Saturday, August 15th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke 1:39-56.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Solemnity
15 August 2015
“Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 1:39-56.
Mary set out in those days and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For he has looked with favor on his lowly servant;
from this day all generations will call me blessed.
The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.
He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel ,
remembering his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Solemnity
15 August 2015
Saint John Damascene
Saint John Damascene (c.675-749), monk, theologian, Doctor of the Church
2nd Homily on the Dormition, 2,3
The ark of the New Covenant enters the heavenly Temple (1 Kings 8; Rev 11:19)
Today, the holy and living ark of the living God, the one whose womb carried her own Creator, rests in the Lord’s temple, a temple not built by human hands. David, her ancestor and God’s relative, dances for joy (2 Sam 7:14); the angels dance in unison, the archangels applaud, and the powers of the heavens sing her glory…
She who enabled true life to spring forth for everyone, how could she fall into the power of death? Certainly, as a daughter of the old Adam, she submitted to the sentence that was pronounced against him, for her Son, who is Life itself, did not shy away from it. But as the mother of the living God, it is just that she be raised up to him… How could she who received in her womb Life itself, without beginning or end, not be alive for all eternity? In times past, the first parents of our mortal race, drunk with the wine of disobedience…, with a heavy spirit because of the intemperance of sin, fell asleep in the sleep of death. The Lord had chased and exiled them from the paradise of Eden. Now she who did not commit any sin and who bore the child of obedience to God and to the Father, how could paradise not welcome her, not joyfully open its doors to her? … Since Christ, who is Life and Truth, said: «Where I am, there will my servant be» (Jn 12:26), how could his mother, all the more so, not share in his dwelling place? …
So now «that the heavens are rejoicing», may all the angels acclaim her. «Let the earth rejoice,» (Ps 96:11), let human beings leap for joy. Let the air resound with songs of joy; let the night reject its darkness and its cloak of mourning… For the living city of the Lord, the God of powers is exalted. From the sanctuary of Zion, kings bring invaluable gifts (Ps 68:30). Those whom Christ established as princes over all the earth, the apostles, escort the Mother of God, ever a virgin, into the Jerusalem on high, which is free and our mother (Gal 4:26).
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The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Solemnity
15 August 2015
St. Tarsicius, Martyr (3rd century)
St. Tarsicius
Martyr
(3rd century)
Tarcisius, one of the patron saints of altar boys, has always been an example of youthful courage and devotion. He may have been a deacon, as Damasus compares him to Stephen. In the Passion of Pope Stephen, written in the sixth century, Tarcisius is said to be an acolyte of the pope himself.
He was accosted and beaten to death on the Appian Way by a mob while carrying the Eucharist to some Christians in prison during one of the fierce Roman persecutions of the third century, probably during that of Valerian. He suffered death rather “than surrender the Sacred Body to the raging dogs“.
He was buried in the cemetery of St. Callistus, and his relics are claimed by the church of San Silvestro in Capite.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Solemnity
15 August 2015
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Solemnity
THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
Solemnity
In this festival the Church commemorates the happy departure from life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her translation into the kingdom of her Son, in which she received from Him a crown of immortal glory, and a throne above all the other Saints and heavenly spirits.
After Christ, as the triumphant Conqueror of death and hell, ascended into heaven, his blessed Mother remained at Jerusalem, persevering in prayer with the disciples, till, with them, she had received the Holy Spirit. She lived to a very advanced age, but finally paid the common debt of nature, none among the children of Adam being exempt from that rigorous law. But the death of the Saints is rather to be called a sweet sleep than death; much more that of the Queen of Saints, who had been exempt from all sin. It is a traditionary pious belief, that the body of the Blessed Virgin was raised by God soon after her death, and taken up to glory, by a singular privilege, before the general resurrection of the dead.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest of all the festivals which the Church celebrates in her honor. It is the consummation of all the other great mysteries by which her life was rendered most wonderful; it is the birthday of her true greatness and glory, and the crowning of all the virtues of her whole life, which we admire single in her other festivals.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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Wednesday, August 12th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 18:15-20.
Wednesday of the Nineteenth week in Ordinary Time
12 August 2015
Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 18:15-20.
Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.
If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’
If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.
Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again, (amen,) I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
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Wednesday of the Nineteenth week in Ordinary Time
12 August 2015
Commentary of the day
Isaac of Stella
Isaac of Stella (?-c.1171), Cistercian monk
Sermon 11, §11-14 ; PL 194, 1729 ; SC 130 (trans. ©Cistercian publications, Inc., 1979)
“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”
Bridegroom and Bride, that is Christ and the Church, are as one, be it in receiving confession or in bestowing absolution. All this makes clear why Christ had to tell each of us: “Go, show yourself to the priest” (Mt 8,4)… It follows that apart from Christ the Church cannot grant forgiveness and that Christ has no will to forgive apart from the Church. The Church’s authority to forgive extends only to the repentant, to those, that is, whom Christ has already touched; Christ, on his part, has no intention of regarding as forgiven one who despises the Church.
Doubtless, Christ need accept no restraints to his power of baptizing, consecrating the Eucharist, ordaining ministers, forgiving sins and the like, but the humble and faithful Bridegroom prefers to confer such blessings with the cooperation of his Bride. “What God,” then, “has joined, let no man put asunder” (Mt 19,6). “I say this is a great mystery and refers to Christ and the Church” (Eph 5,32)… To remove the Head from the Body (Col 1,18) were to ruin the whole Christ irreparably. Christ apart from the Church is no more the whole Christ than the Church is complete if separated from Christ. Head and Body go to make the whole and entire Christ.
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Wednesday of the Nineteenth week in Ordinary Time
12 August 2015
Saint of the day
St. Jane Frances de Chantal (1572-1641)
SAINT JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL
(1572-1641)
At the age of sixteen, Jane Frances de Frémyot, already a motherless child, was placed under the care of a worldly-minded governess. In this crisis she offered herself to the Mother of God, and secured Mary’s protection for life. When a Protestant sought her hand, she steadily refused to marry “an enemy of God and his Church,” and shortly afterwards, as the loving and beloved wife of the Baron de Chantal, made her house the pattern of a Christian home.
But God had marked her for something higher than domestic sanctity. Two children and a dearly beloved sister died, and, in the full tide of prosperity, her husband’s life was taken by the innocent hand of a friend. For seven years the sorrows of her widowhood were increased by ill-usage from servants and inferiors, and the cruel importunities of friends, who urged her to marry again. Harassed almost to despair by their entreaties, she branded on her heart the name of Jesus, and in the end left her beloved home and children to live for God alone.
It was on the 19th of March, 1609, that Madame de Chantal bade farewell to her family and relations. Pale, and with tears in her eyes, she passed round the large room, sweetly and humbly taking leave of each. Her son, a boy of fifteen, used every entreaty, every endearment, to induce his mother not to leave them, and at last passionately flung himself across the door of the room. In an agony of distress, she passed on over the body of her son to the embrace of her aged and disconsolate father. The anguish of that parting reached its height when, kneeling at the feet of the venerable old man, she sought and obtained his last blessing, promising to repay in her new home his sacrifice by her prayers.
Well might St. Francis call her “the valiant woman.” She was to found with St. Francis de Sales a great Order. Sickness, opposition, want, beset her, and the death of children, friends, and of St. Francis himself followed, while eighty-seven houses of the Visitation rose under her hand. Nine long years of interior desolation completed the work of God’s grace; and in her seventieth year St. Vincent of Paul saw, at the moment of her death, her soul ascend, as a ball of fire, to heaven.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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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).
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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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.”
– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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Saturday, August 8th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 17:14-20.
In Australia & New Zealand: solemnity and feast of St Mary MacKillop, Virgin – Proper readings
Saturday of the Eighteenth week in Ordinary Time
8 August 2015
Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic
and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 17:14-20.
A man approached Jesus, knelt down before him,
and said, “Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water.
I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.”
Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him here to me.”
Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured.
Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?”
