “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” (Rm 8:3) for the sake of all than for the whole of mankind to be lost by the darkness of sin; that the splendor and image of the substance of God should be shrouded in the form of a slave, in order that a slave might live; that the brightness of eternal light should become dimmed in the flesh for the purifying of the flesh; that he who surpasses all mankind in beauty (Ps 44:2) should be eclipsed by the darkness of the Passion for the enlightening of mankind; that he should suffer the ignominy of the cross, grow pale in death, be totally deprived of beauty and comeliness that he might gain the Church as a beautiful and comely bride, without spot or wrinkle (Ep 5:27).
But under his dark covering (Sg 1:5) I recognize the King…; I recognize him and I embrace him. For though he presents this dark exterior… within is the brightness of divine life, the beauty of his strength, the splendor of grace, the purity of innocence. But covering it all is the abject hue of infirmity, his face as it were hidden and despised: “one tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning” (He 4:15).
I recognize here the image of our sin-darkened nature; I recognize the garments that clothed our first parents after their sin (Gn 3:21). My God has clothed himself in them by assuming the condition of a slave, and becoming as men are, he was seen in their likeness (Ph 2:7). Under the skin that Jacob wore (Gn 27:16), symbol of sin, I recognize both the hand that committed no sin and the neck which never bowed to evil; no word of treachery was found in his mouth. I know, Lord, that you are gentle by nature, meek and humble of heart, pleasing in appearance and loveable in your ways, “anointed with the oil of gladness above your companions” (Mt 11:29; Ps 44:8). Why then this disfigured likeness to Esau? Whose haggard image this?… Ah! It is mine. He has taken my likeness, taken on my sin… And beneath the rough skin of my sinfulness I recognize my God and my Savior.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Saturday of the Fifth week of Lent
28 March 2015
Saint of the day
St. Gontran, King (545-592)
SAINT GONTRAN
King
(545-592)
St. Gontran was the son of King Clotaire, and grandson of Clovis I. and St. Clotildis. Being the second son, whilst his brothers Charibert reigned at Paris, and Sigebert in Ostrasia, residing at Metz, he was crowned king of Orleans and Burgundy in 561, making Chalons his capital.
When compelled to take up arms against his ambitious brothers and the Lombards, he made no other use of his victories, under the conduct of a brave general called Mommol, than to give peace to his dominions. The crimes in which the barbarous manners of his nation involved him he effaced by tears of repentance.
The prosperity of his reign, both in peace and war, condemns those who think that human policy cannot be modelled by the maxims of the Gospel, whereas nothing can render a government more flourishing.
He always treated the pastors of the Church with respect and veneration. He was the protector of the oppressed, and the tender parent of his subjects. He gave the greatest attention to the care of the sick. He fasted, prayed, wept, and offered himself to God night and day as a victim ready to be sacrificed on the altar of His justice, to avert
His indignation which he believed he himself had provoked and drawn down upon his innocent people. He was a severe punisher of crimes in his officers and others, and, by many wholesome regulations, restrained the barbarous licentiousness of his troops; but no man was more ready to forgive offences against his own person.
With royal magnificence he built and endowed many churches and monasteries.
This good king died in 592, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, having reigned thirty-one years and some months.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Friday, March 27th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 10:31-42.
Friday of the Fifth week of Lent
27 March 2015
“John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man was true.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 10:31-42.
The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?”
The Jews answered him, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”‘?
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize (and understand) that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
(Then) they tried again to arrest him; but he escaped from their power.
He went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.
Many came to him and said, “John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man was true.” And many there began to believe in him.
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Friday of the Fifth week of Lent
27 March 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint John-Paul II
Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
General Audience 6/12/79
“ Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, You are gods’ ? ”
“Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gn 1,26). As if the Creator himself retracted to create man; as if, in creating him, not only he called him to existence by saying: “May it be!” but, in a particular way, he drew man from the mystery of his own being. This is comprehensible because it does not concern only the being, but the image. The image must reflect, it must reproduce, in a certain way, the substance of its prototype…It is obvious that this resemblance is not meant as a portrait, but in the sense that the life of a human being is similar to that of God…
By defining man the “image of God”, the book of Genesis reveals what is peculiar to man, what distinguishes him from all other creatures of the visible world. Science, we know, has tried and continues trying to show in different ways the bonds of man with the natural world, to show his dependence on this world, so as to insert him in the history of evolution of the different species.