He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
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In Australia & New Zealand: solemnity and feast of St Mary MacKillop, Virgin – Proper readings
Saturday of the Eighteenth week in Ordinary Time
8 August 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (313-350)
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (313-350), Bishop of Jerusalem, Doctor of the Church
Baptismal Catechesis 5, 10-11 ; PG 33, 518 (cf. Breviary Wk 31, Wednesday)
“Increase our faith” (Lk 17,5)
The word “faith” has one syllable but two meanings. First of all it is concerned with doctrine and it denotes the assent of the soul to some truth. Faith in this sense brings blessing and salvation to the soul, as the Lord said: “He who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life.” (Jn 5,24)…
The word “faith” has a second meaning: it is a particular gift and grace of Christ. “To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing” (1Cor 12,8-9). Faith in the sense of a particular divine grace conferred by the Spirit is not, then, primarily concerned with doctrine but with giving a person powers quite beyond their natural capability. Whoever has this faith will say to the mountain: “Move from here to there,” and it will move, and anyone who can in fact say these words through faith and “believe without hesitation that they will come to pass,” (Mk 11,23) receives this particular grace. It is to this kind of faith that the Lord’s words refer: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed.” Now a mustard seed is small in size but its energy thrusts it upwards with the force of fire. Small are its roots, great the spread of its boughs, and once it is fully grown the birds of the air find shelter in its branches (Mt 13,32). So too, in a flash, faith can produce the most wonderful effects in the soul.
Illumined by faith, the soul gazes at the glory of God as far as human nature allows and, ranging beyond the boundaries of the universe, it has a vision, before the consummation of all things, of the judgment and of God making good the rewards he promised. As far as it depends on you then, cherish this gift of faith that leads you to God and you will then receive the higher gift which no effort of yours can reach, no power of yours attain.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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In Australia & New Zealand: solemnity and feast of St Mary MacKillop, Virgin – Proper readings
Saturday of the Eighteenth week in Ordinary Time
8 August 2015
Saints of the day
St. Dominic, Priest (1170-1221)
ST DOMINIC
Priest
(1170-1221)
St. Dominic was born in Spain, in 1170. As a student, he sold his books to feed the poor in a famine, and offered himself in ransom for a slave.
At the age of twenty-five he became superior of the Canons Regular of Osma, and accompanied his Bishop to France. There his heart was well-nigh broken by the ravages of the Albigenian heresy, and his life was henceforth devoted to the conversion of heretics and the defence of the Faith. For this end he established his threefold religious Order.
The convent for nuns was founded first, to rescue young girls from heresy and crime. Then a company of apostolic men gathered around him, and became the Order of Friar Preachers. Lastly came the Tertiaries, persons of both sexes living in the world.
God blessed the new Order, and France, Italy, Spain, and England welcomed the Preaching Friars. Our Lady took them under her special protection, and whispered to St. Dominic as he preached. It was in 1208, while St. Dominic knelt in the little chapel of Notre Dame de la Prouille, and implored the great Mother of God to save the Church, that Our Lady appeared to him, gave him the Rosary, and bade him go forth and preach. Beads in hand, he revived the courage of the Catholic troops, led them to victory against overwhelming numbers, and finally crushed the heresy.
His nights were spent in prayer; and, though pure as a virgin, thrice before morning broke he scourged himself to blood. His words rescued countless souls, and three times raised the dead to life.
At length, on the 6th of August, 1221, at the age of fifty-one, he gave up his soul to God.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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In Australia & New Zealand: solemnity and feast of St Mary MacKillop, Virgin – Proper readings
Saturday of the Eighteenth week in Ordinary Time
8 August 2015
Saints of the day
St. Mary of the Cross Mackillop, Virgin
St. Mary of the Cross Mackillop, Virgin
Mary of the Cross MacKillop was born on January 15, 1842 in Melbourne, Australia. Conditions in the mid-nineteenth century were still appallingly primitive. Poverty was rife especially in country areas, religious discrimination was widespread, the plight of the aboriginal people was deplorable, unemployment was common-place and communication was difficult in the extreme. Travel over any distance was for the fearless and tough. Many of the first settlers were of convict origin with little education and many were descendants of Irish Catholics much discriminated against because of their religion and place of origin. The Church had few priests to serve its people who were scattered around rural areas and, as a rule, experiencing poverty. Mary was the first of eight children of Scottish immigrants, Alexander MacKillop and Flora MacDonald. These Catholic parents imbued their children with a great love of their faith. The family was poor, the father often without work because he dabbled in business and politics. Mary, in her teens, was called upon to assist the family finances by finding employment.
At a young age, Mary had increasingly felt the call to live as a religious sister but she still had the obligation to care for her family. While working as a governess in Penola, she met Father Julian Tenison Woods who was parish priest of a large part of South East, South Australia. At that period of Australian history, schools, medical care and any form of social services were lacking, especially for the poor. The Catholic rural poor were especially disadvantaged. Blessed Mary’s dream of a free education for such children corresponded with the dream of Father Woods. He became her mentor and spiritual director and encouraged her vocation. Together, they developed a plan for a congregation of sisters who would work wherever there was a need but especially in rural areas. They would live in small convents or in whatever style of dwelling that the local people had. It was a courageous plan.
In January 1866 the plan was put into action. Mary and her two sisters began teaching in Penola, South Australia, in a stable refurbished by her brother. With the encouragement and mentoring of Father Woods, the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart was born. On the advice of Father Woods, Mary moved to the main South Australian city of Adelaide. On August 15, 1867 Mary and her companions professed the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Mary took the name Sister Mary of the Cross. She was joined by other young women, who responded to needsin rural areaswhere they provided, without payment, elementary teaching in religion and secular subjects to poor children who, otherwise had no hope of education. Soon afterwards Mary’s charitable heart opened to the destitute and elderly who were friendless and abandoned in a harsh society without any social welfare. By 1869 there were sixty sisters working in schools, orphanages and refuges for women. Father Woods and Blessed Mary envisaged the sisters being governed centrally by one superior and being free to go wherever there was a need anywhere in the colonies. In a short time, therefore, the sisters could be found in the other colonies and in New Zealand.
A complex set of circumstances led to the Bishop of Adelaide, who was once her friend and benefactor, excommunicating Mary in 1871 for supposed disobedience. Mary accepted the excommunication and the dismissal of many of her sisters with serenity and peace. The Bishop revoked the sentence before his death less than six months later. Mary returned to her work and the majority of the sisters, who had been sent away, returned to the Institute. They were dark days. Mary was advised to go to Rome to seek the help of Pope Pius IX. Crucial for the institute was the concept of central government, which would enable her to send the sisters anywhere there was a need, rather than be confined to a particular diocese. While in Rome, Mary did not receive final approval for the institute—this came in 1888—but she did receive encouragement from many and especially from her three meetings with Pope PiusIX. She returned to Australia with support for central government.
Back in Australia, further problems arose and Mary was ordered to leave Adelaide for Sydney where, in 1885 she was deposed as Mother General. It was not until 1899 that the sisters were free to elect her as their Mother General, an office she held until her death. She accepted these harsh changes and still retained respect for the bishops and priesthood and encouraged her sisters to do the same. Mary was untiring in her zeal for the poor. One of her favourite sayings was, “Never see a need without doing something about it.” Her devotion to the Sacred Heart, the Blessed Sacrament and Saint Joseph impelled her to love God and His people. Her attention to the will of God enabled her to accept the joys as well as the difficulties that beset her so frequently. She wrote, “The will of God is to me a very dear book and I never tire of reading it.”
Throughout her life Mary suffered from ill health and was often confined to bed with severe and debilitating headaches. But she used her illness to come closer to God. While visiting New Zealand when she was sixty years old she suffered a stroke. Her right side was impaired but she learned to write with her left hand and continued in the office of Superior General and even made several visitations to faraway convents.
By 1905 deterioration was becoming evident and for the next years she suffered heroically and kept a cheerful, pleasant outlook on life, always speaking of God’s Will. In 1909 her condition worsened and she died peacefully on August 8, 1909.
Her last days were ones of sadness for those who were gathered around her. Cardinal Moran said when he left her, “I have this day attended the death-bed of a saint… Her death will bring many blessings.” One thousand sisters then in the Institute mourned her death. Mary’s remains were removed to the Memorial Chapel at the Motherhouse in North Sydney, NSW, Australia. Three popes, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have prayed at her tomb as have thousands of pilgrims annually from all over the world.
The lasting memory many sisters had of Mary was her kindness. It was not just the kindness reflected in all the works for which she had been responsible, nor the kindness of an isolated, aloof person but the kindness which St Paul describes in his first letter to the Corinthians: Love is patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence and is not resentful. Love… elights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, to endure whatever comes(1 Cor.13: 4-7).
During his visit to Sydney for World Youth Day in July 2008, Pope Benedict XVI, in speaking of Mary MacKillop, said “I know that herperseverance in the face of adversity, her plea for justice on behalf of those unfairly treated and her practical example of holiness have become a source of inspiration for all Australians”. The Holy Father spoke again, quoting Mary MacKillop, “Believe in the whisperings of God to your heart. Believe in him. Believe in the power of the Spirit of love”. Mary was so immersed in the presence of her God that she was well placed to hear His whisperings throughout her life.
– Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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Saturday, July 25th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 20:20-28.
Saint James, apostle – Feast
25 July 2015
“Command that these two sons of mine sit,
one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 20:20-28.
The mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something.
He said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.”
Jesus said in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.”
He replied, “My cup you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left (, this) is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
When the ten heard this, they became indignant at the two brothers.
But Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.
Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
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Saint James, apostle – Feast
25 July 2015
Commentary of the day
Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI, pope from 2005 to 2013
General Audience, 21 June 2006 – Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana
“My cup you will indeed drink”
This James belongs, together with Peter and John, to the group of the three privileged disciples whom Jesus admitted to important moments in his life. Since it is very hot today, I want to be brief and to mention here only two of these occasions. James was able to take part, together with Peter and John, in Jesus’ Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and in the event of Jesus’ Transfiguration. Thus, it is a question of situations very different from each other: in one case, James, together with the other two Apostles, experiences the Lord’s glory and sees him talking to Moses and Elijah, he sees the divine splendour shining out in Jesus. On the other occasion, he finds himself face to face with suffering and humiliation, he sees with his own eyes how the Son of God humbles himself, making himself obedient unto death. The latter experience was certainly an opportunity for him to grow in faith, to adjust the unilateral, triumphalist interpretation of the former experience: he had to discern that the Messiah, whom the Jewish people were awaiting as a victor, was in fact not only surrounded by honour and glory, but also by suffering and weakness. Christ’s glory was fulfilled precisely on the Cross, in his sharing in our sufferings.
This growth in faith was brought to completion by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, so that James, when the moment of supreme witness came, would not draw back. Early in the first century, in the 40s, King Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great, as Luke tells us, “laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the Church. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword” (Ac 12: 1-2)… Consequently, we can learn much from St James: promptness in accepting the Lord’s call even when he asks us to leave the “boat” of our human securities (Mt 4:21), enthusiasm in following him on the paths that he indicates to us over and above any deceptive presumption of our own, readiness to witness to him with courage, if necessary to the point of making the supreme sacrifice of life. Thus James the Greater stands before us as an eloquent example of generous adherence to Christ. He, who initially had requested, through his mother, to be seated with his brother next to the Master in his Kingdom, was precisely the first to drink the chalice of the passion and to share martyrdom with the Apostles.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Saint James, apostle – Feast
25 July 2015
Saint of the day
St. James the Greater, Apostle – Feast
SAINT JAMES THE GREATER
Apostle
Feast
Among the twelve, three were chosen as the familiar companions of our blessed Lord, and of these James was one. He alone, with Peter and John, was admitted to the house of Jairus when the dead maiden was raised to life. They alone were taken up to the high mountain apart, and saw the face of Jesus shining as the sun, and His garments white as snow; and these three alone witnessed the fearful agony in Gethsemane.
What was it that won James a place among the favorite three? Faith, burning, impetuous, and outspoken, but which needed. purifying before the “Son of Thunder” could proclaim the gospel of peace. It was James who demanded fire from heaven to consume the inhospitable Samaritans, and who sought the place of honor by Christ in His Kingdom. Yet Our Lord, in rebuking his presumption, prophesied his faithfulness to death.
When St. James was brought before King Herod Agrippa, his fearless confession of Jesus crucified so moved the public prosecutor that he declared himself a Christian on the spot. Accused and accuser were hurried off together to execution, and on the road the latter begged pardon of the Saint. The apostle had long since forgiven him, but hesitated for a moment whether publicly to accept as a brother one still unbaptized. God quickly recalled to him the Church’s faith that the blood of martyrdom supplies for every sacrament and, falling on his companion’s neck, he embraced him, with the words, “Peace be with thee!”
Together then they knelt for the sword, and together received the crown.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Almighty Father, by the martyrdom of Saint James
you blessed the work of the early Church.
May his profession of faith give us courage and his prayers bring us strength.
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Monday, July 20th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 12:38-42.
Monday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time
20 July 2015
“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 12:38-42.
Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
He said to them in reply, “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here.
At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and there is something greater than Solomon here.”
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Monday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time
20 July 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Peter Chrysologus (c.406-450)
Saint Peter Chrysologus (c.406-450), Bishop of Ravenna, Doctor of the Church
Sermon 3
“You have a greater than Jonah here.”
It was Jonah himself who decided to be thrown out of the boat: “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he said (Jon 1:12), which points to the passion of the Lord Jesus, which he freely took upon himself. For why did the sailors wait to be given the order…? It is because, when the salvation of all requires the death of one single person, that death depends on the free decision of the person concerned… Thus, in this story, which completely prefigures the Lord’s story, they await the decision of the person who must die, so that his death might not be a necessity to which he submits, but a free act: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again. No one takes it from me,” (Jn 10:18) says the Lord. For when Christ delivered over his spirit (Jn 19:30), it was not because his life was slipping away from him. He who holds in his hands the soul of every person could not lose his own. The prophet said: “I constantly hold my life in your hands.” (Ps 119:109) And in another place: “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Ps 31:6; Lk 23:46)
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Monday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time
20 July 2015
Saints of the day
St. Margaret of Antioch,
Virgin and Martyr (3rd century)
SAINT MARGARET OF ANTIOCH
Virgin and Martyr
(3rd century)
According to the ancient Martyrologies, St. Margaret suffered at Antioch in Pisidia, in the last general persecution. She is said to have been instructed in the Faith by a Christian nurse, to have been persecuted by her own father, a pagan priest, and, after many torments, to have gloriously finished her martyrdom by the sword.
From the East, her veneration was exceedingly propagated in England, France, and Germany, in the eleventh century, during the holy wars.
Her body is now kept at Monte-Fiascone in Tuscany.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Monday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time
20 July 2015
Saints of the day
St. Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr
SAINT APOLLINARIS
Bishop and Martyr
(c. 2nd-3rd century)
St. Apollinaris was the first Bishop of Ravenna; he sat twenty years, and was crowned with martyrdom in the reign of Vespasian. He was a disciple of St. Peter, and made by him Bishop of Ravenna.
St. Peter Chrysologus, the most illustrious among his successors, has left us a sermon in honor of our Saint, in which he often styles him a martyr; but adds, that though he frequently suffered for the Faith, and ardently desired to lay down his life for Christ, yet God preserved him a long time to his Church, and did not allow the persecutors to take away his life. So he seems to have been a martyr only by the torments he endured for Christ, which he survived at least some days.
His body lay first at Classis, four miles from Ravenna, still a kind of suburb to that city, and its seaport till it was choked up by the sands. In the year 549 his relics were removed into a more secret vault in the same church. St. Fortunatus exhorted his friends to make pilgrimages to the tomb, and St. Gregory the Great ordered parties in doubtful suits at law to be sworn before it.
Pope Honorius built a church under the name of Apollinaris in Rome, about the year 630. It occurs in all martyrologies, and the high veneration which the Church paid early to his memory is a sufficient testimony of his eminent sanctity and apostolic spirit.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Saturday, July 18th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 12:14-21.
Saturday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
18 July 2015
Many (people) followed him, and he cured them all,
but he warned them not to make him known.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 12:14-21.
The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.
When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place. Many (people) followed him, and he cured them all,
but he warned them not to make him known.
This was to fulfill what had been spoken through Isaiah the prophet:
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight; I shall place my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory.
And in his name the Gentiles will hope.”
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Saturday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
18 July 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Gregory Nazianzen (330-390),
Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Homily no.45, for Easter; PG 36, 633 (trans. breviary 1st Tuesday of Advent)
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved”
The Son of God himself, who is before all ages, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the bodiless, the beginning from the beginning, light from the light, source of life and immortality, image of the archetype, immovable seal, unchangeable image, the Father’s definition and Word, he it is who came to his own image (Gn 1,27) and took to himself flesh for the sake of our flesh. Then he united himself with an intelligent soul for my soul’s sake, purifying like by like. He took to himself all that is human, except sin… He who enriches others becomes poor. He took to himself the poverty of my flesh so that I might obtain the riches of his godhead (2 Cor 8,9). He who is full empties himself. He emptied himself of his godhead for a brief time so that I might share in his fulness.