With all our respect for this type of research, we cannot limit ourselves to this. If we analyse man in the depths of his being we see that he differs from the natural world more than he resembles it. Anthropology and philosophy too proceed in this same way, as they try to analyse and understand the intelligence, freedom, conscience and spirituality of man.
The book of Genesis seems to go beyond all these experiences of science and, by saying that man is the image of God, it makes us understand that the answers to the mystery of his humanity must not be sought in his resemblance with the world. Man resembles God more than nature. It is in this sense that the psalm could say, “You are gods” (Ps 82,6), words that Jesus will repeat.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Friday of the Fifth week of Lent
27 March 2015
Saint of the day
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©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Tuesday, March 24th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 8:21-30.
Tuesday of the Fifth week of Lent
24 March 2015
“The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 8:21-30.
Jesus said to the Pharisees: “I am going away and you will look for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.”
So the Jews said, “He is not going to kill himself, is he, because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning. I have much to say about you in condemnation. But the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him I tell the world.” They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.
So Jesus said (to them), “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.” Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
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Tuesday of the Fifth week of Lent
24 March 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Athanasius
(295-373)
Saint Athanasius
(295-373),
Bishop of Alexandria, Doctor of the Church
On the incarnation of the Word, 21-22
“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM”
Why, then, one might say, if it were necessary for Christ to yield up his body to death on behalf of all, did he not lay it aside simply in a human way instead of going so far as to be crucified? For one might say that it was more fitting for him to have laid his body aside honorably, than ignominiously to endure such a death as that. Such an objection is itself too human, whereas what the Savior did is truly divine and worthy of his Godhead for many reasons.
Firstly, because the death which befalls us all comes as a result of the weakness of our nature; for, unable to continue for long, we are dissolved with time. Hence, too, diseases befall us, and we fall sick and die. But the Lord is not weak but is the power and Word of God and life itself. If, then, he had laid aside his body somewhere in private and upon a bed, after the manner of mortal flesh, it would have been thought… there was nothing in him more than in other men… It was not fitting, either, that the Lord,who healed the diseases of others, should himself fall sick…
Why, then, did he not cast out death, as he did sickness? Because it was precisely for this that he possessed a body, and it was unfitting to prevent it lest the resurrection should also be hindered… But it would be better, someone might say, to have foiled the designs of his enemies so that his body might be protected from death altogether. Now let such a one be aware that this too was unbefitting to the Lord. For as it was not fitting for the Word of God, being Life, to inflict death on his own body, so neither was it suitable for him to fly from the death inflicted by others… this did not show weakness on the Word’s part, but, on the contrary, showed Him to be both Savior and Life… the Savior came to bring to completion, not his own death, but the death of all humanity.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Tuesday of the Fifth week of Lent
24 March 2015
Saints of the day
St. Catherine of Sweden
(1330 + 1381)
SAINT CATHARINE OF SWEDEN
Virgin
(1330 + 1381)
St. CatharineE was daughter of Ulpho, Prince of Nericia in Sweden, and of St. Bridget. The love of God seemed almost to prevent in her the use of her reason. At seven years of age she was placed in the nunnery of Risburgh, and educated in piety under the care of the holy abbess of that house.
Being very beautiful, she was, by her father, contracted in marriage to Egard, a young nobleman of great virtue; but the virgin persuaded him to join with her in making a mutual vow of perpetual chastity. By her discourser he became desirous only of heavenly graces, arid, to draw them down upon his soul more abundantly, he readily acquiesced in the proposal.
The happy couple, having but one heart and one desire, by a holy emulation excited each other to prayer, mortification, and works of charity.