What is this wealth of goodness ? What is this mystery that touches me ? I received the divine image and I did not keep it. He receives my flesh to save the image and grant immortality to the flesh. This, his second communion with us, is far more marvellous than the first… It was necessary that holiness be conferred on man through the humanity God took to himself. In this way, conquering the tyrant by force, he freed us and led us back to himself through his Son, the mediator. The Son brought this about to the honour of the Father to whom, in all things, he is seen to defer.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Saturday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
18 July 2015
Saint of the day
St. Frederick,
Bishop and Martyr († 838)
Saint Frederick
Bishop and Martyr
(† 838)
Frederick was trained in piety and sacred learning among the clergy of the Church of Utrecht. Being ordained priest, he was charged by Bishop Ricfried with the care of instructing converts, and about 825 he was chosen to succeed him as bishop of Utrecht. The new bishop at once began to establish order everywhere, and sent St. Odulf and other zealous and virtuous labourers into the northern parts to dispel the paganism which still subsisted there.
According to tradition St. Frederick became involved in the difficulties between the sons of the emperor, Louis the Debonair, and their father and step-mother. During these disturbances the party of the young princes charged the Empress Judith with numerous immoralities. Whatever may have been the truth of these stories, St. Frederick is said to have admonished her of them, with charity but with the effect of drawing upon himself the fury and resentment of the empress. He also got himself disliked elsewhere. The inhabitants of Walcheren were barbarous and most averse from the Gospel. On which account, St. Frederick, when he sent priests in the northern part of his diocese, took this most dangerous and difficult part chiefly to himself; and nothing gave him more trouble than marriages contracted within the forbidden decrees and the separation of the parties.
On July 18, 838, after St. Frederick had celebrated Mass and was about to make his thanksgiving, he was stabbed by two assassins. He died in a few minutes, reciting that verse of Psalm 144, “I will praise the Lord in the land of the living”.
St. Frederick composed a prayer to the Blessed Trinity which for many ages was used in the Netherlands. The reputation of his sanctity appears from a poem of Rabanus Maurus, his contemporary, in praise of his virtues.
catholic.org
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Sunday, July 5th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Mark 6:1-6.
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
5 July 2015
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and among his own kin and in his own house.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 6:1-6.
Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples.
When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
He was amazed at their lack of faith. He went around to the villages in the vicinity teaching.
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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
5 July 2015
Commentary of the day
Symeon the New Theologian (c.949-1022),
Symeon the New Theologian (c.949-1022),
Greek monk, saint of the Orthodox churches
Catecheses, III, 19 (©Friends of Henry Ashworth; cf SC 113, p.165f.)
Believing in Jesus today
Many people never stop saying – I have heard them myself – “If only we had lived in the days of the apostles, and been counted worthy to gaze upon Christ as they did, we should have become holy like them.” Such people do not realize that the Christ who spoke then and the Christ who speaks now throughout the whole world is one and the same… The position now is not the same as it was then, but our situation now, in the present day, is very much better. It leads us more easily to a deeper faith and conviction than seeing and hearing him in the flesh would have done.
Then he appeared to the uncomprehending as a man of lowly station: now he is proclaimed to us as true God. Then in his body he associated with tax collectors and sinners and ate with them: now he is seated at the right hand of God the Father, and is never in any way separated from him… Then even those of lowliest condition held him in contempt. They said: “Is not this the son of Mary, and of Joseph the carpenter?” (Mk 6,3; Jn 6,42) Now kings and rulers worship him as Son of the true God, and himself true God… Then he was thought to be mortal and corruptible like the rest of humankind. He was no different in appearance from other men. The formless and invisible God, without change or alteration, assumed a human form and showed himself to be a normal human being. He ate, he drank, he slept, he sweated, and he grew weary. He did everything other people do, except that he did not sin.
For anyone to recognize him in that human body, and to believe that he was the God who made heaven and earth and everything in them was very exceptional… It is certain, therefore, that anyone who now hears Christ cry out daily through the holy gospels and proclaim the will of his blessed Father, but does not obey him with fear and trembling and keep his commandments: it is certain that such a person would have refused to believe in him then.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
5 July 2015
Saint of the day
St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria,
Priest (1502-1539)
SAINT ANTHONY MARY ZACCARIA
Priest
(1502-1539)
Anthony Mary Zaccaria, born of a noble family of Cremona, while still a boy shone with modesty of manners and compassion for the poor.
He studied the humanities, philosophy and medicine, and easily surpassed his companions both in moral integrity and in mental ability.
By divine inspiration, he devoted himself earnestly to the study of the Sacred Sciences; then, promoted to the priesthood, he served in that office so well that his fellow-citizens used to call him Father and Angel of his country.
At Milan, with Bartholomew Ferrari and James Morigia, most saintly men, he founded an association of Clerks Regular, named after St. Paul, and a society of nuns called the Angelicals. He had a singular devotion towards the Holy Eucharist and was an extraordinary promoter of public exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
Endowed with heavenly gifts by God and worn out by his great labors, he was seized with a dangerous illness and died a most holy death at Cremona on the third of the Nones of July in the year 1539.
Pope Leo XIII approved and confirmed the veneration shown him and added him to the calendar of the saints.
The Roman Breviary (1964)
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Tuesday, June 30th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 8:23-27.
Tuesday of the Thirteenth week in Ordinary Time
30 June 2015
Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 8:23-27.
As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him.
Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep.
They came and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.
The men were amazed and said, “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”
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Tuesday of the Thirteenth week in Ordinary Time
30 June 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (313-350), Bishop of Jerusalem, Doctor of the Church
Baptismal catecheses, no.10
“What sort of man is this?”
If any one wishes to show piety towards God, let him worship the Son, since otherwise the Father does not accept his service. The Father spoke with a loud voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Father was well pleased in the Son; unless you, too, are well pleased in him, you do not have life… With the knowledge that God is One, know that there is also an Only-begotten Son of God; believe in “One Lord Jesus Christ” (Creed). We say “One” because he alone is Son even if he bears several names…
He is called Christ [that is to say, Anointed One], not as having been anointed by men’s hands, but as having been anointed from all eternity by the Father to his High-Priesthood on behalf of men… He is called “Son of man”, not as having had his generation from earth, as all of us do, but as coming upon the clouds to judge both the living and the dead. He is called Lord, not improperly as those who are so called among men, but rather because lordship is his by nature from all eternity. He is most fittingly called Jesus [that is to say, “the Lord saves”] because he saves by healing. He is called Son, not because a form of adoption has elevated him to this title, but because he was thus begotten by nature.
There are many other titles of our Saviour… But Christ comes in various forms to each one for his profit . For to those who have need of gladness he comes as “vine”; and to those who want to enter he stands as a “door”; and to those who need to offer up their prayers he stands as “High Priest” and “Mediator”. Again, to those who have sins, he becomes a “lamb”, that He may be sacrificed on their behalf. He is made “all things to all men”, while remaining what he is in his own nature.
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Tuesday of the Thirteenth week in Ordinary Time
30 June 2015
Saint of the day
1st Martyrs of Rome (+ 1st century)
The FIRST MARTYRS of the CHURCH of ROME
(+ 1st century)
The first persecution against the Church began by the Emperor Nero, after the burning of the City of Rome in 64, for which many of the faithful were tortured and slain. Some martyrs were burned as living torches at evening banquets, some crucified and others were fed to wild animals.
Their death is recorded by the pagan writer, Tacitus in his Annales (15, 44), and also by Pope Clement I in his letter to the Corinthians chapters 5-6).
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Prayer
Father,
you sanctified the Church of Rome
with the blood of its first martyrs.
May we find strength from their courage
and rejoice in their triumph.
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Friday, June 26th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 8:1-4.
Friday of the Twelfth week in Ordinary Time
26 June 2015
And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said,
“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 8:1-4.
When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him.
And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I will do it. Be made clean.” His leprosy was cleansed immediately.
Then Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”
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Friday of the Twelfth week in Ordinary Time
26 June 2015
Commentary of the day
Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI, pope from 2005 to 2013
Encyclical “ Spe Salvi ”, 36 (©Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
“I will do it. Be made clean”
Like action, suffering [in all its forms] is a part of our human existence. Suffering stems partly from our finitude, and partly from the mass of sin which has accumulated over the course of history, and continues to grow unabated today.
Certainly we must do whatever we can to reduce suffering: to avoid as far as possible the suffering of the innocent; to soothe pain; to give assistance in overcoming mental suffering. These are obligations both in justice and in love, and they are included among the fundamental requirements of the Christian life and every truly human life. Great progress has been made in the battle against physical pain; yet the sufferings of the innocent and mental suffering have, if anything, increased in recent decades.
Indeed, we must do all we can to overcome suffering, but to banish it from the world altogether is not in our power. This is simply because we are unable to shake off our finitude and because none of us is capable of eliminating the power of evil, of sin which, as we plainly see, is a constant source of suffering. Only God is able to do this: only a God who personally enters history by making himself man and suffering within history. We know that this God exists, and hence that this power to “take away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29) is present in the world. Through faith in the existence of this power, hope for the world’s healing has emerged in history.
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Friday of the Twelfth week in Ordinary Time
26 June 2015
Saints of the day
St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, (1902-1975)
SAINT JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ DE BALAGUER
Priest, Founder of Opus Dei
(1902-1975)
“The Founder of Opus Dei has recalled that the universality of the call to full union with Christ implies also that any human activity can become a place for meeting God. (…) He was a real master of Christian living and reached the heights of contemplation with continuous prayer, constant mortification, a daily effort to work carried out with exemplary docility to the motions of the Holy Spirit, with the aim of serving the Church as the Church wishes to be served.”
From the Apostolic Brief regarding the Beatification of the Venerable Servant of God Josemaría Escrivá, Priest, Founder of Opus Dei:
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A bright and cheerful home
Josemaría Escrivá was born in Barbastro, Spain, on 9 January 1902, the second of six children born to José Escrivá and María Dolores Albás. His parents were devout Catholics and he was baptised on 13 January that year and received from them – first through the example of their life – a firm grounding in the faith and the Christian virtues: love for frequent Confession and Holy Communion, a trusting recourse to prayer, devotion to Our Lady, helping those in greatest need.
Blessed Josemaría grew up as a cheerful, lively and straightforward child, fun-loving, good at study, intelligent and with an observing eye. He had a great affection for his mother and a trusting friendship with his father, who encouraged him to feel free to open his heart and tell him his worries, and was always ready to answer his questions with affection and prudence. It was not long before Our Lord began to temper his soul in the forge of sorrow. Between 1910 and 1913 his three younger sisters died and in 1914 his family suffered financial ruin. In 1915 the Escrivás moved to Logroño, a nearby town, where their father found a job with which to keep his family.
In the winter of 1917-18 something happened which was to have a decisive influence on Josemaría Escrivá’s future. The snow fell very heavily that Christmas in Logroño, and one day he saw some frozen footprints in the snow. They had been left by a discalced Carmelite. Josemaría found himself wondering If others sacrifice so much for God and their neighbour, couldn’t I do something too? This was how God started to speak to his heart: I began to have an inkling of what Love is, to realise that my heart was yearning for something great, for love. He did not yet know what precisely God wanted of him, but he decided to become a priest, thinking that it would make him more available to fulfil God’s will.
Priestly ordination
Having completed his secondary education, he started his priestly studies at the Seminary of Logroño, passing on, in 1920, to the Seminary of Saragossa, at whose Pontifical University he completed his formation prior to ordination. At his father’s suggestion and with the permission of his ecclesiastical superiors, he also studied Law at the University of Saragossa. His generous and cheerful character and his straightforwardness and calm approach to things won him many friends. His life of piety, respect for discipline and endeavour in study were an example to his fellow seminarians and in 1922, when he was but twenty years of age, he was appointed an inspector or prefect in the Seminary by the Archbishop of Saragossa.
During that time he spent many hours praying before the Blessed Sacrament. His spiritual life became deeply rooted in the Eucharist. Each day he would also visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar, asking Mary to request God to show him what He wanted him to do. As he recalled on 2 October 1968: Since I felt those inklings of God’s love, I sought to carry out, within the limits of my smallness, what he expected from this poor instrument. (…) And, with those yearnings, I prayed and prayed and prayed, in constant prayer. I kept on repeating: Domine, ut sit!, Domine, ut videam!, like the poor fellow in the Gospel, who shouted out because God can do everything. Lord, that I may see! Lord, that it may come to be! And I also repeated (…) filled with confidence in my heavenly Mother: Domina, ut sit!, Domina, ut videam! The Blessed Virgin has always helped me to discover her Son’s desires.
On 27 November 1924 his father, José Escrivá, died suddenly and unexpectedly. On 28 March 1925, Josemaría was ordained a priest by Bishop Díaz Gómara in the church of the Seminary of St Charles in Saragossa. Two days later he celebrated his first Solemn Mass in the Holy Chapel of the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar and on 31 March he moved to Perdiguera, a small country village, where he had been appointed assistant regent to the parish.
In April 1927, with the consent of his Archbishop, he took up residence in Madrid to study for his doctorate in Civil Law, a degree which at that time was only granted by the Central University in the Spanish capital. In Madrid, his apostolic zeal soon brought him into contact with a wide variety of people: students, artists, workers, academics, priests. He spent many hours caring for children, and for sick and poverty-stricken people in the outer suburbs of the city.
At the same time he taught law to earn a living for himself and his mother and sister and young brother. For a good many years the family were in serious financial difficulties, which they bore with dignity and courage. Our Lord blessed Fr Josemaría with abundant graces, both ordinary and extraordinary. They found a fertile reception in his generous soul and produced much fruit in the service of the Church and souls.
The foundation of Opus Dei
Opus Dei was born on 2 October 1928. Blessed Josemaría was spending some days on retreat and, while doing his meditation on some notes regarding the inner motions he had received from God in the previous years, he suddenly saw – to see was the term he always used to describe the foundational experience – the mission the Lord wanted to entrust to him: to open up in the Church a new vocational path, aimed at spreading the quest for holiness and the practice of apostolate through the sanctification of ordinary work in the middle of the world, without changing one’s place. A few months later, on 14 February 1930, God made him understand that Opus Dei was to spread among women also.
From that moment onward, Blessed Josemaría devoted all his energies to the fulfilment of his foundational mission, fostering among men and women from all areas of society a personal commitment to follow Christ, to love their neighbour and seek holiness in daily life. He did not see himself as an innovator or reformer, for he was convinced that Jesus Christ is eternally new and that the Holy Spirit is constantly rejuvenating the Church, for whose service God has brought Opus Dei into existence. Fully aware that the task entrusted to him was supernatural by nature, he proceeded to dig deep foundations for his work, based on prayer and penance, on a joyous awareness of his being a son of God and on tireless work. People of all sorts began to follow him and, in particular, university students and teachers, among whom he awakened a genuine determination to serve everyone, firing in them a desire to place Christ at the heart of all human activities by means of work that is sanctified, and sanctifies both the doer and those for whom it is done. This was the goal he set for the initiatives of the faithful of Opus Dei: to lift up to God, with the help of grace, each and every created reality, so that Christ may reign in everyone and in everything; to get to know Christ Jesus; to get Him known by others; to take Him everywhere. One can understood why he was able to declare that The divine paths of the earth have been opened up.
Apostolic expansion
In 1933, he started a university Centre, the DYA Academy, because he grasped that the world of human knowledge and culture is a key to the evangelisation of society as a whole. In 1934 he published Spiritual Considerations, the first version of The Way. Since then there have been 372 printings of the book in 44 languages and its circulation has passed the four and a half million mark.
While Opus Dei was thus taking its first steps, the Spanish Civil War broke out. It was 1936. There were serious outbreaks of religious violence in Madrid. To these Fr Josemaría responded heroically with prayer, penance and apostolic endeavour. It was a time of suffering for the whole Church, but also a time of spiritual and apostolic growth, and for strengthening hope. By 1939, with the war over, the Founder of Opus Dei was able to give new vigour to his apostolic work all over the Spanish peninsula. In particular he mobilised many young university students to take Christ to every area of society and discover the greatness of the Christian calling. At the same time, with his reputation for holiness growing, many Bishops invited him to preach to their clergy and to lay people involved in Catholic organisations. Similar petitions came to him from the superiors of religious orders; he always said yes.