After the death of her father, St. Catharine, out of devotion to the Passion of Christ and to the relics of the martyrs, accompanied her mother in her pilgrimages and practices of devotion and penance.
After her mother’s death at Rome, in 1373, Catharine returned to Sweden, and died abbess of Vadzstena, or Vatzen, on the 24th of March in 1381.
For the last twenty-five years of her life she every day purified her soul by a sacramental confession of her sins.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Tuesday of the Fifth week of Lent
24 March 2015
Saints of the day
Bl. Maria Karlowska
(1865-1935)
Blessed Maria Karlowska
Religious
(1865-1935)
Maria Karlowska was born in the territories under Prussian occupation in 1865. She worked as a true Samaritan among women suffering great material and moral deprivation.
Her holy zeal quickly attracted a group of disciples of Christ, with whom she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd of Divine Providence. For herself and her Sisters she set the following goal: “We must proclaim the Heart of Jesus, that is, so to live from him, in him and for him, as to become like him and that in our lives he may be more visible than we ourselves”.
Her devotion to the Saviour’s Sacred Heart bore fruit in a great love for people. She felt an insatiable hunger for love. A love of this kind, according to Blessed Maria Karlowska, will never say “enough”, will never stop midway. Precisely this happened to her, who was as it were transported by the current of love of the Divine Paraclete.
Thanks to this love she restored to many souls the light of Christ and helped them to regain their lost dignity.
– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
FRANCIS XAVIER SAMSEN 
Sunday, August 23rd. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St John 6:60-69.
Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
23 August 2015
“Master, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life. “
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:60-69.
Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you?
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Image: Bible Hub
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Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
23 August 2015
Saint John-Paul II
Saint John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
Encyclical « Ecclesia de Eucharistia », 18-19 (trans. © copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (Jn 6,54)
Those who feed on Christ in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: they already possess it on earth, as the first-fruits of a future fullness which will embrace man in his totality. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:54). This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were, the “secret” of the resurrection. For this reason Saint Ignatius of Antioch rightly defined the Eucharistic Bread as “a medicine of immortality, an antidote to death”.
The eschatological tension kindled by the Eucharist expresses and reinforces our communion with the Church in heaven. It is not by chance that the Eastern Anaphoras and the Latin Eucharistic Prayers honour Mary, the ever-Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the angels, the holy apostles, the glorious martyrs and all the saints. This is an aspect of the Eucharist which merits greater attention: in celebrating the sacrifice of the Lamb, we are united to the heavenly “liturgy” and become part of that great multitude which cries out: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev 7:10). The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
23 August 2015
St. Rose of Lima, Virgin (1586-1617)
SAINT ROSE OF LIMA
Virgin
(1586-1617)
This lovely flower of sanctity, the first canonized Saint of the New World, was born at Lima in 1586. She was christened Isabel, but the beauty of her infant face earned for her the title of Rose, which she ever after bore.
As a child, while still in the cradle, her silence under a painful surgical operation proved the thirst for suffering already consuming her heart. At an early age she took service to support her impoverished parents, and worked for them day and night. In spite of hardships and austerities her beauty ripened with increasing age, and she was much and openly admired. From fear of vanity she cut off her hair, blistered her face with pepper and her hands with lime.
For further security she enrolled herself in the Third Order of St. Dominic, took St. Catherine of Siena as her model, and redoubled her penance. Her cell was a garden hut, her couch a box of broken tiles. Under her habit Rose wore a hair-shirt studded with iron nails, while, concealed by her veil, a silver crown armed with ninety points encircled her head. More than once, when she shuddered at the prospect of a night of torture, a voice said, “My cross was yet more painful.”
The Blessed Sacrament seemed almost her only food. Her love for it was intense. When the Dutch fleet prepared to attack the town, Rose took her place before the tabernacle, and wept that she was not worthy to die in its defence. All her sufferings were offered for the conversion of sinners, and the thought of the multitudes in hell was ever before her soul.
She died in 1617, at the age of thirty-one.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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