In 1941, while he was preaching a retreat to priests in Lerida, in the North of Spain, his mother who had been a great help to him in the apostolates of Opus Dei, died. God also let him become the butt of harsh misunderstandings. The Bishop of Madrid, Bishop Eijo y Garay gave him his fullest backing and granted the first canonical approval to Opus Dei. Blessed Josemaría accepted these difficulties with a prayerful and cheerful attitude, aware that all those desiring to live piously in Christ Jesus will meet persecution (2 Tim 3:12) and he recommended his spiritual children, in the face of these attacks, to forgive ungrudgingly: don’t answer back, but pray, work and smile.
In 1943, through a new foundational grace he received while celebrating Holy Mass, there came to birth – within Opus Dei – the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, in which priests proceeding from the faithful of Opus Dei could be incardinated. The fact of all the faithful of Opus Dei, both laity and priests, belonging fully to Opus Dei, with both laity and priests cooperating organically in its apostolates, is a feature of the foundational charism, which the Church confirmed in 1982, when giving Opus Dei its definitive status in Church Law as a Personal Prelature. On 25 June 1944 three engineers were ordained to the priesthood. One of them was Alvaro del Portillo, who would eventually succeed the Founder as the head of Opus Dei. In the years that followed, close on a thousand laymen of Opus Dei reached the priesthood at the encouragement of Blessed Josemaría.
The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, which is intrinsically united to the Prelature of Opus Dei, also carries out, in close harmony with the Pastors of the local Churches, activities of spiritual formation for diocesan priests and candidates to the priesthood. Diocesan priests too may belong to the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, while maintaining unchanged their status as clergy of their respective dioceses.
A Roman and universal spirit
As soon as the end of the world war was in sight, Blessed Josemaría began to prepare apostolic work in other countries, because, as he pointed out, Jesus wants his Work from the outset to have a universal, Catholic heart. In 1946 he moved to Rome, in order to obtain papal recognition for Opus Dei. On 24 February 1947, Pius XII granted Opus Dei the decretum laudis, or decree of praise; and three years later, on 16 June 1950, the Church’s definitive approval. Since then it has been possible to admit as Cooperators of Opus Dei men and women who are not Catholic and not even Christian, but who wish to help its apostolic works, with their work, alms and prayer.
The headquarters of Opus Dei were fixed in Rome, to emphasise even more clearly the aspiration which is the guiding force of all its work, to serve the Church as the Church wishes to be served, in close union with the see of Peter and the hierarchy of the Church. On several occasions, Pius XII and John XXIII sent Blessed Josemaría expressions of their affection and esteem; Paul VI wrote to him in 1964 describing Opus Dei as “a living expression of the perennial youthfulness of the Church”.
This stage too of the life of the Founder of Opus Dei was characterised by all kinds of trials. Not only was his health affected by many sufferings (for more than ten years he had a serious form of diabetes, from which he was miraculously cured in 1954), but also there were financial hardships and the difficulties arising from the expansion of the apostolic works worldwide. Nevertheless, he kept smiling throughout, because True virtue is not sad or disagreeable, but pleasantly cheerful. His permanent good humour was a constant witness to his unconditional love for God’s will.
The world is little, when Love is great: his desire to flood the earth with the light of Christ led him to follow up the calls that many Bishops made to him from all over the world, asking Opus Dei to help them in the work of evangelisation with its apostolates. Many varied projects were undertaken: colleges to impart professional training, schools for agricultural workers, universities, primary and secondary schools, hospitals and medical centres, etc. These activities, which he often compared to a shoreless sea, originate at the initiative of ordinary Christians who seek to meet specific local needs with a lay mentality and a professional approach. They are open to people of all races, religions and social backgrounds, because their unmistakably Christian outlook is always matched by a deep respect for the freedom of consciences.
When John XXIII announced his decision to call an Ecumenical Council, Blessed Josemaría began to pray and get others to pray for the happy outcome of this great initiative of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, as he wrote in a letter in 1962. As a result of the deliberations of the Council, the Church’s solemn Magisterium was to confirm fundamental aspects of the spirit of Opus Dei, such as the universal call to holiness; professional work as a means to holiness and apostolate; the value and lawful limits of Christian freedom in temporal affairs; and the Holy Mass as the centre and root of the interior life. Blessed Josemaría met numerous Council Fathers and experts, who saw him as a forerunner of many of the master lines of the Second Vatican Council. Profoundly identified with the Council’s teaching, he diligently fostered its implementation through the formative activities of Opus Dei all over the world.
Holiness in the midst of the world
Heaven and earth seem to merge, far away, on the horizon. But don’t forget that where they really meet is in your heart as a son of God. Blessed Josemaría preached constantly that interior life is more important than organising activities. In The Way he wrote that These world crises are crises of saints. He insisted that holiness always requires prayer, work and apostolate to be intertwined in what he called a unity of life, and practised this himself with cheerful perseverance.
He was utterly convinced that in order to attain sanctity through daily work, one needs to struggle to be a soul of prayer, of deep inner life. When a person lives this way, everything becomes prayer, everything can and ought to lead us to God, feeding our constant contact with Him, from morning till night. Every kind of work can become prayer, and every kind of work, become prayer, turns into apostolate.
The root of the astonishing fruitfulness of his ministry lies precisely in his ardent interior life which made Blessed Josemaría a contemplative in the midst of the world. His interior life fed on prayer and the sacraments, and expressed itself in a passionate love for the Eucharist, in the depth with which he lived the Mass as the centre and root of his own life, in his tender devotion to the Virgin Mary, to St Joseph and the Guardian Angels, and in his faithfulness to the Church and the Pope.
The definitive encounter with the Most Holy Trinity
During the last years of his life, the Founder of Opus Dei undertook a number of catechetical journeys to countries in Europe and Latin America. Wherever he went, there were meetings, which were always simple and familiar in tone, even though often those listening to him were to be counted in thousands. He would speak about God, the sacraments, Christian devotions, the sanctification of work, and his love for the Church and the Pope. On 28 March 1975 he celebrated his priestly Golden Jubilee. His prayer that day was like a summing up of his whole life: Fifty years have gone by, and I am still like a faltering child. I am just beginning, beginning again, as I do each day in my interior life. And it will be so to the end of my days: always beginning anew.
On 26 June 1975, at midday, Blessed Josemaría died in his workroom, of a cardiac arrest, before a picture of Our Lady which received his last glance. At the time, Opus Dei was present in all five continents, with over 60,000 members from 80 nationalities. His books of spirituality (The Way, Holy Rosary, Conversations with Mgr Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, Friends of God, Love for the Church, The Way of the Cross, Furrow, The Forge) have reached millions of copies.
After his death, many people asked the Holy Father for his canonisation. On 17 May 1992, in Rome, His Holiness Pope John Paul II raised Josemaría Escrivá to the altars, in a beatification ceremony before hundreds of thousands of pilgrims. On 21 September 2001, the Ordinary Congregation of Cardinal and Bishop members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, unanimously confirmed the miraculous character of a cure attributed to Blessed Josemaría. The decree regarding this miracle was read before the Holy Father on 20 December. On 26 February 2002, John Paul II presided over an Ordinary Public Consistory of Cardinals and, having heard the Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops present, he established that the ceremony for the Canonisation of Blessed Josemaría Escrivá should take place on 6 October 2002.
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Friday of the Twelfth week in Ordinary Time
26 June 2015
Saints of the day
Bl. Jacques Ghazir Haddad, (1875-1954)
Bl. Jacques Ghazir Haddad
Priest
Founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Cross
(1875-1954)
Fr Jacques Ghazir Haddad was born on 1 February 1875, in Ghazir, Lebanon, the third of five children. He attended school in Ghazir and then the College de la Sageese in Beirut, where he studied Arabic, French and Syriac.
In 1892 he went to Alexandria, Egypt, to teach Arabic at the Christian Brothers’ College, and there he felt the call to the priesthood. He entered the Capuchin Convent in Khashbau the next year. He was ordained a priest on 1 November 1901 in Beirut, Lebanon.
As an itinerant preacher from 1903 to 1914 he walked all over Lebanon proclaiming the Word of God and was given the name “the Apostle of Lebanon”. He was also seen preaching in Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Turkey.
In 1919 he bought a piece of land on the hill of Jall-Eddib, north of Beirut, where he built a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Sea. Nearby he erected a great Cross.
Fr Jacques was tireless, he would help anyone in need following in the footsteps of St Francis of Assisi. In 1920, to assist him in this mission to help the sick and the poor, he founded the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Cross of Lebanon.
The modest work of Fr Jacques aroused the people’s admiration, many poor and sick people began to go to the “Cross” and Fr Jacques would welcome them all. In 1950 the “Cross” became exclusively a psychiatric hospital, one of the most modern in the Near East. The movement of charity began to spread throughout Lebanon and Fr Jacques and his Sisters multiplied their works of social assistance.
In 1933 he opened the House of the Sacred Heart in Deir el-Kamar, a girls’ orphanage, which later became an asylum for the chronically ill. In 1948 he opened the Hospital of Our Lady for the aged, the chronically ill and the paralyzed. In 1949 St Joseph’s Hospital became one of the most important medical centres of the capital.
It was followed in 1950 by St Anthony’s House in Beirut for beggars and vagabonds whom the police found on the streets and Providence House for homeless girls.
Even though Fr Jacques was very busy with the hospital mission, he and his Sisters carried on the important work of education and opened several schools as well as an orphanage for 200 girls.
Fr Jacques was worn out by vigils, fatigue and travel. Although he suffered from numerous illnesses, became almost completely blind and was stricken with leukemia, he did not stop blessing God and working. He was lucid to the end, his last hours were an uninterrupted series of prayers invoking the Cross and the Virgin Mary until he died on 26 June 1954 in Lebanon.
His cause for Beatification was introduced in February 1979; on 24 February 1979, His Holiness Pope John Paul II signed the Decree of Introduction of the Cause for Beatification.
On Sunday, 22 June 2008, he was beatified during a special Mass in Beirut by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, C.M.F., Prefect of Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Since Bl. Haddad’s death additional hospitals have opened to assist those injured during the war and to assist the Kabr-Chemoun region where medical services were scarce.
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Image: from HAGIOPEDIA
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Friday of the Twelfth week in Ordinary Time
26 June 2015
Saints of the day
Sts. John and Paul, Martyrs (+ c. 362)
SAINTS JOHN AND PAUL
Martyrs
(+ c. 362)
These two Saints were both officers in the army under Julian the Apostate, and received the crown of martyrdom, probably in 362. They glorified God by a double victory; they despised the honors of the world, and triumphed over its threats and torments.
They saw many wicked men prosper in their impiety, but were not dazzled by their example. They considered that worldly prosperity which attends impunity in sin is the most dreadful of all judgments; and how false and short-lived was this glittering prosperity of Julian, who in a moment fell into the pit which he himself had dug!
But the martyrs, by the momentary labor of their conflict, purchased an immense weight of never-fading glory; their torments were, by their heroic patience and invincible virtue and fidelity, a spectacle worthy of God, who looked down upon them from the throne of his glory, and held his arm stretched out to strengthen them, and to put on their heads immortal crowns in the happy moment of their victory.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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Saturday, June 20th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 6:24-34.
Saturday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
20 June 2015
“Why are you anxious about clothes?
Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 6:24-34.
Jesus said to his disciples: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin.
But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.
If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?
So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’
All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”
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Saturday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
20 June 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron
Saint Raphael Arnaiz Baron
(1911-1938),
Spanish Trappist monk
To know how to wait, 04/03/1938, (trans. Mairin Mitchell)
“If God so clothes the grass of the field… will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?”
Today I take up my pen in the name of God, so that my words, imprinting themselves on the white paper, may give service in perpetual praise of God, the blessed author of my life, my soul, my heart. I would like the whole Universe, with all the planets, stars, and the countless sidereal systems, to be a vast smooth surface on which could be written the name of God. I would like my voice to be stronger than a thousand thunders, more powerful than the surge of the sea, more fearful than the eruption of volcanoes, only to say the name of God. I would like my heart to be as great as Heaven, pure as that of the angels, guileless as that of the dove (Mt 10,16), so that it could possess God. But as none of these grandiose dreams can be realized, satisfy yourself, Brother Rafael, with little, and you who are nothing, that very nothing must suffice…
Why keep silent about it? Why hide it? Why not cry out to the whole world, and proclaim to the four winds the wonders of God? Why not say to everyone what they would like to hear: “You see what I am? You see what I was? You see my wretchedness dragged through the mire? No matter – marvel at it – in spite of everything, I have God. God is my friend!” God loves me so deeply that if the whole world understood this everyone would go mad and shout in sheer amazement. Still more, all that is but a little. God loves me so much that the angels themselves don’t understand it! (cf. 1Pt 1,12) How great is the mercy of God! To love me, to be my friend, my brother, my father, my master. To be God! And I to be what I am!
Oh Jesus! I don’t have paper or pen. What can I say? How am I not to go mad!
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Saturday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
20 June 2015
Saint of the day
St. Silverius,
Pope and Martyr,
(+ 538)
SAINT SILVERIUS
Pope and Martyr
(+538)
Silverius was son of Pope Hermisdas, who had been married before he entered the ministry. Upon the death of St. Agapetas, after a vacancy of forty-seven days, Silverius, then subdeacon, was chosen Pope, and ordained on the 8th of June, 536.
Theodora, the empress of Justinian, resolved to promote the sect of the Acephali. She endeavored to win Silverius over to her interest, and wrote to him, ordering that he should acknowledge Anthimus lawful bishop, or repair in person to Constantinople and reëxamine his cause on the spot. Without the least hesitation or delay, Silverius returned her a short answer, by which he peremptorily gave her to understand that he neither could nor would obey her unjust demands and betray the cause of the Catholic faith. The empress, finding that she could expect nothing from him, resolved to have him deposed. Vigilius, archdeacon of the Roman Church, a man of address, was then at Constantinople. To him the empress made her application, and finding him taken by the bait of ambition, promised to make him Pope, and to bestow on him seven hundred pieces of gold, provided he would engage himself to condemn the Council of Chalcedon and receive to Communion the three deposed Eutychian patriarchs, Anthimus of Constantinople, Severus of Antioch, and Theodosius of Alexandria. The unhappy Vigilius having assented to these conditions, the empress sent him to Rome, charged with a letter to the general Belisarius, commanding him to drive out Silverius and to contrive the election of Vigilius to the pontificate. Vigilius urged the general to execute the project. The more easily to carry out this project the Pope was accused of corresponding with the enemy and a letter was produced which was pretended to have been written by him to the king of the Goths, inviting him into the city, and promising to open the gates to him.
Silverius was banished to Patara in Lycia. The bishop of that city received the illustrious exile with all possible marks of honor and respect; and thinking himself bound to undertake his defence, repaired to Constantinople, and spoke boldly to the emperor, terrifying him with the threats of the divine judgments for the expulsion of a bishop of so great a see, telling him, “There are many kings in the world, but there is only one Pope over the Church of the whole world.” It must be observed that these were the words of an Oriental bishop, and a clear confession of the supremacy of the Roman See. Justinian appeared startled at the atrocity of the proceedings, and gave orders that Silverius should be sent back to Rome, but the enemies of the Pope contrived to prevent it, and he was intercepted on his road toward Rome and carried to a desert island, where he died on the 20th of June, 538.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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Wednesday, June 17th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 6:1-6.16-18.
Wednesday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
17 June 2015
“When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 6:1-6.16-18.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.
When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,
so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”
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Wednesday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
17 June 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Augustine
Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
2nd Discourse on Psalm 33, §8; PL 36,312
“Whenever you pray, go to your room, close your door, and pray to your Father in private.”
Going to your room is returning to your heart. Blest are they who rejoice at returning to their heart and who find nothing bad there…
They are greatly to be pitied who, returning home, have to fear they will be chased away because of bitter fights with their family. But how much unhappier are they who do not dare return to their own conscience for fear of being chased away by remorse for their sins. If you want to return to your heart with pleasure, purify it. “Blest are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” (Mt 5,8) Remove from your heart the stains of covetousness, the spots of miserliness, the ulcer of superstition; remove the sacrilege, the evil thoughts, the hatred. I’m not only speaking of those things against your friends but even of those against your enemies. Remove them all, then return to your heart and you will be happy.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
Image: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Wednesday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
17 June 2015
Saints of the day
St. Herve, Abbot, (6th century)
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Wednesday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
17 June 2015
Saints of the day
St. Avitus, Abbot
SAINT AVITUS
Abbot
St. Avitus was a native of Orleans, and, retiring into Auvergne, took the monastic habit, together with St. Calais, in the abbey of Menat, at that time very small, though afterward enriched by Queen Brunehault, and by St. Boner, Bishop of Clermont.
The two Saints soon after returned to Miscy, a famous abbey situated a league and a half below Orleans. It was founded toward the end of the reign of Clovis I. by St. Euspicius, a holy priest, honored on the 14th of June, and his nephew St. Maximin or Mesnim, whose name this monastery, which is now of the Cistercian Order, bears.
Many call St. Maximin the first abbot, others St. Euspicius the first, St. Maximin the second, and St. Avitus the third. But our Saint and St. Calais made not a long stay at Miscy, though St. Maximin gave them a gracious reception. In quest of a closer retirement, St. Avitus, who had succeeded St. Maximin, soon after resigned the abbacy, and with St. Calais lived a recluse in the territory now called Dunois, on the frontiers of La Perche.
Others joining them, St. Calais retired into a forest in Maine, and King Clotaire built a church and monastery for St. Avitus and his companions. This is at present a Benedictine nunnery, called St. Avy of Chateaudun, and is situated on the Loire, at the foot of the hill on which the town of Chateaudun is built, in the diocese of Chartres.
Three famous monks, Leobin, afterwards Bishop of Chartres, Euphronius, and Rusticus, attended our Saint to his happy death, which happened about the year 530. His body was carried to Orleans, and buried with great pomp in that city.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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Tuesday, June 16th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Matthew 5:43-48.
Tuesday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
16 June 2015
“I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 5:43-48.
Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
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Tuesday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
16 June 2015
Commentary of the day
Isaac the Syrian
Isaac the Syrian (7th century), monk near Mosul
Ascetical discourses, 1st. series, no.60
“He makes his sun rise on the bad and the good”
Proclaim the goodness of God. For even while you are unworthy, he guides you; and when you owe him everything, he asks for nothing back; and in return for the little things you do for him, he repays you with great things. Therefore do not simply call God “just” since it is not with regard to what you yourself do that he reveals his justice. If David calls him just and right (Ps 33[32],5), his Son has revealed to us that he is yet more kind and gentle: “He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked,” (Lk 6,35).
How can you possibly remain at the level of God’s simple justice when you read the chapter about the workmen’s wages? “My friend, I am not cheating you. I wish to give this last one the same as you. Are you envious because I am generous?” (Mt 20,13-15). How can one say no more than that God is just when one reads the chapter about the prodigal son who squandered his father’s wealth in a life of dissipation and how, at the merest sign of compunction shown by him, his father ran to him, threw his arms round him and granted him full rights over all his wealth? (cf Lk 15,11ff.). It was not some other who told us all this about God, causing us to have doubts about it. It is his Son in person; he himself gave this testimony concerning God. So where is God’s justice to be found? Is it not in this: “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” (Rom 5,8)? If God reveals himself to be compassionate here below then let us believe that he will be so for all eternity.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Tuesday of the Eleventh week in Ordinary Time
16 June 2015
Saint of the day
St. John Francis Regis, Priest (1597-1640)
SAINT JOHN FRANCIS REGIS
Priest
(1597-1640)
St. John Francis Regis was born in Languedoc, in 1597. From his tenderest years he showed evidences of uncommon sanctity by his innocence of life, modesty, and love of prayer.
At the age of eighteen he entered the Society of Jesus. As soon as his studies were over, he gave himself entirely to the salvation of souls.
The winter he spent in country missions, principally in mountainous districts; and in spite of the rigor of the weather and the ignorance and roughness of the inhabitants, he labored with such success that he gained innumerable souls to God both from heresy and from a bad life.
The summer he gave to the towns. There his time was taken up in visiting hospitals and prisons, in preaching and instructing, and in assisting all who in any way stood in need of his services. In his works of mercy God often helped him by miracles.
In November, 1637, the Saint set out for his second mission at Marthes. His road lay across valleys filled with snow and over mountains frozen and precipitous. In climbing one of the highest, a bush to which he was clinging gave way, and he broke his leg in the fall. By the help of his companion he accomplished the remaining six miles, and then, instead of seeing a surgeon, insisted on being taken straight to the confessional. There, after several hours, the curate of the parish found him still seated, and when his leg was examined the fracture was found to be miraculously healed.
He was so inflamed with the love of God that he seemed to breathe, think, speak of that alone, and he offered up the Holy Sacrifice with such attention and fervor that those who assisted at it could not but feel something of the fire with which he burned.
After twelve years of unceasing labor, he rendered his pure and innocent soul to his Creator, at the age of forty-four.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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Sunday, June 14th. Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Mark 4:26-34.
Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
14 June 2015
“Once it is sown, it springs up and becomes
the largest of plants and puts forth large branches.”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 4:26-34.
Jesus said to the crowds: “This is how it is with the Kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land
and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.
Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”
He said, “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it?
It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.
But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”
With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it.
Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private.
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Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
14 June 2015
Commentary of the day
Saint Peter Chrysologus
Saint Peter Chrysologus
(c.406-450),
Bishop of Ravenna, Doctor of the Church
Sermon 98, 1-2 ; CCL 24A, 602 (trans.©Friends of Henry Ashworth)
“But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants”
Brothers and sisters, you have heard today how the kingdom of heaven, for all its vastness, can be compared to a mustard seed… Is that the sum of believers’ hopes? Is that what the faithful are longing for?… Is this the mystery no eye has seen, no ear heard, no human heart imagined; the mystery past telling that the Apostle Paul assures us God has prepared for all who love him? (1Cor 2,9). Let us not be too easily disappointed by our Lord’s words. If we remember that “God’s weakness is stronger than human strength, and God’s foolishness wiser than human wisdom,” (1Cor 1,25) we shall find that this smallest seed of God’s creation is greater than the whole wide world.
It is up to us to sow this mustard seed in our minds and let it grow within us into a great tree of understanding (Gen 2,9) reaching up to heaven and elevating all our faculties, spreading out branches of knowledge…
Christ is the kingdom of heaven. Sown like a mustard seed in the garden of the Virgin’s womb, he grew up into the tree of the cross whose branches stretch across the world. Crushed in the mortar of the passion, its fruit has produced seasoning enough for the flavoring and preservation of every living creature with which it comes in contact. As long as a mustard seed remains intact, its properties lie dormant; but when it is crushed they are exceedingly evident. So it was with Christ; he chose to have his body crushed, because he would not have his power concealed… Christ is king, because he is the source of all authority. Christ is the kingdom, because all the glory of his kingdom is within him.
©Evangelizo.org 2001-2015
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Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
14 June 2015
Saint of the day
St. Elisha, Prophet
(9th century BC)
St. Elisha,
Prophet
(9th century BC)
Elisha, whose name in Hebrew means “God is Salvation,” was the son of Shaphat. He was called by the prophet Elijah while plowing his father’s fields. Elijah came and cast his mantle upon him, indicating thereby that Elisha was to succeed him.
Before Elijah was taken up in a fiery chariot and into the whirlwind, Elisha asked to “inherit a double-portion” of Elijah’s spirit.
Throughout the whole course of his life the prophet Elisha accomplished a significant number of miracles.
He won the gratitude of the people of Jericho for healing its barren ground by adding salt to its waters.
When the armies of Judah, Israel and Edom, then allied against Mesa, the Moabite king, were being tortured by drought in the Idumæan desert, Elisha consented to intervene. His double prediction regarding relief from drought and victory over the Moabites was fulfilled on the following morning (2 Kgs 3:4-24).
To relieve the widow importuned by a hard creditor, Elisha so multiplied a little oil as to enable her, not only to pay her indebtedness, but to provide for her family needs (2 Kgs 4:1-7).
To reward the rich lady of Shunam for her hospitality, he restored to life her son (2 Kgs 4:18-37)
To nourish the sons of the prophets pressed by famine, Elisha changed into wholesome food the pottage made from poisonous gourds (2 Kgs 4:38-41).
During the military incursions of Syria into Israel, Elisha cured Naaman the Syrian of his leprosy by simply sending him word that he was to bathe in the Jordan seven times. At first reluctant, Naaman obeyed the Prophet, and after washed seven times in the Jordan, he was healed. Jesus referred to this when he said: “And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet: and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27).
Elisha’s life and activities are found in 1 and 2 Kings and he is commemorated on this date in the 2004
Roman Martyrology.
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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
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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
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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]
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